Proposals for publishing by subscription, a new, entire, and neat edition of Porcupine's Works / [Dated Philadelphia, 5 Feb. 1799].

  • Cobbett, William, 1763-1835
Date:
[1799?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Proposals for publishing by subscription, a new, entire, and neat edition of Porcupine's Works / [Dated Philadelphia, 5 Feb. 1799]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ✓ BY WILLIAM COBBETT, Of the City of Philadelphia. PROPOSALS FOR PUBLISHING BY SUBSCRIPTION, A NEW, ENTIRE, AND NEAT EDITION o, PORCUPINE’S WORKS. \ FOR an author to hand forward as the publiflier of his own performances is always an unplea- lanttafk; but more efpecially is it unpieafant, when he is confcious that they have neither learning nor genius to recommend them. This is my prefent fi- tuation. The diffidence, which, therefore, I feel, in iffuing thefe Propofals, would be infurmountable, were it not an eilabliihed truth, that works of very little literary merit are often rendered interefting and ehimable by the importance of the fubjefts of which they treat, or of the events with which they are connefted. Things of no intrinfic value fre- o . quently become valuable when feen in a relative point of view. The Beacon, that hands on the fhore, is, in itfelf, but a mean and infignificant fa- brick, compofed of materials the moil common and faffiioned by hands themoft rude 3 yet, the falu- tary caution, which, through its means, the benight- ed mariner receives, renders it an object of his at- tention and his care, if not of his gratitude. Such are the lowly pretenfions of the Works of Peter Porcupine 3 which, though they prefent neither grandeur, elegance, nor fymmetrv, wdll neverthe- lefs ferve to teach the wandering and bewildered politician