bears the appellation of Taylor, as STERNE has made old SHANDY have for SIMKIN, NECKEY, or TRISTRAM. How many CAESARS and POMPEYS, says he, by mere inspiration of the names, have been rendered worthy of them? And how many are there who might have done exceedingly well in the World, had not their Characters and Spirits been totally depress'd and Nicodemiz'd; and I will add (says Mr. N. BLOOMFIELD) taylor'd into nothing? In the REHEARSAL, the Author, to make the most ridiculous part of it still more ridiculous, tells us, that it was written to a Taylor, and by a Taylor's Wife. And even the discerning SPECTATOR has given into this common-place raillery in the Monkey's Letter to her Mistress. He has made the Soul which inhabited Pug's Body, in recounting the humiliating State it had formerly been in, say, that he had been a Taylor, a Shrimp, and a Tom-tit. It is from these causes, as well as from the habits and appearance contracted by a recluse and sedentary Life, that, in the enlighten'd, as well as the ignorant, the ideas of Taylor and Insignificance are inseparably link'd together." 

 I prevail'd, notwithstanding, that this word, whose anti-poetic influence is so dreaded, should be in the Book. About half a Century ago, there seem'd a degree of incredulity as to the possibility of Courage in a Taylor. ELLIOT'S LIGHT HORSE, at that time compos'd of Taylor-Volunteers. effectually overcame that prejudice. It remain'd to dissolve another still more irrational prepossession, that a Taylor cannot be a Poet. And this Volume will be a victorious Host against an Army of such Prejudices. Indeed the Force is greater than such a Combat requires: for stubborn as other Prejudices may still be, our litterary Prejudices have, in this Age, been rapidly giving way to Candour, Reason, Common-Sense, and the Evidence of Fact. We have long known that a Scotch Plough-Boy and a Milk-Woman7 could still be Poets of high and almost singular Excellence. And if Improbability were any thing against Fact, it would be far more improbable, that two Brothers should be such Poets as ROBERT and NATHANIEL BLOOMFIELD are, than that a Taylor should be a Poet. It remains then for Prejudice to vanish like Mists before the Sun: while the two BROTHERS sociably ascend PARNASSUS together; higher than ever Brothers have climbed before: I might add, each of them to an height which but few have ever reach'd8. 

 CAPEL LOFFT. Troston-Hall, 2 Jan: 1803. 

CONTENTS

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 I had said, and certainly upon full authority, 23rd April; which the Author his-self believ'd 

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