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Line 6.] "A deed without a name."
SHAKESPEARE.

Line 8.] "Terrarum dominos evehit ad deos."
HORACE.

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Line 14.] Were it not that great geniuses, of a similar mould , are apt to hit upon the same thoughts and expressions, we should suspect that this commencement were little else than an imitation of the inimitable exordium of Madoc, which is so strikingly displays the feelings of conscious genius:
"Come, listen to the tale of times of old!
"Come, for ye know me! I am he who sung
"Of Thalaba the wild and wond'rous song.
"Come, listen to my lay, and ye shall hear
"How Madoc from the shores of Britain spread
"The adventurous sail, explored the ocean ways,
"And quell'd barbarian power, and overthrew
"The bloody altars of idolatry,
"And planted in its fanes triumphantly
"The cross of Christ. Come, listen to my lay?"

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Line 42.] A broad-bottom'd administration seems, from repeated experience, to denote exactly the same as an administration without any bottom at all; in the same manner as a wide conscience, and no conscience, is just the same thing. In short, the stool of state appears to be a very narrow, tottering seat; and the broad-bottom, protruding beyond its verge on every side, if not well-balanced, is in terrible danger of upsetting. It is rather an awkward circumstance for an administration to be characterized as the broad-bottomed. It seems to indicate that their chief virtue consists in taking a very solid position in their places; if not that their talents bear

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some fundamental analogy to the appellation. When shall we have the long-headed administration?

Line 52.] All my little readers, and some of my great ones, will remember the fable in Esop.

Line 65.] My political readers are not ignorant of the school in which the minister has learnt his zeal for the British Constitution.

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Line 71.] It was the custom among the ancients, when caught in a storm at sea, to deprecate the wrath of Neptune, and intreat his assistance to reach the shore in safety. If the prayer was granted, they shewed their gratitude in hanging, upon the branches of some consecrated tree near the shore, a piece of armour, or some more splendid trophy, with a tablet containing a suitable inscription. Those who are caught in a political storm, (i.e. the minority,) pay abundance of vows "to every watery god, some speedy aid to lend:" but having once touched the wished-for harbour, who ever hears of their grateful remembrances? One is conveyed ashore in the life-boat of the people, another on the rafts of the church; and they recal these obligations just when they are caught in another storm, and have fresh occasion for assistance.

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Line 88.] In this country, we had several premiers of this description, who have been found to serve the purpose exceedingly well. Who was at one time more popular than the Duke of Newcastle? The people who stood at a distance, and were unable to distinguish the lofty colour-staff from the jack and pendant that floated around it, thought the thing truly magnificent. It was a good joke to the efficients, who, under the mighty shade, securely stuffed themselves with the loaves and fishes. The Marquis of Rockingham was almost too good for a mere colour-staff, as his successor is almost too--. The proportion between the qualities of the head and

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the limbs is, however, pretty well preserved. F-- was to R-- pretty nearly as C--, or P--, or H--, or M--, is to P--.

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Line 123.] The poet has spoken the language of panegyric: Be it the task of the critic to speak impartial truth. The historian, who gives his name to the public, labours under insuperable disadvantages in delineating the character of contemporary statesmen. If

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connected with their partizans, he must maintain his consistency by resolutely praising them throughout: If associated with their opponents, he must find nothing but defects, even in their greatest virtues. In short, the biographer thus circumstanced, must always look through one end of the telescope; and see the virtues or vices of his subject either swoln to a mountain, or dwindled to a mole-hill. I am under no such restraint. I can shew both the good and the bad in their proper dimensions, without any risk of losing my place or pension. In sooth, I long to hear my friend A-- on the one side, and my friend B-- on the other, rail at the impertinent scribbler who has written to indulge his own humour; while they know not that the man stands before them. Receive, therefore, the true Mr. Pitt at my hands; and let me indulge the fond hope that posterity, disgusted with the sturdy declarations of Belsham, the ill-assorted newspapers of Bisset, the lick-dust encomiums of Adolphus, or Gifford's and Macarthur's promised waggon-load of gazettes soaked in train oil--may seek for fair truth in the annotations of an Epic!
Mr. Pitt derived every advantage from his birth and education. He was son to the most celebrated statesmen of the times. He was the darling of his father; and designed to support, not the name and honours, but the fame and power of his family. Tutored by the

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penetrating observations of the once great Commoner, he was an adept in politics, even in his nonage, and an accomplished statesman before the laws regarded him as a man.
He came into political life with every advantage. The people adored the representative of the great patriot who had breathed his last in the cause of freedom: and they fondly invested with all the talents and virtues which they had long associated with the name of Pitt. Even the court beheld him with comparative favour, and were willing to escape from the dreaded yoke of the aristocracy, by the efforts of the people and the son of Chatham. The coalition of the aristocracy with the ousted tools of the court, whom they had hitherto branded as the basest of reptiles, overwhelmed all his adversaries with infamy: and when the dissolution of parliament had manifested the national sentiments, he set forward in his political career, with the brilliant assurance that the court and the people were equally his friends.
An unpopular war was just concluded. Men returned with eagerness to the pursuits of peace. Agriculture, manufacturers, and commerce, began to flourish anew, and to shoot forth blossoms more gay and fruitful than they had hiterto borne. The taxes became more productive, yet were less felt: and while the necessities of

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the government were relieved, the people were visibly enriched. When men compared this happy state of things with the grievances and discontents from which they had just escaped, they naturally referred their new blessings to the presiding spirit who now stood at the helm of government. And while they estimated his talents by their own prosperity, and compared his years with his abilities, they concluded that so much wisdom and conduct could be found in one so young, on;y by a miracle, and that Providence in mercy had now vouchsafed them a heaven-born minister.
As his career proceeded, his good fortune kept pace with it. The flourishing state of the finances, arising from the rapid increase of national prosperity, enabled him, under better auspices, to resume the plans of Walpole; and to hold forth to the nation a prospect of relief from that accumulation of debt, which was regarded with the most fearful apprehensions. The plan of the sinking fund was neither new nor complicated; but it had a a splendid and most gracious appearance; and he had the virtue to excel his predecessors in abstaining from the fund this appropriated, even under his greatest difficulties.
The war of the French Revolution presented him with a new scene, but with circumstances not less fortunate. On the one hand, bu persevering in the course

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which he had hitherto pursued, he had before him the reputation of preferring the real felicity of a nation to the glittering temptations of ambition; of guiding the vessel of the state with skill, through shoals and quicksands, in which others were perishing; of rendering his country rich, powerful, and happy, while neighbouring kingdoms were ravaged by the intestine convulsions, and ruined by external wars. On the other hand, the career ambition was thrown wide before him: the glory of subduing enemies, of ruling allies, of calling forth the valour of his countrymen, and shining, in the eyes of posterity, with the accompanying lustre of conquests and victories. He chose the latter, and the feelings of the nation went along with him.
The atrocities of the French Revolution, and the excesses of some infatuated persons in our own country, who were fitter subjects for Bedlam than for Newgate, threw the people into a general panic. The great trembled for their honours; wealthy for their riches; the numerous dependents of the court for their places and pensions. Every one seemed to feel the dagger of an assassin in his back, and the hand of a robber in his pocket. Every one felt himself called upon, with his life and fortune, to assist the minister who had the courage to encounter these terrible calamities. He might equip the most expensive armaments; he might under-

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take the most fruitless expeditions; he might chastise, with a rod sharper than the law, the insolent murmurs of discontent; he might accumulate tax upon tax, and loan upon loan. He was met with support, and encouraged by acclamations. When a due lapse of time had dispelled the panic; and men, venturing to look around, found no dagger at their back but the dagger of the new penal statutes, no hand in their pockets but the hand of the tax-gatherer, they were amazed at their own security. They thanked heaven for their miraculous escape; and prostrated themselves before the saviour of his country!
Such were the favourable gales which swelled the sails of Pitt, throughout his long course. But we must not undervalue the talents which could take advantage of them. He knew the people of England: he could apply suitable arguments of their heads, and proper stimulants to their prejudices and passions. He could make them regard a disaster as a fortunate escape; and a galling tax as a blessed expedient. No statesman ever took a firmer hold on the minds of the people; and at the moment this is written, two thirds of the nation still revere him as the greatest minister England ever possessed.
His oratory was the grand pillar of his reputation. His deep-toned voice; his warm and forcible utterance

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his slow, distinct, measured enunciation; his elevated and ornamented style; his long involved and seemingly premeditated sentences--impressed the hearers with an opinion of his profoundness and dignity. Every period was delivered with pomp; every sentiment breathed an air of importance. His declamation was always received with bursts of applause. Their attention was still more forcibly attracted by the pointed personal sarcasms in which he delighted. His irony was keen, direct, and cruelly persevering. He never left his victim, however contemptible, till he had broken every limb on the wheel.*
The impression produced by the striking qualities of his oratory, made its defects pass unperceived. The tritest idea acquired importance from the pomp with which it was enounced: and the distance of the commencement of the period from the conclusion caused

*This disposition was remarkably exemplified in the terrible blows which he inflicted on poor Sir John Sinclair, a most inoffensive agriculturalist, who is no more capable of injuring a great minister than is one of his sheep. The baronet, in an evil hour, would needs be a politician and an opposition orator an ambition which he dearly atoned by the loss of his great glory, the presidentship of the board of agriculture, and by such chastisement in the House of Commons as exceeded the utmost wrath of an infuriated pedagogue.

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their want of correspondence to escape unobserved. Amidst the miserable and abortive attempts at haranguing, which usually disgrace the House of Commons, the oratory of Pitt shone like a comet amidst the twinkling stars.
As a minister of finance, his dexterity was unrivalled. He had a peculiar penetration is discovering where taxes might be imposed, and a still greater skill in rendering the most obnoxious acceptable. His reputation in this department was greatly increased by his dexterity in arithmetical calculations, and the rapidity with which he caught up and appropriated the ideas of those with whom he conversed. The practised accountant was amazed to see himself surpassed in those operations which had formed the business of his life: and the merchant, the manufacturer, and the mechanic, who conversed with him, reported with admiration that he understood their respective callings better than themselves. By these arts he led the monied world.
In his principles with regard to commerce Le was the avowed follower of Adam Smith; but he durst not, amidst the difficulties in which war involved him, enter into an open contest with the prejudices of the commercial system; and he could only venture to weaken a few links in the chain of the navigation laws. There are also instances in which his ideas fell short of his masters;

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and especially in regard to the corn-laws, he either knew not what was right, or he did that which he knew to be wrong.
As a war minister, his lustre shone far less bright. The naval achievements, indeed, were such as we might expect from the superior maritime commerce and skill of Great Britain. But all the enterprizes by land were ill-conceived, and, with one exception, worse executed. The commanders were ill-selected; the troops ill-appointed; the points of attack chosen without judgment; and secrecy never preserved even when most essential. He mediated great enterprizes; but his means were never equal to his ends. Defeat and disgrace were the portion of his armies; and his expedition became the ridicule of Europe. The gigantic successes of Buonaparte produced the most uneasy sensations in his mind; and his most intimate friends assure us, that he actually felt those apprehensions of invasion which he attempted to infuse into his countrymen.
There was a sternness and obstinacy in his character, which often subdued opposition, but always excited enemies. It exasperated while it overawed the court; and it converted his political contests into private animosities. To those at a distance, it bore the appearances of firmness; but several transactions dictated by this spirit drew on his character the reproach of boyish arrogance

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and pitiful revenge.* While his firmness bound to him his partizans, his harshness often disgusted them; and it was observed that no man had more political or fewer private friends.
Yet he could become submissive and pliant, when the interests of his ambition, his ruling passions, were at stake. He could be gracious and affable when he had any particular end in view. His original principles dropt from him as he entered the threshold of the court; and all men smiled at his attempt to preserve an appearance of consistency, by leaving to his dependents the task of overthrowing some popular questions, while he himself remained in the minority. He carried through his favourite measure, the Union with Ireland, by promising emancipation to the Catholics; and when the court refused to make good his word, he could not but resign. But the want of power was intolerable; and he quickly gave up his pledge to recover his station.
This last step caused his sun, long so brilliant, to set, amidst impenetrable gloom. Untaught by his father's sorrows, he quarrelled with his most respectable friends,

*Such were his conduct to the unfortunate hawkers; and his explosion of his old antagonist Horne Tooke, under the unjustifiable and ridiculous pretext that a man once in orders can never become a member of the House of Commons. Why do the still more sacred bishops sit in the other House of Parliament?

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and threw himself defenceless into the arms of the court. Bereft of his independence, forsaken by the confidence of the nation, unsupported by the miserable dependents with whom he had surrounded himself, and unfortunate in all his dearest enterprises, the agitations of his proud spirit overpowered the feebleness of an exhausted body; and he fell, at an early age, amidst the pangs of disappointed ambition.
His figure was tall, his bones large, his habit spare. His features were prominent and coarse; and his mouth, which was always open as he walked, expressed to those who met without knowing him, any thing rather than the qualities of a great minister or a wise man. His gestures were ungraceful. Even when he harangued, he chiefly moved his head and his right arm, which he brandished with great violence, but in the same uniform directions.
His private life was little remarkable, yet had considerable effect on his political reputation. Of a cool temperament, he felt little inclination towards the female sex, and was considered wholly free from the vice of incontinence : a circumstance which procured him a high character for unspotted morality, and rendered him the idol of grave and religious persons throughout the nation. In his latter years this impression was somewhat diminished by the discovery that he was intem-

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perately addicted to the pleasures of the bottle. But men were willing to transfer the blame of this defect to the bad example of an intimate political friend. He intrusted the whole management of his private fortune to his servants; and their careless profusion always left him entangled in necessities. After his resignation, he expressed to some of his confidential friends his resolution of returning to his original profession, the bar, and of endeavouring to retrieve his ruined fortune. Had he executed this intention, instead of again accepting his political station on degrading terms, he would have been recorded to posterity as an unrivalled model of magnanimity, and would have re-ascended his former elevation with redoubled splendour.
At college he excelled in mathematics; and delighted, through life, to employ his leisure intervals in the perusal of the Latin classics : but his early and incessant application to business prevented him from acquiring a profound knowledge of any branch of learning. His public declamations in favour of religion were ardent: but his private convictions were never sound, and his expiring moments were not those of confidence.
The talents of Pitt were great; and his station among statesmen eminent: but the comparison of his abilities with those of his successors has erected the loftiest monument to his fame.

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Line 137.] Last year this pretty little villa served for recreation amidst the terrible fatigues of office. This year it may do for the enjoyment of philosophic ease, after this hopeful sprig of science and politics has resigned his unwelcome cares.

Line 147.] The troublesome things, figures, are greatly below the notice of a fine gentleman or a philosopher; but to attain some knowledge of them is rather a necessary evil to a Chancellor of the Exchequer. It somewhat hurts one;s feelings to see a minister stand up in his place, and, after a very pretty exordium to the budget, take up a bundle of papers from the table, gaze at the incomprehensible calculations before him, stammer out a few confused numbers, and then, with a rueful face, look over his shoulder to V--ns--rt for assistance. How often have I grieved to see unhappy A--d --g--n in this lamentable predicament! How did my heart yearn for explanation, while a young noble statesman in vain tortured his brains to decypher the mighty plan of finance which he had so very very prettily announced! But it has been said that this knowledge of figures is a vulgar acquirement; a thing within the reach of every clerk. Be it so; it is the more disgraceful for our oratorical politicians to be devoid of it. Nothing is more disgusting than to hear a man stam-

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mering through a long detail of numbers, which he cannot even read, far less connect, or make intelligible to any human understanding. There was nothing which brought Mr. Pitt more credit, or in which he more decidedly excelled all his contemporaries, than the perspicuity and fluency with which he detailed the most complicated calculations. There are few men, indeed, in parliament who can now be heard with patience on any financial topic.

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Line 160.] When Mr., Pitt went to the political play of Pizarro, it was stated to have been the first time, for fourteen years, that he had visited the theatre.

Line 176.] This is the usual denomination and appearance of the rays of the Aurora Borealis.

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Line 179.] Most of my readers are acquainted with the famous controversy about cause and effect, which lately set the clergy and the philosophers of Scotland by the ears. Had the new scheme of finance been the invention of its propounder in the House of Common, we might have supposed it to have been a germ of this northern school; for there we found a very great effect--no less than the payment of the national debt and the abolition of taxes--about to be accomplished without any discernible cause.

Line 185.] Butterflies and others, which have splendid wings and short lives.

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Line 188.] The Pancratia was a method of fighting much in use among the ancients; and, indeed, is still practised among all nations, the English only excepted. The generous method of deciding quarrels by boxing, where no one is attacked at a disadvantage, and where the vanquished are always spared, is peculiar to our countrymen, and affords one of the most distinguished proofs of their superior civilization. In the pancratia, the antagonists did not fight with fists at a distance, but engaged at once with hands, feet, teeth, and nails--manibus et pedibus, unguibus et rostro. When the vanquished was thrown down, he was still allowed no quarter: the conquerer knelt upon him, pelted him, tore him till he was quite disabled from renewing the contest. Do not our declaiming politicians seem to deal rather in the pancratia than boxing? Cobbett only lays on more sturdily and effectually than the rest.

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Line 229.] It seems rather singular that the business of a statesman, the most difficult and complicated of any, should alone be thought to require no preparation whatever. We have long apprenticeships for the meanest mechanical trades, and we have colleges for instruction in the more liberal professions. The divine, the physician, the lawyer, are appointed to go through a certain course of education, and to undergo some trials before they are accounted qualified for the exercise of their callings; but every one, whatever may have been his previous studies and pursuits, is held competent for the office of a minister, if he can attain it. Such is the

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cause of those miserable counsels which prevail in a nation otherwise enlightened. We see vast discoveries and improvements made in other arts and sciences; but if a statesman does not absolutely precipitate the nation into some terrible calamity, and if he at times throws a sop to the mob by some trifling change, we admire him as a person of great excellence, and exceedingly qualified for the government of nations. Nay, according to our institution, a man is born a statesman, and fed a statesman; and the caput mortuum is thought abundantly well prepared for the assigned occupation, though no vivifying ray of knowledge has ever pierced it. While we see an illiterate noble, an addle-headed squire, a loquacious lawyer, an obsequious dependent of the court, daily occupying stations, and transacting affairs, to which vigour regulated by prudence, and knowledge improved by experience, are alone equal, we are astonished to see fatality, as we call it, confound our counsels, when every thing goes on its old way. As for the true cause of the evil, we never dream of it; but justly look upon it as a judgment of Heaven upon our sins and follies. Were than ancient maxim of wisdom--Ne sutor ultra crepidam--carefully kept in view, I may fairly compute that not ten of our ministers, during the last century, would have crossed the threshold of the cabinet.

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Line 242.] Nothing can more completely demonstrate that the capacity of a minister for his office is wholly overlooked in his appointment, than the manner in which the offices are distributed among the members of the party that gets in. Every different department in the government relates to very different talents: the Home department, the Foreign, the War the Colonial, the Treasury, the Admiralty, each presents a routine, and demands a management wholly distinct. But when a party rushes in, these considerations are wholly out of the question.

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Every one sets forward in the scramble; and the best thing he can lay his hands fast upon becomes his own. Hence we have at the head of our Admiralty successively, a Noble Lord, a true Sea Lord of eighty, and two squire orators. In the Treasury we have seen a financier, a Speaker of the House of Commons, a Noble Lord and a lord by courtesy, and finally an Attorney General! The Foreign department, upon which all our relations with Europe depend, has undergone not less queer revolutions; and , after having been occupied by Fox, has at length been consigned to a maker of epigrams. As to the War department, to which the Colonial, an odd appendage enough, is added, it might seem to have remained in one hand, from that consistent succession of blunders. which has rendered our expeditions the butt of Europe: but it has in fact passed through a great variety of occupants as any of the rest, (all however, it would appear, equally qualified,) and after soaring to the upper regions, in the form of a Pegasus, under the daring jockeyship of Mr. W--, has at length become a very tame mule, bestrid by Lord C--. I do not mean to say that all the personages alluded to are not very able men, very admirable geniuses: but I must doubt whether they are fitted for a

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single occupation which they have never learned. Some of them have nearly run the gauntlet of all the higher offices in the state; and I may surely affirm that if, in this career, they sometimes occupied their proper place, they were as often not better suited than if a blacksmith were set with a pair of scissors to cut out fashionable frocks. Perhaps it may be judged a very easy matter to carry on the business of government, and that almost any man is competent to it; and, in truth, as the affair is managed, it cannot be attended with much difficulty. But to have a full and distinct idea of the business of the department, and to execute it skillfully for the benefit of the nation, is not a matter of such ease. I also have looked into our public offices, and can affirm that not only to surmount their unavoidable difficulties, but even to unravel that maze of confusion and perplexity in which ignorance has entangled them, would require the deep attention of years. I can safely assert that there are not two ministers at present in office who thoroughly understand the objects, powers, detail, or requisite skill of their respective departments. How is it possible they should? Amidst the passion, and bustle of party and intrigue, which perpetually divert their attention, and distract their thoughts, how is it possible that men, during a precarious elevation of a few years,

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or rather a few months, should become deeply conversant with an intricate business, which they never studied before, and have now no time to study? In short, what Horace says of poetry in his days may be applied to politics in ours:
"Navim agere ignarus navis timet: abrotonom aegro
"Non audet, nisi qui didicit, dare: quod medicorum est,
"Promittunt medici: tranctant fabrilia fabri:
"Ducimus indocti doctique politica passim."

Line 243.] This is not the least curious circumstance of a late transaction. All the independencies were at once snatch'd by the most forward, and held with such a death-like gripe, that it was impossible to unloose the hold, without cutting off the fingers. It was a mortifying thing to become a jack-boot to his Grace; and yet there was nothing else to be had. The honied sauce of a sinecure was applied to make the dry morsel go down sweetly; and if a villainous hue-and-cry had not been raised, it would have sweetened his mouth for life.

Line 251.] Charles Maurice Talleyrand, created by his master, Prince of Benevento, has contributed to the

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greatness and success of Bonaparte, not less than his most formidable armies. He studied the science of politics in his closet; and he came on the theatre of public affairs, fully prepared to apply his solid conclusions to practice. The most strange concurrence of circumstances presented nothing perplexing to him; for they originated in principles which he understood, and led to consequences which he knew how to regulate. Bonaparte was in war what his minister was in politics. Both proceeded upon ascertained principles, and not upon those crude conjectures so absurdly called experience. Hence their plans appeared always consistent, yet were wholly incomprehensible to their enemies; and the nations of Europe found themselves conquered almost before they had prepared to meet an attack. It is in vain that their stupified antagonists have attributed these unrivalled successes to some mysterious and miraculous intervention of Providence, to hidden treachery, and to inexplicable enthusiasm. The only magic of Bonaparte and Talleyrand was a thorough knowledge of human nature, which could not but easily triumph over the profound ignorance of their enemies. The political writings of Talleyrand readily distinguish him from the common herd of statesman. Here we find none of that technical and mysterious jargon of office, which is em-

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ployed to confound the understandings of men, and give to trifles an air of profundity. He reasons like a philosopher, and deduces undeniable conclusions from indubitable facts. --And why should not British statesmen, for the glory and salvation of their country, imitate this example? It is not necessary to imitate the profligacy and perfidy of Talleyrand, in order to attain his other qualities. Virtuous intentions, and pure affections, when united with equal skill and knowledge, always triumph over vice.

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Line 288.] The poet, with an impartial hand, displays the most noted virtues of the rival statesmen: the commentator shall tell the whole truth, with equal impartiality.
Charles James Fox derived from nature a vigorous capacity, which was early improved by a liberal education. His conceptions were rapid, his fancy brilliant: the indulgence of his father gave him an open and fearless address;; and a continual intercourse with the circles of gaiety and fashion rendered his expression unconstrained, and elegant. He seemed born an orator, and destined by nature to shine in the political sphere. His temper, frank, candid, and generous, was calculated to gain him many friends, and to disarm the animosity of every enemy. There was nothing in it to inspire awe, or to excite mistrust; no one was thrown to an uncomfortable distance. He seemed born to live with ease and good humour, and to communicate these agreeable feelings to all around him.
His more advanced education tended to blast the fruitful plants which shot up in so rich a soil, and to give room and luxuriance to every weed. His youth

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was a continued course of dissipation. Those hours of vigour and ardour, which ought to have been spent in the labours of the closet, were devoted to the gaming table, the amour, the midnight debauch. The habits thus contracted gradually became irresistible. He could only by starts confine himself to serious studies: he needed dissipation to refresh his mind: he became incapable of that steady attention to business, without which it is impossible to conduct the affairs of a great and active nation.
His introduction into political life was not peculiarly fortunate. His father, indeed, enjoyed the reputation of abilities, yet he had sunk under the talents, and still more under the integrity of Chatham. But if Fox derived some stain from his parentage, his own conduct seemed not likely to remove the blot; and while men admired the brilliancy of his parts, they wondered and lamented that so much genius should be united to so little prudence or virtue.
The unfavorable occurrences, which crossed his political career, might spring from accident; but they derived new force, from the warmth, of the facility of his own temper. During the American war, he had derived much popularity from his resolute and violent opposition to Lord North: but when this nobleman and

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his friends passed over to the party of Fox, and were by him received with his usual facility and frankness, the people looked upon their patriot as guilty of the most unprincipled dishonesty in this cordially coalescing with the men whom he had just pursued with the most opprobrious invective. The odium of the coalition continued even afterwards to hang, like a noxious vapour, upon his brightest beams.
When Great Britain interfered to put a stop to the conquering arms of Russia, the friends of the monarchy were alarmed and incensed, when they saw Fox not only oppose administration at home, but even carry his zeal so far as to send abroad an accredited agent to thwart the views of government. During the lamented illness of the sovereign, his activity drew down upon him a new load of indignation. Men could not look upon the warmest friendship for the son, as sufficient excuse for deserting his duty to the father.
The French Revolution followed close. Fox, in conformity with his principles, applauded the first movements of freedom, and the nation united in his sentiments. The excesses which ensued altered the general feelings: the best principles became abhorred, when found in the mouths of atrocious villains: and in the ideas of the multitude, Fox became associated with

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those who spoke the same language, however different their intentions and actions. The consternation afterwards diffused throughout the kingdom, and the vast popularity of his great political antagonist, gave a still deeper hold to these impressions; and no one seemed worthy of public trust, who did not revile Fox as an enemy to his country. His own impudence was, indeed, scarcely less fatal to his interests, than were the arts of his adversaries. He gave too free access to men of profligate characters and dark designs: He uttered expressions too violent at any time, but foolish in the extreme amidst the ferment which then prevailed: He even degraded himself to a level with the lowest demagogues, by haranguing motley mobs in the fields around London. His patriotism became more suspected, when he declared his country to be in extreme danger, and then took the unmanly resolution of abandoning her councils, and consigning himself to ease and retirement. These acts are indeed attributed to a facility which led him to yield to men whose opinions he should have despised: But this is only to defend his heart at the expence of his head.
The same lamentable facility suddenly eclipsed the rays which began to break forth at his decline. After twenty years of opposition, he came into power without sacrificing his honour; but his first speech in the

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House of Commons, as a minister, was employed in the introduction of a bill to enable a colleague to possess, at once, two important, rich, and incompatible offices. He seemed to feel his own degradation: He seemed conscious that he was setting at defiance all his former professions and trampling to dust all the glory of his life. His countenance reddened, and his voice became choaked, with shame and anger, when his adversaries reminded him of what he wished to forget, and reproached him as the tool of iniquity and avarice. With this initiation, his former principles seemed to have vanished. The worst measure of his predecessors, the property tax, which he had lately reprobated as the most impolitic, unjust , and oppressive, of all exactions, he now supported as an ingenious device, and defended an increase of its injustice and oppression.
Morality is too often neglected by the ambitious, as useless to their advancement: but experience shews that the want of a good moral character cannot be compensated to a statesman by any fame of talents. The general opinion of Fox's licentiousness was perhaps the greatest obstacle to his fortunes, and the glue which made calumnies so readily adhere to him. He was even believed to be the principal instrument in polluting that spring, from which the nation expected its future happiness to flow: nor was this surmise confined to the

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vulgar. So confirmed was the general opinion of his licentiousness, that his adherents, especially in certain distant quarters of the Island, second to have assumed it as the distinguishing badge of their party; and youths who professed contempt for religion, and practised an unbounded libertinism, were there almost the only acknowledged Foxites. The moral act, by which he closed his gayer career, excited scarcely less reprehension. However reclaimed and meritorious might be the object of his choice; yet it seemed too shocking to decorum that the wife of a great statesman should be improper companion for any honest matron.
The mind of Fox was naturally open and liberal; and his principles bore the stamp of his disposition. He seemed from conviction the assertor of popular rights, and a decided enemy to arbitrary government. Yet his principles could not at all times resist either his facility or his warmth; and some portion at least of his consistency may be attributed to his permanent situation as leader of opposition. He was accused of rank democracy; but with much injustice. He entered political life among the aristocracy, and with them closed his career. It was by their prevailing influence against the crown that he twice became a minister; and by them he was supported throughout. He was a friend to extensive suffrage; but he knew that the votes of the lower

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orders must ever be at the command of the higher. In power, he had always the interest of the aristocracy in view. He endeavoured to throw the whole patronage of India into the hands of the parliament: He supported the property tax on the principle that men ought, as far as possible, to be retained in the station which they have once occupied; and that it is quite as reasonable that the lower orders should be starved, as that the higher should be deprived of their usual enjoyments.
The knowledge of Fox was chiefly of that description which may be drawn from conversation, or from books of easy perusal. In a country whose prosperity hinges on the arrangement of its industry, whose government depends on the skilful support of public credit, he acknowledged himself ignorant of political economy and finance. He was not deeply versed in official business; nor had pursued any subject with the accuracy of scientific investigation. But in the political history of his country, in the laws relative to its constitution, in the dispositions and views of foreign powers, in the arts which conciliate and lead mankind, his knowledge was perhaps unrivalled by any modern politician.
His eloquence was the grand foundation of his fame. He had to struggle with the disadvantages of appearance. His figure was unpromising, his motions un-

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graceful, his voice shrill, and his enunciation, at the commencement of his speech, indistinct and hesitating. Every thing announced that all was unpremeditated, and that the hearer had nothing to expect but the effusions of the moment. But as he proceeded, this circumstance became a source of admiration. As he grew warm, his words began to flow; his enunciation became clear and forcible; his countenance glowed with ardour, and every motion spoke the force of his feelings. He hastened directly to his subject: It seemed to occupy his whole soul, to call forth every power of imagination and judgment: He was irresistibly hurried along with him. In whatever he said there was an air of candour and earnestness, which carried in it scarcely less persuasion than his words. By the rapidity and strength of his conceptions, he was enabled to place his subject in the clearest light; and he had an unusual facility in calling to his assistance the resources with which books or conversation had supplied him. His wit was very successful, and his sarcasm peculiarly poignant: they were not delivered with bitterness, and they seemed always to fall justly on the head of their object.
Yet his eloquence was not free from the vices to which it was naturally subjected by his habits. His

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orations were never regular, never skillfully arranged. The hearer, borne along by his warmth, did not discover his desultory transitions: but on recollection, he found it difficult to retrace the maze which he had traversed: As he always trusted to the moment, his exhibitions depended much on the state of his spirits; and it was not uncommon to see him labour through a hesitating, devious discourse, which scarcely retained the attention of his hearers.
Even those, who disliked his politics most admired his disposition. His friends felt towards him a personal attachment; and the open frankness of his manner often disarmed political animosity. He was regarded as the very model of a true Englishman.
His early dissipation and the narrowness of his private fortune involved him in perpetual difficulties, which embarrassed his mind, and often engaged him in a disagreeable dependence. The expedient of a general contribution of his friends, by which he was at length extricated, gave and irrecoverable blow to his respectability. those especially at a distance felt a strange revolution of sentiment, when the idol of their admiration became a suppliant for their alms. Some of his enemies had the cruelty to mortify him by their ostentatious subscriptions. His inviolable attachment to peace was the noblest

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feature in his public character. Even his most determined enemies lamented his death, when they same the negociation which had owed their birth entirely to him, expire as our only Minister of Peace expired.

Line 295.] It is said that, at the commencement of the last war, our ambassador at the court of T--sc--y demanded an audience of the G--d Duke, and, laying his watch on the table, informed his Highness, that unless consented, within a quarter of an hour, to declare war against France, he should be considered as at war with England. Such was the policy to which the Kings of Sardinia and Naples, and the unhappy republic of Holland, owed their destruction. It is cruel policy to force into war feeble allies whom we cannot protect. Surrounded by the ocean, and defended by a triumphant navy we ought to view with human feelings the miseries of the weak and defenceless states. To make them, through terror, draw forth their poor contingents, may be glorious sport to us, but ut us death to them. It has been said--a poor excuse for injustice! that the French do the same by their dependent allies. But we ought to recollect that the French, having their strength by land, are able to protect their allies on the continent. Such measures might be justifiable if our allies were islanders. Where it is otherwise, we can only witness their mise-

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rable subjugation, and hear their indignant imprecations on the original authors of their calamities.

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Line 335.] The conduct of Fox towards the proposed assassin of Bonaparte gave a glorious refutation to the calumnies which had been propagated in France against the statesman of England. They had been accused of hiring assassins, of contriving infernal machines, of countenancing the most flagitious designs for the destruction of enemies. But no sooner did an assassin present himself to Fox, than he caused the wretch to be secured, and sent immediate information to the bitterest foe of Great Britain. I should not, perhaps, have adverted particularly to this circumstance, had I not heard some persons, a-kin to the assassin, allege with a sneer, that Fox might have made a less boast of magnanimity; that he might have simply dismissed the fellow, without becoming guardian to the mortal enemy of his country.

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Line 344.] Inigo Jones drew a magnificent plan for rebuilding the palace at Whitehall. But Charles had more pressing calls upon his treasury than the encouragement of the fine arts, and the decoration of his capital. The small portion of the design which was executed, remains to teach young architectural geniuses what noble monuments they may be enabled to erect to their fame at the public expence.

Line 348.] The Treasury--one of the most desirable buildings in the nation.

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Line 369.] Here I must observe, that what the traveller says of the member speaking in proverbs, or very short sentences, arises from his ignorance. It is by no means the custom of our senatorial orators to degrade their eloquence by delivering themselves with this laconic abruptness. It is well known that no man (unless his notes or his memory fails him) sits down willingly, until after he has spent an hour upon his legs. Nay, so anxious are some members to do their duty to their constituents, that they can never be driven off their post till a full battery of the whole house opens upon them. Every one is aware that the members themselves, in estimating their respective merits in any debate, uniformly have recourse to the palpable and infallible standard of their duration in the perpendicular posture. What orators are in greater request than those who can peak against time? The mutilated figure, which many an invaluable three-hour-orator makes in a newspaper, is entirely owing to the necessary limitations of the reporter. When the final sentence, no more can be inserted, is announced, then the orator may think himself well off, and favoured, who has even his name squeezed into half a line. We may add, somewhat in the strain of the Italian when speaking of the beauties of his mistress, --were all the speeches of all our orators to be reported, paper could not be found to hold them, printers to print them, and certainly not readers to read them.

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Line 389.] Lions are said to be terribly afraid of the crowing of a cock.

Line 395.] The assertion of the author here, though very wonderful, is urged with a confidence and evident sincerity which cannot be questioned. A few gaps in so very long a line cannot be reputed any blemish

Line 399.] A number of illustrious personages, in the earlier ages of Greece and Rome, were accounted the offspring of certain gods and goddesses. This honour they usually received, when their terrestrial origin, like that of the Nile, was hid in obscurity.

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Line 413.] Our readers will recollect Esau, who sold his birth-right for a mess of pottage. His descendants are as yet by no means extinct.

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Line 433.] It is dreadful to think that such scenes should happen; and yet they are occurrences too often known in this capital. Their frequency does not lessen their iniquity, but fixes a deeper stain on the national character. England, indeed, is not so addicted to gaming as other nations: but England does not, like other nations, groan under tyranny which renders life of no value, and any agitation of the mind a relief from its habitual terrors. The dreadful tragedies produced by sudden reverses of the gaming table are shocking to humanity. Such catastrophes as those alluded to by the poet take place more frequently than may be imagined One instance was some years ago much the subject of

[173]
discourse is one part of our island. An officer of rank, who had improved a small patrimony into a very large estate by the arts of the gaming table, succeeded one night in stripping a young gentleman, who had just come to his fortune, of every farthing which he possessed in the world. The young man, when left to his own reflections, recollected that he was now reduced from affluence to beggary; that he must relinquish all his former pleasures, shrink from his acquaintance, and renounce for ever the object of his wishes, whom, in a few weeks, he was to have led to the altar. The torment of this idea was insupportable. He wrote a letter to the author of his ruin, explaining the causes of his despair, and imprecating the vengeance of Heaven upon hi head; and then with a pistol terminated his mortal existence. The officer had been hardened, by long practice, to the scenes of misery which his arts produced; yet he could not shake off the impression which this letter made on his mind. He had deliberately inveigled the youth into play, and had taken every advantage of an ignorance which laid itself completely open to his skill. He imagined that he saw the youth continually before him demanding vengeance; not was the gaming table, or any other scene of amusement, able to dispel this terrible idea from his fancy. One morning the report of a pistol was heard in his bed room;

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and when the servants rushed in, they found him no longer within the reach of human assistance.

Line 441.] "Under each tropic is our language spoke,
"And part of Flanders hath received our
yoke." WALLER.

Line 443.] The great requisites of an orator in the House. If he foams a little, it will have a vastly fine effect; and a violent toss of the head is peculiarly emphatic. He should often seem to choak with the strength of his emotions; and should never fail to squeeze his white handkerchief between his hands, as if he were wringing it out of the wash-tub. He out to thump the desk without mercy, if he has one before him; and, if he has not, he ought to make up by an audible

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stamping with his feet. He should never forget to talk of his feelings in every sentence; and should often introduce the name of the Almighty, to diffuse a peculiar solemnity and prevent laughter.

Line 458.] "I'll speak daggers, but use none."
SHAKESPEARE.

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Line 459.] The first of these wits has become a celebrated diplomatist, as the world has heard. The second is a wit of a superior stamp; and much did the A-------n owe to its editor. It is very easy to write pretty epigrams when they pass through the hands of

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such a corrector. He now enjoys the rewards of his labours in a tolerable streamlet from the river of public sweets. He will now again be probably called into action.

Line 482.] Nothing is more easy than to escape these terrible bug-bears; and he understands his business ill indeed who cannot find means to do every thing he wishes to do, and yet keep clear of a tenth report. The gentlemen, who brought the famous transactions there mentioned to light, certainly ought to have the tribute they deserve for their public spirit: Yet I must own I should not have liked their labours less, had they been at least indifferent to the friends and foes of the accused, and had their expressions been less severe than their facts. When there is much charged and little proved

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against a public delinquent, it throws irreparable discredit on the very necessary enquiry into abuses, and the dishonest are more secure than ever. Who would at present be inflamed with the same passions, which men felt two years ago, by the production of another Tenth Report? Owing to this very cause, I am convinced, our Commissioners for Military Enquiry; who have far greater abuses to produce, will excite a much less far greater abuses to produce, will excite a much less ferment by their discoveries. The only persons, whose reputation will suffer much from their labours, are such as may invidiously exempted from their cognizance.

Line 492.] It is of infinite importance to be in proper preparation for stepping in when the angel comes to trouble the pool of Shiloam. Many a worthy servant

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of the public, like the infirm man in the gospel, is condemned to starve in grey hairs, from the want of some friendly hand to help him to the waters at the fortunate moment.

Line 506.] There is a set of men (happily for the security of administrations the number is small) who have some favourite popular projects, from which they expect much reputation, and which they consequently

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long to carry into execution. These are very dangerous persons, and infinitely troublesome to a minister. Mr. Pitt seems to have held the reins of such unruly spirits much more firmly than perhaps any other minister in our annals, and his stability remained undisturbed in proportion. Both Mr. Fox's administrations were remarkable for a contrary conduct, and thier duration was accordingly. During his former administration, that man of schemes, Mr. Burke, had almost daily something new to propose. He scrutinized the public offices, lopped off many sinecures and so forth; and at last he, with all his colleagues, ran mad after a reformation of Indian affairs, and was about to clip courtly patronage at a terrible rate. The issue was such as they might have expected; they were scarcely warm in their places, when they were turned out stark naked into the streets. The last administration, broad-bottomed as it was, upset from similar causes. We had a slave-trade bill for the West Indies, a law-court bill for Scotland, and a conscience-bill for Ireland, and-- a consequent dismission for ministers. There were not a few other foolish schemes agitated by several members of the party. Among the rest it is impossible to pass by, without reprehension, the wild attempt of Sir Samuel Romilly to render the estates in land assets for debt He, good easy man! certainly imagined that the proprietors of

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freehold estates, who form the majority in both houses of parliament, would actually surrender a real privilege from a fanciful principle of honour: that they would be willing to give up a right to be dishonest, to withhold unjustly what they had engaged to pay: that they would rather leave their posterity an unblemished good name, than an estate preserved by infamy: and that they would henceforth endeavour to provide for their children by prudence and economy, rather than by fraudulent depredations on the industrious part of the community. May Sir Samuel Romilly for the future learn to study men rather than abstract principles; and may the remembrance of this transaction remain everlastingly attached to his name!

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Line 572.] Something may be said to extenuate all this. A professed Imitator, who neither sees with his own eyes, nor hears with his own ears, must often fall into errors the more grotesque as they are not original. Burke was himself a singular character, and, in most parts of his life, an object rather of our wonder than applause. Both Burke at second hand can scarcely fail to excite the former without the latter emotion. O imitatores servum pecus! To this principle of imitation I could trace many of the most glaring faults of a man naturally capable of better things.
The terrors of the French Revolution turned many a brain previously sound and vigorous. I am inclined to think that the panic of the party who deserted their former associates was in a great measure real, and that

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they actually expressed much of what they felt. Yet, I should have been as well satisfied of their patriotism, had they been to lose loaves and fishes, by the change, instead of gaining them. Burke unwarily acknowledged that he had in view to make a family. Another statesman seemed by his silence to have his mouth too full to speak.

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Line 594.] It is amusing to hear an opposition orator thundering against the permission of abuses; and afterwards, when in office, giving full swing to the worst of them. The pickings in a particular office were cheese-parings and candle-ends with a vengeance. One clerk pocketed yearly, by his dexterity, as much as would have almost paid all the regular salaries of the Cabinet. It is not the legal emoluments of the efficient offices that are enormous: They are in many instances too small. The leeches that suck under cover exhaust the blood of the nation. Alas! how many years will pass before our Commissioners of Inquiry shall have laid open these evils, and pointed out a sufficient remedy?

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Line 612.] I should be far from blaming a minister for bringing forward new plans. God knows we have need of many new devices, where the old have proved so miserably defective. Some changes in our military establishment seemed in a particular manner desirable, since the nation was evidently at a vast experience to little purpose. The fate of our military projects has, however, been the oddest of all our political fatalities. One minister brought forward what he termed a gigantic measure: but, like other giants, it was only fit for a shew, and was both unwieldy and short lived. A greater minister produced some strange appearance which a witty orator compared to a graminivorous animal with

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two stomachs: and which this wit, in his turn, converted into any animal without any stomach at all. We shall now see still more strange monsters generated, or I am much mistaken, by our present admirable military politician.

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Line 632.] The idea of rendering a people courageous by accustoming them to bloody sights has unhappily not been followed up as it deserved. It is a great stain on the activity of the illustrious statesman who so energetically supported the opinion, that he did not, when he was in power, cause institutions to be set on foot, in all the great towns of the kingdom, for promoting bull-baitings, and superintending the public worrying of dogs and cats. It has, indeed, been suspected that, as the levy en masse was evidently good for nothing else, it was intended for some purpose of this sort. By seeing this aukward squad hewed down by the enemy, it is incredible what intrepidity our regular forces would acquire. It may, however, be questioned whether it would not be quite as effectual, as well as more safe, to have a guillotine erected in each parish, and chop off the heads of a certain number of the squad every training day, in the presence of a regular regiment.

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Line 646.] A statue of gold! I suspect a Colossus of brass would now be the tribute proposed by Ventoso for this political satyrist: for of late he has had his trimming as well as others.

[191 (161 on original manuscript)]
Line 672.] Such was the argument lately made use of by a great orator against Mr. Whitbread's Bill for the education of the poor. "To appeal to the example of the Scots," said he, "is ridiculous. To attribute the good morals and industry of the lower orders of Scotland to their education, is as absurd as to attribute their high cheek-bones and red hair to education. The lower

[192]
orders of the Scots are superior to the English because they are a better breed. If you would mend the morals of the nation you must mend the breed." These expressions have given rise to a report, that the next plan of that sagacious orator will be a proposal to mend the English breed by the importation of a certain proportion of Scottish males and females for each parish. It is added that Sir J. S--r, who understands the crossings of breeds above all men, is to take a principal part in the organization of the measure.

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Line 692.] The ingenious and important inventions, or projected inventions, of the Laputans are known to every reader. The only great advantage over us, which these illustrious islanders derive from nature, consists in the moveable construction of their island. Were our, capable of being navigated in this manner, how easily might we escape Bonaparte by simply making a voyage to the Pacific! His [flotillas] could never pretend to follow us. From the measures of defence, which have of late years been adopted, one is led to suppose that our ministers are not without expectations that means may be discovered of setting our island afloat in this manner.

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Line 717.] Such burlesques are not without their utility; and, if tolerably executed, are always amusing. The genius which they require is not however of the first rate, for several have been successful. The chief praise is given to the inventor of this mode of writing; and the author of the Rehearsal will therefore always be more noted than the author of the Critic.

Line 718.] I believe few have seen the Duenna, when well acted, without pleasure; and I believe as few have read it with pleasure. A good actor may make something both of the incidents and the dialogue; but in the closet, "little Isaac" is almost as dull as the unaccountable appendage Don Carlos. As a vehicle fro songs, however, it may be so so, as times go: but alas! is it from the author of the School for Scandal that we ought to expect mere vehicles?

Line 721.] This lady is well known throughout the nation as the faithful retailer in English of whatever Kot-

[196]
zebue chooses to pour forth in German, She has translated all his plays and travels--incomparable industry! and at a rate so moderate, as her publishes will acknowledge, that she must either be much in love with the work, or miserably tired of it.

Line 722.] The reader is aware that all those loyal addresses, in which the worthy citizens of our corporations breathe out warm devotions at the foot of the throne, are inserted in the Gazette. Whether some celebrated speeches delivered at Drury-Lane, from the pen of a great poet, do not bear a striking resemblance, in sentiment and style, to the usual strain of these addresses, the knowing reader is left to determine.

Line 723.] There is nothing which more certainly and readily disgusts us with the dainties of which we are most fond, than to be obliged to swallow them in large quantities on every occasion. No one will distrust the powers which I, or any other Englishman possess, of digesting loyal effusions in the theatre. In this way we have almost invincible stomachs. Yet it must be acknowledged that of late we have had the dainty administered in such unreasonable proportions, that to relish it at least is more than can be expected form us. I could mention some score of plays, and twice as many farces, which have come forward with the sole merit of au

[197]
abundant provision of loyal clap-traps. This is taking advantage of loyalty with a vengeance. It must, like charity, cover a multitudes of iniquities--the want of wit, interest, and common sense. The play of Pizarro has the merit of being among the first dramas in which loyal sentimentality was turned to such excessive good account. But if its glowing speeches raised the patriotism of the nation, they certainly have as much debased its taste; and after its great popularity, we have little reason to look for nature and simplicity in any serious dramatic performance. Did ever the savages of Peru speak in such a manner? But indeed the sentiments are the property of no nation, nor of any race, under Heaven.

Line 729.] It cannot be forgotten that at the Whig Club (a society which have the honour of perpetuating a party distinction, a century after the ground of its existence is removed) it became fashionable, some years ago, to omit the antiquated toast The King. The substitute was the Sovereignty of the People. But in Drury

[198]
Lane, it was found convenient to hold different sentiments, and to drink his majesty's health with every bumper.

Line 730.] Our readers will recollect a famous patriotic exhibition which took place during the mutiny at the Nore, which will be presently alluded to in its proper place.

Line 732.] Johnstone the machinist of Drury Lane theatre, a most ingenious man, and one of the best play-wrights of the age. Without his assistance, what would become of our Heroes of the North, our Wood Demons, and other respectable personages of the same class? In the composition of a Pantomimic Operatie Tragedy, the favourite drama of the day, the labour of the poet is one of the least things to be considered.
"Dixit adhuc aliquid? Nil sane. Quid placet ergo?
"Lana Tarentino violas imitata colore."

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Line 738.] Whatever might be the justice of injustice of the prosecution of a certain well-known governor of a distant part of our Empire, it afforded an unusual field for the display of eloquence. Mr. S--- availed himself of it with infinite success. Two speeches which he delivered on this occasion were the ground-work of his oratorical fame. It may indeed be doubted whether theses very fine and very long speeches did not more signalize the orators than promote the cause. So many five-hour speeches could not be all substantial--nay, some of the judges have assured me that they found it very difficult, among so many fine things, to discover any thing substantial at all.

Line 742.] There were few occasions on which a popular orator could have made a temporary excursion from his party with so much grace, as during the mutiny at the Nore. The character of Mr. S. seemed suddenly to start out from behind a cloud, and to shine in the eyes of all the nation with redoubled lustre. It was attributed to vanity, to the mere desire of shining:

[200]
but it might as well be called the master-stroke of a politician.

Line 744.] This was also another occasion on which Mr. S. very gracefully differed from his party. His eulogium on the Volunteers, and his motion for a vote of thanks to them, procured him a very general popularity throughout the nation: nor have all the jeers of some of his plan-making friends effaced the impression, as Mr. W-- abundantly witnessed at a late civic feast, where he was greeted with The Volunteers and three times three.

Line 746.] Nothing can be more poignant and more adroitly introduced than Mr. S.'s strokes of oratorical humour. Witness the celebrated speech in which he, for ever, attached, to the Addington administration, the idea of posteriors torn by force from their upper parts. His witticisms are by no means of that half-formed, ill-digested, and ill-directed nature, which they irregular effusions of the moment always are. They are all evidently formed and matured with care; and

[[201]
stored up, to be produced on a proper occasion, like well-arranged daggers in an armoury.

Line 750.] It is an opinion which I do not hesitate to avow, that Mr. S. had from nature qualifications for becoming an orator, superior to almost any other man of his age. In imagination, in suavity of utterance, in penetration into the sentiments of men, and in the power of working upon them, he was equal to either Fox or Pitt. Had he improved his great natural parts by the species of knowledge possessed by either, and had he reached the industry and perseverance of Fox in the pursuit of his objects, neither of them would have thrown him into the rank of a star of the second magnitude. But fancy without knowledge, and eloquence without any steady pursuit, will never raise any orator to eminence. These shining qualities will only procure their owner the mortifying commendation--"what an orator he might have been!"

Line 752.] Great Britain, from its political constitution, is the only nation of modern Europe where this holds good. However wealth and family influence may bear the sway, the first orator in the House of Commons may always aspire to be the first minister of the nation. If the case be otherwise, it is owing more to the misconduct of the orator himself, than to his want

[202]
of power. If, indeed, there be two great and rival orators, nearly matched, both cannot be at the pinnacle of government--but the one will be at the head of the opposition, the next station in this country to that of the Prime Minister.

Line 756.] These meteoric lights emit no heat, and their light only serves occassionally to delude travellers by night into marshes, from which they may find it difficult to escape.

[203]
Line 773.] The American aloe is frequently shown in the gardens about London. It blossoms only at distant periods; and the sight of one in full blossom is sufficiently rare to attract crowds. The figure appears abundantly happy.

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Line 790.] The public seemed sensible of the cutting contumely with which the party ventured to treat the most brilliant genius among them, and second in talents to Fox alone. Yet he could not complain. He had fitted himself for nothing beyond a sinecure; he was unacquainted with the details of business, and utterly incapable of supporting the labour of it. He therefore found it most adviseable to slink into a secondary post, where there was scarcely any thing to do, and where he should find means of giving one other splendid fete, before the final dropping of the curtain. His T---rship of the N--y was distinguished by two occurrences. The one was that brilliant fete of his installation, which lasted three days and nights, and which was supposed to have consumed at least a moiety of the annual salary. The other was the firing of some great guns, which made all the town crows to Whitehall, in hopes of hearing the particulars of some important victory: when in fact it proved to be only a salute, fired by order of

[205]
the T-- of the N--, in honour of some ladies who had accompanied him on a water-party.

Line 805.] This Aaron, although not the brother of Moses, is a personage not less formidable to the Egyptians. His rod is in their eyes a very serpent. It was a practical, though rather a biting illustration of that law, which includes players among rogues and vagabonds, when a police magistrate was made the active manager of Drury-Lane.

[206]
Line 823.] It is necessary to invest all public functions with certain privileges, in order to render them an object of desire. The affairs of the nation would otherwise find no one to carry them on, unless a few idle persons, who might undertake them for God's sake.

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That privilege, which exempts the members of the House of Commons from paying their debts, (for the lords derive the same exemption from nature) is peculiarly well adapted for giving estimation to a seat in that assembly. It is unquestionable that he who has to chuse between the King's Bench and St. Stephen's Chapel will conceive a violent predilection for the latter. Persons also, who fly to the Legislature as a sanctuary, must ever be considered as best adapted to the public service, having no private concerns to manage, and being entirely disengaged from those cares of wealth which so miserably embarrass the human mind. They are in short the men to do any thing, to be pleased with any thing; for any thing is better than nothing. Their perseverance is not likely to be overcome, nor their courage to be subdued by popular clamours:--
Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae,
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Nec sumit aut ponit secures,
Arbitrio popularis aurae.
It is fair that the legislators, who make the laws should, in some instances, exempt themselves from the power of these creatures of their own hands.

[208]
Line 836.] This melancholy truth has been attested to me by many instances; and I may safely assert that it is to such conduct the present poverty of dramatic genius is almost entirely owing. The negligence with which every production of this sort was treated, by the manager alluded to, has become proverbial. "O if it has got into Mr. S's hands, it will never get out of them," every player will tell you with a smile. There is something more than a blameable indolence, there is cruelty and injustice, in this conduct. Many a young dramatic author, whose genius would have given pleasure to the public, and brought profit to the theatre, has by this means been crushed, and too much dispirited ever to resume his labours. A man who, through the mere love of ease and dissipation, can act in the manner, may be a man of taste and genius, but he certainly wants some better qualities.

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Line 846.] The fate of poor Tobin, although his case was by no means singular, will be a lasting stain on the present management of our theatres, particularly that theatre by which his plays were offered. He could not even succeed in getting his pieces once read by the only person, belonging to the theatre, who was capable of perceiving their merits. He died at an early age, under all the depression of poverty and disappointment. The discovery which some persons made, that his pieces might be profitable to the theatre, at length procured the representation of two of them: but a third, the most interesting of all, was kept back from a paltry apprehension that it might not be acceptable to a female friend of the m--r! What scandalous trifling with genius, both alive and dead! a jovial dinner with the

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players will never prove this man a friend of the drama.

Line 852.] His indefatigable zeal in promoting the attractions of the famous Union masquerade will certainly form a prominent anecdote in his biography.

Line 854.] No one in the secret expected that the hoax would take to the degree it did. but the scheme was laid with too deep knowledge of a London audience to fail. All the newspapers were engaged; expectation was on the tiptoe; Fox and Pitt were both to see the phenomenon in one night! The contrivance was admirable, and the success was accordingly. But the most remarkable circumstance was to see the knowing ones next winter taken in. Could it be expected that the hoax should not have been found out in a whole twelve-month? What calculations are made on the stupidity of mankind! O caeci homines!

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Line 864.] Nothing can be a more cruel disappointment than for a man, who has devoted his life (I mean as far as the love of ease and pleasure would allow him), to court popularity, at length to come forward, in full confidence, to harangue a great popular assembly, and instead of applauses, find himself received with hisses and hootings. The poet here calls them purgatory--he might have given them a worse name.

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Line 878.] "Sed jussa coram non sine concio
"Surgit marito, seu vocat institor,
"Dedecorum pretiosus emptor."
HORACE.

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Line 890.] Liberty has, of late years, been made so common a stalking horse for all sorts of villainy, that the name has become so odious to many good men, as the substance fromerly was to such patriots as are here described. nothing could be a more desired consummation for the latter. They have no longer any reason to be startled at that ancient bug-bear the rights of the people: for who will venture to own himself the advocate of what is known by so hateful an appellation?

Line 898.] These loop-holes are admirable provisions for saving our men of spirit and prudence from the merciless claws of justice. It might be suspected, that our

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legislators, tempering justice with mercy, had this relief in view, by the manner in which our statutes are drawn up. It is a question whether two men in the House, besides the mover, are actually aware of all the clauses which the hill contains; and as the wording of it is committed to some secondary persons, it is ten to one if the mover himself recognises distinctly the work of his own hands, when it appears in print. Hence acts are sometimes produced whose import no sagacity can explain, whose incongruities no ingenuity can reconcile. Hence the patron of an act, who introduced and conducted it through all its stages, is sometimes astonished to discover in it, clauses which have crept in, God knows how, and which are very different from his intentions. Thus Mr. Windham was obliged, at the Norfolk hustings, to acknowledge that his military bill, which he had spent so much time in preparing, actually contained a very important provision, which he did not know that it contained. But if this extraordinary instance of public neglect tends to introduce insurmountable perplexity and obscurity into our laws, we may, however, comfort ourselves that it exalts the mercy of the nation, by the inexhaustible loop-holes it provides for malefactors.

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Line 904.] "Avenging steel." Dram. passim. There is something in this word of a magical and mystical nature, as was, a century ago, observed by the author of a "Key to the Lock." There is occassionally a word, a mere monosyllable, which, though harmless and innocent in itself, becomes, from certain associations, a very spectre to the imagination, and cruelly adheres to it, in spite of every effort to shake it off. Even this little puny word steel might, by some such association, become insufferable: and a man might be so deeply touched with it, that one might say, Steel broke his heart. But let the thought pass. There is a just day a reckoning, when every thing hid shall be revealed!

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Line 914.] The concluding trait of the fictitious character, which the poet has here drawn, may appear inconsistent with those which precede. But such changes of disposition do occur in human nature; and the confirmed libertine and prodigal have been known, at sixty, nay at seventy, to begin to gather up the remains of their constitution and their fortune.

Line 920.] Nothing can be stronger testimony that temporal retribution often does take place, and that success is no small proof of virtue, than the honours which seem, in old age, to await the man, who has through life been distinguished for his piety and disinterested loyalty. He is now to be considered as the bulwark of the church and crown; and we shall, doubt, speedily see him raised to the exaltation he deserves, and greeted with numerous addresses from all well-disposed persons in the kingdom.

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Line 926.] Pence and farthings appear to be here substituted for ten thousand pounds; but the difference between them is scarcely perceptible in the present great scale of our national disbursements. The demand for an account of this paltry sum was mean and impertinent: the answer was dignified and worthy of the speaker--that he would give no account of it.

Line 929.] "What shall be done unto the man whom the king honours?"
ESTHER.

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Line 940.] The character of Sir Pertinax Mac Sycophant is evidently a base caricature, intended to traduce a people famed for liberality and disinterestedness. Who could have been the prototype of Sir Pertinax?

Line 943.] Official whets seem to indicate a mere tasting of the good things, which only serves to sharpen the appetite, and to increase the desire of the dainties.

Line 944.] Snug little things for the son of a free-holder of some influence. It is certain that these sort of things are unknown or despised in Scotland, as you may learn on entering the first street in Calcutta, where it is ten to one but the first Hindostanee you hear is broad Scotch. The young expectants of that nation swarm on the shores of the Ganges like so many jackalls:--
"Millia quot magnis numquam venere Mycenis."

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Line 946.] The Scottish nation are so eminently attached to the moral and religious virtues, that no man, of whatever station, is honoured among them, whose piety and morality are not irreproachable. From this circumstance alone, we might consider it as indisputable that these virtues reside in the highest degree, in the statesman who is honoured with their favour. Whoremongers, adulterers, drunkards, liars, are perpetually declaimed against their pulpits, and spoken of with abhorrence in their private societies. The statesman, therefore, whom they receive with unbounded acclamations, and who passes through their country in triumph, admired and caressed by all ranks and ages, must, of course, be entirely free from even a suspicion of the vices which they seem most to detest. We may therefore pronounce him to be, on the testimony of the Scottish nation, in all respects,

Integer vitae scelerisque purus.

Line 949.] A book, to which this young peer's name was prefixed, gave promise of considerable talents:--

[220]
the accomplishment has yet to come. It was, however, a well-timed revenge which he took on his party for their neglect, to fall a kicking just as their backs were turned. It is to be hoped that his new friends will be more polite than to overlook his merits; for they also in the course of things, may present a kicking opportunity.

Line 954.] The author has here allowed his imagination to outrun the reality. The negro has not his chain to resume, for it is not yet shaken off. The importation only has been prohibited; and fortunately this destructive measure has as yet produced no harm. It cannot be doubted that speedy measures will be taken to prevent its baneful tendency. Should there not, the dreadful effects will soon appear: the West India colonies will be left desolate; the negroes, who might have been saved by purchase, will be slaughtered in thousands on their own shores; a terrible judgment will overtake those who impiously annihilate the eternal distinction, which the Almighty has established between white men and negroes; and the curse of Ham will be extended over the whole human race!!

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Line 956.] I believe the question of Parliamentary Reform, which kept the mob in a roar for half a century, is now pretty well laid to rest. That the object is unattainable has been as clearly demonstrated, as that those who seemed most to pursue it wished for nothing so little as to be successful. While out of power, indeed, all parties, with Pitt and Fox at their head, were equally eager in pressing this measure: but which of them, when in, ever stirred a foot in the affair. Pitt, it is true, did avow that his sentiments continued the same: but the unhappy Premier was left in a minority, and the measure was afterwards found to be totally inconsistent with existing circumstances. What should the members of the House of Commons have to do in altering the present state of the elective franchise? Would not the man be accounted crazy, who should break down his inclosures, and throw open his fields and orchards to every man and beast who travelled the way?

Line 958.] The public are sadly mistaken if they ever expect any good from these same Commissions of Inquiry. Who will ever read the voluminous reports of the Naval Commissioners? Or, if he does read them,

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who will ever profit by them? The hubbub excited about the transactions in the Tenth Report, is sufficient to show the views, the wisdom, and the probable success of the whole affair. Ask either the old Navy Board, or the present Admiralty, what dependence is to be placed on these reports; and you will learn to what purpose some thousands of the national money have been yearly expended in salaries to Naval Commissioners. What set of Commissioners ever brought to light the abuses of their own party?

Line 962.] The relaxation of the Navigation Act is a crime so enormous against the prosperity of our country, that it will be disgraceful lenity if the advisers of such a measure escape condign punishment. What can be more evident than that Great Britain must grow poor, if her neighbors grow rich? than that she must be idle, if others be industrious? Is it not plain that if a farmer suffers his neighbor's fences to grow, and does not take timely measures to destroy them, they may soon overtop and eclipse his own? Is it equally plain, that if Great Britain allow her neighbours to get commerce and shipping, they may soon have as rich

[223]
and numerous fleets on the ocean as herself? Deceitful counsels! Ruinous moderation! When the other maritime nations shall become industrious and rich, possessed of an active commerce and numerous ships, then, Britain, thy glory has reached its close! But let us trample on such bloodless, such timid, and unpatriotic suggestions. Let us guard, with tenfold care, those Navigation laws by which we have flourished: Let us burn, sink, and destroy the vessels of every power which presumes to encroach upon our exclusive rights: Let us prevent the accumulation of capital, the excitement of enterprise, the increase of shipping, in the maritime towns of all other nations: While we persevere in this system, what power shall cope with us? What enemy shall contest the empire of the seas? Every shore shall be within the dominion of Britain, and ages unborn shall hail her as the sovereign of the ocean.

Line 966.] The incapable advantages, which this country has derived from continental coalitions, prove the criminal blindness of those who have disgusted our allies by refusing them subsidies corresponding with their demands. From some hints which have been

[224]
thrown out, it is abundantly plain that this absurd policy will undergo a speedy amelioration. New and vast coalitions will be formed and precipitated against the common foe of mankind. Bonaparte may look to himself: it will cost him another campaign. May 1807.
Alas! It has cost him but a battle. July 1807.

Line 976.] Its son? What church can the poet mean?

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Line 983.] It is said that this venerable statesman has always entertained a fond expectation of making a conspicuous figure in the page of history. His hopes will not be disappointed. When the annals of Britain for the last twenty years are recorded, he certainly will not be forgotten.

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Line 996.] This fact, so honourable to the profession of the law, has attracted the peculiar observation of the historian. After the monarchs of Rome were degenerated into monsters of cruelty and profligacy; after the nobles were sunk into the grossest debauchery; after the priesthood were distinguished only by a remains of superstition; after the people were the most abject and profligate slaves; still the tribunals were occupied by men who might have graced a better age. Even in the days of Justinian and Theodora, the lawyers of Con-

[227]
stantinople might have honoured the republic of Rome.

Line 1022.] Ingenuity may attempt to throw some plausible veil over the late discovery of Lord C--'s pension; but the dignity of the Scottish bench has received a stain which oratorical sophistry will in vain attempt to wipe off.

Line 1024.] The corruption of judges, by bribes from

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the parties who come before them, is a thing, so unknown in our age, that the suspicion of it never enters into the head of the most suspicious. Yet two hundred years have not passed, since eminent men were degraded from the highest stations in the law for this mean and infamous vice. Here is certainly an amelioration, of which it would be an agreeable task to develope the causes: But the length of a note does not permit a full inquiry into a subject, which it would be improper to deface by a mutilated discussion.

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Line 1055.] It was an instance of patriotism in a king, never to be forgotten, when his present majesty, at his accession, renounced for himself and his successors for ever, the power of displacing the judges at the commencement of a new reign. Such a voluntary sacrifice of a prerogative, however unprofitable to the possessor, has rarely been made by the most virtuous sovereigns. While the judges of the common law are, by this last concession, rendered wholly independent of

[230]
the fluctuation of political parties, it must be a matter of wonder and regret, that the supreme judge in equity, who in many instances controuls all the others, should hold his office entirely by the precarious tenure of party. If the independence of judges be a benefit, this is an evil of the first magnitude. If it be allowed that the multifarious duties of the Lord Chancellor are more than any one man can fulfil, why then delay to remedy at once so many evils, by simply separating his functions? Let the patronage and the political station be attached to the speaker of the House of Lords, and let his office be an ample boon for the active partizans of each successful faction. But let the supreme judge of our courts of equity be fixed in his station for life. Let him enjoy that full independence which is given to every other judge: let no avocation, but the complicated business of that function, occupy his mind: Let neither hope nor fear distract his attention, or hold out even the slightest temptation to swerve from the plain line of his duty.

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Line 1081.] It is to be lamented that they have not always been disjoined, and that any precedent to the

[232]
contrary should be found in our history. That the judge should be entirely independent both of the crown and the people, that he should be agitated, in the exercise of his office, by no motives of hope or fear, is allowed to be essential to the pure administration of justice. Our laws, as they have been ameliorated in his present majesty's reign, have made complete provision for securing this inestimable benefit to the nation, in regard to the judges of common law. It is to be lamented that private views should ever so far interfere with the public good, as to render this provision nugatory. It is to be lamented that any judge should ever enlist himself under the banners of party, or contract a dependence on the crown and its ministers. It is not merely in the causes in which the king and the subject are directly engaged, that such a connection as this may produce a dangerous bias in his judgment: his party, the members of the administration with whom he acts, may have their private quarrels by animadversions, and may prosecute for libel. On such an occasion, who would not tremble to come before a tribunal where a partizan presided? Perhaps, indeed, his conscience, his honour, might overpower every improper suggestion even in such trying contingencies: but no purity could free him from suspicion: and it is necessary that a judge, like a vir-

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gin, should avoid even to be suspected. But why leave a circumstance of such vast importance at the mercy of individual ambition? Why not provide, by positive statute, that no judge shall hold any ostensible relation to the crown. It may be said that this would restrict the sovereign in the choice of his servants--True--but then it would only prevent him from employing those who he ought not to employ, those whom his own welfare and the welfare of his people require to be strictly debarred from any peculiar connection with his service. The office of a judge in our courts of law is no sinecure. His duties, if properly discharged, are sufficient to occupy the whole attention of any one man. If he is also to be involved in the complicated discussion of the important topics which continually press upon the attention of our ministers, some duty must necessarily be left undischarged.

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Line 1108.] When some one reproached Buchanan

[235]
that he had made nothing of his royal pupil, King James, but a mere pedant, the preceptor phlegmatically replied, "it was a wonder he had made so much of him." The same reply might be justly uttered by many a valet who has trimmed out his titles master into an inordinate fop.

Line 1111.] It is a curious remark that Fielding, wherever he introduces a lord into his novels, always makes him noted for this particular species of dissipation. Fielding is allowed to have understood human nature. When men have attained all the objects of ambition, without any exertion on their part, it is natural enough for them to set about gratifying, in the fullest manner, those uneasy appetites which still refuse to let them rest.

Line 1113.] It has now become a matter of fashion to render the peer as indistinguishable from the coachman as possible. They wear the same dress, swear the same oaths, are often seen in the stable and on the coach-box together; and in short are, to all appearance, exactly of the same fraternity. Nay, the coachman is frequently seen to occupy the place of my lord in the curricle, by the side of my lady; and, in truth,

[236]
is at times not the least proper man of the two. It was observed, by a celebrated Scottish Philosopher, that, in a few centuries, the progeny of the man in the chariot, and of the man on the coach-box, change places. The present customs will probably render the rotation frequently much more speedy.

Line 1120.] This is a terrible and daily increasing hardship. The monied aristocracy is continually gaining ground upon the aristocracy of birth: the sons of sugar barrels and rum puncheons, on the sons of steel caps and lacquer'd doublets. The case of the sufferers by the intolerable grievance is truly distressing, for their adversaries have acquired such a footing in the parliament itself, that they have little reason to expect an act for their relief.

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Line 1122.] My readers will recollect an attempt at a great fashionable party, to turn those narrow-minded zealots, those enemies of every thing gay and gallant, the Society for the Suppression of Vice, into open ridicule. At the same time it was in contemplation to travesty the coronation of Bonaparte. This was taking the appropriate revenge on tow objects of terror. It is usual for persons of a certain character to take every opportunity, when they safely can, of attempting to conceal their fears by ridiculing those objects which most excite them. With what satisfaction does an atheist disburthen himself among a stubborn club of free-thinkers?

Line 1129.] Pitt was a Commoner, the son of the Great Commoner: I never could find reason to think that he had any desire to exalt the peerage. He came into power in direct opposition to the great aristocracy, nor did they ever rank among his adherents. The houses, most distinguished for their antiquity and grandeur--those of Howard, Percy, Cavendish, and

[238]
Russell, stood forth among his firm and constant antagonists. it does not seem improbable that he was sufficiently willing to mortify those who he could not reconcile; and to show his superiority to titles, by the lavish hand with which he strewed them among persons who had little claim to them but his favour. The extension of exclusive privileges, by his numerous creations, was well calculated to make the distinctions of little account, and to bring peers and commoners to a level. Nor does he appear to have ever repented of this policy, if we may judge from the peers, whom he left, at his departure, in embryo.

Line 1133.] The Egyptians carried their whimsical superstitions farther than any other nation. Their principal god, Apis, was adored in the likeness of a calf: and even certain reptiles and vegetables ranked among their objects of worship. The poet seems to have great objections to the rites of the Egyptians, and would therefore probably have no inclination to join the colony which we are about to send to that country.

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Line 1143.] A most usual practice. Vide any Peerage or family pedigree.

Line 1149.] The conclusion is not unnatural, and by no means seems to justify the indignation with which the poet treats it. If men receive equal rewards, it agrees with our natural sense of justice to suppose that their merits were nearly upon a level. when two persons receive the title of Baron, can there be any thing extravagant in imagining that their deserts, if not of the same nature, were at least nearly of the same magnitude?

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Here, I maintain, there is nothing absurd in theory: but, indeed, if the poet should press me to particular instances, and urge me to observe the comparative merits of Baron Nelson of the Nile, and I-- P-- T--, I must even allow him to vent himself in his own way.

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Line 1207.] This is an article on which more time is spent by the drill-serjeant than on nearly all the movements of printing and loading. I need scarcely add that it is entirely useless, unless to place the soldiers in a showy attitude, when the general makes his appearance at a Review. I will refer it to any candid military man, whether one half of the time of exercise is not usually devoted to this, and a few other motions, all equally useless in the day of action? But I forget the spirit of my author--he is praising the discipline of those soldiers who are fitted for the parade only; and, in this point of view, such motions are of course the most important of all.

Line 1209.] This article, of discharging all the muskets of a platoon at exactly the same instant, so as that the whole shall form one full incorporated sound, is another circumstance on which infinite pains and time are bestowed. It certainly produces a very delectable impression on the bye-standers at a review: and more

[244]
powder is annually spent in bringing men to perfection in it, than might contribute in no small degree to furnish the magazines for a campaign. But I never heard that this nicety is deemed of the least importance in actual battle.

[246]
Line 1248.] it is to be seen whether those valiant enquirers into abuses, who have held out such magnificent promises to their constituents at the present elections, will endeavour to bring light to the authors of the late military commotions, which threaten to shake our empire in India to the foundation. We have there large bodies of native troops, who under European officers, have fought battles with a bravery scarcely inferior to the natives of Great Britain. They have been uniformly obedient and loyal; and the only peculiar favour, which they have claimed, is to be indulged in a few harmless customs, which they regard with veneration; their dress, their food, the fashion of their hair and beards. One is astonished that persons of common understanding should wantonly interfere with things so indifferent in themselves, so highly valued by the native troops. But the thirst of tyrannizing, for the mere purpose of displaying one's power, got the better of every consideration of wisdom, policy and humanity. The Sepoys were doomed to have their dress formed in a particular fashion, and to wear their beards according to orders! A mutiny was the consequence of this ridiculous tyranny. It is said to have been subdued, that tranquility is completely restored--by abandoning the measure. It may be so: but a distrust and animosity have been excited

[247]
in the breasts of the native troops, which will not so soon be eradicated. What is still worse, the Sepoys have learnt that our general may be intimidated, and that a resolute mutiny is the way to attain their objects. I am mistaken if this is not the most fatal blow which our Indian empire has ever received. nor is it to be imagined that this is the first and only act of the same wanton oppression, which has been exercised towards the Sepoys: this was the only one which appeared so detestable as to call for the last resistance, and which attracted peculiar attention, from the number of troops collected together at Vellore. Many similar orders, so rash and absurd as almost to exceed belief, have been issued; but generally revoked in time to prevent very notorious consequences. Who could believe that a general officer actually gave orders that all the native regiments, in a particular government, should go to church? Yet such orders that all the native were issued; and revoked only at the earnest remonstrances of an inferior officer, who represented that the attempt to enforce them would produce immediate rebellion. Such dreadful blunders proceed, in a great measure, from the practice of sending out to high commands in India, officers who are totally unacquainted with the customs and feelings of the natives, and who are unable to form any estimate of their prejudices and habits. No officer, except those

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bred according to the rules of the Company's Service and who have been stationed many years in India, are fit to be entrusted with the command of the native troops.

Line 1260.] These military theatrical academies have already called forth some animadversions. They seem calculated to produce graceful parade officers; and what more is accounted necessary for the perfection of the military character.

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Line 1272.] Sir Robert Wilson, and other military writers, have so amply disclosed the frequency and consequences of these courage-making exhibitions, that any further encomium would be unnecessary. Our militia regiments are said to carry this, as well as other parts of a discipline, to the greatest perfection. In the event of a peace, the disbanded subalterns will find great encouragement as overseers of West India plantations, being already thoroughly versed in the whole business of negro-driving.

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Line 1294.] It perhaps may not be generally known to noble authors, that when a right honourable play is in distress, from the plebeian taste of the managers, a reserve is still open in the yearly Benefits of the actors. For a trifling sum, fifty pounds, or the expences of the house, an actor may generally be prevailed upon to give it out on his or her benefit. In the theatrical accounts of the newspapers, dramatic debuts of this kind

[251]
may annually be seen: and I could mention a great beau, of Bond Street notoriety, who has brought all his comic productions to light by this mode. If, indeed, the thing be so wretched that no actor can undertake it, without the certainty of being hissed on his benefit night, --a disgrace which he will not for his own sake incur--I then can point out no other resource than that mentioned in the text.

Line 1305.] Every one is acquired with the power of a monarch's touch, in formerly curing that distem-

[252]
per which is hence denominated the king's evil. One would imagine, from the nature of the subjects and the extent of the effects, that certain other operations of monarchs, on select persons, were introduced to cure similar distempers of the mind.

Line 1315.] The classical reader knows how sacred the hearth was accounted in ancient times, and how inviolable the stranger found himself under the protection of the Penates.

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Line 1324.] Auditis? an me ludit amabilis
Insania? Aidire, et videor pios
Errare per lucos, amoenae
Quos et aquae subeunt et aurae.

Line 1333.] It is but of late years that an Epic, without machinery, could be expected to be tolerated: and even at present, many a learned critic will tell you,

[254]
that a poem, without this ingredient, may be called what you please, but certainly not an Epic; for Aristotle expressly defines, &c. It was, therefore truly fortunate for our poet, that, before the conclusion of his work, he remembered to introduce machinery: His work might, otherwise, by great scholars, have been denied its name of Epic; although it has as legitimate a title to this denomination, as either the Iliad or Eneid, being, no less than they, entirely composed of [greek word here e theta e alpaha] , whence the derivative [greek term here too].

Line 1343.] The peculiar province of this God was to guard orchards, highway, &c. He was always represented in punis naturalibus, without even a veiling fig-

[255]
leaf; and hence was usually looked upon as the deity of pruriency.

[256]
Line 1364.] It is to be questioned whether the poet has not here, for the sake of the verse, employed favours; simply for promised favours; for I could never learn that the god Priapus ever actually gave ribbons to the milk-girls at Hyde Park Corner.

Line 1366.] Diana, the goddess of chastity, who would not fail to render the effectual assistance to her votaries in such a dangerous emergency.

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Line 1398.] It is curious to observe the charms with

[258]
which a frail fair one is immediately invested, as soon as she comes before a public court. She is always found to be interesting, beautiful, captivating. Mrs. L--- seems to be peculiarly aware of this circumstance, and therefore endeavours to keep up the affair by Vindications. There is certainly no way in which so much eclat is to be gained.

[260.]
Line 1449.] It is rather to be questioned, whether strutting at the head of a militia corps will long be an object of county ambition. The late acts for gutting this establishment have made the officers loudly complain that their regiments are made to resemble heads without bodies; and that they are rendered no-bodies.

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Line 1450.] No very difficult matter provided his estate be sufficiently large, and he is known to keep a good table. These are the very essence of oratory at county-meetings.

Line 1456.] These mottoes seem in general chosen for the same reason that libertines were accustomed to pursue their secret amours in a friar's cowl and cloak. They thought they sinned more securely under a sanctified garb. It is amusing to see such devices as The King and Constitution, Religion, and Loyalty, The Purity of Election, carried aloft by a mob of rascals, who have their bellies filled with treating ale, their purses stuffed with the wages of corruption, and their hearts yearning for an opportunity to sell the cause to which they have already sold their souls.

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Line 1461.] Alas! only a Baron, although he can afford to spend a hundred (some say two hundred) thousand pounds on an election! He certainly ought to be made an Earl, though of course he is perfectly regardless of such an honour. The descendant of the Earl of Strafford could not chuse but be a prodigious patriot.

Line 1468.] During this important summer campaign, neither the crowing of the cock, nor the rising of the sun, has been sufficient to scare our senators from their benches. In superstitious times it would have been thought a portentous circumstance if a species of nocturnal spirits had been discovered who did not obey the usual laws of their fraternity.

[263]
Line 1490.] It is said that his R-- H-- did not by any means relish this sort of aping, and could

[264]
scarcely bring himself to tolerate the round slaps which he sometimes sustain'd as the representative of the Yorkshire beau.

Line 1495.] The wit, fond as he is of being a man of the people, could not help attempting to raise his consequence among the players by informing them that he was, in fact, of royal descent. "True," said Munden, with one of his odd looks, "for the last time I saw his father, he was King of Denmark."

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Line 1510.] It is alleged by some that he had much deeper views in becoming a proficient in skaiting, than the mere amusement of the fair Sunday spectators in Hyde Park; that he foresaw an ambassador would in time be sent over to the King .of Holland; and, knowing the sagacity and discernment with which diplomatists are usually chosen, he concluded that .
he should certainly be selected for his superior proficiency in accomplishment indispensable at a Dutch court.

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Line 1514.] This was rather an amusing anticlimax; yet it was abundantly politic, as appeared by the sequel of this cornetcy.

Line 1516.]The poet certainly intended no peculiar sarcasm on the tendency of the Scottish Belles towards polemical politics. The truth is that the metropolis is the only place there political discussions are kept within any moderate bounds, or that the ladies are not absolutely legislators in petticoats. It is certainly one of the most amusing scenes to see a Pittite and a Foxite Amazon fairly pitched against each other. There is nothing in nature can be so well compared to it as the fray of two chuckling hens.

Line 1518.] The sinecures are to be at all defended, it is in the light of easy retreats to the superannuated servants of the public, to those who have wasted their health and vigour in national tasks which they are no longer able to perform. It is cruelly mortifying to the neglected veteran, and cruelly insulting to the people, to see lucrative posts, mere cinecures in effect, thrown by the intrigues of party, into the hands of needy lads, who were just before in their proper position--as subal-

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terns in the army. We should weep with joy to see lucrative places snatched from such unworthy holders, were it not done through the paltry malice of party, and were not the new possessors quite as unworthy as the old.

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Line 1563.] The facility of getting married in a northern part of this country is so great, and so little ceremony is employed on the occasion, that we in England cannot conceive how persons so tacked can hold together for life.

Line 1564.] The learned reader knows that our presbyterian neighbors reject the ring in marriage, and cross in baptism, as relics of popish idolatry. Not a few damsels of that faith would be well contented that marriage portions should be looked upon with an equally pious abhorrence.

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Line 1574.] The flight over the bannisters, from the fury of the pursuing housemaid, with some other whimsical anecdotes, have made Tom's ears hang a little on the present occasion; as has also the fine, although only fifteen hundred pounds.

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Line 1586.] Saloop is a liquor formed from an infusion of saxifrage, and exposed on numerous stalls in the streets of London, at an early hour in the morning. It is drunk like coffee; and, with toasted muffin, forms a very seasonable repast to the various workmen on their way to their daily labours.

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Line 1602.] A writer of Lyrics, (need there more be said?) who lately endeavoured to be known by a very fulsome dedication to the youthful spouse of a noble and wealthy duke.

Line 1603.] A lady who can write rhymes, though not grammar; and who endeavoured to prove herself a beautiful poetess, by prefixing a portrait of herself to her pieces. Her praises are bestowed on those towards whom she is attracted by congenial feelings. Similis simili gaudet.

Line 1605.] This man has treated the public taste with many ponderous volumes of Indian History and Antiquities, on the merits of which, few, we believe, are capable of passing a just decision, if indeed a person must have read through a work before he is qualified to judge of it. To the astonishment of his friends and

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the public, this laborious collector of old women's fables suddenly became a poet: the Fall of the Mogul was sounded in lofty tragic strains; and a very pretty specimen of poetical typography announced that a vast deal more of the same commodity was in embryo, and would in due time be brought forth. The subject of one beautiful piece (royal paper, and printed by Bulmer) was Dr. Lettisom's country-seat near Camberwell; a gentleman who, in spite of his pretty grounds at Grovehill, and good dinners, and love of fame, is likely to prove little more fortunate in his bard than Alexander the Great.

Line 1609.] Mr. Gifford's labours in the Anti-jacobin newspaper have been already noticed. A man does tolerably well if he can sell a few epigrams and corrections for a good place for life.

Line 1611.] With these nauseous performances the public has of late been so terribly surfeited, that he must have a stout stomach who does not actually

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sicken at the name of monody. Yet what will not party swallow? These writers of insipid rhymes grow fat on praises and public dinners.

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Line 1632.] This seems a gallicism, a literal translation of bonnes fortunes. Nothing could be more gratifying than the triumphant reception which this spicy poet experienced on his return to his native country. Happy was the titled host who could secure him at a day six weeks distant. It is amazing that his Excellency the L.L. did not make a knight of him.

Line 1636.] This youth had acquired an easy knack of writing smooth verses at a very early age. But if he was distinguished for this proof of genius, he was still more remarkable for an ungovernable propensity to every species of vice, which he seemed to have acquired in his very nonage. He applied himself, however, to the great; and the discerning great showered upon him a more liberal patronage than almost any man of genius has lately received at their hands. Yet all was in vain.

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Dermody's debauchery became disgraceful and shocking to the last degree; and no resources were sufficient to save him from want. He closed his career at length in a garret; and, what may seem most wonderful, one Raymond has given to the public the memoirs of this interesting character in two octavo volumes; and, if I am not mistaken, has promised to enlarge still further on the theme!

Line 1642.] The observations, which the poet has here made on this unfortunate translator , seem intended as a sacrifice to the manes of Plato. Mr. Taylor is a very good start of man; and the report must be untrue that he has so far grecianized himself as actually to believe in all the deities of Athens. With regard to the translation of Plato, I believe he did his best. Not being very well versed in Greek, he had the prudence to make use of the Latin version of the learned Ficinus; and the misfortune to copy even his errors. As to the philosophy of Plato, he seems to have drawn his notions of it from Man of the Moon, or some equally authentic source? but certainly not from the writings of Plato. The Socratic mode of reasoning, in his hands, consists in saying such unintelligent things in such unac-

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countable terms, that it is impossible for any antagonist to frame or imagine a reply. In short the Deus ille noster Plato of Cicero seems the most grotesque divinity of the whole Pantheon. It is said that his grace of N---, out of a liberal desire to encourage literature, bore the expences of this publication, on condition of being reimbursed from the first profit. It is to be hoped that he looks upon virtue as its own reward.

Line 1653.] An Englishman is tempted to say, "Had Burns lived in England, he would have expe-

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rienced a different fate." The patronage which Bloomfield has received would seem to justify this sentiment: but I must repress my proud patriotic feelings, when I recollect the fate of Otway and Chatterton.

Line 1664.] There is no instance in which the mind is more completely gratified by the triumph of humble merit over hereditary power and wealth, than in the transaction between Lord Chesterfield and Dr. Johnson. When the undiscerning peer, after abandoning the poor unknown author to his wretchedness, endeavoured afterwards (when Johnson had, by his unaided efforts, drawn upon himself the eyes of the world) to seize the station

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of patron, and share the applause which the author had earned, the indignant letter which Johnson wrote him excites corresponding sentiments in every breast. Yet Chesterfield was no common lord: He could term the House of Peers, the Hospital of Incurables: He could wonder that Chatham would voluntarily enter into such a society: And he could talk of genius and learning as infinitely more dignified than whatever monarchs can bestow. If, therefore, even Chesterfield acted this part with Johnson, what is to be expected from others?

Line 1674.] This certainly must be a mistake of our author, as we have never seen this hero of the whip drawn by asses.

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Line 1675.] --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- --- --- ---
"To work mine end upon their senses, that
"This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
"Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
"And deeper than did ever plummet sound,
"I'll drown my book." Tempest.

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