Ici ROLLON, fessé soir & matin,

Beaucoup souffrit, point n'apprit de Latin.
Aux fiers combats bien mieux joua son rôle :
Tuer des gens lui parut chose drôle.

Femme epousa, plus douce que satin,

Et, par bonheur, déjà veuve & catin;

D'elle reçut un fils & la v

-le.

Ainsi, Lecteur, naquit le premier ROLLE!

But to return to our author. After the vision of the column, MERLIN proceeds in a short speech to intimate to ROLLO, that higher honours may yet await his descendant in the House of Lords,

Where ROLLE may be, what ROLLO was before,

This, as may be naturally supposed, excites the curiosity of the Duke; but MERLIN declares, that it is not permitted him to reveal the glories of the Upper house. The hero must first fulfil his fates, by mortally wounding the Saxon drummer, whom Providence shall inspire in his last moments for this particular purpose.

Ere yet thou know, what higher honours wait
Thy future race, accomplish thou thy fate.

When now the bravest of our Saxon train

Beneath thy conquering arms shall press the plain;

What yet remains, his voice divine in death

Shall tell, and Heav'n for this shall lengthen out his breath.

Which last line is most happily lengthened out into an Alexandrine, to make the sound an echo to the sense. The pause too after the words "shall tell," finely marks the sudden catches and spasmodic efforts of a dying man. Some extracts from the Drummer's prophecies have already been given to the public; and from these specimens of his loquacity with a thurst in quarte through his lungs, our readers will probably see the propriety with which the immediate hand of Heaven is here introduced. The most rigid critic will not deny that here is truly

the

Dignus vindice nodus,

which Horace requires to justify the interposition of a Divinity.

We are now come to the concluding lines of the sixth book. Our readers are probably acquainted with the commonly-received superstition relative to the exit of Magicians, that they are carried away by Devils. The poet has made exquisite use of this popular belief, though he could not help returning in the last line to his favourite Virgil. Classical observers will immediately perceive the allusion to

-Revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras

Hic labor, hoc opus est;

in the description of ROLLO's re-ascent from

the night-cellar into the

open air.

The Prophet foreseeing his instant end,

"At once, farewel," he said. But, as he said,
Like mortal bailiffs to the sight array'd,
Two fiends advancing seiz'd, and bore away
To their dark dens the much-resisting prey:
While ROLLO nimbly clamber'd in a fright,
Tho' steep and difficult the way, to light.

And thus ends the sixth book of the ROLLIAD; which we have chosen for the subject of the FIRST PART of our CRITICISMS. In the second part, which is now going on in the Morning-Herald, where the first draughts of the present numbers were originally published, we shall pursue our Commentary through the House of Peers; and in a third part, for which we are now preparing and arranging materials, it is our intention to present our readers with a series of anecdotes from the political history of our ministry, which our author has artfully contrived to interweave in his inimitable poem. And here, while we are closing this first Part, we cannot but congratulate ourselves,

that we have been the humble instruments of first calling the attention of the learned to this wonderful effort of modern genius, the fame of which has already exceeded the limits of this island, and perhaps may not be circumscribed by the present age; which, we have the best reason to believe, will very shortly diffuse the glory of our present Rulers in many and distant quarters of the globe; and which may not improbably descend to exhibit them in their true colours to remote posterity. That we indeed imagine our Criticisms to have contributed very much to this great popularity of the ROLLIAD, we will not attempt to conceal. And this persuasion shall animate us to continue our endeavours with redoubled application, that we may complete, as early as possible, the design, which we have some time since formed to ourselves, and which we have now submitted to the Public; happy, if that which is yet to come, be received with the same degree of favour as this, which is now finished, so peculiarly experienced even in its most imperfect condition.

END OF PART THE FIRST.

ON

THE ROLLIAD.

PART THE SECOND.

NUMBER I.

WE have now followed our admirable author through the Sixth Book of his poem; very much to our own edification, and, we flatter ourselves, no less to the satisfaction of our readers. We have shewn the art with which he has introduced a description of the leading characters of our present House of Commons, by a contrivance something similar indeed to that employed by Virgil, but at the same time sufficiently unlike to substantiate his own claim to originality. And surely every candid critic will admit, that had he satisfied himself with the same device, in order to panegyrize his fa