CRITICISMS

ΟΝ

THE ROLLIAD.

PART THE SECOND.

NUMBER I.

WE have now followed our admirable author through the Sixth Book of his poem, very much to our own edification, and, we flatter ourselves, no less to the satisfaction of our readers. We have shown the art with which he has introduced a description of the leading characters of our present House of Commons, by a contrivance something similar, indeed, to that employed by Virgil, but, at the same time, sufficiently unlike to substantiate his own claim to originality. And surely every candid critic will admit, that had he satisfied himself with the same device, in order to panegyrize his

favourites in the other House, he would have been perfectly blameless. But to the writer of the ROLLIAD, it was not sufficient to escape censure: he must extort our praise, and excite our admiration.

Our classical readers will recollect, that all Epic Heroes possess, in common with the poets who celebrate their actions, the gift of prophecy; with this difference, however, that poets prophesy while they are in sound health, whereas the hero never begins to talk about futurity, until he has received such a mortal wound in his lungs as would prevent any man, but a hero, from talking at all: and it is probably in allusion to this circumstance, that the power of divination is distinguished in North Britain by the name of SECOND SIGHT, as commencing when common vision ends. This faculty has been attributed to dying warriors, both by Homer and Virgil; but neither of these poets has made so good use of it as our author, who has introduced into the last dying speech of the Saxon Drummer, the whole birth, parentage, and education, life, character, and behaviour, of all those benefactors of their country, who at present

adorn the House of Peers, thereby conforming himself to modern usage, and at the same time distinguishing the victorious Rollo's prowess in subduing an adversary, who dies infinitely harder than either Turnus or Hector.

Without further comment, we shall now proceed to favour our readers with a few extracts. The first Peer mentioned by the Dying Drummer, is the present Marquis of Buckingham: his appearance is ushered in by an elegant panegyric on his father, Mr. George Grenville, of which we shall only give the concluding lines :

George, in whose subtle brain, if Fame say true,
Full-fraught with wars, the fatal stamp-act grew;
Great financier! stupendous calculator!—
But, George the son is twenty-one times greater!

It would require a volume, not only to point out all the merits of the last line, but even to do justice to that Pindaric spirit, that abrupt beauty, that graceful aberration from rigid grammatical contexts, which appears in the single word but. We had, however, a further intention in quoting this passage, viz. to assert our author's claim to

the invention of that species of MORAL ARITHMETIC, which, by the means of proper additions, subtractions, multiplications, and divisions, ascertains the relative merits of two characters more correctly than any other mode of investigation hitherto invented. Lord Thurlow, when he informed the House of Peers, that "one Hastings is worth twenty Macartneys," had certainly the merit of ascertaining the comparative value of the two men in whole numbers, and without a fraction. He likewise enabled his auditors, by means of the rule of three, to find out the numerical excellence of any other individual; but to compare Lord Thurlow with our author, would be to compare the scholar with the inventor; to compare a common house-steward with Euclid or Archimedes. We now return to the poem.

After the lines already quoted, our dying Drummer breaks out into the following wonderful apostrophe:

Approach, ye sophs, who, in your northern den,
Wield with both hands your huge didactic pen;
Who, step by step, o'er Pindus' up-hill road,
Drag slowly on your learning's pond'rous load;

Though many a shock your perilous march encumbers,
Ere the stiff prose can struggle into numbers;
And you, at comets' tails who fondly stare,
And find a mistress in the lesser bear;
And you, who, full with metaphysics fraught,
Detect sensation starting into thought,

And trace each sketch by Memory's hand design'd
On that strange magic lantern call'd the MIND;
And you, who watch each loit'ring empire's fate;
Who heap up fact on fact, and date on date;
Who count the threads that fill the mystic loom,
Where patient vengeance wove the fate of Rome;
Who tell that wealth unnerv'd her soldier's hand,
That Folly urg'd the fate by traitors plann'd;
Or that she fell---because she could not stand:
Approach, and view, in this capacious mind,
Your scatter'd science in one mass combin'd:
Whate'er tradition tells, or Poets sing,

Of giant-killing John, or John the King;
Whate'er-

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But we are apprehensive that our zeal has already hurried us too far, and that we have exceeded the just bounds of this paper. We shall therefore take some future opportunity of reverting to the character of this prodigious nobleman, who possesses, and deserves to possess, so distinguished a share in his master's confidence. Suffice it to say, that our author does full justice to every part of his character. He considers him as