"Then let the chill Sirocco blow,

And gird us round with hills of snow,

Or else go whistle to the shore,
And make the hollow mountains roar,

"Whilst we together jovial sit

Careless, and crowned with mirth and wit, Where, though bleak winds confine us home, Our fancies round the world shall roam.

"We'll think of all the Friends we know,
And drink to all worth drinking to;
When having drunk all thine and mine,
We rather shall want healths than wine.

"But where Friends fail us, we 'll supply
Our friendships with our charity;
Men that remote in sorrows live,
Shall by our lusty brimmers thrive.

"We'll drink the wanting into wealth,
And those that languish into health,
The afflicted into joy; the opprest
Into security and rest.

"The worthy in disgrace shall find

Favor return again more kind,
And in restraint who stifled lie,
Shall taste the air of liberty.

"The brave shall triumph in success,
The lover shall have mistresses,
Poor, unregarded Virtue, praise,
And the neglected Poet, bays.

"Thus shall our healths do others good,
Whilst we ourselves do all we would;
For, freed from envy and from care,
What would we be but what we are?"

When I sat down to write this Preface, it was my intention to have made it more comprehensive; but, thinking that I ought rather to apologize for detaining the reader so long, I will here conclude.

POSTSCRIPT.

1835.

IN the present volume, as in those that have preceded it, the reader will have found occasionally opinions expressed upon the course of public affairs, and feelings giving vent to as national interests excited them. Since nothing, I trust, has been uttered but in the spirit of reflective patriotism, those notices are left to produce their own effect; but, among the many objects of general concern, and the changes going forward, which I have glanced at in verse, are some especially affecting the lower orders of society in reference to these, I wish here to add a few words in plain prose.

Were I conscious of being able to do justice to those important topics, I might avail myself of the periodical press for offering anonymously my thoughts, such as they are, to the world; but I feel that, in procuring attention, they may derive some advantage, however small, from my name, in addition to that of being presented in a less fugitive shape. It is also not impossible that the

state of mind which some of the foregoing poems may have produced in the reader will dispose him to receive more readily the impression which I desire to make, and to admit the conclusions I would establish.

1. The first thing that presses upon my attention is the Poor-Law Amendment Act. I am aware of the magnitude and complexity of the subject, and the unwearied attention which it has received from men of far wider experience than my own; yet I cannot forbear touching upon one point of it, and to this I will confine myself, though not insensible to the objection which may reasonably be brought against treating a portion of this, or any other great scheme of civil polity, separately from the whole. The point to which I wish to draw the reader's attention is, that all persons who cannot find employment, or procure wages sufficient to support the body in health and strength, are entitled to a maintenance by law.

This dictate of humanity is acknowledged in the Report of the Commissioners: but is there not room for apprehension that some of the regulations of the new act have a tendency to render the principle nugatory by difficulties thrown in the way of applying it? If this be so, persons will not be wanting to show it, by examining the provisions of the act in detail, an attempt which would be quite out of place here; but it will not, therefore, be deemed unbecoming in one who

fears that the prudence of the head may, in framing some of those provisions, have supplanted the wisdom of the heart, to enforce a principle which cannot be violated without infringing upon one of the most precious rights of the English people, and opposing one of the most sacred claims of civilized humanity.

There can be no greater error, in this department of legislation, than the belief that this principle does by necessity operate for the degradation of those who claim, or are so circumstanced as to make it likely they may claim, through laws founded upon it, relief or assistance. The direct contrary is the truth: it may be unanswerably maintained, that its tendency is to raise, not to depress; by stamping a value upon life, which can belong to it only where the laws have placed men who are willing to work, and yet cannot find employment, above the necessity of looking, for protection against hunger and other natural evils, either to individual and casual charity, to despair and death, or to the breach of law by theft, or violence.

And here, as in the Report of the Commisioners, the fundamental principle has been recognized, I am not at issue with them any farther than I am compelled to believe that their "remedial measures " obstruct the application of it more than the interests of society require.

And, calling to mind the doctrines of political