by Coleridge · Cluster: Satire of Society · Epigram · Satire
Abstract
A satirical epigram on a spendthrift ‘Jack’ whose estate is an algebraic ‘quantity less than nothing’, mocking debt and extravagance.
Connections
Motifs: Money and Gold Themes & Concepts: Money and Avarice, Satire of Society, Economics Forms & Genres: Epigram, Satire
Testo integrale / Full text
Jack drinks fine wines, wears modish clothing,
But prithee where lies Jack’s estate?
In Algebra for there I found of late
A quantity call’d less than nothing.
First published in Morning Post, Nov. 16, 1799. Included in An. Anth.,
1800. First collected P. and D. W., 1877, ii. 163.