NUMBER VI.
Our dying drummer, in consequence of his extraordinary exertions in delineating those exalted personages, the MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM and DUKE OF RICHMOND; exertions which we think we may venture to pronounce unparalleled by any one, drummer, or other, similarly circumstanced; unfortunately found himself so debilitated, that we were very fearful, like Balaam’s ass, LORD VALLETORT, or any other equally strange animal, occasionally endowed with speech, his task being executed, that his mouth would for ever after remain incapable of utterance.
But though his powers might be suspended, fortunately the
——in æternam clauduntur lumina noctem,
has, in consequence of the timely relaxation afforded to the wounded gentleman during the whole of our last number, been for the present avoided; and, like Mr. PITT’s question of parliamentary reform, adjourned to a more expedient moment.
To our drummer we might say, as well as to our matchless premier,
Larga quidem DRANCE, semper tibi copia fandi,
which, though, some malevolent critics might profligately translate
“There is no end to thy prosing,”
those who have read our drummer’s last dying words, or heard our minister’s new made speeches, will admit to be in both instances equally inapplicable.