The truth was mounted on an unusually high wind. It was indeed a
leading article of a banner-like bravery, and the unrolling of it was
designed to stir emotions. Beauchamp was the theme. Nevil had it under
his eyes earlier than Cecil. The paper was brought into his room with
the beams of day, damp from the presses of the _Bevisham Gazette_,
exactly opposite to him in the White Hart Hotel, and a glance at the
paragraphs gave him a lively ardour to spring to his feet. What
writing! He was uplifted as “The heroical Commander Beauchamp, of the
Royal Navy,” and “Commander Beauchamp, R.N., a gentleman of the highest
connections”: he was “that illustrious Commander Beauchamp, of our
matchless, navy, who proved on every field of the last glorious war of
this country that the traditional valour of the noble and indomitable
blood transmitted to his veins had lost none of its edge and weight
since the battle-axes of the Lords de Romfrey, ever to the fore, clove
the skulls of our national enemy on the wide and fertile campaigns of
France.” This was pageantry.
There was more of it. Then the serious afflatus of the article
condescended, as it were, to blow a shrill and well-known whistle:—the
study of the science of navigation made by Commander Beauchamp, R.N.,
was cited for a jocose warranty of a seaman’s aptness to assist in
steering the Vessel of the State. After thus heeling over, to tip a
familiar wink to the multitude, the leader tone resumed its fit
deportment. Commander Beauchamp, in responding to the invitation of the
great and united Liberal party of the borough of Bevisham, obeyed the
inspirations of genius, the dictates of humanity, and what he rightly
considered the paramount duty, as it is the proudest ambition, of the
citizen of a free country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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