Felt by the senate's loud applause,
Thy manly truths shall plead its cause,
Thy counsels make it great.
Haste to correct these upstart things, These modern counsellors of kings, Who toy with state and power, Expose the lines they draw, and break, Blow down the baseless plans they make, Like play-things of an hour.
This gen'rous course of glory run,
Fame shall record thy triumph won,
The Muse her tribute pay:
Britannia to her sons shall tell,
That, anxious for the public weal,
'Grenville ne'er lost a day.'
ON HIS BEING APPOINTED COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF
O THOU, whom placemen all adore,
Of the exchequer chancellor,
And first lord of the treasury,
How can a Muse, in humble strain,
Pretend thy merits to explain,
Or how in numbers measure you!
Let Grafton, shunning public strife,
Sink in the bosom of his wife,
Scared at the York petition;
But thou shalt still maintain the field, With heart in two-fold conscience steel'd,
And combat opposition.
Bold in their front tho' Dowdeswell stand,
With string of motions in his hand,
Maxims of hard digestion !
Unanswer'd they shall perish all,
Clogg'd with amendments in their fall,
Or choak'd by previous question.
Whilst thou, like Falstaff, tak'st the floor,
With men in buckram thirteen score,
No cause you have to fear him :
The Speaker, too, with looks so big,
Waits but the motion of thy leg
To point, and call out---Hear him!
On either hand, from left to right,
The chiefs all marshall'd for the fight,
Press to partake thy glory :
There Barrington, with sugar'd tongue,
De Grey the old, and Fox the Young,
The flower of oratory.
Here Palmerston, and blundering Clare,
And patient Mungo every where,
And Thurlow puts his case in ;
While all amid th' opposing rout,
The dauntless Rigby, tall and stout,
Pushes a modest face in.
Elliot, with accents broad and strong,
And Jenkinson, with arms so long,
Still join to help the farce on:
Ellis and Strange their voices lend,
With Onslow, Wilkes's only friend,
That since has sued the parson.
With crest erect, like Priam's son,
Lead but your trusty Trojans on,
Regardless of desertion,
Like Swiss, they faithfully obey;
Like Swiss, too, they must have their pay,
Post, pension, and reversion.
In other fields let Grafton reap
A victory more safe and cheap,
With stars and garters hemm'd in ; Weymouth to answer Richmond's duke, And sober Sandwich to rebuke
Both Rockingham and Camden.
With Scottish peers complete sixteen,
Bishops in meet array are seen,
Content- ---to earn promotion;
And Mansfield, ever constant found,
And Marchmont ready to propound
In Erse a midnight motion.
Great polar star, who now secure
Beams in the sky the cynosure
Of courtly navigation,
Oh, deign to shed thy influence forth On him whose needle points at North, Without a variation !
|