Nothing can be more consonant to the advice of Horace and Aristotle, than the conduct of our author throughout this Poem. The action is one, entire and great event, being the procreation of a child on the wife of a Saxon Drummer. The Poem opens with a most laboured and masterly description of a storm. ROLLO’s state of mind in this arduous situation is finely painted:
Now ROLLO storms more loudly than the wind, Now doubts and black despair perplex his mind; Hopeless to see his vessel safely harbour’d, He hardly knows his starboard for his larboard!
That a hero in distress should not know his right hand from his left, is most natural and affecting; in other hands, indeed, it would not have appeared sufficiently poetical, but the technical expressions of our author convey the idea in all the blaze of metaphor. The storm at length subsides, and ROLLO is safely landed on the coast of Sussex. His first exploit, like that of Æneas, is deer-stealing. He then sets out in the disguise of a Sussex Smuggler, to obtain intelligence of the country and its inhabitants:
Wrapt in a close great-coat, he plods along; A seeming Smuggler, to deceive the throng.
This expedient of the Smuggler’s Great-coat, we must acknowledge, is not quite so Epic, as the veil of clouds, with which Minerva in the Odyssey, and Venus, in the Æneid, surround their respective heroes. It is, however, infinitely more natural, and gains in propriety, what it loses in sublimity. Thus disguised, our adventurer arrives at the Country-house of Dame SHIPTON, a lady of exquisite beauty, and first Concubine to the Usurper HAROLD. Her likeness (as we all know) is still preserved at the wax-work in Fleet-Street. To this lady ROLLO discovers himself, and is received by her in the most hospitable manner. At supper, he relates to her, with great modesty, his former actions, and his design of conquering England; in which (charmed with the grace with which he eats and tells stories) she promises to assist him, and they set off together for London. In the third book Dame SHIPTON, or, as the author styles her, SHIPTONIA, proposes a party to the puppet-show; on the walk they are surprised by a shower, and retire under Temple-bar, where Shiptonia forgets her fidelity to Harold. We are sorry to observe, that this incident is not sufficiently poetical; nor does Shiptonia part with her chastity in so solemn a manner as Dido in the Æneid. In the opening of the fourth book, likewise, we think our author inferior to Virgil, whom he exactly copies, and in some places translates; he begins in this manner:
But now (for thus it was decreed above) SHIPTONIA falls excessively in love; In every vein, great ROLLO’s eyes and fame Light up, and then add fuel to the flame! His words, his beauty, stick within her breast, Nor do her cares afford her any rest.
Here we think that Virgil’s “hÆrent infixi pectore vultus verbaque,” is ill translated by the prosaic word stick. We must confess, however, that from the despair and death of Shiptonia, to the battle of Hastings, in which ROLLO kills with his own hand the Saxon Drummer, and carries off his wife, the Poem abounds with beautiful details, cold-blooded matter of facts. Critics may perhaps object that it appears from the Genealogy of the Rollos, Duke ROLLO came to England more than 60 years before the battle of Hastings: though the Poet represents him as the principal hero in that memorable engagement. But such deviations from history are among the common licences of poetry. Thus Virgil, for the sake of a beautiful episode, makes Dido live in the time of Æneas, whereas she lived in reality 200 years before the Trojan war; and if authority more in point be desired, Mr. Cumberland wrote a Tragedy, called the Battle of Hastings, in which there was not a single event, except the death of Harold, that had the slightest foundation in historical facts, or even probability.
But the sixth book, in which ROLLO, almost despairing of success, descends into a Night Cellar to consult the illustrious MERLIN on his future destiny, is a master-piece of elegance. In this book, as the Philosopher’s magic lantern exhibits the characters of all ROLLO’s descendants, and even all those who are to act on the same stage with the Marcellus of the piece, the present illustrious Mr. ROLLE, we mean to select in our next number some of the most striking passages of this inexhaustible Magazine of Poetry!
* * * * *
NUMBER II.
Our author, after giving an account of the immediate descendants of ROLLO, finds himself considerably embarrassed by the three unfortunate ROLLOS[1], whom history relates to have been hanged. From this difficulty, however, he relieves himself, by a contrivance equally new and arduous, viz. by versifying the bill of indictment, and inserting in it a flaw, by which they are saved from condemnation. But in the transactions of those early times, however dignified the phraseology, and enlivened by fancy, there is little to amaze and less to interest; let us hasten, therefore, to those characters about whom not to be solicitous, is to want curiosity, and whom not to admire, is to want gratitude—to those characters, in short, whose splendour illuminates the present House of Commons.
Of these, our author’s principal favourite appears to be that amiable[2] young Nobleman, whose Diary we have all perused with so much pleasure. Of him he says,—
———Superior to abuse, He nobly glories in the name of GOOSE; Such Geese at Rome from the perfidious Gaul Preserv’d the Treas’ry-Bench and Capitol, &c. &c.
In the description of Lord MAHON, our author departs a little from his wonted gravity,—
———This Quixote of the Nation, Beats his own Windmills in gesticulation, To Strike, not please, his utmost force he bends, And all his sense is at his fingers ends, &c. &c.
But the most beautiful effort of our author’s genius (if we except only the character of Mr. ROLLE himself) is contained in the description of Mr. PITT.
Pert without fire, without experience sage, Young with more art than SHELBURNE glean’d from age, loo proud from pilfer’d greatness to descend, Too humble not to call DUNDAS his friend, In solemn dignity and sullen state, This new Octavius rises to debate! Mild and more mild he sees each placid row Of Country Gentlemen with rapture glow; He sees, convuls’d with sympathetic throbs, Apprentice Peers, and deputy Nabobs! Nor Rum Contractors think his speech too long, While words, like treacle, trickle from his Tongue! O Soul congenial to the Souls of ROLLES! Whether you tax the luxury of Coals, Or vote some necessary millions more, To feed an Indian friend’s exhausted store, Fain would I praise (if I like thee could praise) Thy matchless virtues in congenial lays. But, Ah! too weak, &c. &c.
This apology, however, is like the nolo episcopari of Bishops; for our author continues his panegyric during about one hundred and fifty lines more, after which he proceeds to a task (as he says) more congenial to his abilities, and paints
———in smooth confectionary style, The simpering sadness of his MULGRAVE’s smile.
From the character of this nobleman we shall only select a part of one couplet, which tends to elucidate our author’s astonishing powers in imitative harmony,
———“within his lab’ring throat The shrill shriek struggles with the harsh hoarse note.”
As we mean to excite, and not to satisfy at once the curiosity of our readers, we shall here put a period to our extracts for the present. We cannot, however, conclude this essay, without observing, that there are very few lines in the whole work which are at all inferior to those we have selected for the entertainment of our readers.
[1] See the Genealogy, p. xxvii, xxviii.
[2] Lord Graham.
* * * * *
NUMBER III.
In proof of the assurance with which we concluded our last number, we shall now proceed to give the character of SIR RICHARD HILL.
Our Readers, probably, are well acquainted with the worthy Baronet’s promiscuous quotations from the Bible and Rochester; and they may possibly remember (if they were awake, when they read them) some elegant verses, which he repeated in the House of Commons, and afterwards inserted in the public papers, as the production of a sleepless Night. We know not, however, if they may so easily recal to mind his remarkable declaration, both of his Loyalty and Religion, in the prettily-turned phrase, “that indeed he loved King GEORGE very well, but he loved King JESUS better.” But as our Poet has alluded to it, we thought necessary to mention it; and for the same reason to add, that like Lord MAHON, Major SCOTT, Mr. ATKINSON, Mr. WILKES, and Captain J. LUTTRELL, he writes his own speeches for the public Reporters. We should also have been happy to have enlivened our commentary with some extracts from the controversy, at which our Author glances; we mean the answer of Sir Richard to Mr. Madan, on the doctrine of Polygamy; a subject, which the tenour of our Baronet’s reading in his two favourite books, peculiarly qualified him to handle with equally pleasantry and orthodoxy. But all our industry to procure his pamphlet unfortunately proved ineffectual. We never saw more of it than the title-page, which we formerly purchased in the lining of a trunk, at the corner of St. Paul’s Church-yard.
We are conscious, that these introductory explanations must seem doubly dull, to Readers impatient for such exquisite poetry as the ROLLIAD. They appeared, however, indispensible to the due understanding of the verses, which we shall now give without further preface.
Brother of ROWLAND, or, if yet more dear Sounds thy new title, Cousin of a Peer; Scholar of various learning, good or evil, Alike what God inspir’d, or what the Devil; Speaker well skill’d, what no man hears, to write; Sleep-giving Poet, of a sleepless night; Polemic, Politician, Saint, and Wit, Now lashing MADAN, now defending PITT; Thy praise shall live till time itself be o’er, Friend of King GEORGE, tho’ of King JESUS more!
The solemnity of this opening is well suited to the dignity of the occasion. The heroes of Homer generally address each other by an appellative, marking their affinity to some illustrious personage. The Grecian poet, it must be confessed, in such cases, uses a patronymic, expressive of the genealogy; as Pelides, Æacides, Laertiades; but it is not absolutely necessary to observe this rule.—For, [1]M‘Pherson, a poet with whom our author is most likely to be intimately acquainted, makes his hero, Fingal, address Ossian by the title of “Father of Oscar.” It should seem therefore to be sufficient, if in addressing a great man, you particularise any celebrated character of the family who may be supposed to reflect honour on his connections; and the Reverend ROWLAND HILL was certainly the most celebrated of our worthy Baronet’s relations, before the late creation of Lord BERWICK, on which the next line happily touches.
Our author seems very fond of Mr. DUNDAS,
Whose exalted soul No bonds of vulgar prejudice controul. Of shame unconscious in his bold career, He spurns that honour, which the weak revere; For, true to public Virtue’s patriot plan, He loves the Minister, and not the Man; Alike the advocate of NORTH and Wit, The friend of SHELBURNE, and the guide of PITT, His ready tongue with sophistries at will, Can say, unsay, and be consistent still; This day can censure, and the next retract, In speech extol, and stigmatize in act; Turn and re-turn; whole hours at HASTINGS bawl, Defend, praise, thank, affront him, and recal. By opposition, he his King shall court; And damn the People’s cause by his support. He, like some Angel sent to scourge mankind, Shall deal forth plagues,—in charity design’d. The West he would have starv’d; yet, ever good, But meant to save the effusion of her blood: And if, from fears of his Controul releast He looses Rapine now, to spoil the East; ’Tis but to fire another SYKES to plan Some new starvation-scheme for Hindostan; Secure, to make her flourish, as before, More populous, by losing myriads more.
Our author here seems to understand the famous starvation-scheme of Mr. DUNDAS, as literally designed to produce an actual famine in America, though undoubtedly from the most benevolent motives imaginable. But this is contradicted by a [2]late writer, who appears to be perfectly conversant with the language and purposes of our present men in power. “Starvation (says he) is not synonymous with famine; for Mr. Dundas most certainly could not intend to produce a famine in America, which is the granary of the West-Indies, and of a great part of Europe. The word Starvation (continues he) was intended by Mr. Dundas to express a scheme of his own, by which he meant to prevent the Americans from eating when they were hungry, and had food within their reach; thereby insuring their reduction without blood-shed.” However, both authors agree that Mr. Dundas proposed to starve the Americans (whatever was to be the mode of doing it) in mere compassion, to save them from the horrors of throat-cutting. How finely too does the Poet trace the same charitable disposition in the late measures of Mr. Dundas and his Colleagues at the Board of Controul! Factious men have said, that the Indian politics of the new Commissioners have a direct tendency, beyond any former system, to encourage every kind of peculation and extortion. But what kind Mr. Dundas would peculiarly wish to encourage, can admit of no doubt, from his known partiality to starving—any body, but himself. And how, indeed, can the prosperity of the East be better consulted, than by some new starvation-scheme; such as was contrived and executed by certain humane individuals in the year 1770, with the most salutary event! For, notwithstanding one-third of the inhabitants of Bengal were then swept away by the famine, the province, in consequence, is now become more populous than ever. This may a little disturb all vulgar notions of cause and effect; but the writer above-mentioned proves the fact, by the testimony of Major Scott.
There are many more lines relating to Mr. Dundas. But as this gentleman’s character is so perfectly understood by the public, we shall rather select a short catalogue of some among the inferior Ministerial Heroes, who have hitherto been less frequently described.
DRAKE, whose cold rhetorick freezes in its course, BANKS the precise, and fluent WILBERFORCE, With either PHIPPS, a scribbling, prattling pair; And VILLERS, comely, with the flaxen hair; The gentle GRENVILLE’s ever-grinning Son, And the dark brow of solemn HAMILTON.
These miniatures, as we may call them, present us with very striking likenesses of the living originals; most of whom are seen to as much advantage in this small size, as they could possibly have been, had they been taken at full length. How happy is the allusion to Mr. DRAKE’s[3] well-known speech; which, in the metaphor of our poet, we may style a beautiful icicle of the most transparent eloquence! How just too, and yet how concise, is the description of the literary and parliamentary talents, so equally possessed by Brother CHARLES and Brother HARRY, as Lord Mulgrave affectionately calls them. We must, however, observe, that in the Manuscript of the ROLLIAD, obligingly communicated to us by the Author, the line appears to have been first written,
Resplendent PHIPPS who shines our lesser Bear;
the noble head of this illustrious family having been called the Great Bear. But this was corrected probably in consequence of the Poet having discovered, like Mr. Herschel, that the splendor which he long attributed to a single constellation, or (if we may depart a little from critical nicety in our figure) to a single star, in reality flowed from the united rays of two. We have nothing further to add on this passage, only that the character of VILLERS seems to be drawn after the Nireus of Homer; who, as the Commentators remark, is celebrated in the catalogue of warriors, for the handsomest man in the Grecian army, and is never mentioned again through the whole twenty-four books of the Iliad.
[1] Mr. M‘Pherson is said to be one of the principal writers on the side of the present administration.
[2] Key to Parliamentary Debates, published by Debrett.
[3] “Behold, Sir, another feature of the procrastinating system. Not so the Athenian Patriots—Sir, the Romans—Sir, I have lost the clue of my argument—Sir, I will sit down.”
* * * * *
NUMBER IV.
A new edition (being the nineteenth) of this universally admired poem having been recently published, the ingenious author has taken that opportunity to introduce some new lines on an occasion perfectly congenial to his muse, and in the highest degree interesting to the public, namely, the late Fast and Thanksgiving; together with the famous discourse preached in celebration of that day by that illustrious orator and divine, the Reverend Mr. SECRETARY PRETTYMAN.—This episode, which is emphatically termed by himself in his prefatory address to this last edition, his Episode Parsonic, seems to have been written perfectly con amore, and is considered by critics as one of the happiest effusions of the distinguished genius from whose high-rapped fancy it originated. It consists of nine-and-forty lines, of which, without farther exordium, we shall submit the following extracts to the inspection, or, more properly speaking, the admiration of our readers. He sets out with a most spirited compliment to Dr. PRETTYMAN. The two first lines are considered by critics, as the most successful example of the alliterative ornament upon record.
Prim Preacher, Prince of Priests, and [1]Prince’s Priest; Pembroke’s pale pride—in PITT’s prÆcordia plac’d. —Thy merits all shall future ages scan, And PRINCE be lost in PARSON PRETTYMAN.
The beauty of the historical allusion to Prince Prettyman, need not be pointed out to our readers; and the presage that the fame of this Royal personage shall be lost and absorbed in the rising reputation of the ingenious divine, is peculiarly happy and well turned. The celebrated passage of Virgil,
“Tu Marcellus eris:”
is supposed to have been in the poet’s recollection at the moment of his conceiving this passage—not that the
“Oh miserande puer!”
in the preceding line, is imagined to have excited any idea of Mr. Pitt.
Our author now pursues his hero to the pulpit, and there, in imitation of Homer, who always takes the opportunity for giving a minute description of his personÆ, when they are on the very verge of entering upon an engagement, he gives a laboured but animated detail of the Doctor’s personal manners and deportment. Speaking of the penetrating countenance for which the Doctor is distinguished, he says,
ARGUS could boast an hundred eyes, ’tis true, } The DOCTOR looks an hundreds ways with two: } Gimlets they are, and bore you through and through. }
This is a very elegant and classic compliment, and shows clearly what a decided advantage our Reverend Hero possesses over the celebrated ?f?a??d????? of antiquity. Addison is justly famous in the literary world, for the judgment with which he selects and applies familiar words to great occasions, as in the instances:
———“The great, the important day, “Big with the fate of Cato and of Rome.”—
“The sun grows dim with age, &c. &c.”
This is a very great beauty, for it fares with ideas, as with individuals; we are the more interested in their fate, the better we are acquainted with them. But how inferior is Addison in this respect to our author?
Gimlets they are, &c.
There is not such a word in all Cato! How well-known and domestic the image! How specific and forcible the application!—Our author proceeds: Having described very accurately the style of the Doctor’s hairdressing, and devoted ten beautiful lines to an eulogy upon the brilliant on the little finger of his right hand, of which he emphatically says:
No veal putrescent, no dead whiting’s eye, In the true water with this ring could vie;
he breaks out into the following most inspirited and vigorous apostrophe—
Oh! had you seen his lily, lily hand, Stroke his spare cheek, and coax his snow-white band: That adding force to all his powers of speech, This the protector of his sacred breech; That point the way to Heav’n’s coelestial grace, This keep his small-clothes in their proper place— Oh! how the comley preacher you had prais’d, As now the right, and now the left he rais’d!!!
Who does not perceive, in this description, as if before their eyes, the thin figure of emaciated divinity, divided between religion and decorum; anxious to produce some truths, and conceal others; at once concerned for fundamental points of various kinds; ever at the bottom of things—Who does not see this, and seeing, who does not admire? The notes that accompany this excellent episode, contain admirable instances of our author’s profound knowledge in all the literature of our established religion; and we are sorry that our plan will not suffer us to produce them, as a full and decisive proof that his learning is perfectly on a level with his genius, and his divinity quite equal to his poetry.
[1] The Doctor is Chaplain to his Majesty.—He was bred at Pembroke-hall in Cambridge.
* * * * *
NUMBER V.
On Monday last, the twentieth edition of this incomparable poem made its appearance: and we may safely venture to predict, that, should it be followed by an hundred more, while the fertile and inexhaustible genius of the author continues to enrich every new edition with new beauties, they will not fail to run through, with the same rapidity that the former have done; so universal is the enthusiasm prevailing among the genuine lovers of poetry, and all persons of acknowledged taste, with respect to this wonderful and unparalleled production.
What chiefly distinguishes this edition, and renders it peculiarly interesting at the present moment, is the admirable description contained in it of the newly-appointed India Board; in which the characters of the members composing it are most happily, though perhaps somewhat severely, contrasted with those to whom the same high office had been allotted by a former administration.
That the feelings of the public are in unison with those of our author upon this occasion, is sufficiently apparent from the frequent Panegyrics with which the public papers have of late been filled, upon the characters of these distinguished personages. In truth, the superiority of our present excellent administration over their opponents, can in no instance be more clearly demonstrated, than by a candid examination of the comparative merits of the persons appointed by each of them to preside in this arduous and important department.
Our author opens this comparison by the following elegant compliment to the accomplished Nobleman whose situation, as Secretary of State, entitles him to a priority of notice, as the eminence of his abilities will ever ensure him a due superiority of weight in the deliberations of the board.
SYDNEY, whom all the pow’rs of rhetoric grace. Consistent SYDNEY fills FITZWILLIAM’s place; O, had by nature but proportion’d been His strength of genius to his length of chin, His mighty mind in some prodigious plan At once with ease had reach’d to Indostan!
The idea conveyed in these lines, of the possibility of a feature in the human face extending to so prodigious a distance as the East-Indies, has been objected to as some-what hyperbolical. But those who are well acquainted with the person as well as the character of the noble lord alluded to, and who are unquestionably the best judges of the extent of the compliment, will certainly be of a different opinion. Neither indeed is the objection founded in truth, but must have arisen merely from the passage not having been properly understood. It by no means supposes his Lordship to have literally a chin of such preposterous dimensions, as must be imagined for the purpose of reaching to the East-Indies; but figuratively speaking, only purports, that, if his Lordship’s mental, faculties are co-extensive with that distinguished feature of his face, they may readily embrace, and be competent to the consideration of the most distant objects. The meaning of the author is so obvious, that this cavil probably originated in wilful misapprehension, with a view of detracting from the merit of one of the most beautiful passages in the whole poem.
What reader can refuse his admiration to the following lines, in which the leading features of the characters are so justly, strongly, and at the same time so concisely delineated?
Acute observers, who with skilful ken Descry the characters of public men, Rejoice that pow’r and patronage should pass From jobbing MONTAGUE to pure DUNDAS; Exchange with pleasure, ELLIOT, LEW’SHAM, NORTH, For MULGRAVE’s tried integrity and worth; And all must own, that worth completely tried, By turns experienc’d upon every side.
How happy is the selection of epithets in these lines! How forcibly descriptive of the character to which they are applied! In the same strain he proceeds:—
Whate’er experience GREGORY might boast, Say, is not WALSINGHAM himself a host? His grateful countrymen, with joyful eyes, From SACKVILLE’s ashes see this Phoenix rise: Perhaps with all his master’s talents blest, To save the East as he subdu’d the West.
The historical allusion is here judiciously introduced; and the pleasing prospect hinted at of the same happy issue attending our affairs in the Eastern, that has already crowned them in the Western world, must afford peculiar satisfaction to the feelings of every British reader.
The next character is most ingeniously described, but like a former one, containing some personal allusions, requires, in order to be fully understood, a more intimate acquaintance with the exterior qualifications of the gentleman in question, than can have fallen to the lot of every reader. All who have had the pleasure of seeing him, however, will immediately acknowledge the resemblance of the portrait.
See next advance, in knowing FLETCHER’s stead, A youth, who boasts no common share of head; What plenteous stores of knowledge may contain The spacious tenement of GRENVILLE’s brain! Nature, in all her dispensations wise, Who form’d his head-piece of so vast a size, Hath not, ’tis true, neglected to bestow Its due proportion to the part below; And hence we reason, that, to serve the state, His top and bottom may have equal weight.
Every reader will naturally conceive, that in the description of the principal person of the board, the author has exerted the whole force of his genius, and he will not find his expectations disappointed; he has reserved him for the last, and has judiciously evaded disgracing him by a comparison with any other, upon the principle, no doubt, quoted from Mr. Theobald, by that excellent critic, Martinus Scriblerus:
“None but himself can be his parallel.” DOUBLE FALSEHOOD.
As he has drawn this character at considerable length, we shall content ourselves with selecting some few of the most striking passages, whatever may be the difficulty of selecting where almost the whole is equally beautiful. The grandeur of the opening prepares the mind for the sublime sensations suitable to the dignity of a subject so exalted:
Above the rest, majestically great, Behold the infant Atlas of the state, The matchless miracle of modern days, In whom Britannia to the world displays A sight to make surrounding nations stare; A kingdom trusted to a school-boy’s care.
It is to be observed to the credit of our author, that, although his political principles are unquestionably favourable to the present happy government, he does not scruple, with that boldness which ever characterises real genius, to animadvert with freedom on persons of the most elevated rank and station; and he has accordingly interspersed his commendations of our favourite young Minister with much excellent and reasonable counsel, fore-warning him of the dangers to which he is by his situation exposed. After having mentioned his introduction into public life, and concurred in that admirable panegyric of his immaculate virtues, made in the House of Commons by a noble Lord already celebrated in the poem, upon which he has the following observation:
———As MULGRAVE, who so fit To chaunt the praises of ingenious PITT? The nymph unhackney’d and unknown abroad, Is thus commended by the hackney’d bawd. The dupe enraptur’d, views her fancied charms, And clasps the maiden mischief to his arms, Till dire disease reveals the truth too late: O grant my country, Heav’n, a milder fate!
he attends him to the high and distinguished station he now so ably fills, and, in a nervous strain of manly eloquence, describes the defects of character and conduct to which his situation, and the means by which he came to it, render him peculiarly liable. The spirit of the following lines is remarkable:
Oft in one bosom may be found allied, Excess of meanness, and excess of pride: Oft may the Statesman, in St. Stephen’s brave, Sink in St. James’s to an abject slave; Erect and proud at Westminster, may fall Prostrate and pitiful at Leadenhall; In word a giant, though a dwarf in deed, Be led by others while he seems to lead.
He afterwards with great force describes the lamentable state of humiliation into which he may fall from his present pinnacle of greatness, by too great a subserviency to those from whom he has derived it, and appeals to his pride in the following beautiful exclamation:
Shall CHATHAM’s offspring basely beg support, Now from the India, now St. James’s court; With pow’r admiring Senates to bewitch, Now kiss a Monarch’s—now a Merchant’s breech; And prove a pupil of St. Omer’s school, Of either KINSON, AT. or JEN. the tool?
Though cold and cautious criticism may perhaps stare at the boldness of the concluding line, we will venture to pronounce it the most masterly stroke of the sublime to be met with in this, or any other poem. It may be justly said, as Mr. Pope has so happily expressed it—
“To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.” ESSAY ON CRITICISM.
As we despair of offering any thing equal to this lofty flight of genius to the reader of true taste, we shall conclude with recommending to him the immediate perusal of the whole poem, and, in the name of an admiring public, returning our heart-felt thanks to the wonderful author of this invaluable work.
* * * * *
NUMBER VI.
In our two last numbers we were happy to give our readers the earliest relish of those additional beauties, with which the nineteenth and twentieth impressions of the ROLLIAD are enriched. And these interpolations we doubt not have been sufficiently admired for their intrinsic merit, even in their detached state, as we gave them. But what superior satisfaction must they have afforded to those who have read them in their proper places! They are parts of a whole, and as such wonderfully improve the effect of the general design, by an agreeable interruption of prosaic regularity.
This may appear to some but a paradoxical kind of improvement, which is subversive of order. It must be remembered, however, that the descent of ROLLO to the night-cellar was undoubtedly suggested by the descent of Æneas to hell in the Sixth Book of Virgil; and every classical Critic knows what a noble contempt of order the Roman Poet studiously displays in the review of his countrymen. From Romulus he jumps at once to Augustus; gets back how he can to Numa; goes straight forward to Brutus; takes a short run to Camillus; makes a long stride to Julius CÆsar and Pompey; from Cato retreats again to the Gracchi and the Scipios; and at last arrives in a beautiful zig-zag at Marcellus, with whom he concludes. And this must be right, because it is in Virgil.
A similar confusion, therefore, has now been judiciously introduced by our Author in the Sixth Book of the ROLLIAD. He first singles out some of the great statesmen of the present age; then carries us to church, to hear Dr. Prettyman preach before the Speaker and the pews; and next shows us all that Mr. DUNDAS means to let the public know of the new India Board;—that is to say, the Members of whom it is composed. He now proceeds, where a dull genius would probably have begun, with an accurate description of the House of Commons, preparatory to the exhibition of Mr. ROLLE, and some other of our political heroes, on that theatre of their glory. Maps of the country round Troy have been drawn from the Iliad; and we doubt not, that a plan of St. Stephen’s might now be delineated with the utmost accuracy from the ROLLIAD.
Merlin first ushers Duke ROLLO into the LOBBY: marks the situation of the two entrances; one in the front, the other communicating laterally with the Court of Requests; and points out the topography of the fire-place and the box,
——— ——— ———in which Sits PEARSON, like a pagod in his niche; The Gomgom PEARSON, whose sonorous lungs With “Silence! Room there!” drown an hundred tongues.
This passage is in the very spirit of prophecy, which delights to represent things in the most lively manner. We not only see, but hear Pearson in the execution of his office. The language, too, is truly prophetic; unintelligible, perhaps, to those to whom it is addressed, but perfectly clear, full, and forcible to those who live in the time of the accomplishment. Duke ROLLO might reasonably be supposed to stare at the barbarous words “Pagod” and “Gomgom;” but we, who know one to signify an Indian Idol, and the other an Indian Instrument of music, perceive at once the peculiar propriety with which such images are applied to an officer of a House of Commons so completely Indian as the present. A writer of less judgment would have contented himself with comparing Pearson simply to a
Statue in his niche—
and with calling him a Stentor, perhaps in the next line: but such unappropriated similies and metaphors could not satisfy the nice taste of our author.
The description of the Lobby also furnishes an opportunity of interspersing a passage of the tender kind, in praise of the Pomona who attends there with oranges. Our poet calls her HUCSTERIA, and, by a dexterous stroke of art, compares her to Shiptonia, whose amours with ROLLO form the third and fourth books of the ROLLIAD.
Behold the lovely wanton, kind and fair, As bright SHIPTONIA, late thy amorous care! Mark how her winning smiles, and ’witching eyes, On yonder unfledg’d orator she tries! Mark, with what grace she offers to his hand The tempting orange, pride of China’s land!
This gives rise to a panegyric on the medical virtues of oranges, and an oblique censure on the indecent practice of our young Senators, who come down drunk from the eating-room, to sleep in the gallery.
O! take, wise youth, the’ Hesperian fruit, of use Thy lungs to cherish with balsamic juice. With this thy parch’d roof moisten; nor consume Thy hours and guineas in the eating-room, Till, full of claret, down with wild uproar You reel, and, stretch’d along the gallery, snore.
From this the poet naturally slides into a general caution against the vice of drunkenness, which he more particularly enforces, by the instance of Mr. PITT’s late peril, from the farmer at Wandsworth.
Ah! think, what danger on debauch attends: Let Pitt, once drunk, preach temp’rance to his friends; How, as he wander’d darkling o’er the plain, His reason drown’d in JENKINSON’s champaigne, A rustic’s hand, but righteous fate withstood, Had shed a Premier’s for a robber’s blood.
We have been thus minute in tracing the transitions in this inimitable passage, as they display, in a superior degree, the wonderful skill of our poet, who could thus bring together an orange-girl, and the present pure and immaculate Minister; a connection, which, it is more than probable, few of our readers would in any wise have suspected.
———————Ex fumo dare lucem Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat.
From the Lobby we are next led into the several committee-rooms and other offices adjoining; and among the rest, MERLIN, like a noble Lord, whose diary was some time since printed, “takes occasion to inspect the water-closets,”
Where offerings, worthy of those altars, lie, Speech, letter, narrative, remark, reply; With dead-born taxes, innocent of ill, With cancell’d clauses of the India bill: There pious NORTHCOTE’s meek rebukes, and here The labour’d nothings of the SCRUTINEER; And reams on reams of tracts, that, without pain, Incessant spring from SCOTT’s prolific brain. Yet wherefore to this age should names be known, But heard, and then forgotten in their own? Turn then, my son, &c. &c.
This passage will probably surprise many of our readers, who must have discovered our author to be, as every good and wise man must be, firmly attached to the present system. It was natural for Dante to send his enemies to hell; but it seems strange that our poet should place the writings of his own friends and fellow-labourers in a water-closet. It has indeed been hinted to us, that it might arise from envy, to find some of them better rewarded for their exertions in the cause, than himself. But though great minds have sometimes been subject to this passion, we cannot suppose it to have influenced the author of the ROLLIAD in the present instance. For in that case we doubt not he would have shown more tenderness to his fellow-sufferer, the unfortunate Mr. NORTHCOTE, who, after sacrificing his time, degrading his profession, and hazarding his ears twice or thrice every week, for these two or three years past, has at length confessed his patriotism weary of employing his talents for the good of his country, without receiving the reward of his labours. To confess the truth, we ourselves think the apparent singularity of the poet’s conduct on this occasion, may be readily ascribed to that independence of superior genius, which we noticed in our last number. We there remarked, with what becoming freedom he spoke to the Minister himself; and in the passage now before us, we may find traces of the same spirit, in the allusions to the coal-tax, gauze-tax, and ribbon-tax, as well as the unexampled alterations and corrections of the celebrated India-bill. Why then should it appear extraordinary, that he should take the same liberty with two or three brother-authors, which he had before taken with their master; and without scruple intimate, what he and every one else must think of their productions, notwithstanding he may possess all possible charity for the good intention of their endeavours?
We cannot dismiss these criticisms, without observing on the concluding lines; how happily our author, here again, as before, by the mention of Shiptonia, contrives to recal our attention to the personages more immediately before us, MERLIN and DUKE ROLLO!
* * * * *
NUMBER VII.
We come now to the Sanctum Sanctorum, the Holy of Holies, where the glory of political integrity shines visibly, since the shrine has been purified from Lord J. CAVENDISH, Mr. FOLJAMBE, Sir C. BUNBURY, Mr. COKE, Mr. BAKER, Major HARTLEY, and the rest of its pollutions. To drop our metaphor, after making a minute survey of the Lobby, peeping into the Eating-room, and inspecting the Water-closets, we are at length admitted into the House itself. The transition here is peculiarly grand and solemn. MERLIN, having corrected himself for wasting so much time on insignificant objects,
(Yet wherefore to this age should names be known, But heard, and then forgotten in their own?)
immediately directs the attention of Rollo to the doors of the house, which are represented in the vision, as opening at that moment to gratify the hero’s curiosity; then the prophet suddenly cries out, in the language of ancient Religion,
———Procul, Ô procul este profani!
Turn then, my son, where to thy hallow’d eye Yon doors unfold—Let none profane he nigh!
It seems as if the poet, in the preceding descriptions, had purposely stooped to amuse himself with the Gomgom Pearson, Hucsteria, Major Scott, Mr. Northcote, and the Reverend author of the Scrutineer, that he might rise again with the more striking dignity on this great occasion.
MERLIN now leads ROLLO to the centre of the House,
Conventus trahit in medios, turbamque sonantem.
He points out to him the gallery for strangers to sit in, and members to sleep in; the bar below, and the clock above. Of the clock he observes,
When this shalt point, the hour of question come, Mutes shall find voice, and Orators be dumb. This, if in lengthen’d parle the night they pass, Shall furnish still his opening to DUNDAS; To PITT, when “hear-hims” flag, shall oft supply The chear-trap trick of stale apology; And, strange to tell! in Nature’s spite, provoke Hot ARDEN once to blunder at a joke.
The beauty of these lines will be instantly perceived by all who have witnessed the debates; as they cannot but have remarked, how perpetually “the late hour of night” occupies the exordiums of Mr. DUNDAS, after eleven o’clock; and how frequently it is introduced by Mr. PITT as a hint, for what is called chearing, whenever his arguments and invectives are received by his young friends with the unparliamentary compliment of sacred silence. The miracle of a jest from Mr. ARDEN, happened on the occasion of some Resolutions having passed between the hours of six and seven in the morning; for which reason the Attorney-General facetiously contended, that they were entitled to no respect, “as the house was then at sixes and sevens.” Any approximation to wit in debate, being perfectly unusual with this gentleman, however entertaining his friends may think him in private, our author very properly distinguishes this memorable attempt by the same kind of admiration, with which poets commonly mention some great prodigy—as for instance, of a cow’s speaking:
——pecudesque locutÆ Infandum!
We hope none of our readers will attribute to us the most distant intention of any invidious comparison.
The table, mace, &c. are next described, but these we shall pass over in silence, that we may get—where most who enter the House of Commons wish to get—to the TREASURY-BENCH,
Where sit the gowned clerks, by ancient rule, This on a chair, and that upon a stool; Where stands the well-pil’d table, cloth’d in green; There on the left the TREASURY-BENCH is seen. No sattin covering decks the’ unsightly boards; No velvet cushion holds the youthful lords: And claim illustrious Tails such small regard? Ah! Tails too tender for a seat so hard.
This passage touches on a subject of much offence to the young friends of the minister; we mean the barbarous and Gothic appearance of the benches in the House of Commons. The Treasury-bench itself looks no better than a first form in one of our public schools:
No sattin covering decks the’ unsightly boards, No velvet cushion holds the youthful Lords.
The above couplet states with much elegance the matter of complaint, and glances with equal dexterity at the proper remedy. The composition is then judiciously varied. The whole art of the poet is employed to interest our passions in favour of the necessary reform, by expostulatory interrogations and interjections the most affectingly pathetic. And who can read the former, without feeling his sense of national honour most deeply injured by the supposed indignity; or who can read the latter, without melting into the most unfeigned commiseration for the actual sufferings to which the youthful lords are at present exposed? It must, doubtless, be a seasonable relief to the minds of our readers, to be informed, that Mr. PITT (as it has been said in some of the daily papers) means to propose, for one article of his Parliamentary Reform, to cover the seats in general with crimson sattin, and to decorate the Treasury-bench, in particular, with cushions of crimson velvet; one of [1] extraordinary dimensions being to be appropriated to Mr. W. GRENVILLE.
The epithet “tender” in the last line we were at first disposed to consider as merely synonymous with “youthful.” But a friend, to whom we repeated the passage, suspected that the word might bear some more emphatical sense; and this conjecture indeed seems to be established beyond doubt, by the original reading in the manuscript, which, as we before said, has been communicated to us,
“Alas! that flesh, so late by pedants scarr’d, Sore from the rod, should suffer seats so hard,”
We give these verses, not as admitting any comparison with the text, as it now stands, but merely by way of commentary, to illustrate the poet’s meaning.
From the Treasury-bench, we ascend one step to the INDIA-BENCH.
“There too, in place advanc’d, as in command, Above the beardless rulers of the land, On a bare bench, alas! exalted sit, The pillars of Prerogative and PITT; Delights of Asia, ornaments of men, Thy Sovereign’s Sovereigns, happy Hindostan.”
The movement of these lines is, as the subject required, more elevated than that of the preceding: yet the prevailing sentiment excited by the description of the Treasury-bench, is artfully touched by our author, as he passes, in the Hemistich,
On a bare bench, alas!———
which is a beautiful imitation of Virgil’s
———Ah! filice in nud———
The pompous titles so liberally bestowed on the BENGAL SQUAD, as the pennyless hirelings of opposition affect to call them, are truly in the Oriental taste; and we doubt not, but every friend to the present happy government, will readily agree in the justice of stiling them “pillars of prerogative and Pitt, delights of Asia, and ornaments of man.” Neither, we are assured, can any man of any party object to the last of their high dignities, “Sovereigns of the Sovereign of India;” since the Company’s well-known sale of Shah Allum to his own Visier, is an indisputable proof of their supremacy over the Great Mogul.
As our author has been formerly accused of plagiarism, we must here in candour confess, that he seems, in his description of the India-bench, to have had an eye to Milton’s account of the devil’s throne; which, however, we are told, much exceeded the possible splendour of any India-bench, or even the magnificence of Mr. Hastings himself.
High on a throne of royal slate, which far Outshone the wealth of Orams, or of Ind; Or where the gorgeous East, with lavish hand, Show’rs on her King, barbaric pearl and gold; Satan exalted sate.———
This concluding phrase, our readers will observe, is exactly and literally copied by our author. It is also worthy of remark, that as he calls the Bengal squad,
The Pillars of Prerogative and Pitt,
So Milton calls Beelzebub,
A Pillar of State:———
Though, it is certain, that the expression here quoted may equally have been suggested by one of the Persian titles[2], said to be engraved on a seal of Mr. Hastings, where we find the Governor General styled, “Pillar of the Empire.” But we shall leave it to our readers to determine, as they may think proper, on the most probable source of the metaphor, whether it were in reality derived from Beelzebub or Mr. Hastings.
[1] For a description of this young gentleman’s person, from top to bottom, see No. V.
[2] The following is copied from the Morning Chronicle of October 5, 1784.
Mr. HASTINGS’S PERSIAN TITLES, as engraved upon a Seal. A True Translation. Nabob Governor-General Hastings, Saub, Pillar of the Empire, The fortunate in War, Hero, The most princely offspring of the Loins, Of the King of the Universe, The Defender of the Mahomedan Faith, And Asylum of the World, &c. &c. &c. &c.
Translation of a Persian Inscription engraven on a large fine Ruby, being the titles either given to or assumed by Mrs. HASTINGS. “Royal and Imperial Governess, The elegance of the age, The most exalted Bilkiss, The Zobaide of the Palaces, The most heroic Princess, Ruby Marian Hastings, Sauby, &c. &c.
N.B. With the Mussulmans, Bilkiss signifies the person, called in the Bible History the Queen of Sheba; and Zobaide was a favourite wife of Mahomed; and when they wish to pay the highest compliments to a lady, they compare her to Bilkiss and Zobaide, who possessed the most exalted beauty, and perfection of every kind.
* * * * *
NUMBER VIII.
From the above general compliment to the India-bench, the poet, in the person of Merlin, breaks out into the following animated apostrophe to some of the principal among our Leadenhall-street Governors:
All hail! ye virtuous patriots without blot, Rollo The minor KINSON and the major SCOTT: And thou of name uncouth to British ear, From Norman smugglers sprung, LE MESURIER; Hail SMITHS; and WRAXALL, unabash’d to talk, Tho’ none will listen; hail too, CALL and PALK; Thou, BARWEL, just and good, whose honour’d name, Wide, as the Ganges rolls, shall live in fame, Second to HASTINGS: and, VANSITTART, thou, A second HASTINGS, if the Fates allow.
The bold, but truly poetical apocope, by which the Messrs. At-kinson and Jen-kinson, are called the two kinsons, is already familiar to the public. The minor Kinson, or Kinson the less, is obviously Mr. Atkinson; Mr. Jenkinson being confessedly greater than Mr. Atkinson, or any other man, except One, in the kingdom.—The antithesis of the Major Scott to the minor Kinson, seems to ascertain the sense of the word Major, as signifying in this place the greater; it might mean also the elder; or it might equally refer to the military rank of the gentleman intended. This is a beautiful example of the figure so much admired by the ancients under the name of the Paronomasia, or Pun. They who recollect the light in which our author before represented Major Scott, as a pamphleteer, fit only to furnish a water-closet, may possibly wonder to find him here mentioned as THE GREATER SCOTT; but whatever may be his literary talents, he must be acknowledged to be truly great, and worthy of the conspicuous place here assigned him, if we consider him in his capacity of agent to Mr. Hastings, and of consequence chief manager of the Bengal Squad; and it must be remembered, that this is the character in which he is here introduced. The circumstance of Mr. Le Mesurier’s origin from Norman Smugglers, has been erroneously supposed by some critics to be designed for a reproach; but they could not possibly have fallen into this mistaste, if they had for a moment reflected that it is addressed by MERLIN to ROLLO, who was himself no more than a Norman pirate. Smuggling and piracy in heroic times were not only esteemed not infamous, but absolutely honourable. The Smiths, Call and Palk of our poet, resemble the
Alcandrumque, Haliumque, NoËmonaque, Prytanimque,
of Homer and Virgil; who introduce those gallant warriors for the sake of a smooth verse, and dispatch them at a stroke without the distinction of a single epithet. Our poet too has more professedly imitated Virgil in the lines respecting Mr. Vansittart, now a candidate to succeed Mr. Hastings.
———And, VANSITTART, thou A second HASTINGS, if the fates allow. ———Si qu fata aspera rumpas, Tu Marcellus eris!
The passage however is, as might be hoped from the genius of our author, obviously improved in the imitation; as it involves a climax, most happily expressed. Mr. Barwell has been panegyrized in the lines immediately foregoing, as second to Hastings; but of Mr. Vansittart it is prophesied, that he will be a second Hastings; second indeed in time, but equal perhaps in the distinguishing merits of that great and good man, in obedience to the Court of Directors, attention to the interests of the Company in preference to his own, abstinence from rapacity and extortion, justice and policy towards the princes, and humanity to all the natives, of Hindostan. The ingenious turn on the words second to Hastings, and a second Hastings, would have furnished matter for whole pages to the Dionysius’s, Longinus’s, and Quintilians of antiquity, though the affected delicacy of modern taste may condemn it as quibble and jingle.
The poet then hints at a most ingenious proposal for the embellishment of the India-bench, according to the new plan of Parliamentary Reform; not by fitting it up like the Treasury-bench, with velvet cushions, but by erecting for the accommodation of the Leadenhall worthies, the ivory bed, which was lately presented to her Majesty by Mrs. Hastings.
O that for you, in Oriental state, At ease reclin’d to watch the long debate, Beneath the gallery’s pillar’d height were spread (With the QUEEN’s leave) your WARREN’s ivory bed!
The pannels of the gallery too, over the canopy of the bed, are to be ornamented with suitable paintings,
Above, In colours warm with mimic life, The German husband of your WARREN’s wife His rival deeds should blazon; and display. In his blest rule, the glories of your sway.
What singular propriety, what striking beauty must the reader of taste immediately perceive in this choice of a painter to execute the author’s design! It cannot be doubted but Mrs. Hastings would exert all her own private and all Major Scott’s public influence with every branch of the Legislature, to obtain so illustrious a job for the man to whose affection, or to whose want of affection, she owes her present fortunes. The name of this artist is Imhoff; but though he was once honoured with Royal Patronages he is now best remembered from the circumstance by which our author has distinguished him, of his former relation to Mrs. Hastings.
Then follow the subjects of the paintings, which are selected with the usual judgment of our poet.
Here might the tribes of ROHILCUND expire, And quench with blood their towns, that sink in fire; The Begums there, of pow’r, of wealth forlorn, With female cries their hapless fortune mourn. Here, hardly rescu’d from his guard, CHEYT SING Aghast should fly; there NUNDCOMAR should swing; Happy for him! if he had borne to see His country beggar’d of the last rupee; Nor call’d those laws, O HASTINGS, on thy head, Which, mock’d by thee, thy slaves alone should dread.
These stories, we presume, are too public to require any explanation. But if our readers should wish to be more particularly acquainted with them, they will find them in the [1]Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, commonly called the Reports of the Select and Secret Committees, with Appendixes of Letters, Minutes, and Narratives written by Mr. Hastings himself. Or they may consult the History of Alexander the Great, contained, in Major John Scott’s narrative of the administration of Mr. Hastings. Though we would rather refer them to the latter work, as in our opinion it is one of the most satisfactory defences ever published; and proves to demonstration, that Mr. Hastings never committed a single act of injustice or cruelty, but he constantly obtained forty or fifty lacks for the Company or himself—That an enquiry into past abuses is an impolitic order; because “much valuable time must be lost, and much odium incurred by the attempt;” and therefore Mr. Hastings of course ought not to have been censured at all, unless he had been censured before he had done any thing to deserve it—That it was right for Mr. Hastings to keep up the good old custom of receiving presents, in defiance of a positive law; because his predecessors had received as large sums when they were authorized by custom, and not prohibited by any law—That Mr. Hastings was justified in disobeying the orders of the Directors, because he could no otherwise have convinced the Country Powers of his superiority over his Masters, which was, and is, absolutely necessary—that, though it may be questioned if Nundcomar was legally condemned, it was proper to execute him, in order to show the justice and impartiality of the Judges in hanging the natives, whom they were sent especially to protect—That a Treaty of Peace between two nations is of no force, if you can get one of the individuals who officially signed it, to consent to the infraction of it—together with many other positions, equally just and novel, both in Ethics and Politics.
But to return to our Poet. MERLIN now drops his apostrophe, and eulogizes the India-bench in the third person for the blessings of Tea and the Commutation Tax. The following passage will show our author to be, probably, a much better Grocer than Mr. Pitt; and perhaps little inferior to the Tea-Purchaser’s Guide.
What tongue can tell the various kind of Tea? Of Blacks and Greens, of Hyson and Bohea; With Singlo, Congou, Pekoe, and Souchong: Couslip the fragrant, Gun-powder the strong; And more, all heathenish alike in name, Of humbler some, and some of nobler fame.
The prophet then compares the breakfasts of his own times with those of ours: attributes to the former the intractable spirit of that age; and from the latter fervently prays, like a loyal subject, for the perfect accomplishment of their natural effects; that they may relax the nerves of Englishmen into a proper state of submission to the superior powers. We shall insert the lines at length.
On mighty beef, bedew’d with potent ale, Our Saxons, rous’d at early dawn, regale; And hence a sturdy, bold, rebellious race, Strength in the frame, and spirit in the face, All sacred right of Sovereign Power defy, For Freedom conquer, or for Freedom die. Not so their sons, of manners more polite; How would they sicken at the very sight! O’er Chocolate’s rich froth, o’er Coffee’s fume, Or Tea’s hot tide their noons shall they consume. But chief, all sexes, every rank and age, Scandal and Tea, more grateful, shall engage; In gilded roofs, beside some hedge in none, On polish’d tables, or the casual stone. Be Bloom reduc’d; and PITT no more a foe, Ev’n PITT, the favourite of the fair shall grow: Be but Mundungus cheap; on light and air New burthens gladly shall our peasants bear, And boil their peaceful kettles, gentle souls! Contented,—if no tax be laid on coals. Aid then, kind Providence, yon’ generous bench, With copious draughts the thirsty realm to drench; And oh! thy equal aid let PRESTON find, With [2]musty-sweet and mouldy-fresh combin’d, To palsy half our isles: ’till wan, and weak, Each nerve unstrung, and bloodless every cheek, Head answering head, and noddling thro’ the street. The destin’d change of Britons is complete; Things without will, like India’s feeble brood, Or China’s shaking Mandarins of wood. So may the Crown in native lustre shine, And British Kings re-sume their right divine.
We have been thus prolix in giving the whole of this quotation, as we think it glances very finely at the true policy, why it is expedient to encourage the universal consumption of an article, which some factious people have called a pernicious luxury. And our readers, we are persuaded, will agree with us, when we decidedly pronounce this as good a defence of the Commutation Tax, as we have yet seen.
We must observe however that our author is probably indebted to the extensive information of Lord Sydney, for the hint of the following couplet:
In gilded roofs, beside some hedge in none, On polish’d tables, or the casual stone.
The Secretary of State in the discussion of the abovementioned tax, very ably calculated the great quantity of tea consumed under hedges by vagrants, who have no houses; from which he most ingeniously argued to the justice and equity of laying the impost on persons who have houses, whether they consume it or not.
We shall conclude this number, as the Poet concludes the subject, with some animated verses on Mr. FOX and Mr. PITT.
Crown the froth’d Porter, slay the fatted Ox, And give the British meal to British Fox. But for an Indian minister more fit, Ten cups of purest Padrae pour for PITT, Pure as himself; add sugar too and cream, Sweet as his temper, bland as flows the stream Of his smooth eloquence; then crisply nice The muffin toast, or bread and butter slice, Thin as his arguments, that mock the mind, Gone, ere you taste,—no relish left behind. Where beauteous Brighton overlooks the sea, These be his joys: and STEELE shall make the Tea.
How neat! how delicate! and how unexpected is the allusion in the last couplet! These two lines alone include the substance of whole columns, in the ministerial papers of last summer, on the sober, the chaste, the virtuous, the edifying manner in which the Immaculate Young Man passed the recess from public business; not in riot and debauchery, not in gaming, not in attendance on ladies, either modest or immodest, but in drinking Tea with Mr. Steele, at the Castle in Brighthelmstone. Let future ages read and admire!
[1] We have the highest law authority for this title; as well as for calling Mr. Hastings Alexander the Great.
[2] The Tea-dealers assure us, that Mr. PRESTON’s sweet and fresh Teas contain a great part of the musty and mouldy chests, which the Trade rejected.
* * * * *
NUMBER IX.
In every new edition of this incomparable poem, it has been the invariable practice of the author, to take an opportunity of adverting to such recent circumstances, as have occurred since the original publication of it relative to any of the illustrious characters he has celebrated. The public has lately been assured that, the Marquis of Graham is elected Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, and has presented that learned body with a complete set of the engravings of Piranesi, an eminent Italian artist; of which we are happy to acquaint the Dilettanti, a few remaining sets are to be purchased at Mr. Alderman Boydell’s printshop, in Cheapside, price twelve pounds twelve shillings each. An anecdote reflecting so much honour upon one of the favourite characters of our author, could not pass unnoticed in the ROLLIAD; and accordingly, in his last edition, we find the following complimentary lines upon the subject:
If right the Bard, whose numbers sweetly flow, That all our knowledge is ourselves to know; A sage like GRAHAM, can the world produce, Who in full senate call’d himself a goose? The admiring Commons, from the high-born youth, With wonder heard this undisputed truth; Exulting Glasgow claim’d him for her own, And plac’d the prodigy on Learning’s throne.
He then alludes to the magnificent present abovementioned, and concludes in that happy vein of alliterative excellence, for which he is so justly admired—
With gorgeous gifts from gen’rous GRAHAM grac’d, Great Glasgow grows the granary of taste.
Our readers will doubtless recollect, that this is not the first tribute of applause paid to the distinguished merit of the public-spirited young Nobleman in question. In the first edition of the poem, his character was drawn at length, the many services he has rendered his country were enumerated, and we have lately been assured by our worthy friend and correspondent, Mr. Malcolm M’Gregor, the ingenious author of the Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers, and other valuable poems, that the following spirited verses, recording the ever-memorable circumstance of his Lordship’s having procured for the inhabitants of the Northern extremity of our Island, the inestimable privilege of exempting their posteriors from those ignominious symbols of slavery, vulgarly denominated breeches, are actually universally repeated with enthusiasm, throughout every part of the highlands of Scotland—
Thee, GRAHAM! thee, the frozen Chieftains bless, Who feel thy bounties through their fav’rite dress; By thee they view their rescued country clad In the bleak honours of their long-lost plaid; Thy patriot zeal has bar’d their parts behind To the keen whistlings of the wintry wind; While Lairds the dirk, while lasses bag-pipes prize, And oat-meal cake the want of bread supplies; The scurvy skin, while scaly scabs enrich, While contact gives, and brimstone cures the itch, Each breeze that blows upon those brawny parts, Shall wake thy lov’d remembrance in their hearts; And while they freshen from the Northern blast, So long thy honour, name, and praise shall last.
We need not call to the recollection of the classical reader,
Dum juga montis aper, sluvios dum piscis amabit, Semper honos, nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt.
And the reader of taste will not hesitate to pronounce, that the copy has much improved upon, and very far surpassed the original. In these lines we also find the most striking instances of the beauties of alliteration; and however some fastidious critics have affected to undervalue this excellence, it is no small triumph to those of a contrary sentiment to find, that next to our own incomparable author, the most exalted genius of the present age, has not disdained to borrow the assistance of this ornament, in many passages of the beautiful dramatic treasure with which he has recently enriched the stage. Is it necessary for us to add, that it is the new tragedy of the Carmelite to which we allude?—A tragedy the beauties of which, we will venture confidently to assert, will be admired and felt, when those of Shakespeare, Dryden, Otway, Southerne, and Rowe, shall be no longer held in estimation. As examples of alliterative beauty, we shall select the following:—
The hand of heav’n hangs o’er me and my house, To their untimely graves seven sons swept off.
Again—
So much for tears—tho’ twenty years they flow, They wear no channels in a widow’s cheek.
The alternate alliteration of the second line, in this instance, seems an improvement upon the art, to the whole merit of which Mr. Cumberland is himself unquestionably entitled.
Afterwards we read,
———Treasures hoarded up, With carking care, and a long life of thrift.
In addition to the alliterative merit, we cannot here fail to admire the judiciously selected epithet of “carking;” and the two lines immediately following, although no example of that merit, should not be omitted:
Now, without interest, or redemption swallow’d, By the devouring bankrupt waves for ever.
How striking is the comparison of the ocean, to a bankrupt swallowing without interest or redemption, the property of his unfortunate creditors! Where shall we find a simile of equal beauty, unless some may possibly judge the following to be so, which is to be found in another part of the same sublime work, of two persons weeping—
———We will sit Like fountain statues, face to face oppos’d, And each to other tell our griefs in tears, Yet neither utter word———
Our readers, we trust, will pardon our having been diverted from the task we have undertaken, by the satisfaction of dwelling on a few of the many beauties of this justly popular and universally admired tragedy, which, in our humble opinion, infinitely surpasses every other theatrical composition, being in truth an assemblage of every possible dramatic excellence: nor do we believe, that any production, whether of antient or modern date, can exhibit a more uncommon and peculiar selection of language, a greater variety of surprising incidents, a more rapid succession of extraordinary discoveries, a more curious collection of descriptions, similies, metaphors, images, storms, shipwrecks, challenges, and visions, or a more miscellaneous and striking picture of the contending passions of love; hatred, piety, madness, rage, jealousy, remorse, and hunger, than this unparalleled performance presents to the admiration of the enraptured spectator. Mr. Cumberland has been represented, perhaps unjustly, as particularly jealous of the fame of his cotemporaries, but we are persuaded he will not be offended when, in the ranks of modern writers, we place him second only to the inimitable author of the ROLLIAD.
To return from the digression into which a subject so seducing has involuntarily betrayed us. The reader will recollect, that in our last we left MERLIN gratifying the curiosity of ROLLO, with a view of that Assembly of which his Descendant is one day destined to become so conspicuous an ornament. After having given the due preference to the India-Bench, he proceeds to point out to him others of the most distinguished supporters of the present virtuous administration. Having already mentioned the most confidential friends of the minister, he now introduces us to the acquaintance of an active young Member, who has upon all occasions been pointedly severe upon the noble Lord in the blue ribbon, and who is remarkable for never having delivered his sentiments upon any subject, whether relating to the East-Indies, the Reform of Parliament, or the Westminster Election, without a copious dissertation upon the principles, causes, and conduct of the American war.
Lo! BEAYFOY rises, friend to soft repose; Whose gentle accents prompt the house to dose: His cadence just, a general sleep provokes, Almost as quickly as SIR RICHARD’s jokes. Thy slumbers, NORTH, he strives in vain to break, When all are sleeping, thou would’st scarce awake; Though from his lips severe invectives fell, Sharp as the acid he delights to sell.
In explanation of the last line, it may be, perhaps, necessary to apprise our readers, that this accomplished orator, although the elegance of his diction, and smoothness of his manner, partake rather of the properties of oil, is in his commercial capacity, a dealer in vinegar. The speaker alluded to, under the name of Sir Richard, is probably the same whom our author, upon the former occasion, stiled—
Sleep-giving poet of a sleepless night.
The limits of our plan will not allow us to enlarge upon the various beauties with which this part of the work abounds; we cannot, however, omit the pathetic description of the SPEAKER’s situation, nor the admirable comparison of Lord MAHON preying on his patience, to the vulture devouring the liver of Prometheus. The necessity of the Speaker’s continuing in the chair while the House sits, naturally reminds our author of his favourite Virgil:
———sedet Æternumque sedebit Infelix Theseus.
There CORNEWELL sits, and, oh unhappy fate! Must sit for ever through the long debate; Save, when compell’d by Nature’s sovereign will, Sometimes to empty, and sometimes to fill. Painful pre-eminence! he hears, ’tis true, FOX, NORTH, and BURKE, but hears SIR JOSEPH too.
Then follows the simile—
Like sad PROMETHEUS, fasten’d to his rock, In vain he looks for pity to the clock; In vain the’ effects of strengthening porter tries, And nods to BELLAMY for fresh supplies; While vulture-like, the dire MAHON appears, And, far more savage, rends his suff’ring ears.
* * * * *
NUMBER X.
Amongst the various pretensions to critical approbation, which are to be found in the excellent and never-sufficiently to be admired production, which is the object of these comments, there is one that will strike the classical observer as peculiarly prominent and praise-worthy:—namely, the uncommon ability shown by the author, in the selection of his heroes. The personÆ that are introduced in the course of this poem, are characters that speak for themselves. The very mention of their names is a summons to approbation; and the relation of their history, if given in detail, would prove nothing more than a lengthened panegyric. Who that has heard of the names of a Jenkinson, a Robinson, or a Dundas, has not in the same breath heard also what they are? This is the secret of our author’s science and excellence. It is this that enables him to omit the dull detail of introductory explanation, and to fasten upon his business, if one may use the expression, slap-dash and at once.
Semper ad eventum festinat, et in medias res, Non secus ac notas auditorum rapit. HOR.
Homer himself yields, in this respect, to our author; for who would not perceive the evident injustice done to the modern bard, if we were to place the wisdom of an Ulysses on any competition with the experience of a Pitt; to mention the bully Ajax, as half so genuine a bully, as the bully Thurlow; if we were to look upon Nestor as having a quarter of the interesting circumlocution of the ambiguous Nugent; to consider Achilles as possessed of half the anger of a ROLLE; or to suppose for a moment, that the famous p?da?-???? of antiquity, could run nearly so fast in a rage, as the member for Devon in a fright; to conceive the yellow-haired Paris to have had half the beauty of the ten times more yellow-haired Villiers; to look upon Agamemnon as in any degree so dictatorial to his chiefs as the high-minded Richmond; to consider the friendship of Patroclus, as possessed of a millionth portion of the disinterested attachment of a Dundas; to have any conception that the chosen band of Thessalian Myrmidons, were to be any way compared, in point of implicit submission, to the still more dextrously chosen band of the Minister in the British House of Commons. Or—but there is no end to so invidious a comparison; and we will not expose poor Homer, to the farther mortification of pursuing it.
MERLIN proceeds in his relation, and fixes upon an object that will not, we believe, prove any disgrace to our author’s general judgment of selection; namely, that worthy Baronet and universally admired wit, Sir RICHARD HILL, of whom it may be truly said,
———Pariter pietate jocisque, Egregius.
He looks upon him as an individual meriting every distinction, and has thought proper therefore, in the last edition of the ROLLIAD, though the Baronet had been [1]slightly touched upon before, to enlarge what was then said, into a more particular description. Speaking of Sir Richard’s style of elocution, our author observes—
With quaint formality of sacred smut, His rev’rend jokes see pious RICHARD cut. Let meaner talents from the Bible draw Their faith, their morals These, and Those their law! His lively genius finds in holy writ A richer mine of unsuspected wit. What never Jew, what never Christian taught, What never fir’d one sectary’s heated thought, What not e’en [2]ROWLAND dream’d, he saw alone, And to the wondering senate first made known; How bright o’er mortal jokes the Scriptures shine Resplendent Jest-book of bon-mots divine.
This description will be readily felt, and we trust, not less cordially admired, by all those who may have enjoyed the pleasure of auricular evidence to Sir Richard’s oratory. The thought of converting the Bible into a jest book, is, we believe, quite new; and not more original in itself, than characteristically just in its application to the speaker. We all know that Saul affected insanity for the sake of religion, in the early periods of our holy faith; and why so great an example should not be imitated in later times, we leave it to the prophane to shew.
We know not whether it is worth observing, that the eloquence of this illustrious family is not confined to Sir Richard alone; but that his brother inherits the same gift, and, if possible, in a greater degree. It is said, there is an intention of divesting this latter gentleman of his clerical robe, and bringing him into the senate, as the avowed competitor of our modern Cromwell. If this happy event should luckily take place, we shall literally see the observation then realized, that the Ministry will give to their wicked enemies, on the other side of the House, what they have so long wanted and deserved.
“———A Rowland for their Oliver.”
This, however, by the way. Our author resumes his subject with the following spirited apostrophe:—
Methinks I see him from the Bench arise, His words all keenness, but all meek his eyes; Define the good religion might produce, Practise its highest excellence-abuse; And with his tongue, that two-edg’d weapon, show, At once the double worth of JOB and JOE.
Job, as some of our more learned readers may know, is a book in the Old Testament, and is used here per synechdochen, as a part for the whole. Nothing can be more natural, than the preference given to this book, on this occasion, as Sir Richard is well known in his speeches to be so admirable an auxiliary to its precepts. The person of the name of Joe, who has received so laconic a mention in the last line of the above extract, will be recognized by the critical and the intelligent, as the same individual who distinguished himself so eminently in the sixteenth century, as a writer and a wit, namely, Mr. Joseph Miller; a great genius, and an author, avowedly in the highest estimation with our learned Baronet.
The business of the composition goes on.—It is evident, however, the poet was extremely averse to quit a subject upon which his congenial talents reposed so kindly. He does not leave Sir Richard, therefore, without the following finished and most high-wrought compliment:
With wit so various, piety so odd, Quoting by turns from Miller and from God; Shall no distinction wait thy honour’d name? No lofty epithet transmit thy fame? Forbid it wit, from mirth refin’d away! Forbid it Scripture, which thou mak’st so gay! SCIPIO, we know, was AFRICANUS call’d, RICHARD styl’d LONG-SHANKS—CHARLES surnam’d the BALD; Shall these for petty merits be renown’d, And no proud phrase, with panegyric sound, Swell thy short name, great HILL?—Here take thy due, And hence be call’d the’ SCRIPTURAL KILLIGREW.
The administration of baptism to adults, is quite consonant to Sir Richard’s creed; and we are perfectly satisfied, there is not a Member in the House of Commons that will not stand sponsor for him on this honourable occasion. Should any one ask him in future,—Who gave you that name? Sir Richard may fairly and truly reply, My Godfathers, &c. and quote the whole of the lower assembly, as coming under that description.
MERLIN, led, as may easily be supposed, by sympathy of rank, talents, and character, now pointed his wand to another worthy baronet, hardly less worthy of distinction than the last personage himself, namely, Sir JOSEPH MAWBEY. Of him the author sets out with saying,
Let this, ye wise, be ever understood, SIR JOSEPH is as witty as he’s good.—
Here, for the first time, the annotators upon this immortal poem, find themselves compelled, in critical justice to own, that the author has not kept entire pace with the original which he has affected to imitate. The distich, of which the above is a parody, was composed by the worthy hero of this part of the ROLLIAD, the amiable Sir Joseph himself, and runs thus:
Ye ladies, of your hearts beware: SIR JOSEPH’s false as he is fair.
How kind, and how discreet a caution! This couplet, independent of its other merits, possesses a recommendation not frequently found in poetry, the transcendant ornament of Truth. How far, indeed, the falshood of this respectable individual has been displayed in his gallantries, it is not the province of sober criticism to enquire. We take up the assertion with a large comprehension, and with a stricter eye to general character—
SIR JOSEPH’s false as he is fair.———
Is it necessary to challenge, what no one will be absurd enough to give—a contradiction to so acknowledged a truth? Or is it necessary to state to the fashionable reader, that whatever may be the degree of Sir Joseph’s boasted falshood, it cannot surpass the fairness of his complexion? The position, therefore, is what logicians call convertible: nothing can equal his falshood but his fairness; nothing his fairness but his falshood.—Incomparable!
Proceeding to a description of his eloquence, he says,
A sty of pigs, though all at once it squeaks, Means not so much as MAWBEY when he speaks; And his’try says, he never yet had bred A pig with such a voice or such a head! Except, indeed, when he essays to joke; And then his wit is truly pig-in-poke.
Describing Sir Joseph’s acquisitions as a scholar, the author adds,
His various knowledge I will still maintain, He is indeed a knowing man in grain.
Some commentators have invidiously suggested, that the last line of this couplet should be printed thus,
He is indeed a knowing man-in grain:
assigning as their reason, that the phrase in grain evidently alludes to bran, with which Sir Joseph’s little grunting commonwealth is supported; and for the discreet and prudent purchase of which our worthy baronet is famous.
Our author concludes his description of this great senator with the following distich:
Such adaptation ne’er was seen before, His trade a hog is, and his wit—a boar.
It has been proposed to us to amend the spelling: of the last word, thus, bore; this improvement, however, as it was called, we reject as a calumny.
Where the beauty of a passage is pre-eminently striking as above, we waste not criticism in useless efforts at emendation.
The writer goes on. He tells you he cannot quit this history of wits, without saying something of another individual; whom, however, he describes as every way inferior to the two last-mentioned, but who, nevertheless, possesses some pretensions to a place in the ROLLIAD. The individual alluded to, is Mr. GEORGE SELWYN. The author describes him as a man possessed of
A plenteous magazine of retail wit Vamp’d up at leisure for some future hit; Cut for suppos’d occasions, like the trade, Where old new things for every shape are made! To this assortment, well prepar’d at home, No human chance unfitted e’er can come; No accident, however strange or queer, But meets its ready well-kept comment here. —The wary beavers thus their stores increase, And spend their winter on their summer’s grease.
The whole of the above description will doubtless remind the classic reader of the following beautiful passage in the Tusculan Questions of Cicero: Nescio quomodo inhÆret in mentibus quasi sÆculorum quoddam augurium futurorum—idque in maximis ingeniis altissimisque animis existit maxime et apparet facillime. This will easily account for the system of previous fabrication so well known as the character of Mr. Selwyn’s jokes. Speaking of an accident that befel this gentleman in the wars, our author proceeds thus:
Of old, when men from fevers made escape, They sacrific’d a cock to ÆSCULAPE: Thus, Love’s hot fever now for ever o’er, The prey of amorous malady no more, SELWYN remembers what his tutor taught, That old examples ever should be sought! And, gaily grateful, to his surgeon cries, “I’ve given to you the Ancient Sacrifice.”
The delicacy with which this historical incident is pourtrayed, would of itself have been sufficient to transmit our author’s merit to posterity: and with the above extract we shall finish the present number of our commentaries.
[1] See No. III.
[2] The Reverend Rowland Hill, brother of Sir Richard.
* * * * *
NUMBER XI.
The next person among the adherents of the Minister, whom MERLIN now points out to the notice of ROLLO, is SIR SAMUEL HANNAY, Baronet, a name recollected with great gratitude in the House: for there are few Members in it to whom he has not been serviceable. This worthy character indeed has done more to disprove Martial’s famous assertion,
Non cuicunque datum est habere nasum,
than any individual upon record.
The author proceeds—
But why, my HANNAY, does the ling’ring Muse The tribute of a line to thee refuse? Say, what distinction most delights thine ear, Or Philo-Pill, or Philo-Minister? Oh! may’st thou none of all thy titles lack, Or Scot, or Statesman, Baronet or Quack; For what is due to him, whose constant view is Preventing private, or a public lues?
Who, that read the above description, do not, during the first impression of it, suppose that they see the worthy Baronet once more the pride of front advertisements—once more dispensing disregard and oblivion amongst all his competitors; and making your Leakes, your Lockyers, and your Velnos,
—Hide their diminish’d heads.—
In the passages which immediately follow, the poet goes on to felicitate the community upon the probable advantages to be derived to them from the junction of this illustrious personage with our immaculate Minister. He divides his congratulations into two parts. He first considers the consequence of the union, as they may affect the body personal; and secondly, as they may concern the body politic. Upon the former subject, he says,
This famous pair, in happy league combin’d, No risques shall man from wand’ring beauty find; For, should not chaste example save from ill, There’s still a refuge in the other’s pill.
With a sketch equally brief and masterly as the above, he describes his hopes on the other branch of his division.
The body politic no more shall grieve The motley stains that dire corruptions leave; No dang’rous humours shall infest the state, Nor rotten Members hasten Britain’s fate.
Our author who, notwithstanding his usual and characteristic gravity, has yet not un-frequently an obvious tendency to the sportive, condescends now to take notice of a rumour, which in these times had been universally circulated, that Sir Samuel bad parted with his specific, and disposed of it to a gentleman often mentioned, and always with infinite and due respect, in the ROLLIAD, namely, Mr. Dundas.—Upon this he addresses Sir Samuel with equal truth and good-humour in the following couplet:
Then shall thy med’cine boast its native bent, Then spread its genuine blessing—to prevent.
Our readers cannot but know, it was by the means of a nostrum, emphatically called a Specific, that Mr. Dundas so long contrived to prevent the constitutional lues of a Parliamentary Reform. The author, however, does not profess, to give implicit credit to the fact of Sir Samuel’s having ungratefully disposed of his favourite recipe, the happy source of his livelihood and fame; the more so, as it appears that Mr. Dundas had found the very word specific sufficient for protracting a dreadful political evil on the three several instances of its application. Under this impression of the thing, the poet strongly recommends Sir Samuel to go on in the prosecution of his original profession, and thus expresses his wish upon the occasion, with the correct transcript of which we shall close the history of this great man:
In those snug corners be thy skill display’d, Where Nature’s tribute modestly is paid: Or near fam’d Temple-bar may some good dame, } Herself past sport, but yet a friend to game, } Disperse thy bills, and eternize thy fame. }
MERLIN now calls the attention of our hero to a man whom there is little doubt this country will long remember, and still less, that they will have abundant reason for so doing, namely, Mr. SECRETARY ORDE. It may seem odd by what latent association our author was led to appeal next to the Right Honourable Secretary, immediately after the description of a Quack Doctor; but let it be recollected in the first place, to the honour of Sir Samuel Hannay, that he is, perhaps, the only man of his order that ever had a place in the British House of Commons; and in the second, that there are some leading circumstances in the character of Mr. Orde, which will intitle him to rank under the very same description as the worthy Baronet himself. We all know that the most famous of all physicians, Le Medecin malgrÉ lui, is represented by Moliere, as a mart who changes the seat of the heart, and reverses the intire position of the vital parts of the human body. Now let it be asked, has not Mr. Orde done this most completely and effectually with respect to the general body of the state? Has he not transferred the heart of the empire? Has he not changed its circulation, and altered the situation of the vital part of the whole, from the left to the right, from the one side to the other, from Great Britain to Ireland?—Surely no one will deny this; and therefore none will be now ignorant of the natural gradation of thought, by which our author was led, from the contemplation of Sir Samuel Hannay, to the character of Mr. Orde.
We know not whether it be worth remarking, that the term Le Medecin malgrÉ lui, has been translated into English with the usual incivility of that people to every thing foreign, by the uncourtly phrase of Mock Doctor. We trust, however, that no one will think it applicable in this interpretation to Mr. Orde, as it is pretty evident he has displayed no mockery in his State Practices, but has performed the character of Moliere’s Medecin, even beyond the notion of the original; by having effected in sad and sober truth, to the full as complete a change in the position of the Coeur de l’Empire, as the lively fancy of the dramatist had imputed to his physician, with respect to the human body, in mere speculative joke.
With a great many apologies for so long a note, we proceed now to the much more pleasant part of our duty—that of transcribing from this excellent composition; and proceed to the description of Mr. Orde’s person, which the poet commences thus:
Tall and erect, unmeaning, mute, and pale, O’er his blank face no gleams of thought prevail; Wan as the man in classic story fam’d, Who told old PRIAM that his Ilion flam’d; Yet soon the time will come when speak he hall, And at his voice another Ilion fall!
The excellence of this description consists as that of a portrait always must, in a most scrupulous and inveterate attention to likeness.—Those who know the original, will not question the accuracy of resemblance on this occasion. The idea conveyed in the last line,
And at his voice another Ilion fall,
is a spirited imitation of the fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium, of Virgil, and a most statesmanlike anticipation of the future fate of England.
The author now takes an opportunity of shewing the profundity of his learning in British history. He goes on to say,
CÆSAR, we know, with anxious effort try’d To swell, with Britain’s name, his triumph’s pride: Oft he essay’d, but still essay’d in vain; Great in herself, she mock’d the menac’d chain. But fruitless all—for what was CÆSAR’s sword To thy all-conquering speeches, mighty ORDE!!!
Our author cannot so far resist his classical propensity in this place, as to refrain from the following allusion; which, however, must be confessed at least, to be applied with justice.
AMPHION’s lyre, they say, could raise a town; ORDE’s elocution pulls a Nation down.
He proceeds with equal spirit and erudition to another circumstance in the earlier periods of English history,
The lab’ring bosom of the teeming North Long pour’d, in vain, her valiant offspring forth; For GOTH or VANDAL, once on British shore, Relax’d his nerve, and conquer’d states no more. Not so the VANDAL of the modern time, This latter offspring of the Northern clime; He, with a breath, gives Britain’s wealth away, And smiles, triumphant, o’er her setting ray.
It will be necessary to observe here, that after much enquiry and very laborious search, as to the birth-place of the Right Honourable Secretary (for the honour of which, however difficult now to discover, Hibernia’s cities will, doubtless, hereafter contend) we found that he was born in NORTHUMBERLAND; which, added to other circumstances, clearly establishes the applicability of the description of the word Goth, &c. and particularly in the lines where he calls him the
———VANDAL of the modern time, The latter offspring of the Northern clime.
Having investigated, with an acumen and minuteness seldom incident to genius, and very rarely met with in the sublimer poetry, all the circumstances attending an event which he emphatically describes as the Revolution of seventeen hundred and eighty-five, he makes the following address to the English:
No more, ye English, high in classic pride, The phrase uncouth of Ireland’s sons deride; For say, ye wise, which most performs the fool, Or he who speaks, or he who acts—a BULL.
The Poet catches fire as he runs:
—Poetica surgit Tempestas.
He approximates now to the magnificent, or perhaps more properly to the mania of Poetry, and like another Cassandra, begins to try his skill at prophecy; like her he predicts truly, and like her, for the present at least, is not, perhaps, very implicitly credited.—He proceeds thus;
Rapt into future times, the Muse surveys The rip’ning; wonders of succeeding days: Sees Albion prostrate, all her splendour gone! In useless tears her pristine state bemoan; Sees the fair sources of her pow’r and pride In purer channels roll their golden tide; Sees her at once of wealth and honour shorn, No more the nations’ envy, but their scorn; A sad example of capricious fate, Portentous warning to the proud and great: Sees Commerce quit her desolated isle, And seek in other climes a kinder soil; Sees fair Ierne rise from England’s flame, And build on British ruin, Irish fame.
The Poet in the above passage, is supposed to have had an eye to Juno’s address to Æolus in the first book of the Æneid:
Gens inimica mihi Tyrrhenum navigat Æquor Ilium in Italiam portans, Victos que Penates.
* * * * *
NUMBER XII.
Though we have at length nearly exhausted the beauties of that part of our author’s work, in which the characters of the leading Members of the House of Commons are so poetically and forcibly delineated; we shall find, however, that the genius of the poet seems to receive fresh vigour, as he approaches the period of his exertions, in the illustrious Mr. ROLLE. What can be more sublime or picturesque than the following description!
Erect in person, see yon Knight advance, With trusty ’Squire, who bears his shield and lance; The Quixote HOWARD! Royal Windsor’s pride, And Sancho Panca POWNEY by his side; A monarch’s champion, with indignant frown, And haughty mein, he casts his gauntlet down; Majestic sits, and hears, devoid of dread, The dire Phillippicks whizzing round his head. Your venom’d shafts, ye sons of Faction spare; However keen, they cannot enter there.
And how well do these lines, immediately succeeding, describe the manner of speaking, which characterizes an orator of such considerable weight and authority:
He speaks, he speaks! Sedition’s chiefs around, With unfeign’d terror hear the solemn sound; While little POWNEY chears with livelier note, And shares his triumph in a silent vote.
Some have ignorantly objected to this as an instance of that figure for which a neighbouring kingdom is so generally celebrated, vulgarly distinguished by the appellation of a Bull; erroneously conceiving a silent vote to be incompatible with the vociferation here alluded to: those, however, who have attended parliamentary debates, will inform them, that numbers who most loudly exert themselves, in what is called chearing speakers, are not upon that account entitled to be themselves considered as such.—Our author has indeed done injustice to the worthy member in question, by classing him among the number of mutes, he having uniformly taken a very active part in all debates relating to the militia; of which truly constitutional body, he is a most respectable Pillar, and one of the most conspicuous ornaments.
It is unquestionably the highest praise we can bestow upon a member of the British House of Commons, to say, that he is a faithful representative of the people, and upon all occasions speaks the real sentiments of his constituents; nor can an honest ambition to attain the first dignities of the state, by honourable means, be ever imputed to him as a crime. The following encomium, therefore, must be acknowledged to have been justly merited by a noble Lord, whose independent and disinterested conduct has drawn upon him the censures of disappointed faction.
The Noble CONVERT, Berwick’s honour’d choice, That faithful echo of the people’s voice, One day, to gain an Irish title glad, For Fox he voted—so the people bad; ’Mongst English Lords ambitious grown to sit, Next day the people bade him vote for PITT: To join the stream our Patriot, nothing loth, By turns discreetly gave his voice to both.
The title of Noble convert, which was bestowed upon his Lordship by a Speaker of the degraded Whig faction, is here most judiciously adopted by our Author, implying thereby that this denomination, intended, no doubt, to convey a severe reproach, ought rather to be considered as a subject of panegyric: this is turning the artillery of the enemy against themselves—
“Neque lex est justior ulla, &c.”
In the next character introduced, some persons may perhaps object to the seeming impropriety of alluding to a bodily defect; especially one which has been the consequence of a most cruel accident; but when it is considered, that the mention of the personal imperfection is made the vehicle of an elegant compliment to the superior qualifications of the mind, this objection, though founded in liberality, will naturally fall to the ground.
The circumstance of one of the Representatives of the first city in the world having lost his leg, while bathing in the sea, by the bite of a shark, is well known; nor can the dexterity with which he avails himself of the use of an artificial one, have escaped the observation of those who have seen him in the House of Commons, any more than the remarkable humility with which he is accustomed to introduce his very pointed and important observations upon the matters in deliberation before that august assembly.
“One moment’s time might I presume to beg?” Cries modest WATSON, on his wooden leg; That leg, in which such wond’rous art is shown, It almost seems to serve him like his own; Oh! had the monster, who for breakfast eat That luckless limb, his nobler noddle met, The best of workmen, nor the best of wood, Had scarce supply’d him with a head so good.
To have asserted that neither the utmost extent of human skill, nor the greatest perfection in the materials, could have been equal to an undertaking so arduous, would have been a species of adulation so fulsome, as to have shocked the known modesty of the worthy magistrate; but the forcible manner in which the difficulty of supplying so capital a loss is expressed, conveys, with the utmost delicacy, a handsome, and, it must be confessed, a most justly merited compliment to the Alderman’s abilities.
The imitation of celebrated writers is recommended by Longinus, and has, as our readers must have frequently observed, been practised with great success, by our author; yet we cannot help thinking that he has pushed the precept of this great critic somewhat too far, in having condescended to copy, may we venture to say with so much servility, a genius so much inferior to himself as Mr. Pope. We allude to the following lines:
Can I, NEWHAVEN, FERGUSON forget, While Roman spirit charms, or Scottish wit? MACDONALD, shining a refulgent star, To light alike the senate and the bar; And HARLEY, constant to support the throne, Great follower of its interests and his own.
The substitution of Scottish for Attic, in the second line, is unquestionably an improvement, since however Attic wit may have been proverbial in ancient times, the natives of Scotland are so confessedly distinguished among modern nations for this quality, that the alteration certainly adds considerable force to the compliment. But however happily and justly the characters are here described, we cannot think this merit sufficient to counterbalance the objection we have presumed to suggest, and which is principally founded upon the extreme veneration and high respect we entertain for the genius of our author.
Mr. Addison has observed, that Virgil falls infinitely short of Homer in the characters of his Epic Poem, both as to their variety and novelty, but he could not with justice have said the same of the author of the ROLLIAD; and we will venture to assert, that the single book of this Poem, now under our consideration, is, in this respect, superior to the whole, both of the Iliad and the Æneid together. The characters succeed each other with a rapidity that scarcely allows the reader time to admire and feel their several beauties.
GALWAY and GIDEON, in themselves a host, Of York and Coventry the splendid boast: WHITBREAD and ONGLEY, pride of Bedford’s vale, This fam’d for selling, that for saving ale; And NANCY POULETT, as the morning fair, Bright as the sun, but common as the air; Inconstant nymph! who still with open arms, To ev’ry Minister devotes her charms.
But when the Poet comes to describe the character of the hero of his work, the present Member for the county of Devon, whom MERLIN points out to his illustrious ancestor, as uniting in himself all the Various merits of the worthies whose excellencies he has recorded, he seems to rise even above himself.—It is impossible to do justice to his character, without transcribing the whole, which would exceed the limits of our work; we shall therefore only give to our readers the concluding lines, because they contain characteristic observations upon other distinguished Members, most of whom have hitherto passed unnoticed:
In thee, my son, shall ev’ry virtue meet, To form both senator and man complete: A mind like WRAY’s, with stores of fancy fraught, The wise Sir WATKIN’s vast extent of thought; Old NUGENT’s style, sublime, yet ne’er obscure, With BAMBER’s Grammar, as his conscience pure; BRETT’s brilliant sallies, MARTIN’s sterling sense, And GILBERT’s wit, that never gave offence: Like WILKES, a zealot in his Sovereign’s cause, Learn’d as MACDONALD in his country’s laws; Acute as AUDREY, as Sir LLOYD polite, As EASTWICKE lively, and as AMBLER bright.
The justice of [1] the compliment to SIR CECIL WRAY, will not be disputed by those who have been fortunate enough to have met with the beautiful specimens of juvenile poetry, with which some of his friends have lately indulged the public.
Johannes Scriblerus, a lineal descendant of the learned and celebrated Martinus, reads “Starling Martin’s sense,” alluding to that powerful opponent of the detestable Coalition having recommended that a bird of that species should be placed on the right of the Speaker’s chair, after having been taught to repeat the word Coalition, in order to remind the House of that disgraceful event, which had nearly established an efficient and strong government in this country: to which severe and admirable stroke of satire, the object of it clumsily and uncivilly answered, that whilst that gentleman sat in the House, he believed the Starling might be allowed to perform his office by deputy. We have, however, ventured to differ from this great authority, and shall continue to read, “Martin’s Sterling sense,” as well because we are of opinion that these words are peculiarly applicable to the gentleman alluded to, as that it does not appear probable our author should have been willing to make his poem the vehicle of an indecent sarcasm, upon a person of such eminent abilities.
The compliment to Mr. B.G. in the comparison of the purity of his language to the integrity of his conduct, is happily conceived; but that to the ingenious Mr. Gilbert, the worthy Chairman of the Committee of Supply, is above all praise, and will, we are persuaded, notwithstanding the violence of party, by all sides be admitted to be strictly just.
[1] The characteristic of Fancy, which our Poet has attributed to Sir Cecil, must not be misunderstood. It is a Fancy of the chastized kind; distinguished for that elegant simplicity, which the French call naÏvetÉ, and the Greeks afe?e?a. We shall insert here two or three of the shorter specimens.
To CÆLIA (now Lady Wray) on seeing her the 8th of August, 1776, powdering her hair
EXTEMPORE.
Thy locks, I trow, fair maid, Don’t never want this aid: Wherefore thy powder spare, And only comb thy hair.
To SIR JOSEPH MAWBEY, proposing, in consequence of a previous Engagement, a Party to go a-fishing for White-Bait.
Worthy SIR JOE, we all are wishing You’ll come with us a-White-Bait-fishing.
A Thought on NEW MILK some Time toward the Spring of the Year 1773.
Oh! how charming is New Milk! Sweet as sugar!—smooth as silk!
An IDEA on a PECK of COALS.
I buy my Coals by peck, that we May have ’em fresh and fresh, d’ye see.
* * * * *
NUMBER XIII.
After concluding the review of the Ministerialists with the young Marcellus of the Poem, the illustrious Mr. ROLLE; our author directs the attention of DUKE ROLLO to the Opposition-bench. He notices the cautious silence of MERLIN relative to that side of the House, and rather inquisitively asks the reason; on which the Philosopher (a little unphilosophically, we must confess) throws himself into a violent passion, and for a long time is wholly incapable of articulating a syllable. This is a common situation in poets both ancient and modern, as in Virgil and Milton;
Ter conata loqui, &c. Thrice he essay’d, and thrice in spight of scorn Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth, &c.
but we will venture to assert, that it was never painted in a manner half so lively, as by the author of the ROLLIAD.
Thrice he essay’d, but thrice in vain essay’d; His tongue, throat, teeth, and lips, refus’d their aid: Till now the stifled breath a passage broke; He gasp’d, he gap’d—but not a word he spoke.
How accurately, and learnedly, has the poet enumerated all the organs of speech, which separately and jointly refuse to execute their respective offices! How superior is this to the simply cleaving of the tongue to the palate, the Vox faucibus hÆsit of Virgil. For as Quintilian observes, a detail of particulars is infinitely better than any general expression, however strong. Then the poor Prophet obtains a little remission of his paroxysm; he begins to breathe convulsively—he gasped; he opens his mouth to its utmost extent—he gaped; our expectations are raised, and, alas! he still continues unable to utter—not a word he spoke. Surely nothing can be more natural in point of truth, than all the circumstances of this inimitable description: nothing more artful in point of effect, than the suspence and attention which it begets in the mind of the reader!
At length, however, MERLIN recovers his voice; and breaks out into a strain of most animated invective, infinitely superior to every thing of the kind in Homer; though the old Grecian must be acknowledged not to want spirit in the altercations, or scolding matches, of his heroes and Gods. The Prophet begins, as a man in any great emotion always must, at the middle of a verse;
And in this manner he proceeds, with single appellatives of reproach, for ten or twelve lines further; when, his virtuous indignation a little subsiding, or his Dictionary failing, he becomes more circumlocutory; as for instance,
Burglarious Scoundrels, that again would steal The PREMIER’s Plate, and CHANCELLOR’s Great Seal; Of public Murderers, Patrons and Allies, Hirelings of France, their country’s enemies, &c.
which style he continues for more than twenty lines.
We are truly sorry, that the boundaries of our plan would not allow us to present our readers with the whole of this finished passage in detail; as it furnishes an indisputable proof, that, however the Greek language may have been celebrated for its copiousness, it must yield in that respect to the English. For if we were to collect all the terms of infamy bandied about[1], from Æschines to Demosthenes, and from Demosthenes back again to Æschines; and if to these we should add in Latin the whole torrent of calumny poured by Cicero on Antony and Piso; though the ancient orators were tolerably fluent in this kind of eloquence, they would, all together, be found to fall very short of our poet, shackled as he is with rhyme, in the force no less than the variety of his objurgatory epithets. At the same time it must not be concealed, that he possessed one very considerable advantage in the rich repositories of our ministerial newspapers. He has culled the flowers, skimmed the cream, and extracted the very quintessence of those elegant productions with equal industry and success. Indeed, such of our readers as are conversant with the Morning Post and Public Advertiser, the White-Hall, the St. James’s, and, in short, the greater part of the evening prints, will immediately discover the passage now before us to be little more than a cento. It is however such a cento as indicates the man of genius, whom puny scribblers may in vain endeavour to imitate in the NEW ROLLIADS.
It is possible, MERLIN might even have gone on much longer: but he is interrupted by one of those disturbances which frequently prevail in the House of Commons. The confusion is finely described in the following broken couplet:
Spoke! Spoke!—Sir—Mr. Speaker—Order there! I rise—spoke! Question! Question!—Chair! Chair! Chair!
This incident is highly natural, and introduced with the greatest judgment, as it gives another opportunity of exhibiting Mr. ROLLE, and in a situation, where he always appears with conspicuous pre-eminence.
Great ROLLO look’d, amaz’d; nor without fears, His hands applied by instinct to his ears: He look’d, and lo! amid the wild acclaim Discern’d the future glory of his name; O’er this new Babel of the noisy croud, More fierce than all, more turbulent, more loud. Him yet he heard, with thund’ring voice contend, “Him first, him last, him midst, him without end.”
This concluding line our author has condescended to borrow from Milton; but how apposite and forcible is the application! How emphatically does it express the noble perseverance with which the Member for Devonshire has been known to persist on these occasions, in opposition to the Speaker himself.
ROLLO, however, is at length wearied, as the greatest admirers of Mr. ROLLE have sometimes been, with the triumphs of his illustrious descendant.
But ROLLO, as he clos’d his ears before, Now tired, averts his eyes to see no more. Observant MERLIN, while he turn’d his head, The lantern shifted, and the vision fled.
To understand this last line, our reader must recollect, that though the characters introduced in this vision are preternaturally endowed with seeming powers of speech, yet the forms or shadows of them are shewn by means of a magic lantern.
Having now concluded our observations upon this part of the Poem—we shall close them with remarking, that as our author evidently borrowed the idea of this vision, in which the character of future times are described, from Virgil, he has far surpassed his original; and as his description of the present House of Commons, may not improbably have called to his mind the PandÆmonium of Milton, we do not scruple to assert, that in the execution of his design, that great master of the sublime has fallen infinitely short of him.
[1] More particularly in their two famous orations, which, are entitled “On the Crown.”
* * * * *
NUMBER XIV.
Our readers may possibly think, that verses enough have been already devoted to the celebration of Mr. ROLLE; the Poet, however, is not of the same opinion. To crown the whole, he now proceeds to commemorate the column which is shortly to be erected on the spot, where the Member for Devonshire formerly went to School, application having been made to Parliament for leave to remove the school from its present situation; and a motion being intended to follow, for appropriating a sum of money to mark the scene and record the fact of Mr. ROLLE’s education, for the satisfaction of posterity, who might otherwise have been left in a state of uncertainty, whether this great man had any education at all.
MERLIN first shews ROLLO the school. The transition to this object from the present House of Commons is easy and obvious. Indeed, the striking similarity between the two visions is observed by ROLLO in the following passage:
The Hero sees, thick-swarming round the place, In bloom of early youth, a busy race; Propria quÆ maribus, with barbarous sound, Syntax and prosody his ear confound, “And say (he cries), Interpreter of fate, Oh! say, is this some jargon of debate? What means the din, and what the scene? proclaim; Is this another vision, or the same? For trust me, Prophet, to my ears, my eyes, A second House of Commons seems to rise.”
MERLIN however rectifies the mistake of the good Duke: and points out to him his great descendant, in the shape of a lubberly boy, as remarkably mute on this occasion, as we lately found him in the House,
More fierce than all, more turbulent, more loud.
The flaggellation of Mr. ROLLE succeeds, which, as MERLIN informs ROLLO, is his daily discipline. The sight of the rod, which the PÆdagogue flourishes with a degree of savage triumph over the exposed, and bleeding youth, awakens all the feelings of the ancestor:
Stay, monster, stay! he cries in hasty mood, Throw that dire weapon down—behold my blood!
We quote this couplet the rather, because it proves our author to be as good a Critic as a Poet. For the last line is undoubtedly a new reading of Virgil’s,
Projice tela manu,—Sanguis meus!
And how much more spirited is this interpretation,
——— ——— ———Behold my blood!
than the commonly received construction of the Latin words, by which they are made to signify simply, “O my son!” and that too with the assistance of a poetical licence. There is not a better emendation in all the Virgilius Restauratus of the learned Martinus Scriblerus.
On the exclamation of ROLLO, which we have just quoted, the Prophet, perceiving that he has moved his illustrious visitor a little too far, administers every consolation,
“Thy care dismiss (the Seer replied, and smil’d) Tho’ rods awhile may weal the sacred child, In vain ten thousand [1]BUSBIES should employ Their pedant arts his genius to destroy; In vain at either end thy ROLLE assail, To learning proof alike at head and tail.”
Accordingly this assurance has its proper effect in calming the mind of the Duke.
But the great topic of comfort, or we should rather say of exultation, to him, is the prophecy of the column, with which MERLIN concludes his speech:
Where now he suffers, on this hallow’d land, A Column, public Monument, shall stand: And many a bard around the sculptur’d base, In many a language his renown shall trace; In French, Italian, Latin, and in Greek; That all, whose curious search this spot shall seek, May read, and reading tell at home, return’d, How much great ROLLE was flogg’d, how little learn’d.
What a noble, and what a just character of the great ROLLE is contained in the last line! A mind tinctured with modern prejudices may be at a loss to discover the compliment. But our author is a man of erudition and draws his ideas from ancient learning, even where he employs that learning, like [2]Erasmus and the admirable Creichton, in praise of ignorance. Our classical readers, therefore, will see in this portrait of Mr. ROLLE, the living resemblance of the ancient Spartans; a people the pride of Greece, and admiration of the world, who are peculiarly distinguished in history for their systematic contempt of the fine arts, and the patience with which they taught their children to bear floggings.
The School now vanishes, and the Column rises, properly adorned with the inscriptions, which the philosopher explains. But as we have been favoured with correct copies of the inscriptions themselves, which were selected from a much greater number composed by our universities, we shall here desert our Poet, and present the public with the originals.
The two first are in Greek; and agreeably to the usual style of Greek inscriptions, relate the plain fact in short and simple, but elegant and forcible, phraseology.
The word ?e????e?? is not to be found in our Lexicons; but we presume, that it means, “to speak the dialect of Devonshire;” from ?e???a, which is Greek for Devonshire. Accordingly, we have so rendered it in a translation, which we have attempted for the benefit of the country gentlemen and the ladies.
The senate’s wonder, ROLLE [3]of mighty tongue, Here first his Devonshire unlearn’d when young.
How simple, yet how full, is the expression of this distich! How perfectly does it agree with the notion, which our poet has inculcated, of Mr. ROLLE! He was employed at school not to learn but to unlearn; his whole progress, was, like a crab’s, backward.
There is a beauty in the Greek which it is impossible to preserve in English; the word which we have translated “unlearned,” is in the imperfect tense: and, in the nicety of that accurate language implies, that the action was begun, but not completed; that Mr. ROLLE made some proficiency in unlearning his Devonshire; but had not effectually accomplished it during his stay at the school.
The other Greek inscription has something more ingenious, from a seeming paradox in the turn of it:
He, who to learning nothing owes, Here ROLLE, a boy, learn’d all he knows.
By which concluding word “knows,” we must certainly understand acquired knowledge only; since Mr. ROLLE has been celebrated by our Poet in the most unequivocal manner, as may be seen in the twelfth number of our Criticisms, for his great natural faculties. The sense of this last Epigram will then be merely, that the Member for Devonshire had no particle of acquired knowledge; but is an a?t?d?da?t??, a self-taught scholar, a character so much admired in ancient times. The Latin inscription is as follows:
Hic ferulÆ, dextram, hÎc, virgis cÆdenda magistri, Nuda dedit patiens tergora ROLLIADES. At non ROLLIADEN domuerunt verbera; non, quÆ Nescio quid gravius prÆmonuere, minÆ, Ah! quoties illum Æqualis mirata corona est Nec lacrymam in pÆnis rumpere, nec gemitum! Ah! quoties, cum supplicio jam incumberet, ipsi [4]Orbillo cecidit victa labore manus! I, puer; I, forti tolerando pectore plagas, Æmula ROLLIADÆ nomina disce sequi.
Here to the ferule ROLLE his hand resign’d, Here to the rod he bar’d the parts behind; But him no stripes subdu’d, and him no fear Of menac’d wrath in future more severe. How oft the youthful circle wond’ring saw That pain from him nor tear, nor groan could draw! How oft, when still unmoved, he long’d to jerk, The master’s wearied hand forsook the work! Go, boy; and scorning rods, or ferules, aim By equal worth to rival ROLLE in fame.
The beauty of these lines, we presume, is too obvious to require any comment. We will confidently affirm, that they record as glorious an example of patience as any to be found in all the History of the Flagellants, though the ingenious M. De Lolme has extended the subject into a handsome Quarto.
The Italian inscription is a kind of short dialogue, in which the traveller is introduced, demanding the name of the person to whom the pillar is erected.
A chi si sta questa colonna? Al ROLLE; Che di parlar apprese in questo loco Greco e Latino nÒ, ma Inglese—un poco. Basta cosÌ. Chi non sa il resto, È folle.
This abrupt conclusion we think very fine. It has however been censured as equivocal. Some critics have urged, that the same turn has, in fact, been applied equally to men greatly famous and greatly infamous; to Johannes Mirandula, and Colonel Chartres: and in the present case, say these cavillers, it may be construed to signify either that the rest is too well known to require repetition, or that there is nothing more to be known. But the great character of Mr. ROLLE will at once remove all ambiguity.
The French inscription was furnished by Mr. ROLLE himself on the day of his election. The idea was first expressed by him in English, and then done into French verse by the [5] Dutch dancing master at Exeter, to whom Mr. ROLLE is indebted for his extraordinary proficiency in that science.
Ne pouvoir point parler À mon chien je reproche; Moi, j’acquis en ces lieux le don de la parole: Je vais donc, & bien vite, À Londres par le coche, Faire entendre au Senat, que je suis un vrai ROLLE.
The par le coche seems to be an addition of the Dancing-master, who was certainly no very great Poet, as appears by his use of feminine rhymes only, without any mixture of masculine: an irregularity perfectly inadmissible, as all our polite readers must know, in the nicety of French prosody. We shall subjoin for the entertainment of our readers an inscription in the parish school at Rouen, which was written about a century since on the original Rollo.
Ici ROLLON fessÉ soir & matin, Beaucoup souffrit, point n’apprit se Latin. Aux fiers combats bien mieux joua son rÔle: Tuer des gens lui parut chose drÔle. Femme epousa, plus douce que satin, Et, par bonheur, dÉjÀ veuve & catin; D’elle reÇut un fils & la v———le. Ainsi, Lecteur, naquit le premier ROLLE!
But to return to our author. After the vision of the column, MERLIN proceeds in a short speech to intimate to ROLLO, that higher honours may yet await his descendant in the House of Lords,
Where ROLLE may be, what ROLLO was before.
This, as may be naturally supposed, excites the curiosity of the Duke; but MERLIN declares, that it is not permitted him to reveal the glories of the Upper house. The hero must first fulfil his fates, by mortally wounding the Saxon drummer, whom Providence shall inspire in his last moments for this particular purpose.
Ere yet thou know, what higher honours wait Thy future race, accomplish them thy fate. When now the bravest of our Saxon train Beneath thy conquering arms shall press the plain; What yet remains, his voice divine in death Shall tell, and Heav’n for this shall lengthen out his breath.
Which last line is most happily lengthened out into an Alexandrine, to make the sound an echo to the sense. The pause too after the words “shall tell,” finely marks the sudden catches and spasmodic efforts of a dying man. Some extracts from the Drummer’s prophecies have already been given to the public; and from these specimens of his loquacity with a thurst in quarte through his lungs, our readers will probably see the propriety with which the immediate hand of Heaven is here introduced. The most rigid critic will not deny that here is truly the
Dignus vindice nodus,
which Horace requires to justify the interposition of a Divinity.
We are now come to the concluding lines of the sixth book. Our readers are probably acquainted with the commonly-received superstition relative to the exit of Magicians, that they are carried away by Devils. The poet has made exquisite use of this popular belief, though he could not help returning in the last line to his favourite Virgil. Classical observers will immediately perceive the allusion to
———Revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras Hic labor, hoc opus est;
in the description of ROLLO’s re-ascent from the night-cellar into the open air.
The Prophet foreseeing his instant end,
“At once, farewel,” he said. But, as he said, Like mortal bailiffs to the sight array’d, Two fiends advancing seiz’d, and bore away To their dark dens the much-resisting prey: While ROLLO nimbly clamber’d in a fright, Tho’ steep and difficult the way, to light.
And thus ends the sixth book of the ROLLIAD; which we have chosen for the subject of the FIRST PART of our CRITICISMS. In the second part, which is now going on in the Morning-Herald, where the first draughts of the present numbers were originally published, we shall pursue our Commentary through the House of Peers; and in a third part, for which we are now preparing and arranging materials, it is our intention to present our readers with a series of anecdotes from the political history of our ministry, which our author has artfully contrived to interweave in his inimitable poem.
And here, while we are closing this first Part, we cannot but congratulate ourselves, that we have been the humble instruments of first calling the attention of the learned to this wonderful effort of modern genius, the fame of, which has already exceeded the limits of this island, and perhaps may not be circumscribed by the present age; which, we have the best reason to believe, will very shortly diffuse the glory of our present Rulers in many and distant quarters of the globe; and which may not improbably descend to exhibit them in their true colours to remote posterity. That we indeed imagine our Criticisms to have contributed very much to this great popularity of the ROLLIAD, we will not attempt to conceal. And this persuasion shall animate us to continue our endeavours with redoubled application, that we may complete, as early as possible, the design, which we have some time since formed to ourselves, and which we have now submitted to the Public; happy, if that which is yet to come, be received with the same degree of favour as this, which is now finished, so peculiarly experienced even in its most imperfect condition.
[1] Dr. Busby, formerly master of Westminster school, was famous for his consumption of birch. MERLIN uses his name here by the spirit of prophecy.
[2] Erasmus wrote an Encomium of Folly, with abundant wit and learning. For Creichton, see the Adventurer.
[3] The literal English is “vehement mouth of oratory.”
[4] A great flogger of antiquity, ———Memini quÆ plagosum mihi parvo Orbilium dictare. HOR.
[5] Mynheer Hoppingen Van Caperagen, who soon after the publication of our first authentic Edition, sent the following letter to Mr. Ridgway:
D’Exeter, ce 18 Avril, 1785.
“Je suis fort etonnÉ. Monsieur, que vous ayez eu la hardiesse d’admettre dans “La Critique de la Rolliade,” une accusation contre moi qui n’est nullement fondÉe, et qui tend À me nuire dans l’esprit de tous les amateurs des beaux arts. Sachez, Monsieur, que je me suis donnÉ la peine de traduire mot À mot la cÉlÉbrÉ inscription, de mon digne ÉlÈve et protecteur, Mr. Rolle; que je n’y ai rien ajoutÉ, et que dans le vers oÙ il est question du coche, votre Critique n’auroit dÛ voir qu’une preuve de l’Économie de mon susdit MÉcene. Quant aux rimes fÉminines que l’auteur me reproche avec tant d’aigreur, je vous dirai qu’il n’y a rien de mÂle dans l’esprit de Mr. Rolle, et que j’aurois blessÉ sa delicatesse en m’y prenant autrement; d’ailleurs je me moque des usages, et je ne veux pas que mes vers sautent À clochepied, comme ceux des poËtes FranÇois, qui n’entendent rien À la danse. Je ne doute pas que vous approuviez mon sentiment lÀ-dessus, et que vous me fassiez rendre justice sur l’objet de ma plainte: en attendant, je vous prie de croire que je suis, avec le plus vif attachment, Monsieur, votre trÈs obeissant serviteur, HOPPINGEN VAN CAPERAGEN.”
