Note 201 — Chapter X
Reading edition
This brilliant composition has so many beauties, and excites throughout such deep interest, that it seems to be almost an abuse of criticism to note its defects. The author, of course, wrote under a strong bias, and for a temporary purpose; but his genius has cast a halo over his opinions and his political associates, which has enlisted posterity on his side.
The passage to which Walpole refers is in reply to some gloomy statements of the decline of our trade.—“What if all he says of the state of this balance were true? If these [custom-house entries] prove us to be ruined, we were always ruined. Some ravens, indeed, have always croaked out this kind of song. They have a malignant delight in presaging mischief, when they are not employed in doing it. They are miserable and disappointed at every instance of the public prosperity. They overlook us, like the malevolent being of the poet,—
“‘Tritonida conspicit arcem Ingeniis, opibusque, et festâ pace viventem, Vixque tenet lachrymas quia nil lachrymabile cernit.’”—E.