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mollia tempora fandi, and his parasites would insinuate, that, in a private dozing moment, he caught a few straggling ideas of that great man; that he is, in fact, in possession of some designs, some etchings, outlines, and drawings, which that great master left imperfect, and to which this young artist will give the finishing touch. In fact, they would represent Mr. Pitt as a hermit, who taught this young Norval, exclusively, his whole art and trade, in some lone retreat; or, to come to a closer parallel, they would assimilate Mr. Pitt and Mr. Canning, to Mahomet and his magpye; or, as some say, pigeon, the sole depository of the Prophet's secrets. In every point of view, then, this phrase," The School of Pitt," as descriptive of the present Ministers, is one of the most fulsome and disgusting efforts of servile flattery, that has for a long time disgraced the public press.

EPIGRAM

ON SHR WILLIAM CURTIS'S ADDRESS TO THE LIVERY OF LONDON, WHEREIN HE RECAPITULATES

FORMER FROFESSIONS TO THEM.

[From the Morning Chronicle, May 6]

TIS wishes to tickle the Citizens' ears

CURTI

With a list of professions of twenty long years;
This will add to his honours, so novel the plan,
For he now may be deem'd a Professional Man.

HIS

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SIR,

PARSON HORNE.

[From the same, May 13.]

I AM infinitely rejoiced to find, that after all the aberrations and declinations of our political planets,

they are beginning again to revolve in their ancient

courses.

Courses. To see John Horne, after so long an interval, writing letters to the newspapers, reminds me of the good old times when the name of Parson Horne was as regularly served up in the columns of a daily paper, as that of Dr. Solomon in the present day. The Parson, indeed, has not yet absolutely resumed. his former station in the daily press; but it is a good deal that he has published a shilling pamphlet, addressed to the Editor of a newspaper.

It is not so much the subject of this Epistle, as the example of it, that inspires me with joy, for it seems to me the forerunner of a new series. I have always considered Horne's Letters to Wilkes as a perfect digest of newspaper scurrility; and, as Mr. Shandy used to say of the excommunication of Ernulphus, it was impossible to swear out of it; so I have always thought it impossible to be scurrilous out of the Parson's Epistles. In addition to the Digest, however, we are now likely to have the Novels to complete the system.

Being not much interested in the dispute between Mr. Horne Tooke and Mr. Paull, and being moreover ignorant of the facts, I shall leave Mr. Paull either to answer by himself or by proxy. At present, I beg leave to make a few remarks on the Parson's allusions to his influence over Sir Francis Burdett. He says

"And, if my advice had been as omnipotent as the dirty scribblers of the day have chosen to represent it, over the mind of Sir Francis Burdett, he never would have been a candidate at all. Nor did I ever labour by entreaty more earnestly for any thing, than I did from the beginning, and before the beginning, to dissuade Sir Francis from being a candidate for. Middlesex and, for his sake, I rejoice that he is not returned to Parliament for that place, or for any other."

From this we learn, that Mr. Horne Tooke had long

in

in vain dissuaded Sir Francis Burdett from being a candidate for a seat in Parliament. It appears, however, that his advice has at last proved omnipotent, for Sir Francis Burdett has agreed to have nothing to do with Parliament.

I do not mean, Sir, to question the right of any individual to judge and settle the utility or inutility of his going into Parliament. At the most, it seems, we only lose two of our friends; for Mr. Horne Tooke tells us, "If my opinion shall be adopted, it will not exclude many persons from Parliament, for I know of no other such men as Sir Francis Burdett." What, only two of you? Alas the day! there live not three good men unhanged in England.

Perhaps I agree entirely with Sir Francis and his preceptor, that neither of them could be of the least utility to this country in Parliament, and therefore I am neither displeased nor alarmed at their determination; the gentlemen have a right to make themselves scarce; "They cannot," as Jack Falstaff says, "last for ever; but it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common;" and what is now doing in Covent Garden shows it. Let Sir Francis and the Parson lie by if they please. The one tells us that he has learned caution from age, and the other may perchance learn something from it and the Parson. God forbid they should be compelled to do any thing to retard the regeneration of the country, which now advances so rapidly under our best friends," the present Ministry.

66

It is worth while, however, to ascertain the date when Parson Horne discovered that such men as himself could do no good in Parliament: it seems to have been about the time of the general election of 1802. By the dissolution the Parson was for ever cut off from sitting in the House of Commons till a regeneration;

regeneration; the law in regard to persons having been in orders then applying to his case. That he had thought that he might do good-in Parliament before that, we cannot help believing, since he came in for Old Sarum: it is perfectly true, however, that he did no good; he proposed no measure either for our regeneration, or for any thing else. Having, in 1802, become incapable of sitting in Parliament himself, he immediately discovered that Sir Francis Burdett could do no good, and, therefore, dissuaded him from standing for Middlesex.

Here I must protest against any allusion to sop's Fables; and the Fox, who, having lost his tail in a trap, would have persuaded his companions or disciples to cut off theirs. Horne Tooke had lost the privilege, and he persuaded Sir Francis to forego it. This was perfectly proper. Non est super magistrum discipulus. I consider it highly unbecoming in Sir Francis that he did not listen to the sage counsels of his Mentor sooner; it was arrogant and presumptuous in him to imagine he could do good where Parson Horne could do none; experience, however, has made him wiser, and for the future, I trust, more obedient. Last year he was only half convinced, and he risked a new experiment at Brentford, which has rendered him completely submissive: the gracious youth, upon that occasion, divested himself of all the false decorations in which he had appeared the first time. In unadorned loveliness of political virtue he exposed himself to the admiration of his friends at Brentford; but, alas! "probitas laudatur et alget." Sir Francis Burdett was at the bottom of the poll.

I do not wonder that, after this repulse, Sir Francis became really disgusted. There is a story in Marmontel told very pleasantly, and, what Horne Tooke I know does not dislike, somewhat lusciously, of a vain young man who took a conceit of wishing to

be

be loved for his own sake. He had made love, and succeeded; but he would needs try, at length, whether the ladies would love him without his taking any trouble with them; the thing would not do: it had the same result with Sir Francis Burdett's coquetry at Brentford, when he hoped that the electors would choose him for his own sake, without any quid pro quo whatever.

I can make ample allowance for a man being mortified, who finds that the love of the rabble is not quite so much for his own sake as he has flattered himself; and therefore I am not surprised that Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. Horne Tooke can now fully sympathize. They can now sit together in melancholy contemplation of public affairs, and exclaim, like another Fox in Esop, when he surveyed the grapes, Ομφακες 'Oμpanes Tisi, that is, "Things are not ripe; we must wait till our best friends, the Ministry, hạvệ wrought our regeneration."

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In the agreeable visions which that pious hope must naturally inspire, I am willing to leave this matchless pair. Parson Horne needs something to support his spirits against the ingratitude, or rather the forgetfulness, of mankind. To write in or to the newspapers, will keep his name in the mouth of the public; a gratification for which Parson Horne has ever shown a most exquisite relish: for my part, I wish rather that he would write more winged words." He excels, doubtless, in that branch; and let him consider that his book circulates at once philology and political scandal. Scriblerus's plan of making Martinus eat the Greek alphabet in gingerbread, is nothing to the ingenuity of Horne Tooke, who contrives to force an Oxford Tory, or a Cambridge Time-server, to swallow a great dose of Wimbledon politics, when he opens his mouth to ask what's the meaning of that!

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