base are their characters and conduct in general, that every honest man, who may have had occasion to witness them upon the spot, and whase integrity has been proof against their insidious practices of corruption, must acknowledge, that there is not, perhaps, upon the face of the earth, a set of creatures so depraved, so worthless, as those dependent upstarts, in whose cause the powers of rhetoric have so frequently been exhausted in the British House of Commons, to rouse and to abuse the generous feelings of the nation. How few on such occasions have ever believed, that an English governor could be innocent, when an Indian nabob was his accuser; yet how very easy is it for a man, with whom truth is not considered as a moral obligation, and intrigues and treachery the whole study of his life, to produce a series of unfounded calumnies; how difficult, at such a distance, to disprove them before the poison has worked its effect. But the time is probably not very distant, when the public, in this respect, will be undeceived; for, as a great moralist has observed, it seldom thinks long on any subject without at last at taining to think right. It is, however, really surprising that, after a lapse of more than half a century, the people of England should still continue to be delighted by every new declaimer, who, bent upon thrusting himself into notice, and fed upon the bounty of a nabob, impudently ven tures to step forward to mislead the public, and to arraign the conduct of those who have really deserved well of their country by a conscien cious discharge of their duty. Whoever will give himself the trouble of examining the records of Bengal and Madras, must unavoidably be convinced, that so long as the system is continued of setting up nizams and viziers, nabobs and rajahs, without any real claims or pretensions, as the ostensible governors of countries, provinces, and districts, but in fact mere tools of the company, no governor-general of Bengal, nor president of Madras, provided he be an honest man, can possibly escape their intrigues, their hatred, and their calumny; but if he will allow them to break their engagements with the company, to corrupt their servants, to purchase indulgencies by bribes, to oppress the inhabitants by extortion, cruelty, and murder, and to plunder and encroach upon every petty power that borders on their respective countries, he will be extolled by them as the wisest and best governor that ever ruled in India. Nothing has most assuredly had so strong a tendency to injure the British name among the real and substantial powers of Hindostan, as the impolitic measure of setting up these puppets of authority; and nothing probably would have more influence in consolidating the peace and the prosperity of India, than the abolishing of those double governments, and taking the management of such countries as avowedly belong to the British empire, entirely into our own hands. As a matter of expediency, the company seem now pretty well convinced, that the measure must be adopted; and that those nurseries of oppression, intrigue, and corruption, must be destroyed millions of unhappy, yet unoffending, natives would then know to whom they were to look up for protection, which, under the present system of things, is, at least, with them a matter of doubt and distress; by discontinuing the erection of dependent nizams, nabobs, rajahs, and khans, the company would get rid of so many stumbling-blocks to their prosperity, and stepping-stones to their enemies. And better far would it be for them even to double the already large emoluments of their servants, from the highest to the lowest, rather than, out of consideration to their interests, to keep up those phantoms of power with influence and wealth, however sufficient to corrupt their conduct, and feed their avarice. Those who conceive that a government in India, while embarrassed by the intrigues of dependent nabobs and rajahs, is an enviable situation, are little acquainted with the difficulties and dangers with which it is surrounded. To a strictly honest man, bent on doing his duty, a more heart-rending situation can scarcely be imagined; he must either lend the aid of his authority to the most horrid oppressions, cruelties, and murders; or if he resists, incur the charge of oppression himself; thus he treads on thorns at every step, and after years of toil and anxiety for the public welfare, he will retire from the scene with the mortification of finding that all his endeavours have been exhausted in vain to eradicate that system of corruption which is nurtured in every petty court of Hindostan; that he has only drawn upon himself the malignity of those who float within its vortex; and, what is worst of all, he may almost lay his account of meeting at home with the frigid indifference of his employers." What a number of designing declaimers almost every session start up, some to disguise the means by which they themselves have accumulated wealth in India, and others to open a way to appointments in that country, all of them just knowing enough to discover the weak side of their countrymen's character, and well assured that to excite their passions by fabricated abuses or feigned distress, is the most effectual means of obtaining their object. Sympathy, indeed, as Mr. Barrow observes, would seem to be an affection of the mind, the strength of which increases in proportion to the distance of the exciting cause. Distant distress has the advantage arising from the powers of imagination to operate in its favour; hence the supposed sufferings of a Mohammedan khan or a Hindoo rajah are able to dissolve the hearts of the whole nation, while objects of real distress at home, from their want of novelty, and the embellishments of fancy, are contemplated with comparative unconcern. A tale of distress well represented is capable sometimes of exciting a kind of sensation that renders almost unwelcome the conviction of its falsehood; it is one of those pleasing errors which, as Dr. Johnson observed, is not always willingly detected. Nay, so great is this infatuation, that we have recently seen, under the specious pretext of humanity, the most atrocious falsehoods eagerly credited, although resting on no other authority than that of swindlers, prostitutes, robbers, runaways, and traitors, supported indeed by the gold of some intriguant. [To be continued.] Little Odes to Great Folks; with a dedicatory Dithyrambic to Sir Rich-rd Ph-ll-ps, Knight. By Pindar Minimus. With Notes critical and explanatory, by Sextus Scriblerus. 8vo. p. 107. Oddy, 1808. SOME months have elapsed since the poets of the day sung forth the virtues of "All the Talents," or, indeed, of any portion of them; and as the old adage saith, " we cannot have too much of a good thing," we are decidedly of opinion, that Mr. Pindar the less has performed an acceptable service to the public, by employing his muse on so profitable a subject. But he has still greater merit than his renowned predecessor; for he has blended the talents of the city with those of the court, and so endeavoured to gratify all the lovers of talents, from St. James's to the Mansion House. We could have wished, indeed, that his Pegasus had stopped awhile to bait at the corner of Bridge-street, as he might there have found a fine subject for another ode, and have celebrated, with becoming fire, the Talents of the Guildhall Patriot, not fine Irish, but "Dowlass, filthy Dowlas," who bawls for reform, and daily advertises for contraband goods.-Verbum sat.-If he avail himself of this hint, we shall then, perhaps, be encouraged to give him a few more, and to suggest to him the propriety of visiting the Whig Club, which will supply him with abundance of materials for odes, satires, or epithalamiums. The "Little Odes" are eight in number, and the "Great Folks" to whom they are addressed, are; 1. Sir Richard Phillips, Knight; 2. The Right Honourable Samuel Whitbread, M. P.; 3. Mr. William Roscoe; 4. the family of the Grenvilles; 5. Lord Stanhope; 6. The Reverend Doctor Randolph of Bath; 7. Lord Grey; 8. The Marquis of Douglass. Of these odes, for the information of our readers, we state, that the first seven are dithyrambic, and the last is elegiac; and to them are, very appropriately subjoined or superadded, an Epithalamium on Lord and Lady Petty. We have already observed, that the poet has not confined himself to the court end of the town; and, indeed, we should have said, that the town itself is too narrow a boundary to circumscribe the flights of his aspiring muse; for she has even extended her excursions to Bath and Liverpool: his impartiality, thus displayed, cannot be too loudly commended; and that we may not be behind hand with him in this laudable quality, nor be supposed to labour under any town prejudice, we shall extract, as specimens of the poet's abilities, the two country odes, to Mr. Roscoe, and Dr. Randolph. "A Friendly Admonitory ODE to MR. W. Rosc-E, late twelvemonths M. P. for L-v-rp-ol." "ARGUMENT.-The Poet condoleth on his loss, and adviseth temperance-pathetically lamenteth the fall of the Talents, and disSuadeth his friend William from pamphleteering-maketh a simile, and compareth William to a wiseacre- declareth his respect for grave historians-and hinteth at the proper horse for such to ride -adviseth his friend to take an airing with his nurse-concludeth with a friendly admonition. "ODE. "Dear William, tho' you've lost your seat*, But suits it with your Christian plant? And tho' you shed much gall and ink, You ne'er can write them in again. Hist'ry, and ran a pamphleteering ‡! "When "The Talents" got into power, thinking that Mr. R's talent had hitherto been hid in a napkin, they resolved to set it up in high places, and so made him into an M. P. When seated in the House of Commons, Mr. R. seemed to form his conduct on that wise saying of the Greeks; " « Κακώς ακ8ειν κρεισσον ἢ λεγειν κακως, or, as our worthy English forefathers expressed it; "The least said is soonest mended.” For the speeches that Mr. R. did not make, see Parliamentary Register, passim. For his speeches intended to have been spoken, consult Chaucer-Godwin's Life of him (to be written and published some years hence,) in which you will doubtless be told both what he did not say, and what he might have said. S. S. "Of what sect of the Christian religion Mr. R. is a member, I never heard. He dresses like a Quaker, talks like a Methodist, and writes like a Muggletonian. S. S. "Mr. R. who had hitherto been known to the world as a worthy, pains-taking compiler of history, no sooner found himself shut out of Parliament, than he began to turn his attention seriously to politics. In order to take as comprehensive a view as possible of public affairs, he retired to a small village in Lancashire. There he made a vast A race for which you're little fitted, Considerations," Stick still to your old hackney mare Her jog-trot suits 'e to a hair She carries safe and easy. Or if a frolic fancy hit, Without much danger or much trouble, survey of the Continent, and, like Friar Bacon's head of brass, spoke of time past, present, and to come: In a critical hour, his aweful "Considerations" made their appearance in public. The friends of the Talents triumphed. The work, as Mr. Fox said of Sir Philip Francis' speech, was unanswerable-that is, as Mr. Fox himself explained his own meaning," until it was answered." Serious thoughts were entertained in the higher circles, that Mr. R.'s force of argument must drive the present ministers from their places-the ministers themselves were in a sweat-when lo! Master William Cobbett stept forth, and audaciously dared to prove that Master William R-sc-e had told only a pack of fibs, and deserved nothing better than a whipping for his pains. Altho' he had pledged his credit that Napoleon is a very good tempered, obliging, little gentleman, nobody would believe him. The ungrateful world fell a laughing to see the grave historian perplexed in the extreme," and the ministers began to congratulate themselves that what they had at first mistaken for a lion, turned out an animal of a less terrific description. Mr. R. is said to have published another political work, which I have not seen. But I am told, that as a politician, his writings are semper idem,—that is, as Swift translated it, "worse and worse." Ah! le pauvre homme. S.S. NO.CXXVI. VOL. XXXI. |