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CRITIQUE

FOR THE USE OF THOSE TO WHOM THE PUFFIAD IS

DEDICATED.

WE are no friends to satire: under any circumstances, it betrays the writer to be either a sour or a spiteful personage ;when just, it is disagreeable; when unjust, insufferable. The present performance, we are sorry to say, is totally destitute of any of the vis vivida of genuine satire, and is barely kept alive by the bilious stream of rancour which, flowing from the writer's heart into his miserable verses, renders their dulness as disgusting as it is tiresome. Of

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course, the author is some paltry scribbler, who takes this method of venting his disappointment, some uncelebrated fellow, who is envious of his celebrated cotemporaries. To say nothing of the innumerable instances of bad grammar which occur in every page, there is neither truth, sense, talent, nor discrimination, in the whole compost;altogether, it is one of the most wretched publications we ever had the unhappiness to peruse !

N. B. This critique to be used no longer than during the first Edition.

AN

INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE

5

TO AN

EMINENT PUFFER.

"Living knowledge is the tomb of the dead; and, while light and worthless materials float on the surface, the solid and sterling as often sink to the bottom." "Hence, of all trades, literature at present demands the least talent or information."-Coleridge's Biograp. Lit.

SIR,-Believe me I consider it no trifling act of self-denial, to deprive myself of the high gratification I should have felt in addressing you by name—a name far too important in the literary annals of the nineteenth century, not to have shed a lustre over the pages of "THE PUFFIAD." But I console

B

myself, in some measure, for this irreparable loss, by the satisfaction I derive from knowing that my remarks, just or unjust, cannot be deemed personally disrespectful; and, lest it be imagined that in this Introductory Epistle I have somewhat indulged in a tone of sarcasm, I beg to state, that, among your numerous admirers, there are none who form a truer estimate of your brilliant talents than myself. As a publisher you stand unrivalled-both as regards the unceasing variety of your publications, and the determined zeal with which you introduce them to your grateful country. You ought to be styled the Maecenas of the age; nor could any thing short of the mean jealousy which actuates your brethren of "The Trade," have withheld from you so long that honourable appellation. It would, doubtless, be offensive to that modesty which ever accompanies

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