Triumph and Fame shall every step attend His king's best subject and his country's friend!
Britannia is seated, in an attitude of expectation, at the portal of the Temple of Fame; she is bidding her patriotic son 'welcome to her arms.' Sir Cecil Wray, represented as a disappointed Fury, is seen in the distance; he is soliloquising:—
Now, by the ground that I am banish'd from, Well could I curse away a winter's night.
May 11, 1784. A Coat of Arms. Dedicated to the Newly-created Earl of Lonsdale.—There is no publisher's name to the plate, which offers a fanciful and by no means flattering design for an appropriate coat of arms and supporters, gratuitously presented for the use of Sir James Lowther, the newly-created Earl of Lonsdale. Two ragged and semi-clad Volunteers, the one minus his culottes, the other without shoes, with the initials W. M. on their crossbelts, form the supporters of a shield, above which figures the earl's coronet. There are six quarterings, each filled in with paper scrolls: 'False Musters,' 'False Certificates for Volunteer Companies,' 'False Returns,' 'Retention of Clothing,' 'Contract for building a man-of-war (cancelled and money returned),' and 'Retention of Bounty.' The motto of this suggestive escutcheon is, 'Who doubts it?'
Pitt had obtained his first seat in Parliament (1781) through the influence of Sir James Lowther, described by 'Junius' as 'the contemptuous tyrant of the North.' In 1784, when the King and his Prime Minister deemed it prudent to reward the adherents of their party, and at the same time strengthen the Court influence, by creating a new batch of peers, Pitt repaid his obligation to Lowther (the Duke of Rutland, Pitt's fellow-student at Cambridge, had enlisted Lowther's influence in his favour), by raising him to the House of Peers, under the title of the Earl of Lonsdale, thus overleaping the two inferior stages of the peerage. It might be supposed that this reward would have been commensurate with his pretensions, but Earl Lonsdale's name appearing at the bottom of the list of the newly-created earls published in the Gazette, he threatened to reject the earldom, and means were with difficulty found to appease his irritation.
The wits of the 'Rolliad' made the most of the circumstance: 'Hints from Dr. Prettyman to the Premier's Porter.—Let Lord Lonsdale have my Lord and your Lordship repeated in his ear as often as possible; the apartment hung with garter blue is proper for his reception.'
My lords, my lords, a whisper I desire— Dame Liberty grows stronger—some feet higher; She will not be bamboozled as of late— Aristocrate et la Lanterne Are very often cheek by jowl, we learn, Within a certain neigh'b'ring bustling State: I think your lordships and your graces Would not much like to dangle with wry faces.
Peter Pindar's Ode to Lord Lonsdale.
May 11, 1784. The Westminster Mendicant.—The rejected candidate for Westminster has been sent forth a wanderer. The figure of Sir Cecil Wray is represented as a blind beggar; he is resting his head and shoulders on a long staff; under his left arm is held a Subscription Scrutiny Box, in allusion to the vexatious scrutiny set on foot by his party; and he holds a spaniel by a string; a second begging-box is attached to the dog's collar. The mendicant is issuing a doleful appeal to the public:—