THE MONK

               IMITATION OF HORACE

                p. 20.—B. 1.



                Methinks, Oh! vain ill-judging Book,
                I see thee cast a wishful look,
                Where reputations won and lost are
                In famous row called Paternoster.
                Incensed to find your precious olio 
                Buried in unexplored port-folio,
                You scorn the prudent lock and key,
                And pant well bound and gilt to see
                Your Volume in the window set
                Of Stockdale, Hookham, or Debrett.

                Go then, and pass that dangerous bourn
                Whence never Book can back return:
                And when you find, condemned, despised,
                Neglected, blamed, and criticised,
                Abuse from All who read you fall,
                (If haply you be read at all
                Sorely will you your folly sigh at,
                And wish for me, and home, and quiet.
 
                          Assuming now a conjuror's office, I
                Thus on your future Fortune prophesy:—
                Soon as your novelty is o'er,
                And you are young and new no more,
                In some dark dirty corner thrown,
                Mouldy with damps, with cobwebs strown,
                Your leaves shall be the Book-worm's prey;
                Or sent to Chandler-Shop away,
                And doomed to suffer public scandal,
                Shall line the trunk, or wrap the candle!
 
                           But should you meet with approbation,
                And some one find an inclination
                To ask, by natural transition 
                Respecting me and my condition; 
                That I am one, the enquirer teach,
                Nor very poor, nor very rich;
                Of passions strong, of hasty nature,
                Of graceless form and dwarfish stature;
                By few approved, and few approving;
                Extreme in hating and in loving;
 
                           Abhorring all whom I dislike,
                Adoring who my fancy strike;
                In forming judgements never long,
                And for the most part judging wrong;
                In friendship firm, but still believing
                Others are treacherous and deceiving,
                And thinking in the present aera
                That Friendship is a pure chimaera:
                More passionate no creature living,
                Proud, obstinate, and unforgiving,
                But yet for those who kindness show,
                Ready through fire and smoke to go.
 
                          Again, should it be asked your page,
                'Pray, what may be the author's age?'
                Your faults, no doubt, will make it clear,
                I  scarce have seen my twentieth year,
                Which passed, kind Reader, on my word,
                While England's Throne held George the Third.
 
                Now then your venturous course pursue:
                Go, my delight! Dear Book, adieu!
 
                Hague,
                Oct. 28, 1794.                     Matthew Gregory Lewis




ADVERTISEMENT

               
The first idea of this Romance was suggested by the story of the Santon Barsisa, related in The Guardian.—The Bleeding Nun is a
tradition still credited in many parts of Germany; and I have
been told that the ruins of the Castle of Lauenstein, which She
is supposed to haunt, may yet be seen upon the borders of
Thuringia.—The Water-King, from the third to the twelfth stanza,
is the fragment of an original Danish Ballad—And Belerma and
Durandarte is translated from some stanzas to be found in a
collection of old Spanish poetry, which contains also the popular
song of Gayferos and Melesindra, mentioned in Don Quixote.—I
have now made a full avowal of all the plagiarisms of which I am
aware myself; but I doubt not, many more may be found, of which I
am at present totally unconscious.


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