The Rolliad Part 9

At length, however, MERLIN recovers his voice; and breaks out into a strain of most animated invective, infinitely superior to every thing of the kind in Homer; though the old Grecian must be acknowledged not to want spirit in the altercations, or scolding matches, of his heroes and G.o.ds. The Prophet begins, as a man in any great emotion always must, at the middle of a verse;

------ ------ ------Tatterdemalions, Scald miserables, Rascals and Rascalions, Buffoons, Dependants, Parasites, Toad-eaters, Knaves, Sharpers, Black-legs, Palmers, Coggers, Cheaters, Scrubs, Vagrants, Beggars, Mumpers, Ragam.u.f.fins, Rogues, Villains, Bravos, Desperados, Ruffians, Thieves, Robbers, Cut-throats, &c. &c. &c.

And in this manner he proceeds, with single appellatives of reproach, for ten or twelve lines further; when, his virtuous indignation a little subsiding, or his Dictionary failing, he becomes more circ.u.mlocutory; as for instance,

Burglarious Scoundrels, that again would steal The PREMIER's Plate, and CHANCELLOR's Great Seal; Of public Murderers, Patrons and Allies, Hirelings of France, their country's enemies, &c.

which style he continues for more than twenty lines.

We are truly sorry, that the boundaries of our plan would not allow us to present our readers with the whole of this finished pa.s.sage in detail; as it furnishes an indisputable proof, that, however the Greek language may have been celebrated for its copiousness, it must yield in that respect to the English. For if we were to collect all the terms of infamy bandied about[1], from aeschines to Demosthenes, and from Demosthenes back again to aeschines; and if to these we should add in Latin the whole torrent of calumny poured by Cicero on Antony and Piso; though the ancient orators were tolerably fluent in this kind of eloquence, they would, all together, be found to fall very short of our poet, shackled as he is with rhyme, in the force no less than the variety of his objurgatory epithets. At the same time it must not be concealed, that he possessed one very considerable advantage in the rich repositories of our ministerial newspapers. He has culled the flowers, skimmed the cream, and extracted the very quintessence of those elegant productions with equal industry and success. Indeed, such of our readers as are conversant with the Morning Post and Public Advertiser, the White-Hall, the St. James's, and, in short, the greater part of the evening prints, will immediately discover the pa.s.sage now before us to be little more than a cento. It is however such a cento as indicates the man of genius, whom puny scribblers may in vain endeavour to imitate in the NEW ROLLIADS.

It is possible, MERLIN might even have gone on much longer: but he is interrupted by one of those disturbances which frequently prevail in the House of Commons. The confusion is finely described in the following broken couplet:

Spoke! Spoke!--Sir--Mr. Speaker--Order there!

I rise--spoke! Question! Question!--Chair! Chair! Chair!

This incident is highly natural, and introduced with the greatest judgment, as it gives another opportunity of exhibiting Mr. ROLLE, and in a situation, where he always appears with conspicuous pre-eminence.

Great ROLLO look'd, amaz'd; nor without fears, His hands applied by instinct to his ears: He look'd, and lo! amid the wild acclaim Discern'd the future glory of his name; O'er this new Babel of the noisy croud, More fierce than all, more turbulent, more loud.

Him yet he heard, with thund'ring voice contend, "Him first, him last, him midst, him without end."

This concluding line our author has condescended to borrow from Milton; but how apposite and forcible is the application! How emphatically does it express the n.o.ble perseverance with which the Member for Devons.h.i.+re has been known to persist on these occasions, in opposition to the Speaker himself.

ROLLO, however, is at length wearied, as the greatest admirers of Mr. ROLLE have sometimes been, with the triumphs of his ill.u.s.trious descendant.

But ROLLO, as he clos'd his ears before, Now tired, averts his eyes to see no more.

Observant MERLIN, while he turn'd his head, The lantern s.h.i.+fted, and the vision fled.

To understand this last line, our reader must recollect, that though the characters introduced in this vision are preternaturally endowed with seeming powers of speech, yet the forms or shadows of them are shewn by means of a magic lantern.

Having now concluded our observations upon this part of the Poem--we shall close them with remarking, that as our author evidently borrowed the idea of this vision, in which the character of future times are described, from Virgil, he has far surpa.s.sed his original; and as his description of the present House of Commons, may not improbably have called to his mind the Pandaemonium of Milton, we do not scruple to a.s.sert, that in the execution of his design, that great master of the sublime has fallen infinitely short of him.

[1] More particularly in their two famous orations, which, are ent.i.tled "_On the Crown._"

_NUMBER XIV._

Our readers may possibly think, that verses enough have been already devoted to the celebration of Mr. ROLLE; the Poet, however, is not of the same opinion. To crown the whole, he now proceeds to commemorate the column which is shortly to be erected on the spot, where the Member for Devons.h.i.+re formerly went to School, application having been made to Parliament for leave to remove the school from its present situation; and a motion being intended to follow, for appropriating a sum of money to mark the scene and record the fact of Mr. ROLLE's education, for the satisfaction of posterity, who might otherwise have been left in a state of uncertainty, whether this great man had any education at all.

MERLIN first shews ROLLO the school. The transition to this object from the present House of Commons is easy and obvious. Indeed, the striking similarity between the two visions is observed by ROLLO in the following pa.s.sage:

The Hero sees, thick-swarming round the place, In bloom of early youth, a busy race; _Propria quae maribus_, with barbarous sound, _Syntax_ and _prosody_ his ear confound, "And say (he cries), Interpreter of fate, Oh! say, is this some jargon of debate?

What means the din, and what the scene? proclaim; Is this another vision, or the same?

For trust me, Prophet, to my ears, my eyes, A second House of Commons seems to rise."

MERLIN however rectifies the mistake of the good Duke: and points out to him his great descendant, in the shape of a lubberly boy, as remarkably mute on this occasion, as we lately found him in the House,

More fierce than all, more turbulent, more loud.

The flaggellation of Mr. ROLLE succeeds, which, as MERLIN informs ROLLO, is his daily discipline. The sight of the rod, which the Paedagogue flourishes with a degree of savage triumph over the exposed, and bleeding youth, awakens all the feelings of the ancestor:

Stay, monster, stay! he cries in hasty mood, Throw that dire weapon down--behold my blood!

We quote this couplet the rather, because it proves our author to be as good a Critic as a Poet. For the last line is undoubtedly a new reading of Virgil's,

Projice tela manu,--Sanguis meus!

And how much more spirited is this interpretation,

------ ------ ------Behold my blood!

than the commonly received construction of the Latin words, by which they are made to signify simply, "O my son!" and that too with the a.s.sistance of a poetical licence. There is not a better emendation in all the Virgilius Restauratus of the learned Martinus Scriblerus.

On the exclamation of ROLLO, which we have just quoted, the Prophet, perceiving that he has moved his ill.u.s.trious visitor a little too far, administers every consolation,

"Thy care dismiss (the Seer replied, and smil'd) Tho' rods awhile may weal the sacred child, In vain ten thousand [1]BUSBIES should employ Their pedant arts his genius to destroy; In vain at either end thy ROLLE a.s.sail, To learning proof alike at head and tail."

Accordingly this a.s.surance has its proper effect in calming the mind of the Duke.

But the great topic of comfort, or we should rather say of exultation, to him, is the prophecy of the column, with which MERLIN concludes his speech:

Where now he suffers, on this hallow'd land, A Column, public Monument, shall stand: And many a bard around the sculptur'd base, In many a language his renown shall trace; In French, Italian, Latin, and in Greek; That all, whose curious search this spot shall seek, May read, and reading tell at home, return'd, How much great ROLLE was flogg'd, how little learn'd.

What a n.o.ble, and what a just character of the great ROLLE is contained in the last line! A mind tinctured with modern prejudices may be at a loss to discover the compliment. But our author is a man of erudition and draws his ideas from ancient learning, even where he employs that learning, like [2]Erasmus and the admirable Creichton, in praise of ignorance. Our cla.s.sical readers, therefore, will see in this portrait of Mr. ROLLE, the living resemblance of the ancient Spartans; a people the pride of Greece, and admiration of the world, who are peculiarly distinguished in history for their systematic contempt of the fine arts, and the patience with which they taught their children to bear floggings.

The School now vanishes, and the Column rises, properly adorned with the inscriptions, which the philosopher explains. But as we have been favoured with correct copies of the inscriptions themselves, which were selected from a much greater number composed by our universities, we shall here desert our Poet, and present the public with the originals.

The two first are in Greek; and agreeably to the usual style of Greek inscriptions, relate the plain fact in short and simple, but elegant and forcible, phraseology.

Ode t? ??t?????? de???? ?t?a ?a?a te ?????, ???ta ???O?????? apea??a?e pa?? p?te ?O???S.

The word ?e????e?? is not to be found in our Lexicons; but we presume, that it means, "to speak the dialect of Devons.h.i.+re;" from ?e???a, which is Greek for Devons.h.i.+re. Accordingly, we have so rendered it in a translation, which we have attempted for the benefit of the country gentlemen and the ladies.

The senate's wonder, ROLLE [3]of mighty tongue, Here first his Devons.h.i.+re unlearn'd when young.

How simple, yet how full, is the expression of this distich!

How perfectly does it agree with the notion, which our poet has inculcated, of Mr. ROLLE! He was employed at school not to learn but to unlearn; his whole progress, was, like a crab's, backward.

There is a beauty in the Greek which it is impossible to preserve in English; the word which we have translated "_unlearned_," is in the imperfect tense: and, in the nicety of that accurate language implies, that the action was begun, but not completed; that Mr. ROLLE made some proficiency in unlearning his Devons.h.i.+re; but had not effectually accomplished it during his stay at the school.

The other Greek inscription has something more ingenious, from a seeming paradox in the turn of it:

??t?? ? ?p?te p?? t? a??? p??? ?t????, ?de ?a?? p?te ?O??????S, ?ssape? ??d, ea?e?.

He, who to learning nothing owes, Here ROLLE, a boy, learn'd all he knows.

By which concluding word "_knows_," we must certainly understand acquired knowledge only; since Mr. ROLLE has been celebrated by our Poet in the most unequivocal manner, as may be seen in the twelfth number of our Criticisms, for his great natural faculties. The sense of this last Epigram will then be merely, that the Member for Devons.h.i.+re had no particle of acquired knowledge; but is an a?t?d?da?t??, a self-taught scholar, a character so much admired in ancient times. The Latin inscription is as follows: