There are many more lines relating to Mr. Dundas. But as this gentleman's character is so perfectly understood by the public, we shall rather select a short catalogue of some among the inferior Ministerial Heroes, who have hitherto been less frequently described.
DRAKE, whose cold rhetorick freezes in its course, BANKS the precise, and fluent WILBERFORCE, With either PHIPPS, a scribbling, prattling pair; And VILLERS, comely, with the flaxen hair; The gentle GRENVILLE's ever-grinning Son, And the dark brow of solemn HAMILTON.
These miniatures, as we may call them, present us with very striking likenesses of the living originals; most of whom are seen to as much advantage in this small size, as they could possibly have been, had they been taken at full length. How happy is the allusion to Mr. DRAKE's[3] well-known speech; which, in the metaphor of our poet, we may style a beautiful icicle of the most transparent eloquence! How just too, and yet how concise, is the description of the literary and parliamentary talents, so equally possessed by Brother CHARLES and Brother HARRY, as Lord Mulgrave affectionately calls them. We must, however, observe, that in the Manuscript of the ROLLIAD, obligingly communicated to us by the Author, the line appears to have been first written,
Resplendent PHIPPS who shines our lesser Bear;
the noble head of this illustrious family having been called the Great Bear. But this was corrected probably in consequence of the Poet having discovered, like Mr. Herschel, that the splendor which he long attributed to a single constellation, or (if we may depart a little from critical nicety in our figure) to a single star, in reality flowed from the united rays of two. We have nothing further to add on this passage, only that the character of VILLERS seems to be drawn after the Nireus of Homer; who, as the Commentators remark, is celebrated in the catalogue of warriors, for the handsomest man in the Grecian army, and is never mentioned again through the whole twenty-four books of the Iliad.
[1] Mr. M'Pherson is said to be one of the principal writers on the side of the present administration.
[2] Key to Parliamentary Debates, published by Debrett.
[3] "Behold, Sir, another feature of the procrastinating system. Not so the Athenian Patriots--Sir, the Romans--Sir, I have lost the clue of my argument--Sir, I will sit down."