But take your choice); and then it grew a cloud; Satan replied, 'To me the matter is
And so it was-a cloud of witnesses.
But such a cloud! No land ere saw a crowd
Of locusts numerous as the heavens saw these:
They shadow'd with their myriads space; their
loud
And varied cries were like those of wild geese
(If nations may be liken'd to a goose),
And realized the phrase of 'hell broke loose.'
Indifferent, in a personal point of view:
I can have fifty better souls than this [through,
With far less trouble than we have gone
Already; and I merely argued his
Late Majesty of Britain's case with you
Upon a point of form: you may dispose
Of him; I've kings enough below, God knows!
Thus spoke the Demon (late call'd 'multifaced'
By multo-scribbling Southey). Then we'll call
One or two persons of the myriads placed
Around our congress, and dispense with all
The rest,' quoth Michael: 'Who may be so
graced
[who shall
As to speak first? there's choice enough-
It be ?' Then Satan answer'd, 'There are
many:
But you may choose Jack Wilkes as well as any.
A merry, cock-eyed, curious-looking sprite
Upon the instant started from the throng,
Dress'd in a fashion now forgotten quite;
For all the fashions of the flesh stick long
By people in the next world; where unite
All the costumes since Adam's, right or
wrong,
From Eve's fig-leaf down to the petticoat,
Almost as scanty, of days less remote.
The spirit look'd around upon the crowds
Assembled, and exclaim'd, 'My friends of all
The spheres, we shall catch cold amongst these
clouds;
So let's to business: why this general call?
If those are freeholders I see in shrouds,
And 'tis for an election that they bawl, Behold a candidate with unturn'd coat! Saint Peter, may I count upon your vote?'
'Sir,' replied Michael, you mistake; these things
Are of a former life, and what we do Above is more august; to judge of kings Is the tribunal met so now you know.' 'Then I presume those gentlemen with wings, Said Wilkes, 'are cherubs; and that soul below [mind Looks much like George the Third, but to my A good deal older-Bless me! is he blind?'
He is what you behold him, and his doom
Depends upon his deeds, the Angel said.
If you have aught to arraign in him, the tomb
Gives licence to the humblest beggar's head
To lift itself against the loftiest.'-'Some,'
Said Wilkes, 'don't wait to see them laid in
Now it wax'd little, then again grew bigger, With now an air of gloom, or savage mirth; But as you gazed upon its features, they Changed every instant-to what, none could say.
The more intently the ghosts gazed, the less Could they distinguish whose the features
The Devil himself seem'd puzzled even to guess; They varied like a dream-now here, now there;
And several people swore from out the press,
They knew him perfectly; and one could swear He was his father: upon which another Was sure he was his mother's cousin's brother: LXXVII.
Another, that he was a duke, or knight,
An orator, a lawyer, or a priest,
A nabob, a man-midwife; but the wight
Mysterious changed his countenance at least As oft as they their minds: though in full sight He stood, the puzzle only was increased: The man was a phantasmagoria in Himself-he was so volatile and thin. LXXVIII.
The moment that you had pronounced him one, Presto! his face changed, and he was another;
And when that change was hardly well put on, It varied, till I don't think his own mother (If that he had a mother) would her son
Have known, he shifted so from one to
t'other;
Till guessing from a pleasure grew a task,
At this epistolary Iron Mask."
For sometimes he like Cerberus would seem'Three gentlemen at once' (as sagely says Good Mrs Malap op): then you might deem That he was not even one; now many rays Were flashing round him; and now a thick steam Hid him from sight - like fogs on London days: [fancies. Tow Burke, now Tooke, he grew to people's And certes often like Sir Philip Francis.
I've an hypothesis--'tis quite my own;
I never let it out till now, for fear
Of doing people harm about the throne,
And injuring some minister or peer,
On whom the stigma might perhaps be blown :
It is my gentle public, lend thine ear!
'Tis that what Junius we are wont to call
Was really, truly, nobody at all.
I don't see wherefore letters should not be Written without hands, since we daily view Them written without heads; and books, we
Are fill'd as well without the latter too:
Belongs to all of us, you understand.
I snatch'd him up just as you see him there,
And brought him off for sentence out of hand:
I've scarcely been ten minutes in the air-
At least a quarter it can hardly be:
I dare say that his wife is still at tea.
LXXXVIII.
Here Satan said, 'I know this man of old,
And have expected him for some time here ;
A sillier fellow you will scarce behold,
Or more conceited in his petty sphere : But surely it was not worth while to fold
Such trash below your wing, Asmodeus dear: We had the poor wretch safe (without being
He ceased, and drew forth an MS.; and no
Persuasion on the part of devils, saints,
Or angels, now could stop the torrent; so
He read the first three lines of the contents;
But at the fourth, the whole spiritual show
Had vanish'd, with variety of scents,
Of which he butter'd both sides: 'twould delay Too long the assembly (he was pleas'd to dread), And take up rather more time than a day, To name his works-he would but cite a few-Ambrosial and sulphureous, as they sprang 'Wat Tyler,' 'Rhymes on Blenheim,' 'Water- Like lightning, off from his 'melodious twang.'t
Those grand heroics acted as a spell;
The angels stopp'd their ears and plied their pinions :
The devils ran howling, deafen'd, down to hell; The ghosts fled, gibbering, for their own dominions
(For 'tis not yet decided where they dwell,
And I leave every man to his own opinions);
Michael took refuge in his trump; but, lo,
His teeth were set on edge, he could not blow!
Saint Peter, who has hitherto been known
For an impetuous saint, upraised his keys,
And at the fifth line knock'd the poet down;
Who fell like Phaeton, but more at ease,
Into his lake, for there he did not drown;
A different web being by the destinies
Woven for the Laureate's final wreath, whene'er
Reform shall happen either here or there.
Alfonso, speaking of the Ptolemean system, said that had he been consulted at the creation of the world, he would have spared the Maker some absurdities.'
+ See Aubrey's account of the apparition which disappeared with a curious perfume and a most melodious twang:' or see the Antiquary, vol. i. p. 225.
He first sank to the bottom-like his works,
But soon rose to the surface-like himself;
For all corrupted things are buoy'd like corks,
By their own rottenness, light as an elf,
Or wisp that flits o'er a morass; he lurks,
It may be, still, like dull books on a shelf,
In his own den, to scrawl some 'Life' or 'Vision,'
As Welborn says-' the devil turn'd precisian.'
As for the rest, to come to the conclusion
Of this true dream, the telescope is gone
Which kept my optics free from all delusion,
And show'd me what I in my turn have shown;
Jone;
All I saw further, in the last confusion,
Was, that King George slipp'd into heaven for
And when the tumult dwindled to a calm,
I left him practising the hundredth psalm.
CARMEN SECULARE ET ANNUS HAUD MIRABILI'.
'Impar Congressus Achilli,'
THE 'good old times'—all times when old are good
Though Cleopatra's mummy cross the sea
O'er which from empire she lured Anthony;
Though Alexander's urn a show be grown
On shores he wept to conquer, though unknown-
How vain, how worse than vain, at length appear
The madman's wish, the Macedonian's tear!
He wept for worlds to conquer--half the earth
Knows not his name, or but his death, and birth,
Are gone; the present might be if they would:
Great things have been, and are, and greater still
Want little of mere mortals but their will:
A wider space, a greener field, is given
To those who play their 'tricks before high And desolation; while his native Greece
I know not if the angels weep, but men
Have wept enough-for what?--to weep again!
All is exploded-be it good or bad.
Reader! remember when thou wert a lad,
Then Pitt was all; or, if not all, so much,
His very rival almost deem'd him such.
We, we have seen the intellectual race
Of giants stand, like Titans, face to face-
Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea
Of eloquence between, which flow'd all free,
As the deep billows of the Ægean roar
Betwixt the Hellenic and the Phrygian shore.
But where are they-the rivals! a few feet
Of sullen earth divide each winding-sheet.
How peaceful and how powerful is the grave,
Which hushes all! a calm, unstormy wave,
Which oversweeps the world. The theme is old
Of 'dust to dust; but half its tale untold:
Time tempers not its terrors-still the worm
Wind its cold folds, the tomb preserves its form,
Varied above, but still alike below;
The urn may shine the ashes will not glow,
Hath all of desolation, save its peace.
He wept for worlds to conquer !' he who ne'er
Conceived the globe, he panted not to spare!
With even the busy Northern Isle unknown,
Which holds his urn, and never knew his throne.
111.
But where is he, the modern, mightier far,
Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car;
The new Sesostris, whose unharness'd kings,
Freed from the bit, believe themselves with
wings,
And spurn the dust o'er which they crawl'd of
Chain'd to the chariot of the chieftain's state?
Yes! where is he, the champion and the child
Of all that's great or little, wise or wild;
Whose game was empires, and whose stakes
were thrones ;
[bones?
Whose table earth-whose dice were human
Behold the grand result in yon lone isle,
And, as thy nature urges, weep or smile.
Sigh to behold the eagle's lofty rage
Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage;
Smile to survey the queller of the nations
Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations;
Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines,
• A drowned body lies at the bottom till rotten: it then O'er curtail'd dishes and o'er stinted wines:
Boats, as most people know
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