PREFACE. THE practice which has been lately introduced into literature, of writing very long notes upon very indifferent verses, appears to me rather a happy invention; as it supplies us with a mode of turning dull poetry to account; and as horses too heavy for the saddle may yet serve well enough to draw lumber, so Poems of this kind make excellent beasts of burden, and will bear notes, though they may not bear reading. Besides, the comments in such cases are SO little under the necessity of paying any servile deference to the text, that they may even adopt that Socratic dogma, "Quod supra nos nihil ad nos. In the first of the two following Poems, I have ventured to speak of the Revolution of 1688, in language which has sometimes been employed by Tory writers, and which is therefore neither very new nor popular. But however an Englishman might be reproached with ingratitude, for depreciating the merits and results of a measure, which he is taught to regard as the source of his liberties - however ungrateful it might appear in Alderman B―rch to question for a moment the purity of that glorious era, to which he is indebted for the seasoning of so many orations-yet an Irishman, who has none of these obligations to acknowledge; to whose country the Revolution brought nothing but injury and insult, and who recollects that the book of Molyneux was burned, by order of William's Whig Parliament, for daring to extend to unfortunate Ireland those principles on which the Revolution was professedly founded an Irishman may be allowed to cri ticise freely the measures of that period, with out exposing himself either to the imputation of ingratitude, or to the suspicion of being influenced by any Popish remains of Jacobitism. No nation, it is true, was ever blessed with a more golden opportunity of establishing and securing its liberties for ever than the conjuncture of Eighty-eight presented to the people of Great Britain. But the disgraceful reigns of Charles and James had weakened and degraded the national character. The bold notions of popular right, which had arisen out of the struggles between Charles the First and his Parliament, were gradually supplanted by those slavish doctrines for which Lord H-kesb-ry eulogises the churchmen of that period; and as the Reformation had happened too soon for the purity of religion, so the Revolution came too late for the spirit of liberty. Its advantages accordingly were for the most part specious and transitory, while the evils which it entailed are still felt and still increasing. By rendering unnecessary the frequent exercise |