Our classical readers will recollect, that all Epic Heroes possess in common with the poets who celebrate their actions, the gift of _prophecy_; with this difference however, that poets prophecy while they are in sound health, whereas the hero never begins to talk about futurity, until he has received such a mortal wound in his lungs as would prevent any man but a hero from talking at all: and it is probably in allusion to this circumstance, that the power of divination is distinguished in North Britain by the name of SECOND SIGHT, as commencing when common vision ends. This faculty has been attributed to dying warriors, both by _Homer_ and _Virgil_; but neither of these poets have made so good use of it as our author, who has introduced into the last dying speech of the Saxon Drummer, the whole birth, parentage, and education, life, character, and behaviour, of all those benefactors of their country, who at present adorn the House of Peers, thereby conforming himself to modern usage, and at the same time distinguishing the victorious Rollo's prowess in subduing an adversary, who dies infinitely harder than either Turnus or Hector.
Without farther comment, we shall now proceed to favour our readers with a few extracts. The first Peer mentioned by the _Dying Drummer_, is the present _Marquis of Buckingham_: his appearance is ushered in by an elegant panegyric on his father, Mr. _George Grenville_, of which we shall only give the concluding lines:
_George_, in whose subtle brain, if Fame say true, Full-fraught with wars, the fatal stamp-act grew; Great financier! stupenduous calculator!-- _But, George_ the son is _twenty-one times_ greater!
It would require a volume, not only to point out all the merits of the last line, but even to do justice to that Pindaric spirit, that abrupt beauty, that graceful aberration from rigid grammatical contexts, which appears in the single word _but_. We had however a further intention in quoting this passage, viz. to assert our author's claim to the invention of that species of MORAL ARITHMETIC, which, by the means of proper additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions, ascertains the relative merits of two characters more correctly than any other mode of investigation hitherto invented. Lord Thurlow, when he informed the House of Peers, that, "_one_ Hastings is worth _twenty_ Macartneys," had certainly the merit of ascertaining the comparative value of the two men in _whole numbers_, and _without a fraction_. He likewise enabled his auditors, by means of _the rule of three_, to find out the numerical excellence of any other individual; but to compare Lord Thurlow with our author, would be to compare the scholar with the inventor; to compare a common house-steward with _Euclid_ or _Archimedes_. We now return to the poem.