THE ANTI-JACOBIN.
No. I.
INTRODUCTION.
Nov. 20, 1797.
In our anxiety to provide for the amusement as well as information of our readers, we have not omitted to make all the inquiries in our power for ascertaining the means of procuring poetical assistance. And it would give us no small satisfaction to be able to report that we had succeeded in this point precisely in the manner which would best have suited our own taste and feelings, as well as those which we wish to cultivate in our readers.
But whether it be that good Morals, and what we should call good Politics, are inconsistent with the spirit of true Poetry—whether “the Muses still with freedom found” have an aversion to regular governments, and require a frame and system of protection less complicated than king, lords, and commons:—
“Whether primordial nonsense springs to life[[7]]
In the wild war of democratic strife,”
and there only—or for whatever other reason it may be, whether physical, or moral, or philosophical (which last is understood to mean something more than the other two, though exactly what, it is difficult to say), we have not been able to find one good and true Poet, of sound principles and sober practice, upon whom we could rely for furnishing us with a handsome quantity of sufficient and approved verse—such verse as our readers might be expected to get by heart, and to sing; as the worthy philosopher Monge describes the little children of Sparta and Athens singing the songs of Freedom, in expectation of the coming of the Great Nation.
In this difficulty we have had no choice but either to provide no poetry at all—a shabby expedient—or to go to the only market where it is to be had good and ready made, that of the Jacobins—an expedient full of danger, and not to be used but with the utmost caution and delicacy.