When mutation is the order of the day, why may not human nature itself be changed? When all physical obstructions to locomotion, and all impediments to the march of mind, are yielding to the ingenuity and activity of man, why may not his own natural feelings and dispositions also yield, and become changed? But hold--the author of this Siamese satire has discovered that they have already changed! Not merely have the opinions and pursuits of society taken a new direction, and the habits and views of the present, become different from those of the past generation--this would be readily admitted--but a much more important alteration in the constitution of man, he affirms, has taken place. It is not only the _condition_, but the _nature_ of the species that he asserts to be changed. With the last generation, all the old impulses of the heart--all susceptibility of love or hatred, friendship or enmity, pity or revenge--all feelings of pride, avarice, ambition, or love of fame--all emotions of joy, grief, anger, remorse--all generosity, charity, desire of happiness, and self-preservation--all, all are passed away! "Has not a new generation," our author asks, in his odd and hardly intelligible preface, "arisen? Has not a new impetus been given to the age? Do not _new feelings_ require to be expressed? and are there not new readers to be propitiated, who sharing _but in a feeble degree the former enthusiasm_, will turn, not with languid attention, to the claims of fresh aspirants." These are some of the changes which have brought about, as he imagines--the circumstances that call for the new and "_less_ enthusiastic" school of poetry, which, founded by him, is to secure the admiration of at least part of the present, and the whole of the ensuing generation. "A poet," he says, "who aspires to reputation, must be adapted to the coming age, not rooted to that which is already gliding away." He admits that "the worn out sentiments, the affectations and the weaknesses of our departed bards, may, by the elder part of the community, be still considered components of a deep philosophy, or the signs of a superior mind." But, for this unfortunate circumstance, which militates so much against the immediate success of his new school, he consoles himself with the persuasion that "the _young_ have formed a nobler estimate of life, and a habit of reasoning, at once founded upon a homelier sense, and yet aspiring to more elevated conclusions."