_Number Vi._

Our dying drummer, in consequence of his extraordinary exertions in delineating those exalted personages, the MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM and DUKE OF RICHMOND; exertions which we think we may venture to pronounce unparalleled by any one, drummer, or other, similarly circumstanced; unfortunately found himself so debilitated, that we were very fearful, like Balaam's ass, LORD VALLETORT, or any other equally strange animal, occasionally endowed with speech, his task being executed, that his mouth would for ever after remain incapable of utterance.

But though his powers might be suspended, fortunately the

----in æternam clauduntur lumina noctem,

has, in consequence of the timely relaxation afforded to the wounded gentleman during the whole of our last number, been for the present avoided; and, like Mr. PITT's question of parliamentary reform, adjourned to a more expedient moment.

To our drummer we might say, as well as to our matchless premier,

Larga quidem DRANCE, semper tibi copia fandi,

which, though, some malevolent critics might profligately translate

"There is no end to thy prosing,"

those who have read our drummer's last dying words, or heard our minister's new made speeches, will admit to be in both instances equally inapplicable.

The natural powers of our author here again burst forth with such renovated energy, that, like the swan, his music seems to increase as his veins become drained.

Alluding to an event too recent to require elucidation, after describing the virtues of the most amiable personage in the kingdom, and more particularly applauding her charity, which he says is so unbounded, that it

------Surmounts dull Nature's ties, Nor even to WINCHELSEA a smile denies.

He proceeds

And thou too, LENOX! worthy of thy name! Thou heir to RICHMOND, and to RICHMOND's fame! On equal terms, when BRUNSWICK deign'd to grace The spurious offspring of the STUART race; When thy rash arm design'd her favorite dead, The christian triumph'd, and the mother fled: No rage indignant shook her pious frame, No partial doating swayed the saint-like dame; But spurn'd and scorn'd where Honor's sons resort, Her friendship sooth'd thee, in thy monarch's court.

How much does this meek resignation, in respect to COLONEL LENOX, appear superior to the pagan rage of MEZENTIUS towards ÆNEAS, on somewhat of a similar occasion, when, instead of desiring him to dance a minuet at the Etrurian court, he savagely, and of malice prepense, hurls his spear at the foe of his son, madly exclaiming

--Jam venio moriturus et hæc tibi porto Dona prius.

But our author excels Virgil, as much as the amiable qualities of the great personage described, exceed those of MEZENTIUS: that august character instead of dying, did not so much as faint; and so far from hurling a spear at Mr. LENOX, she did not cast at him even an angry glance.

The christian triumph'd, &c.

We are happy in noticing this line, and indeed the whole of the passage, on another account, as it establishes the orthodoxy of the drummer upon so firm a basis, that DR. HORSLEY himself could scarcely object to his obtaining a seat in parliament.

There is something so extremely ingenious in the following lines, and they account too on such rational grounds for a partiality that has puzzled so many able heads, that we cannot forbear transcribing them.

Apostrophizing the exalted personage before alluded to, he says,

Early you read, nor did the advice deride, Suspicion ne'er should taint a CÆSAR's bride; And who in spotless purity so fit To guard an honest wife's good fame, as PITT.

The beautiful compliment here introduced to the chastity of our immaculate premier, from the pen of such an author, must give him the most supreme satisfaction. And

O decus Italiæ virgo!!!

Long mayst thou continue to deserve it!!!

From treating of the minister's virgin innocence, our author, by a very unaccountable transition, proceeds to a family man, namely, the modern MÆCENAS, the CENSOR MORUM, the ARBITER ELEGANTIARUM of Great Britain; in a word, to the most illustrious JAMES CECIL EARL OF SALISBURY, and lord chamberlain to his majesty, whom, in a kind of episode he thus addresses,

Oh! had the gods but kindly will'd it so That thou had'st lived two hundred years ago: Had'st thou then rul'd the stage, from sportive scorn Thy prudent care had guarded peers unborn. No simple chamberlains had libell'd been, No OSTRICKS fool'd in SHAKESPEARE's saucy scene.

But then wisely recollecting this not to be altogether the most friendly of wishes, in as much, that, if his lordship had been chamberlain to QUEEN ELIZABETH, he could not, in the common course of events, have been, as his honour SIR RICHARD PEPPER ARDEN most sweetly sings in his PROBATIONARY ODE,

"The tallest, fittest man to go before the king,"

In the days of GEORGE THE THIRD; by which we should most probably not only have been deprived of the attic entertainments of SIGNORS DELPINI and CARNEVALE, but perhaps too have lost some of our best dramatic writers; such as GREATHEAD, HAYLEY, DR. STRATFORD, and TOMMY VAUGHAN: our author, with a sudden kind of repentance, says,

But hence fond thoughts, nor be by passion hurried! Had he then lived, he now were dead and buried. Not now should theatres his orders own; Not now in alehouse signs his face be shewn.

If we might be so presumptuous as to impute a fault to our author, we should say that he is rather too fond of what the French style equivoque.--This partiality of his breaks forth in a variety of places; such as SIR JOSEPH MAWBEY being

------a knowing man in grain, ------MARTIN's sterling sense, &c. &c.

In the present instance too, where, supposing the noble Marquis to have lived two hundred years ago, he says,

"Not now should theatres his orders own."

He leaves us completely in the dark, whether by the word orders, we are to understand his lordship's commands as theatrical anatomist, or the recommendations, which he is pleased to make to the managers of our public amusements, to admit his dependants and servants gratuitously; and which recommendations in the vulgar tongue of the theatres are technically styled orders. If we might hazard an opinion, from the known condescension of his lordship, and his attention to the accommodation of his inferiors, we should be inclined to construe it in the latter sense; an attention, indeed, which, in the case in question, is said to be so unbounded, that he might exclaim with ÆNEAS

Nemo ex hoc numero mihi non donatus abibit.

Should any caviler here object, that for every five shillings thus generously bestowed on the dependant, a proportionate vacuum is made in the pocket of the manager, let him recollect, that it is a first and immutable principle of civil policy, that the convenience of the few must yield to the accommodation of the many; and, that the noble Marquis, as a peer and legislator of Great Britain, is too closely attached to our excellent constitution to swerve from so old and established a maxim.

With respect to the last line of the couplet,

"Not now in alehouse signs his face be shewn,"

we must confess that our author's imagination has here been rather too prurient.--His lordship's head does not, as far as we can learn, upon the most minute enquiry, at present, grace any alehouse whatever--It was indeed for some little time displayed at HATFIELD in HERTS; but the words "Good entertainment within," being written under it, they were deemed by travellers so extremely unapposite, that to avoid further expence, LORD SALISBURY's head was taken down, and "The old bald face Stag" resumed its pristine station.

Yet, enraptured with his first idea, our author soon forgets his late reflection, and proceeds on the supposition of the noble lord having exercised his pruning knife upon SHAKESPEARE and JOHNSON, and the advantages which would have been derived from it, some of which he thus beautifully describes:

To plays should RICHMOND then undaunted come, Secured from listening to PAROLLES's drum: Nor shouldst thou, CAMELFORD, the fool reprove, Who lost a world to gain a wanton's love. "Give me a horse," CATHCART should ne'er annoy: Nor thou, oh! PITT, behold the angry boy.

The last line but one of these,

Give me a horse, &c.

seems to allude to a circumstance that occurred in America, where his lordship being on foot, and having to march nearly five miles over a sandy plain in the heat of summer, fortunately discovered, tied to the door of a house, a horse belonging to an officer of cavalry. His lordship thinking that riding was pleasanter than walking, and probably also imagining that the owner might be better engaged, judged it expedient to avail himself of this steed, which thus so fortunately presented itself, and accordingly borrowed it. The subsequent apology, however, which he made when the proprietor, rather out of humour at his unlooked-for pedestrian expedition, came up to reclaim his lost goods, was so extremely ample, that the most rigid asserter of the old fusty doctrines of meum and tuum cannot deny that the dismounted cavalier had full compensation for any inconvenience that he might have experienced. And we must add, that every delicacy of the noble lord on this subject ought now to terminate.

We shall conclude with an extract from some complimentary verses by a noble secretary, who is himself both an AMATEUR and ARTISTE.--Were any thing wanting to our author's fame, this elegant testimony in his favour must be decisive with every reader of taste.

Oh! mighty ROLLE, may long thy fame be known! And long thy virtues in his verse be shewn! When THURLOW's christian meekness, SYDNEY's sense, When RICHMOND's valour, HOPETOWN's eloquence, When HAWKESB'RY's patriotism neglected lie Intomb'd with CHESTERFIELD's humanity, When PRETTYMEN, sage guardian of PITT's youth, Shall lose each claim to honesty and truth, When each pure blush DUNDAS's cheek can boast, With ARDEN's law and nose alike are lost, When grateful ROBINSON shall be forgot, And not a line be read of MAJOR SCOTT, When PHIPPS no more shall listening crouds engage, And HAMLET's jests be rased from memory's page, When PITT each patriot's joy no more shall prove, Nor from fond beauty catch the sigh of love, When even thy sufferings, virtuous chief! shall fade, And BASSET's horsewhip but appear a shade, Thy sacred spirit shall effulgence shed And raise to kindred fame the mighty dead: Long ages shall admire thy matchless soul, And children's children lisp the praise of ROLLE.

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