THE VISION OF LIBERTY.

Written in the manner of Spenser.

[As the virulent style of political writing prevalent ninety years ago is now but little known, the present edition of The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin seemed a convenient medium for giving some specimens of it which appeared in The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, a work conducted on the same principles, but by different writers, and with the cognizance of the government. Two of them were by W. Cobbett, who, had he been less arrogant and contentious, and more consistent, would have been, in the words of Lord Dalling, “a very great man in the world; as it was he made a great noise in it”. (See pp. [311]–319.)

The Vision of Liberty is by C. Kirkpatrick Sharpe, an author and artist much esteemed by Scottish antiquarians, of which specimens only need be given. Of The Anarchists, the author is not known.]

I.

O wretched man, how long wilt thou refuse

Thy Maker’s favour, and His mercy great?

How long thy worldly happiness abuse,

And growl and grumble at thy present state?

Seeking accursed change both soon and late,

And newest modes allured still to try—

England, beware God’s wrath to aggravate,

For foreign magic blinds thy charmed eye,

And Liberty, sweet Liberty, is now the constant cry.

II.

As on my couch in slumber’s arms I lay,

A vision did my senses entertain;

Of late, me thought in France I miss’d my way,

Amid a columnless deserted plain;

No man or beast upon it did remain,

Swept off by Discord’s wide destroying strife:

Ne planted fence, ne field of waving grain,

Marking the toiling farmer’s busy life,

But ruined huts and castles, brent, were wondrous rife.

III.

Yet on this plain, most goodly to behold,

Saw I a temple tow’ring to the sky,

The dome where of was made of basest gold,

Most false, but yet most lovely to the eye;

And rotting pillars reareth it on high,

Of ghastly human heads, and clotted gore,

With dust, y’mixt the mortar doth supply,

While foulest birds still round this temple soar,

And filthy serpents hiss, and giant hyenas roar.

IV.

Among the heads that did the mass compose,

Three royal skulls were there—one of a king—

Meek saint, who never once revil’d his foes,

His bloody foes that him to scaffold bring;

One of a maid; O heaven! that I could sing

With Spenser’s tongue, her spotless purity,

Her holy zeal, in courts so rare a thing,

By lawless fiends condemn’d she was to die,

And sent, untimely sent, to seek her native sky.

V.

The third I marked with melancholy eyes,

A female head, that once a crown did wear,

Cut off in life’s full bloom, now low she lies,

The loose loves weeping o’er her early bier,

Nor Virtue’s self denies a tender tear;

So young a creature, wonder not she fell,

And left the paths of chastity severe,

Debauched by a court where lust did dwell

Like treach’rous Circe, skill’d in many a witching spell.

VI.

Ah! where are now her gorgeous robes of state,

The glitt’ring gems that did her fairness deck?

The cringing nobles that on her did wait,

The high-born dames that kneeled at her beck?

Alas! a ghastly face, a bloody neck,

A simple winding-sheet is now her share;

Look here, ye proud ones, on this mighty wreck,

And learn what perishable stuff ye are,

From her poor mangled carcase, once so sweet and fair.

VII.

And on the ground there lay a murder’d child,

A piteous sight it was, and full of woe,

Who, when alive, by every art defil’d,

With poison, they at last did overthrow,

Wretches, who never ruth or conscience know;

O lovely flowret cropt by villain hands,

How will thy butchers dread th’ almighty brow,

Arm’d with frowns, when each at judgment stands,

And God the meed of murder from His throne commands.

VIII.

Then o’er the portal was this motto plac’d,

“The house of liberty,” in gold y’writ,

And, vent’ring in, I stood like one amaz’d

Such sights of horror on my heart-strings smit.

There Infidelity, in moody fit,

Hugg’d Suicide—there Rage, and deadly Fears,

There Lechery, with goatish leer did sit,

And Murder, quaffing up his victim’s tears,

With thousand other crimes, too foul for human ears.

IX.

In ’mid the house an image stood in state,

Like to Voltaire in visage and in shape,

Wither’d his heart with fellest rage and hate

Shrivell’d and lean his carcase like an ape

And numerous crowds upon the same did gape,

As he all-naked stood to every eye;

Above an altar covered with crape,

And formed of his books one might descry,

Profane and lewd it was, and cramm’d with many a lie.

X.

And still from ’neath the altar roared he,

As from a bull lowing in cavern deep,

“Come worship me, O men, come worship me;

Spit on the cross, of Jesus take no keep,

I promise you an everlasting sleep;

The soul and body both shall turn to clay;

Ye penitents, why do ye sigh and weep?

Let not damnation’s terrors you affray,

Come learn my lore that drives all foolish fears away”.

· · · · ·

XIV.

Next came that cursed felon Thomas Paine,

Mounted upon a tiger fierce and fell;

And still a shower of blood on him doth rain,

With tears that from the eyes of widows well;

Loud in his ears the cries of orphans yell;

The axe impending o’er his head alway

While devils wait to catch his soul to hell,

The knave is fill’d with anguish and dismay—

And anxious round he looks, even straws do him affray.

XV.

Then saw I mounted on a braying ass

William and Mary, sooth, a couple jolly;

Who married, note ye how it came to pass,

Although each held that marriage was but folly.

· · · · ·

XVIII.

Then came Maria Helen Williams Stone,

Sitting upon a goat with bearded chin;

And she hath written volumes many a one;

Better the idle jade had learned to spin.

· · · · ·

XIX.

Next mounted on a monster like a louse,

With parchments loaded, came a man of law,[[333]]

Sprung from an ancient Caledonian house,

Cunningly could he quibble out a flaw;

And this sage man would chatter like a daw,

To prove the moon green cheese, and black, pure white,

Spitting out treason from his greedy maw;

To breed sedition was his chief delight,

And scratch men’s scabs to ulcers still with all his might.

XX.

Then on an Irish bull of skin and bone,

A foul churl[[334]] rode, who still a harp would strum,

A harp Hibernian, stringless saving one,

Well tun’d to harsh sedition’s growling hum;

He hit the bull on which he had his bum

Full many a bitter pang, nor gave him rest—

Dealing his blows on Teagues that round him come,

Grieving the while for man and brute opprest,

Chaunting the Irish howl, abhorr’d of man and beast.

XXI.

O Ireland, spot accurs’d—tho’ glorious fair,

Shines there the sun, the flowers enamell’d blow,

And scent, with fragrance sweet, the balmy air,

Rippling the gliding pools that softly flow;

No noxious reptile there to man a foe

Abides, but black revenge with cautious plan,

Cool-blooded cruelty with torments slow,

Springs rank; with weeds the goodly soil’s o’er-ran,

And all the reptile’s venom rankles in the man.

XXII.

Then in a gorgeous car of beaten gold,

Drove on a portly man, of mighty rank,[[335]]

A person comely, of extraction old;

But, carrion-like, his reputation stank;

Sly was the wight, with crafty quip and crank,

To cram with glittering coin his bursting bags;

Yet whilom taxing-men play’d him a prank,

By catching in their traps some strayed nags,

And eke some livery slaves, in miser’s livery rags.

XXIII.

Then on a turtle came proud London’s Mayor,

Followed by Aldermen, a frowsy crew,

Strong smelling of Cheapside, and luscious fair,

Yet apoplexy made his followers few.

Long antlers on the head of each man grew,

So that they seem’d a host of moving horn;

Anon as on they came they’d mump and chew,

Stuffing their guts from dawning of the morn,

Till shades of evening fell—for eating only born.

XXIV.

On a cock sparrow fed with Spanish flies,

A swilling Captain came, with liquor mellow,

And still the crowd in hideous uproar cries,[[336]]

“Sing us a bawdy song, thou d——d good fellow”,

Incontinent he sets himself to bellow,

And shouts with all the strength that in him lies;

The Citizets exclaim, “He’s sans pareilly O”;

The Citizens in raptures roll their eyes,

And drink with leathern ears, the fool’s lewd ribaldries.

XXV.

On came these wights, and many more beside,

Thick as the grains of sand upon the shore,

Thick as a swarm of flies in summer tide,

That on a dunghill hive and hover o’er;

Most had their hides all scall’d, their trousers tore;

Many sans breeches, shameless trudg’d along,

And many a noble knave and titled w——e,

With Irish bog-trotters would crowd and throng,

Carolling catches base, and filthy French chanson.

XXVI.

Like roaring waves they cover’d all the plain;

And tho’ equality they still requir’d,

Each cudgell’d sore his breast with might and main,

Each to get foremost ardently desir’d.

Some fell into the dirt, and foul were mir’d,

The rest rode over them and took no heed.

Their yells, with patriotic ardour fired,

So made my flesh to quake with very dread,

That Morpheus left my couch, and all the vision fled.

The insertion of the foregoing poem (which was never printed) into your entertaining and useful publication, will much oblige,

Your humble servant,

C. K.

INDEX TO THE ANTI-JACOBIN.

4th Edition, 1799; 2 vols., 8vo.

A.

Abuse, a new and approved method of conveying, vol. i., p. 502.

Acme and Septimius, or the Happy Union, vol. i., p. 452.

Advertisements: Government strenuously advised to withdraw them from the Jacobin Papers, vol. ii., p. 119.

Advertisements, Government, withdrawn from the Jacobin Papers, vol. ii., pp. 308, 490.

Address of City of Londonderry to Lord Camden, vol. i., p. 356; His Lordship’s Reply, 358.

Ad—r, Mr. Robert, tries to imitate Mr. Burke’s style, vol. i., p. 377—fails egregiously—mistakes a coffin for a corpse—transmutes the head of the house of Russell into lead, p. 378—writes half a letter to Mr. Fox—and puts the world in high good humour, p. 422.

Agricola: his letter on the advantages of a well-regulated economy, vol. i., p. 583.

Anecdotes respecting Lord Duncan’s victory, vol. i., pp. 38, 107.

Appropriate Speech—See Lord William Russell.

Assessed Taxes: benefits arising from trebling them, vol. i., p. 16—horrible effects of, vol. i., pp. 347, 503.

Assessed Taxes evaded by the Duke of Bedford—See Bedford, Duke of.

B.

Bachelor: his letter, vol. i., p. 258—his definition of a patriot, vol. i., p. 261.

Bacchus: a life of him forged by the Morning Chronicle for the diabolical purpose of burlesquing the life and death, and resurrection and ascension of Our Blessed Saviour, vol. i., p. 220, &c.

Ballynahinch, a loyal town of Lord Moira’s—a meeting of rebel delegates held there, vol. i., p. 83.

Ballynahinch, a new song, vol. ii., p. 603.

Ballynahinchers: loyal countenances of, read by Lord Moira, vol. ii., p. 507—loyal professions of, heard by ditto—rob the king’s stores—debauch his troops—attack them, and are cut to pieces, vol. ii., p. 519.

Bedford, Duke of: his Surcharge of 25 Servants and 17 Horses, vol i., pp. 230, 254.

Bedford, Duke of: justified for evading the Assessed Taxes, by the Morning Post, vol. i., p. 255—and by the Morning Chronicle, p. 297—proved to have gained much honour by evading the Assessed Taxes, by the Morning Post, vol. i., p. 256—cleared from any attempt to evade the Assessed Taxes, by a note of admiration, by the Courier, p. 350.

Beresford, Mr., character of him, vol. ii., p. 556.

Bit of an Ode to Mr. Fox, vol. i., p. 422.

Blockade of the Seine, vol. i., pp. 571, 616.

Blasphemy attempted without success by the Morning Post, vol. i., p. 505—and by the Courier—fully succeeded in by the Morning Chronicle, vol. i., p. 325, &c.

Bosville, Mr., Banker to the Corresponding Society, vol. i., p. 409.

Brownrigg, Mrs.: Inscription for the Door of her Cell in Newgate, vol. i., p. 35.

British Merchant, his Letter on the misrepresentations of the Party, with respect to the continuance of the War, vol. i., p. 593.

Brissot’s Ghost, vol. ii., p. 236.

Burdett, Sir Something: his affectionate mention of Mr. Paine at the Shakespeare Tavern, vol. i., p. 136.

Burdett, Sir Francis, runner to the Corresponding Society, vol. i., p. 408.

Buonaparté: his health given by Mr. Macfungus, vol. i., p. 35—his Letter to the Commandant at Zanté, vol. ii., p. 535.

C.

Camille Jordan, asserts that one of our Jacobin Newspapers is in the pay of France, vol. i., pp. 507, 622; vol. ii., pp. 17, 51, 86, 488.

Cambridge Intelligencer, detected and exposed, vol. ii., pp. 263, 296.

Chevy Chase; a Ballad to the Tune of, vol. ii., p. 21.

Choice, The: an Ode, vol. i., p. 263.

Clare, The Earl of, Character of, vol. ii., p. 544.

Clare, Earl of: proposes a question respecting the extent of Lord Moira’s DUPERY, vol. ii., p. 518.

Clever: See Mr. Robert Ad—r, vol. i., p. 422.

Coughing and laughing: See Mr. John Nicholls, vol. i., p. 186.

Courtney, Mr., fully convicted of kidnapping—rhymes, vol. i., p. 376.

Coalition, The New: an Ode, vol. i., p. 599.

Coalition of Kings, vol. ii., p. 546.

Constant Reader: his Letter on the Designs of our foreign and domestic Enemies, vol. i., pp. 544, 597.

Courier, The; a mad—and foolish—and odious—and contemptible paper, passim. Picked up by a Gentleman in the streets, for the sake of its superior information!!! vol. ii., p. 230.

D.

Detector: his Letter on the pretended Treaty of Pavia, vol. i., p. 474—On the Treaty of Pilnitz, vol. ii., p. 37—On the Coalition of Kings, vol. ii., p. 546.

Description of a very extraordinary Plant now growing at Paris, vol. ii., p. 573.

Description of Mr. Fox’s Radical Reform, vol. i., p. 396.

Description of a Scribbler for the Jacobin Papers, vol. i., p. 613.

Description of the Jacobin Prints, vol. ii., p. 119.

Decius Mus: his account of the Secessions in the Roman Common Wealth, vol. i., p. 261.

Dismissal of the Duke of Norfolk, vol. i., p. 429.

Duncan, Lord: Anecdotes relative to his Victory, vol. i., pp. 38, 107.

Duke, The, and the Taxing Man, vol. i., p. 265.

Dupery of Lord Moira, vol. ii., pp. 36, 518, &c., &c.

E.

Edwards, Mr. Bryan: offers to pay for Mr. Nicholls’ dinner at the Crown and Anchor—finds his pockets pick’d—his exclamation thereat, vol. i., p. 410.

Elegy on the Death of Jean Bon Saint André, vol. ii., p. 314.

Epigram on the Loan upon England, vol. i., p. 267.

Epistle, Poetical, to the Editors of the Anti-Jacobin, vol. i., p. 371. Reply to ditto, vol. i., p. 371.

Epistle, Poetical, to the Author of the Anti-Jacobin, vol. i., p. 486.

Erskine, Mr.: his definition of Himself at the Meeting of the Friends of Freedom—clothed with the infirmities of man’s nature—in many respects a finite being—disclaims all pretensions to superhuman powers—has been both a soldier and a sailor—has a son at Winchester school—has been called by special retainers into many parts of the country, travelling chiefly in post-chaises—is of Noble, perhaps, Royal Blood—has a house at Hampstead—faints between the subdivisions of his discourse—is conveyed to his carriage—tricked by the chairmen who were hired to draw it—and finally taken home by his own horses, vol. i., p. 125, &c.

Expedition against Ostend, vol. ii., pp. 367, 377, 442, 486, 596.

F.

Finance, vol. i., pp. 16, 44, 85, 143, 212, 244, 313, 391, 607; vol. ii., p. 224.

Foreign Intelligence, vol. i., pp. 41, 73, 105, 138, 170, 206, 238, 267, 305, 339, 382, 424, 453, 491, 528, 560, 600, 629; vol. ii., 23, 57, 101, 136, 174, 206, 239, 280, 318, 346, 389, 430, 461, 499, 540, 577, 608.

Foreign Intelligence Extraordinary, vol. ii., p. 535.

Fox, Mr.: his Speech at the Meeting of the Friends of Freedom, vol. i., p. 92—his Radical Reform described, 396—Celebration of his Nativity at the Crown and Anchor, 408—his Speech, 412—his Song, 413—A Bit of an Ode to, 422—Lines written under a Bust of him, 489—his dismissal from the Privy Council, vol. ii., p. 293.

French Revolution, origin and progress of, vol. i., p. 22.

French Revolution, not to be defended or illustrated by a comparison with the civil wars of this country, vol. ii., p. 17.

Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder, vol. i., p. 71.

Friends of Freedom, Meeting of the, vol. i., pp. 91, 125.

Freemason’s observations on the Duke of Norfolk’s toast, vol. i., p. 587.

Francis, Mr.: his Novel of a Pamphlet grievously abused by the Morning Chronicle, vol. ii., p. 338.

G.

German Stage: see the “Rovers”.

Government Advertisements: see Advertisements.

Guillotine, la Sainte: a new Song attempted from the French, vol. i., p. 136.

H.

Head of the Russells, transmuted into lead, vol. i., p. 377.

Higgins, Mr., of Saint Mary Axe—see “Progress of Man,” “Loves of the Triangles,” the “Rovers,” &c.

How to praise one’s friends, vol. i., p. 397.

Horrible Effects of the Assessed Taxes, vol. i., pp. 347, 503.

Hoche, General: his Instructions to Colonel Tate, vol. i., pp. 480, 498.

I.

Imitation of Horace, lib. iii. carm. xxv., vol. i., p. 627.

Instructions for Colonel Tate, vol. i., pp. 480, 498.

Introduction, The, vol. i., p. 11.

Introduction to the Poetry, vol. i., p. 31.

Invasion, The; or, The British War Song, vol. i., p. 103.

Ingratitude, the characteristic vice of Jacobinism, vol. i., p. 579.

Italicus: his letter on the plunder of the French in Italy, vol. i., p. 367.

J.

Jacobin, The, vol. ii., p. 133.

Jacobin Papers, an epidemic malady among them, vol. ii., p. 120.

L.

Latin Verses, De Navali Laude Britanniæ, vol. ii., p. 604.

Lead—see Head of the Russells.

Letter to Earl Moira on the state of Ireland, vol. i., p. 77, 109, 161.

Letter from Letitia Sourby, vol. i., p. 195—from a Bachelor, p. 258—from Decius Mus, p. 261—from an Irishman, 299—from Italicus, 367—from Monitor, 370—from Adolphus Hicks, 380—from a Constant Reader, 534—from Agricola, 583—from Speculator, 586—from a Freemason, 587—from a Symposiast, 589—from a British Merchant, 593—from a Constant Reader, 597—from Mucius, 623—from Historicus, vol. ii., p. 17—from an Irishman, 35—from a Sucking Whig, 53—from a British Seaman, 93—from an Anti-Catiline, 128—from Samuel Shallow—from a Friend to the Landed Interest, 269—from Historicus, 491—from A. Z., on Original Principles with respect to the French Revolution, 499—from a Calm Observer, 525—from Hibernicus, 554—from Perseus, 558—from a Church of England Man, 561—from Cato, 564—from Hortensius, 573.

Letter from General Buonaparte to the Governor of Zanté, vol. ii., p. 535.

Lies, vol. i., pp. 46, 115, 156, 178, 217, 248, 322, 346, 395, 453, 460, 499, 538, 573, 612; vol. ii., pp. 2, 4, 43, 78, 116, 151, 193, 227, 304, 330, 377, 440, 481, 512.

Lille, translation of a letter from, vol. i., p. 26.

Lines written at the close of the year 1797, vol. i., p. 330.

Lines written under the Bust of Charles Fox at the Crown and Anchor, vol. i., p. 489.

Lines written under the Bust of a certain Orator, not at the Crown and Anchor, vol. i., p. 490.

List of ships and vessels belonging to France, Spain, and Holland, taken, &c., since the commencement of the war, vol. ii., p. 120.

Loves of the Triangles: a Mathematical and Philosophical Poem, vol. ii., pp. 162, 200, 274.

M.

Manners and Character of the Age, vol. ii., p. 564.

Marten, Henry: inscription for his apartment in Chepstow Castle, vol. i., p. 35.

Macfungus, Mr.: his speech at the meeting of the Friends of Freedom, vol. i., p. 131.

Meeting of the Friends of Freedom, vol. i., pp. 91, 125.

Misrepresentations, vol. i., pp. 19, 47, 117, 157, 180, 218, 252, 293, 324, 347, 396, 436, 470, 501, 541, 577, 615; vol. ii., pp. 8, 46, 79, 121, 154, 195, 231, 307, 333, 441, 484, 515 597.

Mistakes, vol. i., pp. 56, 124, 159, 188, 221, 257, 351, 397, 439, 473, 504, 543, 581, 620; vol. ii., pp. 12, 48, 84, 126, 154, 199, 235, 308, 338, 385, 443, 484, 519.

Misapprehension on the subject of the proposed Increase of the Assessed Taxes, vol. i., p. 190.

Moira, Lord: the singularity of his conduct, vol. i., p. 58—his story of the Child and the Rush Light contradicted, p. 188—his weakness, p. 252—lays it down as a general principle, that the liberty of the press is destroyed in Ireland, p. 274—is referred to the Press and the Dublin Evening Post, p. 275—famous for acting a bull, vol. ii., p. 14—duped to an extraordinary degree, p. 86—a great physiognomist, p. 517—a great dupe, p. 518, &c., &c., &c.

Moira, Lord: Letter to, on the State of Ireland, vol. i., pp. 77, 109, 161.

Moira, Lord: Ode to, vol. i., p. 380.

Moira, the late Earl of: his account of the celebrated enchantress, Moll Coggin, vol. i., p. 299.

Moll Coggin: the late Earl of Moira’s account of her, vol. i., p. 299.

Morning Chronicle, calls the Thanksgiving for Lord Duncan’s Victory a Frenchified Farce, vol. i., p. 157—insults the King—maligns the Parliament—belies the Resources—ridicules and reviles the spirit of the Nation—advises unconditional submission to France—declares that our arms are without energy, our hearts without courage, and our sword at the service of every puny whipster, vol. ii., p. 85, &c.

Morning Chronicle: its impiety—its blasphemy—its falsehood—its historical, geographical, and political ignorance—its insolence, baseness, and stupidity—passim, passim.

Morning Chronicle, the editor of: why called the Père du Chène, vol. ii., p. 471.

Muskein, Citizen: his Consolatory Address to his Gun-boats, vol. ii., p. 312—his Affectionate Address to Hâvre de Grace, vol. ii., p. 498.

N.

Narrative of the Riot at Tranent, vol. i., p. 59.

Naval History, vol. i., p. 222.

Neutral Navigation, vol. i., pp. 398, 505.

New Morality, a Poem, vol. ii., p. 623.

New and approved method of conveying abuse, vol. i., p. 502.

Neat Speech—see Lord John Russell.

Nicholls, Mr. John: his faculties confounded by Mr. Pitt’s speech, vol. i., p. 47—treated very unkindly by his associates, vol. i., p. 186—has his pockets picked by Mr. Jekyl of his genuine speech at the Crown and Anchor—offers seventeen of the spurious ones in payment for his dinner at ditto—is refused admittance, vol. i., p. 410.

Nicholls, Mr. John: a great Parliament man, but thought to be very tart and sour by Mrs. Deborah Wigmore, Mr. Wright’s housekeeper, vol. i., p. 553.

Norfolk, Duke of: his speech at the Crown and Anchor, vol. i., pp. 412, 418—his dismissal, vol. i., p. 429—observations on his toast, by a Freemason, vol. i., p. 587—defended by a Symposiast, vol. i., p. 589—curious account of his dismissal from the French Papers, vol. i., p. 614; vol. ii., p. 16.

O.

Ode to Anarchy, by a Jacobin, vol. i., p. 301.

Ode to Lord Moira, vol. i., p. 380.

Ode, a bit of an, to Mr. Fox, vol. i., p. 422.

Ode to Jacobinism, vol. ii., p. 53.

Ode to my Country, 1798, vol. ii., p. 342.

Ode to the Director Merlin, vol. ii., p. 388.

Ode to a Jacobin, vol. ii., p. 576.

Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, vol. i., p. 22.

P.

Pavia, Treaty of, proved to be a Jacobin forgery, vol. i., p. 474.

Père du Chène, appellation of: why given to the editor of The Morning Chronicle, vol. ii., p. 471.

Pilnitz, Treaty of, proved to be a Jacobin forgery, vol. ii., p. 37.

Poetry, vol. i., pp. 31, 69, 103, 168, 199, 236, 263, 301, 329, 371, 421, 452, 486, 524, 556, 597, 620; vol. ii., pp. 21, 53, 95, 133, 162, 200, 236, 274, 312, 339, 387, 415, 446, 497, 528, 576, 603.

Porcupine, Peter, a spirited and instructive writer, vol. i., p. 332.

Prisoners of War, vol. i., pp. 234, 277, 326; vol. ii., p. 310.

Prize of Dullness, vol. i., pp. 421, 448, 522; awarded, vol. i., p. 552.

Progress of Man, a Didactic Poem, vol. i., pp. 524, 558; vol. ii., p. 97.

Proceedings of the Whig Club, vol. ii., p. 260.

Prologue to the Rovers; or, the Double Arrangement, vol. ii., p. 420.

R.

Ram—see Sir John Sinclair.

Review of the proposed plan of Finance, vol. i., p. 143.

Review of the Session, vol. ii., p. 583.

Rovers, the; or, the Double Arrangement, vol. ii., pp. 420, 446.

Russell, Lord John, makes a very neat Speech, vol. i., p. 126.

Russell, Lord William, makes a very appropriate Speech, vol. i., p. 126.

S.

Sale of the Land Tax, vol. ii., p. 1, 269.

Secession of the Opposition, observations on, vol. i., p. 36.

Secret Expedition of British Savans, vol. ii., p. 529.

Sinclair, Sir John, embarks with his Ram in the Capricorn on a secret expedition, vol. ii., p. 532.

Soldier’s Friend: an Ode, vol. i., p. 169.

Song: a new one, appointed to be sung at all Convivial Meetings convened for the purpose of opposing the Assessed Tax Bill, vol. i., p. 303.

Sonnet to Liberty, vol. i., p. 169.

Sourby, Letitia: her letter, vol. i., p. 195.

Speculator: his observations on Cardinal Antici’s letter to Buonaparte, vol. i., p. 586.

Symposiast’s, A, defence of the Duke of Norfolk’s celebrated toast, vol. i., p. 589.

T.

Tate, Colonel; his instructions, vol. i., pp. 480, 498.

Tooke, Horne: his speech at the Crown and Anchor, vol. i., p. 417.

Translation of the Latin verses written after the Revolution of the fourth of September, vol. i., p. 201.

Translation of the new song of the “Army of England,” vol. i., p. 331.

Translation of a letter from Bawba-dara-adul-phoola to Neek-awl-aretchid-kooez, vol. ii., p. 532.

Treaty of Pavia, proved to be a Jacobin forgery, vol. i., p. 474.

Treaty of Pilnitz, proved to be a Jacobin forgery, vol. ii., p. 37.

U.

Unattached Officers, vol. i., p. 362.

Unjust Aggressions, vol. i., pp. 420, 440, 549; vol. ii., pp. 522, 600.

Union Star: extracts from, vol. i., p. 352.

V.

Verses, Latin, written after the Revolution of the fourth of September, vol. i., p. 201; translation, vol. i., p. 236.

Vision, The: written at St. Ann’s Hill, vol. i., p. 598.

Voluntary Contributions, vol. i., pp. 465, 534.

W.

Weekly Examiner, vol. i., pp. 19, 46, 115, 156, 178, 217, 248, 293, 322, 346, 395, 435, 468, 498, 534, 573, 607; vol. ii., pp. 4, 43, 78, 116, 151, 191, 227, 263, 296, 330, 377, 405, 440, 475, 512, 596.

Wickham, Mr.: his note to the Helvetic Body on his recal, vol. i., p. 388—answer to ditto, vol. i., p. 426.

Wigmore, Deborah, housekeeper to Mr. Wright, awards the Prize of Dullness, vol. i., p. 552.

INDEX TO VOL. I.
OF THE
ANTI-JACOBIN REVIEW AND MAGAZINE.

[This Index and the two preceding articles (by W. Cobbett, pp. 311–319) are reprinted in order to show that the same spirit which pervaded The Anti-Jacobin was continued in its successor, The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, although the Editor and Contributors were different.]

The End.

[1]. On the subject of the respective authorship of the contributions to The Anti-Jacobin, see The Works of John Hookham Frere, in verse and prose, with Prefatory Memoir. Edited by his Nephews, H. and Sir Bartle Frere, and The Edinburgh Review for April, 1872, p. 476.

[2]. It will be remembered that these eminent persons were chosen by Lord Malmesbury to accompany him on his mission to Lille and were associated with him in the abortive negotiations for peace.

[3]. It is surprising that the satirist’s attention was not attracted to the scene in Stella, in which one of the heroines describes the rapid growth of her passion to its object: “I know not if you observed that you had enchained my interest from the first moment of our first meeting. I at least soon became aware that your eyes sought mine. Ah, Fernando, then my uncle brought the music, you took your violin, and, as you played, my eyes rested upon you free from care. I studied every feature of your face; and, during an unexpected pause, you fixed your eyes upon—upon me! They met mine! How I blushed, how I looked away! You observed it, Fernando; for from that moment I felt that you looked oftener over your music-book, often played out of tune, to the disturbance of my uncle. Every false note, Fernando, went to my heart. It was the sweetest confusion I ever felt in my life.”

[4]. The whole of this jeu d’esprit has been claimed for Frere, but on unsatisfactory evidence. It is much more in Canning’s way as a student of oratory, which Frere was not.

[5]. [See pages [32], [34].—Ed.]

[6]. [A very eminent Mathematician and Physicist, and the inventor of descriptive geometry; born in 1746. In 1792 he was appointed Minister of Marine; and afterwards took an active part in the equipment of the Army. After founding the École Polytechnique, he was sent into Italy to receive the pictures and statues seized by Buonaparte. He then joined the expedition to Egypt, and rendered great service both in the war operations and in the labours of the Egyptian Institute, the results of which were published by command of Napoleon in that magnificent and extensive work the Description de l’Égypte. He died in 1818.—Ed.]

[7]. [Parodied from Payne Knight’s poem, “The Progress of Civil Society,” which is admirably ridiculed in No. XV. post.—Ed.]

[8]. [By Southey.—Ed.]

[9]. [The original poem, by Southey, is here subjoined:—

THE WIDOW.

SAPPHICS.

Cold was the night wind; drifting fast the snows fell;

Wide were the downs, and shelterless and naked;

When a poor wand’rer struggled on her journey,

Weary and way-sore.

Drear were the downs, more dreary her reflections;

Cold was the night wind, colder was her bosom:

She had no home, the world was all before her,

She had no shelter.

Fast o’er the heath a chariot rattled by her:

“Pity me!” feebly cried the poor night wanderer.

“Pity me, strangers! lest with cold and hunger

Here I should perish.

“Once I had friends—but they have all forsook me!

Once I had parents—they are now in heaven!

I had a home once—I had once a husband—

Pity me, strangers!

“I had a home once—I had once a husband—

I am a widow, poor and broken-hearted!”

Loud blew the wind, unheard was her complaining;

On drove the chariot.

Then on the snow she laid her down to rest her;

She heard a horseman: “Pity me!” she groaned out.

Loud was the wind, unheard was her complaining;

On went the horseman.

Worn out with anguish, toil, and cold and hunger,

Down sunk the wanderer; sleep had seized her senses:

There did the traveller find her in the morning—

God had released her.]

1796.

[10]. [George Tierney, M.P. for Southwark, who in early times was among the more forward of the Reformers. “He was,” says Lord Brougham, “an assiduous member of the Society of Friends of the People, and drew up the much and justly celebrated Petition in which that useful body laid before the House of Commons all the more striking particulars of its defective title to the office of representing the people, which that House then, as now, but with far less reason, assumed.” Notwithstanding the above severe verses, Tierney served under Canning as Master of the Mint, during the latter’s short administration in 1827.—Ed.]

[11]. [In Feb., 1797, about 1400 Frenchmen landed at Pembroke, but surrendered without resistance to the country people, whom Lord Cawdor (who had been elevated to the Peerage in the preceding year) had armed with scythes and pitchforks. He was succeeded by his elder son, who was created Earl Cawdor in 1827, and died 1860.—Ed.]

[12]. [This account will be found on p. [32], et seq.—Ed.]

[13]. See proclamation of the Directory.

[14]. The “too long calumniated author of the Rights of Man”.—See a Sir Something Burdett’s speech at the Shakspeare, as referred to in the Courier of Nov. 30.

[15]. The Guillotine at Arras was, as is well known to every Jacobin, painted “Couleur de Rose”.

[16]. See Weekly Examiner, No. 11. Extract from the Courier.

[17]. La petite Fenétre, and la Razoire Nationale, fondling expressions applied to the Guillotine by the Jacobins in France, and their pupils here.

[18]. [The original poem is here subjoined:—

THE SOLDIER’S WIFE.

DACTYLICS.

Weary way-wanderer, languid and sick at heart,

Travelling painfully over the rugged road;

Wild-visaged wanderer! Ah! for thy heavy chance.

Sorely thy little ones drag by thee barefooted,

Cold is the baby that hangs at thy bending back—

Meagre and livid, and screaming its wretchedness.

Woe-begone mother, half anger, half agony,

As over thy shoulder thou lookest to hush the babe,

Bleakly the blinding snow beats in thy haggard face.

Thy husband will never return from the war again;

Cold is thy hopeless heart, even as charity—

Cold are thy famished babes—God help thee, widowed one!]

1795.

[19]. [“Walked to the Old Bailey to see David Isaac Eaton in the pillory. The mob was decidedly friendly to him. His having published Paine’s Age of Reason was not an intelligible offence to them.”—Crabb Robinson’s Diary, i. 386.

The Proclamation against Seditious Writings, however, was supported by some influential Whigs. “Pitt had previously sent copies of it to several members of the Opposition in both Houses, requesting their advice,” says Lord Malmesbury. Whether Pitt desired it or not, no measure could have been more effectual for dividing the Whig party.—Ed.]

[20]. [See p. [38].—Ed.]

[21]. My worthy friend the bellman had promised to supply an additional stanza; but the business of assisting the lamplighter, chimney-sweeper, &c., with complimentary verses for their worthy masters and mistresses, pressing on him at this season, he was obliged to decline it. [A quiz at the third stanza, which was contributed by Coleridge.—Ed.]

[22]. [Thomas Dyche was a clergyman, and kept a school at Stratford-le-Bow. He was the author of an English dictionary, a spelling-book, a Latin vocabulary, &c. He died about 1750. Thomas Dilworth, whose educational works were long popular, was for some time his assistant, and then set up a school for himself at Wapping. He died in 1781.—Ed.]

[23]. [and should have been omitted.—Ed.]

[24]. [The Latin Verses, much admired at the time, were written by the Marquis Wellesley at Walmer Castle, in 1797, at the desire of Pitt, and were published after the author’s departure for India, in the Anti-Jacobin. The beautiful translation of them was by Lord Morpeth, afterwards sixth Earl of Carlisle, whose mother was the daughter of Granville Leveson Gower, first Marquis of Stafford. He died in 1848.]

[25]. The original poem as translated, or rather paraphrased, by Prof. J. D. Carlyle, is here subjoined:—

THE CHOICE.

Sabla! thou saw’st th’ exulting foe

In fancied triumphs crown’d:

Thou heard’st their frantic females throw

These galling taunts around:

“Make now YOUR CHOICE—the terms we give,

Desponding victims, hear!

These fetters on your hands receive,

Or in your hearts the spear.”

“And is the conflict o’er,” we cried,

And lie we at your feet,

“And dare you vauntingly decide

The fortune we must meet?

“A brighter day we soon shall see,

Tho’ now the prospect lowers,

And Conquest, Peace, and Liberty

Shall gild our future hours.”

The foe advanc’d—in firm array

We rush’d o’er Sabla’s sands,

And the red sabre mark’d our way

Amidst their yielding bands.

Then as they writh’d in death’s cold grasp,

We cried, “Our choice is made!

These hands the sabre’s hilt shall clasp,

Your hearts shall have the blade!”

As Carlyle’s version is although a spirited not a faithful one, the Editor is induced to present a literal translation, from Translations of Ancient Arabian Poetry, by C. J. Lyall, 1885, 8vo., p. 10. The contest was not a battle but one of the frequent skirmishes between neighbouring clans. Sabla is Carlyle’s rendering of Sahbal a Wady, in Arabia, overlooked by twin peaks.

[26]. [W. H. Ireland, the Shakespeare forger.—Ed.]

[27]. [The above ballad refers to an attempt by Francis, fifth Duke of Bedford, to escape the payment of the Assessed Taxes upon twenty-five of his servants, on the plea that as the Helpers did not wear a Livery, and were engaged by the week, they were not liable to the duty. This defence was, however, unsuccessful.—Ed.]

[28]. Twaie coneynge Clerks.—Coneynge is the participle of the verb to ken or know. It by no means imports what we now denominate a knowing one: on the contrary, twaie coneynge clerks means two intelligent and disinterested clergymen.

[29]. Seely is evidently the original of the modern word silly. A seely wight, however, by no means imports what is now called a silly fellow, but means a man of simplicity of character, devoid of all vanity, and of any strange, ill-conducted ambition, which, if successful, would immediately be fatal to the man who indulged it.

[30]. Good advisament means—cool consideration.

[31]. [Francis, fifth Duke of Bedford, died after a severe surgical operation, March 2, 1802, at the early age of thirty-six. “The Duke of Bedford’s energetic and capacious mind,” says Lord Ossory, “his enlarged way of thinking, and elevated sentiments, together with the habits and pursuits of his life, peculiarly qualified him for his high station and princely fortune. He was superior to bad education and disadvantages for forming his character, and turned out certainly a first-rate man, though not free from imperfections. His uprightness and truth were unequalled; his magnanimity, fortitude and consideration, in his last moments, taken so unprepared as he was, were astonishing.”

On the 16th March, C. J. Fox, in moving for a new writ for the borough of Tavistock, vacated by Lord John Russell, who had succeeded to the titles and estates of his deceased brother, took occasion to pronounce a beautiful and glowing eulogium on his departed friend and firm supporter.—Ed.]

[32]. [The Anti-Jacobin (in No. 8) thus speaks of the threatened invasion of this country, for which “they have publicly formed, and (as they term it) organized their Army of England. Its Advanced Guard is to be formed from a chosen Corps of Banditti, the most distinguished for Massacre and Plunder. It is to be preceded, as it naturally ought, by the Genius of French Revolutionary Liberty, and it will be welcomed, as they tell us, ‘on the ensanguined shores of Britain, by the generous friends of Parliamentary Reform’. In the interval, however, till these golden dreams are realized, it is necessary that this ‘Army of England,’ while it yet remains in France, should be fed, paid, and clothed. For this purpose a new and separate fund is provided (in the same spirit with the rest of their measures), and is to be termed ‘The Loan of England,’ to be raised by anticipation on the security and mortgage of all the Lands and Property of this Country. This gasconade, which sounds too extravagant for reality, is nevertheless seriously announced by a message from the Executive Directory; and we are told that the Merchants of Paris are eagerly offering to advance, on such a security, the money which is to defray the expenses of the Expedition against this country.”—Ed.]

[33]. [The above verses refer to the memorable events of the 18th Fructidor, Sept. 4, 1797 (the model of Prince Louis Napoléon’s coup d’état, Dec. 2, 1851), when Rewbell, Barras, and Laréveillère-Lepaux, on the plea that the Republic was in danger, got rid of their fellow-directors, Carnot (grandfather to the present President of the French Republic) and Barthélemy, who were replaced by Merlin and François de Neufchateau, dispersed by military force the members of the Five Hundred and the Ancients, fifty-three of whom were condemned to transportation—banished the editors, &c., of forty-two newspapers—annulled the elections of forty-eight departments—and effected other arbitrary measures without opposition. The springs of the movement were throughout directed by Buonaparte, seconded by Hoche and Augereau. This event was the true era of the commencement of military despotism in France. But Thiers considers “the Directory by these means prevented civil war, and substituted an arbitrary but necessary act of power, carried out with energy, but with all the mildness and moderation that revolutionary times would allow”.—Ed.]

[34]. [Alluding to the National Thanksgiving for the three great naval victories achieved by Lords Howe, St. Vincent, and Duncan. On this occasion the King and Queen, with their family, the Houses of Lords and Commons, &c., went in procession to St. Paul’s, where Divine Service was performed. The Government Papers attributed to the Opposition Press a desire to throw discredit on this proceeding. “The consequence of the Procession to St. Paul’s” (says the Morning Post, of Dec. 25) “was, that one man returned thanks to the Almighty, and one woman was kicked TO DEATH.”—Ed.]

[35]. [Mary Frampton, in her journal (Dec. 20, 1797), gives a lively account of the King’s attendance at St. Paul’s for Duncan’s Victory on the 11th Oct. “The King,” she says, “stopped under the dome, and conversed for some time with Lord Duncan and the sailors; and, to the great scandal of good church-goers, did not hold his tongue for any considerable time together during the service.... Pitt was attacked at Temple Bar by three ruffians, who rushed from the mob and seized upon the door of his carriage undoubtedly with an intent to drag him out, but three of the Light Horse Volunteers rode up, and backing their horses against them, sent them head over heels to the place from whence they came, rather faster than they ventured out.” Page [99].—Ed.]

[36]. [Prince Talleyrand.—Ed.]

[37]. General Danican, in his Memoirs, tells us, that while he was in command, a felon, who had assumed the name of Brutus, chief of a revolutionary tribunal at Rennes, said to his colleagues, on Good Friday, “Brothers, we must put to death this day, at the same hour the counter-revolutionist Christ died, that young devotee who was lately arrested”: and this young lady was guillotined accordingly, and her corpse treated with every possible species of indecent insult, to the infinite amusement of a vast multitude of spectators.

[38]. The reader will find in the works of Peter Porcupine [W. Cobbett] (a spirited and instructive writer) an ample and satisfactory commentary on this and the following stanza. The French themselves inform us, that by the several modes of destruction here alluded to, upwards of 30,000 persons were butchered at Lyons, and this once magnificent city almost levelled to the ground, by the command of a wretched actor (Collot d’Herbois), whom they had formerly hissed from the stage. From the same authorities we learn, that at Nantz 27,000 persons, of both sexes, were murdered; chiefly by drowning them in plugged boats. The waters of the Loire became putrid, and were forbidden to be drunk, by the savages who conducted the massacre:—that at Paris 150,000, and in La Vendée 300,000 persons were destroyed.—Upon the whole, the French themselves acknowledge, that TWO MILLIONS of human beings (exclusive of the military) have been sacrificed to the principles of Equality and the Rights of Man: 250,000 of these are stated to be WOMEN, and 30,000 CHILDREN. In this last number, however, they do not include the unborn; nor those who started from the bodies of their agonizing parents, and were stuck upon the bayonets of those very men who are now to compose the “Army of England,” amidst the most savage acclamations.

[At the beginning of the revolution, some companies of children, called Bonsbons, were dressed and drilled as National Guards, as a compliment to the Dauphin, who to please the Parisians sometimes donned that uniform. Similar companies were afterwards formed in Brittany, and employed to shoot those poor wretches whom the two guillotines could not dispatch in sufficient numbers!—Biog. Univ., art. St. André.—Ed.]

[39]. At Lyons, Jabogues, the second murderer (the Actor being the first), in his speech to the Democratic Society, used these words—“Down with the edifices raised for the profit or the pleasure of the rich; down with them ALL. Commerce and ARTS are useless to a warlike people, and are the destruction of that sublime Equality which France is determined to spread over the globe.” Such are the consequences of Radical Reform! Let any merchant, farmer, or landlord; let any husband or father consider this, and then say, “Shall we or shall we not contribute a moderate sum, IN PROPORTION TO OUR ANNUAL EXPENDITURE, for the purpose of preserving ourselves from the fate of Lyons, La Vendée, and Nantz?”

Styptic.

[40]. [Probably written by the Rt. Hon. John Courtnay.]

[41]. Line 10.—[One of the distinguishing features of the “Anti-Jacobin” was their articles devoted to an exposure of the “Lies, Misrepresentations, and Mistakes” of the Opposition Press.—Ed.]

[42]. Line 23.—[George Hammond, at this time Canning’s colleague as Under-Secretary of State; the latter being succeeded by John Hookham Frere.—Ed.]

[43]. Line 30.—[Lord Morpeth, son of the (fifth) Earl of Carlisle who was satirized by Byron in “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers”.—Ed.]

[44]. Line 32.—[George Granville Leveson Gower, eldest son of the first Marquis of Stafford, born in 1758, became second Marquis in 1803, and created Duke of Sutherland in 1833. He was one of Canning’s intimate college companions.—Ed.]

[45]. Line 41.—[James Harris, first Earl of Malmesbury, one of the most distinguished of English diplomatists. His “Diaries and Correspondence,” published by his grandson, the third Earl, throw much light on the transactions of the eventful period to which they refer.—Ed.]

[46]. Line 42.—[George Ellis, the accomplished editor of the “Specimens of the Early English Poets, and of Early English Metrical Romances,” &c. In early life he contributed to the Rolliad, being the author of Nos. 1 and 2, in Part I., and Nos. 1 and 2, in Part II. Of the Political Eclogues he wrote the one entitled “Charles Jenkinson”. In the Probationary Odes, he wrote No. II. “Ode on the New Year, by Lord Mulgrave,” and No. XX. “Irregular Ode for the King’s Birth Day, by Sir G. Howard”. Afterwards, however, he became much attached to Pitt, and acted as Secretary to Lord Malmesbury during his unsuccessful negotiations with the French for peace, at Lisle, 1797. Horace Walpole thus alludes to him, in a letter of 24th June, 1783: “English people are in fashion at Versailles. A Mr. Ellis, who wrote some pretty verses at Bath two or three years ago, is a favourite there.” Sir Walter Scott addressed to him Canto V. of “Marmion”. He died in 1815, aged 70.—Ed.]

[47]. Line 71.—[The Rt. Hon. Henry Dundas (afterwards created Viscount Melville), in the Commons, and Lord Grenville in the Lords, were Pitt’s most efficient supporters.—Ed.]

[48]. Line 16.—[Brookes’s Club was the grand rendezvous of the Whigs.—Ed.]

[49]. Line 17.—[Jas. Hare was M.P. for Knaresborough, and one of the most brilliant wits of the Whig Party. At Eton his verses were hung up as specimens of excellence. Great expectations were raised as to his eloquence in the House of Commons. But his timidity was so great that he broke down in his first speech, and this failure, joined with delicate health, prevented a second attempt. Horace Walpole speaks of his “brilliancy and fire,” and of his own inferiority to him. His bons mots were innumerable. He died in 1804. The following is Lord Ossory’s opinion of the social talents of some of the best talkers of his day:—“Horace Walpole was an agreeable, lively man, very affected, always aiming at wit, in which he fell very short of his old friend, George Selwyn, who possessed it in the most genuine but indescribable degree. Hare’s conversation abounded with wit, and perhaps of a more lively kind; so did Burke’s, though with much alloy of bad taste; but, upon the whole, my brother the General [Fitzpatrick] was the most agreeable man in society of any of them.”—MS., R. Vernon Smith.—Ed.]

[50]. Line 19.—[General Fitzpatrick was one of Fox’s most attached friends and political supporters. Boswell, speaking of a dinner at Beauclerk’s, 24th April, 1779, says, on a celebrated wit being mentioned (believed to be Fitzpatrick), “Johnson replied, ‘I have been several times in company with him, but never perceived any strong power of wit. He produces a general effect by various means; he has a cheerful countenance and a gay voice. Besides his trade is wit. It would be as wild in him to come into company without merriment, as for a highwayman to take the road without his pistols.’” Walpole (in his Journal of the Reign of George III., i. 167, and ii. 560) describes him as “an agreeable young man of parts,” and mentions his “genteel irony and badinage”. He was Lord Shelburne’s brother-in-law, at whose house Johnson might have met him, as well as in Fox’s company. Rogers (Table Talk, p. 104) said that Fitzpatrick was at one time nearly as famous for his wit as Hare. He possessed no mean poetic talents, particularly for compositions of wit, fancy, and satire. To the Rolliad he contributed “Extract from the Dedication”; Nos. v., ix. and xii., in Part I.; and No. v. in Part II. In the Political Eclogues, he wrote “The Liars”; and “Pindaric Ode” (No. xv.)—also, “Incantation for raising a Phantom, imitated from Macbeth,” in the Political Miscellanies.

GENERAL RICHARD FITZPATRICK’S EPITAPH ON HIMSELF.

“My own Epitaph.

“Whose turn is next? This monitory Stone

Replies, vain Passenger, perhaps thy own.

If, idly curious, thou wilt seek to know

Whose relics mingle with the dust below,

Enough to tell thee, that his destin’d span

On Earth he dwelt,—and, like thyself, a Man.

Nor distant far th’ inevitable day

When thou, poor mortal, shalt like him be clay.

Through life he walk’d unemulous of fame,

Nor wish’d beyond it to preserve a name.

Content, if Friendship, o’er his humble bier,

Drop but the heartfelt tribute of a tear;

Though countless ages should unconscious glide,

Nor learn that ever he had liv’d, or died.

“R. F.”

Such is the epitaph placed on a stone sarcophagus in the usual form, in the churchyard at Sunninghill, close to the house where Gen. Fitzpatrick’s friend, G. Ellis, died.—Nichols, Lit. Illustr., vol. vii., pp. 633–4.—Ed.]

[51]. Line 19.—[Lord John Townshend, the second son of the first Marquis Townshend. He represented Cambridge till ousted by Pitt at the general election in 1784. In 1788 he became the colleague of Fox for Westminster. He afterwards represented Knaresborough for twenty-five years: his colleague in 1797 was Hare. He had great powers of wit and satire. In the Political Eclogues (subjoined to The Rolliad), he wrote the one entitled “Jekyll”. To the Probationary Odes for the Laureatship he contributed No. xii., in ridicule of Warren Hastings’s agent, Major John Scott, M.P. Also, the “Dialogue between a certain personage and his Minister,” in imitation of the Ninth Ode of Horace, Book III.—Ed.]

[52]. Line 20.—[Sir Francis Burdett, then M.P. for Boroughbridge.—Ed.]

[53]. Line 23.—[John Richardson, M.P. for Newport, Cornwall, and one of the proprietors of Drury Lane Theatre. In the Rolliad he was the author, in Part I., of Nos. iv., x., and xi.; and in Part II. of Nos. iii. and iv. He wrote No. iv. of Probationary Odes, in ridicule of Sir R. Hill, Bart.; No. xix. on Viscount Mountmorres, and the concluding prose portion. To the Political Miscellanies he contributed, “This is the House that George Built,” and in conjunction with Tickell, the “Epigrams by Sir Cecil Wray,” “Pretymaniana,” and “Foreign Epigrams”. In the latter Dr. Laurence assisted them. Also “A Tale: At Brookes’s once it so fell out”. “Theatrical Intelligence Extraordinary.” “Epigram: Who shall Expect the Country’s Friend?” “A new Ballad: Billy Eden,” in conjunction with Tickell. “Proclamation.” He died in 1803.—Ed.]

[54]. Line 25.—[The Rev. Samuel Parr, LL.D., was not only a great scholar, but an uncompromising Whig, and one of Fox’s most enthusiastic supporters. His conversational powers were great, and his arguments were enforced by boldness, dogmatism, and arrogance, which qualities, however, did not always exempt him from stinging retorts even from the fair sex. The following, among other attacks, appears in Crabb Robinson’s interesting Diary, ii. 457:—

A RECIPE.

To half of Busby’s skill in mood and tense

Add Bentley’s pleasantry, without his sense:

Of Warburton take all the spleen you find,

And leave his genius and his wit behind.

Squeeze Churchill’s rancour from the verse it flows in,

And knead it stiff with Johnson’s heavy prosing.

Add all the piety of St. Voltaire,

Mix the gross compound—Fiat Dr. Parr.

His person, in full canonicals, with capacious wig, unfailing tobacco pipe and tankard, is, with the effigies of many other noted politicians of the period, introduced into a spirited bacchanalian scene by Gillray, published in 1801, entitled The Union Club.]

[55]. Buzz Prose.—The learned reader will perceive that this is an elegant metonymy, by which the quality belonging to the outside of the head is transferred to the inside. Buzz is an epithet usually applied to a large wig. It is here used for swelling, burly, bombastic writing.

There is a picture of Hogarth’s (the Election Ball, we believe), in which there are a number of Hats thrown together in one corner of the room; and it is remarked as a peculiar excellence that there is not a Hat among them of which you cannot to a certainty point out the owner among the figures dancing, or otherwise distributed through the picture.

We remember to have seen an experiment of this kind tried at one of the Universities with the wig and writings here alluded to. A page taken from the most happy and elaborate part of the writings was laid upon a table in a barber’s shop, round which a number of wigs of different descriptions and dimensions were suspended, and among them that of the Author in question. It was required of a young student, after reading a few sentences in the page, to point out among the wigs that which must of necessity belong to the Head in which such sentences had been engendered. The experiment succeeded to a miracle. The learned reader will now see all the beauty and propriety of the metonymy.

[56]. Line 25.—[John Courtenay was for many years one of the men of mark in the House of Commons for his ability, independent spirit, erudition, and coarse sarcastic wit. He was born at Carlingford, Ireland, in 1738. Having obtained the patronage of George, Viscount Townshend, Lord-Lieutenant (1767–72), he became the principal writer in the “Batchelor,” a government paper, distinguished by genuine wit and humour, conducted by Simcox, a clergyman; Richard Marlay, afterwards Bishop of Waterford and Lismore; Robert Jephson, a dramatic poet of note; the Rev. Mr. Boroughs, and others. The chief task of these advocates of the Castle was to counteract the “Baratarian Letters,” an Irish imitation of Junius, which, attacking the Lord-Lieutenant’s government, received contributions from Flood, and first published Grattan’s character of Chatham. At the “Coalition,” 1783, he was appointed Surveyor-general of the Ordnance, and henceforward attached himself to Fox. He wrote, among other works, A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D., 1786; The Rape of Pomona, an Elegiac Epistle from the Waiter at Hockrel to the Hon. Mr. Lyttelton, 1773; Philosophical Reflections on the late Revolution in France; and a Biographical Sketch of his own Life. In his Epistles in Rhyme he thus ridicules Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Verses on the two Misses Berry:—

“Who to love tunes his note, with the fire of old age,

And chirps the trim lay in a trim Gothic cage.”

Walpole, however (Correspondence, ix. 434–5), good-naturedly laughed at them, saying that these verses on himself were really some of the best in the whole set. Courtenay was a member of The Literary Club, founded by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and figures in several of Gillray’s caricatures. He it was who, referring to Gay’s Beggars’ Opera, designated the author the Orpheus of Highwaymen. He died 24th March, 1816.—Ed.]

[57]. Kidnapp’d Rhymes.—Kidnapp’d implies something more than stolen. It is, according to an expression of Mr. Sheridan’s (in the “Critic”), using other people’s “thoughts as gipsies do stolen children—disfiguring them, to make them pass for their own”.

This is a serious charge against an author, and ought to be well supported. To the proof then!

In an Ode of the late Lord Nugent’s are the following spirited lines:

“Though Cato liv’d—though Tully spoke—[[58]]

Though Brutus dealt the godlike stroke,

Yet perish’d fated Rome!”

The author above mentioned saw these lines, and liked them—as well he might; and as he had a mind to write about Rome himself, he did not scruple to enlist them into his service; but he thought it right to make a small alteration in their appearance, which he managed thus. Speaking of Rome, he says it is the place

“Where Cato liv’d”:—

A sober truth! which gets rid at once of all the poetry and spirit of the original, and reduces the sentiment from an example of manners, virtue, patriotism, from the vitæ exemplar dedit of Lord Nugent, to a mere question of inhabitancy. Ubi habitavit Cato—where he was an inhabitant-householder, paying scot and lot, and had a house on the right-hand side of the way, as you go down Esquiline Hill, just opposite to the poulterer’s. But to proceed—

“Where Cato liv’d; where Tully spoke,

Where Brutus dealt the godlike stroke—

—By which his glory rose!!!”

The last line is not borrowed.

We question whether the history of modern literature can produce an instance of a theft so shameless, and turned to so little advantage.]

[58]. [Horace Walpole, in a letter to Hannah More, quotes one word of these verses incorrectly, writing:—“Though Cato died,” an error which P. Cunningham allows to pass, as also another, that Mr.—instead of Lord—Nugent wrote them.—Ed.]

[59]. Line 26.—[Sir Robert Adair. Some observations on his alleged mission to St. Petersburgh to counteract the measures of Government will be found on a subsequent page. The publication here satirized is entitled “Part of a Letter from Robert Adair, Esq., to the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox; occasioned by Mr. Burke’s mention of Lord Keppel in a recent publication,” London, Debrett, 1796, and is by no means a contemptible composition. It is called “Part of a Letter,” because it is a portion of a longer one, being only the part devoted to a vindication of the writer’s uncle, Admiral Lord Keppel, and of Fox; with characteristic delineations of Sir G. Saville, the Marquis of Rockingham, Lord North, and George Byng, M.P., on all of whom he passes great compliments.—Ed.]

[60]. And loads the blunderbuss with Bedford’s brains.—This line is wholly unintelligible without a note. And we are afraid the note will be wholly incredible, unless the reader can fortunately procure the book to which it refers.

In the “Part of a Letter,” which was published by Mr. Robt. Adair, in answer to Mr. Burke’s “Letter to the D. of B.,” nothing is so remarkable as the studious imitation of Mr. Burke’s style.

His vehemence, and his passion, and his irony, his wild imagery, his far-sought illustrations, his rolling and lengthened periods, and the short quick pointed sentences in which he often condenses as much wisdom and wit as others would expand through pages, or through volumes,—all these are carefully kept in view by his opponent, though not always very artificially copied or applied.

But imitators are liable to be led strangely astray; and never was there an instance of a more complete mistake of a plain meaning, than that which this line is intended to illustrate—a mistake no less than that of a coffin for a corpse. This is hard to believe or to comprehend—but you shall hear.

Mr. Burke, in one of his publications, had talked of the French “unplumbing the dead in order to destroy the living,”—by which he intended, without doubt, not metaphorically, but literally, “stripping the dead of their LEADEN COFFINS, and then making them (not the DEAD but the COFFINS) into bullets”. A circumstance perfectly notorious at the time the book was written.

But this does not satisfy our author. He determines to retort Mr. Burke’s own words upon him; and unfortunately “reaching at a metaphor,” where Mr. Burke only intended a fact, he falls into the little mistake above mentioned, and by a stroke of his pen transmutes the illustrious Head of the house of Russell into a metal, to which it is not for us to say how near or how remote his affinity may possibly have been. He writes thus—“If Mr. Burke had been content with ‘unplumbing’ a dead Russell, and hewing HIM (observe—not the coffin, but HIM—the old dead Russell himself) into grape and canister, to sweep down the whole generation of his descendants,” &c., &c.

The thing is scarcely credible; but IT IS SO! We write with the book open before us.

[61]. Qu.—Surcharge?

[[62]]HORACE, ODE VIII., BOOK II.

IN BARINEM.

Ulla si juris tibi pejerati

Pœna, Barine, nocuisset unquam,

Dente si nigro fieres, vel uno

Turpior ungui,

Crederem. [[64]]Sed tu simul obligâsti

Perfidum votis caput, enitescis

Pulchrior multo, juvenumque prodis

Publica cura.

[[66]]Expedit matris cineres opertos

Fallere, et toto [[66]]taciturna noctis

Signa cum cœlo, gelidâque Divos

Morte carentes.

Ridet hoc, inquam, [[67]]Venus ipsa; rident

Simplices [[69]]Nymphæ, ferus et [[73]]Cupido

Semper ardentes acuens sagittas

Cote cruentâ.

Adde quod pubes tibi crescit omnis,

[[74]]Servitus crescit nova; [[75]]nec priores

Impiæ tectum dominæ relinquunt,

Sæpe minati.

Te suis matres metuunt juvencis;

Te [[76]]senes parci, miseræque [[77]]nuper

Virgines nuptæ, tua ne retardet

Aura Maritos.

[63]. Line 3.—[Referring to Lord Moira’s complaints against the Government agents, for unnecessary cruelty to the Irish rebels.—Ed.]

[65]. Line 13.—[The following attack upon Lord Moira, “for his patriotic zeal, and the correctness and propriety with which he gave, in the upper House of Parliament, an account of the insurrection upon his estates, and in other parts of Ireland,” is extracted from the “Batchelor”. These observations were there pointed at the father of Lord Moira, but have been adapted by the Author of the Ode and the Artist to the son.

Lord Moira.—“My Lords, I rise to return my thanks to the Noble Lord who spoke last. I can testify the truth of all he has asserted. At the time of the Insurrection in the North, I had frequent and intimate conversations with that celebrated enchanter, Moll Coggin. I have often seen her riding on a black ram with a blue tail. Once I endeavoured to fire at her, but my gun melted in my hand into a clear jelly. This jelly I tasted, and if it had been a little more acid, it would have been most excellent. The Noble Lords may laugh; but I declare the fact upon my veracity, which has never been doubted. Once I pursued this fiend into my ale cellar: she rode instantly out of my sight into the bung-hole of a beer barrel. She was at that time mounted on her black ram with the blue tail. Some time after, my servants were much surprised to find their ale full of blue hairs. I was not surprised, as I knew the blue hairs were the hairs of the ram’s blue tail. Noble Lords may stare, but the fact is as I relate it. This Moll Coggin was the fiend who raised the Oak-boys to rebellion. I was also well acquainted with the two Cow-boys mentioned by the Noble Lord; they were my tenants, and were certainly endowed with supernatural powers. I have known one of them tear up by the roots an Oak two hundred feet high, and bear it upright on his head four miles! his party were on that account called Oak-boys. Noble Lords may laugh, but I speak from certain knowledge. The Oak-tree grew in my garden, and I have often seen five hundred Swans perching on its boughs; these swans were remarkable for destroying all the snipes in the country—they flew faster than any snipe I ever saw, and you may imagine a small bird could make but a feeble resistance in the talons of a swan. I hope, my Lords, you will pardon my wandering a little from the present subject,” &c.—Ed.]

[68]. Line 17.—[“One night after nine o’clock, a party of Soldiers saw a light in a house by the road-side—they went and ordered it to be extinguished immediately: the people of the house begged that the light might be suffered to remain because there was a child belonging to the family in convulsion fits, who must expire for want of help if the people were to be without fire and candle; but this request HAD NO EFFECT.” Lord Moira’s Speech in the House of Lords, November 22, 1797. This statement was, however, satisfactorily disproved. The incident forms a feature in the accompanying engraving. Notwithstanding official denials, it has long been admitted that the conduct of the Soldiery in Ireland was simply infamous. Billeting on Catholics and reputed malcontents of the better class appears to have been invariably as an unlimited licence for robbery, devastation, ravishment, and, in case of resistance, murder. Sir Ralph Abercromby, on assuming the command of the army in Ireland, declared, in general orders, that their habits and discipline were such as to render them “formidable to everybody but the enemy”. The just severity of this phrase was confirmed by the subsequent experience of Lord Cornwallis.—Ed.]

[70]. Line 19.—[Sir George Augustus William Shuckburgh, distinguished by his scientific researches, married the daughter and sole heiress of Jas. Evelyn, Esq. of Felbridge, Surrey, by whom he had an only daughter, Julia, who became, in 1810, the wife of the Earl of Liverpool. Sir George, on the decease of his father-in-law in 1793, assumed the additional surname of Evelyn. He died in 1804, having been five times returned to Parliament for the county of Warwick.—Ed.]

[71]. Line 20.—[Sir John Macpherson, Bart. was M.P. for Horsham, and for a short period Governor-General of India.—Ed.]

[72]. Line 21.—[Col. Bastard was M.P. for Devon. He was returned with Mr. Rolle, the hero of “The Rolliad,” on the Pitt interest.—Ed.]

[78]. Line 31.—[Sir William Pulteney was M.P. for Shrewsbury, and no Member in the House was more looked up to. He was the second son of Sir James Johnstone, Bart., of Westerhall, and brother of Governor Johnstone. He married the cousin of Lt.-Gen. Henry Pulteney, surviving brother of William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, assuming the name of Pulteney. The General left immense wealth, “the fruits of his brother’s virtues!” as Horace Walpole sarcastically phrases it. The greater part of it he bequeathed to the said cousin. Sir William Johnstone Pulteney died in 1805. His daughter was created Countess of Bath.—Ed.]

[79]. The trepidation of Mr. Tooke, though natural, was not necessary; as it appeared from the ever-memorable “Letter to Mr. M‘Mahon” (which was published about this time in the Morning Chronicle, and threw the whole town into paroxysms of laughter), that in the Administration which his Lordship was so gravely employed in forming, Mr. Fox was to have no place!

[81]. Line 36.—[Of M‘Mahon it is said in T. Raikes’s Journal (November, 1836):—“George IV. never had any private friends: he selected his confidants from his minions. M‘Mahon was an Irishman of low birth and obsequious manners: he was a little man, his face red, covered with pimples; always dressed in the blue and buff uniform, with his hat on one side, copying the air of his master, to whom he was a prodigious foil, and ready to execute any commissions, which in those days were somewhat complicated.” He was private secretary and keeper of the privy purse to King George IV. when Prince Regent, was sworn of the Privy Council, and created a Baronet, 7th August, 1817, with remainder, in default of male issue, to his brother. Sir John died 12th September, 1817, the title devolving on his brother Thomas, a distinguished military officer, who was Adjutant-General of Her Majesty’s forces in India, Lieut.-Gov. of Portsmouth, Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay Army, &c.

Sir John M‘Mahon left a large personal property, amounting to £90,000. One of his bequests is thus worded: “To Thomas Marrable, a dear and esteemed friend, £2000; and with my last prayers for the glory and happiness of the best-hearted man in the world, the Prince Regent, I bequeath him the said Thomas Marrable, an invaluable servant”. The latter was a member of the household of King George IV., and one of his confidential agents. A full-length portrait of him as one of the procession is given in Sir G. Nayler’s history of the coronation of that monarch.

Among Gillray’s Caricatures is an amusing one, engraved but not designed by him, published in 1804, representing the Heir-Apparent, mounted on a tall horse, with the much smaller person of M‘Mahon consequentially riding on a diminutive steed at his side, passing the gates of Carlton House. The quotation from Burns engraved on it suggests that the Prince might still prove a worthy occupant of the throne.—Ed.]

[82]. [As if written by Robert Adair, who had previously indited “Half a Letter to Mr. Fox”.]

[[83]]Non usitatâ nec tenui ferar

Pennâ biformis per liquidum æthera

Vates.

[[84]]——Non ego, quem vocas

Dilecte, Mæcenas, obibo,

[[85]]Nec Stygiâ cohibebor undâ.

[[86]]Jamjam residunt cruribus asperæ

Pelles, et album mutor in alitem

[[87]]Supernê, nascunturque leves

Per digitos humerosque plumæ.

Visam gementis littora Bosphori,

Syrtesque Gætulas,[[89]] canorus

Ales,[[90]] Hyperboreosque campos.

[[91]]Me Colchus, et qui[[92]] dissimulat metum

* * *

* * * me peritus

Discet Iber Rhodanique[[93]] potor.

Absint[[94]] inani funere neniæ,

[[95]]Luctusque turpes et querimoniæ.

[[96]] —— —— —— sepulchri

Mitte supervacuous honores.

[88]. [Mr. Pitt’s Tax upon Hair-powder proved a failure; many of the public declining its use. Those who continued it were called “guinea-pigs,” the tax being a guinea per head.—Ed.]

[97]. [For an explanation of this allusion, see Note at p. [74].—Ed.]

[[98]]Acmen Septimius suos amores

Tenens in gremio, mea, inquit, Acme,

Ni te perdite amo, &c.

[[99]]Cæsio veniam obvius Leoni.

[[100]]Hoc ut dixit, Amor sinistram, ut ante

Dextram, sternuit approbationem.

[[101]]At Acme leviter caput reflectens,

Et dulcis pueri ebrios ocellos

Illo purpureo ore suaviata,

Sic, inquit, mea vita,[[102]] Septimille, &c.

[[103]]Nunc ab auspicio bono profecti

Mutuis animis amant, amantur.

Unam Septimius misellus Acmen

Mavult quam[[104]] Syrias Britanniasque.[[105]]

[105]. I.e., The Clerkship of the Pells in Ireland, and Auditorship of South Wales.

[106]. [On 7th Feb., 1796, a forged French newspaper called L’Eclair, containing false intelligence, was circulated in London for stock-jobbing purposes. On 3rd July a verdict of £100 was given against D. Stuart, proprietor of The Morning Post, for sending the above paper to the proprietors of The Telegraph, by which it was discredited; and on the following day, a verdict of £1500 was given against Mr. Dickinson, for falsely accusing Mr. Goldsmid, the money-broker, of forging the above. It announced a peace between Austria and France.—Ed.]

[107]. Morning Post, Jan. 25.

[108]. Morning Chronicle, Jan. 25.

[109]. This appears to allude to Mr. Sheridan’s conduct during the Mutiny.

[110]. This is not the first time that we have heard of Mr. Tierney’s discouragement of impiety. However we may disapprove of this gentleman’s political principles, we are not insensible to the merit of such conduct.

[111]. Morning Post, Jan. 25.

[112]. Morning Chronicle, Jan. 25.

[113]. Morning Chronicle, Morning Post, Morning Herald, &c.

[114]. The Company seem to have recollected (had his Grace forgotten?) that the Duke of Norfolk has another Sovereign, to whom he has recently, more than once, sworn Allegiance; and under whom he now holds the Lieutenancy of the West Riding of the County of York, and the Command of a Regiment of Militia.

[115]. See The True Briton, of Thursday, Jan. 25.

[116]. Conjuravere Cives nobilissimi Patriam incendere—Gallorum gentem infestissimam nomini Romano in bellum arcessunt—Dux Hostium cum exercitu supra caput est.—Orat. Caton. ap. Sallust.

[117]. Tum Catilina polliceri tabulas novas, proscriptionem locupletium, Magistrates, Sacerdotia, rapinas, alia omnia quæ bellum atque lubido Victorum fert.—Sallust.

[118]. [“A Correspondent cautions us against making a profane use of Mr. Wilberforce’s appearance on Sunday; that gentleman would not have been so ungodly as to gallop there without a sufficient reason—it was the fulfilment of some Prophecy; and the horse he rode might be related to the White Horse of the Revelations.”—Morning Chronicle, Jan. 11, 1798.—Ed.]

[119]. [This refers to Charles Howard, eleventh Duke of Norfolk, (who gave, at a public dinner, the famous toast of “Our Sovereign’s health, the Majesty of the People,”) and to John Horne Tooke, who was a regularly ordained clergyman, and had been tried for High Treason and acquitted.—Ed.]

[120]. [These lines allude to the Empress Catherine’s placing in her gallery the bust of Fox between those of Demosthenes and Cicero, as a token of gratitude for his exertions in defeating the project of Pitt, who, in conjunction with Prussia and Holland, had, in 1791, prepared a powerful armament to compel her to give up Ockzakow, which she had seized. The Court party delighted in stigmatizing Fox as the modern Catiline. “But the part which he took in parliament subsequent to 1793, (says Sir N. W. Wraxall), and the eulogiums lavished by him on the French Revolution, soon changed the Empress’s tone. She caused the bust to be removed; and when reproached with such a change in her conduct, she replied, ‘C’étoit Monsieur Fox de Quatre-vingt-onze que j’ai placé dans mon cabinet’.”—Wraxall’s Posthumous Memoirs, vol. 1, pp. 435, 436.

“It seems to have escaped general notice, (says Sir James Prior in his Life of Burke), that the misfortunes of Poland in her final partition may be, in some degree, attributed, however undesignedly on their part, to Mr. Fox and the Opposition, in the strong and unusual means made use of to thwart Mr. Pitt in the business of Ockzakow. They lay claim, it is true, to the merit of having prevented war on that occasion. But if war had then taken place with England for one act of violence comparatively trivial, Russia, in all probability, would not have ventured upon a second and still greater aggression, involving the existence of a nation, with the certainty of a second war. Nothing, after all, might have saved Poland from the combination then on foot against her; but it is certain that Mr. Pitt, from recent experience, had little encouragement to make the attempt.”

It is a curious circumstance that, though the plate illustrating these Lines was published, according to its inscription, on the 17th March, 1792, the five stanzas engraved on it are identical with those which appeared in the Anti-Jacobin of 12th Feb., 1798, though these were introduced as written “by an English Traveller just [sic] returned from Petersburgh”.

Assuming the date on the engraving to be correct, we might account for the parachronism on the supposition that the author of the earlier plate-stanzas availed himself of the appearance of the Lines written under the Bust of Charles Fox at the Crown and Anchor to reproduce them—six years afterwards—with a few verbal alterations, to adapt them to a later period—and with an equivocal statement as to the period of their first production.

The following are the alterations in the reprinted version:—

Stanza2line3, frantic for lawless.
„3„1, their country’s for domestic.
„3„1, and wealth and for external.
„3„3, honoured for sacred.
„4„1, now for then.
„4„3, advocate for tool confessed.
„4„4, later for modern.
„5„2, thus for now.
„5„4, Catiline for Cataline.
„5„4, modern for later.—Ed.]

[121]. [Written to ridicule Richard Payne Knight’s Progress of Civil Society, a Didactic Poem, in Six Books. London, 1796, 4to.—Ed.]

[122]. Ver. 3. A modern author of great penetration and judgment observes very shrewdly, that “the cosmogony of the world has puzzled the philosophers of all ages. What a medley of opinions have they not broached upon the creation of the world. Sanconiathon, Manetho, Berosus, and Ocellus Lucanus have all attempted it in vain. The latter has these words—Anarchon ara kai ateleutaion to pan—which imply, that all things have neither beginning nor end.” See Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield; see also Mr. Knight’s Poem on the Progress of Civil Society.

[123]. Ver. 12. The influence of Mind upon Matter, comprehending the whole question of the Existence of Mind as independent of Matter, or as co-existent with it, and of Matter considered as an intelligent and self-dependent Essence, will make the subject of a larger Poem in 127 Books, now preparing under the same auspices.

[124]. Ver. 14. See Godwin’s Enquirer; Darwin’s Zoonomia; Paine; Priestley, &c. &c.; also all the French Encyclopædists.

[125]. Ver. 16. Quæstio spinosa et contortula.

[126]. Ver. 26. “Add thereto a tiger’s chawdron.”—Macbeth.

[127]. Ver. 26, 27.

“In softer notes bids Lybian lions roar,

And warms the whale on Zembla’s frozen shore.”

Progress of Civil Society, Book I. ver. 98.

[128]. Ver. 29. “An oyster may be crossed in love.”—Mr. Sheridan’s Critic.

[129]. Ver. 34. Birds fly.

[130]. Ver. 35. But neither fish, nor beasts—particularly as here exemplified.

[131]. Ver. 36. The bear.

[132]. Ver. 37. The mackerel—there are also hard-roed mackerel. Sed de his alio loco.

[133]. Ver. 38. Bear’s grease, or fat, is also in great request; being supposed to have a criniparous, or hair-producing quality.

[134]. Ver. 39. There is a special Act of Parliament which permits mackerel to be cried on Sundays.

[135]. Ver. 45 to 49. Every animal contented with the lot which it has drawn in life. A fine contrast to man, who is always discontented.

[136]. Ver. 49. Salt wave—wave of the sea—“briny wave”.—Poetæ passim.

[137]. Ver. 50. A still stronger contrast, and a greater shame to man, is found in plants;—they too are contented—he restless and changing. Mens agitat mihi, nec placida contenta quiete est.

[138]. Ver. 50. Potatoes ’tatoes breed. Elision for the sake of verse, not meant to imply that the root degenerates.—Not so with man—

Mox daturus

Progeniem vitiosiorem.

[139]. Ver. 61–66. Simple state of savage life—previous to the pastoral, or even the hunter state.

[140]. Ver. 66. First savages disciples of Pythagoras.

[141]. Ver. 67, &c. Desire of animal food natural only to beasts, or to man in a state of civilized society. First suggested by the circumstances here related.

[142]. Ver. 71. Pigs of the Chinese breed most in request.

[143]. Ver. 76. First formation of a bow. Introduction of the science of archery.

[144]. Ver. 79. Grass twisted, used for a string, owing to the want, of other materials not yet invented.

[145]. Ver. 83. Bone—fish’s bone found on the sea-shore, shark’s teeth, &c. &c.

[146]. Ver. 90. Ah! what avails, &c.—See Pope’s Description of the death of a Pheasant.

[147]. Ver. 93. “With leaden eye that loves the ground.”

[148]. Ver. 94. The first effusion of blood attended with the most dreadful consequences to mankind.

[149]. Ver. 97. Social Man’s wickedness opposed to the simplicity of savage life.

[150]. Ver. 100, 101. Different causes of war among men.

[151]. Ver. 106. Invention of fire—first employed in cookery, and produced by rubbing dry sticks together.

[152]. [Written in the character of C. J. Fox, at his seat, St. Anne’s Hill, near Chertsey, during his secession from Parliament from 1797 to 1802. His fondness for the Greek Poets is well known.—Ed.]

[153]. [Alluded to at page [79].—Ed.]

[154]. [Erskine was noted for his intense vanity, which procured him the nickname of Ego. Sir John Bowring, who knew him well, gives in his Autobiography several instances of this peculiarity, one of which is here inserted. “The master-string of his mind was vanity; its vibrations trembling to the very end of his existence. He said, ‘When the Emperor Alexander came to England, Lord Granville told me that the Emperor wished to see me. I went. He received me with particular attention, and said he was very anxious to make my acquaintance. He spoke English as well as you do. “You are a friend and correspondent,” he said, “of my most valued friend La Harpe?” “Yes, sire.” “Is he a regular correspondent?” “Yes, a very kind one.” “Has he been so of late?” “Well, if your Majesty will cross-examine me, I must own he owes me a letter.” He put his hand into his pocket, and drew forth a letter addressed to me. “Yes, there is his answer. I intercepted it that I might have the pleasure of knowing Lord Erskine.” I gave Alexander all my writings and speeches, which he received with many expressions of satisfaction.’”—Ed.]

[155]. [On April 3, 1797, an open-air meeting of the inhabitants of Westminster was held in Palace Yard, during very inclement weather (Westminster Hall having been shut against them by order of the keeper), to consider of an address to his Majesty to dismiss Pitt’s ministry. Fox and the Duke of Bedford took part in the proceedings. Meetings were held about the same time all over the country for the same object.—Ed.]

[156]. [After Lord Shelburne’s resignation of the office of Prime Minister, consequent on the coalition of Fox and Lord North, he was created Marquis of Lansdowne, and withdrew almost entirely from public life, passing his time principally at his magnificent seat, Bowood, near Calne, Wiltshire.—Ed.]

[157].

Notes to the “New Coalition”.

[The Secret History of Fox’s coalition with Lord North, his former adversary,—a proceeding which entailed on him much odium,—was first brought to light by the publication of the “Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox,” begun by the late Lord Holland, and edited by Earl Russell. It was occasioned by his disgust at the conduct of the Earl of Shelburne, for while Fox as one of the Secretaries of State under the Rockingham Administration was treating with Dr. Franklin for peace with the United States through the agent of the Cabinet (Thomas Grenville) Lord Shelburne, the other Secretary of State, was, through his agent Oswald, privately thwarting his measures, and that with the concurrence of the King! The consequence of the Coalition was the fall of Lord Shelburne’s ministry, and Fox and Lord North’s “taking the Treasury by storm”.—Ed.]

[158]. [The India Bill brought in by Fox, shortly after his accession to office, was the signal for his downfall. The Bill passed the House of Commons by large majorities, but when it reached the Lords, the King, who hated Fox, empowered Earl Temple to declare that he would consider everyone who supported the measure as personally his enemy. The Bill was consequently lost on the second reading by a majority of eighty-seven against twenty-nine. The Coalition Ministry resigned, and Pitt, then in his 23rd year, became Prime Minister.]

[159]. [John Nicholls, M.P. for Tregony, was blind of one eye, and altogether remarkably ugly. His delivery was ungraceful, and his action generally much too vehement. He wrote Recollections and Reflections during the Reign of George III., 2 vols. 8vo., 1822. His hostile pamphlet on the Income Tax is marked by great ability.—Ed.]

[160]. [On the 14th April, 1794, Thelwall was in the chair at a supper of one of the Divisions of the Reformers, and blowing off the head of a pot of porter said, “This is the way I would have all kings served”.—Ed.]

[161]. [John Horne Tooke was educated for the Church, and in 1760 became vicar of New Brentford. Resigning this he studied the Law, but being a clergyman was refused admission to the Bar. At first he supported Pitt, then a promising Reformer, publishing in 1788 his “Two Pair of Portraits,” disadvantageously contrasting Fox and his father with Pitt and his father. But Pitt not fulfilling his hopes, he became his bitter opponent and softened his animosity towards Fox. In 1775 he was imprisoned for a libel on the king’s troops in America. In 1790 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Westminster; the other candidates being Fox and Admiral Sir Alan Gardner. In 1794 he was tried, in company with Thelwall and others, for high treason, when all were acquitted. In 1796 he again stood for Westminster, and failed; but in 1801 he obtained a seat in Parliament for Old Sarum, on the nomination of Lord Camelford. A remarkable memoir of him was contributed to the Quarterly Review, vol. 7, by Lord Dudley, Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Canning’s administration, 1827–8.—Ed.]

HOR. LIB. III., CARM. XXV.

DITHYRAMBUS.

[[162]]Quo me, Bacche, rapis, tui

Plenum? quæ nemora, aut quos agor in specus,

Velox mente novâ?

[[163]]Quibus

Antris egregii Cæsaris audiar

Eternum meditans decus

Stellis inserere, et consilio Jovis?

[164].

Dicam insigne, recens, adhuc

Indictum ore alio.

[165].

Non secus in jugis

Exsomnis stupet Evias,

Hebrum prospiciens.

[166].

et nive candidam

Thracen, ac pede barbaro

Lustratam Rhodopen.

[167]. There appears to have been some little mistake in the Translator here—Rhodope is not, as he seems to imagine, the name of a woman, but of a mountain, and not in Russia. Possibly, however, the Translator may have been misled by the inaccuracy of the traveller here alluded to.

[168].

Ut mihi devio

Rupes, et vacuum nemus

Mirari libet!

[[169]]O Naiadum potens

Baccharumque valentium

Proceras manibus vertere fraxinos.

[[170]]Nil parvum, aut humili modo,

Nil mortale loquar. Dulce periculum est,

O Lenæe, sequi deum

Cingentem viridi tempora pampino.

[171]. [This clever parody has reference to the attempt made by the Duke of Northumberland to evade payment of Pitt’s Income-tax. To mitigate the severity of the pressure on persons with large families, a deduction of ten per cent. was allowed to persons who had above a certain number of children. Among others the Duke was not ashamed to avail himself of this clause.—Ed.]

[172]. [See Note at p. [84] in “A Bit of an Ode to Mr. Fox,” line 18.—Ed.]

[173]. [Sir Hugh Smithson married Lady Eliz. Seymour, great-granddaughter of Joceline, eleventh Earl of Northumberland, who was the last of the male Percies. He was created Duke of Northumberland in 1766. The hero of this Ballad was his son, who died in 1817.—Ed.]

[174]. The ceremony of invocation (in didactic poems especially) is in some measure analogous to the custom of drinking toasts; the corporeal representatives of which are always supposed to be absent, and unconscious of the irrigation bestowed upon their names. Hence it is, that our Author addresses himself to the natives of an island who are not likely to hear, and who, if they did, would not understand him.

[175]. His Majesty’s ship Endeavour.

[176]. In justice to our Author we must observe, that there is a delicacy in this picture, which the words, in their common acceptation, do not convey. The amours of an English shepherd would probably be preparatory to marriage (which is contrary to our Author’s principles), or they might disgust us by the vulgarity of their object. But in Otaheite, where the place of a shepherd is a perfect sinecure (there being no sheep on the island), the mind of the reader is not offended by any disagreeable allusion.

[177]. Laws made by parliaments or kings.

[178]. Customs voted or imposed by ditto, not the customs here alluded to.

[179]. M. Bailly and other astronomers have observed, that in consequence of the varying obliquity of the Ecliptic, the climates of the circumpolar and tropical climates may, in process of time, be materially changed. Perhaps it is not very likely that even by these means Britain may ever become a small island in the South Seas. But this is not the meaning of the verse—the similarity here proposed relates to manners, not to local situation.

[180]. The word one here, means all the inhabitants of Europe (excepting the French, who have remedied this inconvenience), not any particular individual. The Author begs leave to disclaim every allusion that can be construed as personal.

[181]. As a stream—simile of dissimilitude, a mode of illustration familiar to the ancients.

[182]. Walks of polished life, see “Kensington Gardens,” a poem.

[183]. Germania—Germany; a country in Europe, peopled by the Germani: alluded to in Cæsar’s Commentaries, page 1, vol. ii. edit. prin. See also several Didactic Poems.

[184]. A beautiful figure of German literature. The Hottentots remarkable for staring at each other—God knows why.

[185]. This delightful and instructive picture of domestic life is recommended to all keepers of boarding-schools, and other seminaries of the same nature.

[186]. It is a singular quality of brandied cherries that they exchange their flavour for that of the liquor in which they are immersed.—See Knight’s Progress of Civil Society.

[187]. This division of the word is in the true spirit of the English as well as the ancient Sapphic. See the “Counter-Scuffle,” “Counter-Rat,” and other poems in this style.

[188]. [The Rev. Gilbert Wakefield wrote several pamphlets against government, of which no notice was taken, until his Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff appeared, when the Attorney-General instituted a prosecution against him. He was found guilty and imprisoned; during which imprisonment a subscription of £3000 among his friends supported his wife and family very comfortably.—Ed.]

[189]. [John Gale Jones was an active political agitator for many years. In 1810, he was the conductor of the debating club, denominated the “British Forum,” which at one of its meetings discussed the propriety of the exclusion of strangers from the House of Commons during the debates on the Walcheren Expedition. For his observations the House, disregarding his apology, committed him to Newgate.—Ed.]

[190]. [“John Thelwall left his shop (that of a silk mercer) to be one of the Reformers of the age. After his acquittal he went about the country lecturing. Sometimes he was attended by numerous admirers, but more frequently hooted and pelted by the mob. In order to escape prosecution for sedition, he took as his subject Greek and Roman history, and had ingenuity enough to give such a colouring to events and characters, as to render the application to living persons and present events an exciting mental exercise. I heard one or two of these lectures, and thought very differently of him then from what I thought afterwards. When, however, he found his popularity on the wane, and more stringent laws had been passed, to which he individually gave occasion, he came to the prudent resolution of abandoning his vagrant habits, and leading a farmer’s life in a beautiful place near Brecon.... He was an amiable man in private life, an affectionate husband, and a fond father. He altogether mistook his talents—he told me without reserve that he believed he should establish his name among the epic poets of England; and it is a curious thing considering his own view’s that he thought the establishment of Christianity, and the British Constitution, very appropriate subjects for his poem.... Thelwall, unlike Hardy, had the weakness of vanity; but he was a perfectly honest man, and had a power of declamation which qualified him to be a mob orator. He used to say that if he were at the gallows with liberty to address the people for half-an-hour, he should not fear the result; he was sure he could excite them to a rescue. I became acquainted with him soon after his acquittal, and never ceased to respect him for his sincerity, though I did not think highly of his understanding.”—Crabb Robinson’s Diary, 1790 and 1799.—Ed.]

[191]. [These “Gagging Bills,” of 1796, required that notice should be given to the magistrate of any public meeting to be held on political subjects; he was authorized to be present, and empowered to seize those guilty of sedition on the spot; and a second offence against the act was punishable with transportation. So exasperated were the Opposition with this measure that Fox and a large part of the minority withdrew altogether for a considerable time from the House.—Ed.]

[192]. There is a doubt, whether this word should not have been written liar.

[193]. These words, of conviction and hanging, have so ominous a sound, it is rather odd they were chosen.

[194]. [The hero of the above song was Charles Howard, eleventh Duke of Norfolk, who both as a member of the House of Commons (while Earl of Surrey), and afterwards as a peer, was one of Fox’s most strenuous supporters. Sir N. Wraxall thus describes him: “Nature, which cast him in her coarsest mould, had not bestowed on him any of the external insignia of high descent. His person, large, muscular, and clumsy, was destitute of grace or dignity, though he possessed much activity. At a time when men of every description wore hair-powder and a queue, he had the courage to cut his hair short, and to renounce powder, which he never used except when going to court. In his youth he led a most licentious life, having frequently passed the whole night in excesses of every kind, and even lain down, when intoxicated, occasionally to sleep in the streets, or on a block of wood. In cleanliness he was negligent to so great a degree that he rarely made use of water for the purpose of bodily refreshment and comfort.” Complaining one day to Dudley North that he was a martyr to the rheumatism, and had ineffectually tried every remedy for its relief, “Pray, my lord,” said he, “did you ever try a clean shirt?” It must not be forgotten, however, that he was a munificent patron of literature, for he defrayed the entire expense of printing Taylor’s Translation of Plato, 5 vols. 4to.; Dallaway’s History of Sussex, 2 vols. 4to.; and Duncumb’s History of Herefordshire, 2 vols. The initials B. O. B. refer to Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert) Adair, who is often alluded to in these pages.—Ed.]

[195]. [These observations are directed against Godwin’s work on “Political Justice,” which, on its first appearance, excited extraordinary attention. His aim was to represent the whole system of society as radically and essentially wrong, and to extirpate all those principles which uphold its present constitution. The existence of the Deity is spoken of as an hypothesis, and the ethics are worthy of the religion. Holcroft reviewed it in the “Monthly Review,” but was doubtful whether to praise or blame it.—Ed.]

[“I noticed (says Crabb Robinson in 1811) the infinite superiority of Godwin over the French writers in moral feeling and tendency. I had learned to hate Helvetius and Mirabeau, and yet retained my love for Godwin. This was agreed to as a just sentiment.”—Ed.]

[196]. [Written in ridicule of Dr. Darwin’s Loves of the Plants.]

[197]. Ver. 1–4. Imitated from the introductory couplet to the Economy of Vegetation:

“Stay your rude steps, whose throbbing breasts infold

The legion fiends of glory and of gold”

This sentiment is here expanded into four lines.

[198]. Ver. 6. Definition—A distinct notion explaining the genesis of a thing.—Wolfius.

[199]. Ver. 7. Postulate—A self-evident proposition.

[200]. Ver. 8. Axiom—An indemonstrable truth.

[201]. Ver. 9. Tangents—So called from touching, because they touch circles, and never cut them.

[202]. Ver. 10. Circles—See Chambers’s Dictionary, article “Circle”.

[203]. Ver. 10. Osculation—For the osculation, or kissing of circles and other curves, see Huygens, who has veiled this delicate and inflammatory subject in the decent obscurity of a learned language.

[204]. Ver. 11. Cissois—A curve supposed to resemble the sprig of ivy, from which it has its name, and therefore peculiarly adapted to poetry.

[205]. Ver. 12. Conchois, or Conchylis—A most beautiful and picturesque curve; it bears a fanciful resemblance to a conch shell. The conchois is capable of infinite extension, and presents a striking analogy between the animal and mathematical creation—every individual of this species containing within itself a series of young conchoids for several generations, in the same manner as the Aphides and other insect tribes are observed to do.

[206]. Ver. 15. Hydrostatics—Water has been supposed, by several of our philosophers, to be capable of the passion of love. Some later experiments appear to favour this idea. Water, when pressed by a moderate degree of heat, has been observed to simper, or simmer, as it is more usually called. The same does not hold true of any other element.

[207]. Ver. 17. Acoustics—The doctrine or theory of sound.

[208]. Ver. 18. Euclid and Algebra—The loves and nuptials of these two interesting personages, forming a considerable episode in the third canto, are purposely omitted here.

[209]. Ver. 19. Pulley—So called from our Saxon word to PULL, signifying to pull or draw.

[210]. Ver. 23. Fair sylphish forms—Vide modern prints of nymphs and shepherds dancing to nothing at all.

[211]. Ver. 27. Such rich confusion—Imitated from the following genteel and sprightly lines in the first canto of the “Loves of the Plants”:

“So bright its folding canopy withdrawn,

Glides the gilt landau o’er the velvet lawn,

Of beaux and belles displays the glittering throng,

And soft airs fan them as they glide along”.

[212]. Ver. 38. Angle—Gratus puellæ risus ab Angulo.—Hor.

[213]. Ver. 39. How slow progressive Points—The Author has reserved the picturesque imagery which the theory of fluxions naturally suggested for his “Algebraic Garden,” where the fluents are described as rolling with an even current between a margin of curves of the higher order over a pebbly channel, inlaid with differential calculi.

In the following six lines he has confined himself to a strict explanation of the theory, according to which lines are supposed to be generated by the motion of points, planes by the lateral motion of lines, and solids from planes, by a similar process.

Quære—Whether a practical application of this theory would not enable us to account for the genesis or original formation of space itself, in the same manner in which Dr. Darwin has traced the whole of the organized creation to his six filaments—Vide Zoonomia. We may conceive the whole of our present universe to have been originally concentred in a single point; we may conceive this primeval point, or punctum saliens of the universe, evolving itself by its own energies, to have moved forward in a right line, ad infinitum, till it grew tired; after which the right line which it had generated would begin to put itself in motion in a lateral direction, describing an area of infinite extent. This area, as soon as it became conscious of its own existence, would begin to ascend or descend, according as its specific gravity might determine it, forming an immense solid space filled with vacuum, and capable of containing the present existing universe.

Space being thus obtained, and presenting a suitable nidus, or receptacle for the generation of chaotic matter, an immense deposit of it would gradually be accumulated; after which, the filament of fire being produced in the chaotic mass by an idiosyncrasy, or self-formed habit, analogous to fermentation, explosion would take place; suns would be shot from the central chaos; planets from suns; and satellites from planets. In this state of things the filament of organization would begin to exert itself in those independent masses which, in proportion to their bulk, exposed the greatest surface to the action of light and heat. This filament, after an infinite series of ages, would begin to ramify, and its viviparous offspring would diversify their forms and habits, so as to accommodate themselves to the various incunabula which Nature had prepared for them. Upon this view of things it seems highly probable that the first effort of Nature terminated in the production of vegetables, and that these, being abandoned to their own energies, by degrees detached themselves from the surface of the earth, and supplied themselves with wings or feet, according as their different propensities determined them in favour of aerial and terrestrial existence. Others, by an inherent disposition to society and civilization, and by a stronger effort of volition, would become men. These, in time, would restrict themselves to the use of their hind feet; their tails would gradually rub off by sitting in their caves or huts, as soon as they arrived at a domesticated state; they would invent language and the use of fire, with our present and hitherto imperfect system of society. In the meanwhile, the Fuci and Algæ, with the Corallines and Madrepores, would transform themselves into fish, and would gradually populate all the submarine portion of the globe.

[214]. Ver. 46. Trochais—The Nymph of the Wheel, supposed to be in love with Smoke-Jack.

[215]. Ver. 56. The conscious fire—The sylphs and genii of the different elements have a variety of innocent occupations assigned them; those of fire are supposed to divert themselves with writing Kunkel in phosphorus.—See Economy of Vegetation:

“Or mark, with shining letters, Kunkel’s name

In the pale phosphor’s self-consuming flame”.

[216]. Ver. 68. Listening ears—Listening, and therefore peculiarly suited to a pair of diamond ear-rings. See the description of Nebuchadnezzar in his transformed state—

“Nor flattery’s self can pierce his pendent ears”.

In poetical diction, a person is said to “breathe the BLUE air,” and to “drink the HOARSE wave!”—not that the colour of the sky or the noise of the water has any reference to drinking or breathing, but because the poet obtains the advantage of thus describing his subject under a double relation, in the same manner in which material objects present themselves to our different senses at the same time.

[217]. Ver. 73. Cock-tailed mice—Coctilibus Muris. Ovid.—There is reason to believe that the murine, or mouse species, were anciently much more numerous than at the present day. It appears from the sequel of the line, that Semiramis surrounded the city of Babylon with a number of these animals.

Dicitur altam

Coctilibus Muris cinxisse Semiramis urbem.

It is not easy at present to form any conjecture with respect to the end, whether of ornament or defence, which they could be supposed to answer. I should be inclined to believe, that in this instance the mice were dead, and that so vast a collection of them must have been furnished by way of tribute, to free the country from these destructive animals. This superabundance of the murine race must have been owing to their immense fecundity, and to the comparatively tardy reproduction of the feline species. The traces of this disproportion are to be found in the early history of every country.—The ancient laws of Wales estimate a cat at the price of as much corn as would be sufficient to cover her, if she were suspended by the tail with her fore-feet touching the ground.—See Howel Dha.—In Germany, it is recorded that an army of rats, a larger animal of the mus tribe, was employed as the ministers of divine vengeance against a feudal tyrant; and the commercial legend of our own Whittington might probably be traced to an equally authentic origin.

[218]. Ver. 76. Rectangle—“A figure which has one angle, or more, of ninety degrees”. Johnson’s Dictionary.—It here means a right-angled triangle, which is therefore incapable of having more than one angle of ninety degrees, but which may, according to our author’s Prosopopœia, be supposed to be in love with three, or any greater number of nymphs.

[219]. Ver. 80. Plato’s and Menecmus’ lore—Proclus attributes the discovery of the conic sections to Plato, but obscurely. Eratosthenes seems to adjudge it to Menecmus. “Neque Menecmeos necesse erit in cono secare ternarios.” (Vide Montucla.) From Greece they were carried to Alexandria, where (according to our author’s beautiful fiction) Rectangle either did or might learn magic.

[220]. Ver. 86. Zatanai—Supposed to be the same with Satan.—Vide the New Arabian Nights, translated by Cazotte, author of “Le Diable amoureux”.

[221]. Ver. 87. Gins—the Eastern name for Genii.—Vide Tales of ditto.

[222]. Ver. 87. Dom-Daniel—a submarine palace near Tunis, where Zatanai usually held his court.—Vide New Arabian Nights.

[223]. Ver. 88. Sulphur—A substance which, when cold, reflects the yellow rays, and is therefore said to be yellow. When raised to a temperature at which it attracts oxygene (a process usually called burning), it emits a blue flame. This may be beautifully exemplified, and at a moderate expense, by igniting those fasciculi of brimstone matches, frequently sold (so frequently, indeed, as to form one of the London cries) by women of an advanced age, in this metropolis. They will be found to yield an azure, or blue light.

[224]. Ver. 90. Caf—the Indian Caucasus.—Vide Bailly’s Lettres sur l’Atlantide, in which he proves that this was the native country of Gog and Magog (now resident in Guildhall), as well as of the Peris, or fairies, of the Asiatic romances.

[225]. Ver. 91. Judæa’s fabled king—Mr. Higgins does not mean to deny that Solomon was really king of Judæa. The epithet fabled applies to that empire over the Genii, which the retrospective generosity of the Arabian fabulists has bestowed upon this monarch.

[226]. Ver. 96. Young volcanoes—The genesis of burning mountains was never, till lately, well explained. Those with which we are best acquainted are certainly not viviparous; it is therefore probable, that there exists, in the centre of the earth, a considerable reservoir of their eggs, which, during the obstetrical convulsions of general earthquakes, produce new volcanoes.

[227]. Ver. 100. Far-extended heel—The personification of Rectangle, besides answering a poetical purpose, was necessary to illustrate Mr. Higgins’s philosophical opinions. The ancient mathematicians conceived that a cone was generated by the revolution of a triangle; but this, as our author justly observes, would be impossible, without supposing in the triangle that expansive nisus, discovered by Blumenbach, and improved by Darwin, which is peculiar to animated matter, and which alone explains the whole mystery of organization. Our enchanter sits on the ground, with his heels stretched out, his head erect, his wand (or hypothenuse) resting on the extremities of his feet and the tip of his nose (as is finely expressed in the engraving in the original work), and revolves upon his bottom with great velocity. His skin, by magical means, has acquired an indefinite power of expansion, as well as that of assimilating to itself all the azote of the air, which he decomposes by expiration from his lungs—an immense quantity, and which, in our present unimproved and uneconomical mode of breathing, is quite thrown away. By this simple process the transformation is very naturally accounted for.

[228]. Ver. 104. Phœnician Cone—It was under this shape that Venus was worshipped in Phœnicia. Mr. Higgins thinks it was the Venus Urania, or Celestial Venus; in allusion to which, the Phœnician grocers first introduced the practice of preserving sugar-loaves in blue or sky-coloured paper—he also believes that the conical form of the original grenadier’s cap was typical of the loves of Mars and Venus.

[229]. Ver. 107. Parabola—The curve described by projectiles of all sorts, as bombs, shuttlecocks, &c.

[230]. Ver. 115. Hyperbola—Not figuratively speaking, as in rhetoric, but mathematically; and therefore blue-eyed.

[231]. Ver. 122. Asymptotes—“Lines, which though they may approach still nearer together till they are nearer than the least assignable distance, yet being still produced infinitely, will never meet”.—Johnson’s Dictionary.

[232]. Ver. 124. Ellipsis—A curve, the revolution of which on its axis produces an ellipsoid, or solid resembling the eggs of birds, particularly those of the gallinaceous tribe. Ellipsis is the only curve that embraces the cone.

[233]. [“Romantic Ashbourn.” The road down Ashbourn Hill winds in front of Ashbourn Hall, then the residence of the Rev. Mr. Leigh, who married a relation of Canning’s, and to whom the latter was a frequent visitor. A clever parodical application of this couplet was made by O’Connell to Lord Stanley’s section of a party of six, who wished to hold the balance of power, during Peel’s short administration in 1835. He altered it to “The Derby Dilly,” carrying six insides.—See the Greville Memoirs, vol. 3, pp. 236, &c.—Ed.]

[234]. [Thus sings Dr. Darwin of the Loves of the Plants:

“Two brother swains, of Collins’ gentle name,

The same their features, and their forms the same,

With rival love for fair Collinia sigh,

Knit the dark brow, and roll the unsteady eye.

With sweet concern the pitying beauty mourns,

And soothes with smiles the jealous pair by turns.

“Woo’d with long care, Curcuma, cold and shy,

Meets her fond husband with averted eye.

Four beardless youths the obdurate beauty move

With soft attentions of Platonic love.”—Ed.]

[235]. [Brissot was one of the first movers in the outbreak of the French Revolution, and with twenty other Girondists suffered death under the guillotine, October 30, 1793. He was one of the most virtuous as well as most accomplished littérateurs of the time.—Ed.]

[236]. Such was the end of these worthies. They were found starved to death in a cave in Languedoc. Vide Barrère’s Rep.

[Charles Barbaroux was one of the most distinguished and energetic of the Girondists. As he opposed the party of Marat and Robespierre, he was, in 1793, proscribed as a Royalist and an enemy of the Republic. He wandered about the country, hiding himself as he best could for thirteen months, when he was taken, and perished by the guillotine, June 25, 1794.—Ed.]

[Jérome Pétion de Villeneuve was a prominent member of the Jacobin Club, and a great ally of Robespierre. Being elected Maire de Paris in Bailly’s stead, he encouraged the demonstrations of the lowest classes, and the arming of the populace. He then joined the Girondists. On their defeat by the army of the Convention, he fled in July, 1793, into Bretagne. A short time after the corpses of himself and Buzot were found in a corn-field near St. Emilion, partly devoured by wolves. They were supposed to have died by their own hands. He was extremely virtuous in all his domestic relations; but his public career shows him to have been weak, shallow, ostentatious, and vain.—Ed.]

[237]. See Louvet’s Récit de mes Périls.

[238]. This philosophic coxcomb is the idol of those who admire the French Revolution up to a certain point.

[239]. This little anecdote is not generally known.—It is strikingly pathetic.—Garat has recorded this circumstance in a very eloquent sentence—“O toi, qui arrêtas la main avec laquelle tu traçais le progrès de l’esprit humain, pour porter sur tes lèvres le breuvage mortel, d’autres pensées et d’autres sentimens out incliné ta volonté vers le tombeau, dans ta dernière délibération.—(Garat, it seems, did not choose to poison himself.)—Tu as rendu à la liberté éternelle ton âme Républicaine par ce poison qui avait été partagé entre nous comme le pain entre des frères.”

“Oh you, who stayed the hand with which you were tracing the progress of the human mind, to carry the mortal mixture to your lips—it was by other thoughts and other sentiments that your judgment was at length determined in that last deliberated act. You restored your republican spirit to an eternal freedom, by that poison which we had shared together, like a morsel of bread between two brothers.”

[240]. Isosceles—An equi-crural triangle—It is represented as a Giant, because Mr. Higgins says he has observed that procerity is much promoted by the equal length of the legs, more especially when they are long legs.

[241]. Mathesis—The doctrine of mathematics—Pope calls her mad Mathesis.—Vide Johnson’s Dictionary.

[242]. Hallucinating—The disorder with which Mathesis is affected is a disease of increased volition, called erotomania, or sentimental love. It is the fourth species of the second genus of the first order and third class; in consequence of which, Mr. Hackman shot Miss Reay in the lobby of the playhouse.—Vide Zoonomia, vol. ii., pp. 363, 365.

[243]. Galvanic fires—Dr. Galvani is a celebrated philosopher at Turin. He has proved that the electric fluid is the proximate cause of nervous sensibility; and Mr. Higgins is of opinion that by means of this discovery, the sphere of our disagreeable sensations may be, in future, considerably enlarged. “Since dead frogs (says he) are awakened by this fluid to such a degree of posthumous sensibility as to jump out of the glass in which they are placed, why not men, who are sometimes so much more sensible when alive? And if so, why not employ this new stimulus to deter mankind from dying (which they so pertinaciously continue to do) of various old-fashioned diseases, notwithstanding all the brilliant discoveries of modern philosophy, and the example of Count Cagliostro?”

[244]. Internal Angles, &c.—This is an exact versification of Euclid’s fifth theorem.—Vide Euclid in loco.

[245]. Asses-Bridge—Pons Asinorum—The name usually given to the before-mentioned theorem—though, as Mr. Higgins thinks, absurdly. He says, that having frequently watched companies of asses during their passage of a bridge, he never discovered in them any symptoms of geometrical instinct upon the occasion. But he thinks that with Spanish asses, which are much larger (vide Townsend’s Travels through Spain), the case may possibly be different.

[246]. Fare—A person, or a number of persons, conveyed in a hired vehicle by land or water.

[247]. Badged boatman—Boatmen sometimes wear a badge, to distinguish them, especially those who belong to the Watermen’s Company.

[248]. Alp, or Alps—A ridge of mountains which separate the North of Italy from the South of Germany. They are evidently primeval and volcanic, consisting of granite, toadstone, and basalt, and several other substances, containing animal and vegetable recrements, and affording numberless undoubted proofs of the infinite antiquity of the earth, and of the consequent falsehood of the Mosaic chronology.

[249]. Turn the stiff screw, &c.—The harmony and imagery of these lines are imperfectly imitated from the following exquisite passage in the Economy of Vegetation:

“Gnomes, as you now dissect, with hammers fine,

The granite rock, the noduled flint calcine;

Grind with strong arm the circling Chertz betwixt,

Your pure Ka—o—lins and Pe—tunt—ses mixt.”

Canto ii. line 297.

[250]. [The windmill, &c.—This line affords a striking instance of the sound conveying an echo to the sense. I would defy the most unfeeling reader to repeat it over without accompanying it by some corresponding gesture imitative of the action described.—Editor.]

[251]. Sweet Enthusiast, &c.—A term usually applied in allegoric or technical poetry to any person or object to which no other qualifications can be assigned.—Chambers’s Dictionary.

[252]. [Anne Plumptre, who made herself known as one of the first introducers of German plays, said: “People are talking about an Invasion. I am not afraid of an Invasion; I believe the country would be all the happier if Buonaparte were to effect a landing and overturn the Government. He would destroy the Church and the Aristocracy, and his government would be better than the one we have”. Crabb Robinson’s Diary (1810), i. 298.—Ed.]

[253]. The smiling infant—Infancy is particularly interested in the diffusion of the new principles. See the “Bloody Buoy”. See also the following description and prediction:

“Here Time’s huge fingers grasp his giant mace,

And dash proud Superstition from her base;

Rend her strong towers and gorgeous fanes, &c.

· · · · ·

While each light moment, as it passes by,

With feathery foot and pleasure-twinkling eye,

Feeds from its baby-hand with many a kiss

The callow-nestlings of domestic bliss.”—Botanic Garden.

[254]. The monster’s back—Le Monstre Pitt, l’ennemi du genre humain. See Debates of the legislators of the Great Nation, passim.

[255]. Atque illud prono præceps agitur decursus.—Catullus.

[256]. Stone.—Better known by the name of Williams.

[257]. We decline printing this rhyme at length, from obvious reasons of delicacy; at the same time that it is so accurate a translation of pictis puppibus, that we know not how to suppress it, without doing the utmost injustice to the general spirit of the poem.

[258]. [Jean Bon St. André, deputy to the Convention for the Department of Lot, during the reign of Terror, rivalled Marat and Robespierre in cruelty. Having been appointed to remodel the Republican Navy, he was present at the action of June 1, 1794, in which he shewed excessive cowardice. He was afterwards Consul at Smyrna, where he was arrested by the Turks, but released on the peace. Napoleon subsequently commissioned him to organise the four departments of the Rhine, in which he succeeded. He was created a Baron, a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and Prefect of Maure. He died in 1813 of a contagious malady caught while performing charitable offices for the sick!—Ed.]

[259]. Henry VI. crowned at Paris.

[260]. The Black Prince.

[261]. The Spanish Armada.

[262]. Oliver Cromwell.

[263]. Louis XIV.

[264]. William III.

[265]. Blenheim, Ramilies, &c., &c.

[266]. American War.

[267]. Lord Heathfield.

[268]. [Parodied from Pope’s Prologue to Cato.—Ed.]

[269]. See The Robbers, a German tragedy [by Schiller], in which robbery is put in so fascinating a light, that the whole of a German University went upon the highway in consequence of it.

[270]. See Cabal and Love, a German tragedy [by Schiller], very severe against prime ministers and reigning Dukes of Brunswick. This admirable performance very judiciously reprobates the hire of German troops for the American war in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a practice which would undoubtedly have been highly discreditable to that wise and patriotic princess, not to say wholly unnecessary—there being no American war at that particular time.

[271]. See The Stranger; or, Reformed Housekeeper, in which the former of these morals is beautifully illustrated; and Stella, a genteel German comedy [by Goethe], which ends with placing a man bodkin between two wives, like Thames between his two banks in The Critic. Nothing can be more edifying than these two dramas. I am shocked to hear that there are some people who think them ridiculous.

[272]. These are the warnings very properly given to readers, to beware how they judge of what they cannot understand. Thus if the translation runs, “lightning of my soul, fulgation of angels, sulphur of hell,” we should recollect that this is not coarse or strange in the German language when applied by a lover to his mistress; but the English has nothing precisely parallel to the original Mulychause Archangelichen, which means rather emanation of the archangelic nature—or to Smellmynkern Vankelfer, which, if literally rendered, would signify made of stuff of the same odour whereof the devil makes flambeaux. See Schüttenbrüch on the German idiom.

[273]. A manifest error, since it appears from the Waiter’s conversation (p. [211]) that Rogero was not doomed to starve on water-gruel, but on pease-soup, which is a much better thing. Possibly the length of Rogero’s imprisonment had impaired his memory; or he might wish to make things appear worse than they really were; which is very natural, I think, in such a case as this poor unfortunate gentleman’s.—Printer’s Devil.

[274]. Vide The Stranger.

[275]. Lovers’ Vows.

[276]. This is an excellent joke in German; the point and spirit of which is but ill-Rendered in a translation. A Noddy, the reader will observe, has two significations, the one a knave at All-fours, the other a fool or booby. See the translation by Mr. Render of Count Benyowsky, or the Conspiracy of Kamschatka, a German Tragi-Comi-Comi-Tragedy, where the play opens with a scene of a game at chess (from which the whole of this scene is copied), and a joke of the same point, and merriment about pawns, i.e., boors being a match for kings.

[277]. This word in the original is strictly fellow-lodgers—“Co-occupants of the same room, in a house let out at a small rent by the week”. There is no single word in English which expresses so complicated a relation, except perhaps the cant term of chum, formerly in use in our Universities.

[278]. [The above song is a parody on that pathetic one—given below—written by Sheridan, and introduced into Kotzebue’s drama of The Stranger, to be overheard by the latter. It was sung by Mrs. Bland—as Annetta—to a melody by the Duchess of Devonshire, in a manner, it is said, that thrilled every heart.

“I have a silent sorrow here,

A grief I’ll ne’er impart;

It breathes no sigh, it sheds no tear,

But it consumes my heart.

This cherish’d woe, this lov’d despair,

My lot for ever be;

So my soul’s lord, the pangs I bear

Be never known by thee!

“And when pale characters of death

Shall mark this alter’d cheek;

When my poor wasted trembling breath

My life’s last hope would speak;

I shall not raise my eyes to heaven,

Nor mercy ask for me,

My soul despairs to be forgiv’n,

Unpardon’d, love, by thee!”—Ed.]

[279]. See Count Benyowsky; where Crustiew, an old gentleman of much sagacity, talks the following nonsense:

Crustiew [with youthful energy, and an air of secrecy and confidence]. “To fly, to fly, to the isles of Marian—the island of Tinian—a terrestrial paradise. Free—free—a mild climate—a new-created sun—wholesome fruits—harmless inhabitants—and liberty—tranquillity.”

[280]. See Count Benyowsky, as before.

[281]. See Count Benyowsky.

[282]. See Count Benyowsky again; from which play this and the preceding references are taken word for word. We acquit the Germans of such reprobate silly stuff. It must be the translator’s.

[283]. We believe this song to be copied, with a small variation in metre and meaning, from a song in Count Benyowsky; or, the Conspiracy of Kamschatka, where the conspirators join in a chorus, for fear of being overheard.

AD SIRMIONEM PENINSULAM.

[[284]]Peninsularum Sirmio, Insularumque,

Ocelle! quascunque in liquentibus stagnis,

Marique vasto fert uterque Neptunus;

[[285]]Quam te libenter, quamque lætus inviso,

Vix mi ipse credens Thyniam, atque Bithynos

Liquisse campos,[[286]] et videre te in tuto.

[[287]]O quid solutis est beatius curis

Cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino

Labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum.

[[288]]Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto?

Hoc est, quod unum est pro laboribus tantis.

[[289]]Salve! O venusta Sirmio! atque hero gaude;

Gaudete! vosque Lydiæ lacus undæ;

Ridete[[290]] quicquid est domi cachinnorum!

[291]. [The following Letter probably alludes to the Association for promoting the Discovery of the interior parts of Africa, of which Sir John Sinclair was the presiding genius. “The result of their labours,” says Hugh Murray, in his Account of African Discoveries, “has thrown new lustre on the British name, and widely extended the boundaries of human knowledge.”—Ed.]

[292]. [Buonaparte’s Bulletin.—Ed.]

[293]. [Sir John Sinclair, the celebrated author of the History of the Public Revenue, the Statistical Account of Scotland, and many useful agricultural and other works.—Ed.]

[294]. [Dr. Parr’s noted Latin Preface to his edition of Bellendenus de Statu. T. De Quincey, in his famous dissection of Dr. Parr and his writings, beseeches the “gentle reader” of Bellendenus to pronounce the penultimate syllable short, and not long, as is usually done.—Ed.]

[295]. [I.e., from Bob Adair, a dull fool, to Nicholl [Nicholls], a wretched goose.—Ed.]

[296]. [Sir Geo. Aug. Wm. Shuckburgh, M.P., F.R.S., author of papers in the Phil. Trans.—Ed.]

[297]. [Sir John Sinclair.—Ed.]

[298]. [The following are Dr. Darwin’s instructions for the transportation of Ice Islands:—

“There, Nymphs! alight, array your dazzling powers,

With sudden march alarm the torpid hours;

On ice-built isles expand a thousand sails,

Hinge the strong helms, and catch the frozen gales.

The winged rocks to feverish climates guide,

Where fainting zephyrs pant upon the tide;

Pass, where to Ceuta Calpé’s thunder roars,

And answering echoes shake the kindred shores;

Pass, where with palmy plumes, Canary smiles,

And in her silver girdle binds her isles;

Onward, where Niger’s dusky Naiad laves

A thousand kingdoms with prolific waves,

Or leads o’er golden sands her threefold train

In steamy channels to the fervid main;

While swarthy nations crowd the sultry coast,

Drink the fresh breeze, and hail the floating frost:

Nymphs! veil’d in mist, the melting treasure steer,

And cool with arctic snows the tropic year.”

“If the nations who inhabit this hemisphere of the globe, instead of destroying their seamen and exhausting their wealth in unnecessary wars, could be induced to unite their labours to navigate these immense masses of ice into the more southern oceans, two great advantages would result to mankind, the tropic countries would be much cooled by their solution, and our winters in this altitude would be rendered much milder, for perhaps a century or two, till the masses of ice became again enormous.”—Ed.]

[Dr. Thomas Beddoes, born at Shiffnal in 1760, was a scientific Physician far in advance of his age; his Popular Essay on Consumption, 1779, his tracts entitled Hygeia, 1801, &c., may still be studied with profit. He paid particular attention to the medical use of the permanently Elastic Fluids, and avows that as “one rash experiment on a patient would demolish a plan on which the hope of relieving mankind from much of their misery is founded,” he made preliminary experiments on himself in the case of Oxygene and Consumption, as alluded to in the text, À propos of the artificial distribution of disease, it may be mentioned that in The Batchelor, p. 189, is a method for “discharging the Plague”.

He wrote much on the political topics of the day, always taking the liberal side, and attacking Pitt with great virulence and eloquence. The principles of the French Revolution were at first advocated by him with the utmost enthusiasm, but he was soon disgusted by the excesses committed. He was a student of German literature, and much admired by Immanuel Kant. He was also an intimate friend of Darwin’s, whose political opinions he shared, and whose works were intrusted to his revision in manuscript. A few months after the publication of Darwin’s Botanic Garden, its magnificent imagery and harmonious versification inspired some admirers to say that the style of this work was a style sui generis, and that it defied imitation. Dr. Beddoes maintained an opposite opinion. Much as he admired the poem in question, he thought that the Darwinian structure of verse might be imitated by a writer possessed of inferior poetical powers, and in a few days he produced in the same circle part of the manuscript of Alexander’s Expedition to the Indian Ocean as an unpublished work of the author of the Botanic Garden. The deception completely succeeded, and some enthusiastic admirers of the latter work pointed out with triumph “certain passages as proofs of the position that the author in his happier efforts defied imitation”. Beddoes’s success was the more extraordinary, as in the “Introduction” to a considerable extract from his poem which he printed in the Annual Anthology for 1796, he states that he had never before written twice as many lines of verse as the composition under notice consisted of.

As Beddoes’s imitation of Darwin is seldom met with, it may not be out of character in a work of the present nature to give a specimen of it.

AN IMITATION OF DARWIN.

“Now the new Lord of Persia’s wide domain,

Down fierce Hydaspes seeks the Indian main;

High on the leading prow the Conqueror stands,

Eyes purer skies and marks diverging strands.

A thousand sails attendant catch the wind,

And yet a thousand press the wave behind;

Two veteran hosts, outstretched on either hand,

Wide wave their wings and sweep the trembling land.

Each serried phalanx Terror stalks beside,

And shakes o’er crested helms his blazing pride;

While Victory, still companion of his way,

Sounds her loud trump and flaunts her banners gay.”

Further on, the Hero’s attention is attracted to the surrounding landscape, which he thus apostrophizes:—

“Ye fields for ever fair! Thou mighty stream!

Bright regions! blessed beyond the muse’s dream!

Thou fruitful womb of ever-teeming earth!

Ye fostering skies that rear each beauteous birth!

Trees, that aloft uprear your stately height,

Whose sombrous branches shed a noontide night!

Groves, that for ever wear the smile of spring!

Gay birds that wave the many-tinted wing!

Of reptiles, fishes, brutes, stupendous forms!

And ye, of nameless insects glittering swarms!

Sons of soft toil, whose shuttle beauty throws,

Whose tints the Graces’ earnest hands dispose,

Whose guileless bosom Care avoid and Crime,

Gay as your groves, and cloudless as your clime!

Primæval piles, that rose in massive pride,

Ere Western Art her first faint efforts tried!

Ye Brachmans old, whom purer æras bore,

Ere Western Science lisped her infant lore!

How will your wonders flush the Athenian sage?

How ray with glory my historic page?”

In a letter to Hannah More, Horace Walpole says: “The poetry is most admirable; the similes beautiful, fine, and sometimes sublime; the author is a great poet, and could raise the passions, and possesses all the requisites of the art.” In another lively epistle to the Misses Berry (28th April, 1789), he says: “I send you the most delicious poem upon earth. I can read this Second Part over and over again for ever; for though it is so excellent, it is impossible to remember anything so disjointed, except you consider it as a collection of short enchanting Poems. ‘The Triumph of Flora,’ beginning at the fifty-ninth line, is most beautifully and enchantingly imagined, and the twelve verses that by miracle describe and comprehend the creation of the universe out of chaos, are, in my opinion, the most sublime passage in any author, or in any of the few languages with which I am acquainted.”—Ed.]

[Darwin was acquainted with Rousseau. He was a man of great bodily and intellectual vigour, irascible and imperious, a strong advocate of temperance, and for many years an almost total abstainer. His professional fame was such that George III. said he would take him as his physician if he would come to London. He formed a botanical garden at Lichfield, about which Miss Seward wrote some verses which suggested his Botanic Garden. The Loves of the Plants had a singular success, and was praised in a joint poem by Cowper and Hayley. It was translated into French, Portuguese, and Italian. Darwin himself is said by Edgeworth to have admired the parody (Monthly Magazine, June and Sept., 1802, p. 115). Coleridge (Biographia Literaria, 1817, p. 19) speaks of the impression which it made even upon good judges.

In the Anti-Jacobin Review, vol. i. (1799), pp. 718–721, appear some Latin verses [by Ben. Frere] which are thus introduced: “Among the copies of verses which are annually produced as a public exercise called Tripos, at Cambridge, we have selected the following as a beautiful composition. The subject is Dr. Beddoes’s Factitious Air applied to the Case of Consumptions.”—Ed.]

[299]. [This piece has not hitherto formed a portion of the editions of The Poetry.—Ed.]

[300]. [This spirited song refers to Lord Moira’s motion in the Irish House of Commons, 19th of February, 1798, for an address to the Lord Lieutenant, complaining of the excesses committed by the government authorities, civil and military, and recommending that conciliatory measures should be devised. He took occasion to praise the loyalty of his own tenants at Ballynahinch; but, unfortunately for him, shortly after, an insurrection broke out at this very place, and a large number of pikes were found secreted by the peasantry in his own woods. On June 12, General Nugent attacked the rebels, 5000 strong, commanded by Munro, near Ballynahinch, and routed them with great slaughter. This victory quelled the rebellion in the north.—Ed.]

[301]. [The Earl of Moira was a gallant soldier, an eloquent orator, and a sagacious as well as honest statesman. Having early in life achieved much reputation for skill and courage during the American War, and afterwards in Flanders, he subsequently turned his attention to politics, particularly those of Ireland, his native country, which drew on him repeated attacks from the Ministerial press. In 1812 he was appointed Governor-General of India, and created Marquis of Hastings. He was the patron of Thomas Moore on his arrival in London. He died in 1825.—Ed.]

[302]. Hibernice pro French.

[303]. [A quite literal translation of this poem would be out of the question. The fact is, the sentiment is superior to the execution. Canning could write much better if he chose. He might wish to fabricate an ultra-patriotic schoolboy, and so wrote like one; but it is certain that as a schoolboy he has written far better things. Either he wrote in a hurry, or cooked up a school exercise; the introduction looks like it, and the Latin Prose is as prosy as the verse is common-place.—A. F. W.]

[304]. The Isle of Wight.

[305]. [This valedictory Address, and the portion entitled Foreign Intelligence which follows the Poem, have never hitherto formed a part of editions of the Poetry.—Ed.]

[306]. We see with some pleasure, that what we anticipated is beginning to take effect. A New Magazine and Review is already advertised, under the same Name which We had adopted, and professedly on the same Principles. We have no knowledge of the undertaking, but from report, which speaks favourably of it; but We heartily wish this, and every work of a similar kind, a full and happy success.

[307]. Published by Hébert.

[308]. Published by Marat.

[309]. See the Remarks on the Treaties of Pilnitz and Pavia, &c.; on Tate’s Manifesto; on Neutral Navigation; on the Treatment of Prisoners; on the Continuation of the War for a Spice Island, &c., &c., &c.

[310]. See the motto prefixed to The Baviad, a satirical poem, by W. Gifford, Esq., unquestionably the best of its kind since the days of Pope:

Nunc in ovilia

Mox in reluctantes dracones.

[311]. The author of The Pursuits of Literature. [Now known to be T. J. Mathias, editor of various Italian works, and teacher of Italian to the family of K. George III.—Ed.]

[312]. The Manes of Vercengetorix are supposed to have been very much gratified by the invasion of Italy and the plunder of the Roman territory. The defeat of the Burgundians is to be revenged on the modern inhabitants of Switzerland. But the Swiss were a free people, defending their liberties against a tyrant. Moreover, they happened to be in alliance with France at the time. No matter; Burgundy is since become a province of France, and the French have acquired a property in all the injuries and defeats which the people of that country may have sustained, together with a title to revenge and retaliation to be exercised in the present or any future centuries, as may be found most glorious and convenient.

[313]. The speech of General Fitzpatrick, on his motion for an Address of the House of Commons to the Emperor of Germany, to demand the deliverance of M. La Fayette from the prison of Olmütz, was one of the most dainty pieces of oratory that ever drew tears from a crowded gallery, and the clerks at the table. It was really quite moving to hear the General talk of religion, conjugal fidelity, and “such branches of learning”. There were a few who laughed indeed, but that was thought hard-hearted, and immoral, and irreligious, and God knows what. Crying was the order of the day. Why will not the Opposition try these topics again? La Fayette indeed (the more’s the pity) is out. But why not a motion for a general gaol-delivery of all state prisoners throughout Europe? [This was Fitzpatrick’s master-speech, and extorted the applauses of Pitt himself, who nevertheless resisted its arguments. Burke said that La Fayette, “instead of being termed an ‘illustrious exile,’ ought always to be considered, as he now was, an outcast of society; who, having no talents to guide or influence the storm which he had laboured to raise, fled like a dastard from the bloodshed and massacre in which he had involved so many thousands of unoffending persons and families”.—Ed.]

[314]. “Now all the while did not this stony-hearted CUR shed one tear.”—Merchant of Venice. [John Curwen—member for the city of Carlisle, from 1786 till 1812. He was a skilful agriculturist, and his operations may be said to have given a new character to the business of farming. He died in 1828, aged 73.—Ed.]

[315]. See page [72], in the note, for a theft more shameless, and an application of the thing stolen more stupid, than any of those recorded of Irish story-tellers by Joe Miller.

[316]. See Récit de mes Périls, by Louvet; Mémoires d’un Détenu, by Riouffe, &c. The avidity with which these productions were read, might, we should hope, be accounted for upon principles of mere curiosity (as we read the Newgate Calendar, and the history of the Buccaneers), not from any interest in favour of a set of wretches infinitely more detestable than all the robbers and pirates that ever existed.

[317]. Every lover of modern French literature, and admirer of modern French characters, must remember the rout which was made about Louvet’s death and Lodoiska’s poison. The attempt at self-slaughter, and the process of the recovery, the arsenic and the castor oil, were served up in daily messes from the French papers, till the public absolutely sickened.

[318]. Faciles Napeæ.

[319]. See Anthologia, passim.

[320]. Such was the strictness of this minister’s principles, that he positively refused to go to Court in shoe-buckles. See Dumouriez’s Memoirs.

[321]. See Madame Roland’s Memoirs.—“Rigide Ministre,” Brissot à ses Commettans.

[322]. The “pumple” nosed attorney of Furnival’s Inn.—“Congreve’s Way of the World.” [... When you liv’d with honest Pumple Nose, the attorney of Furnival’s Inn. Act 3, sc. 1.—Ed.]

[323]. These lines contain the Secret History of Quatremer’s deportation. He presumed in the Council of Five Hundred to arraign Madame De Stael’s conduct, and even to hint a doubt of her sex. He was sent to Guyana. The transaction naturally brings to one’s mind the dialogue between Falstaff and Hostess Quickly in Shakespeare’s Henry IV.

Fal. Thou art neither fish nor flesh—a man cannot tell where to have thee.

Quick. Thou art an unjust man for saying so—thou or any man knows where to have me.

[324]. For instance, in the course of a political discussion Rewbell observed to the ex-bishop [Talleyrand], “that his understanding was as crooked as his legs”—“Vil Emigré, tu n’as pas le sens plus droit que les pieds”—and therewith threw an ink-stand at him. It whizzed along, as we have been informed, like the fragment of a rock from the hand of one of Ossian’s heroes; but the wily apostate shrunk beneath the table, and the weapon passed over him innocuous, and guiltless of his blood or brains.

[325]. See Homer’s description of Vulcan. First Iliad.

Inextinguibilis vero exoriebatur risus beatis numinibus

Ut viderunt Vulcanum per domos ministrantem.

[326]. The Men without a God—one of the new sects. Their religion is intended to consist in the adoration of a Great Book, in which all the virtuous actions of the society are to be entered and registered. “In times of civil commotion they are to come forward to exhort the citizens to unanimity, and to read them a chapter out of the Great Book. When oppressed or proscribed, they are to retire to a burying-ground, to wrap themselves up in their great-coats, and wait the approach of death,” &c.

[327]. The Reader is at liberty to fill up the blanks according to his own opinion, and after the chances and changes of the times. It would be highly unfair to hand down to posterity as followers of Leviathan, the names of men who may, and probably will soon, grow ashamed of their leader.

[328].

Though the yeasty sea

Consume and swallow navigation up. Macbeth.

[Applied to S. Whitbread, M.P., the Brewer.—Ed.]

[329]. i.e. Perhaps a member of the Whig Club—a society that has presumed to monopolize to itself a title to which it never had any claim, but from the character of those who have now withdrawn themselves from it. “Perhaps” signifies that even the Whig Club sometimes rejects a candidate whose PRINCIPLES (risum teneatis) it affects to disapprove. [Referring to the secession of the Duke of Portland and others from the Whig Club in consequence of their not approving of all the proceedings of Fox and his more violent adherents. Sheridan met with so much opposition to his entrance into the Whig Club, that he succeeded in getting admitted only by stratagem.—Ed.]

[330]. “It is notorious that the French Directory have newspapers in their pay, not only in America, but in every country in Europe. That there should exist such MERCENARY TRAITORS AS TO RECEIVE THE PAY OF REGICIDES AND ASSASSINS is still less astonishing than that there should be found men in the different countries, and men of rank, too, so base, so degenerate, and so foolish, as to give encouragement to their treasonable productions” (p. [57]). The author speaks truth; there is at least one newspaper of this description in London, which is encouraged—to their shame be it spoken!—by men of rank, and by members of the Legislature—Representans du Peuple Souverain!—who even degrade themselves so far as to associate with the profligate miscreants who compose its inflammatory pages.—Reviewer.

[331]. “See Bache of 11 February, 1795.”

[332]. The reader will not be surprised to hear that this is the identical governor who wanted a few thousands of dollars from the French minister, Fauchet, and who drew secretly 15,000 dollars out of the Bank of Pennsylvania!! This man brought a whole litter of bastards home to his virtuous wife. He is a shameless blackguard, a drunkard, and everything that can be named that is vile. Such is a republican governor; a chief magistrate of state, who has infinitely greater powers over life and property than King George has!! And this I have already pointed out on sundry occasions.

[333]. [Lord Erskine.—Ed.]

[334]. [T. Moore in his early college days.—Ed.]

[335]. [Francis, fifth Duke of Bedford, see Ballad.—Ed.]

[336]. [Capt. Charles Morris.—Ed.]

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

  1. Pg. [17], changed “he was expelled the House of Commons” to “he was expelled from the House of Commons”.
  2. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
  3. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
  4. Footnotes were re-indexed using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter.