The subject indeed is vast far superior to any one of those on which the celebrated poems of this description have been constructed and I have no doubt but the form I have given to the work is the best that the subject would admit. I shall enter into no discussion on the nature of the epopea, nor attempt to prove by any latitude of reasoning that I have written an Epic Poem. The attempt would have been highly injudicious it must have diminished and debased a series of actions which were really great in themselves, and could not be disfigured without losing their interest. The poem therefore could not with propriety be modelled after that regular epic form which the more splendid works of this kind have taken, and on which their success is supposed in a great measure to depend. But most of the events were so recent, so important and so well known, as to render them inflexible to the hand of fiction. Thus far it must be interesting to my countrymen. The Columbiad is a patriotic poem the subject is national and historical. The classical reader will perceive the obstacles which necessarily presented themselves in reconciling the nature of the subject with such a manner of treating it as should appear the most poetical, and at the same time the most likely to arrive at that degree of dignity and usefulness to which it ought to aspire.
In preparing this work for publication it seems proper to offer some observations explanatory of its design. Canti ella Alcide, e Bacco e di te solo Basti a i posteri tuoi, ch’ alquanto accenne: Che quel poco dara lunga memoria Tu spiegherai, Colombo, a un novo polo Lontane si le fortunate antenne,Ĭh’a pena seguira con gli occhi il volo La Fama, ch’ ha mille occhi e mille penne.
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