The Sun.
London, England, 1835-10-19 00:00:00

LITERATURE

THE PRIME MINISTER.
Br A PEER.
Churton. London. 1835.
The author of this poem is exceedingly anxious to
Impress on his readers the momentous fact that he
1.8 a " Peer," for he repeats the imposing monosyl-
lable not less than three times in as many pages ; first,
I,n his title- pa
Robert ge ; secondly, in his dedication to gir
:Peel—whom, by way of compliment, we pre-
atnne, he takes care to remind more than once in the
ours-e of his panegyric, that he is a " cotton-spinner's
1,"11)--and, thirdly, in his Address to the Public
'4ovs' allowing its full weight to the word " Peer"—
granting too the truth of Pope's remark—
" What woeful stuff this madrigal would be,
In some poor, half-starved sonneteer, or me I
But let a Lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens, how the style refines 1
Before his sacred name flies every fault,
And each exalted stanza teems with thought"—
granting all this, we yet cannot but regret that our
aristocratic poet has betrayed such a nervous anxiety
to Claim the benefit of his " Order," for it is modestly
tanttatnount to a confessimf that his production cannot
I,t upon its own intrinsic meth, but, needs the help of
the coronet to give it lustre and importance ; whereas
if he had only bethought himself of Dean Swift's en-
couraging
adage, that

" A poem in Sir Bob's defence"
Must, sure, abound in wit and sense,"
lie would have been at once persuaded that a poetic
panegyric
on a Premier must, from the very nature of
e subject, be superlative in excellence. Indeed he
hunself—notwithstanding his diffident allusions to his
(pain
Y—is somewhat of this opinion ; for he observes
in. his Dedication, " as Homer paints the Pylian sage,
so Would I exhibit Sir Robert Peel, the Nestor of the
Commons' House ;" thus directly comparing himself to
u
"ler—a bold comparison, but in the present instance
ile.t only excusable, but even commendable, for a more
gigal poem than the " Prime Minister," or one more
florneric in the sounding march of its verse, the world
bas not seen since the days when the " blind old man
of Scio's rocky isle" laid his reverend head in the grave.
This unique production opens, as in duty bound,
with a God-save-the-King sort of eulogy on William
the Fourth, after which it slides, with a facile descent,
at once in medias res, in this singularly sonorous
/tanner :
" Now sinks our prelude, and begins our theme,
As sleepers pass at once into a dream,
Embodying forms of visionary light,
Thought of by day, and followed up by night ;
So as at first in thought the dream doth dwell,
Will we our purpose from our prelude swell."
to The "purpose " which our " Peer" here proposes
" swell " from his " prelude," is no other than an
attack on Lord Palmerston, who, we are informed,

" Looks forth afar,
Lugubrious lion in his den of war,
Bids Charles and Miguel from their kingdoms dance,
Opposes Holland, and succumbs to France."
We pause here to express our admiration of the in-
genuity of the charge which the above passage insi-
nuates against the Noble Secretary for Foreign Af-
larrs--namely, that, in his quality of " lion," he had
eeropelled an old man of seventy-three to " dance !"
fan any thing. be more truly Homeric than the idea of
" lion " turning dancing-master ? His Lordship,
rowever, soon ceases to figure in a leonine capacity,
for
c't we find him in the very next couplet—and what a
couplet it is I—metamorphosed into Cupid :
" Meek Cupid fain he'd be; and meek he proves,
Because his mother drove a pair of doves !"
There is reason, says the proverb, even in roasting
eggs ; we suppose, therefore, that there must be mean-
Mg in this distich, though the turn of its logic has not
belittle perplexed us ; for why should Lord Palmerston
meek, because his mother drove " a pair of
doves ; " and why, if he desired to be thought so,
Should he so belie his character for gentleness, as wan-
tonly to insist on a septuagenarian dancing the gallo-
t? Surely, there is some slight inconsistency
Ze I Pass we, however, to more important matters.
aving despatched the Foreign Secretary, our modern
li °flier goes on to speak of the Whigs and the Re-
form
Bill, the former of whom he likens to Cleopatra,
(the Whigs, it must be confessed, Lord Althorp, es-
11°,1allY, bear an uncommon resemblance to the Queen
'-'gYpt 1) and the second to the river Cydnus. " So,"
'Y$ he,

" So when the Whigs, with new ambition warm,
Embark'd upon their Cydnus of Reform,
Smiling forth promise from the deck of place,
As fair and as sincere as Cleopatra's face !
Meanwhile sweet songs of what would now be done
Kept the sails bellying while the bark rode on,
Making their praise in softest music ring
From Zephyrs' voices, who were hired to sing,
First, paused the listening crowd in mute amaze,
What sweet sensations crowned their tickled gaze I
Next, the low voice of glad approval broke,
And then the air with bellowing thunder spoke."
If obscurity be, according to Burke, one great source
ti the sublime, then there is no passage in an-
ent or modern literature more characterised by
full and perfect sublimity than this. It is
an enigma not to be solved, even by an Edi-
s' Indeed so perplexingly confused .is it
tuu
ell a complete " rudis, indigestaque moles" of
°eV, that did we not know that its author was a
• Ner," we should have been tempted to attribute it
the pen of old Chaos himself ; for, in the first place,
our modern Homer converts Cleopatra, an Egyptian
vtunette, into a blonde, giving her a " fair face," when
all kno'w she was as brown as a berry ; secondly, he
ofdoWs bellying
sweet songs" with the extraordinary faculty
the sails" of a vessel ; thirdly, he attri-
butes to his ,t zephyrs" the mercenary propensity to
• sing for hire," like Braham or any other vocalist ;
• and lastly, he crowns a " tickled aze" with a "
aga
1 g
,""----a marvel equalled only by that which Mr.
t Wrought in his " Life of Byron," when he
Cr
-e''"lled a- " winding-sheet" with a white night-cap,
aLn,d Called it a "mystery !" Having fairly launched the
Cleopatra-like,,, Whigs upon the Cydnus—our modern
*9.otner there leaves them, to sink or swim as may hap-
Pet) •
' he returns to England, to look after the
• schoolmaster," whom he arraigns as a rank Ignora-
assurina assuring that his only object is to persuade the
Ile°Ple to °

" Vote the Peers upon the Paupers clogs,
Banish the Bishops to the Isle of Dogs,
Bid labour knock machinery on the head,
,„ And burn down corn-ricks, just to cheapen bread."
t „ille mention of corn-ricks reminds our Peer, natu-
ttily enough, of the Duke of Wellington, whom he
us majestically introduces to his readers :
" Look out—look out—who rides from London's Tower ?
(London superb in wealth, supreme in power)—
Calm on his brow thought's gentle spirit dwells,
And moderates the tale his memory tells,
As through the city's streets be winds his way,
(:)f all the good he did for her that day—
On, on he rides ; now mark the gathering crowd,
What
the gratulations long and loud ;
Vhat ! none of these ? The nation's spirit dumb,
The fount all closed whence gratitude should come.
.The expectant winds prepare to bear above
The pealing music of a nation's love ;
Heaven looks to welcome its inspiring birth,
Andlongs toiling its echos back to earth.
"fah
(The effect of this Hah 1" is irresistible.)
4,1-fah ! Worse than silence 1 What ?do traitors dare
„ 112 rend with impious groans the consecrated air ?"
Our modern Homer may well be astonished, if not
at s the behaviour of the mob towards the Duke, at
least at his own description of it, for we will venture
a)r that a more startling picture than that of the
(1
winds"
waiting in
the aiting anxious expectation to carry up
?ea music of a nation's love" to heaven, for no other
I,t,s°ll than that heaven may "fling its echos back"
again,
i 8 no where to be met, without the pale of his
* Sir Robert Walpole.