I have now mentioned every pubhc writer of whom I have a knowledge, against Perkinism, and given a specimen of their arguments. The more private opposers, who employ that unruly member the tongue, are a hundred fold more numerous, and not less deficient in malice.

After this exhibition of the spirit, which has influenced the opposition to the Metallic Tractors in Great Britain, can there be found one honest man who will say that they have met with such treatment, as ought to have been expected from a liberal and enlightened profession; or that the author of the present poem has commenced an unprovoked attack on honourable and deserving characters? Perkinism is supported by no mean and common pretensions. Five years has it buffeted the storm of interest and prejudice, and all true friends to humanity, acquainted with its merits, will congratulate each other on the result.

The two following facts will place the evidence in favour of this Discovery in a fair point of view. Not an individual of those persons, who have communicated their experiments and remarks in favour of Perkinism (among whom are eight professors in four different universities, twenty-one regular physicians, nineteen surgeons, and thirty clergymen) has publicly or privately, so far as my knowledge extends, retracted his good opinion of the Metallic Tractors.

2. The contest respecting the merits of the Tractors has lain entirely between disinterested

persons who have approved of them, after a cautious and faithful experiment, (Mr. Perkins never published any facts on his own authority) and interested or prejudiced persons, who have condemned them without any trial whatever, generally indeed who have never seen them. This fact is demonstrated by the Report of the committee of the Perkinean Society to their General Meeting, conveying the result of their application, indiscri minately made to the possessors of the Tractors in the metropolis, for their concurrence in the establishment of a Public Institution, for the use of them on the poor. It was found that only five out of above an hundred objected to subscribé, on account of their want of confidence in the efficacy of the Practice, and these, the committee observes, there is reason to believe, never gave them a fair trial, probably never used them in more than one case, and that perhaps a case in which the Tractors have never been recommended as serviceable. Purchasers of the Tractors would be among the last to approve of them, if they had reason to suppose themselves defrauded of five guineas.

I am now willing to express a confidence that the candid and unbiassed reader will be persuaded that the author has been engaged in a cause not unworthy of his best exertions; and that every real friend to humanity and useful science will wish him success.

C

It remains to speak of the plan and design of the Poem. The author's ambition has been to produce an original performance, and avoid all 'servile trick' and 'imitative knack' of ordinary dealers in rhyme. He had rather introduce indefensible eccentricities, and run the hazard of the lash of the critic, than to threat his reader, 'not in vain, with sleep.'

Although the attacks upon the Metallic Tractors are the principal subject of the following Poem, still the Author has painted

every idle thing

That Fancy finds in her excursive flight ;'

and he is sorry to say that our modern philosophers furnish such a multitude of idle things,' which they call discoveries and inventions, that he need never lay his brush aside for want of proper subjects upon which to exercise skill in his vocation. Were the mere inutility of their researches the only objection which could be urged against them, they might be permitted to follow their frivolous pursuits without molestation. But when, in addition to inutility, their experiments are accompanied with the grossest inhumanity, the indignation of the reflecting mind is roused at so wanton a misapplication of time, and prostitution of talent. It has given the writer no small satisfaction to find the opinion entertained by professional critics, who have examined the former edition, that the attack on some of the cruel and

indecent experiments of certain modern naturalists, which seem limited to the gratification of a licentious curiosity, having for their object "the attainment of no one practical good, is just and commendable. The author has not merely rhyme, but very frequently reason on his side in 'his satyrical remarks.' (Antijacobin Review of April, 1803, on the first Edition of this Poem).

In the present edition, another variety of this species of philosophers has received some attention, although not fully equal to what their de merits require. These are they whose atheistical theories and speculations appear to have no other object than to annihilate a belief in an overruling Providence, and cancel every religious and moral obligation.

In this department I have dwelt upon the theo> ries of an author (Dr. Darwin) whose

'Sweet tetrandrian monogynian strains
• Pant for a pistil in botanic pains;
'On the luxurious lap of Flora thrown,
On beds of yielding vegetable down;

Raise lust in pinks; and with unhallowed fire
• Bid the soft virgin-violet expire;

and whose writings have a direct tendency to unhinge society, and reduce mankind to a state of nature, by giving a loose to those passions, which of all others require restraint.

It is to me a most surprising, as well as lamentable circumstance, that pure intellect has so little to do with the affairs of mankind. Whim,

folly, and fashion, predominate most deplorably even in this (which we pretend to stile an enlightened) age. The man who discovers an extra joint in the tail of a tadpole is immortalized for the discovery; whilst he who gives relief to thousands, languishing on the bed of sickness, is to be sure an empiric, and unworthy of countenance and protection.

A bad head generally indicates a bad heart. A fool nine times in ten, to the extent of his abilities, is a knave. And it is happy for mankind that knaves commonly are fools, and generally too cunning for their own interest. Thus it has happened with many of the opponents to the Tractors. Gross palpable lies, which were easily detected, have been circulated to disparage Perkinism. The detection of those lies has served as an advertisement in its favour, and evinced the motives of its adversaries. It is wisely ordained by Providence, for the good of society, that knaves should be permitted to overreach themselves.

Although many things, which I have enlarged upon in this performance, are intended to be stigmatised, others are introduced merely for the purpose of laughing with, but not laughing at,

the inventors.

The experiments of Aldini, as well as those of certain learned and respectable chemists, the discerning reader will perceive, from the manner in which they are treated, that I have introduced merely for the purpose of giving them publicity, and thus promoting the interest of science.