Having stated these circumstances of embarrassment in a few introductory lines to this part of the poem, our author goes on to observe, that not knowing, after much and anxious thought, how to adjust the important difficulty in question, he resolves at last to trust himself entirely to the guidance of his muse, who, under the influence of her usual inspiration, proceeds as follows:
Hail thou, for either talent justly known,
To spend the nation’s cash—or keep thy own;
Expert alike to save, or be profuse,
As money goes for thine, or England’s use;
In whose esteem, of equal worth are thought,
A public million, and a private groat.
Hail, and—&c.
Longinus, as the learned well know, reckons the figure Amplification amongst the principal sources of the sublime, as does Quintilian amongst the leading requisites of rhetoric. That it constitutes the very soul of eloquence, is demonstrable from the example of that sublimest of all orators, and profoundest of all statesman, Mr. William Pitt. If no expedient had been devised, by the help of which the same idea could be invested in a thousand different and glittering habiliments, by which one small spark of meaning could be inflated into a blaze of elocution, how many delectable speeches would have been lost to the Senate of Great Britain? How severe an injury would have been sustained to the literary estimation of the age? The above admirable specimen of the figure, however, adds to the other natural graces of it, the excellent recommendation of strict and literal truth. The author proceeds to describe the noble Duke’s uncommon popularity, and to represent, that whatever be his employment, whether the gay business of the state, or the serious occupation of amusement, his Grace is alike sure of the approbation of his countrymen.
Whether thy present vast ambition be
To check the rudeness of the’ intruding sea;
Or else, immerging in a civil storm,
With equal wisdom to project—reform;
Whether thou go’st while summer suns prevail,
To enjoy the freshness of thy kitchen’s gale,
Where, unpolluted by luxurious heat,
Its large expanse affords a cool retreat;
Or should’st thou now, no more the theme of mirth,
Hail the great day that gave thy sov’reign birth,
With kind anticipating zeal prepare,
And make the fourth of June thy anxious care;
O! wheresoe’er thy hallow’d steps shall stray
Still, still, for thee, the grateful poor shall pray,
Since all the bounty which thy heart denies,
Drain’d by thy schemes, the treasury supplies.
The reference to the noble Duke’s kitchen, is a most exquisite compliment to his Grace’s well-known and determined aversion to the specious, popular, and prevailing vices of eating and drinking; and the four lines which follow, contain a no less admirable allusion to the memorable witticism of his Grace (memorable for the subject of it, as well as for the circumstance of its being the only known instance of his Grace’s attempting to degrade himself into the vulgarity of joke).
When a minister was found in this country daring and wicked enough to propose the suspension of a turnpike bill for one whole day, simply for the reason, that he considered some little ceremony due to the natal anniversary of the highest, and beyond all comparison, the best individual in the country; what was the noble Duke’s reply to this frivolous pretence for the protraction of the national business? “What care I,” said this great personage, with a noble warmth of patriotic insolence, never yet attained by any of the present timid-minded sons of faction, “What care I for the King’s birthday!—What is such nonsense to me!” &c. &c. &c. It is true, indeed, times have been a little changed since—but what of that! there is a solid truth in the observation of Horace, which its tritism does not, nor cannot destroy, and which the noble Duke, if he could read the original, might with great truth, apply to himself and his sovereign:
Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis.
A great critic affirms, that the highest excellence of writing, and particularly of poetical writing, consists in this one power—to surprise. Surely this sensation was never more successfully excited, than by the line in the above passage, when considered as addressed to the Duke of Richmond—
Still, still, for thee, the grateful poor shall pray!
Our author, however, whose correct judgment suggested to him, that even the sublimity of surprise was not to be obtained at the expence of truth and probability, hastens to reconcile all contradictions, by informing the reader, that the treasury is to supply the sources of the charity, on account of which the noble Duke is to be prayed for.