To the few who know that I have employed my thoughts on the importance of
Dr. Jenners's discovery, it has generally and almost unexceptionably
appeared a subject of little promise; peculiarly unfit indeed for poetry.
My method of treating it has endeared it to myself, for it indulges in
domestic anecdote. The account given of my infancy and of my father's
burial, is not only poetically, but strictly true, and with me it has its
weight accordingly. I have witnessed the destruction described in my
brother's family: and I have, in my own, insured the lives of four
children by Vaccine Inoculation, who, I trust, are destined to look back
upon the Small-pox of the scourge of days gone by.--My hopes are high, and
my prayers sincere, for its universal adoption.
The few notes subjoined are chiefly from "Woodville on Inoculation;" and
if I may escape the appearance of affectation of research, or a scientific
treatment of the subject, I think the egotism, so conspicuous in the poem,
(as facts give force to argument,) ought to be forgiven.