Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Measurement, Metrology, Commerce

    Playing on the poetic and metrological connotations of 'metre', the author argues that 'the increasing taste for poetry' will 'attain its legitimate development in the universal adoption of a Metrical System of Coinage'. Supposes that the Poet Laureate may be appointed 'Deputy Assistant Chancellor of the Exchequer', but is being 'consulted as to the New Metrical Terms in all Commercial Dealings' and preparing the public for this change by composing lines of poetry to be used in commercial transactions. These include the shopkeeper's line, 'Sir are you willing / To pay a shilling', or the consumer's retort 'That would rob / Me of a Bob'.