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.
History
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.
English poetry; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Poetry; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1789-1820
If we now take the number of Subscribers (2500) and multiply them by
seven, a number of which every one’s family may be reasonably supposed
to consist, we shall have a product of 17,500; but as many of these have
made a practice, which we highly approve, and cannot too earnestly
recommend, of lending our Papers to their poorer Neighbours, We must
make our addition to the sum which We evidently take too low at 32,500.
We have thus an aggregate of 50,000 People, a most respectable minority
of the Readers of the whole Kingdom, who have been put effectually on
their guard, by our humble though earnest endeavours, against the
artifices of the seditious, and the more open attacks of the profligate
and abandoned Foes of their Constitution, their Country, and their God.
Further, if we multiply 50,000, the number of Readers, by 420, the exact
number of Falsehoods detected—say 500—for We ought to take in bye-blows,
and odd refutations in notes, &c.—the total of Twenty-five Millions will
represent the aggregate of Falsehood which We have sent out of the
World.
We have more than once repeated that we entered upon this part of our
task, not from any vain hope of convincing the Writers themselves. We
knew this to be impossible; the forehead of a _Jacobin_, like the shield
of AJAX, is formed of seven bull-hides, and utterly incapable of any
impression of shame or remorse—but we are convinced that we have
rescued, as we stated above, Fifty Thousand persons from their
machinations, and taught them not only a salutary distrust, but a
contempt and disbelief, of every laboured article which appears in the
Papers of this description.
Nor can We be accused of presumption in this declaration, when it is
considered that the conviction on which We so confidently rely is not
the effect of a _solitary_ impression on our Readers’ minds, but of one
four hundred and twenty times repeated (this being the fair amount of
the number of Lies, &c., We have detected)—an agglomeration of impulse
which no prejudice could resist and no preconceived partialities weaken
or remove.
Here then We rest. We trust We have “done the State some service”;—We
have driven the Jacobins from many strongholds to which they most
tenaciously held.[309] We have exposed their Principles, detected their
Motives, weakened their Authority, and overthrown their Credit. We have
shewn them in every instance, ignorant, and designing, and false, and
wicked, and turbulent, and anarchical—various in their language, but
united in their plans, and steadily pursuing through hatred and
contempt, the destruction of their Country.
With this impression on the Minds of our Readers WE TAKE OUR LEAVE of
them. Their welfare is in their own hands; if they suffer the Jacobins
to regain any of the influence of which We have deprived them, they will
compromise their own Safety; but WE shall be blameless—_Liberavimus
animas nostras_.—WE HAVE DONE OUR DUTY.
POETRY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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