second was an explanation in reference to his relative, Sir Thomas Pye, who had been alluded to in the course of the debate; and, in the third, on a discussion on the hay exportation bill, in 1788, he informed the House that his constituents had suffered from a scanty hay harvest that year.
In 1790, his appointment to the Laureateship took place. Some of Warton's odes, of which we have presented the reader with a fair sample, had been really so much above the smooth mediocrity of Whitehead, and the absolute doggerel of Cibber, that Pye felt that his was a difficult task in succeeding to an office just vacated by a man of genius and taste. He therefore toiled to produce his two odes a-year with punctual precision, and elaborated them with careful industry. They are good rhetorical verse of the tumid kind. They breathe a spirit of ardent patriotism and devoted loyalty. That for his Majesty's birthday, June 4th, 1792, commences in the following rather magnificent style:
"Heard ye the blast, whose sullen roar
Burst dreadful from the angry skies?
Saw ye against the craggy shore
The waves in wild contention rise?"
and concludes with a direct allusion to the great occasion for which it was composed:
"To welcome George's natal hour,
No vain display of empty power,
In flattery steep'd, no soothing lay
Shall strains of adulation pay;
But Commerce rolling deep and wide
To Albion's shores her swelling tide,
But Themis' olive cinctur'd head,
And white rob'd Peace by Victory led,
Shall fill thy breast with virtuous pride,
Shall give him power to truth allied;
Joys which alone a patriot King can prove,
A nation's strength his power, his pride a people's love."
