PREFACE.

THERE never was an age more prolific in mushroom fortunes, and mushroom poets (though they do not often go together) than the present. We are every where elbowed by bank directors, East-India-directors, nabobs, and hundreds who have accumulated large fortunes by the war, high taxation, and the diseased and artificial state of things which they have produced. The poor wish to level all distinctions. The rich have no sympathy with the poor, but only think of balls, hot rooms, shoulder-knots, knighthoods,

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and turtle-feasts. Our poets are, for the most part, either time-servers, or demagogues. Nothing is now considered as respectable but wealth.

Protenus ad censum, de moribus ultima fiet
Quæstio, quot pascit servos, quot possidet agri
Jugera, quam multâ magnâque paropside cœnat?

Corruption generates atheism, wantonness, avarice, fortune-hunting, covetousness, and a thousand more amiable virtues.

EVEN at this beautiful season of the year, when Nature is smiling every where, when the delicate foliage of the trees, the varied melody of the birds, the rich garniture of fields, the clearness of the heavens, the "flowers in the valley, splendour in the beam," must awaken in us the most vivid feelings of delight even at this time, many pre

fer the artificial attractions of a drawing-room in Grosvenor-square to all the natural charms of the country. They only imagine May through the medium of ballets or sonnets; they do not con, descend to look about for themselves, or to suffer their feelings to have full play. They are continually asking, What are they doing in the city now? I tell them what they are doing, in the words of honest Lucian;Nothing: they only pilfer, cheat, and swear as usual, take usury and weigh their farthings. Why should the good Squires renounce the charms of their countryhouses, and associate with the money-getting tribe of Levi, to be robbed and laughed at by them? The Author of the following Satire is no republican. He wishes to see a capable ministry, a sober court, an independent body of countrygentlemen, and a happy peasantry. He has no taste for private scandal, he only condemns generally the follies and vices of this refined age. A A 2

warm constitution, an eagerness of disposition, may extenuate the follies of the boy, but never can justify the vices of the man. It is not, however, by feeding the diseased taste of the people, who have now such a strange appetite for slander, that a reform, either in morals or politics, can be effected!

Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet

To run a muck, and tilt at all I meet!

May 26th, 1818.

POESY;

A Satire.

GODS! what a swarm are here! the motley crowd

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Of bards, and jack-daw bardlings chatter loud! *
Yes! I will vent my spleen, though others know it,
Though My sends forth every year a poet! 2
While scribbling dandies from St. James's-street
To Portman-square the Byron's name repeat!

Each rides his Pegasus in furious mood;
And seems to " labour with th' inspiring God."
Some sing of storms, and battles hardly won,
Of dreadful deeds in eastern climates done!