The Rolliad, in Two Parts. George Ellis
the exterior qualifications of the gentleman in question, than can have fallen to the lot of every reader. All who have had the pleasure of seeing him, however, will immediately acknowledge the resemblance of the portrait.
See next advance, in knowing FLETCHER’s stead,
A youth, who boasts no common share of head;
What plenteous stores of knowledge may contain
The spacious tenement of GRENVILLE’s brain!
Nature, in all her dispensations wise,
Who form’d his head-piece of so vast a size,
Hath not, ’tis true, neglected to bestow
Its due proportion to the part below;
And hence we reason, that, to serve the state,
His top and bottom may have equal weight.
Every reader will naturally conceive, that in the description of the principal person of the board, the author has exerted the whole force of his genius, and he will not find his expectations disappointed; he has reserved him for the last, and has judiciously evaded disgracing him by a comparison with any other, upon the principle, no doubt, quoted from Mr. Theobald, by that excellent critic, Martinus Scriblerus:
“None but himself can be his parallel.”
DOUBLE FALSEHOOD.
As he has drawn this character at considerable length, we shall content ourselves with selecting some few of the most striking passages, whatever may be the difficulty of selecting where almost the whole is equally beautiful. The grandeur of the opening prepares the mind for the sublime sensations suitable to the dignity of a subject so exalted:
Above the rest, majestically great,
Behold the infant Atlas of the state,
The matchless miracle of modern days,
In whom Britannia to the world displays
A sight to make surrounding nations stare;
A kingdom trusted to a school-boy’s care.
It is to be observed to the credit of our author, that, although his political principles are unquestionably favourable to the present happy government, he does not scruple, with that boldness which ever characterises real genius, to animadvert with freedom on persons of the most elevated rank and station; and he has accordingly interspersed his commendations of our favourite young Minister with much excellent and reasonable counsel, fore-warning him of the dangers to which he is by his situation exposed. After having mentioned his introduction into public life, and concurred in that admirable panegyric of his immaculate virtues, made in the House of Commons by a noble Lord already celebrated in the poem, upon which he has the following observation:
———As MULGRAVE, who so fit
To chaunt the praises of ingenious PITT?
The nymph unhackney’d and unknown abroad,
Is thus commended by the hackney’d bawd.
The dupe enraptur’d, views her fancied charms,
And clasps the maiden mischief to his arms,
Till dire disease reveals the truth too late:
O grant my country, Heav’n, a milder fate!
he attends him to the high and distinguished station he now so ably fills, and, in a nervous strain of manly eloquence, describes the defects of character and conduct to which his situation, and the means by which he came to it, render him peculiarly liable. The spirit of the following lines is remarkable:
Oft in one bosom may be found allied,
Excess of meanness, and excess of pride:
Oft may the Statesman, in St. Stephen’s brave,
Sink in St. James’s to an abject slave;
Erect and proud at Westminster, may fall
Prostrate and pitiful at Leadenhall;
In word a giant, though a dwarf in deed,
Be led by others while he seems to lead.
He afterwards with great force describes the lamentable state of humiliation into which he may fall from his present pinnacle of greatness, by too great a subserviency to those from whom he has derived it, and appeals to his pride in the following beautiful exclamation:
Shall CHATHAM’s offspring basely beg support,
Now from the India, now St. James’s court;
With pow’r admiring Senates to bewitch,
Now kiss a Monarch’s—now a Merchant’s breech;
And prove a pupil of St. Omer’s school,
Of either KINSON, AT. or JEN. the tool?
Though cold and cautious criticism may perhaps stare at the boldness of the concluding line, we will venture to pronounce it the most masterly stroke of the sublime to be met with in this, or any other poem. It may be justly said, as Mr. Pope has so happily expressed it—
“To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.”
ESSAY ON CRITICISM.
As we despair of offering any thing equal to this lofty flight of genius to the reader of true taste, we shall conclude with recommending to him the immediate perusal of the whole poem, and, in the name of an admiring public, returning our heart-felt thanks to the wonderful author of this invaluable work.
* * * * *
NUMBER VI.
In our two last numbers we were happy to give our readers the earliest relish of those additional beauties, with which the nineteenth and twentieth impressions of the ROLLIAD are enriched. And these interpolations we doubt not have been sufficiently admired for their intrinsic merit, even in their detached state, as we gave them. But what superior satisfaction must they have afforded to those who have read them in their proper places! They are parts of a whole, and as such wonderfully improve the effect of the general design, by an agreeable interruption of prosaic regularity.
This may appear to some but a paradoxical kind of improvement, which is subversive of order. It must be remembered, however, that the descent of ROLLO to the night-cellar was undoubtedly suggested by the descent of Æneas to hell in the Sixth Book of Virgil; and every classical Critic knows what a noble contempt of order the Roman Poet studiously displays in the review of his countrymen. From Romulus he jumps at once to Augustus; gets back how he can to Numa; goes straight forward to Brutus; takes a short run to Camillus; makes a long stride to Julius Cæsar and Pompey; from Cato retreats again to the Gracchi and the Scipios; and at last arrives in a beautiful zig-zag at Marcellus, with whom he concludes. And this must be right, because it is in Virgil.
A similar confusion, therefore, has now been judiciously introduced by our Author in the Sixth Book of the ROLLIAD. He first singles out some of the great statesmen of the present age; then carries us to church, to hear Dr. Prettyman preach before the Speaker and the pews; and next shows us all that Mr. DUNDAS means to let the public know of the new India Board;—that is to say, the Members of whom it is composed. He now proceeds, where a dull genius would probably have begun, with an accurate description of the House of Commons, preparatory to the exhibition of Mr. ROLLE, and some other of our political heroes, on that theatre of their glory. Maps of the country round Troy have been drawn from the Iliad; and we doubt not, that a plan of St. Stephen’s might now be delineated with the utmost accuracy from the ROLLIAD.
Merlin first ushers Duke ROLLO into the LOBBY: marks the situation of the two entrances; one in the front, the other communicating laterally with the Court of Requests; and points out the topography of the fire-place and the box,
—————————in which
Sits PEARSON, like a pagod in his niche;
The Gomgom PEARSON, whose sonorous lungs