“Not now in alehouse signs his face be shewn,”
we must confess that our author’s imagination has here been rather too prurient.—His lordship’s head does not, as far as we can learn, upon the most minute enquiry, at present, grace any alehouse whatever—It was indeed for some little time displayed at HATFIELD in HERTS; but the words “Good entertainment within,” being written under it, they were deemed by travellers so extremely unapposite, that to avoid further expence, LORD SALISBURY’s head was taken down, and “The old bald face Stag” resumed its pristine station.
Yet, enraptured with his first idea, our author soon forgets his late reflection, and proceeds on the supposition of the noble lord having exercised his pruning knife upon SHAKESPEARE and JOHNSON, and the advantages which would have been derived from it, some of which he thus beautifully describes:
To plays should RICHMOND then undaunted come,
Secured from listening to PAROLLES’s drum:
Nor shouldst thou, CAMELFORD, the fool reprove,
Who lost a world to gain a wanton’s love.
“Give me a horse,” CATHCART should ne’er annoy:
Nor thou, oh! PITT, behold the angry boy.
The last line but one of these,
Give me a horse, &c.
seems to allude to a circumstance that occurred in America, where his lordship being on foot, and having to march nearly five miles over a sandy plain in the heat of summer, fortunately discovered, tied to the door of a house, a horse belonging to an officer of cavalry. His lordship thinking that riding was pleasanter than walking, and probably also imagining that the owner might be better engaged, judged it expedient to avail himself of this steed, which thus so fortunately presented itself, and accordingly borrowed it. The subsequent apology, however, which he made when the proprietor, rather out of humour at his unlooked-for pedestrian expedition, came up to reclaim his lost goods, was so extremely ample, that the most rigid asserter of the old fusty doctrines of meum and tuum cannot deny that the dismounted cavalier had full compensation for any inconvenience that he might have experienced. And we must add, that every delicacy of the noble lord on this subject ought now to terminate.
We shall conclude with an extract from some complimentary verses by a noble secretary, who is himself both an AMATEUR and ARTISTE.—Were any thing wanting to our author’s fame, this elegant testimony in his favour must be decisive with every reader of taste.
Oh! mighty ROLLE, may long thy fame be known!
And long thy virtues in his verse be shewn!
When THURLOW’s christian meekness, SYDNEY’s sense,
When RICHMOND’s valour, HOPETOWN’s eloquence,
When HAWKESB’RY’s patriotism neglected lie
Intomb’d with CHESTERFIELD’s humanity,
When PRETTYMEN, sage guardian of PITT’s youth,
Shall lose each claim to honesty and truth,
When each pure blush DUNDAS’s cheek can boast,
With ARDEN’s law and nose alike are lost,
When grateful ROBINSON shall be forgot,
And not a line be read of MAJOR SCOTT,
When PHIPPS no more shall listening crouds engage,
And HAMLET’s jests be rased from memory’s page,
When PITT each patriot’s joy no more shall prove,
Nor from fond beauty catch the sigh of love,
When even thy sufferings, virtuous chief! shall fade,
And BASSET’s horsewhip but appear a shade,
Thy sacred spirit shall effulgence shed
And raise to kindred fame the mighty dead:
Long ages shall admire thy matchless soul,
And children’s children lisp the praise of ROLLE.
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