370 Memoir of Archibald Campbell Swinton. 



And, as to mock the dying light of day, 



One tallow candle shed a flickering ray 



From off the desk whence not an honr before 



Carson had poured the tide of classic lore. 



That tallow candle was an emblem fit 



Of those who used beneath its glow to sit, — 



Poor, slow, uncertain, solitary, dim. 



As were the nascent energies of him 



Who, all untaught to plead a party's cause. 



Glanced at the Chair, and thought he saw the tawse ; 



Then trembling rose, and from his lips just sent 



The old exordium, 'Mr President' — 



Looked at his notes, cough'd, hemmed with thoughtful frown, 



Looked at his notes again, — and then sat down !" 



These lines are contained in an address written for a supper of 

 the Classical Society several years afterwards. The volume 

 from which I quote contains many similar performances. These 

 were the days of the first Reform Bill. Swinton was always a 

 Tory of the bluest dye ; but he was the most liberal Tory I 

 ever knew. He has some lines of kindly greeting to his 

 classical opponents among the passages to which I have 

 referred, and some very kindly lines addressed to myself. He 

 hated "the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill," 

 which was the Liberal cry in 1831, and he pleads that verj' 

 laudable feeling in a letter which I had from hira at the time, 

 in which he justified himself for having blown to atoms the 

 only woodcock which he had seen in a day's grouse shooting. 

 He said he had the bill and the whole bill, but then he had 

 nothing but the bill, the merit of which he did not see. 



There are, in this volume, some very spirited lines in 

 allusion to the French Revolution and tlie "tricolor." the 

 last stanza of which is the following : — 



"For the red is the rebel's appropriate hue, 

 The blue, livid envy's foul stain, 

 And the white is pale terror that trembles to do 

 The deeds the base heart can contain ; 

 But the red rose of England, and Scotland's brown heath. 

 Twined with Ireland's green shamrock we see ; 

 Then let's bind them closer with loyalties free, 

 That's the tricolour, Britain, for thee." 



This was published in Blackwood's Magazine, and it is a very 

 fair specimen of his power of versification. 



