Well, he died—a monitory pause accompanies the sound—but the party must have a successor!
They “have found him” amongst themselves!—the author of the Fine Arts in Ireland!
This fine gentleman has really exhibited some degree of tact, which shows him not unworthy of his appointment. He begins by denouncing, hoof and horn, every position of his predecessor! Calls him, as a salvo, “a learned man!” but insists upon his being a “most unskilful antiquary”; and though “dogmatic,” “altogether a visionary.”
These, you would suppose, were great liberties to take with the foster-child of patronage. They were so, in appearance, not in reality, for
“Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur”—
he is a modern,[386] and though of a different school, it suits their purpose as well.
But let us see how he would decipher “the writing upon the wall.”
“If we might venture a conjecture,” he says, “it would be that the living figures represent the most distinguished native princes, who warred with the adventurers in defence of their country; and that those of the deceased kings were the patriot monarchs of earlier times!”
Pray, what adventurers? what?—But the farce is too absurd to bestow discussion upon it.
Come, however, to the crucifixion scene, what would “P——” make of this?