The Rolliad, in Two Parts. George Ellis
clock above. Of the clock he observes,
When this shalt point, the hour of question come,
Mutes shall find voice, and Orators be dumb.
This, if in lengthen’d parle the night they pass,
Shall furnish still his opening to DUNDAS;
To PITT, when “hear-hims” flag, shall oft supply
The chear-trap trick of stale apology;
And, strange to tell! in Nature’s spite, provoke
Hot ARDEN once to blunder at a joke.
The beauty of these lines will be instantly perceived by all who have witnessed the debates; as they cannot but have remarked, how perpetually “the late hour of night” occupies the exordiums of Mr. DUNDAS, after eleven o’clock; and how frequently it is introduced by Mr. PITT as a hint, for what is called chearing, whenever his arguments and invectives are received by his young friends with the unparliamentary compliment of sacred silence. The miracle of a jest from Mr. ARDEN, happened on the occasion of some Resolutions having passed between the hours of six and seven in the morning; for which reason the Attorney-General facetiously contended, that they were entitled to no respect, “as the house was then at sixes and sevens.” Any approximation to wit in debate, being perfectly unusual with this gentleman, however entertaining his friends may think him in private, our author very properly distinguishes this memorable attempt by the same kind of admiration, with which poets commonly mention some great prodigy—as for instance, of a cow’s speaking:
——pecudesque locutæ
Infandum!
We hope none of our readers will attribute to us the most distant intention of any invidious comparison.
The table, mace, &c. are next described, but these we shall pass over in silence, that we may get—where most who enter the House of Commons wish to get—to the TREASURY-BENCH,
Where sit the gowned clerks, by ancient rule,
This on a chair, and that upon a stool;
Where stands the well-pil’d table, cloth’d in green;
There on the left the TREASURY-BENCH is seen.
No sattin covering decks the’ unsightly boards;
No velvet cushion holds the youthful lords:
And claim illustrious Tails such small regard?
Ah! Tails too tender for a seat so hard.
This passage touches on a subject of much offence to the young friends of the minister; we mean the barbarous and Gothic appearance of the benches in the House of Commons. The Treasury-bench itself looks no better than a first form in one of our public schools:
No sattin covering decks the’ unsightly boards,
No velvet cushion holds the youthful Lords.
The above couplet states with much elegance the matter of complaint, and glances with equal dexterity at the proper remedy. The composition is then judiciously varied. The whole art of the poet is employed to interest our passions in favour of the necessary reform, by expostulatory interrogations and interjections the most affectingly pathetic. And who can read the former, without feeling his sense of national honour most deeply injured by the supposed indignity; or who can read the latter, without melting into the most unfeigned commiseration for the actual sufferings to which the youthful lords are at present exposed? It must, doubtless, be a seasonable relief to the minds of our readers, to be informed, that Mr. PITT (as it has been said in some of the daily papers) means to propose, for one article of his Parliamentary Reform, to cover the seats in general with crimson sattin, and to decorate the Treasury-bench, in particular, with cushions of crimson velvet; one of [1] extraordinary dimensions being to be appropriated to Mr. W. GRENVILLE.
The epithet “tender” in the last line we were at first disposed to consider as merely synonymous with “youthful.” But a friend, to whom we repeated the passage, suspected that the word might bear some more emphatical sense; and this conjecture indeed seems to be established beyond doubt, by the original reading in the manuscript, which, as we before said, has been communicated to us,
“Alas! that flesh, so late by pedants scarr’d,
Sore from the rod, should suffer seats so hard,”
We give these verses, not as admitting any comparison with the text, as it now stands, but merely by way of commentary, to illustrate the poet’s meaning.
From the Treasury-bench, we ascend one step to the INDIA-BENCH.
“There too, in place advanc’d, as in command,
Above the beardless rulers of the land,
On a bare bench, alas! exalted sit,
The pillars of Prerogative and PITT;
Delights of Asia, ornaments of men,
Thy Sovereign’s Sovereigns, happy Hindostan.”
The movement of these lines is, as the subject required, more elevated than that of the preceding: yet the prevailing sentiment excited by the description of the Treasury-bench, is artfully touched by our author, as he passes, in the Hemistich,
On a bare bench, alas!———
which is a beautiful imitation of Virgil’s
———Ah! filice in nudâ———
The pompous titles so liberally bestowed on the BENGAL SQUAD, as the pennyless hirelings of opposition affect to call them, are truly in the Oriental taste; and we doubt not, but every friend to the present happy government, will readily agree in the justice of stiling them “pillars of prerogative and Pitt, delights of Asia, and ornaments of man.” Neither, we are assured, can any man of any party object to the last of their high dignities, “Sovereigns of the Sovereign of India;” since the Company’s well-known sale of Shah Allum to his own Visier, is an indisputable proof of their supremacy over the Great Mogul.
As our author has been formerly accused of plagiarism, we must here in candour confess, that he seems, in his description of the India-bench, to have had an eye to Milton’s account of the devil’s throne; which, however, we are told, much exceeded the possible splendour of any India-bench, or even the magnificence of Mr. Hastings himself.
High on a throne of royal slate, which far
Outshone the wealth of Orams, or of Ind;
Or where the gorgeous East, with lavish hand,
Show’rs on her King, barbaric pearl and gold;
Satan exalted sate.———
This concluding phrase, our readers will observe, is exactly and literally copied by our author. It is also worthy of remark, that as he calls the Bengal squad,
The Pillars of Prerogative and Pitt,
So Milton calls Beelzebub,
A Pillar of State:———
Though, it is certain, that the expression here quoted may equally have been suggested by one of the Persian titles[2], said to be engraved on a seal of Mr. Hastings, where we find the Governor General styled, “Pillar of the Empire.” But we shall leave it to our readers to determine, as they may think proper, on the most probable source of the metaphor, whether it were in reality derived from Beelzebub or Mr. Hastings.
[1] For a description of this young gentleman’s person, from top to bottom, see No. V.
[2] The following is copied from the Morning Chronicle of October 5, 1784.
Mr. HASTINGS’S PERSIAN TITLES, as engraved upon a Seal. A True Translation. Nabob Governor-General Hastings, Saub, Pillar of the Empire, The fortunate in War, Hero, The most princely offspring of the Loins, Of the King of the Universe, The Defender of the Mahomedan