The formal satires of the decade are, for the most part, lifeless, lacking in wit and art. The most readable of them is, perhaps, _Epics of the Ton_ (1807), by Lady Anne Hamilton (1766–1846), divided into a Male Book and a Female Book. It is a gallery of contemporary portraits, in which some twenty women and seventeen men, all prominent personages, are sketched by one familiar with most of the current scandal in court and private life. Although it is written in the heroic couplet, the versification is singularly crude and careless. Structurally the work has little discernible unity, being merely a series of satiric characterizations without connecting links, and each section might have been printed as a separate lampoon. The introductory passage, however, contains a running survey of contemporary poetry which was not without influence on Byron. Lady Hamilton, clever retailer of gossip though she was, belongs to the decadent school of Pope. In 1808 Tom Moore published anonymously _Corruption_ and _Intolerance_, following them in the next year with _The Skeptic, a Philosophical Satire_. All three are satires in the manner and form of Pope; but in spite of their fervid patriotism, they are dull and heavy, and Moore, quick to recognize his failure, discreetly turned to a lighter variety of satire for which his powers were better fitted. Of other political satires of the same period, the best were excited by the notorious ministry of “All the Talents,” formed by the Whigs after the death of their leader, Fox, in 1806. In _All the Talents!_ (1807), Eaton Stannard Barrett (1786–1820), under the name of Polypus, undertook to undermine the ministry by assailing its members, following the methods of the _Rolliad_ and using the diffuse notes which Mathias had popularized. A Whig reply appeared shortly after in _All the Blocks!_ (1807) by the indefatigable W. H. Ireland (1777–1835), which attacked the newly formed Tory ministry of Portland.