There Paddy brogued By Jasus 1'—'What's your! The rest,' quoth Michael: Who may be so graced wull ?

As to speak first? there's choice enough-who The temperate Scot exclaim'd: the French ghost

shall swore

It be? Then Satan answer'd, “There are many; In certain terms I shan't translate in full,

But you inay choose Jack Wilkes as well as any." As the first coachman will; and 'midst the war, The voice of Jonathan was heard to express,

LXVI. Our President is going to war, I guess.'

A merry, cock-eyed, curious-looking sprite

Upon the instant started from the throng.
LX,

Dress'd in a fashion now forgotten quite;
Besides, there were the Spaniard, Dutch, and Dane; For all the fashions of the flesh stick long
In short, an universal shoal of shades,

By people in the next world; where unite From Otaheite's isle to Salisbury Plain,

All the costumes since Adam's, right or wrong,
Of all climes and profcssions, years and trades, From Eve's fig-leaf down to the petticoat,
Ready to swear against the good king's reign, Almost as scanty, of days less remote.
Bitter as clubs in cards are against spades:

LXVII.
All summon'd by this grand subpoena,'to
Try if kings mayn't be damn'd like me or you. The spirit look'd around upon the crowds

Assembled, and exclaim'd, 'My friends of all
LXI.

The spheres, we shall catch cold amongst these When Michael saw this host, he first grew pale,

clouds; As angels can; next, like Italian twilight,

So let's to business: why this general call ? He turn d all colours-as a peacock's tail,

If those are freeholders I see in shrouds, Or sunset streaming through a Gothic skylight And 'tis for an election that they bawl, In some old abbey, or a trout not stale,

Behold a candidate with unturn'd coat! Or distant lightning on the horizon by night,

Saint Peter, may I count upon your vote!" Or a fresh rainbow, or a grand review of thirty regiments in red, green, and blue.

LXVIII.

Sir,' replied Michael, you mistake; these things LXII.

Are of a former life, and what we do Then he address'd himself to Satan : Why,

Above is more august; to judge of kings My good old friend--for such I deem you, though

Is the tribunal met: so now you know.' Our different parties make us fight so shy,

• Then I presume those gentlemen with wings, I ne'cr mistake you for a personal foe :

Said Wilkes, are cherubs; and that soul below Our difference is political, and I

Looks much like George the Third, but to my mind Trust that, whatever may occur below,

A good deal older-Bless me! is he blind ?'
You know my great respect for you: and this
Makes me regret whate'er you do amiss-

LXIX.

He is what you behold him, and his doom
LXIII.

Depends upon his deeds,'the Angel said.
Why, my dear Lucifer, would you abuse

If you have aught to arraign in him, the tomb My call for witnesses! I did not mean

Gives licence to the humblest beggar's head That you should half of earth and hell produce;

To lift itself against the loftiest. Some, 'Tis even superfluous, since two honest, clean,

Said Wilkes, don't wait to see them laid in lead True testimonies are enough : we lose

For such a liberty; and I, for one, Our time, nay, our eternity, between

Have told them what I thought beneath the sun.' The accusation and defence: if we Hear both, 'twill stretch our immortality.'

LXX.

Above the sun repeat, then, what thou hast
I.XIV.

To urge against him,' said the Archangel. Why.' Satan replied, 'To me the matter is

Replied the spirit, since old scores are past, Indifferent, in a personal point of view :

Must I turn evidence! In faith, not I. I can have fifty better souls than this

Besides, I beat him hollow at the last, With far less trouble than we have gone tlırough

With all his Lords and Commons: in the sky Already; and I merely argued his

I don't like ripping up old stories, since Late Majesty of Britain's case with you

His conduct was but natural in a prince. Upon a point of form: you may dispose

LXXI.
Of him; I've kings enough below, God knows :

Foolish, no doubt, and wicked, to oppress
Lxv.

A poor unlucky devil without a shilling;
Thus spoke the Demon (late call'd 'multifaced'

But then I blame the man himself much less By multo-scribbling Southey). "Then we'll call

Than Bute and Grafton;" and shall be unwilling One or two persons of the myriads placed Around our congress, and dispense with all

• George III.'s Ministers.

To see him punish d here for their excess,

LXXVIIT. Since they were both damn'd long ago, and still in!

The moment that you had pronounced hiin one, Their place below: for me, I have forgiven,

Presto! his face changed, and he was another ; And vote his habeas corpus into heaven.

And when that change was hardly well put on,

It varied, till I don't think his own mother
LXXII.

(If that he had a mother) would her son Wilkes,' said the devil, I understand all this;

Have known, he shifted so from one to t'other ; You turn'd to half a courtier ere you died,

Till guessing from a pleasure grew a task,
And seem to think it would not be amiss

At this epistolary Iron Mask.'
To grow a whole one on the other side
Of Charon's ferry; you forget that his

LXXIX.
Reign is concluded: whatsoe'er betide,

For sometimes he like Cerberus would seemHe won't be sovereign more: you've lost your : •Three gentlemen at once' (as sagely says bour,

Good Mrs. Malaprop): then you might decin For at the best he will but be your neighbour.

That he was not even one. Now many rays

Were Aashing round him; and now a thick steam LXXIII

Hid him from sight-like fogs on London days : However, I knew what to think of it,

Now Burke, now Tooke, he grew to people's When I beheld you in your jesting way,

fancies, Flitting and whispering round about the spit And certes often like Sir Philip Francis.

Where Belial, upon duty for the day, With Fox's lard was basting William Pitt,

LXXX. His pupil; I knew what to think, I say:

I've an hypothesis-'tis quite my own; That fellow cven in hell breeds further ills;

I never let it out till now, for fear I'l! lave him gagg'd-'twas one of his own bills.

Of doing people harm about the throne,

And injuring some minister or peer,
LXXIV.

On whom the stigma might perhaps be blown: Call Junius! From the crowd a shadow stalk'd,

It is--my gentle public, lend thine ear! And at the name there was a general squeeze,

'Tis that what Junius we are wont to call So that the very ghosts no longer walk'd

Was really, truly, nobody at all.
In comfort, at their own aërial ease,
But were all ramm'd, and jamm'd (but to be balk'd,!

LXXXI
As we shall see), and jostled hands and knees,

I don't see wherefore letters should not be Like wind compress'd and pent within a bladder,

Written without hands, since we daily view Or like a human colic, which is sadder.

Them written without heads; and books, we see,

Are filled as well without the latter too:
LXXV.

And really till we fix on somebody
The shadow came--a tall, thin, grey-hair'd figure,

For certain sure to claim them as his due, That look'd as it had been a shade on earth;

Their author, like the Niger's mouth, will bother Quick in its motions, with an air of vigour,

The world to say if there be mouth or author
But nought to mark its breeding or its birth :
Now it wax'd little, then again grew bigger,

LXXXII.
With now an air of gloom, or savage mirth;

And who and what art thou l' the Archangel said, But as you gazed upon its features, they

For that you may consult my title-page,' Changed every instant-to what, none could say.

Replied this mighty shadow of a shade: 1.XXVI.

If I have kept my secret half an age, The more intently the ghosts gazed, the less

I scarce shall tell it now.' 'Canst thou upbraid, Could they distinguish whose the features were ;

Continued Michael, George Rex, or allege The Devil himself seem'd puzzled even to guess;

Aught further? Junius answer'd, “You had better They varied like a dream-now here, now there;

First ask him for his answer to my letter:
And several people swore from out the press,

LXXXIII
They knew him perfectly; and one could swear
He was his father : upon which another

My charges upon record will outlast
Was sure he was his mother's cousin's brother :

The brass of both his epitaph and tomb.'

Repent'st thou not,' said Michael, of some past LXXVII.

Exaggeration? Something which may doom Another, that he was a duke, or knight,

Thyself if false, as him if true? Thou wast An orator, a lawyer, or a priest,

Too bitter-is it not so ?-in thy gloom A nabob, a man-midwife ; but the wight

Of passion Passion !' cried the phantom dim, Mysterious changed his countenance at least • I loved my country, and I hated him, As oft as they their minds: though in full sight He stood, the puzzle only was increased :

LXXXIV. The man was a phantasmagoria in

• What I have written, I have written: let Himself-he was so volatile and thin

The rest be on his head or mine!' So spoke

Old Nominis L'mbra ; and while speaking yet, To all unhappy hearers within reach
Away he melted in celestial smoke.

Of poets when the tide of rhyme's in flow;
Then Satan said to Michael, 'Don't forget

But stuck fast with his first hexameter,
To call George Washington and John Horne Not one of all whose gouty feet would stir.

Tooke,
And Franklin.' But at this time there was heard

XCI.
A cry for room, though not a phantom stirr'd. But ere the spavin'd dactyls could be spurr'd

Into recitative, in great dismay,
LXXXV.

Both cherubim and seraphin were heard
At length with jostling, elbowiug, and the aid

To murmur loudly through their long array: Of cherubim appointed to that post,

And Michael rose ere he could get a word The devil Asmodeus to the circle made

Of all his founder'd verses under way, His way, and look'd as if his journey cost

And cried, For God's sake stop, my friend; 'twere Some trouble. When his burden down he laid,

bestWhat's this?' cried Michael; why, 'tis not al

Non Di, non homines-you know the rest.' ghost!'

XCIT. I know it,' quoth the incubus; but he

A general bustle spread throughout the throng, Shall be one, ii you leave the affair to me.

Which seem'd to hold all verse in detestation : LXXXVI.!

The angels had of course enough of song

When upon service; and the generation 'Confound the renegado! I have sprain il

Of ghosts had heard too much in life, not long My left wing, he's so heavy; one would think

Before, to profit by a new occasion: Some of his works about his neck were chain'd.

The monarch, mute till then, exclaiin'd, 'What! But to the point: while hovering o'er the brink

what! or Skiddaw (where as usual it still rain'd),

Pye* come again? No more--no more of that!' I saw a taper, far below me, wink, And stooping, caught this fellow at a libel

XCIII. No less on history than the Holy Bible.

The tumult grew; an universal cough

Convulsed the skies, as during a debate,
LXXXVII.

When Castlereagh has been up long enough * The former is the devil's scripture, and

(Before he was First Minister of State, The latter yours, good Michael; so the affair

I mean-the slaves kear now); some cried, 'Off, Belongs to all of us, you understand.

offi' I snatch'd him up just as you see him there,

As at a farce; till, grown quite desperate,
And brought him off for sentence out of hand : The bard Saint Peter pray'd to interpose
I've scarcely been ten minutes in the air-

(Himself an author) only for his prose.
At least a quarter it can hardly be:
I dare say that his wife is still at tea.

XCIV.

The varlet was not an ill-favour'd knave;
LXXXVIII.

A good deal like a vulture in the face,
Here Satan said, 'I know this man of old,

With a hook nose and a hawk's eye, which gave And have expected him for some time here;

A smart and sharper-looking sort of grace A sillier fellow you will scarce behold,

To his whole aspect, which, though rather grave, Or more conceited in his petty sphere :

Was by no means so ugly as his case ;
But surely it was not worth while to fold

But that indeed was hopeless as can be,
Such trash below your wing, Asmodeus dear : Quite a poetic felony 'de sc.'
We had the poor wretch safe (without being bored

XCV.
With carriage) coming of his own accord.

Then Michael blew his trump, and still'd the noise LXXXIX.

With one still greater, as is yet the mode But since he's here, let's see what he has done.' On earth besides : except some grumbling voice Done!' cried Asmodeus; "he anticipates

Which now and then will make a slight inroad The very business you are now upon,

Upon decorous silence, few will twice And scribbles as if head clerk to the Fates.

Lift up their lungs when fairly overcrow'd; Who knows to what his ribaldry may run,

And now the bard could plead his own bad cause, When such an ass as this, like Balaam's prates!"

With all the attitudes of self-applause. 'Let's hear,' quoth Michael, 'what he has to say;

XCVI. You know we're bound to that in every way.'

He said--(I only give the heads)--he said,

He meant no harm in scribbling; 'twas his way

Upon all topics; 'twas, besides, his bread, Now the bard, glad to get an audience, which

of which he butter'd both sides : 'twould delay'. By no means often was his case below, Began to cough, and hawk, and hem, and pitch His voice into that awful note of woe

* George II1.'s Poet Laureate

* See Life of Henry Kirke IVhite.

• See Aubrey's account of the apparition which dis. + Alfonso, speaking of the Ptolemean system, saill appeared with a curious perfume and a most melothat had he been consulted at the creation of the dious trang :' or see the Antiqnary, vol. I, p. 225. world, he would have spared the Maker some ab. A drowned body lies at the bottoni till rotten; it surdities.'

then floats, as most people know,

OR,
CARMEN SECULARE ET ANNUS HAUD MIRABILIS.

'Impar Congressus Achilli.'

11.

| The new Sesostris, whose unharness'd kings, The good old times'-all times when old are good- Freed from the bit, believe themselves with wings, Are gone; the present might be if they would ;

And spurn the dust o'er which they crawld of late, Great things have been, and are, and greater still Chain'd to the chariot of the chieftain's state ? Want little of mere mortals but their will :

Yes! where is he, the champion and the child A wider space, a greener field, is given

Of all that's great or little, wise or will, To those who play their tricks before high heaven.' Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were I know not if the angels weep, but men

thrones; Have wept enough--for what ?-to weep again! Whose table earth-whose dice were human bones i

Behold the grand result in yon lone isle,

And, as thy nature urges, weep or smile. All is exploded-be it good or bad.

Sigh to behold the eagle's lofty rage Reader! remember when thou wert a lad,

Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage ; Then Pitt was all; or, if not all, so much,

Smile to survey the queller of the nations His very rival almost deem d him such.

Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations ;

Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines,
We, we have seen the intellectual race

O'er curtail'd dishes and o'er stinted wines;
Of giants stand, like Titans, face to face-
Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea

O'er petty quarrels upon petty things.

Is this the man who scourged or feasted kings! Of eloquence between, which flow'd all free,

Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs,
As the deep billows of the Ægean roar
Betwixt the Hellenic and the Phrygian shore.

A surgeon's statement, and an earl's harangues !

A bust delayed, a book refused, can shake
But where are they--the rivals! a few feet
Of sullen earth divide each winding sheet.

The sleep of him who kept the world awake.
How peaceful and how powerful is the grave,

Is this indeed the tamer of the great, Which hushes all! a calm, unstormy wave,

Now slave of all could tease or irritateWhich oversweeps the world. The theme is old

The paltry gaoler and the prying spy, Of dust to dust;' but half its tale untold :

The staring stranger with his note-book nigh?

Plunged in a dungeon he had still been great ; Time tempers not its terrors-still the worm

How low, how little was this middle state, Winds its cold folds, the tomb preserves its form,

Between a prison and a palace, where Varied above, but still alike below;

How few could feel for what he had to bear! The urn may shine, the ashes will not glow,

Vain his complaint,- my lord presents his bill, Though Cleopatra's mummy cross the sea

His food and wine were doled out duly still; O'er which from empire she lured Anthony;

Vain was his sickness, never was a clime Though Alexander's urn a show be grown

So free from homicide-to doubt's a crime; On shores he wept to conquer, though unknown

And the stiff surgeon, who maintain d his cause, How vain, how worse than vain, at length appear

Hath lost his place, and gaind the world's applause, The madman's wish, the Macedonian's tear!

But smile-though all the pangs of brain and heart He wept for worlds to conquer--half the earth knows not his name, or but his death, and birth,

Disdain, defy, the tardy aid of art; And desolation ; while his native Greece

Though, save the few fond friends and imaged face

Of that fair boy his sire shall ne'er embrace,
Hath all of desolation, save its peace.
He wept for worlds to conquer l' he who ne'er

None stand by his low bed-though even the mind Conceived the globe, he panted not to spare!

Be wavering, which long awed and awes mankind :

Smile-for the fetter'd eagle breaks his chain, With even the busy Northern Isle unknown,

And higher worlds than this are his again. Which holds his urn, and never knew his throne.

iv.

111. But where is he, the modern, mightier far, Who, horn no king, made monarchs draw his car

How, if that soaring spirit still retain
A conscious twilight of his blazing reign,