University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

IN the exordium to ‘All the Talents’ its author commences by very gravely assuring the reader that his effusions are the unbiassed dictates of his own opinions, he being instigated by no motives whatsoever either of party, private resentment or personal interest; a string of very pretty affirmations I must allow, which look extremely well upon paper, but would be rendered much more effective, did they possess that little requisite denominated Truth; however

without discanting further upon this topic, Flagellum with a little more veracity on his side, asserts in catagorical terms, for
Seneca That he was never benefited by any Ministry whatsoever; that he was not educated at Eaton with a certain witling of the present administration, who hangs out his weathercock in the vicinity of Downing Street; neither has he, nor ever had he to boast the bosom friendship of any noble or gentle man high in office; that he has never figured in a corps diplomatique either at the court of Spain or elsewhere; in short that he is positively no more indebted to Wigs than Tories, having remained alike unnoticed and unknown to both—Not so is it however with all such who venture to make similar assertions for

But to proceed and explain my sentiments somewhat more clearly to Polypus, I do not intend by this publication any attack whatsoever on the late Mr. Pitt, for whom I entertain opinions very analogous to those of Polypus with regard to Lo*d Gr*nv*lle. I have deemed it expedient to mention this fact, as it is not the demise of the minister alone which enshields him from my satire, but those brilliant

Talents which still like a dazzling sun shone forth athwart the flitting clouds, which sometimes intervened to obscure its splendor. No, Polypus, it is the existing tag-rag administration I seek to unmask, and give to the world in all its native deformity, a ministry which without one little emanation of the Talents of a Pitt, adopts the most faulty points of his administration as its fixed rule of action.—For it is now we are to expect consummate policy from a combination of Blocks;—a vigorous plan of hostilities (for the War-Whoop must resound ad infinitum) without energetic capacities :—the levy of taxes divested of all attention to the existing burthens imposed on the people, in short the trite story of Treasons and Traitors must now resound to rob us of our birth-right—May heaven grant that the shepherd proves not the Traitor, by opening the wicket to the ravenous Wolf, and thus exposing the fold to inevitable destruction.

It may perhaps be enquired why this Antidote has been so long withheld from the public, to which the author must simply reply that ill health was the preventative, for had he been free from corporeal debility and suffering, the following pages would have earlier met the public eye; this tardiness however has not always marked the conduct of the Poet, who on a former occasion stepped forward to ridicule and expose delinquency through the medium of the press and will at all

times with equal ardour level his shafts against those who are arrayed in power, and consequently arrogate to themselves the exclusive privilege of trampling on the rights of their Countrymen.

But to conclude—I cannot with friend Polypus even venture to hope the most trifling amendment in the present glorious Ministry from the lash of my satire; since the Cabinet is composed of men too much bigotted to former principles, to look for a change that might benefit the country. It is consequently to the people of England that I address my effusions, in order that they may thereby learn of what materials their present guardians are made, and on whom they have to rely for the melioration

of their sufferings; in fine I seek to guard them from the encroachments of a rapacious set whose actions are certainly consistent in one point—Self being the ruling principle of every Block now in Administration.

Auro pulsa fides, auro venalia jura,
aurum lex sequitur, mox sine lege pudor.