ABSTRACT

This exercise in Sapphics recalls the jaunty early days of the periodical, tormenting Southey. It was contributed by ‘Nares’, 1 and happily joins in the game of classical one-upmanship, flaunting its dexterity with this difficult metre. The poem has nothing novel to offer in content, however, and simply rehearses material already much-used in earlier issues. ‘Nares’ has been variously identifed, but a likely author is the Reverend Robert Nares, who wrote a pamphlet entitled Principles of English Government deduced from Reason, supported by English Experience, and opposed to French Errors (London, 1792). This is packed with antijacobinical sentiments:

Men escaped from chains have always raved as [the French] do of liberty and equality, in proportion to the galling of their former bonds: but this is not wisdom, it is only extravagance. 2