XX.

Good people all, of every degree, Ye gentle readers and ungentle writers, In this twelfth Canto 't is my wish to be As serious as if I had for inditers Malthus and Wilberforce:--the last set free The Negroes, and is worth a million fighters; While Wellington has but enslaved the Whites, And Malthus[625] does the thing 'gainst which he writes.