If they journey on to Scotland, from Glasgow to John o'
Groat's, every where will they receive similar marks of approbation. If
they take a trip from Portpatrick to Donaghadee, there will they rush at
once into the embraces of four Catholic millions, to whom their vote of
this night is about to endear them for ever. When they return to the
metropolis, if they can pass under Temple Bar without unpleasant
sensations at the sight of the greedy niches over that ominous gateway,
they cannot escape the acclamations of the livery, and the more
tremulous, but not less sincere, applause, the blessings, "not loud, but
deep," of bankrupt merchants and doubting stock-holders. If they look to
the army, what wreaths, not of laurel, but of nightshade, are preparing
for the heroes of Walcheren! It is true, there are few living deponents
left to testify to their merits on that occasion; but a "cloud of
witnesses" are gone above from that gallant army which they so
generously and piously despatched, to recruit the "noble army of
martyrs."
What if in the course of this triumphal career (in which they will
gather as many pebbles as Caligula's army did on a similar triumph, the
prototype of their own,) they do not perceive any of those memorials
which a grateful people erect in honour of their benefactors; what
although not even a sign-post will condescend to depose the Saracen's
head in favour of the likeness of the conquerors of Walcheren, they will
not want a picture who can always have a caricature, or regret the
omission of a statue who will so often see themselves exalted into
effigy.
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