surrounding nations stare;
  A kingdom trusted to a school-boy’s care.

It is to be observed to the credit of our author, that, although his political principles are unquestionably favourable to the present happy government, he does not scruple, with that boldness which ever characterises real genius, to animadvert with freedom on persons of the most elevated rank and station; and he has accordingly interspersed his commendations of our favourite young Minister with much excellent and reasonable counsel, fore-warning him of the dangers to which he is by his situation exposed. After having mentioned his introduction into public life, and concurred in that admirable panegyric of his immaculate virtues, made in the House of Commons by a noble Lord already celebrated in the poem, upon which he has the following observation:

  ———As MULGRAVE, who so fit
  To chaunt the praises of ingenious PITT?
  The nymph unhackney’d and unknown abroad,
  Is thus commended by the hackney’d bawd.
  The dupe enraptur’d, views her fancied charms,
  And clasps the maiden mischief to his arms,
  Till dire disease reveals the truth too late:
  O grant my country, Heav’n, a milder fate!

he attends him to the high and distinguished station he now so ably fills, and, in a nervous strain of manly eloquence, describes the defects of character and conduct to which his situation, and the means by which he came to it, render him peculiarly liable. The spirit of the following lines is remarkable:

  Oft in one bosom may be found allied,
  Excess of meanness, and excess of pride:
  Oft may the Statesman, in St. Stephen’s brave,
  Sink in St. James’s to an abject slave;
  Erect and proud at Westminster, may fall
  Prostrate and pitiful at Leadenhall;
  In word a giant, though a dwarf in deed,
  Be led by others while he seems to lead.

He afterwards with great force describes the lamentable state of humiliation into which he may fall from his present pinnacle of greatness, by too great a subserviency to those from whom he has derived it, and appeals to his pride in the following beautiful exclamation:

    Shall CHATHAM’s offspring basely beg support,
    Now from the India, now St. James’s court;
    With pow’r admiring Senates to bewitch,
    Now kiss a Monarch’s—now a Merchant’s breech;
    And prove a pupil of St. Omer’s school,
    Of either KINSON, AT. or JEN. the tool?

Though cold and cautious criticism may perhaps stare at the boldness of the concluding line, we will venture to pronounce it the most masterly stroke of the sublime to be met with in this, or any other poem. It may be justly said, as Mr. Pope has so happily expressed it—

  “To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.”
                                    ESSAY ON CRITICISM.

As we despair of offering any thing equal to this lofty flight of genius to the reader of true taste, we shall conclude with recommending to him the immediate perusal of the whole poem, and, in the name of an admiring public, returning our heart-felt thanks to the wonderful author of this invaluable work.

* * * * *

NUMBER VI.

In our two last numbers we were happy to give our readers the earliest relish of those additional beauties, with which the nineteenth and twentieth impressions of the ROLLIAD are enriched. And these interpolations we doubt not have been sufficiently admired for their intrinsic merit, even in their detached state, as we gave them. But what superior satisfaction must they have afforded to those who have read them in their proper places! They are parts of a whole, and as such wonderfully improve the effect of the general design, by an agreeable interruption of prosaic regularity.