E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Anne Storer, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) The Augustan Reprint Society EVAN LLOYD THE METHODIST. A Poem. (1766) Introduction by Raymond Bentman Publication Number 151-152 William Andrews Clark Memorial Library University Of California, Los Angeles 1972 GENERAL EDITORS William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles David S. Rodes, University of California, Los Angeles ADVISORY EDITORS Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan James L. Clifford, Columbia University Ralph Cohen, University of Virginia Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago Louis A. Landa, Princeton University Earl Miner, University of California, Los Angeles Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles Lawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library James Sutherland, University College, London H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Curt A. Zimansky, State University of Iowa CORRESPONDING SECRETARY Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Jean T. Shebanek, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library INTRODUCTION Evan Lloyd's works consist chiefly of four satires written in 1766 and 1767,[1] all of which are now little-known. What little notice he receives today results from his friendship with John Wilkes and David Garrick and from one satire, _The Methodist_, which is usually included in surveys of anti-Methodist literature.[2] For the most part, his obscurity is deserved. In _The Methodist_, however, he participates in a short-lived revolt against the tyranny of Augustan satire and shows considerable evidence of a talent that might have created a new style for formal verse satire. The seventeen-sixties were a difficult period for satire. The struggle between Crown and Parliament, the new industrial and agricultural methods, the workers' demands for higher pay, the new rural and urban poor, the growth of the Empire, the deteriorating relations with the American colonies, the increasing influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment, the popularity of democratic ideas, the Wilkes controversy, the growth of Methodism, the growth of the novel, the interest in the gothic and the picturesque and in chinoiserie, sentimentality, enthusiasm--all these activities made England a highly volatile country. Some changes were truly dynamic, others just fads. But to someone living in the period, who dared to look around him, the complexity of the present and the uncertainty of the future must have seemed enormous.