University of Virginia Library

—Were my friend Scriblerus acquainted with the sort of Ministry Heaven hath blessed us with, he would not think the task of correcting them a vain one. They are of late become so admirably pliant, that the fact is, I begin to look on them as a set of very hopeful gentlemen, They have already abandoned many of their old pranks; and thus by proving themselves men of no principle, afford us some hope that the country may yet be saved. Had they been sincere, we were undone for ever. But now, forsaking their old nests, they come hopping over Conscience to perch upon Interest; and, like the saucy robin, to venture any thing for a crumb of bread. The lex talionis is fair, however; so having sacrificed character to come into power, they come into power to sacrifice character. On this head consult Sir H. P*ph*m, old Edition. If this brave officer did not receive secret orders to make a descent on Buenos Ayres; if,

Then, I certainly will not attempt to palliate so rash an enterprize. But, at all events, nothing can excuse the petulant, predetermined hostility of Ministers towards him.

I wish Polypus to know that he mistakes Ministers grossly. Thank Heaven they were never made of malleable materials; but, on the contrary, are as tough a collection of talents as ever England witnessed. Is it not this quality of toughness which has carried them thro'? Did they not always continue tough to the principles they set out upon, tho' deserted and despised by three-fourths of the nation? Did they ever coincide with a single measure of the old Party—even measures the most beneficial? If this be pliability, I want to know what is toughness?— Scriblerus.

Virgil

—I do not wish to specify this personage too particularly. He will, I dare say, recognise himself.

—Such as a paper called the “Oracle and True Briton,” or some such name. The thing, however, is not worth abusing.

This man had once a sort of asinine sturdiness about him, that used to pass off for honesty, Poor Peter! they talked too of his fine writing. . . But perituræ parcite charto!

—P. P*nd*r dropped his pen while in the act of snatching at a pension. Mr. C*lm*n has, it seems, picked it out of the mud; but, alas! the mud has clung to it ever since. Rarely, and very rarely, it is a limum felicem.

— The Public will better recognise this noble Lord as plain Mr. Gr*y; new titles, new principles, and new places having so totally metamorphosed him, that some of his old friends have actually ceased to know him. I am credibly informed he is growing gay. And yet I remember him a moody, melancholy gentleman, whom you would have thought time nor tide could change.—A positive bit of blood, that always came cantering at the heels of Fox and Sh*r*d*n. Did Fox protest against war?—Gr*y quickly set his face against hostilities. Did Fox declare that the kingdom was ruined? —Gr*y instantly found out that the nation was undone. Skilful in the analogies of the language, he seemed only to forget that Truth and Servility are never synonymous. Servility, however, is not easily got rid of; and Gr*y, while first Lord of the Admiralty, used to trot at St. V*nc*nt's heels just as contentedly as at Fox's.

As to what Lord H*w*ck is, there may possibly be some doubt; as to what he was, there can be no doubt at all. If his name shall survive the injuries his country has suffered from him, he will be remembered as one of those unhappy beings, who, during that long and dreadful struggle for all that Englishmen held dear upon earth, stood aloof with a small, but desperate band, watching the favourable moments for incursion, and involving us in a predatory war at home, while the most terrible of enemies was assailing us from abroad. But since his political promotion we have heard no more of his political principles. Let us then cheerfully submit to the smaller misfortune. The friendship of a reformed libertine is preferable to the enmity of a professed one. After ages will hardly credit the story of our adventures. At least they will wonder at our having escaped out of such hands; while the names of a F---, a Sh*r*d*n and a H*w*ck will be abhorred by the gentle nature and adopted by the severe.

I do not approve of Polypus's comparing my Lord H*w*ck with a beast of burden; and yet I am informed by those who know French, (for I do not), that the following description of a horse is applicable to him. Un esprit pesant, lourd, sans subtilité, ni gentillesse—UN GROS CHEVAL D'ALLEMANDE. I am delighted with the stately grandeur of the words, and guess that they contain a magnificent eulogium.— Scribl.

By the bye, St. V*nc*nt always trod aukwardly enough on terra firma. He is not an amphibious animal, and has more of the shark than the sea-horse in his composition. Some say he has more of the crocodile than of either.

—The Talents have proved the truth of this assertion to a miracle; by adopting, as Ministers, almost every measure, which, as Oppositionists, they had reprobated—melius, pejus, prosit, obsit. I doubt if their new recantation be not more disgusting than their ancient bigotry. But their conduct immediately on coming into power was more than disgusting. It was a tissue of absurdity, indecency, and arrogance, equalled only by the nauseous mummery of Buonaparte's bulletins. One Minister took peculiar pains to convince us that we were on the very verge of ruin, and that nothing but the Talents could save us. Sh*r*d*n, too, seemed to lament our desperate situation with a plausible face enough; and

When, on a sudden, up rose the sun, the mists melted away, and the Talents assured us we were in a more flourishing condition than ever! Now for my life I could never see how they made it out. But taking their words for it, to whom do we stand indebted? Certainly not to the Talents; for they have been failing in every project. Yet this is no proof. The Talents have been failing in every project for these last twenty years, and the country has prospered accordingly.

All that can be said in their favour is, that they spoke of “dilapidated hopes and resources,” when they did not know one atom about the matter; and that they candidly recanted as soon as they began to learn their business.

—The little Corsican could never abide Mr. Pitt, whom he justly considered as the saviour of his country. By the bye, I think ministers would do well to cease boasting of the tender esteem and admiration, which, (they tell us) the first of all ruffians entertained for Mr. Fox. They had better be silent on that statesman altogether, than calumniate his memory by allotting such a friend to him. It is in itself an outrageous satire, and all who wish well to his character ought to contradict it.

—It is a fact well worth attending to, that the industrious and enlightened classes of the nation went almost universally with Mr. Pitt. Exceptions there certainly were, but these exceptions usually betrayed in their conduct thro' life, either hollow hearts or weak understandings.

This last assertion is a sidelong glance at me. I know Polypus thinks I have a weak head. With all my heart. At all events I'll teach him I have a bitter tongue; and he shall rue my resentment in the acerbity of my comments. —Scribl.

—I would not insult Mr. Pitt's memory by comparing him with Lord H*w*ck. Besides, in such a case, the noble Lord himself would have far more reason to complain. Happy may he esteem himself, if the future historian shall disdain to record either his character or his life.

—To enlarge on the character of this immortal Statesman would probably vex the Talents, and of course do them no service. But I will exbibit a portrait of an opposite nature, with the hope that ministers may avoid a bad example, tho' they may not imitate a good one.

Let me then imagine a man prodigally gifted with every blessing under the sun—birth, fortune, wit, wisdom, eloquence. With a soul that can pierce into the brightest recesses of fancy, and a tongue that can embody the visions she beholds. Let me suppose him marking his entrance into the service of his country by a breach of her constitution; while distorting the best of passions to the worst of purposes, he calls treason patriotism, and covers desperate doctrines with a decorous indecency of words. Laughing at subjection, yet himself a slave to party, he lords it over a rancorous faction; while boys disconcert the cabals of his manhood, and striplings repress the excesses of his age. In persecuting his country he is uniform and sincere; his principles alone are versatile and treacherous. The revolutionary mob, and the sanguinary despot, are alternate objects of his admiration. At length he tramples down the barriers of decorum, and allows not even an appeal from his heart to his head; from inherent atrocity to adventitious error. Thinking men are alarmed and desert him; fools adhere to his cause and are undone. Once found dangerous, he soon becomes flagitious; and his last act exhibits him vanquished by his own arts, and a dupe to the basest of mankind.

Let this portrait be as a beacon to all ministers. Wise men will read it and say nothing.—It is for the fool to assert its justice by uniting it with a name.

—I cannot contemplate this period of Mr. Pitt's life without the highest emotions of admiration. I had thought the days of Roman magnanimity gone for ever, and in these times scarcely expected to see another Cincinnatus.—Te sulco, Serrane, serentem.

—Let none now be so rash as to talk of Mr. Pitt's inordinate ambition, or assert that he preferred his own elevation to his country's welfare. If the words of the dying are accounted sincere, who will deny that patriotism was the ruling passion of this incomparable character? Pope says,

Pitt realized what Pope only supposed.

—Often, I dare say, (were I to judge by their after-conduct) did the jaded Oppositionists exclaim, during Mr. Pitt's illness,

Οιωνος αριστος, say I, however; and I believe three-fourths of the nation say so too. After the death of that Minister they did not behave with common decency. The greediness with which they seized upon all places of profit,—even those which pride, and those which delicacy should have deterred them from appropriating—was odious in the extreme. I can almost fancy I see them, like a set of vultures,hovering,over the Minister's dying moments, and with gross black wing brushing across his radiant spirit as it mounts into the skies.

Ovid.

—Mr. Fox asserted, that success should be the criterion of talent, on the night when he so resolutely set his face against some honours which were proposed to his rival's memory. I do not adopt his criterion, I only apply it to himself; and is it not fair to convict a man on his own argument?

By no means. Such a mode of procedure, if generally practised, would ruin the country. For were men always to be convicted on their own arguments, they would always take care to talk sense. And if men were always to talk sense, there would be no difference of opinion. But without difference of opinion there would be no conversation; without conversation no society; without society no government; and without a government all would be warfare, anarchy, and no poet. Did I not promise you, Mr. Polypus, that I would be severe? —Scribl.

—I have not the least desire to disturb Mr. Fox's repose. Not because I feel that in enlarging on his character I should overleap any bounds of propriety; but because little advantage could now arise out of it. I leave the full developement of his aims to the historian. In another century there will be but one opinion upon the subject.

—It is allowed on all hands that the Foxites are falling into disrepute: and the reason is as evident as the fact is notorious. The Foxites are in power. No longer champions in the mighty cause of nonsense, they have now degenerated into the mere men of business. The fiery war-horse is lopped of his flowing mane, and ends his honours under a waggon. However paradoxical the thing may seem, it cannot be denied, that the Talents have forfeited importance by coming into power, and that in proportion to their rise in the world, they have managed to fall in its estimation.

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