With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not — they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.
Bio: John Eldred was an English traveller and merchant. His Journal of his Voyage to Tripoli and Bassora is reproduced in Richard Hakluyt's Principal Navigations of 1599.
