DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA, TO WIT: BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the twentyL. S. first day of November, in the thirty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, A, D. 1809, Mathew Carey of the said District, hath deposited in this Office, the Title of a Book the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit: "The Cabinet of Momus; a choice selection of humorous Poems, from P. Pindar, Dibdin, Colman, Freneau, Penwarne, Hopkinson, Ladd, Humphreys, Harrison, Swift, Taylor, Pitt, &c. &c. Embellished with six Engravings." In conformity to the act of Congress of the United States, intitled, "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned." And also to the act, entitled "An act supple. mentary to an act, entitled, "An act for the encouragement. of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the time therein mentioned," and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints." D. CALDWELL, Clerk of the District of Pennsylvania. 7810.16 PREFACE. AN old merry philosopher bequeathed to posterity a very sage piece of advice....Ride, si sapis....which, being rendered into plain vernacular language, means....Laugh, if you are wise. Being a great admirer of this illustrious sage, I have employed some of my leisure moments to collect materials to enable my fellow citizens to follow his useful prescription, and hope they will have the very salutary effect of proving the wisdom of the reader, by impelling him to the free and unlimited use of his risible faculties. If it be true, as Homer, or Hesiod, or Plutarch, or Phædrus, or some other ancient said, or intended to say, or ought to have said, that every time a man heaves a sigh, he drives a nail into his coffin; it may, I hope and trust, be assumed that every time he indulges in merriment he draws a nail out. This collection then, I fondly flatter myself, cannot fail to be acceptable to all my fellow citizens, except the worthy fraternities of coffin-makers and nailors, whom I most respectfully solicit to pardon me for this interference with their best interests. Should they find this little collection prove very injurious to their accumulation of pelf, I advise them (as a friend) to disseminate as large a number as possible of "THE MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE," by way of counteraction. MOMUS, JUN., Philadelphia, December 1, 1809. P.seud. |