Add all the piety of St. Voltaire,
Mix the gross compound—Fiat Dr. Parr.
His person, in full canonicals, with capacious wig, unfailing tobacco pipe and tankard, is, with the effigies of many other noted politicians of the period, introduced into a spirited bacchanalian scene by Gillray, published in 1801, entitled The Union Club.]
[55]. Buzz Prose.—The learned reader will perceive that this is an elegant metonymy, by which the quality belonging to the outside of the head is transferred to the inside. Buzz is an epithet usually applied to a large wig. It is here used for swelling, burly, bombastic writing.
There is a picture of Hogarth’s (the Election Ball, we believe), in which there are a number of Hats thrown together in one corner of the room; and it is remarked as a peculiar excellence that there is not a Hat among them of which you cannot to a certainty point out the owner among the figures dancing, or otherwise distributed through the picture.
We remember to have seen an experiment of this kind tried at one of the Universities with the wig and writings here alluded to. A page taken from the most happy and elaborate part of the writings was laid upon a table in a barber’s shop, round which a number of wigs of different descriptions and dimensions were suspended, and among them that of the Author in question. It was required of a young student, after reading a few sentences in the page, to point out among the wigs that which must of necessity belong to the Head in which such sentences had been engendered. The experiment succeeded to a miracle. The learned reader will now see all the beauty and propriety of the metonymy.
[56]. Line 25.—[John Courtenay was for many years one of the men of mark in the House of Commons for his ability, independent spirit, erudition, and coarse sarcastic wit. He was born at Carlingford, Ireland, in 1738. Having obtained the patronage of George, Viscount Townshend, Lord-Lieutenant (1767–72), he became the principal writer in the “Batchelor,” a government paper, distinguished by genuine wit and humour, conducted by Simcox, a clergyman; Richard Marlay, afterwards Bishop of Waterford and Lismore; Robert Jephson, a dramatic poet of note; the Rev. Mr. Boroughs, and others. The chief task of these advocates of the Castle was to counteract the “Baratarian Letters,” an Irish imitation of Junius, which, attacking the Lord-Lieutenant’s government, received contributions from Flood, and first published Grattan’s character of Chatham. At the “Coalition,” 1783, he was appointed Surveyor-general of the Ordnance, and henceforward attached himself to Fox. He wrote, among other works, A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D., 1786; The Rape of Pomona, an Elegiac Epistle from the Waiter at Hockrel to the Hon. Mr. Lyttelton, 1773; Philosophical Reflections on the late Revolution in France; and a Biographical Sketch of his own Life. In his Epistles in Rhyme he thus ridicules Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Verses on the two Misses Berry:—
“Who to love tunes his note, with the fire of old age,
And chirps the trim lay in a trim Gothic cage.”
Walpole, however (Correspondence, ix. 434–5), good-naturedly laughed at them, saying that these verses on himself were really some of the best in the whole set. Courtenay was a member of The Literary Club, founded by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and figures in several of Gillray’s caricatures. He it was who, referring to Gay’s Beggars’ Opera, designated the author the Orpheus of Highwaymen. He died 24th March, 1816.—Ed.]