We regret to have to offer this work to the public in its present
incomplete state, the whole of that part treating of the most recent
section of modern poetry, _viz._, the blasphemous and the obscene, being
entirely wanting. It was found necessary to issue this from an eminent
publishing firm in Holywell street, Strand, where by an unforeseen
casualty, the whole of the first edition was seized by the police, and
is at present in the hands of the Society for the Suppression of Vice.
We incline however to trust that this loss will have but little effect;
as indecency and profanity are things in which, even to the dullest,
external instruction is a luxury, rather than a necessity. Those of our
readers, who, either from sense, self-respect, or other circumstances,
are in need of a special training in these subjects, will find excellent
professors of them in any public-house, during the late hours of the
evening; where the whole sum and substance of the fieriest school of
modern poetry is delivered nightly; needing only a little dressing and
flavouring with artificial English to turn it into very excellent
verse.