It may be thought that the following poem, especially its opening Canto
is too minute and circumstantial in its descriptions. Yet the habitudes
of a past and peculiar generation, fast fading from remembrance, are
worthy of being preserved, though little accordant with romance,
perhaps with poetry. So rapid has been our progress as a people, that
dimness gathers over the lineaments of even our immediate ancestry. Yet
traits at one period despised, or counted obsolete, may at another be
diligently sought after and re-juvenated.
It has been observed that nations reaching their zenith, regard with
more complacency their rising morn, than the approaching west. France,
notwithstanding the precision given to her language by Richilieu, and
the Academy, turns back affectionately to her Troubadours and
Trouvires, to the long-drawn, scarce-readable "Romance of the Rose,"
and the itinerant Chronicles of Froissart. England is not indifferent
to Anglo-Saxon traditions, or the customs of her Norman dynasty.
A time may arrive when our posterity will not scorn to be reminded of
the primitive usages of their rural fathers. To that time, and to
unborn readers, this simple poem is dedicated.