He was the happiest of any occasional writer in his day: happy alike in the subject and in the execution of it.—I mention with pleasure _Anticipation_, the _Wreath of Fashion_, &c. &c. &c. and I wish to preserve the name and remembrance of such a man as Mr. Tickell. Poets and ingenious men, who write on occasional subjects with great ability, are too often lost in the most undeserved oblivion. But we must recollect, that even such a poem as “The Absalom and Achitophel” of Dryden himself (perhaps his greatest production) was but _occasional_, and written _for a party_.⸺_The Pursuits of Literature_, 5th edition, 1798 INTRODUCTION _1_ Early in 1778 a new satirical poet caused a flutter in the polite circles of London. Within a few weeks of one another two poems, _The Project_ and _The Wreath of Fashion_, were issued by Becket, the bookseller of the Adelphi in the Strand. Though anonymous, their author was soon known to be a young barrister named Richard Tickell. _The Project_ treats of a scheme overlooked by the Academy of Projectors which Captain Gulliver visited in the course of his third voyage. In deft octosyllabics the satirist proposes applying Montesquieu’s discovery of the effect of climate on character to the problem of the parliamentary Opposition: Suppose the Turks, who now agree It wou’d _fatigue_ them to be free, Should build an ice-house, to debate More _cooly_ on affairs of state, Might not some Mussulmen be brought, To brace their minds, nor shrink at thought? Surely the philosophers are right who have reasoned that England’s northern air is accountable for Englishmen’s love of liberty, and many a question has been lost by Administration from Parliament’s meeting in cold weather. An obvious solution would be to alter the season of meeting: But ah, what honest squire would stay To make his _speech_, instead of _hay_? The _Beaux_ would scarcely think of law, To give up _Scarborough_ or _Spa’_: And say ye _sportsmen_, wou’d a member Attend _St. Stephen’s_ in September? The poet’s more feasible plan is a better mode of heating the Parliament buildings. He suggests that in each House, replacing the table where votes, journals, and mace are laid, a vast “_Buzaglo_”[1] be set up; that is, an open fire of intense heat, over which a Fire Committee should preside with a fuel supply of seditious tracts—_Junius_, _Common Sense_, and the works of Tucker and Price. Such a device will mollify the most inveterate foes of Administration: From bench to bench, in spite of gout, The soften’d _Chatham_ moves about: “My good _Lord Sandwich_, how d’ye do? I like the speech; ’twas penn’d by you. America has gone too far; We must support so just a war.”