Mr. Burke, in one of his publications, had talked of the French “unplumbing the dead in order to destroy the living,”—by which he intended, without doubt, not metaphorically, but literally, “stripping the dead of their LEADEN COFFINS, and then making them (not the DEAD but the COFFINS) into bullets”. A circumstance perfectly notorious at the time the book was written.
But this does not satisfy our author. He determines to retort Mr. Burke’s own words upon him; and unfortunately “reaching at a metaphor,” where Mr. Burke only intended a fact, he falls into the little mistake above mentioned, and by a stroke of his pen transmutes the illustrious Head of the house of Russell into a metal, to which it is not for us to say how near or how remote his affinity may possibly have been. He writes thus—“If Mr. Burke had been content with ‘unplumbing’ a dead Russell, and hewing HIM (observe—not the coffin, but HIM—the old dead Russell himself) into grape and canister, to sweep down the whole generation of his descendants,” &c., &c.
The thing is scarcely credible; but IT IS SO! We write with the book open before us.
[61]. Qu.—Surcharge?
[[62]]HORACE, ODE VIII., BOOK II.
IN BARINEM.
Ulla si juris tibi pejerati
Pœna, Barine, nocuisset unquam,
Dente si nigro fieres, vel uno
Turpior ungui,