Where Brutus dealt the godlike stroke—
—By which his glory rose!!!”
The last line is not borrowed.
We question whether the history of modern literature can produce an instance of a theft so shameless, and turned to so little advantage.]
[58]. [Horace Walpole, in a letter to Hannah More, quotes one word of these verses incorrectly, writing:—“Though Cato died,” an error which P. Cunningham allows to pass, as also another, that Mr.—instead of Lord—Nugent wrote them.—Ed.]
[59]. Line 26.—[Sir Robert Adair. Some observations on his alleged mission to St. Petersburgh to counteract the measures of Government will be found on a subsequent page. The publication here satirized is entitled “Part of a Letter from Robert Adair, Esq., to the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox; occasioned by Mr. Burke’s mention of Lord Keppel in a recent publication,” London, Debrett, 1796, and is by no means a contemptible composition. It is called “Part of a Letter,” because it is a portion of a longer one, being only the part devoted to a vindication of the writer’s uncle, Admiral Lord Keppel, and of Fox; with characteristic delineations of Sir G. Saville, the Marquis of Rockingham, Lord North, and George Byng, M.P., on all of whom he passes great compliments.—Ed.]
[60]. And loads the blunderbuss with Bedford’s brains.—This line is wholly unintelligible without a note. And we are afraid the note will be wholly incredible, unless the reader can fortunately procure the book to which it refers.
In the “Part of a Letter,” which was published by Mr. Robt. Adair, in answer to Mr. Burke’s “Letter to the D. of B.,” nothing is so remarkable as the studious imitation of Mr. Burke’s style.
His vehemence, and his passion, and his irony, his wild imagery, his far-sought illustrations, his rolling and lengthened periods, and the short quick pointed sentences in which he often condenses as much wisdom and wit as others would expand through pages, or through volumes,—all these are carefully kept in view by his opponent, though not always very artificially copied or applied.
But imitators are liable to be led strangely astray; and never was there an instance of a more complete mistake of a plain meaning, than that which this line is intended to illustrate—a mistake no less than that of a coffin for a corpse. This is hard to believe or to comprehend—but you shall hear.