Aut hoc inclusi ligno occultantur _Achivi?_
Besides this, the term _machina_ we know is almost constantly used by _Virgil_ himself as a synonyme for this horse, as in the line
And do we not see that those authentic records of modern literature, the newspapers, are continually and daily announcing to us--"This day sets off from the Blue-boar Inn, precisely at half past five, the Bath and Bristol _machine_!" meaning thereby merely the _stage coaches_ to Bath and to Bristol. Again, immediately after the line last quoted (to wit, _scandit fatalis machina muros)_ come these words,
Now what can they possibly allude to, in the eye of sober judgment and rational criticism, but the _guard_, or armed _watchman_, who, in those days, went in the inside, or perhaps had a place in the _boot_, and was employed, as in our modern conveyances, to protect the passenger in his approximation to the metropolis. We trust the above authorities will be deemed conclusive upon the subject; and indeed, to say the truth, this idea does not occur to us now for the first time, as in some hints for a few critical lucubrations intended as farther _addenda_ to the _Virgilius Restauratus_ of the great Scriblerus, we find this remark precisely:--"In our judgment, this horse (meaning _Virgil_'s) may be very properly denominated--the DARDANIAN DILLY, or the POST COACH to PERGAMUS."
We know not whether it be worth adding as a matter of mere fact, that the great object of the noble Duke's erections at Chatham, which have not yet cost the nation a _million_, is simply and exclusively this--to _enfilade_ the turnpike road, in case of a foreign invasion.
The poet goes on--he forms a scientific and interesting presage of the noble Duke's future greatness.
With gorges, scaffolds, breaches, ditches, mines, With culverins, whole and demi, and gabines; With trench, with counterscarp, with esplanade, With curtain, moat, and rhombo, and chamade; With polygon, epaulement, hedge and bank, With angle salient, and with angle flank: Oh! thou shall prove, should all thy schemes prevail, An UNCLE TOBY on a larger scale. While dapper, daisy, prating, puffing JIM, May haply personate good _Corporal Trim_.
Every reader will anticipate us in the recollection, that the person here honoured with our author's distinction, by the abbreviated appellative of _Jim_, can be no other than the Hon. James Luttrel himself, surveyor-general to the ordnance, the famous friends, defender, and _commis_ of the Duke of Richmond. The words _dapper_ and _daisy_, in the last line of the above passage, approximate perhaps more nearly to the familiarity of common life, than is usual with our author; but it is to be observed in the defence of them, that our language supplies no terms in any degree so peculiarly characteristic of the object to whom they are addressed. As for the remaining part of the line, to wit, "_prating, puffing Jim_," it will require no vindication or illustration with those who have heard this honourable gentleman's speeches in parliament, and who have read the subsequent representations of them in the diurnal prints.