[The reference may be to financial terms, such as sinking fund (a phrase not introduced by Pitt), the English equivalent of 'caisse d'amortissement', or income tax ('impôt sur le revenu'), or to actual French words such as 'chouannerie, projet', etc. But Pitt's "additions" are unnoticed by Frere and other reporters and critics of his speeches. For a satirical description of Pitt's words, "which are finer and longer than can be conceived," see 'Rolliad', 1799; 'Political Miscellanies', p. 421; and 'Political Eclogues', p. 195. "And Billy best of all things loves--a trope." Compare, too, Peter Pindar, "To Sylvanus Urban," 'Works' (1812), ii. 259. "Lycurgus Pitt whose penetrating eyes Behold the fount of Freedom in excise, Whose 'patriot' logic possibly maintains The 'identity' of 'liberty' and 'chains'."]] [Footnote 6: Old ballads, old plays, and old women's stories, are at present in as much request as old wine or new speeches. In fact, this is the millennium of black letter: thanks to our Hebers, Webers, and Scotts! [Richard Heber (1773-1833), book-collector and man of letters, was half-brother of the Bishop of Calcutta. He edited, 'inter alia', 'Specimens of the Early English Poets', by George Ellis, 3 vols., London: 1811. W. H. Weber (1783-1818), a German by birth, was employed by Sir Walter Scott as an amanuensis and "searcher." He edited, in 1810, 'Metrical Romances of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Centuries', a work described by Southey ('Letters', ii. 308) as "admirably edited, exceedingly curious, and after my own heart." He also published editions of Ford, and Beaumont and Fletcher, which were adversely criticized by Gifford. For an account of his relations to Scott and of his melancholy end, see Lockhart's 'Life of Scott' (1871), p. 251.]] [Footnote 7: 'Mac Flecknoe', the 'Dunciad', and all Swift's lampooning ballads. Whatever their other works may be, these originated in personal feelings, and angry retort on unworthy rivals; and though the ability of these satires elevates the poetical, their poignancy detracts from the personal character of the writers.] [Footnote 8: 'Almanzor: or the Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards', a Tragedy by John Dryden. The bombastic character of the hero was severely criticized in Dryden's own time, and was defended by him thus: "'Tis said that Almanzor is no perfect pattern of heroic virtue, that he is a contemner of kings, and that he is made to perform impossibilities. I must therefore avow, in the first place, from whence I took the character. The first image I had of him was from the Achilles of Homer: the next from Tasso's Rinaldo, and the third from the Artaban of Mons. Calprenède.... He talks extravagantly in his passion, but if I would take the trouble to quote from Ben Jonson's Cethegus, I could easily show you that the rhodomontades of Almanzor are neither so irrational as his nor so impossible to be put in execution."