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The Pleasures of Sentiment

Mr Elliott

Proposals
for publishing by subscription, in one elegant volume,
royal duodecimo, dedicated to ———

The Pleasures of Sentiment
a poem in two parts,
By Atticus Scriblerus, Votary of the Muses, &c. &c. &c.

“L’Amour n’est rien sans sentiment,
et le Sentiment est encore moins sans amour.”
— Sterne

Conditions

The volume will be published in the month of May, elegantly printed on wire woven paper, and illustrated with allegorical and elucidatory engravings, price to subscribers fifteen shillings — a few copies will be printed on drawing paper, and done up in extra boards, at one guinea.

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“The Pleasures of Sentiment” is a title that sufficiently explains to the refined mind the nature of the poem which bears it, and the author will only slightly mention the nature of his general plan.

He proposes to illustrate his subject in the manner in which Imagination, Memory, and Hope have been illustrated by his illustrious predecessors, treating in the first part of Sentiment as distinguished from Love, and in the second of Love as united to Sentiment.

He subjoins the opening of the poem as a specimen of the manner in which he has executed his design.

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Part the First

O Sentiment, sweet soother of the soul
That hold’st the melting mind in soft control!
O Sentiment, enlivener of the heart
That canst to mortals bliss divine impart!
O Sentiment, sweet softener of sad care
To dainty cakes that turnst the coarsest fare!
Balm of our sorrows! sweet’ner of our joys!
Without thee every earthly pleasure clogs;
And with thy healing hand to bring relief
Sharp sorrow turns to balm-distilling grief.
O Sentiment! thy heartfelt powers I sing
And frame for fervid flight a scarce-fledged wing.
Aid me, then, power immortal to display
Thy blush-impurpled graces to the day:
Be thou at once my subject and my muse,
And in each line thy thrilling touch infuse;
Teach me to draw from flinty breasts a sigh
To fill with tears the yet unmoistened eye,
And wake the heart to rapturous ecstasy!
Come Sentiment and fill my teeming soul
Whether my eyes with thought impassioned roll,
Or bend in solemn sadness down to Earth — 
Oh aid each glowing thought, each tuneful verse’s birth.