Well, this wasn't the greatest poem in the world. It's more a collection of satirical portraits of parish types; a kind of modern, rural version of Chaucer's General Prologue with a bit more snark. So it varies from pretty terrible to pretty good. The portrait of 'Young Brag' is the longest (i think) and the best; in general the poem's best when describing and attacking the hypocrisy of contemporary 'progressives' (who preach self-improvement to the poor, while, e.g., suppressing wages and implementing regressive taxation schemes). It's worst when attacking farmers who have silver bowls instead of pewter.

Anyway, it's in rhyming couplets, so there are a few quotables if you're into that sort of thing: "If he but utter what himself has seen/ He deals in satire and he wounds too keen," kind of an updated version of 'It's hard not to write satire,' and even more damning. That's the basic tack, anyway: you only have to accurately describe the world in order to write satire. He's probably still right. ( )