Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
The Giant Factotum amusing himself
POETRY
OF
THE ANTI-JACOBIN:
COMPRISING THE CELEBRATED
POLITICAL AND SATIRICAL POEMS,
OF
The Rt. Hons. G. Canning, John Hookham Frere, W. Pitt, The Marquis Wellesley, G. Ellis, W. Gifford, The Earl of Carlisle, and Others.
EDITOR’S PREFACE.
The fate which usually attends political and satiricalwritings that owe their origin to passing events, has inno way affected the Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, which,after a lapse of more than ninety years, still continues tointerest and amuse. Public opinion never fails, sooneror later, to arrive at a just conclusion as to the meritsboth of individuals and actions; and though it may oftenneglect to preserve a meritorious work, never perpetuatesa worthless one. Poetry which lashed with so remorselessa hand the patriotic proceedings, and held up toridicule the persons and habits, of the most distinguishedWhig leaders, must have possessed no common merit tohave won the encomiums of such liberal politicians andsuch critics as Mackintosh and Jeffrey, Moore andByron.
Moore, in his Life of Sheridan, observes: “The Rolliadand The Anti-Jacobin may, on their respective sides of thequestion, be considered as models of that style of politicalsatire whose lightness and vivacity give it the appearanceof proceeding rather from the wantonness of wit than ofill-nature, and whose very malice, from the fancy withwhich it is mixed up, like certain kinds of fire-works,explodes in sparkles”. This criticism might be appliedto some of his own political squibs.
viAs the poems refer to occurrences long since past, arapid glance at the state of events at that time (1797–8)may render them more intelligible to the generality ofreaders.
The affairs of England were then in a critical position.The ministry of Pitt was carrying on a fierce war withrepublican France, the necessity for which had split thepublic into two great parties. The liberal party alleged,that “the whole misfortunes of Europe and all the crimesof France had arisen from the iniquitous coalition ofkings to overturn its infant