"A patriot's even course he steered, Mid Faction's wildest storms unmoved: By all who marked his _course_ revered, By all who knew his heart beloved."
"Wit being generally founded upon the manners and characters of its own day, is crowned in that day, beyond all other exertions of the mind, with splendid and immediate success. But there is always something that equalises. In return, more than any other production, it suffers suddenly and irretrievably from the hand of Time."
Still some publications, from their wit and brilliancy, are sufficiently buoyant to float down to posterity. The publication in question, the _Rolliad_, is one; the _Anti-Jacobin_ another. You may not be unwilling, in your useful pages, to give a list of some of the writers in the latter publication. My own copy of it is marked from that belonging to one of the writers, and is as follows:--
Nos. 1. 4. 9. 19. 26, 27--33., by Mr George Ellis. Nos. 6. and 7., by Messrs. Ellis and Frere. Nos. 20, 21, 22. 30--36., by Mr. Canning. No. 10. by M.; No. 13. by C. B.; No. 39. by N.
To the remaining numbers, neither names nor initials are affixed. Can any of your readers explain the initials, M., C. B., and N., and give us the authors of the _remaining_ numbers?
In replying to Mr. TURNER'S Queries, I shall attend to the wish expressed by so old and so valued a friend, and substitute for initials, of which he disapproves, the name of
I am much surprised at MR. DAWSON TURNER'S inquiry about these names. I will not say with him that, "not to know them argues himself unknown." On the contrary, my wonder is, that one, himself so well and so favourably known as MR. TURNER, should have need to ask such a question about men with whom, or, at least, with whose fame, he must have been a contemporary, presuming, as I do, that he is the same MR. DAWSON TURNER with whose works we have been acquainted for above half a century. Since, however, he has made the Query, I will answer it as succinctly as I can.
The Right Honourable Richard Fitzpatrick was the only brother of the last Earl of Upper Ossory, and prominent in fashion, in politics, and in elegant literature, and not undistinguished as a soldier. He sat in _nine_ successive parliaments (in two which I knew him). As early as 1782 he was Secretary for Ireland, and in 1783 Secretary-at-War, which office he again filled in 1806. In the galaxy of opposition wits, when opposition was wittiest, Fitzpatrick was generally admitted to be the first, and there were those who thought him _in general powers_ superior even to Fox and Sheridan. His oratory, however, did not do justice to his talents, and he was both shy and indolent. His best speech was that in December, 1796, for the release of Lafayette, to which even the ridicule of the _Anti-Jacobin_ allowed the merit of pathetic eloquence. His share in the _Rolliad_ was considerable, and there are many other sprightly and some elegant specimens of his poetical talents scattered through various publications. I wish they were collected.