* * * * *

NUMBER I.

We have now followed our admirable author through the Sixth Book of his poem; very much to our own edification, and, we flatter ourselves, no less to the satisfaction of our readers. We have shewn the art with which he has introduced a description of the leading characters of our present House of Commons, by a contrivance something similar indeed to that employed by Virgil, but at the same time sufficiently unlike to substantiate his own claim to originality. And surely every candid critic will admit, that had he satisfied himself with the same device, in order to panegyrize his favourites in the other House, he would have been perfectly blameless. But to the writer of the ROLLIAD, it was not sufficient to escape censure; he must extort our praise, and excite our admiration.

Our classical readers will recollect, that all Epic Heroes possess in common with the poets who celebrate their actions, the gift of prophecy; with this difference however, that poets prophecy while they are in sound health, whereas the hero never begins to talk about futurity, until he has received such a mortal wound in his lungs as would prevent any man but a hero from talking at all: and it is probably in allusion to this circumstance, that the power of divination is distinguished in North Britain by the name of SECOND SIGHT, as commencing when common vision ends. This faculty has been attributed to dying warriors, both by Homer and Virgil; but neither of these poets have made so good use of it as our author, who has introduced into the last dying speech of the Saxon Drummer, the whole birth, parentage, and education, life, character, and behaviour, of all those benefactors of their country, who at present adorn the House of Peers, thereby conforming himself to modern usage, and at the same time distinguishing the victorious Rollo’s prowess in subduing an adversary, who dies infinitely harder than either Turnus or Hector.

Without farther comment, we shall now proceed to favour our readers with a few extracts. The first Peer mentioned by the Dying Drummer, is the present Marquis of Buckingham: his appearance is ushered in by an elegant panegyric on his father, Mr. George Grenville, of which we shall only give the concluding lines:

George, in whose subtle brain, if Fame say true, Full-fraught with wars, the fatal stamp-act grew; Great financier! stupenduous calculator!— But, George the son is twenty-one times greater!

It would require a volume, not only to point out all the merits of the last line, but even to do justice to that Pindaric spirit, that abrupt beauty, that graceful aberration from rigid grammatical contexts, which appears in the single word but. We had however a further intention in quoting this passage, viz. to assert our author’s claim to the invention of that species of MORAL ARITHMETIC, which, by the means of proper additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions, ascertains the relative merits of two characters more correctly than any other mode of investigation hitherto invented. Lord Thurlow, when he informed the House of Peers, that, “one Hastings is worth twenty Macartneys,” had certainly the merit of ascertaining the comparative value of the two men in whole numbers, and without a fraction. He likewise enabled his auditors, by means of the rule of three, to find out the numerical excellence of any other individual; but to compare Lord Thurlow with our author, would be to compare the scholar with the inventor; to compare a common house-steward with Euclid or Archimedes. We now return to the poem.

After the lines already quoted, our dying drummer breaks out into the following wonderful apostrophe:

Approach, ye sophs, who, in your northern den,
Wield, with both hands, your huge didactic pen;
Who, step by step, o’er Pindus’ up-hill road,
Drag slowly on your learning’s pond’rous load:
Though many a shock your perilous march encumbers,
Ere the stiff prose can struggle into numbers;
And you, at comets’ tails, who fondly stare,
And find a mistress in the lesser bear;
And you, who, full with metaphysics fraught,
Detect sensation starting into thought,
And trace each sketch by Memory’s hand design’d
On that strange magic lantern call’d the MIND;
And you, who watch each loit’ring empire’s fate;
Who heap up fact on fact, and date on date;
Who count the threads that fill the mystic loom,
Where patient vengeance wove the fate of Rome;
Who tell that wealth unnerv’d her soldier’s hand, }
That Folly urg’d the fate by traitor’s plann’d; }
Or, that she fell—because she could not stand: }
Approach, and view, in this capacious mind,
Your scatter’d science in one mass combin’d:
Whate’er tradition tells, or poets sing,
Of giant-killing John, or John the King;
Whate’er———

But we are apprehensive that our zeal has already hurried us too far, and that we have exceeded the just bounds of this paper. We shall therefore take some future opportunity of reverting to the character of this prodigious nobleman, who possesses, and deserves to possess, so distinguished a share in his master’s confidence. Suffice it to say, that our author does full justice to every part of his character. He considers him as a walking warehouse of facts of all kinds, whether relating to history, astronomy, metaphysics, heraldry, fortifications, naval tactics, or midwifery; at the same time representing him as a kind of haberdasher of small talents, which he retails to the female part of his family, instructing them in the mystery of precedence, the whole art of scented pomatums, the doctrine of salves for broken heads, of putty for broken windows, &c. &c. &c.

* * * * *

NUMBER II.

We now return to the dying drummer, whom we left in the middle of his eulogy on the Marquis of Buckingham.

It being admitted, that the powers of the human mind depend on the number and association of our ideas, it is easy to shew that the illustrious Marquis is entitled to the highest rank in the scale of human intelligence. His mind possesses an unlimited power of inglutition, and his ideas adhere to each other with such tenacity, that whenever his memory is stimulated by any powerful interrogatory, it not only discharges a full answer to that individual question, but likewise such a prodigious flood of collateral knowledge, derived from copious and repeated infusions, as no common skull would be capable of containing. For these reasons, his Lordship’s fitness for the department of the Admiralty, a department connected with the whole cyclopoedia of science, and requiring the greatest variety of talents and exertions, seems to be pointed out by the hand of Heaven;—it is likewise pointed out by the dying drummer, who describes in the following lines, the immediate cause of his nomination:—

On the great day, when Buckingham, by pairs
Ascended, Heaven impell’d, the K———’s back-stairs;
And panting breathless, strain’d his lungs to show
From Fox’s bill what mighty ills would flow:
That soon, its source corrupt, Opinion’s thread,
On India’s deleterious streams wou’d shed;
That Hastings, Munny Begum, Scott, must fall,
And Pitt, and Jenkinson, and Leadenhall;
Still, as with stammering tongue, he told his tale,
Unusual terrors Brunswick’s heart assail;
Wide starts his white wig from his royal ear,
And each particular hair stands stiff with fear,

We flatter ourselves that few of our readers are so void of taste, as not to feel the transcendant beauties of this description. First, we see the noble Marquis mount the fatal steps “by pairs,” i.e. by two at a time; and with a degree of effort and fatigue: and then he is out of breath, which is perfectly natural. The obscurity of the third couplet, an obscurity which has been imitated by all the ministerial writers on the India bill, arises from a confusion of metaphor, so inexpressibly beautiful, that Mr. Hastings has thought fit to copy it almost verbatum, in his celebrated letter from Lucknow. The effects of terror on the royal wig, are happily imagined, and are infinitely more sublime than the “steteruntque comÆ” of the Roman poet; as the attachment of a wig to its wearer, is obviously more generous and disinterested than that of the person’s own hair, which naturally participates in the good or ill fortune of the head on which it grows. But to proceed.—Men in a fright are usually generous;—on that great day, therefore, the Marquis obtained the promise of the Admiralty. The dying drummer then proceeds to describe the Marquis’s well-known vision, which he prefaces by a compliment on his Lordship’s extraordinary proficiency in the art of lace-making. We have all admired the parliamentary exertions of this great man, on every subject that related to an art in which the county of Buckingham is so deeply interested; an art, by means of which Britannia (as our author happily expresses it)

Puckers round naked breasts, a decent trimming,
Spreads the thread trade, and propagates old women!

How naturally do we feel disposed to join with the dying drummer, in the pathetic apostrophe which he addresses to his hero, when he foresees that this attention will necessarily be diverted to other objects:—

Alas! no longer round thy favorite STOWE,
Shalt thou the nicer arts to artists show,
No more on thumb-worn cushions deign to trace,
With critic touch, the texture of bone-lace;
And from severer toils, some moments robbing!
Reclaim the vagrant thread, or truant bobbin!
Far, other scenes of future glory rise,
To glad thy sleeping, and thy waking eyes;
As busy fancy paints the gaudy dream,
Ideal docks, with shadowy navies teem:
Whate’er on sea, on lake, or river floats,
Ships, barges, rafts, skiffs, tubs, flat-bottom’d boats,
Smiths, sailors, carpenters, in busy crowds,
Mast, cable, yard, sail, bow-sprit, anchor, shrowds,
Knives, gigs, harpoons, swords, handspikes, cutlass blades,
Guns, pistols, swivels, cannons, carronades:
All rise to view!—All blend in gorgeous show!
Tritons and tridents, turpentine, tar—tow!

We will take upon ourselves to attest, that neither Homer nor Virgil ever produced any thing like this. How amiable, how interesting, is the condescension of the illustrious Marquis, while he assists the old women in his neighbourhood in making bone-lace! How artfully is the modest appearance of the aforesaid old women’s cushions (which we are also told were dirty cushions) contrasted with the splendor and magnificence of the subsequent vision! How masterly is the structure of the last verse, and how nobly does the climax rise from tritons and tridents—from objects which are rather picturesque than necessary—to that most important article tow! an article “without which,” in the opinion of Lord Mulgrave, “it would be impossible to fit out a single ship.”

The drummer is next led to investigate the different modes of meliorating our navy; in the course of which he introduces the Marquis’s private thoughts on flax and forest-trees; the natural history of nettles, with proofs of their excellence in making cables; a project to produce aurum fulminans from Pinchbeck’s metal, instead of gold, occasioned by admiral Barrington’s complaint of bad powder; a discussion of Lord Ferrers’s mathematical mode of ship-building; and a lamentation on the pertinacity with which his Lordship’s vessels have hitherto refused to sail. The grief of the Marquis on this occasion, awaking all our sympathy—

Sighing, he struck his breast, and cried, “Alas!
Shall a three decker’s huge unwieldy mass,
’Mid croud of foes, stand stupidly at bay,
And by rude force, like Ajax, gain the day?
No!—let Invention!———”

And at the moment his Lordship becomes pregnant, and is delivered of a project that solves every difficulty.

The reader will recollect Commodore Johnstone’s discovery, that “the aliquot parts being equal to the whole, two frigates are indisputably tantamount to a line of battle-ship; nay, that they are superior to it, as being more manageable.” Now, a sloop being more docile than a frigate, and a cutter more versatile than a sloop, &c. &c. is it not obvious that the force of any vessel must be in an inverse ratio to its strength? Hence, Lord Buckingham most properly observes,

Our light arm’d fleet will spread a general panic,
For speed is power, says Pinchbeck, the mechanic.

The only objection to this system, is the trite professional idea, that ships having been for some years past in the habit of sailing directly forwards, must necessarily form and fight in a straight line; but according to Lord Buckingham’s plan, the line of battle in future is to be like the line of beauty, waving and tortuous; so that if the French, who confessedly are the most imitative people on the earth, should wish to copy our manoeuvres, their larger ships will necessarily be thrown into confusion, and consequently be beaten.

But as Sir Gregory Page Turner finely says, “infallibility is not given to human nature.” Our prodigious Marquis, therefore, diffident of his talents, and not yet satisfied with his plan, rakes into that vast heap of knowledge, which he has collected from reading, and forms into one compost, all the naval inventions of every age and country, in order to meliorate and fertilize the colder genius of Great Britain. “In future,” says the drummer,

All ages, and all countries, shall combine,
To form our navy’s variegated line.
Like some vast whale, or all-devouring shark,
High in the midst shall rise old Noah’s ark:
Or, if that ark be lost, of equal bulk,
Our novel Noah rigs—the Justice Hulk:
An Argo next, the peerless Catherine sends,
The gorgeous gift of her Mingrelian friends:

Here we cannot repress our admiration at the drummer’s skill in geography and politics. He not only tells us that Mingrelia is the ancient Colchis, the country visited by the Argonauts, the country which was then so famous for its fleeces, and which even now sends so many virgins to the Grand Seignior’s seraglio, but he foresees the advantages that will be derived to the navy of this kingdom, by the submission of his Mingrelian majesty to the Empress of Russia. But to proceed:

And next, at our Canadian brethren’s pray’r,
Ten stout triremes the good pope shall spare!

We apprehend, with all due submission to the drummer, that here is a small mistake. Our Canadian brethren may indeed possess great influence with the Pope, on account of their perseverance in the Catholic religion; but as all the triremes in his holiness’s possession are unfortunately in bass-relief and marble, we have some doubt of their utility at sea.

Light-arm’d evaas, canoes that seem to fly,
Our faithful Oberea shall supply:
Gallies shall Venice yield. Algiers, xebecs—
But thou, Nanquin, gay yachts with towering decks;
While fierce Kamtschatka———

But it is unnecessary to transcribe all the names of places mentioned by our drummer in sailing eastward towards Cape Horn, and westward to the Cape of Good Hope. We flatter ourselves that we have sufficiently proved the stupendous and almost unnatural excellence of the new Lord Buckingham; and that we have shewn the necessity of innovation in the navy as well as in the constitution; we therefore shall conclude this number, by expressing our hope and assurance, that the salutary amputations which are meditated by the two state surgeons, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Wyvill, will speedily be followed by equally skilful operations in our marine; and that the prophecy of the dying drummer will be fulfilled in the completion of that delightful event—the nomination of the noble Marquis to the department of the admiralty!

* * * * *

NUMBER III.

Having concluded his description of the Marquis of Buckingham, our expiring prophet proceeds to the contemplation of other glories, hardly less resplendent than those of the noble Marquis himself. He goes on to the DUKE of RICHMOND.

In travelling round this wide world of virtue, for as such may the mind of the noble Duke be described, it must be obvious to every one, that the principal difficulty consists—in determining from what quarter to set out; whether to commence in the frigid zone of his benevolence, or in the torrid hemisphere of his loyalty; from the equinox of his oeconomy, or from the terra australis of his patriotism. Our author feels himself reduced to the dilemma of the famous Archimedes in this case, though for a very different reason, and exclaims violently for the ??? p?? st?, not because he has no ground to stand upon, but because he has too much—because puzzled by the variety, he feels an incapacity to make a selection. He represents himself as being exactly in the situation of Paris between the different and contending charms of the three Heathen Goddesses, and is equally at a loss on which to bestow his detur pulcherimÆ. There is indeed more beauty in this latter similitude than may at first view appear to a careless and vulgar observer: the three goddesses in question being, in all the leading points of their description, most correctly typical of the noble Duke himself. As for example—Minerva, we know, was produced out of the head of Jove, complete and perfect at once. Thus the Duke of Richmond starts into the perfection of a full-grown engineer, without the ceremony of gradual organization, or the painful tediousness of progressive maturity.—Juno was particularly famed for an unceasing spirit of active persecution against the bravest and most honourable men of antiquity. Col. Debbeige, and some other individuals of modern time, might be selected, to shew that the noble Duke is not in this respect without some pretensions to sympathy with the queen of the skies.—Venus too, we all know, originated from froth. For resemblance in this point, vide the noble Duke’s admirable theories on the subject of parliamentary melioration.

Having stated these circumstances of embarrassment in a few introductory lines to this part of the poem, our author goes on to observe, that not knowing, after much and anxious thought, how to adjust the important difficulty in question, he resolves at last to trust himself entirely to the guidance of his muse, who, under the influence of her usual inspiration, proceeds as follows:

Hail thou, for either talent justly known,
To spend the nation’s cash—or keep thy own;
Expert alike to save, or be profuse,
As money goes for thine, or England’s use;
In whose esteem, of equal worth are thought,
A public million, and a private groat.
Hail, and—&c.

Longinus, as the learned well know, reckons the figure Amplification amongst the principal sources of the sublime, as does Quintilian amongst the leading requisites of rhetoric. That it constitutes the very soul of eloquence, is demonstrable from the example of that sublimest of all orators, and profoundest of all statesman, Mr. William Pitt. If no expedient had been devised, by the help of which the same idea could be invested in a thousand different and glittering habiliments, by which one small spark of meaning could be inflated into a blaze of elocution, how many delectable speeches would have been lost to the Senate of Great Britain? How severe an injury would have been sustained to the literary estimation of the age? The above admirable specimen of the figure, however, adds to the other natural graces of it, the excellent recommendation of strict and literal truth. The author proceeds to describe the noble Duke’s uncommon popularity, and to represent, that whatever be his employment, whether the gay business of the state, or the serious occupation of amusement, his Grace is alike sure of the approbation of his countrymen.

Whether thy present vast ambition be
To check the rudeness of the’ intruding sea;
Or else, immerging in a civil storm,
With equal wisdom to project—reform;
Whether thou go’st while summer suns prevail,
To enjoy the freshness of thy kitchen’s gale,
Where, unpolluted by luxurious heat,
Its large expanse affords a cool retreat;
Or should’st thou now, no more the theme of mirth,
Hail the great day that gave thy sov’reign birth,
With kind anticipating zeal prepare,
And make the fourth of June thy anxious care;
O! wheresoe’er thy hallow’d steps shall stray
Still, still, for thee, the grateful poor shall pray,
Since all the bounty which thy heart denies,
Drain’d by thy schemes, the treasury supplies.

The reference to the noble Duke’s kitchen, is a most exquisite compliment to his Grace’s well-known and determined aversion to the specious, popular, and prevailing vices of eating and drinking; and the four lines which follow, contain a no less admirable allusion to the memorable witticism of his Grace (memorable for the subject of it, as well as for the circumstance of its being the only known instance of his Grace’s attempting to degrade himself into the vulgarity of joke).

When a minister was found in this country daring and wicked enough to propose the suspension of a turnpike bill for one whole day, simply for the reason, that he considered some little ceremony due to the natal anniversary of the highest, and beyond all comparison, the best individual in the country; what was the noble Duke’s reply to this frivolous pretence for the protraction of the national business? “What care I,” said this great personage, with a noble warmth of patriotic insolence, never yet attained by any of the present timid-minded sons of faction, “What care I for the King’s birthday!—What is such nonsense to me!” &c. &c. &c. It is true, indeed, times have been a little changed since—but what of that! there is a solid truth in the observation of Horace, which its tritism does not, nor cannot destroy, and which the noble Duke, if he could read the original, might with great truth, apply to himself and his sovereign:

Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis.

A great critic affirms, that the highest excellence of writing, and particularly of poetical writing, consists in this one power—to surprise. Surely this sensation was never more successfully excited, than by the line in the above passage, when considered as addressed to the Duke of Richmond—

Still, still, for thee, the grateful poor shall pray!

Our author, however, whose correct judgment suggested to him, that even the sublimity of surprise was not to be obtained at the expence of truth and probability, hastens to reconcile all contradictions, by informing the reader, that the treasury is to supply the sources of the charity, on account of which the noble Duke is to be prayed for.

The poet, with his usual philanthropy, proceeds to give a piece of good advice to a person, with whom he does not appear at first sight to have any natural connexion. He contrives, however, even to make his seeming digression contribute to his purpose. He addresses Colonel Debbeige in the following goodnatured, sublime and parental apostrophe—

Learn, thoughtless Debbeige, now no more a youth,
The woes unnumber’d that encompass truth.
Nor of experience, nor of knowledge vain,
Mock the chimÆras of a sea-sick brain:
Oh, learn on happier terms with him to live,
Who ne’er knew twice, the weakness to forgive!
Then should his grace some vast expedient find,
To govern tempests, and controul the wind;
Should he, like great Canute, forbid the wave,
T’approach his presence, or his foot to lave;
Construct some bastion, or contrive some mound,
The world’s wide limits to encompass round;
Rear a redoubt, that to the stars should rise,
And lift himself, like Typhon, to the skies;
Or should the mightier scheme engage his soul,
To raise a platform on the northern pole,
With foss, with rampart, stick, and stone, and clay,
To build a breast-work on the milky-way,
Or to protect his sovereign’s blest abode,
Bid numerous batteries guard the turnpike road;
Lest foul Invasion in disguise approach,
Or Treason lurk within the Dover coach.
Oh, let the wiser duty then be thine,
Thy skill, thy science, judgment to resign!
With patient ear, the high-wrapt tale attend,
Nor snarl at fancies which no skill can mend.
So shall thy comforts with thy days increase,
And all thy last, unlike thy first, be peace;
No rude courts martial shall thy fame decry,
But half-pay plenty all thy wants supply.

It is difficult to determine which part of the above passage possesses the superior claim to our admiration, whether its science, its resemblance, its benevolence, or its sublimity.—Each has its turn, and each is distinguished by some of our author’s happiest touches. The climax from the pole oft the heavens to the pole of a coach, and from the milky-way to a turnpike road, is conceived and exprest with admirable fancy and ability. The absurd story of the wooden horse in Virgil, is indeed remotely parodied in the line,

Or Treason lurk within the Dover coach,

but with what accession of beauty, nature, and probability, we leave judicious critics to determine. Indeed there is no other defence for the passage alluded to in Virgil, but to suppose that the past commentators upon it have been egregiously mistaken, and that this famous equus ligneus, of which he speaks, was neither more nor less than the stage coach of antiquity. What, under any other supposition, can be the meaning of the passage

Aut hoc inclusi ligno occultantur Achivi?

Besides this, the term machina we know is almost constantly used by Virgil himself as a synonyme for this horse, as in the line

Scandit fatalis machina muros, &c.

And do we not see that those authentic records of modern literature, the newspapers, are continually and daily announcing to us—“This day sets off from the Blue-boar Inn, precisely at half past five, the Bath and Bristol machine!” meaning thereby merely the stage coaches to Bath and to Bristol. Again, immediately after the line last quoted (to wit, scandit fatalis machina muros) come these words,

FÆta armis, i.e. filled with arms.

Now what can they possibly allude to, in the eye of sober judgment and rational criticism, but the guard, or armed watchman, who, in those days, went in the inside, or perhaps had a place in the boot, and was employed, as in our modern conveyances, to protect the passenger in his approximation to the metropolis. We trust the above authorities will be deemed conclusive upon the subject; and indeed, to say the truth, this idea does not occur to us now for the first time, as in some hints for a few critical lucubrations intended as farther addenda to the Virgilius Restauratus of the great Scriblerus, we find this remark precisely:—“In our judgment, this horse (meaning Virgil’s) may be very properly denominated—the DARDANIAN DILLY, or the POST COACH to PERGAMUS.”

We know not whether it be worth adding as a matter of mere fact, that the great object of the noble Duke’s erections at Chatham, which have not yet cost the nation a million, is simply and exclusively this—to enfilade the turnpike road, in case of a foreign invasion.

The poet goes on—he forms a scientific and interesting presage of the noble Duke’s future greatness.

With gorges, scaffolds, breaches, ditches, mines,
With culverins, whole and demi, and gabines;
With trench, with counterscarp, with esplanade,
With curtain, moat, and rhombo, and chamade;
With polygon, epaulement, hedge and bank,
With angle salient, and with angle flank:
Oh! thou shall prove, should all thy schemes prevail,
An UNCLE TOBY on a larger scale.
While dapper, daisy, prating, puffing JIM,
May haply personate good Corporal Trim.

Every reader will anticipate us in the recollection, that the person here honoured with our author’s distinction, by the abbreviated appellative of Jim, can be no other than the Hon. James Luttrel himself, surveyor-general to the ordnance, the famous friends, defender, and commis of the Duke of Richmond. The words dapper and daisy, in the last line of the above passage, approximate perhaps more nearly to the familiarity of common life, than is usual with our author; but it is to be observed in the defence of them, that our language supplies no terms in any degree so peculiarly characteristic of the object to whom they are addressed. As for the remaining part of the line, to wit, “prating, puffing Jim,” it will require no vindication or illustration with those who have heard this honourable gentleman’s speeches in parliament, and who have read the subsequent representations of them in the diurnal prints.

Our immortal author, whose province it is to give poetical construction, and local habitation to the inspired effusions of the dying drummer (exactly as Virgil did to the predictions of Anchises), proceeds to finish the portrait exhibited in the above passage by the following lines—

As like your prototypes as pea to pea,
Save in the weakness of—humanity;
Congenial quite in every other part,
The same in head, but differing in the heart.

* * * * *

NUMBER IV.

We resume with great pleasure our critical lucubrations on that most interesting part of this divine poem, which pourtrays the character, and transmits to immortality the name of the Duke of RICHMOND.—Our author, who sometimes condescends to a casual imitation of ancient writers, employs more than usual pains in the elaborate delineation of this illustrious personage. Thus, in Virgil, we find whole pages devoted to the description of Æneas, while Glacus and Thersilochus, like the Luttrels, the Palkes, or the Macnamaras of modern times, are honoured only with the transient distinction of a simple mention. He proceeds to ridicule the superstition which exists in this country, and, as he informs us, had also prevailed in one of the most famous states of antiquity, that a navy could be any source of security to a great empire, or that shipping could in any way be considered as the natural defence of an island.

Th’ Athenian sages, once of old, ’tis said,
Urg’d by their country’s love—by wisdom led,
Besought the Delphic oracle to show
What best should save them from the neighb’ring foe
—With holy fervor first the priestess burn’d,
Then fraught with presage, this reply return’d:
“Your city, men of Athens, ne’er will fall,
If wisely guarded by a WOODEN WALL.”
—Thus have our fathers indiscreetly thought,
By ancient practice—ancient safety taught,
That this, Great Britain, still should prove to thee
Thy first, thy best, thy last security;
That what in thee we find or great or good,
Had ow’d its being to this WALL of WOOD.—
Above such weakness see great Lenox soar,
This fence prescriptive guards us now no more
Of such gross ignorance asham’d and sick,
Richmond protects us with a wall—of brick;
Contemns the prejudice of former time,
And saves his countrymen by lath and lime.

It is our intention to embarrass this part of the Rolliad as little as possible with any commentaries of our own. We cannot, however, resist the temptation which the occasion suggests, of pronouncing a particular panegyric upon the delicacy as well as dexterity of our author, who, in speaking upon the subject of the Duke of Richmond, that is, upon a man who knows no more of the history, writings, or languages of antiquity than the Marquis of Lansdown himself, or great Rollo’s groom, has yet contrived to collect a great portion of his illustrations from the sources of ancient literature. By this admirable expedient, the immediate ignorance of the hero is inveloped and concealed in the vast erudition of the author, and the unhappy truth that his Grace never proceeded farther in his Latinity, than through the neat and simple pages of Corderius, is so far thrown into the back ground as to be hardly observable, and to constitute no essential blemish to the general brilliancy of the picture.

The poet proceeds to speak of a tribunal which was instituted in the Æra he is describing, for an investigation into the professional merits of the noble Duke, and of which he himself was very properly the head. The author mentions the individuals who composed this inquisition, as men of opulent, independent, disinterested characters, three only excepted, whom he regrets as apostates to the general character of the arbitrators. He speaks, however—such is the omnipotence of truth—even of them, with a sort of reluctant tendency to panegyric. He says,

Keen without show, with modest learning, sly,
The subtle comment speaking in his eye;
Of manners polish’d, yet of stubborn soul,
Which Hope allures not—nor which fears control;
See Burgoyne rapt in all a soldier’s pride,
Damn with a shrug, and with a look deride;
While coarse Macbride a busier task assumes,
And tears with graceless rage our hero’s plumes;
Blunts his rude science in the chieftain’s face,
Nor deems—forgive him, Pitt!—a truth, disgrace:
And Percy too, of lineage justly vain,
Surveys the system with a mild disdain.

He consoles the reader, however, for the pain given him by the contemplation of such weakness and injustice, by hastening to inform him of the better and wiser dispositions of the other members of the tribunal;

—But ah! not so the rest—unlike to these,
They try each anxious blandishment to please;
No skill uncivil e’er from them escapes,
Their modest wisdom courts no dang’rous scrapes;
But pure regard comes glowing from the heart,
To take a friend’s—to take a master’s part;
Nor let Suspicion with her sneers convey,
That paltry Int’rest could with such bear sway.
Can Richmond’s brother be attach’d to gold?
Can Luttrell’s friendship, like a vote, be sold?
O can such petty, such ignoble crimes,
Stain the fair Æra of these golden times,
When Pitt to all perfection points the way,
And pure Dundas exemplifies his lay?
When Wilkes to loyalty makes bold pretence,
Arden to law, the Cabinet to sense;
When Prettyman affects for truth a zeal,
And Macnamaras guard the common-weal;
When lawyers argue from the holy writ,
And Hill would vie with Sheridan in wit;
When Camden, first of Whigs, in struggles past,
Teiz’d and tormented quits the cause at last;
When Thurlow strives commercial skill to show,
And even Sydney something seems to know;
When honest Jack declines in men to trade,
And court majorities by truth are sway’d;
When Baker, Conway, Cavendish, or Byng,
No more an obloquy o’er senates fling;
When———

But where could a period be put to the enumeration of the uncommon appearances of the epoch in question?—The application of the term honest, prefixed to the name of the person described in the last line of the above passage but three, sufficiently circumscribes the number of those particular Jacks who were at this moment in the contemplation of our author, and lets us with facility into the secret that he could mean no other than the worthy Mr. John Robinson himself.—The peculiar species of traffic that the poet represents Mr. Robinson to have dealt in, is supposed to allude to a famous occurrence of these times, when Mr. R. and another contractor agreed, in a ministerial emergency, to furnish government with five hundred and fifty-eight ready, willing, obedient, well-trained men, at so much per head per man, whom they engaged to be perfectly fit for any work the minister could put them to. Tradition says, they failed in their contract by somewhat about two hundred.—We have not heard of what particular complexion the first order were of, but suppose them to have been blacks.

We collect from history, that the noble Duke had been exposed to much empty ridicule on account of his having been, as they termed it, a judge in his own cause, by being the President of that Court, whose exclusive jurisdiction it was to enquire into supposed official errors imputed to himself. The author scouts the venom of those impotent gibers, and with great triumph exclaims,

If it be virtue but yourself to know,
Yourself to judge, is sure a virtue too.

Nothing can be more obvious—all judgment depends upon knowledge; and how can any other person be supposed to know a man so well as he does himself? We hope soon to see this evidently equitable principle of criminal jurisprudence fully established at the Old Baily; and we are very much inclined to think, that if every house-breaker, &c. was in like manner permitted to judge himself, the susceptible heart would not be altogether so often shocked with spectacles of human massacre before the gates of Newgate, as, to the great disgrace of our penal system, it now is.

Our author now proceeds to speak of a transaction which he seems to touch upon with reluctance. It respects a young nobleman of these times, of the name of Rawdon. It is very remarkable, that the last couplet of this passage is printed with a scratch through the lines, as if it had been the author’s intention to have erazed them. Whether he thought the event alluded to in this distich was too disgraceful for justification—or that the justification suggested was incomplete—that the image contained in them was too familiar and puerile for the general sublimity of his great poem, or whatever he thought, we know not, but such is the fact. The passage is as follows:—after relating the circumstance, he says

Association forms the mind’s great chain,
By plastic union many a thought we gain,
[Struck-through:
(Thus Raw suggested Raw head, and the Don,
Haply reminded him of Bloody bone).]

To the justice of the disgrace thrown upon the above couplet, we by no means concede.—What it wants in poetical construction, it amply makes up in the deep knowledge which it contains of the more latent feelings of the human heart, and its philosophic detection of some of the true sources of human action. We all know how long, and how tenaciously, original prejudices stick by us. No man lives long enough to get rid of his nursery. That the noble duke therefore might not be free from the common influence of a very common sensation, no one can reasonably wonder at, and the best proof that he was not so is, that we defy any person to show us, upon what possible principle, if not upon this, the conduct of the noble Duke, in the transaction alluded to, is to be explained or defended. The Duke of Richmond—a gentleman by a thousand pretensions—a soldier—a legislator—a peer—in two countries a duke—in a third a prince—a man whose honour is not a mere point of speculative courtesy, but is his oath—impeaches the reputation of another individual of pure and unblemished character; and with the same publicity that he had applied the original imputation, this peer, prince, legislator, and soldier, eats every syllable he had said, and retracts every item of his charge. Is this to be credited without a resort to some principle of a very paramount nature in the heart of man indeed? Is the original depravity, in the first instance, of publicly attempting to sully the fair honour of that interesting and sacred character, a youthful soldier, or the meanness in the second, of an equally public and unprecedentedly pusillanimous retraction of the whole of the calumny, to be believed in so high a personage as the Duke of Richmond, without a reference to a cause of a very peculiar kind, to an impulse of more than ordinary potency? Evidently not.—And what is there, as we have before observed, that adheres so closely, or controuls so absolutely, as the legends of our boyish days, of the superstitions of a nursery? For these reasons, therefore, we give our most decided suffrage for the full re-establishment of the couplet to the fair legitimate honours that are due to it.

The poet concludes his portrait of this illustrious person, with the following lines—

The triple honours that adorn his head,
A three-fold influence o’er his virtue shed;
As Gallia’s prince, behold him proud and vain;
Thrifty and close as Caledonia’s thane;
In Richmond’s duke, we trace our own JOHN BULL,
Of schemes enamour’d—and of schemes—the GULL.

* * * * *

NUMBER V.

The author of the Rolliad has, in his last edition, introduced so considerable an alteration, that we should hold ourselves inexcusable, after the very favourable reception our commentaries have been honoured with, in omitting to seize the earliest opportunity of pointing it out to the public.

Finding the variety and importance of the characters he is called upon to describe, likely to demand a greater portion both of time and words than an expiring man can be reasonably supposed to afford, instead of leaving the whole description of that illustrious assembly, of which the dying drummer has already delineated some of the principal ornaments, to the same character, he has made an addition to the vision in which the House of Commons is represented, at the conclusion of the Sixth Book, by contriving that the lantern of Merlin should be shifted in such a manner, as to display at once to the eager eye of Rollo, the whole interior of the Upper House; to gain a seat in which the hero immediately expresses a laudable impatience, as well as a just indignation, on beholding persons, far less worthy than himself, among those whom the late very numerous creations prevent our calling—

——pauci—quos Æquus amavit Jupiter—

With still less propriety, perhaps we should add—

—Aut ardens evexit ad Æthera virtus. VIRG.

The hero’s displeasure is thus forcibly described:

Zounds! quoth great Rollo, with indignant frown,
’Mid British nobles shall a base-born clown,
With air imperious ape a monarch’s nod,
Less fit to sit there than my groom, by G-d[1]?

Longinus, in his chapter on interrogations, proves them to be a source of the sublime. They are, indeed, says Dr. Young, the proper style of majesty incensed. Where, therefore, can they be with more propriety introduced, than from the mouth of our offended hero? Merlin, after sympathizing with him in the justice of these feelings, proceeds to a description of the august assembly they are viewing. The author’s reverence for the religion of his country naturally disposes him first to take notice of the spiritual lords of Parliament—

Yon rev’rend prelates, rob’d in sleeves of lawn,
Too meek to murmur, and too proud to fawn,
Who still submissive to their Maker’s nod,
Adore their sov’reign, and respect their God;
And wait, good men! all worldly things forgot,
In humble hope of Enoch’s happy lot.

We apprehend that the fourth line, by an error in the press, the words “adore and respect,” must have been misplaced; but our veneration for our author will not permit us to hazard even the slightest alteration of the text. The happy ambiguity of the word “Maker,” is truly beautiful.

We are sorry, however, to observe, that modern times afford some instances of exceptions to the above description, as well as one very distinguished one, indeed, to that which follows of the sixteen Peers of Scotland:—

Alike in loyalty, alike in worth,
Behold the sixteen nobles of the north;
Fast friends to monarchy, yet sprung from those
Who basely sold their monarch to his foes;
Since which, atoning for their father’s crime,
The sons, as basely, sell themselves to him:
With ev’ry change prepar’d to change their note,
With ev’ry government prepar’d to vote,
Save when, perhaps, on some important bill,
They know, by second sight, the royal will;
With royal Denbigh hearing birds that sing,
“Oppose the minister to please the king.”

These last lines allude to a well authenticated anecdote, which deserves to be recorded as an instance of the interference of divine Providence in favour of this country, when her immediate destruction was threatened by the memorable India bill, so happily rejected by the House of Lords in the year 1783.

The Earl of Denbigh, a Lord of his Majesty’s Bed-chamber, being newly married, and solacing himself at his country-seat in the sweats of matrimonial bliss, to his great astonishment heard, on a winter’s evening, in the cold month of December, a nightingale singing in the woods. Having listened with great attention to so extraordinary a phoenomenon, it appeared to his Lordship that the bird distinctly repeated the following significant words, in the same manner that the bells of London admonished the celebrated Whittington,

“Throw out the India bill;
Such is your master’s will.”

His Lordship immediately communicated this singular circumstance to the fair partner of his connubial joys, who, for the good of her country, patriotically, though reluctantly, consented to forego the newly tasted delights of wedlock, and permitted her beloved bridegroom to set out for London, where his Lordship fortunately arrived in time, to co-operate with the rest of his noble and honourable brethren, the lords of the king’s bed-chamber, in defeating that detestable measure; a measure calculated to effect the immediate ruin of this country, by overthrowing the happy system of government which has so long prevailed in our East-India territories.—After having described the above-mentioned classes of nobility, he proceeds to take notice of the admirable person who so worthily presides in this august assembly:—

The rugged Thurlow, who with sullen scowl,
In surly mood, at friend and foe will growl;
Of proud prerogative, the stern support,
Defends the entrance of great George’s court
’Gainst factious Whigs, lest they who stole the seal,
The sacred diadem itself should steal:
So have I seen near village butcher’s stall
(If things so great may be compar’d with small)
A mastiff guarding, on a market day,
With snarling vigilance, his master’s tray.

The fact of a desperate and degraded faction having actually broken into the dwelling-house of the Lord High Chancellor, and carried off the great seal of England, is of equal notoriety and authenticity with that of their having treacherously attempted, when in power, to transfer the crown of Great-Britain from the head of our most gracious sovereign to that of their ambitious leader, so justly denominated the Cromwell of modern times.

While our author is dwelling on events which every Englishman must recollect with heart-felt satisfaction, he is naturally reminded of that excellent nobleman, whose character he has, in the mouth of the dying drummer, given more at large, and who bore so meritorious a share in that happy revolution which restored to the sovereign of these kingdoms the right of nominating his own servants; a right exercised by every private gentleman in the choice of his butler, cook, coachman, footman, &c. but which a powerful and wicked aristocratic combination endeavoured to circumscribe in the monarch, with respect to the appointment of ministers of state. Upon this occasion he compares the noble Marquis to the pious hero of the Æneid, and recollects the description of his conduct during the conflagration of Troy; an alarming moment, not unaptly likened to that of the Duke of Portland’s administration, when his Majesty, like king Priam, had the misfortune of seeing

——Medium in penctralibus hostem. VIRG.

The learned reader will bear in mind the description of Æneas:—

Limen Ærat, cÆcoque fores, &c. VIRG.

When Troy was burning, and the’ insulting foe
Had well-nigh laid her lofty bulwarks low,
The good Æneas, to avert her fate,
Sought Priam’s palace through a postern gate:
Thus when the Whigs, a bold and factious band,
Had snatch’d the sceptre from their sovereign’s hand,
Up the back-stairs the virtuous Grenville sneaks,
To rid the closet of those worse than Greeks,
Whose impious tongues audaciously maintain,
That for their subjects, kings were born to reign.

The abominable doctrines of the republican party are here held forth in their genuine colours, to the detestation of all true lovers of our happy constitution. The magician then thinks fit to endeavour to pacify the hero’s indignation, which we before took notice of, on seeing persons less worthy than himself preferred to the dignity of peerage, by the mention of two of those newly created, whose promotion equally reflects the highest honour upon government.

Lonsdale and Camelford thrice honour’d names!
Whose god-like bosoms glow with patriot flames:
To serve his country, at her utmost need,
By this, behold a ship of war decreed;
While that, impell’d by all a convert’s zeal,
Devotes his borough to the public weal.
But still the wise their second thoughts prefer,
Thus both our patriots on these gifts demur;
Ere yet she’s launch’d the vessel runs aground,
And Sarum sells for twice three thousand pound.

The generous offers of those public-spirited noblemen, the one during the administration of the Marquis of Landsdown, proposing to build a seventy-four-gun ship, for the public service; the other on Mr. Pitt’s motion for a parliamentary reform, against which he had before not only voted, but written a pamphlet, declaring his readiness to make a present of his burgage tenure borough of Old Sarum to the bank of England, are too fresh in the recollection of their grateful countrymen to need being here recorded. With respect, however, to the subsequent sale of the borough for the “twice three thousand pounds,” our author does not himself seem perfectly clear, since we afterwards meet with these lines:

Say, what gave Camelford his wish’d-for rank?
Did he devote Old Sarum to the Bank?
Or did he not, that envied rank to gain,
Transfer the victim to the Treas’ry’s fame?

His character of the Earl of Lonsdale is too long to be here inserted, but is perhaps one of the most finished parts of the whole poem: we cannot, however, refrain from transcribing the four following lines, on account of the peculiar happiness of their expression. The reader will not forget the declaration of this great man, that he was in possession of the land, the fire, and the water, of the town of Whitehaven.

E’en by the elements his pow’r confess’d,
Of mines and boroughs Lonsdale stands possess’d;
And one sad servitude alike denotes
The slave that labours, and the slave that votes.

Our paper now reminds us that it is time to close our observations for the present, which we shall do with four lines added by our author to the former part of the sixth book, in compliment to his favourite, the Marquis of Graham, on his late happy marriage.

With joy Britannia sees her fav’rite goose
Fast bound and pinion’d in the nuptial noose;
Presaging fondly from so fair a mate,
A brood of goslings, cackling in debate.

[1] See Mr. Rolle’s speech in the parliamentary debates.

* * * * *

NUMBER VI.

Our dying drummer, in consequence of his extraordinary exertions in delineating those exalted personages, the MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM and DUKE OF RICHMOND; exertions which we think we may venture to pronounce unparalleled by any one, drummer, or other, similarly circumstanced; unfortunately found himself so debilitated, that we were very fearful, like Balaam’s ass, LORD VALLETORT, or any other equally strange animal, occasionally endowed with speech, his task being executed, that his mouth would for ever after remain incapable of utterance.

But though his powers might be suspended, fortunately the

——in Æternam clauduntur lumina noctem,

has, in consequence of the timely relaxation afforded to the wounded gentleman during the whole of our last number, been for the present avoided; and, like Mr. PITT’s question of parliamentary reform, adjourned to a more expedient moment.

To our drummer we might say, as well as to our matchless premier,

Larga quidem DRANCE, semper tibi copia fandi,

which, though, some malevolent critics might profligately translate

“There is no end to thy prosing,”

those who have read our drummer’s last dying words, or heard our minister’s new made speeches, will admit to be in both instances equally inapplicable.

The natural powers of our author here again burst forth with such renovated energy, that, like the swan, his music seems to increase as his veins become drained.

Alluding to an event too recent to require elucidation, after describing the virtues of the most amiable personage in the kingdom, and more particularly applauding her charity, which he says is so unbounded, that it

———Surmounts dull Nature’s ties,
Nor even to WINCHELSEA a smile denies.

He proceeds

And thou too, LENOX! worthy of thy name!
Thou heir to RICHMOND, and to RICHMOND’s fame!
On equal terms, when BRUNSWICK deign’d to grace
The spurious offspring of the STUART race;
When thy rash arm design’d her favorite dead,
The christian triumph’d, and the mother fled:
No rage indignant shook her pious frame,
No partial doating swayed the saint-like dame;
But spurn’d and scorn’d where Honor’s sons resort,
Her friendship sooth’d thee, in thy monarch’s court.

How much does this meek resignation, in respect to COLONEL LENOX, appear superior to the pagan rage of MEZENTIUS towards ÆNEAS, on somewhat of a similar occasion, when, instead of desiring him to dance a minuet at the Etrurian court, he savagely, and of malice prepense, hurls his spear at the foe of his son, madly exclaiming

—Jam venio moriturus et hÆc tibi porto
Dona prius.

But our author excels Virgil, as much as the amiable qualities of the great personage described, exceed those of MEZENTIUS: that august character instead of dying, did not so much as faint; and so far from hurling a spear at Mr. LENOX, she did not cast at him even an angry glance.

The christian triumph’d, &c.

We are happy in noticing this line, and indeed the whole of the passage, on another account, as it establishes the orthodoxy of the drummer upon so firm a basis, that DR. HORSLEY himself could scarcely object to his obtaining a seat in parliament.

There is something so extremely ingenious in the following lines, and they account too on such rational grounds for a partiality that has puzzled so many able heads, that we cannot forbear transcribing them.

Apostrophizing the exalted personage before alluded to, he says,

Early you read, nor did the advice deride,
Suspicion ne’er should taint a CÆSAR’s bride;
And who in spotless purity so fit
To guard an honest wife’s good fame, as PITT.

The beautiful compliment here introduced to the chastity of our immaculate premier, from the pen of such an author, must give him the most supreme satisfaction. And

O decus ItaliÆ virgo!!!

Long mayst thou continue to deserve it!!!

From treating of the minister’s virgin innocence, our author, by a very unaccountable transition, proceeds to a family man, namely, the modern MÆCENAS, the CENSOR MORUM, the ARBITER ELEGANTIARUM of Great Britain; in a word, to the most illustrious JAMES CECIL EARL OF SALISBURY, and lord chamberlain to his majesty, whom, in a kind of episode he thus addresses,

Oh! had the gods but kindly will’d it so
That thou had’st lived two hundred years ago:
Had’st thou then rul’d the stage, from sportive scorn
Thy prudent care had guarded peers unborn.
No simple chamberlains had libell’d been,
No OSTRICKS fool’d in SHAKESPEARE’s saucy scene.

But then wisely recollecting this not to be altogether the most friendly of wishes, in as much, that, if his lordship had been chamberlain to QUEEN ELIZABETH, he could not, in the common course of events, have been, as his honour SIR RICHARD PEPPER ARDEN most sweetly sings in his PROBATIONARY ODE,

“The tallest, fittest man to go before the king,”

In the days of GEORGE THE THIRD; by which we should most probably not only have been deprived of the attic entertainments of SIGNORS DELPINI and CARNEVALE, but perhaps too have lost some of our best dramatic writers; such as GREATHEAD, HAYLEY, DR. STRATFORD, and TOMMY VAUGHAN: our author, with a sudden kind of repentance, says,

But hence fond thoughts, nor be by passion hurried!
Had he then lived, he now were dead and buried.
Not now should theatres his orders own;
Not now in alehouse signs his face be shewn.

If we might be so presumptuous as to impute a fault to our author, we should say that he is rather too fond of what the French style equivoque.—This partiality of his breaks forth in a variety of places; such as SIR JOSEPH MAWBEY being

———a knowing man in grain,
———MARTIN’s sterling sense, &c. &c.

In the present instance too, where, supposing the noble Marquis to have lived two hundred years ago, he says,

“Not now should theatres his orders own.”

He leaves us completely in the dark, whether by the word orders, we are to understand his lordship’s commands as theatrical anatomist, or the recommendations, which he is pleased to make to the managers of our public amusements, to admit his dependants and servants gratuitously; and which recommendations in the vulgar tongue of the theatres are technically styled orders. If we might hazard an opinion, from the known condescension of his lordship, and his attention to the accommodation of his inferiors, we should be inclined to construe it in the latter sense; an attention, indeed, which, in the case in question, is said to be so unbounded, that he might exclaim with ÆNEAS

Nemo ex hoc numero mihi non donatus abibit.

Should any caviler here object, that for every five shillings thus generously bestowed on the dependant, a proportionate vacuum is made in the pocket of the manager, let him recollect, that it is a first and immutable principle of civil policy, that the convenience of the few must yield to the accommodation of the many; and, that the noble Marquis, as a peer and legislator of Great Britain, is too closely attached to our excellent constitution to swerve from so old and established a maxim.

With respect to the last line of the couplet,

“Not now in alehouse signs his face be shewn,”

we must confess that our author’s imagination has here been rather too prurient.—His lordship’s head does not, as far as we can learn, upon the most minute enquiry, at present, grace any alehouse whatever—It was indeed for some little time displayed at HATFIELD in HERTS; but the words “Good entertainment within,” being written under it, they were deemed by travellers so extremely unapposite, that to avoid further expence, LORD SALISBURY’s head was taken down, and “The old bald face Stag” resumed its pristine station.

Yet, enraptured with his first idea, our author soon forgets his late reflection, and proceeds on the supposition of the noble lord having exercised his pruning knife upon SHAKESPEARE and JOHNSON, and the advantages which would have been derived from it, some of which he thus beautifully describes:

To plays should RICHMOND then undaunted come,
Secured from listening to PAROLLES’s drum:
Nor shouldst thou, CAMELFORD, the fool reprove,
Who lost a world to gain a wanton’s love.
“Give me a horse,” CATHCART should ne’er annoy:
Nor thou, oh! PITT, behold the angry boy.

The last line but one of these,

Give me a horse, &c.

seems to allude to a circumstance that occurred in America, where his lordship being on foot, and having to march nearly five miles over a sandy plain in the heat of summer, fortunately discovered, tied to the door of a house, a horse belonging to an officer of cavalry. His lordship thinking that riding was pleasanter than walking, and probably also imagining that the owner might be better engaged, judged it expedient to avail himself of this steed, which thus so fortunately presented itself, and accordingly borrowed it. The subsequent apology, however, which he made when the proprietor, rather out of humour at his unlooked-for pedestrian expedition, came up to reclaim his lost goods, was so extremely ample, that the most rigid asserter of the old fusty doctrines of meum and tuum cannot deny that the dismounted cavalier had full compensation for any inconvenience that he might have experienced. And we must add, that every delicacy of the noble lord on this subject ought now to terminate.

We shall conclude with an extract from some complimentary verses by a noble secretary, who is himself both an AMATEUR and ARTISTE.—Were any thing wanting to our author’s fame, this elegant testimony in his favour must be decisive with every reader of taste.

Oh! mighty ROLLE, may long thy fame be known!
And long thy virtues in his verse be shewn!
When THURLOW’s christian meekness, SYDNEY’s sense,
When RICHMOND’s valour, HOPETOWN’s eloquence,
When HAWKESB’RY’s patriotism neglected lie
Intomb’d with CHESTERFIELD’s humanity,
When PRETTYMEN, sage guardian of PITT’s youth,
Shall lose each claim to honesty and truth,
When each pure blush DUNDAS’s cheek can boast,
With ARDEN’s law and nose alike are lost,
When grateful ROBINSON shall be forgot,
And not a line be read of MAJOR SCOTT,
When PHIPPS no more shall listening crouds engage,
And HAMLET’s jests be rased from memory’s page,
When PITT each patriot’s joy no more shall prove,
Nor from fond beauty catch the sigh of love,
When even thy sufferings, virtuous chief! shall fade,
And BASSET’s horsewhip but appear a shade,
Thy sacred spirit shall effulgence shed
And raise to kindred fame the mighty dead:
Long ages shall admire thy matchless soul,
And children’s children lisp the praise of ROLLE.

* * * * *

NUMBER VII.

It now only remains for us to perform the last melancholy office to the dying drummer, and to do what little justice we can to the very ingenious and striking manner in which our author closes at once his prophecy and his life.

It is a trite observation, that the curious seldom hear any good of themselves; and all epic poets, who have sent their heroes to conjurors, have, with excellent morality, taught us, that they who pry into futurity, too often anticipate affliction.—VIRGIL plainly intimates this lesson in the caution which he puts into the mouth of ANCHISES, when ÆNEAS enquires into the future destiny of the younger MARCELLUS, whose premature death forms the pathetic subject of the concluding vision in the sixth book of the ÆNEID:

“O nate, ingentum lectum ne quÆre tuorum.”

“Seek not to know (the ghost replied with tears)
The sorrows of thy sons in future years.”
DRYDEN.

Then, instead of declining any further answer, he very unnecessarily proceeds to make his son as miserable as he can, by detailing all the circumstances best calculated to create the most tender interest.—The revelation of disagreeable events to come, is by our poet more naturally put into the mouth of an enemy.—After running over many more noble names than the records of the herald’s office afford us any assistance in tracing, the second sighted Saxon, in the midst of his dying convulsions, suddenly bursts into a violent explosion of laughter.—This, of course, excites the curiosity of ROLLO, as it probably will that of our readers; upon which the drummer insults his conqueror with rather a long but very lively recital of all the numerous disappointments and mortifications with which he foresees that the destinies will affect the virtues of ROLLO’s great descendant, the present illustrious member for Devonshire. He mentions Mr. ROLLE’s many unsuccessful attempts to obtain the honour of the peerage; alludes to some of the little splenetive escapes into which even his elevated magnanimity is well known to have been for a moment betrayed on those trying occasions. We now see all the drift and artifice of the poet, and why he thought the occasion worthy of making the drummer so preternaturally long winded, in displaying at full all the glories of the house of peers; it was to heighten by contrast the chagrin of ROLLO at finding the doors of this august assembly for ever barred against his posterity.

To understand the introductory lines of the following passage, it is necessary to inform our readers, if they are not already acquainted with the fact, that somewhere in the back settlements of America, there is now actually existing an illegitimate batch of little ROLLE’s.

Though wide should spread thy spurious race around,
In other worlds, which must not yet be found,
While they with savages in forests roam
Deserted, far from their paternal home;
A mightier savage in thy wilds EX-MOOR,
Their well-born brother shall his fate deplore,
By friends neglected, as by foes abhorr’d,
No duke, no marquis, not a simple lord.
Tho’ thick as MARGARET’s knights with each address,
New peers, on peers, in crouds each other press,
He only finds, of all the friends of PITT,
His luckless head no coronet will fit.

But what our author seems more particularly to have laboured, is a passage which he has lately inserted: it relates to the cruel slight which was shewn to Mr. ROLLE during the late royal progress through the west.—Who is there that remembers the awful period when the regency was in suspence, but must at the same time remember the patriotic, decent, and consistent conduct of Mr. ROLLE? How laudably, in his parliamentary speeches, did he co-operate to the best of his power, with the popular pamphlets of the worthy Dr. WITHERS! How nobly did he display his steady loyalty to the father, while he endeavoured to shake the future right of the son to the throne of his ancestors! How brightly did he manifest his attachment to the person of his MAJESTY, by voting to seclude him in the hour of sickness from the too distressing presence of his royal brothers and his children; and, after all, when he could no longer resist the title of the heir apparent, with what unembarrassed grace did he agree to the address of his constituents, complimenting the prince on his accession to that high charge, to which his SITUATION and VIRTUES so eminently ENTITLED him: yet, even then, with how peculiar a dexterity did Mr. ROLLE mingle what some would have thought an affront, with his praises, directly informing his ROYAL HIGHNESS that he had no confidence whatever in any virtues but those of the minister. But, alas, how uncertain is the reward of all sublunary merit! Those good judges who inquired into the literary labours of the pious and charitable Dr. WITHERS, did not exalt him to that conspicuous post, which he so justly deserved, and would so well have graced; neither did one ray of royal favour cheer the loyalty of Mr. ROLLE during his majesty’s visit to DEVONSHIRE; though with an unexampled liberality, the worthy member had contracted for the fragments of Lord MOUNT EDGECUMBE’s desert, and the ruins of his triumphal arches; had brought down several of the minister’s young friends to personate virgins in white, sing, and strew flowers along the way; and had actually dispatched a chaise and four to Exeter, for his old friend and instructor, mynheer HOPPINGEN VAN CAPERHAGEN, dancing-master and poet; who had promised to prepare both the balets and ballads for this glorious festivity. And for whom was Mr. ROLLE neglected? For his colleague, Mr. BASTARD; a gentleman who, in his political oscillations, has of late vibrated much more frequently to the opposition than to the treasury bench. This most unaccountable preference we are certain must be matter of deep regret to all our readers of sensibility;—to the drummer it is matter of exultation.

In vain with such bold spirit shall he speak,
That furious WITHERS shall to him seem meek;
In vain for party urge his country’s fate;
To save the church, in vain distract the state;
In loyal duty to the father shewn,
Doubt the son’s title to his future throne;
And from the suffering monarch’s couch remove
All care fraternal, and all filial love:
Then when mankind in choral praise unite,
Though blind before, see virtues beaming bright;
Yet feigning to confide, distrust evince,
And while he flatters, dare insult his PRINCE.
Vain claims!—when now, the people’s sins transferred
On their own heads, mad riot is the word;
When through the west in gracious progress goes
The monarch, happy victor of his woes;
While Royal smiles gild every cottage wall,
Hope never comes to ROLLE, that comes to all;
And more with envy to disturb his breast,
BASTARD’s glad roof receives the Royal guest.

Here the drummer, exhausted with this last wonderful exertion, begins to find his pangs increase fast upon him; and what follows, for two and thirty lines, is all interrupted with different interjections of laughter and pain, till the last line, which consists entirely of such interjections.—Our readers may probably recollect the well-known line of THOMPSON.

“OH, SOPHONISBA, SOPHONISBA, OH!”

Which, by the way, is but a poor plagiarism from SHAKESPEARE:

“OH, DESDEMONA, DESDEMONA, OH!”

There is certainly in this line a very pretty change rung in the different ways of arranging the name and the interjection; but perhaps there may be greater merit, though of another kind, in the sudden change of passions which OTWAY has expressed in the dying interjection of PIERRE:

“We have deceiv’d the senate—ha! ha! oh!”

These modern instances, however, fall very short of the admirable use made of interjections by the ancients, especially the GREEKS, who did not scruple to put together whole lines of them.—Thus in the PHILOCTETES of SOPHOCLES, besides a great number of hemistics, we find a verse and a half:

“—————?apa?,
?apa, papa, papa, papa, papa papa?.”

The harsh and intractable genius of our language will not permit us to give any adequate idea of the soft, sweet, and innocent sound of the original.—It may, however, be faithfully, though coarsely, translated

“———Alas!
Alack! alack! alack! alack! alack! alas!”

At the same time, we have -our doubts whether some chastised tastes may not prefer the simplicity of ARISTOPHANES; though it must not be concealed, that there are critics who think he meant a wicked stroke of ridicule at the PHILOCTETES of SOPHOCLES, when, in his own PLUTUS, he makes his sycophant, at the smell of roast meat, exclaim—

“??, ??, ??, ??, ??, ??!”

Which we shall render by an excellent interjection, first coined from the rich mint of MAJOR JOHN SCOTT, in his incomparable Ode—

“Sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff,
sniff,
sniff, sniff.”

But whatever may be the comparative merits of these passages, ancient and modern, we are confident no future critic will dispute but that they are all excelled by the following exquisite couplet of our author:

Ha! ha!—this soothes me in severest woe;
Ho! ho!—ah! ah!—oh! oh!—ha! ah!—ho!—oh!!!

We have now seen the drummer quietly inurn’d, and sung our requiem over his grave: we hope, however, that

——He, dead corse, may yet, in complete calf,
Revisit oft the glimpses of the candle,
Making night chearful.

We had flattered ourselves with the hope of concluding the criticisms on the ROLLIAD with an ode of Mr. ROLLE himself, written in the original EX-MOOR dialect; but we have hitherto, owing to the eagerness with which that gentleman’s literary labours are sought after, unfortunately been unable to procure a copy. The learned Mr. DAINES BARRINGTON having, however, kindly hinted to us, that he thought he had once heard Sir JOHN HAWKINS say, that he believed there was something applicable to a drum in the possession of Mr. STEVENS, the erudite annotator on SHAKESPEARE, Sir JOSEPH BANKS kindly wrote to that gentleman; who, upon searching into his manuscripts at Hampstead, found the following epitaph, which is clearly designed for our drummer. Mr. STEVENS was so good as to accompany his kind and invaluable communication with a dissertation to prove that this FRANCIS of GLASTONBURY, from similarity of style and orthography, must have been the author of the epitaph which declares that celebrated outlaw, ROBIN HOOD, to have been a British peer. Mr. PEGGE too informs us, that the HARLEIAN MISCELLANY will be found to confirm this idea; and at the same time suggests, whether, as that dignified character, Mr. WARREN HASTINGS, has declared himself to be descended from an Earl of HUNTINGDON, and the late Earl and his family have, through some unaccountable fantasy, as constantly declined the honour of the affinity, this apparent difference of opinion may not be accounted for by supposing him to be descended from that Earl?—But, if we are to imagine any descendants of that exalted character to be still in existence, with great deference to Mr. PEGGE’s better judgment, might not Sir ALEXANDER HOOD, and his noble brother, from similarity of name, appear more likely to be descendants of this celebrated archer? and from him also inherit that skill which the gallant admiral, on a never to be forgotten occasion, so eminently displayed in drawing a long bow? We can only now lament, that we have not room for any minute enquiry into these various hypotheses, and that we are under the necessity of proceeding to the drummer’s epitaph, and the conclusion of our criticisms.

[Blackletter:
“A stalwart Saxon here doth lie,
Japeth nat, men of Normandie;
Rollo nought scoft his dyand wordes
Of poynt mo perrand than a swordis.
And leal folk of Englelonde
Shall haven hem yvir mo in honde.
Bot syn that in his life I trowe,
Of shepes skynnes he had ynowe,
For yvir he drommed thereupon:
Now he, pardie, is dede and gone,
May no man chese a shepis skynne
To wrappe his dyand wordes inne.”
Od. Frauncis of Glastonbury.]