On a bare bench, alas!———
which is a beautiful imitation of Virgil’s
———Ah! filice in nudâ———
The pompous titles so liberally bestowed on the BENGAL SQUAD, as the pennyless hirelings of opposition affect to call them, are truly in the Oriental taste; and we doubt not, but every friend to the present happy government, will readily agree in the justice of stiling them “pillars of prerogative and Pitt, delights of Asia, and ornaments of man.” Neither, we are assured, can any man of any party object to the last of their high dignities, “Sovereigns of the Sovereign of India;” since the Company’s well-known sale of Shah Allum to his own Visier, is an indisputable proof of their supremacy over the Great Mogul.
As our author has been formerly accused of plagiarism, we must here in candour confess, that he seems, in his description of the India-bench, to have had an eye to Milton’s account of the devil’s throne; which, however, we are told, much exceeded the possible splendour of any India-bench, or even the magnificence of Mr. Hastings himself.
High on a throne of royal slate, which far
Outshone the wealth of Orams, or of Ind;
Or where the gorgeous East, with lavish hand,
Show’rs on her King, barbaric pearl and gold;
Satan exalted sate.———
This concluding phrase, our readers will observe, is exactly and literally copied by our author. It is also worthy of remark, that as he calls the Bengal squad,
The Pillars of Prerogative and Pitt,
So Milton calls Beelzebub,
A Pillar of State:———