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

own daring imagination. But this is not all ; the
passage proceeds, in a strain of still greater originality,
to contrast his Grace's last year's ride through Cheap-
side and the Poultry, with his memorable one in 1815,
when the whole city, from Temple Bar to Whitechapel
turnpike, was phrenzied with admiration ; and then
informs us, that on the former occasion, he was brick-
batted, and all but lithographed ; lin short, that the
mob were

" By change reversing all that once they felt,
And whom they welcomed, running now to pelt :"
which, we can assure him, was not the case, for there
was but one man who pelted the Duke, and he was an
Irish hod-man out of employ, for which irregular
sally he was next day vi.3ited with the serious dis-
pleasure of the law, the Habeas Corpus Act having
been suspended in his person, at the unrighteous in-
stigation of a vile Bow-street despot. We have
hitherto seen our Peer attempting to rival Homer. We
have now to show him equally emulous of the fame of
Theocritus. The subjoined sketch of a conversation
at a Whig beer-shop is in the true spirit of the old
Greek pastoral :

The darkening twilight now bespreads its wings,
While on his homeward way the labourer sings ;
Are you not tired ?' is his companion's cry,
Tired I am, and thirsty ;' "so am I,
And may no worse luck fall, since here's an ale-house nigh."
Onward they journey, a few paces more,
A sign-board hangs by yonder cottage door,
Nor at its threshold do these letters fail,
Dobbs, licensed to sell beer by retail.'
How could two thirsty labourers pass the spot ?
How could such license be by them forgot ?
' Friend Dobbs, a civil chap,' so in they rush,
Two screws of baccy, and a pot of lush."

The arch and graceful prattle of the two rustics in
this colloquy is strikingly like that of Praxinoe and
her friends in the " Syracusan Gossips" of Theocritus
while the last finish is given to the passage by the pic-
turesque images of " the baccy" and the " lush."
From Dobbs and his beer-shop, to O'Connell and the
House of Commons, is but a step with our Peer ; and
accordingly he passes at once to a sketch of the great
Agitator, whom he describes as sitting in St. Stephen's
like

" A Polypherne, with no Ulysses by,
To quench the light of his ferocious eye,"
thereby insinuating that Mr. O'Connell, like the
Cyclops, has only one eye, and that right in the centre
of his forehead !—a false and malicious accusation,
which could have suggested itself to the mind of none
but a fiend. We now come to the Second Part of this
unrivalled poem, which opens with the accession of
the " cotton-spinner's son" to office; on which occa-
sion we are told that
" Reliance gilt the universal face,"
and with such dazzling effect, that even the Muses
themselves would fail to convey any idea of it,
" Tho' each should claim to swell a sounding line,
In one concentrate voice, and sing for all the Nine."
This gilding, however, is soon rubbed off " the universal
face" by the Russell phalanx, that
" Hermaphrodite, pig's head and panther's feet ;"
who not being impressed, as they should have been,
with a sense of the transcendant worth of Sir Robert
Peel, league with O'Connell and his " forty-jointed tail"
to expel hit; from office—a conspiracy which so shocks
the sensitive nerves of our modern Homer, that he
forthwith hurries his poem to a conclusion, with this
parting benediction to the Whigs, that they are a set
of intolerable scamps,
" Who shovi their own, to cheat the people's sense,
And tell their power just to get their pence."
Having thus given the reader some idea of the more
prominent excellencies of this Homeric rhapsody, we
shall now proceed to lay before him a few of its mi-
nuter beauties :
Remarkable grammar !
" Would that our country could those years recall,
Which almost changed her greatness into small."—
Ineffable modesty I
" A little knowledge is a dangerous thing :'
So said the sage, and I, confirming, sing."—
Uncommon elegance
• "'Still as he triumphs, his fantastic rigs
Alarm the country, but delight the Whigs."—
" The factious democrat expert to poke
Sedition's image under freedom's cloak."—
" Believed him the Destructive that they wished,
And longed to find the Constitution dished."—
Pindaric obscurity !
" Pass we the small events, the change of seat,
The dolphin dies of triumph and defeat"—
Pungent sarcasm !
" When did a Radical, with all his Vox
Et preterea nihil, e'er affect the stocks ?"
Colloquial vivacity !
" And now, what measures will these worthies choose,
To prove the valour of their P's and Q's ?"
" Well, we have painted thus, for public show,
Two finished full-length portraits, top to toe."—
Irresistible drollery I
" While in a thousand jests and sneers of scorn,
Masters are thrashed in speech, instead of corn."—
Original imagery I
" Let some new resolution act the birch,
Flog out the Minister, and down the Church."—
If these specimens do not satisfy our readers that
the " Prime Minister" abounds in imaginative beau-
ties of the highest order, and fully justifies its author's
direct comparison of himself with Homer, then are they
deaf to all conviction. Much, however, as we admire
his poem, still we cannot help regretting that he did
not give it a dramatic, rather than a didactic character.
As a Pantomime it would have made a prodigious hit.
Conceive how the impromptu transformation of Lord
Palmerston from a "lion" into a " Cupid;" and of
O'Connell from an Irish Agitator into a Cyclops with
one eye, would have told on the stage ! Then, too,
the scene of the " lugubrious den," with old Charles
the Tenth dancing in front, and the Secretary for Fo-
reign Affairs roaring within—bow could a scene like
this have failed to create a sensation, if properly painted
by Stanfield ? As for the Duke of Wellington, he
would have made a capital Pantaloon on horseback ;
Sir Robert Peel might have been personified as Har-
lequin, whisking the Whigs out of office with one
touch of his wand ; Cleopatra" might have figured as
Columbine ; while, as respects the Clown, the author,
in default of a better representative, might have exhi-
bited himself. Put forth in this allegorical form, the
" Prime Minister" would, no doubt, have gained the
same enviable celebrity that " Mother Goose" gained
in its day ; but in its present shape, we fear—notwith-
standing its unrivalled excellencies—its perusal must be
confined to the select few. However, be this as it
may, it is a production that reflects credit on the
Peerage ; and, to use the words of Poison, " will be
universally admired when Homer and Milton are for-
gotten—but not till then."