ABSTRACT
Without the knowledge of these [biographical] facts, indeed, any decision on the productions themselves would be premature; since, if they possess sufficient intrinsic merit to please, they will obtain some additional commendation from a consideration of the circumstances under which they were composed; whilst those circumstances may fairly be pleaded in extenuation of whatever defects they display, and may serve as an apology for the absence of that transcendent excellence which more favoured poets have attained….
