TO THE READER.
GENTLE READER,
The insufferable licentiousness of the present age,
with regard to political opinion, demands an immediate
redress. As a freedom of discussion may be
the loss of a minister's place; that minister is in the
right to make use of his most virtuous majority, to
bring in a bill
For binding to the peace the tongue and pen,
So hostile to the peace of courtier men,
who, as Pope says of his friend Addison,
—‘damn for arts that caus'd themselves to rise.’
Messieurs Pitt and Dundas were not pot valiant
when they stumbled on this Convention Act, whatever
the world may think. The jolly god, it is said.
was for once forced to give place to the goddess yclept
Prudence, who has totally presided over this bill,
which wisely orders that a dozen
men, like a dozen bottles of wine, shall not pass from house to house
without a permit. Convinced of the necessity and
wisdom of our premier's political manœuvre, I join
his standard, and heartily vote to perpetual confinement
the pen.
That, with its lever nib of brass,
Tries from his pow'r to heave Dundas;
And tongue that, with its crushing wit,
Treads like an elephant, on Pitt,
By Slander urg'd, whose breath of flame
Melts the fair column of a name.
P. P.
