INTRODUCTION. AMONG the infinite variety of compilations which have issued from the English Press, few of them, comparatively speaking, have been drawn from the literary stores presented by our satirical poets. We have innumerable volumes selected from the productions of every muse, but the muse of satire; and though no species of poetry affords stronger attractions, or, in a moral point of view, can be deemed more highly important, yet none has been so strangely and generally neglected by those who are accustomed to cater for the amusement or instruction of the public. No English editor or publisher has hitherto bethought himself of a complete collection of satirical poetry; and a work, exclusively of that nature embracing all the higher productions of our best satirists, is still a disideratum in the list of our miscellaneous literature. The little volume now presented to the reader, can hardly be said to supply so obvious a want, but a cursory examination of the pieces it contains will be sufficient to prove, that so far as it goes, it is exceedingly complete. The publishers, for reasons which the very portable size of the work will explain, have excluded all the older satirists, and have carried their selection no farther down than the era of Pope. For similar reasons they have omitted three celebrated productions. written in later times, the satires of Young-the Baviad and Mæviad of Gifford and the well known poem entitled 'The Pursuits of Literature.' To have included these, though it might have added to the interest of the collection, would have both greatly increased its size, and too much enhanced its price,-objects at all times of such |