Laudator Temporis Acti

James Henry (1798-1876), Poems Chiefly Philosophical (Dresden: C.C. Meinhold and Sons, 1856), pp. 199-200:

Clever people are disagreeable, always taking the advantage of you;
Stupid people are disagreeable, you never can knock anything into their heads;
Idle people are disagreeable, you must be continually amusing them;
Busy people are disagreeable, never at leisure to attend to you;
Extravagant people are disagreeable, always wanting to borrow of you;
Saving people are disagreeable, won't lay out a penny on you;
Obliging people are disagreeable, always putting you under a compliment;
Rude people are disagreeable, never stop rubbing you against the grain;
Religious people are disagreeable, always boring you with points of faith;
Irreligious people are disagreeable, no better than Turks and heathens;
Learned people are disagreeable, don't go by the rules of common sense;
Unlearned people are disagreeable, never can tell you what you don't already know;
Fashionable people are disagreeable, mere frivolity and emptiness;
Vulgar people are disagreeable, don't know how to behave themselves;
Wicked people are disagreeable, you're never safe in their company;
But no people are so disagreeable as your truly good and worthy people —
Slop-committee water-gruel, without a spice of wine or nutmeg,
Mawzy mutton overboiled, without pepper, salt, or mustard.