The Rolliad Part 7

It has been proposed to us to amend the spelling: of the last word, thus, _bore_; this improvement, however, as it was called, we reject as a calumny.

Where the beauty of a pa.s.sage is pre-eminently striking as above, we waste not criticism in useless efforts at emendation.

The writer goes on. He tells you he cannot quit this history of wits, without saying something of another individual; whom, however, he describes as every way inferior to the two last-mentioned, but who, nevertheless, possesses some pretensions to a place in the ROLLIAD.

The individual alluded to, is Mr. GEORGE SELWYN. The author describes him as a man possessed of

A plenteous magazine of retail wit Vamp'd up at leisure for some future hit; Cut for suppos'd occasions, like the trade, Where old new things for every shape are made!

To this a.s.sortment, well prepar'd at home, No human chance unfitted e'er can come; No accident, however strange or queer, But meets its ready well-kept comment here.

--The wary beavers thus their stores increase, And spend their winter on their summer's grease.

The whole of the above description will doubtless remind the cla.s.sic reader of the following beautiful pa.s.sage in the Tusculan Questions of Cicero: _Nescio quomodo inhaeret in mentibus quasi saeculorum_ quoddam augurium futurorum--_idque in_ maximis ingeniis altissimisque animis _exist.i.t maxime et apparet facillime_. This will easily account for the system of previous fabrication so well known as the character of Mr. Selwyn's jokes. Speaking of an accident that befel this gentleman in the _wars_, our author proceeds thus:

Of old, when men from fevers made escape, They sacrific'd a c.o.c.k to aeSCULAPE: Thus, Love's hot fever now for ever o'er, The prey of amorous malady no more, SELWYN remembers what his tutor taught, That old examples ever should be sought!

And, gaily grateful, to his surgeon cries, "I've given to you the Ancient Sacrifice."

The delicacy with which this historical incident is pourtrayed, would of itself have been sufficient to transmit our author's merit to posterity: and with the above extract we shall finish the present number of our commentaries.

[1] See No. III.

[2] The Reverend Rowland Hill, brother of Sir Richard.

_NUMBER XI._

The next person among the adherents of the Minister, whom MERLIN now points out to the notice of ROLLO, is SIR SAMUEL HANNAY, Baronet, a name recollected with great grat.i.tude in the House: for there are few Members in it to whom he has not been serviceable. This worthy character indeed has done more to disprove Martial's famous a.s.sertion,

Non cuicunque datum est habere _nasum_,

than any individual upon record.

The author proceeds--

But why, my HANNAY, does the ling'ring Muse The tribute of a line to thee refuse?

Say, what distinction most delights thine ear, Or _Philo-Pill_, or _Philo-Minister?_ Oh! may'st thou none of all thy t.i.tles lack, Or Scot, or Statesman, Baronet or Quack; For what is due to him, whose constant view is _Preventing_ private, or a public _lues?_

Who, that read the above description, do not, during the first impression of it, suppose that they see the worthy Baronet once more the pride of front advertis.e.m.e.nts--once more dispensing disregard and oblivion amongst all his compet.i.tors; and making your Leakes, your Lockyers, and your Velnos,

--Hide their diminish'd heads.--

In the pa.s.sages which immediately follow, the poet goes on to felicitate the community upon the probable advantages to be derived to them from the junction of this ill.u.s.trious personage with our immaculate Minister. He divides his congratulations into two parts.

He first considers the consequence of the union, as they may affect the body personal; and secondly, as they may concern the body politic.

Upon the former subject, he says,

This famous pair, in happy league combin'd, No risques shall man from wand'ring beauty find; For, should not chaste example save from ill, There's still a refuge in the other's pill.

With a sketch equally brief and masterly as the above, he describes his hopes on the other branch of his division.

The body politic no more shall grieve The motley stains that dire corruptions leave; No dang'rous humours shall infest the state, Nor _rotten Members_ hasten Britain's fate.

Our author who, notwithstanding his usual and characteristic gravity, has yet not un-frequently an obvious tendency to the sportive, condescends now to take notice of a rumour, which in these times had been universally circulated, that Sir Samuel bad parted with his specific, and disposed of it to a gentleman often mentioned, and always with infinite and due respect, in the ROLLIAD, namely, Mr. Dundas.--Upon this he addresses Sir Samuel with equal truth and good-humour in the following couplet:

Then shall thy med'cine boast its native bent, Then spread its genuine blessing--_to prevent_.

Our readers cannot but know, it was by the means of a nostrum, emphatically called a _Specific_, that Mr. Dundas so long contrived to prevent the const.i.tutional lues of a _Parliamentary Reform_. The author, however, does not profess, to give implicit credit to the fact of Sir Samuel's having ungratefully disposed of his favourite recipe, the happy source of his livelihood and fame; the more so, as it appears that Mr. Dundas had found the very word _specific_ sufficient for protracting a dreadful political evil on the three several instances of its application. Under this impression of the thing, the poet strongly recommends Sir Samuel to go on in the prosecution of his original profession, and thus expresses his wish upon the occasion, with the correct transcript of which we shall close the history of this great man:

In those snug corners be thy skill display'd, Where Nature's tribute modestly is paid: Or near fam'd Temple-bar may some good dame, } Herself past sport, but yet a friend to game, } Disperse thy bills, and eternize thy fame. }

MERLIN now calls the attention of our hero to a man whom there is little doubt this country will long remember, and still less, that they will have abundant reason for so doing, namely, Mr. SECRETARY ORDE. It may seem odd by what latent a.s.sociation our author was led to appeal next to the Right Honourable Secretary, immediately after the description of a Quack Doctor; but let it be recollected in the first place, to the honour of Sir Samuel Hannay, that he is, perhaps, the only man of his order that ever had a place in the British House of Commons; and in the second, that there are some leading circ.u.mstances in the character of Mr. Orde, which will int.i.tle him to rank under the very same description as the worthy Baronet himself.

We all know that the most famous of all physicians, _Le Medecin malgre lui_, is represented by Moliere, as a mart who changes the seat of the heart, and reverses the intire position of the vital parts of the human body. Now let it be asked, has not Mr. Orde done this most completely and effectually with respect to the general body of the state? Has he not transferred the heart of the empire? Has he not changed its circulation, and altered the situation of the vital part of the whole, from the left to the right, from the one side to the other, from Great Britain to Ireland?--Surely no one will deny this; and therefore none will be now ignorant of the natural gradation of thought, by which our author was led, from the contemplation of Sir Samuel Hannay, to the character of Mr. Orde.

We know not whether it be worth remarking, that the term _Le Medecin malgre lui_, has been translated into English with the usual incivility of that people to every thing foreign, by the uncourtly phrase of _Mock Doctor_. We trust, however, that no one will think it applicable in this interpretation to Mr. Orde, as it is pretty evident he has displayed no mockery in his State Practices, but has performed the character of Moliere's _Medecin_, even beyond the notion of the original; by having effected in sad and sober truth, to the full as complete a change in the position of the _Cur de l'Empire_, as the lively fancy of the dramatist had imputed to his physician, with respect to the human body, in mere speculative joke.

With a great many apologies for so long a note, we proceed now to the much more pleasant part of our duty--that of transcribing from this excellent composition; and proceed to the description of Mr. Orde's person, which the poet commences thus:

Tall and erect, unmeaning, mute, and pale, O'er his blank face no gleams of thought prevail; Wan as the man in cla.s.sic story fam'd, Who told old PRIAM that his Ilion flam'd; Yet soon the time will come when speak he hall, And at his voice another Ilion fall!

The excellence of this description consists as that of a portrait always must, in a most scrupulous and inveterate attention to likeness.--Those who know the original, will not question the accuracy of resemblance on this occasion. The idea conveyed in the last line,

And at his voice another Ilion fall,

is a spirited imitation of the _fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium_, of Virgil, and a most statesmanlike antic.i.p.ation of the future fate of England.

The author now takes an opportunity of shewing the profundity of his learning in British history. He goes on to say,

CaeSAR, we know, with anxious effort try'd To swell, with Britain's name, his triumph's pride: Oft he essay'd, but still essay'd in vain; Great in herself, she mock'd the menac'd chain.

But fruitless all--for what was CaeSAR's sword To thy all-conquering speeches, mighty ORDE!!!

Our author cannot so far resist his cla.s.sical propensity in this place, as to refrain from the following allusion; which, however, must be confessed at least, to be applied with justice.

AMPHION's lyre, they say, could raise a town; ORDE's elocution pulls a Nation down.

He proceeds with equal spirit and erudition to another circ.u.mstance in the earlier periods of English history,

The lab'ring bosom of the teeming North Long pour'd, in vain, her valiant offspring forth; For GOTH or VANDAL, once on British sh.o.r.e, Relax'd his nerve, and conquer'd states no more.

Not so the VANDAL of the modern time, This latter offspring of the Northern clime; He, with a breath, gives Britain's wealth away, And smiles, triumphant, o'er her setting ray.

It will be necessary to observe here, that after much enquiry and very laborious search, as to the birth-place of the Right Honourable Secretary (for the honour of which, however difficult now to discover, Hibernia's cities will, doubtless, hereafter contend) we found that he was born in NORTHUMBERLAND; which, added to other circ.u.mstances, clearly establishes the applicability of the description of the word _Goth_, &c. and particularly in the lines where he calls him the

------VANDAL of the modern time, The latter offspring of the Northern clime.

Having investigated, with an ac.u.men and minuteness seldom incident to genius, and very rarely met with in the sublimer poetry, all the circ.u.mstances attending an event which he emphatically describes as the _Revolution_ of seventeen hundred and eighty-five, he makes the following address to the English:

No more, ye English, high in cla.s.sic pride, The phrase uncouth of Ireland's sons deride; For say, ye wise, which most performs the fool, Or he who _speaks_, or he who _acts_--a BULL.

The Poet catches fire as he runs:

--Poetica surgit Tempestas.