Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; De Quincey, Thomas, 1785-1859
"Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see--at
What conflux issuing forth or entering in;
Pretors, proconsuls, to their provinces
Hasting, or on return in robes of state;
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power;
Legions or cohorts, turns of horse and wings;
Or embassies from regions far remote,
In various habits on the Appian road,
Or on the Emilian; some from farthest south,
Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,
Meroë, Nilotic isle: and, more to west,
The realm of Bocchus to the Blackmoor Sea;
From India and the Golden Chersonese,
And utmost Indian isle, Taprobane,
--Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed;
From Gallia, Gades, and the British, west,
Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians, north,
Beyond Danubius to the Tauric pool."
With this superb picture, or abstraction of the Roman pomps and power,
when ascending to their utmost altitude, confront the following
representative sketch of a great English levee on some high solemnity,
suppose the king's birthday: "Amongst the presentations to his majesty,
we noticed Lord O. S., the governor general of India, on his departure
for Bengal; Mr. U. Z., with an address from the Upper and Lower Canadas;
Sir L. V., on his appointment as commander of the forces in Nova Scotia;
General Sir ----, on his return from the Burmese war, ["the Golden
Chersonese,"] the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet; Mr. B.
Z., on his appointment to the chief justiceship at Madras; Sir R. G., the
late attorney general at the Cape of Good Hope; General Y. X., on taking
leave for the governorship of Ceylon, ["the utmost Indian isle,
Taprobane;"] Lord F. M., the bearer of the last despatches from head
quarters in Spain; Col. P., on going out as captain general of the forces
in New Holland; Commodore St. L., on his return from a voyage of
discovery towards the north pole; the King of Owhyhee, attended by
chieftains from the other islands of that cluster; Col. M'P., on his
return from the war in Ashantee, upon which occasion the gallant colonel
presented the treaty and tribute from that country; Admiral ----, on his
appointment to the Baltic fleet; Captain O. N., with despatches from the
Red Sea, advising the destruction of the piratical armament and
settlements in that quarter, as also in the Persian Gulf; Sir T. O'N.,
the late resident in Nepaul, to present his report of the war in that
territory, and in adjacent regions--names as yet unknown in Europe; the
governor of the Leeward Islands, on departing for the West Indies;
various deputations with petitions, addresses, &c., from islands in
remote quarters of the globe, amongst which we distinguished those from
Prince Edward Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, from, the Mauritius,
from Java, from the British settlement in Terra del Fuego, from the
Christian churches in the Society, Friendly, and Sandwich Islands--as
well as other groups less known in the South Seas; Admiral H. A., on
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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