Thomas Beddoes to an Unidentified Correspondent, [1796]
[Stock summarises a letter that has not been traced since. Referring to Beddoes as the writer of An Essay on the Public Merits of Mr. Pitt (London: printed for J. Johnson, 1796), he says:] It had been the intention of the Author that this essay should be illustrated by two etchings, the designs for which he has given in a letter to one of his correspondents. In the first, which was intended as a vignette for the title-page, was to be represented a heart, ‘as flaccid as possible’ with a Genius standing near it, holding a spear surmounted by the cap of liberty. The other end was to be near the heart, and a spark to be seen issuing from it and striking it. Round it was wound a scroll containing two mottos. One in Latin, Lateat scintillula forsan. The other in English:
Thou British heart that liest so pale and cold
Shall never spark thy latent fires unfold?
Warm with rekindling life thy torpid clay,
And bid once more thy patriot pulses play?
For the second his design was a column decorated with death’s heads, leaning on one side, with a gaping fissure at its base, threatening to crush the by-standers in its fall; and containing a short inscription to Mr. Pitt; which, perhaps, exceeded in severity any of his former attacks upon him.
Published: Stock, p. 120