Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
The retirement of Pitt from the Ministry, has given his successor,
Addington, the honour of making the peace. But the services of the great
Master are not eclipsed by the fortunes of the follower. Addington is
universally regarded as the shadow of Pitt; moving only as he moves;
existing by his existence; and exhibiting merely in outline his reality.
Every one believes that Pitt must return to power; and those who are
inclined to think sulkily of all ministers, look upon the whole as an
intrigue, to save Pitt's honour to the Irish Roman Catholics, and yet
preserve his power. Those rumours have received additional strength from
a grand dinner given the other day in the city, on his birthday, at
which his friends mustered in great force, and his name was toasted with
the most lavish panegyric. Among the rest, a song, said to be by George
Rose, of whose claims to the laurel no one had ever heard before--was
received with great applause. Some of its stanzas were sufficiently
applicable.
"No Jacobin rites in our fetes shall prevail,
Ours the true feast of reason, the soul's social flow;
Here we cherish the friend, while the patriot we hail,
As true to his country--as stern to her foe.
Impress'd with his worth,
We indulge in our mirth,
And bright shines the planet that ruled at his birth.
Round the orbit of Britain, oh, long may it move,
Like the satellite circling the splendours of Jove!
"To the name of a Pitt, in the day of the past,
Her rank 'mid the nations our country may trace;
Though his statue may moulder, his memory will last,
The great and the good live again in their race;
Ere to time's distant day,
Our marble convey
The fame that now blooms, and will know no decay,
Our fathers' example our breasts shall inspire
And we'll honour the Son as they honour'd the Sire."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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