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.
It now only remains for us to perform the last melancholy office to the dying drummer, and to do what little justice we can to the very ingenious and striking manner in which our author closes at once his prophecy and his life.
It is a trite observation, that the curious seldom hear any good of themselves; and all epic poets, who have sent their heroes to conjurors, have, with excellent morality, taught us, that they who pry into futurity, too often anticipate affliction.--VIRGIL plainly intimates this lesson in the caution which he puts into the mouth of ANCHISES, when ÆNEAS enquires into the future destiny of the younger MARCELLUS, whose premature death forms the pathetic subject of the concluding vision in the sixth book of the ÆNEID:
"O nate, ingentum lectum ne quære tuorum."
"Seek not to know (the ghost replied with tears) The sorrows of thy sons in future years." DRYDEN.
Then, instead of declining any further answer, he very unnecessarily proceeds to make his son as miserable as he can, by detailing all the circumstances best calculated to create the most tender interest.--The revelation of disagreeable events to come, is by our poet more naturally put into the mouth of an enemy.--After running over many more noble names than the records of the herald's office afford us any assistance in tracing, the second sighted Saxon, in the midst of his dying convulsions, suddenly bursts into a violent explosion of laughter.--This, of course, excites the curiosity of ROLLO, as it probably will that of our readers; upon which the drummer insults his conqueror with rather a long but very lively recital of all the numerous disappointments and mortifications with which he foresees that the destinies will affect the virtues of ROLLO's great descendant, the present illustrious member for Devonshire. He mentions Mr. ROLLE's many unsuccessful attempts to obtain the honour of the peerage; alludes to some of the little splenetive escapes into which even his elevated magnanimity is well known to have been for a moment betrayed on those trying occasions. We now see all the drift and artifice of the poet, and why he thought the occasion worthy of making the drummer so preternaturally long winded, in displaying at full all the glories of the house of peers; it was to heighten by contrast the chagrin of ROLLO at finding the doors of this august assembly for ever barred against his posterity.