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NUMBER XII.
Though we have at length nearly exhausted the beauties of that part of our author’s work, in which the characters of the leading Members of the House of Commons are so poetically and forcibly delineated; we shall find, however, that the genius of the poet seems to receive fresh vigour, as he approaches the period of his exertions, in the illustrious Mr. ROLLE. What can be more sublime or picturesque than the following description!
Erect in person, see yon Knight advance,
With trusty ’Squire, who bears his shield and lance;
The Quixote HOWARD! Royal Windsor’s pride,
And Sancho Panca POWNEY by his side;
A monarch’s champion, with indignant frown,
And haughty mein, he casts his gauntlet down;
Majestic sits, and hears, devoid of dread,
The dire Phillippicks whizzing round his head.
Your venom’d shafts, ye sons of Faction spare;
However keen, they cannot enter there.
And how well do these lines, immediately succeeding, describe the manner of speaking, which characterizes an orator of such considerable weight and authority:
He speaks, he speaks! Sedition’s chiefs around,
With unfeign’d terror hear the solemn sound;
While little POWNEY chears with livelier note,
And shares his triumph in a silent vote.
Some have ignorantly objected to this as an instance of that figure for which a neighbouring kingdom is so generally celebrated, vulgarly distinguished by the appellation of a Bull; erroneously conceiving a silent vote to be incompatible with the vociferation here alluded to: those, however, who have attended parliamentary debates, will inform them, that numbers who most loudly exert themselves, in what is called chearing speakers, are not upon that account entitled to be themselves considered as such.—Our author has indeed done injustice to the worthy member in question, by classing him among the number of mutes, he having uniformly taken a very active part in all debates relating to the militia; of which truly constitutional body, he is a most respectable Pillar, and one of the most conspicuous ornaments.
It is unquestionably the highest praise we can bestow upon a member of the British House of Commons, to say, that he is a faithful representative of the people, and upon all occasions speaks the real sentiments of his constituents; nor can an honest ambition to attain the first dignities of the state, by honourable means, be ever imputed to him as a crime. The following encomium, therefore, must be acknowledged to have been justly merited by a noble Lord, whose independent and disinterested conduct has drawn upon him the censures of disappointed faction.
The Noble CONVERT, Berwick’s honour’d choice,
That faithful echo of the people’s voice,
One day, to gain an Irish title glad,
For Fox he voted—so the people bad;
’Mongst English Lords ambitious grown to sit,
Next day the people bade him vote for PITT:
To join the stream our Patriot, nothing loth,
By turns discreetly gave his voice to both.
The title of Noble convert, which was bestowed upon his Lordship by a Speaker of the degraded Whig faction, is here most judiciously adopted by our Author, implying thereby that this denomination, intended, no doubt, to convey a severe reproach, ought rather to be considered as a subject of panegyric: this is turning the artillery of the enemy against themselves—