The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
Multa quidem nobis facimus mala saepe poetae,
(Ut vineta egomet caedam mea) cum tibi librum
Sollicito damus, aut fesso, &c.
Horace,
Epistle 1.
Ye idler things, that soothed my hours of care,
Where would ye wander, triflers, tell me where?
As maids neglected, do ye fondly dote,
On the tair type, or the embroider’d coat;
Detest my modest shelf, and long to fly
Where princely Popes and mighty Miltons lie?
Taught but to sing, and that in simple style,
Of Lycia’s lip, and Musidora’s smile;
—
Go then! and taste a yet unfelt distress,
The fear that guards the captivating press;
Whose maddening region should ye once explore,
No refuge yields my tongueless mansion more.
But thus ye’ll grieve, Ambition’s plumage
stript,
“Ah, would to Heaven, we’d died in manuscript!”
Your unsoil’d page each yawning wit shall flee,
- For few will read, and none admire like me. —
Its place, where spiders silent bards enrobe,
Squeezed betwixt Cibber’s Odes and Blackmore’s
Job;
Where froth and mud, that varnish and deform,
Feed the lean critic and the fattening worm;
Then sent disgraced—the unpaid printer’s
bane —
To mad Moorfields, or sober Chancery Lane,
On dirty stalls I see your hopes expire,
Vex’d by the grin of your unheeded sire,
Who half reluctant has his care resign’d,
Like a teased parent, and is rashly kind.
Yet rush not all, but let some scout
go forth,
View the strange land, and tell us of its worth;
And should he there barbarian usage meet,
The patriot scrap shall warn us to retreat.
And thou, the first of thy eccentric
race,
A forward imp, go, search the dangerous place,
Where Fame’s eternal blossoms tempt each bard,
Though dragon-wits there keep eternal guard;
Hope not unhurt the golden spoil to seize,
The Muses yield, as the Hesperides;
Who bribes the guardian, all his labour’s done,
For every maid is willing to be won.
Before the lords of verse a suppliant
stand,
And beg our passage through the fairy land:
Beg more—to search for sweets each blooming
field,
And crop the blossoms woods and valleys yield,
To snatch the tints that beam on Fancy’s bow;
And feel the fires on Genius’ wings that glow;
Praise without meanness, without flattery stoop,
Soothe without fear, and without trembling, hope.
The following Poem being itself of an introductory nature, its author supposes it can require but little preface.
It is published with a view of obtaining the opinion of the candid and judicious reader on the merits of the writer as a poet; very few, he apprehends, being in such cases sufficiently impartial to decide for themselves.
It is addressed to the Authors of the Monthy Review, as to critics of acknowledged merit; an acquaintance with whose labours has afforded the writer of this Epistle a reason for directing it to them in particular, and, he presumes, will yield to others a just and sufficient plea for the preference.
Familiar with disappointment, he shall not be much surprised to find he has mistaken his talent.
However, if not egregiously the dupe of his vanity, he promises to his readers some entertainment, and is assured that however little in the ensuing Poem is worthy of applause, there is yet less that merits contempt.
The pious pilot, whom the gods provide,
Through the rough seas the shatter’d bark to
guide,
Trusts not alone his knowledge of the deep,
Its rocks that threaten, and its sands that sleep;
But whilst with nicest skill he steers his way,
The guardian Tritons hear their favourite pray.
Hence borne his vows to Neptune’s coral dome,
The god relents, and shuts each gulfy tomb.
Thus as on fatal floods to fame
I steer,
I dread the storm that ever rattles here,
Nor think enough, that long my yielding soul
Has felt the Muse’s soft but strong control,
Nor think enough, that manly strength and ease,
Such as have pleased a friend, will strangers please;
But, suppliant, to the critic’s throne I bow,
Here burn my incense, and here pay my vow;
That censure hush’d, may every blast give o’er,
And the lash’d coxcomb hiss contempt no more.
And ye, whom authors dread or dare in vain,
Affecting modest hopes, or poor disdain,
Receive a bard, who neither mad nor mean,
Despises each extreme, and sails between;
Who fears; but has, amid his fears confess’d,
The conscious virtue of a Muse oppress’d;
A muse in changing times and stations nursed,
By nature honour’d, and by fortune cursed.
No servile strain of abject hope
she brings,
Nor soars presumptuous, with unwearied wings,
But, pruned for flight—the future all her
care —
Would know her strength, and, if not strong, forbear.
The supple slave to regal pomp bows
down,
Prostrate to power, and cringing to a crown;
The bolder villain spurns a decent awe,
Tramples on rule, and breaks through every law;
But he whose soul on honest truth relies,
Nor meanly flatters power, nor madly flies.
Thus timid authors bear an abject mind,
And plead for mercy they but seldom find.
Some, as the desperate, to the halter run,
Boldly deride the fate they cannot shun;
But such there are, whose minds, not taught to stoop,
Yet hope for fame, and dare avow their hope,
Who neither brave the judges of their cause,
Nor beg in soothing strains a brief applause.
And such I’d be;—and ere my fate
is past,
Ere clear’d with honour, or with culprits cast,
{1} First published in Ipswich, 1775.
{2} First published 1780.
*** End of the project gutenberg EBOOK, inebriety and the candidate ***
This file should be named gcra10.txt or gcra10.zip Corrected editions of our eBooks get a new number, gcra11.txt versions based on separate sources get new letter, gcra10a.txt
Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the us unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, even years after the official publication date.
Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment and editing by those who wish to do so.
Most people start at our Web sites at: http://gutenberg.net or http://promo.net/pg
These Web sites include award-winning information about Project Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04 or ftp://ftp.ibi
blio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04
Or etext03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, as it appears in our Newsletters.
We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 If they reach just 1-2% of the world’s population then the total will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year’s end.
The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
eBooks Year Month
1 1971 July
10 1991 January
100 1994 January
1000 1997 August
1500 1998 October
2000 1999 December
2500 2000 December
3000 2001 November
4000 2001 October/November
6000 2002 December*
9000 2003 November*
10000 2004 January*
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
We need your donations more than ever!
As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones that have responded.
As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
In answer to various questions we have received on this:
We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, just ask.
While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to donate.
International donations are accepted, but we don’t know anything about how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they can be made deductible, and don’t have the staff to handle it even if there are ways.
Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, Ms 38655-4109
Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment method other than by check or money order.
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by the us Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with ein [Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
We need your donations more than ever!
You can get up to date donation information online at:
http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
***
If you can’t reach Project Gutenberg,
you can always email directly to:
Michael S. Hart hart@pobox.com
Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
We would prefer to send you information by email.
**The Legal Small Print**
***Start**the small print!**For public domain EBOOKS**start*** Why is this “Small Print!” statement here? You know: lawyers. They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from someone other than us, and even if what’s wrong is not our fault. So, among other things, this “Small Print!” statement disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
BEFORE! You use or read this EBOOK By using or reading any part of this project gutenberg-tm eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept this “Small Print!” statement. If you do not, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
About project gutenberg-tm EBOOKS This project gutenberg-tm eBook, like most project gutenberg-tm eBooks, is a “public domain” work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association (the “Project"). Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook under the “Project gutenberg” trademark.
Please do not use the “Project gutenberg” trademark to market any commercial products without permission.
To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain works. Despite these efforts, the Project’s eBooks and any medium they may be on may contain “Defects”. Among other things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
Limited warranty; disclaimer of damages But for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described below, [1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may receive this eBook from as a project gutenberg-tm eBook) disclaims all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees, and [2] you have no Remedies for negligence or under strict liability, or for Breach of warranty or contract, including but not limited to indirect, consequential, punitive or incidental damages, even if you give notice of the possibility of such damages.
If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that time to the person you received it from. If you received it on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement copy. If you received it electronically, such person may choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to receive it electronically.
This EBOOK is otherwise provided to you “As-is”. No other warranties of any kind, express or implied, are made to you as to the EBOOK or any medium it may be on, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability or fitness for A particular purpose.
Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you may have other legal rights.
Indemnity You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, [2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, or [3] any Defect.
Distribution under “Project gutenberg-tm” You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this “Small Print!” and all other references to Project Gutenberg, or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other
things, this
requires that you do
not remove, alter or modify the
eBook or this “small
print!” statement. You may however,
if you wish, distribute
this eBook in machine readable
binary, compressed,
mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting
from conversion by word
processing or hypertext
software, but only so long as
EITHER:
[*] The eBook, when
displayed, is clearly readable, and
does
not contain characters other than those
intended
by the author of the work, although tilde
(~),
asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
be
used to convey punctuation intended by the
author,
and additional characters may be used to
indicate
hypertext links; or
[*] The eBook may be
readily converted by the reader at
no
expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
form
by the program that displays the eBook (as is
the
case, for instance, with most word processors);
or
[*] You provide, or
agree to also provide on request at
no
additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
eBook
in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
or
other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions
of this
“Small Print!”
statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation
of 20% of the
gross profits you derive
calculated using the method you
already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you
don’t derive profits,
no royalty is due. Royalties are
payable to “Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation”
the 60 days following
each date you prepare (or were
legally required to
prepare) your annual (or equivalent
periodic) tax return.
Please contact us beforehand to
let us know your plans
and to work out the details.
What if you WANT to send money even if you don’t have to? Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine readable form.
The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money,
time,
public domain materials, or royalty free copyright
licenses.
Money should be paid to the:
“Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: hart@pobox.com
[Portions of this eBook’s header and trailer may be reprinted only when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be they hardware or software or any other related product without express permission.]
END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKSVer.02/11/02*End*