conversation might extend itself to the occupations of retired statesmen.
The authors of Rolliad celebrated the conclusion of these negotiations in a Pastoral poem, in which the First Lord of the Treasury and the Marquis address one another in amœbæan strains.
THE STATESMEN
an eclogue
Lansdowne
While on the Treasury-Bench you, Pitt, recline,
And make men wonder at each vast design;
I, hapless man, my harsher fate deplore,
Ordain'd to view the regal face no more;
That face which erst on me with rapture glow'd,
And smiles responsive to my smiles bestow'd:
And now the Court I leave, my native home,
"A banish'd man, condemn'd in woods to roam";
While you to senates, Brunswick's mandates give,
And teach white-wands to chaunt his high prerogative.
Pitt
Oh! Lansdowne, 'twas a more than mortal pow'r
My fate controul'd, in that auspicious hour,
When Temple deign'd the dread decree to bring,
And stammer'd out the firmaun of the King;
That power I'll worship as my household god,
Shrink at his frown, and bow beneath his nod;
At every feast his presence I'll invoke,
For him my kitchen fires shall ever smoke;
Not mighty Hastings, whose illustrious breath
Can bid a Rajah live, or give him death,
Though back'd by Scott, by Barwell, Palk, and all
The sable squadron scowling from Bengal;
Not the bold Chieftain of the tribe of Phipps,[1]
Whose head is scarce less handsome than his ship's;[1]
Not bare-breech'd Graham[2] nor bare-witted Rose,
Nor the great Lawyer with the little Nose;[3]
Nor even Villiers self shall welcome be,[4]
To dine so oft, or dine so well as he.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Created Lord Mulgrave in 1794. Minister for Foreign Affairs in the second Administration of Mr. Pitt in succession to Lord Harrowby. He had been in the Navy.
- ↑ The Marquis of Graham. See Wraxall, Posthumous Memoirs, i. 279.
- ↑ Pepper Arden, Attorney-General.
- ↑ Mr. John Villiers, second son of the Earl of Clarendon, "the Nereus of the party, comely, with the flaxen hair." Wraxall, Posthumous Memoirs, i. 279.
