QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS.

P.S.--It is possible that some readers may object, in these

objectionable times, to the freedom with which saints, angels, and

spiritual persons discourse in this _Vision_. But, for precedents upon

such points, I must refer him to Fielding's _Journey from this World to

the next_, and to the Visions of myself, the said Quevedo, in Spanish

or translated.[496] The reader is also requested to observe, that no

doctrinal tenets are insisted upon or discussed; that the person of the

Deity is carefully withheld from sight, which is more than can be said

for the Laureate, who hath thought proper to make him talk, not "like a

school-divine,"[497] but like the unscholarlike Mr. Southey. The whole

action passes on the outside of heaven; and Chaucer's _Wife of Bath_,

Pulci's _Morgante Maggiore_, Swift's _Tale of a Tub_, and the other

works above referred to, are cases in point of the freedom with which

saints, etc., may be permitted to converse in works not intended to be

serious.

Q.R.

* * * Mr. Southey being, as he says, a good Christian and vindictive,

threatens, I understand, a reply to this our answer. It is to be hoped

that his visionary faculties will in the meantime have acquired a little

more judgment, properly so called: otherwise he will get himself into

new dilemmas. These apostate jacobins furnish rich rejoinders. Let him

take a specimen. Mr. Southey laudeth grievously "one Mr. Landor,"[498]

who cultivates much private renown in the shape of Latin verses; and

not long ago, the poet laureate dedicated to him, it appeareth, one of

his fugitive lyrics, upon the strength of a poem called "_Gebir_." Who

could suppose, that in this same Gebir the aforesaid Savage Landor (for

such is his grim cognomen) putteth into the infernal regions no less a

person than the hero of his friend Mr. Southey's heaven,--yea, even

George the Third! See also how personal Savage becometh, when he hath a

mind. The following is his portrait of our late gracious sovereign:--

(Prince Gebir having descended into the infernal regions, the

shades of his royal ancestors are, at his request, called up to his

view; and he exclaims to his ghostly guide)--

"'Aroar, what wretch that nearest us? what wretch

Is that with eyebrows white and slanting brow?

Listen! him yonder who, bound down supine,

Shrinks yelling from that sword there, engine-hung;

He too amongst my ancestors! [I hate

The despot, but the dastard I despise.

Was he our countryman?'

'Alas,][499] O king!

Iberia bore him, but the breed accurst

Inclement winds blew blighting from north-east.'

'He was a warrior then, nor fear'd the gods?'

'Gebir, he feared the Demons, not the gods,

Though them indeed his daily face adored;

And was no warrior, yet the thousand lives

Squandered, as stones to exercise a sling,

And the tame cruelty and cold caprice--

Oh madness of mankind! addressed, adored!'"

_Gebir_ [_Works, etc._, 1876, vii. 17].

I omit noticing some edifying Ithyphallics of Savagius, wishing to keep

the proper veil over them, if his grave but somewhat indiscreet

worshipper will suffer it; but certainly these teachers of "great moral

lessons" are apt to be found in strange company.

THE VISION OF JUDGMENT.[500]

I.

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate:

His keys were rusty, and the lock was dull,

So little trouble had been given of late;

Not that the place by any means was full,

But since the Gallic era "eighty-eight"

The Devils had ta'en a longer, stronger pull,

And "a pull altogether," as they say

At sea--which drew most souls another way.

II.

The Angels all were singing out of tune,

And hoarse with having little else to do,

Excepting to wind up the sun and moon,

Or curb a runaway young star or two,[fz]

Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon

Broke out of bounds o'er the ethereal blue,

Splitting some planet with its playful tail,

As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale.

III.

The Guardian Seraphs had retired on high,

Finding their charges past all care below;[ga]

Terrestrial business filled nought in the sky

Save the Recording Angel's black bureau;

Who found, indeed, the facts to multiply

With such rapidity of vice and woe,

That he had stripped off both his wings in quills,

And yet was in arrear of human ills.

IV.

His business so augmented of late years,

That he was forced, against his will, no doubt,

(Just like those cherubs, earthly ministers,)

For some resource to turn himself about,

And claim the help of his celestial peers,[gb]

To aid him ere he should be quite worn out

By the increased demand for his remarks:[gc]

Six Angels and twelve Saints were named his clerks.

V.

This was a handsome board--at least for Heaven;

And yet they had even then enough to do,

So many Conquerors' cars were daily driven,

So many kingdoms fitted up anew;

Each day, too, slew its thousands six or seven,

Till at the crowning carnage, Waterloo,

They threw their pens down in divine disgust--

The page was so besmeared with blood and dust.[gd]

VI.

This by the way; 'tis not mine to record

What Angels shrink from: even the very Devil

On this occasion his own work abhorred,

So surfeited with the infernal revel:

Though he himself had sharpened every sword,[ge]

It almost quenched his innate thirst of evil.

(Here Satan's sole good work deserves insertion--

'Tis, that he has both Generals in reversion.)[gf][501]

VII.

Let's skip a few short years of hollow peace,

Which peopled earth no better, Hell as wont,

And Heaven none--they form the tyrant's lease,

With nothing but new names subscribed upon't;

'Twill one day finish: meantime they increase,[gg]

"With seven heads and ten horns," and all in front,

Like Saint John's foretold beast; but ours are born

Less formidable in the head than horn.[gh]

VIII.

In the first year of Freedom's second dawn[502]

Died George the Third; although no tyrant, one

Who shielded tyrants, till each sense withdrawn[gi]

Left him nor mental nor external sun:[503]

A better farmer ne'er brushed dew from lawn,[gj]

A worse king never left a realm undone!

He died--but left his subjects still behind,

One half as mad--and t'other no less blind.[gk][504]

IX.

He died! his death made no great stir on earth:

His burial made some pomp; there was profusion

Of velvet--gilding--brass--and no great dearth

Of aught but tears--save those shed by collusion:

For these things may be bought at their true worth;

Of elegy there was the due infusion--

Bought also; and the torches, cloaks and banners,

Heralds, and relics of old Gothic manners,[505]

X.

Formed a sepulchral melodrame. Of all

The fools who flocked to swell or see the show,

Who cared about the corpse? The funeral

Made the attraction, and the black the woe,

There throbbed not there a thought which pierced the pall;

And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low,

It seemed the mockery of hell to fold

The rottenness of eighty years in gold.[506]

XI.

So mix his body with the dust! It might

Return to what it _must_ far sooner, were

The natural compound left alone to fight

Its way back into earth, and fire, and air;

But the unnatural balsams merely blight

What Nature made him at his birth, as bare

As the mere million's base unmummied clay--

Yet all his spices but prolong decay.[507]

XII.

He's dead--and upper earth with him has done;

He's buried; save the undertaker's bill,

Or lapidary scrawl, the world is gone

For him, unless he left a German will:[508]

But where's the proctor who will ask his son?

In whom his qualities are reigning still,[gl]

Except that household virtue, most uncommon,

Of constancy to a bad, ugly woman.

XIII.

"God save the king!" It is a large economy

In God to save the like; but if he will

Be saving, all the better; for not one am I

Of those who think damnation better still:[509]

I hardly know too if not quite alone am I

In this small hope of bettering future ill

By circumscribing, with some slight restriction,

The eternity of Hell's hot jurisdiction.

XIV.

I know this is unpopular; I know

'Tis blasphemous; I know one may be damned

For hoping no one else may e'er be so;

I know my catechism; I know we're crammed

With the best doctrines till we quite o'erflow;

I know that all save England's Church have shammed,

And that the other twice two hundred churches

And synagogues have made a _damned_ bad purchase.

XV.

God help us all! God help me too! I am,

God knows, as helpless as the Devil can wish,

And not a whit more difficult to damn,

Than is to bring to land a late-hooked fish,

Or to the butcher to purvey the lamb;

Not that I'm fit for such a noble dish,

As one day will be that immortal fry

Of almost every body born to die.

XVI.

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate,

And nodded o'er his keys: when, lo! there came

A wondrous noise he had not heard of late--

A rushing sound of wind, and stream, and flame;

In short, a roar of things extremely great,

Which would have made aught save a Saint exclaim;

But he, with first a start and then a wink,

Said, "There's another star gone out, I think!"[gm]

XVII.

But ere he could return to his repose,

A Cherub flapped his right wing o'er his eyes--

At which Saint Peter yawned, and rubbed his nose:

"Saint porter," said the angel, "prithee rise!"

Waving a goodly wing, which glowed, as glows

An earthly peacock's tail, with heavenly dyes:

To which the saint replied, "Well, what's the matter?

"Is Lucifer come back with all this clatter?"

XVIII.

"No," quoth the Cherub: "George the Third is dead."

"And who _is_ George the Third?" replied the apostle:

"_What George? what Third?_" "The King of England," said

The angel. "Well! he won't find kings to jostle

Him on his way; but does he wear his head?

Because the last we saw here had a tustle,

And ne'er would have got into Heaven's good graces,

Had he not flung his head in all our faces.

XIX.

"He was--if I remember--King of France;[510]

That head of his, which could not keep a crown

On earth, yet ventured in my face to advance

A claim to those of martyrs--like my own:

If I had had my sword, as I had once

When I cut ears off, I had cut him down;

But having but my _keys_, and not my brand,

I only knocked his head from out his hand.

XX.

"And then he set up such a headless howl,

That all the Saints came out and took him in;

And there he sits by Saint Paul, cheek by jowl;[gn]

That fellow Paul--the parvenù! The skin[511]

Of Saint Bartholomew, which makes his cowl

In heaven, and upon earth redeemed his sin,

So as to make a martyr, never sped

Better than did this weak and wooden head.

XXI.

"But had it come up here upon its shoulders,

There would have been a different tale to tell:

The fellow-feeling in the Saint's beholders

Seems to have acted on them like a spell;

And so this very foolish head Heaven solders

Back on its trunk: it may be very well,

And seems the custom here to overthrow

Whatever has been wisely done below."

XXII.

The Angel answered, "Peter! do not pout:

The King who comes has head and all entire,

And never knew much what it was about--

He did as doth the puppet--by its wire,

And will be judged like all the rest, no doubt:

My business and your own is not to inquire

Into such matters, but to mind our cue--

Which is to act as we are bid to do."

XXIII.

While thus they spake, the angelic caravan,

Arriving like a rush of mighty wind,

Cleaving the fields of space, as doth the swan

Some silver stream (say Ganges, Nile, or Inde,

Or Thames, or Tweed), and midst them an old man

With an old soul, and both extremely blind,

Halted before the gate, and, in his shroud,

Seated their fellow-traveller on a cloud.[512]

XXIV.

But bringing up the rear of this bright host

A Spirit of a different aspect waved

His wings, like thunder-clouds above some coast

Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is paved;

His brow was like the deep when tempest-tossed;

Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved

Eternal wrath on his immortal face,

And _where_ he gazed a gloom pervaded space.

XXV.

As he drew near, he gazed upon the gate

Ne'er to be entered more by him or Sin,

With such a glance of supernatural hate,

As made Saint Peter wish himself within;

He pottered[513] with his keys at a great rate,

And sweated through his Apostolic skin:[go]

Of course his perspiration was but ichor,

Or some such other spiritual liquor.[gp]

XXVI.

The very Cherubs huddled all together,

Like birds when soars the falcon; and they felt

A tingling to the tip of every feather,

And formed a circle like Orion's belt

Around their poor old charge; who scarce knew whither

His guards had led him, though they gently dealt

With royal Manes (for by many stories,

And true, we learn the Angels all are Tories).

XXVII.

As things were in this posture, the gate flew

Asunder, and the flashing of its hinges

Flung over space an universal hue

Of many-coloured flame, until its tinges

Reached even our speck of earth, and made a new

Aurora borealis spread its fringes

O'er the North Pole; the same seen, when ice-bound,

By Captain Parry's crew, in "Melville's Sound."[gq][514]

XXVIII.

And from the gate thrown open issued beaming

A beautiful and mighty Thing of Light,[515]

Radiant with glory, like a banner streaming

Victorious from some world-o'erthrowing fight:

My poor comparisons must needs be teeming

With earthly likenesses, for here the night

Of clay obscures our best conceptions, saving

Johanna Southcote,[516] or Bob Southey raving.[517]

XXIX.

'Twas the Archangel Michael: all men know

The make of Angels and Archangels, since

There's scarce a scribbler has not one to show,

From the fiends' leader to the Angels' Prince.

There also are some altar-pieces, though

I really can't say that they much evince

One's inner notions of immortal spirits;

But let the connoisseurs explain _their_ merits.

XXX.

Michael flew forth in glory and in good;

A goodly work of him from whom all Glory

And Good arise; the portal past--he stood;

Before him the young Cherubs and Saints hoary--

(I say _young_, begging to be understood

By looks, not years; and should be very sorry

To state, they were not older than St. Peter,

But merely that they seemed a little sweeter).

XXXI.

The Cherubs and the Saints bowed down before

That arch-angelic Hierarch, the first

Of Essences angelical who wore

The aspect of a god; but this ne'er nursed

Pride in his heavenly bosom, in whose core

No thought, save for his Maker's service, durst

Intrude, however glorified and high;

He knew him but the Viceroy of the sky.

XXXII.

He and the sombre, silent Spirit met--

They knew each other both for good and ill;

Such was their power, that neither could forget

His former friend and future foe; but still

There was a high, immortal, proud regret

In either's eye, as if 'twere less their will

Than destiny to make the eternal years

Their date of war, and their "Champ Clos" the spheres.

XXXIII.

But here they were in neutral space: we know

From Job, that Satan hath the power to pay

A heavenly visit thrice a-year or so;

And that the "Sons of God," like those of clay,

Must keep him company; and we might show

From the same book, in how polite a way

The dialogue is held between the Powers

Of Good and Evil--but 'twould take up hours.

XXXIV.

And this is not a theologic tract,[518]

To prove with Hebrew and with Arabic,

If Job be allegory or a fact,

But a true narrative; and thus I pick

From out the whole but such and such an act

As sets aside the slightest thought of trick.

'Tis every tittle true, beyond suspicion,

And accurate as any other vision.

XXXV.

The spirits were in neutral space, before

The gate of Heaven; like eastern thresholds is[519]

The place where Death's grand cause is argued o'er,

And souls despatched to that world or to this;

And therefore Michael and the other wore

A civil aspect: though they did not kiss,

Yet still between his Darkness and his Brightness

There passed a mutual glance of great politeness.

XXXVI.

The Archangel bowed, not like a modern beau,

But with a graceful oriental bend,

Pressing one radiant arm just where below[gr]

The heart in good men is supposed to tend;

He turned as to an equal, not too low,

But kindly; Satan met his ancient friend[gs]

With more hauteur, as might an old Castilian

Poor Noble meet a mushroom rich civilian.

XXXVII.

He merely bent his diabolic brow

An instant; and then raising it, he stood

In act to assert his right or wrong, and show

Cause why King George by no means could or should

Make out a case to be exempt from woe

Eternal, more than other kings, endued

With better sense and hearts, whom History mentions,

Who long have "paved Hell with their good intentions."[520]

XXXVIII.

Michael began: "What wouldst thou with this man,

Now dead, and brought before the Lord? What ill

Hath he wrought since his mortal race began,

That thou canst claim him? Speak! and do thy will,

If it be just: if in this earthly span

He hath been greatly failing to fulfil

His duties as a king and mortal, say,

And he is thine; if not--let him have way."

XXXIX.

"Michael!" replied the Prince of Air, "even here

Before the gate of Him thou servest, must

I claim my subject: and will make appear

That as he was my worshipper in dust,

So shall he be in spirit, although dear

To thee and thine, because nor wine nor lust

Were of his weaknesses; yet on the throne

He reigned o'er millions to serve me alone.

XL.

"Look to _our_ earth, or rather _mine_; it was,

_Once, more_ thy master's: but I triumph not

In this poor planet's conquest; nor, alas!

Need he thou servest envy me my lot:

With all the myriads of bright worlds which pass

In worship round him, he may have forgot

Yon weak creation of such paltry things:

I think few worth damnation save their kings,

XLI.

"And these but as a kind of quit-rent, to

Assert my right as Lord: and even had

I such an inclination,'twere (as you

Well know) superfluous; they are grown so bad,

That Hell has nothing better left to do

Than leave them to themselves: so much more mad

And evil by their own internal curse,

Heaven cannot make them better, nor I worse.

XLII.

"Look to the earth, I said, and say again:

When this old, blind, mad, helpless, weak, poor worm

Began in youth's first bloom and flush to reign,

The world and he both wore a different form,

And much of earth and all the watery plain

Of Ocean called him king: through many a storm

His isles had floated on the abyss of Time;

For the rough virtues chose them for their clime.[521]

XLIII.

"He came to his sceptre young; he leaves it old:

Look to the state in which he found his realm,

And left it; and his annals too behold,

How to a minion first he gave the helm;[522]

How grew upon his heart a thirst for gold,

The beggar's vice, which can but overwhelm

The meanest hearts; and for the rest, but glance

Thine eye along America and France.

XLIV.

"'Tis true, he was a tool from first to last

(I have the workmen safe); but as a tool

So let him be consumed. From out the past

Of ages, since mankind have known the rule

Of monarchs--from the bloody rolls amassed

Of Sin and Slaughter--from the Cæsars' school,

Take the worst pupil; and produce a reign

More drenched with gore, more cumbered with the slain.

XLV.

"He ever warred with freedom and the free:

Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes,

So that they uttered the word 'Liberty!'

Found George the Third their first opponent. Whose

History was ever stained as his will be

With national and individual woes?[gt]

I grant his household abstinence; I grant

His neutral virtues, which most monarchs want;

XLVI.

"I know he was a constant consort; own

He was a decent sire, and middling lord.

All this is much, and most upon a throne;

As temperance, if at Apicius' board,

Is more than at an anchorite's supper shown.

I grant him all the kindest can accord;

And this was well for him, but not for those

Millions who found him what Oppression chose.

XLVII.

"The New World shook him off; the Old yet groans

Beneath what he and his prepared, if not

Completed: he leaves heirs on many thrones

To all his vices, without what begot

Compassion for him--his tame virtues; drones

Who sleep, or despots who have now forgot

A lesson which shall be re-taught them, wake

Upon the thrones of earth; but let them quake!

XLVIII.

"Five millions of the primitive, who hold

The faith which makes ye great on earth, implored

A _part_ of that vast _all_ they held of old,--[gu]

Freedom to worship--not alone your Lord,

Michael, but you, and you, Saint Peter! Cold

Must be your souls, if you have not abhorred

The foe to Catholic participation[523]

In all the license of a Christian nation.

XLIX.

"True! he allowed them to pray God; but as

A consequence of prayer, refused the law

Which would have placed them upon the same base

With those who did not hold the Saints in awe."

But here Saint Peter started from his place

And cried, "You may the prisoner withdraw:

Ere Heaven shall ope her portals to this Guelph,

While I am guard, may I be damned myself!

L.

"Sooner will I with Cerberus exchange

My office (and _his_ is no sinecure)

Than see this royal Bedlam-bigot range[gv]

The azure fields of Heaven, of that be sure!"

"Saint!" replied Satan, "you do well to avenge

The wrongs he made your satellites endure;

And if to this exchange you should be given,

I'll try to coax _our_ Cerberus up to Heaven!"

LI.

Here Michael interposed: "Good Saint! and Devil!

Pray, not so fast; you both outrun discretion.

Saint Peter! you were wont to be more civil:

Satan! excuse this warmth of his expression,

And condescension to the vulgar's level:[gw]

Even Saints sometimes forget themselves in session.

Have you got more to say?"--"No."--"If you please,

I'll trouble you to call your witnesses."

LII.

Then Satan turned and waved his swarthy hand,

Which stirred with its electric qualities

Clouds farther off than we can understand,

Although we find him sometimes in our skies;

Infernal thunder shook both sea and land

In all the planets--and Hell's batteries

Let off the artillery, which Milton mentions

As one of Satan's most sublime inventions.[524]

LIII.

This was a signal unto such damned souls

As have the privilege of their damnation

Extended far beyond the mere controls

Of worlds past, present, or to come; no station

Is theirs particularly in the rolls

Of Hell assigned; but where their inclination

Or business carries them in search of game,

They may range freely--being damned the same.

LIV.

They are proud of this--as very well they may,

It being a sort of knighthood, or gilt key

Stuck in their loins;[525] or like to an "entré"[gx]

Up the back stairs, or such free-masonry.

I borrow my comparisons from clay,

Being clay myself. Let not those spirits be

Offended with such base low likenesses;

We know their posts are nobler far than these.[gy]

LV.

When the great signal ran from Heaven to Hell--

About ten million times the distance reckoned

From our sun to its earth, as we can tell

How much time it takes up, even to a second,

For every ray that travels to dispel

The fogs of London, through which, dimly beaconed,

The weathercocks are gilt some thrice a year,

If that the _summer_ is not too severe:[526]

LVI.

I say that I can tell--'twas half a minute;

I know the solar beams take up more time

Ere, packed up for their journey, they begin it;[gz]

But then their Telegraph is less sublime,[527]

And if they ran a race, they would not win it

'Gainst Satan's couriers bound for their own clime.

The sun takes up some years for every ray

To reach its goal--the Devil not half a day.

LVII.

Upon the verge of space, about the size

Of half-a-crown, a little speck appeared

(I've seen a something like it in the skies

In the Ægean, ere a squall); it neared,

And, growing bigger, took another guise;

Like an aërial ship it tacked, and steered,[528]

Or _was_ steered (I am doubtful of the grammar

Of the last phrase, which makes the stanza stammer;

LVIII.

But take your choice): and then it grew a cloud;

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;[ha]

They shadowed with their myriads Space; their loud

And varied cries were like those of wild geese,[hb]

(If nations may be likened to a goose),

And realised the phrase of "Hell broke loose."[529]

LIX.

Here crashed a sturdy oath of stout John Bull,

Who damned away his eyes as heretofore:

There Paddy brogued "By Jasus!"--"What's your wull?"

The temperate Scot exclaimed: the French ghost swore

In certain terms I shan't translate in full,

As the first coachman will; and 'midst the war,[hc]

The voice of Jonathan was heard to express,

"_Our_ President is going to war, I guess."

LX.

Besides there were the Spaniard, Dutch, and Dane;

In short, an universal shoal of shades

From Otaheite's isle to Salisbury Plain,

Of all climes and professions, years and trades,

Ready to swear against the good king's reign,[hd]

Bitter as clubs in cards are against spades:[530]

All summoned by this grand "subpoena," to

Try if kings mayn't be damned like me or you.

LXI.

When Michael saw this host, he first grew pale,

As Angels can; next, like Italian twilight,

He turned all colours--as a peacock's tail,

Or sunset streaming through a Gothic skylight

In some old abbey, or a trout not stale,

Or distant lightning on the horizon by night,

Or a fresh rainbow, or a grand review

Of thirty regiments in red, green, and blue.

LXII.

Then he addressed himself to Satan: "Why--

My good old friend, for such I deem you, though

Our different parties make us fight so shy,

I ne'er mistake you for a _personal_ foe;

Our difference _political_, and I

Trust that, whatever may occur below,

You know my great respect for you: and this

Makes me regret whate'er you do amiss--

LXIII.

"Why, my dear Lucifer, would you abuse

My call for witnesses? I did not mean

That you should half of Earth and Hell produce;

'Tis even superfluous, since two honest, clean,

True testimonies are enough: we lose

Our Time, nay, our Eternity, between

The accusation and defence: if we

Hear both, 'twill stretch our immortality."

LXIV.

Satan replied, "To me the matter is

Indifferent, in a personal point of view:

I can have fifty better souls than this

With far less trouble than we have gone through

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!"

LXV.

Thus spoke the Demon (late called "multifaced"[531]

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

As to speak first? there's choice enough--who shall

It be?" Then Satan answered, "There are many;

But you may choose Jack Wilkes as well as any."

LXVI.

A merry, cock-eyed, curious-looking Sprite[532]

Upon the instant started from the throng,

Dressed 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.[533]

LXVII.

The Spirit looked around upon the crowds

Assembled, and exclaimed, "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 unturned coat![he]

Saint Peter, may I count upon your vote?"

LXVIII.

"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,"[hf]

Said Wilkes, "are Cherubs; and that soul below

Looks much like George the Third, but to my mind

A good deal older--bless me! is he blind?"

LXIX.

"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 license to the humblest beggar's head

To lift itself against the loftiest."--"Some,"

Said Wilkes, "don't wait to see them laid in lead,

For such a liberty--and I, for one,

Have told them what I thought beneath the sun."

LXX.

"_Above_ the sun repeat, then, what thou hast

To urge against him," said the Archangel. "Why,"

Replied the spirit, "since old scores are past,

Must I turn evidence? In faith, not I.

Besides, I beat him hollow at the last[534],

With all his Lords and Commons: in the sky

I don't like ripping up old stories, since

His conduct was but natural in a prince.

LXXI.

"Foolish, no doubt, and wicked, to oppress

A poor unlucky devil without a shilling;

But then I blame the man himself much less

Than Bute and Grafton[535], and shall be unwilling

To see him punished here for their excess,

Since they were both damned long ago, and still in

Their place below: for me, I have forgiven,

And vote his _habeas corpus_ into Heaven."

LXXII.

"Wilkes," said the Devil, "I understand all this;

You turned to half a courtier[536] ere you died,

And seem to think it would not be amiss

To grow a whole one on the other side

Of Charon's ferry; you forget that _his_

Reign is concluded; whatsoe'er betide,

He won't be sovereign more: you've lost your labour,

For at the best he will but be your neighbour.

LXXIII.

"However, I knew what to think of it,

When I beheld you in your jesting way,

Flitting and whispering round about the spit

Where Belial, upon duty for the day[hg],

With Fox's lard was basting William Pitt,

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

That fellow even in Hell breeds farther ills;

I'll have him _gagged_--'twas one of his own Bills[537].

LXXIV.

"Call Junius!" From the crowd a shadow stalked[538].

And at the name there was a general squeeze,

So that the very ghosts no longer walked

In comfort, at their own aërial ease,

But were all rammed, and jammed (but to be balked,

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

Like wind compressed and pent within a bladder,

Or like a human colic, which is sadder.[hh]

LXXV.

The shadow came--a tall, thin, grey-haired figure,

That looked as it had been a shade on earth[hi];

Quick in its motions, with an air of vigour,

But nought to mark its breeding or its birth;

Now it waxed little, then again grew bigger[hj],

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.

LXXVI.

The more intently the ghosts gazed, the less

Could they distinguish whose the features were;

The Devil himself seemed 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;[539] but the wight[hk]

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,[hl]

At this epistolary "Iron Mask."[540]

LXXIX.

For sometimes he like Cerberus would seem--

"Three gentlemen at once"[541] (as sagely says

Good Mrs. Malaprop); 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:

Now Burke, now Tooke, he grew to people's fancies

And certes often like Sir Philip Francis.

LXXX.

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,[hm]

Was _really--truly_--nobody at all.

LXXXI.

I don't see wherefore letters should not be

Written without hands, since we daily view

Them written without heads; and books, we see,

Are filled as well without the latter too:

And really till we fix on somebody

For certain sure to claim them as his due,

Their author, like the Niger's mouth,[542] will bother

The world to say if _there_ be mouth or author.

LXXXII.

"And who and what art thou?" the Archangel said.

"For _that_ you may consult my title-page,"[543]

Replied this mighty shadow of a shade:

"If I have kept my secret half an age,

I scarce shall tell it now."--"Canst thou upbraid,"

Continued Michael, "George Rex, or allege

Aught further?" Junius answered, "You had better

First ask him for _his_ answer to my letter:

LXXXIII.

"My charges upon record will outlast[hn]

The brass of both his epitaph and tomb."

"Repent'st thou not," said Michael, "of some past

Exaggeration? something which may doom

Thyself if false, as him if true? Thou wast

Too bitter--is it not so?--in thy gloom

Of passion?"--"Passion!" cried the phantom dim,

"I loved my country, and I hated him.

LXXXIV.

"What I have written, I have written: let

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

Old "_Nominis Umbra_;" and while speaking yet,

Away he melted in celestial smoke.

Then Satan said to Michael, "Don't forget

To call George Washington, and John Horne Tooke,

And Franklin;"[544]--but at this time there was heard

A cry for room, though not a phantom stirred.

LXXXV.

At length with jostling, elbowing, and the aid

Of Cherubim appointed to that post,

The devil Asmodeus[545] to the circle made

His way, and looked as if his journey cost

Some trouble. When his burden down he laid,

"What's this?" cried Michael; "why, 'tis not a ghost?"

"I know it," quoth the Incubus; "but he

Shall be one, if you leave the affair to me.

LXXXVI.

"Confound the renegado![546] I have sprained

My left wing, he's so heavy;[547] one would think

Some of his works about his neck were chained.

But to the point; while hovering o'er the brink

Of Skiddaw (where as usual it still rained),

I saw a taper, far below me, wink,

And stooping, caught this fellow at a libel--[ho]

No less on History--than the Holy Bible.

LXXXVII.

"The former is the Devil's scripture, and

The latter yours, good Michael: so the affair

Belongs to all of us, you understand.

I snatched 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."[548]

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 bored

With carriage) coming of his own accord.

LXXXIX.

"But since he's here, let's see what he has done."

"Done!" cried Asmodeus, "he anticipates

The very business you are now upon,

And scribbles as if head clerk to the Fates.[hp]

Who knows to what his ribaldry may run,

When such an ass[549] as this, like Balaam's, prates?"

"Let's hear," quoth Michael, "what he has to say:

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

XC.

Now the bard, glad to get an audience, which

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

To all unhappy hearers within reach

Of poets when the tide of rhyme's in flow;[550]

But stuck fast with his first hexameter,

Not one of all whose gouty feet would stir.

XCI.

But ere the spavined dactyls could be spurred

Into recitative, in great dismay

Both Cherubim and Seraphim were heard

To murmur loudly through their long array;

And Michael rose ere he could get a word

Of all his foundered verses under way,

And cried, "For God's sake stop, my friend! 'twere best--[551]

'_Non Di, non homines_'--you know the rest."[552]

XCII.

A general bustle spread throughout the throng,

Which seemed to hold all verse in detestation;

The Angels had of course enough of song

When upon service; and the generation

Of ghosts had heard too much in life, not long

Before, to profit by a new occasion:

The Monarch, mute till then, exclaimed, "What! what![553]

_Pye_[554] come again? No more--no more of that!"

XCIII.

The tumult grew; an universal cough

Convulsed the skies, as during a debate,

When Castlereagh has been up long enough

(Before he was first minister of state,

I mean--the _slaves hear now_); some cried "Off, off!"

As at a farce; till, grown quite desperate,

The Bard Saint Peter prayed to interpose

(Himself an author) only for his prose.

XCIV.

The varlet was not an ill-favoured knave;[hq][555]

A good deal like a vulture in the face,

With a hook nose and a hawk's eye, which gave

A smart and sharper-looking sort of grace

To his whole aspect, which, though rather grave,

Was by no means so ugly as his case;

But that, indeed, was hopeless as can be,

Quite a poetic felony "_de se_."

XCV.

Then Michael blew his trump, and stilled the noise

With one still greater, as is yet the mode

On earth besides; except some grumbling voice,

Which now and then will make a slight inroad

Upon decorous silence, few will twice

Lift up their lungs when fairly overcrowed;

And now the Bard could plead his own bad cause,

With all the attitudes of self-applause.

XCVI.

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,

Of which he buttered both sides; 'twould delay

Too long the assembly (he was pleased to dread),

And take up rather more time than a day,

To name his works--he would but cite a few--[hr]

"Wat Tyler"--"Rhymes on Blenheim"--"Waterloo."[556]

XCVII.

He had written praises of a Regicide;[557]

He had written praises of all kings whatever;

He had written for republics far and wide,

And then against them bitterer than ever;

For pantisocracy he once had cried[558]

Aloud, a scheme less moral than 'twas clever;

Then grew a hearty anti-jacobin--

Had turned his coat--and would have turned his skin.

XCVIII.

He had sung against all battles, and again

In their high praise and glory; he had called

Reviewing "the ungentle craft," and then[559]

Became as base a critic as e'er crawled--

Fed, paid, and pampered by the very men

By whom his muse and morals had been mauled:

He had written much blank verse, and blanker prose,

And more of both than any body knows.

XCIX.

He had written Wesley's[560] life:--here turning round

To Satan, "Sir, I'm ready to write yours,

In two octavo volumes, nicely bound,

With notes and preface, all that most allures

The pious purchaser; and there's no ground

For fear, for I can choose my own reviewers:

So let me have the proper documents,

That I may add you to my other saints."

C.

Satan bowed, and was silent. "Well, if you,

With amiable modesty, decline

My offer, what says Michael? There are few

Whose memoirs could be rendered more divine.

Mine is a pen of all work;[561] not so new

As it was once, but I would make you shine

Like your own trumpet. By the way, my own

Has more of brass in it, and is as well blown.[hs]

CI.

"But talking about trumpets, here's my 'Vision!'

Now you shall judge, all people--yes--you shall

Judge with my judgment! and by my decision

Be guided who shall enter heaven or fall.

I settle all these things by intuition,

Times present, past, to come--Heaven--Hell--and all,

Like King Alfonso[562]. When I thus see double,

I save the Deity some worlds of trouble."

CII.

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 vanished, with variety of scents,

Ambrosial and sulphureous, as they sprang,

Like lightning, off from his "melodious twang."[563]

CIII.

Those grand heroics acted as a spell;

The Angels stopped their ears and plied their pinions;

The Devils ran howling, deafened, 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 opinions);

Michael took refuge in his trump--but, lo!

His teeth were set on edge, he could not blow!

CIV.

Saint Peter, who has hitherto been known

For an impetuous saint, upraised his keys,

And at the fifth line knocked the poet down;[564]

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.

CV.

He first sank to the bottom--like his works,

But soon rose to the surface--like himself;

For all corrupted things are buoyed like corks,[565]

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,"[ht]

As Welborn says--"the Devil turned precisian."[566]

CVI.

As for the rest, to come to the conclusion

Of this true dream, the telescope is gone[hu]

Which kept my optics free from all delusion,

And showed me what I in my turn have shown;

All I saw farther, in the last confusion,

Was, that King George slipped into Heaven for one;

And when the tumult dwindled to a calm,

I left him practising the hundredth psalm.[567]

R^a^ Oct. 4, 1821.

FOOTNOTES:

[492] {481}["Aye, he and the count's footman were jabbering French like

two intriguing ducks in a mill-pond; and I believe they talked of me,

for they laughed consumedly."--Farquhar, _The Beaux' Stratagem_, act

iii. sc. 2.]

[493] {482}[These were not the expressions employed by Lord Eldon. The

Chancellor laid down the principle that "damages cannot be recovered for

a work which is in its nature calculated to do an injury to the public,"

and assuming _Wat Tyler_ to be of this description, he refused the

injunction until Southey should have established his right to the

property by an action. _Wat Tyler_ was written at the age of nineteen,

when Southey was a republican, and was entrusted to two booksellers,

Messrs. Ridgeway and Symonds, who agreed to publish it, but never put it

to press. The MS. was not returned to the author, and in February, 1817,

at the interval of twenty-two years, when his sentiments were widely

different, it was printed, to his great annoyance, by W. Benbow (see his

_Scourge for the Laureate_ (1825), p. 14), Sherwood, Neely and Jones,

John Fairburn, and others. It was reported that 60,000 copies were sold

(see _Life and Correspondence of R. Southey_, 1850, iv. 237, 241, 249,

252).]

[494] [William Smith, M.P. for Norwich, attacked Southey in the House of

Commons on the 14th of March, 1817, and the Laureate replied by a letter

in the _Courier_, dated March 17, 1817, and by a letter "To William

Smith, Esq., M.P." (see _Essays Moral and Political_, by R. Southey,

1832, ii. 7-31). The exact words used were, "the determined malignity of

a renegade" (see Hansard's _Parl. Debates_, xxxv. 1088).]

[495] [One of Southey's juvenile poems is an "Inscription for the

Apartment in Chepstow Castle, where Henry Martin, the Regicide, was

imprisoned thirty years" (see Southey's _Poems_, 1797, p. 59). Canning

parodied it in the _Anti-jacobin_ (see his well-known "Inscription for

the Door of the Cell in Newgate, where Mrs. Brownrigg, the

'Prentice-cide, was confined, previous to her Execution," _Poetry of the

Anti-jacobin_, 1828, p. 6).]

[496] {484}[See "_The Vision, etc._, made English by Sir R. Lestrange,

and burlesqued by a Person of Quality:" _Visions, being a Satire on the

corruptions and vices of all degrees of Mankind_. Translated from the

original Spanish by Mr. Nunez, London, 1745, etc.

The Sueños or Visions of Francisco Gomez de Quevedo of Villegas are six

in number. They were published separately in 1635. For an account of the

"_Visita de los Chistes_," "A Visit in Jest to the Empire of Death," and

for a translation of part of the "Dream of Skulls," or "Dream of the

Judgment," see _History of Spanish Literature_, by George Ticknor, 1888,

ii. 339-344.]

[497]

["Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound,

Now Serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground,

In Quibbles, Angel and Archangel join,

And God the Father turns a School-divine."

Pope's _Imitations of Horace_, Book ii. Ep. i. lines 99-102.]

[498] [Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) had recently published a volume

of Latin poems (_Idyllia Heroica Decem. Librum Phaleuciorum Unum_.

Partim jam primum Partim iterum atque tertio edit Savagius Landor.

Accedit Quæstiuncula cur Poetæ Latini Recentiores minus leguntur, Pisis,

1820, 410). In his Preface to the _Vision of Judgement_, Southey

illustrates his denunciation of "Men of diseased hearts," etc. (_vide

ante_, p. 476), by a quotation from the Latin essay: "Summi poetæ in

omni poetarum sæculo viri fuerunt probi: in nostris id vidimus et

videmus; neque alius est error a veritate longiùs quàm magna ingenia

magnis necessario corrumpi vitiis," etc. (_Idyllia_, p. 197). It was a

cardinal maxim of the Lake School "that there can be no great poet who

is not a good man.... His heart must be pure" (see Table Talk, by S. T.

Coleridge, August 20, 1833); and Landor's testimony was welcome and

consolatory. "Of its author," he adds, "I will only say in this place,

that, to have obtained his approbation as a poet, and possessed his

friendship as a man, will be remembered among the honours of my life."

Now, apart from the essay and its evident application, Byron had

probably observed that among the _Phaleucia_, or Hendecasyllables, were

included some exquisite lines _Ad Sutheium_ (on the death of Herbert

Southey), followed by some extremely unpleasant ones on _Taunto_ and his

tongue, and would naturally conclude that "Savagius" was ready to do

battle for the Laureate if occasion arose. Hence the side issue. With

regard to the "Ithyphallics," there are portions of the Latin poems

(afterwards expunged, see _Poemata et Inscriptiones_, Moxon, 1847)

included in the Pisa volume which might warrant the description; but

from a note to _The Island_ (Canto II. stanza xvii. line 10) it may be

inferred that some earlier collection of Latin verses had come under

Byron's notice. For Landor's various estimates of Byron's works and

genius, see _Works_, 1876, iv. 44-46, 88, 89, etc.]

[499] {485}[The words enclosed in brackets were expunged in later

editions.]

[500] {487}[Ra[venna] May 7^th^, 1821.]

[fz] {487}_Or break a runaway_--[MS., alternative reading.]

[ga] _Finding their patients past all care and cure._--[MS. erased.]

[gb] {488}

_To turn him here and there for some resource_

{_And found no better counsel from his peers_,

{_And claimed the help of his celestial peers_.--[MS. erased.]

[gc] _By the immense extent of his remarks_.--[MS. erased.]

[gd] _The page was so splashed o'er_----.--[MS. erased.]

[ge] _Though he himself had helped the Conqueror's sword_.--[MS.

erased.]

[gf] {489}_'Tis that he has that Conqueror in reversion_.--[MS. erased.]

[501] [Napoleon died May 5, 1821, two days before Byron began his

_Vision of Judgment_, but, of course, the news did not reach Europe till

long afterwards.]

[gg] _They will be crushed yet_----.--[MS. erased.]

[gh] _Not so gigantic in the head as horn_.--[MS. erased.]

[502] [George III. died the 29th of January, 1820. "The year 1820 was an

era signalized ... by the many efforts of the revolutionary spirit which

at that time broke forth, like ill-suppressed fire, throughout the

greater part of the South of Europe. In Italy Naples had already raised

the constitutional standard.... Throughout Romagna, secret societies,

under the name of Carbonari, had been organized."--_Life_. p. 467.]

[gi] _Who fought for tyranny until withdrawn_.--[MS. erased.]

[503]

["Thus as I stood, the bell, which awhile from its warning had rested,

Sent forth its note again, Toll! Toll! through the silence of evening....

Thou art released! I cried: thy soul is delivered from bondage!

Thou who hast lain so long in mental and visual darkness,

Thou art in yonder Heaven! thy place is in light and glory."

_A Vision of Judgement_, by R. Southey, i.]

[gj] _A better country squire----.--[MS. erased.]_

[gk] {490}

_He died and left his kingdom still behind_

_Not much less mad--and certainly as blind_.--[MS. erased.]

[504] [At the time of the king's death Byron expressed himself somewhat

differently. "I see," he says (Letter to Murray, February 21, 1820),

"the good old King is gone to his place; one can't help being sorry,

though blindness, and age, and insanity are supposed to be drawbacks on

human felicity."]

[505] ["The display was most magnificent; the powerful light which threw

all below into strong relief, reached but high enough to touch the

pendent helmets and banners into faint colouring, and the roof was a

vision of tarnished gleams and tissues among the Gothic tracery. The

vault was still open, and the Royal coffin lay below, with the crowns of

England and Hanover on cushions of purple and the broken wand crossing

it. At the altar four Royal banners covered with golden emblems were

strewed upon the ground, as if their office was completed; the altar was

piled with consecrated gold plate, and the whole aspect of the Chapel

was the deepest and most magnificent display of melancholy

grandeur."-From a description of the funeral of George the Third (signed

J. T.), in the _European Magazine_, February, 1820, vol. 77, p. 123.]

[506]

["So by the unseen comforted, raised I my head in obedience,

And in a vault I found myself placed, arched over on all sides

Narrow and low was that house of the dead. Around it were coffins,

Each in its niche, and pails, and urns, and funeral hatchments,

Velvets of Tyrian dye, retaining their hues unfaded;

Blazonry vivid still, as if fresh from the touch of the limner;

Nor was the golden fringe, nor the golden broidery, tarnished."

_A Vision, etc._, ii.

"On Thursday night, the 3rd inst. [February, 1820], the body being

wrapped in an exterior fold of white satin, was placed in the inside

coffin, which was composed of mahogany, pillowed and ornamented in the

customary manner with white satin.... This was enclosed in a leaden

coffin, again enclosed in another mahogany coffin, and the whole finally

placed in the state coffin of Spanish mahogany, covered with the richest

Genoa velvet of royal purple, a few shades deeper in tint than Garter

blue. The lid was divided into three compartments by double rows of

silver-gilt nails, and in the compartment at the head, over a rich star

of the Order of the Garter was placed the Royal Arms of England,

beautifully executed in dead Gold.... In the lower compartment at the

feet was the British Lion _Rampant, regardant_, supporting a shield with

the letters G. R. surrounded with the garter and motto of the same order

in dead gold.... The handles were of silver, richly gilt of a massive

modern pattern, and the most exquisite workmanship."--Ibid., p. 126.]

[507] {491}["The body of his Majesty was not embalmed in the usual

manner, but has been wrapped in cere-clothes, to preserve it as long as

possible.... The corpse, indeed, exhibited a painful spectacle of the

rapid decay which had recently taken place in his Majesty's

constitution, ... and hence, possibly, the surgeons deemed it impossible

to perform the process of embalming in the usual way."--Ibid., p. 126.]

[508] [The fact that George II. pocketed, and never afterwards produced

or attempted to carry out his father's will, may have suggested to the

scandalous the possibility of a similar act on the part of his

great-grandson.]

[gl] {492}

/ _vices_ \

_In whom his_ < > _all are reigning still_.--[MS. erased.]

\ _virtues_ /

[509] [Lady Byron's account of her husband's theological opinions is at

variance with this statement. (See _Diary_ of H. C. Robinson, 1869, iii.

436.)]

[gm] {493}

_But he with first a start and then a nod_.--[MS.]

_Snored, "There is some new star gone out by G--d!"-_-[MS. erased.]

[510] {493}[Louis the Sixteenth was guillotined January 21, 1793.]

[gn] {494}_That fellow Paul the damndest Saint_.--[MS. erased.]

[511] ["The blessed apostle Bartholomew preached first in Lycaonia, and,

at the last, in Athens ... and there he was first flayed, and afterwards

his head was smitten off."--_Golden Legend_, edited by F. S. Ellis,

1900, v. 41.]

[512] {495}

"Then I beheld the King. From a cloud which covered the pavement

His reverend form uprose: heavenward his face was directed.

Heavenward his eyes were raised, and heavenward his arms were directed."

_The Vision, etc._, iii.

[513] [The reading of the MS. and of the _Liberal_ is "pottered." The

editions of 1831, 1832, 1837, etc., read "pattered."]

[go] ----_his whole celestial skin_.--[MS. erased.]

[gp] _Or some such other superhuman ichor_.--[MS. erased.]

[gq] {496}_By Captain Parry's crews_----.--[_The Liberal_, 1822, i. 12.]

[514] ["The luminous arch had broken into irregular masses, streaming

with much rapidity in different directions, varying continually, in

shape and interest, and extending themselves from north, by the east, to

north. The usual pale light of the aurora strongly resembled that

produced by the combustion of phosphorus; a very slight tinge of red was

noticed when the aurora was most vivid, but no other colours were

visible."--_Sir E. Parry's Voyage in_ 1819-20, p. 135.]

[515] [Compare "Methought I saw a fair youth borne with prodigious speed

through the heavens, who gave a blast to his trumpet so violent, that

the radiant beauty of his countenance was in part disfigured by

it."--Translation of Quevedo's "Dream of Skulls," by G. Ticknor,

_History of Spanish Literature_, 1888, ii. 340.]

[516] {497}[Joanna Southcott, born 1750, published her _Book of

Wonders_, 1813-14, died December 27, 1814.]

[517]

["Eminent on a hill, there stood the Celestial City;

Beaming afar it shone; its towers and cupolas rising

High in the air serene, with the brightness of gold in the furnace,

Where on their breadth the splendour lay intense and quiescent.

Part with a fierier glow, and a short thick tremulous motion

Like the burning pyropus; and turrets and pinnacles sparkled,

Playing in jets of light, with a diamond-like glory coruscant."

_The Vision, etc.,_ iv.]

[518] {498}[See _The Book of Job_ literally translated from the original

Hebrew, by John Mason Good, F.R.S. (1764-1827), London, 1812. In the

"Introductory Dissertation," the author upholds the biographical and

historical character of the Book of Job against the contentions of

Professor Michaelis (Johann David, 1717-1791). The notes abound in

citations from the Hebrew and from the Arabic version.]

[519] {499}["The gates or gateways of Eastern cities" were used as

"places for public deliberation, administration of justice, or audience

for kings and nations, or ambassadors." See _Deut_. xvi. 18. "Judges and

officers shall thou make thee in all thy gates ... and they shall judge

the people with just judgment." Hence came the use of the word "Porte"

in speaking of the Government of Constantinople.--Smith's _Diet, of the

Bible_, art. "Gate."]

[gr] _Crossing his radiant arms_----.--[MS. erased.]

[gs] _But kindly; Sathan met_----.--[MS. erased.]

[520] ["No saint in the course of his religious warfare was more

sensible of the unhappy failure of pious resolves than Dr. Johnson; he

said one day, talking to an acquaintance on this subject, 'Sir, hell is

paved with good intentions.'" Compare "Hell is full of good meanings and

wishes." _Jacula Prudentum,_ by George Herbert, ed. 1651, p. 11;

Boswell's _Life of Johnson,_ 1876, p. 450, note 5.]

[521] {501}[Compare--

"Not once or twice in our rough Island's story

The path of duty has become the path of glory."

Tennyson's _Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington._]

[522] [John Stuart, Earl of Bute (1713-1792), was Secretary of State

March 25, 1761, and Prime Minister May 29, 1762-April, 1763. For the

general estimate of the influence which Bute exercised on the young

king, see a caricature entitled "The Royal Dupe" (Wright, p. 285),

_Dict. of Nat. Biog._, art. "George III."]

[gt] {502}_With blood and debt_----.--[MS.]

[gu] _A_ part _of that which they held all of old_.--[MS. erased]

[523] {503}[George III. resisted Catholic Emancipation in 1795. "The

more I reflect on the subject, the more I feel the danger of the

proposal."--Letter to Pitt, February 6, 1795. Again, February 1, 1801,

"This principle of duty must therefore prevent me from discussing any

proposition [to admit 'Catholics and Dissenters to offices, and

Catholics to Parliament'] tending to destroy the groundwork [that all

who held employments in the State must be members of the Church of

England] of our happy constitution." Finally, in 1807, he demanded of

ministers "a positive assurance that they would never again propose to

him any concession to the Catholics."--See _Life of Pitt_, by Earl

Stanhope, 1879, ii. 434, 461; _Dict. of Nat. Biog._, art. "George III."]

[gv] _Than see this blind old_----.--[MS. erased.]

[gw] {504}_And interruption of your speech_.--[MS. erased.]

[524]

["Which into hollow engines long and round,

Thick-rammed at th' other bore with touch of fire

Dilated and infuriate," etc.

_Paradise Lost_, vi. 484, sq.]

[525] [A gold key is part of the insignia of office of the Lord

Chamberlain and other court officials. In Plate 17 of Francis Sandford's

_History of the Coronation of James the Second_, 1687, Henry Mordaunt,

Earl of Peterborow, who carries the sceptre of King Edward, is

represented with a key hanging from his belt. He was First Groom of the

Stole and Gentleman of Bedchamber. The Queen's Vice-chamberlain, who

appears in another part of the procession, also carries a key.]

[gx] _Stuck in their buttocks----.--[MS. erased._]

[gy] {505}_For theirs are honours nobler far than these_.--[MS. erased.]

[526] [It is possible that Byron was thinking of Horace Walpole's famous

quip, "The summer has set in with its usual _severity_." But, of course,

the meaning is that, owing to excessive and abnormal fogs, the _summer_

gilding might have to be pretermitted.]

[gz] _Before they make their journey, ere begin it_.--[MS. erased.]

[527] [For the invention of the electric telegraph before the date of

this poem, see _Sir Francis Ronalds, F. R. S., and his Works in

connection with Electric Telegraphy in 1816_, by J. Sime, 1893. But the

"Telegraph" to which Byron refers was, probably, the semaphore (from

London to Portsmouth), which, according to [Sir] John Barrow, the

Secretary of the Admiralty, rendered "telegraphs of any kind now wholly

unnecessary" (_vide ibid._, p. 10).]

[528] {506}[Compare, for similarity of sound--

"It plunged and tacked and veered."

_Ancient Mariner_, pt. iii. line 156.]

[ha]

----_No land was ever overflowed_

_By locusts as the Heaven appeared by these_.--[MS. erased.]

[hb] _And many-languaged cries were like wild geese_.--[Erased.]

[529] [Compare--

"Wherefore with thee

Came not all Hell broke loose?"

_Paradise Lost_, iv. 917, 918.]

[hc] _Though the first Hackney will_----.--[MS.]

[hd] {507}_Ready to swear the cause of all their pain_.--[Erased.]

[530] [In the game of ombre the ace of spades, _spadille_, ranks as the

best trump card, and basto, the ace of clubs, ranks as the third best

trump card. (For a description of ombre, see Pope's _Rape of the Lock_,

in. 47-64.)]

[531] {508}["'Caitiffs, are ye dumb?' cried the multifaced Demon in

anger."

_Vision of Judgement_, v.]

[532]

["Beholding the foremost,

Him by the cast of his eye oblique, I knew as the firebrand

Whom the unthinking populace held for their idol and hero,

Lord of Misrule in his day."

_Ibid._, v.

In Hogarth's caricature (the original pen-and-ink sketch is in the

"Rowfant Library:" see Cruikshank's frontispiece to _Catalogue_, 1886)

Wilkes squints more than "a gentleman should squint." The costume--long

coat, waistcoat buttoned to the neck, knee-breeches, and stockings--is

not unpleasing, but the expression of the face is something between a

leer and a sneer. Walpole (_Letters_, 1858, vii. 274) describes another

portrait (by Zoffani) as "a delightful piece of Wilkes looking--no,

squinting tenderly at his daughter. It is a caricature of the Devil

acknowledging Miss Sin in Milton."]

[533] {509}[For the "Coan" skirts of the First Empire, see the fashion

plates and Gillray's and Rowlandson's caricatures _passim_.]

[he] _It shall be me they'll find the trustiest patriot_.--[MS. erased.]

[hf] _Said Wilkes I've done as much before_.--[MS. erased.]

[534] {510}[On his third return to Parliament for Middlesex, October 8,

1774, Wilkes took his seat (December 2) without opposition. In the

following February, and on subsequent occasions, he endeavoured to

induce the House to rescind the resolutions passed January 19, 1764,

under which he had been expelled from Parliament, and named as

blasphemous, obscene, etc. Finally, May, 1782, he obtained a substantial

majority on a division, and the obnoxious resolutions were ordered to be

expunged from the journals of the House.]

[535] [Bute, as leader of the king's party, was an open enemy; Grafton,

a half-hearted friend. The duke (1736-1811) would have visited him in

the Tower (1763), "to hear from himself his own story and his defence;"

but rejected an appeal which Wilkes addressed to him (May 3) to become

surety for bail. He feared that such a step might "come under the

denomination of an insult on the Crown." A writ of _Habeas Corpus_ (see

line 8) was applied for by Lord Temple and others, and, May 6, Wilkes

was discharged by Lord Chief Justice Pratt, on the ground of privilege.

Three years later (November 1, 1766), on his return from Italy, Wilkes

sought to obtain Grafton's protection and interest; but the duke, though

he consulted Chatham, and laid Wilkes's letter before the King, decided

to "take no notice" of this second appeal. In his _Autobiography_

Grafton is careful to define "the extent of his knowledge" of Mr.

Wilkes, and to explain that he was not "one of his intimates"--a

_caveat_ which warrants the statement of Junius that "as for Mr. Wilkes,

it is, perhaps, the greatest misfortune of his life, that you should

have so many compensations to make in the closet for your former

friendship with him. Your gracious Master understands your character;

and makes you a persecutor because you have been a friend" ("Letter

(xii.) to the Duke of Grafton," May 30, 1769).--_Memoirs of Augustus

Henry, Third Duke of Grafton_, by Sir W. Anson, Bart., D.C.L., 1898, pp.

190-197.]

[536] {511}[In 1774 Wilkes was elected Lord Mayor, and in the following

spring it fell to his lot to present to the King a remonstrance from the

Livery against the continuance of the war with America. Walpole (April

17, 1775, Letters, 1803, vi. 257) says that "he used his triumph with

moderation--in modern language with good breeding." The King is said to

have been agreeably surprised at his demeanour. In his old age (1790) he

voted against the Whigs. A pasquinade, written by Sheridan, Tickell, and

Lord John Townshend, anticipated the devil's insinuations--

"Johnny Wilkes, Johnny Wilkes,

Thou greatest of bilks,

How changed are the notes you now sing!

Your famed 'Forty-five'

Is prerogative,

And your blasphemy 'God save the King'!

Johnny Wilkes,

And your blasphemy, 'God save the King '!"

_Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox_, by W. F. Rae, 1874, pp. 132, 133.]

[hg] _Where Beelzebub upon duty_----.--[MS. erased.]

[537] ["In consequence of Kyd Wake's attack upon the King, two Acts were

introduced [the "Treason" and "Sedition Bills," November 6, November 10,

1795], called the Pitt and Grenville Acts, for better securing the

King's person "(_Diary of H. C. Robinson_, 1869, i. 32). "'The first of

these bills [_The Plot Discovered, etc._, by S. T. Coleridge, November

28, 1795, _Essays on his own Times_, 1850, i. 56] is an attempt to

assassinate the liberty of the press; the second to smother the liberty

of speech." The "Devil" feared that Wilkes had been "gagged" for good

and all.

[538] {512}

["Who might the other be, his comrade in guilt and in suffering,

Brought to the proof like him, and shrinking like him from the trial?

Nameless the Libeller lived, and shot his arrows in darkness;

Undetected he passed to the grave, and leaving behind him

Noxious works on earth, and the pest of an evil example,

Went to the world beyond, where no offences are hidden.

Masked had he been in his life, and now a visor of iron,

Rivetted round his head, had abolished his features for ever.

Speechless the slanderer stood, and turned his face from the Monarch,

Iron-bound as it was ... so insupportably dreadful

Soon or late to conscious guilt is the eye of the injured."

_Vision of Judgement_, v. i]

[hh] _Or in the human cholic_----.--[MS. erased.]

[hi] _Which looked as 'twere a phantom even on earth_.--[MS. erased.]

[hj] _Now it seemed little, now a little bigger_.--[MS. erased.]

[539] {513}[The Letters of Junius have been attributed to more than

fifty authors. Among the more famous are the Duke of Portland, Lord

George Sackville, Sir Philip Francis, Edmund Burke, John Dunning, Lord

Ashburton, John Home Tooke, Hugh Boyd, George Chalmers, etc. Of Junius,

Byron wrote, in his _Journal_ of November 23, 1813, "I don't know what

to think. Why should Junius be yet dead?.... the man must be alive, and

will never die without the disclosure" (_Letters_, 1893, ii. 334); but

an article (by Brougham) in the _Edinburgh Review_, vol. xxix. p. 94, on

_The Identity of Junius with a Distinguished Living Character

established_ (see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 210), seems to have almost

persuaded him that "Francis is Junius." (For a _résumé_ of the arguments

in favour of the identity of Junius with Francis, see Mr. Leslie

Stephen's article in the _Dict. of Nat. Biography_, art. "Francis." See,

too, _History of England in the Eighteenth Century_, by W. E. H. Lecky,

1887, iii. 233-255. For a series of articles (by W. Fraser Rae) against

this theory, see _Athenæum_, 1888, ii. 192, 258, 319. The question is

still being debated. See _The Francis Letters_, with a note on the

Junius Controversy, by C. F. Keary, 1901.)]

[hk] _A doctor, a man-midwife_----.--[MS. erased.]

[hl] {514}_Till curiosity became a task_.--[MS. erased.]

[540] [The "Man in the Iron Mask," or, more correctly, the "Man in the

Black Velvet Mask," has been identified with Count Ercole Antonio

Mattioli, Secretary of State at the Court of Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga,

Duke of Mantua. Mattioli was convicted of high treason, and at the

instance of Louis XIV. was seized by the Maréchal Catinat, May 2, 1679,

and confined at Pinerolo. He was deported to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite,

March 19, 1694, and afterwards transferred to the Bastille, September

18, 1698. He died November 19, 1703. Baron Heiss was the first to solve

the mystery. Chambrier, Roux-Fazillac, Delort, G. A. Ellis (see a notice

in the _Quart. Rev_., June, 1826, vol. xxxiv. p. 19), and others take

the same view. (See, for confirmation of this theory, an article

_L'Homme au Masque de Velours Noir_, in the _Revue Historique_, by M.

Frantz Funck-Brentano, November, December, 1894, tom. 56, pp. 253-303.)]

[541] [See _The Rivals_, act iv. sc. II]

[hm] _It is that he_----.--[MS. erased.]

[542] {515}[The Delta of the Niger is a vast alluvial morass, covered

with dense forests of mangrove. "Along the whole coast ... there opens

into the Atlantic its successive estuaries, which navigators have

scarcely been able to number."]

[543] [The title-page runs thus: "_Letters of Junius, Stat Nominis

Umbra_." _That_, and nothing more! On the title-page of his copy, across

the motto, S. T. Coleridge wrote this sentence, "As he never dropped the

mask, so he too often used the poisoned dagger of the

assassin."--_Miscellanies_, etc., by S. T. Coleridge, ed. T. Asle, 1885,

p. 341.]

[hn]

_My charge is upon record and will last_

_Longer than will his lamentation_.--[MS. erased.]

[544] {516}[John Horne Tooke (1736-1812), as an opponent of the American

War, and as a promoter of the Corresponding Society, etc.; and Benjamin

Franklin (1706-1790), as the champion of American Independence, would

have been cited as witnesses against George III.]

[545] [In the _Diable Boiteux_ (1707) of Le Sage, Don Cleofas, clinging

to the cloak of Asmodeus, is carried through the air to the summit of

San Salvador. Compare--

"Oh! could Le Sage's demon's gift

Be realiz'd at my desire,

This night my trembling form he'd lift,

To place it on St. Mary's spire."

_Granta, a Medley_, stanza 1., _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 56, note 2.]

[546] ["But what he most detested, what most filled him with disgust,

was the settled, determined malignity of a renegado."--_Speech of

William Smith, M.P., in the House of Commons_, March 14, 1817. (See,

too, for the use of the word "renegado," _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii.

488, note i.)]

[547] [For the "weight" of Southey's quartos, compare Byron's note (1)

to _Hints from Horace_, line 657, and a variant of lines 753-756. "Thus

let thy ponderous quarto steep and stink" (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i.

435, 443).]

[ho] {517}_And drawing nigh I caught him at a libel_.--[MS. erased.]

[548] [Compare--

"But for the children of the 'Mighty Mother's,'

The would-be wits, and can't-be gentlemen,

I leave them to their daily 'tea is ready,'

Smug coterie, and literary lady."

_Beppo_, stanza lxxvi. lines 5-8, _vide ante_, p. 183.]

[hp]

_And scrawls as though he were head clerk to the "Fates,"_

_And this I think is quite enough for one_.--[Erased.]

[549] {518}[Compare--

"One leaf from Southey's laurels may explode

All his combustibles,

'An ass, by God!'"

_A Satire on Satirists, etc._, by W. S. Landor, 1836, p. 22.]

[550] ["There is a chaunt in the recitation both of Coleridge and

Wordsworth, which acts as a spell upon the hearers."--Hazlitt's _My

First Acquaintance with Poets_; _The Liberal_, 1823, ii. 23, 46.]

[551] [Compare the attitude of Minos to the "poet" in Fielding's

_Journey from This World to the Next_: "The poet answered, he believed

if Minos had read his works he would set a higher value on them. [The

poet had begged for admittance to Elysium on the score of his 'dramatic

works.' Minos dismissed the plea, but relented on being informed that he

had once lent the whole profits of a benefit-night to a friend.] He was

then beginning to repeat, but Minos pushed him forward, and turning his

back to him, applied himself to the next passengers."--_Novelist's

Magazine_, 1783, vol. xii. cap. vii. p. 17.]

[552]

[" ... Mediocribus esse poetis

Non homines, non dî, non concessere columnæ."

Horace, _Ars Poetica_, lines 372, 373.]

[553] {519}[For the King's habit of duplicating his phrases, compare--

"Whitbread, is't true? I hear, I hear

You're of an ancient family renowned.

What? what? I'm told that you're a limb

Of Pym, the famous fellow Pym:

What, Whitbread, is it true what people say?

Son of a Roundhead are you? hæ? hæ? hæ?

* * * * *

Thirtieth of January don't you _feed_?

Yes, yes, you eat Calf's head, you eat Calf's head."

_Instructions to a Celebrated Laureat_, Peter Pindar's

_Works_, 1812, i. 493.]

[554] [For Henry James Pye (1745-1813), see _English Bards, etc._, line

102, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 305, note 1.]

[hq] {520} ----_an ill-looking knave_.--[MS. erased.]

[555] ["Yesterday, at Holland House, I was introduced to Southey--the

best-looking bard I have seen for some time. To have that poet's head

and shoulders, I would almost have written his Sapphics. He is certainly

a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that,

and--_there_ is his eulogy."--Letter to Moore, September 27, 1813,

_Letters_, 1898, ii. 266.

"I have not seen the _Liberal_," wrote Southey to Wynn, October 26,

1822, "but a Leeds paper has been sent me ... including among its

extracts the description and behaviour of a certain 'varlet.' He has not

offended me in the way that the pious painter exasperated the Devil"

(i.e. by painting him "more ugly than ever:" see Southey's Ballad of the

_Pious Painter_, _Works_, 1838, vi. 64).]

[hr] {521}_He therefore was content to cite a few_.--[MS. erased.]

[556] [Southey's "Battle of Blenheim" was published in the _Annual

Anthology_ of 1800, pp. 34-37. It is quoted at length, as a republican

and seditious poem, in the _Preface_ to an edition of _Wat Tyler_,

published by W. Hone in 1817; and it is also included in an "Appendix"

entitled _The Stripling Bard, or the Apostate Laureate_, affixed to

another edition issued in the same year by John Fairburn. The purport

and _motif_ of these excellent rhymes is non-patriotic if not

Jacobinical, but, for some reason, the poem has been considered

improving for the young, and is included in many "Poetry Books" for

schools. _The Poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo_ was published in 1816, not

long before the resuscitation of _Wat Tyler_.]

[557] [_Vide ante_, p. 482.]

[558] ["He has written _Wat Tyler_, and taken the office of poet

laureate--he has, in the _Life of Henry Kirke White_ (see Byron's note

_infra_), denominated reviewing 'the ungentle craft,' and has become a

reviewer--he was one of the projectors of a scheme called

'pantisocracy,' for having all things, including women, in common

(_query_ common women?)."--_Some Observations upon an Article in

Blackwood's Magazine_ (No. xxix., August, 1819), _Letters_, 1900

[Appendix IX.], iv. 483. The invention or, possibly, disinterment of

this calumny was no doubt a counterblast on Byron's part to the supposed

charge of a "league of incest" (at Diodati, in 1816), which he

maintained had been disseminated by Coleridge on the authority of

Southey (_vide ante_, p. 475). It is, perhaps, unnecessary to state that

before Pantisocracy was imagined or devised, one of the future

pantisocrats, Robert Lovell, was married to Mary Fricker; that Robert

Southey was engaged to be married to her sister Edith; and that, as a

result of the birth and evolution of the scheme, Coleridge became

engaged to be married to a third sister, Sarah, hitherto loverless, in

order that "every Jack should have his Jill," and the world begin anew

in a second Eden across the seas. All things were to be held in common,

in order that each man might hold his wife in particular.]

[559] {522}_Remains of Henry Kirke White_ [1808, i. 23]

[560] [Southey's _Life of Wesley, and Rise and Progress of Methodism_,

in two volumes octavo, was published in 1820. In a "Memento" written in

a blank leaf of the first volume, Coleridge expressed his desire that

his copy should be given to Southey as a bequest. "One or other volume,"

he writes, "was more often in my hands than any other in my ragged

book-regiment ... How many an hour of self-oblivion do I owe to this

Life of Wesley!"--Third ed. 1846, i. xv.]

[561] [In his reply to the Preface to Southey's _Vision of Judgement_,

Byron attacked the Laureate as "this arrogant scribbler of all works."]

[hs] _Is not unlike it, and is_----.--[MS.]

[562] {523}King Alfonso, speaking of the Ptolomean system, said, that

"had he been consulted at the creation of the world, he would have

spared the Maker some absurdities. [Alphonso X., King of Castile

(1221-1284), surnamed the Wise and the Astronomer, "gave no small

encouragement to the Jewish rabbis." Under his patronage Judah de Toledo

translated the works of Avicenna, and improved them by a new division of

the stars. Moreover, "he sent for about 50 learned men from Gascony,

Paris, and other places, to translate the tables of Ptolemy, and to

compile a more correct set of them (i.e. the famous _Tabulæ Alphonsinæ_)

... The king himself presided over the assembly."--_Mod. Univ. Hist._,

xiii. 304, 305, note(U).

Alfonso has left behind him the reputation of a Castilian

Hamlet--"infinite in faculty," but "unpregnant of his cause." "He was

more fit," says Mariana (_Hist._, lib. xiii. c. 20), "for letters than

for the government of his subjects; he studied the heavens and watched

the stars, but forgot the earth and lost his kingdom." Nevertheless his

works do follow him. "He is to be remembered for his poetry

(_'Cántigas'_, chants in honour of the Virgin, and _'Tesoro'_ a treatise

on the philosopher's stone), for his astronomical tables, which all the

progress of science have not deprived of their value, and for his great

work on legislation, which is at this moment an authority in both

hemispheres."--_Hist. of Spanish Literature_, by G. Ticknor, 1888, i. 7.

Byron got the quip about Alfonso and "the absurdities of creation" from

Bayle (_Dict_., 1735, art. "Castile"), who devotes a long note (H) to a

somewhat mischievous apology for the king's apparent profanity. Bayle's

immediate authority is Le Bovier de Fontenelle, in his _Entretiens sur

la Pluralité des Mondes_, 1686, p. 38, "L'embaras de tous ces cercles

estoit si grand, que dans un temps où l'on ne connoissoit encore rien de

meilleur, un roy d'Aragon (_sic_) grand mathematicien mais apparemment

peu devot, disoit que si Dieu l'eust appellé à son conseil quand il fit

le Monde, il luy eust donné de bons avis."]

[563] {524}[See Aubrey's account (_Miscellanies upon Various Subjects_,

by John Aubrey, F.R.S., 1857, p. 81) of the apparition which disappeared

"with a curious perfume, and _most melodious twang_;" or see Scott's

_Antiquary, The Novels, etc_., 1851, i. 375.]

[564]

["When I beheld them meet, the desire of my soul o'ercame me,

----I, too, pressed forward to enter--

But the weight of the body withheld me.--I stooped to the fountain.

* * * * *

And my feet methought sunk, and I fell precipitate. Starting,

Then I awoke, and beheld the mountains in twilight before me,

Dark and distinct; and instead of the rapturous sound of hosannahs,

Heard the bell from the tower, Toll! Toll! through the

silence of evening."

_Vision of Judgement_, xii.]

[565] {525}A drowned body lies at the bottom till rotten; it then

floats, as most people know. [Byron may, possibly, have heard of the

"Floating Island" on Derwentwater.]

[ht] _In his own little nook_----.--[MS.]

[566]

["Verily, you brache!

The devil turned precisian."

Massinger's _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, act i. sc. 1]

[hu] ----_the light is now withdrawn_.--[MS.]

[567] ["Mem. This poem was begun on May 7, 1821, but left off the same

day--resumed about the 20th of September of the same year, and concluded

as dated."]

POEMS 1816-1823.

POEMS 1816-1823

A VERY MOURNFUL BALLAD[568] ON THE SIEGE AND CONQUEST OF ALHAMA.[569]

_Which, in the Arabic language, is to the following purport_[570]

1.

The Moorish King rides up and down.

Through Granada's royal town:

From Elvira's gates to those

Of Bivarambla on he goes.

Woe is me, Alhama![hv][571]

2.

Letters to the Monarch tell

How Alhama's city fell:

In the fire the scroll he threw,

And the messenger he slew.

Woe is me, Alhama!

3.

He quits his mule, and mounts his horse,

And through the street directs his course;

Through the street of Zacatin

To the Alhambra spurring in.

Woe is me, Alhama!

4.

When the Alhambra walls he gained,

On the moment he ordained

That the trumpet straight should sound

With the silver clarion round.

Woe is me, Alhama!

5.

And when the hollow drums of war

Beat the loud alarm afar,

That the Moors of town and plain

Might answer to the martial strain.

Woe is me, Alhama!

6.

Then the Moors, by this aware,

That bloody Mars recalled them there,

One by one, and two by two,

To a mighty squadron grew.

Woe is me, Alhama!

7.

Out then spake an aged Moor

In these words the king before,

"Wherefore call on us, oh King?

What may mean this gathering?"

Woe is me, Alhama!

8.

"Friends! ye have, alas! to know

Of a most disastrous blow--

That the Christians, stern and bold,

Have obtained Alhama's hold."

Woe is me, Alhama!

9.

Out then spake old Alfaqui,[572]

With his beard so white to see,

"Good King! thou art justly served,

Good King! this thou hast deserved.

Woe is me, Alhama!

10.

"By thee were slain, in evil hour,

The Abencerrage, Granada's flower;

And strangers were received by thee,

Of Cordova the Chivalry.

Woe is me, Alhama!

11.

"And for this, oh King! is sent

On thee a double chastisement;

Thee and thine, thy crown and realm,

One last wreck shall overwhelm.

Woe is me, Alhama!

12.

"He who holds no laws in awe,

He must perish by the law;

And Granada must be won,

And thyself with her undone."

Woe is me, Alhama!

13.

Fire flashed from out the old Moor's eyes,

The Monarch's wrath began to rise,

Because he answered, and because

He spake exceeding well of laws.[573]

Woe is me, Alhama!

14.

"There is no law to say such things

As may disgust the ear of kings:"--

Thus, snorting with his choler, said

The Moorish King, and doomed him dead.

Woe is me, Alhama!

15.

Moor Alfaqui! Moor Alfaqui![574]

Though thy beard so hoary be,[hw]

The King hath sent to have thee seized,

For Alhama's loss displeased.

Woe is me, Alhama!

16.

And to fix thy head upon

High Alhambra's loftiest stone;

That this for thee should be the law,

And others tremble when they saw.

Woe is me, Alhama!

17.

"Cavalier, and man of worth!

Let these words of mine go forth;

Let the Moorish Monarch know,

That to him I nothing owe.

Woe is me, Alhama!

18.

"But on my soul Alhama weighs,

And on my inmost spirit preys;

And if the King his land hath lost,

Yet others may have lost the most.

Woe is me, Alhama!

19.

"Sires have lost their children, wives

Their lords, and valiant men their lives!

One what best his love might claim

Hath lost, another wealth, or fame.

Woe is me, Alhama!

20.

"I lost a damsel in that hour,

Of all the land the loveliest flower;

Doubloons a hundred I would pay,

And think her ransom cheap that day."

Woe is me, Alhama!

21.

And as these things the old Moor said,

They severed from the trunk his head;

And to the Alhambra's wall with speed

'Twas carried, as the King decreed.

Woe is me, Alhama!

22.

And men and infants therein weep

Their loss, so heavy and so deep;

Granada's ladies, all she rears

Within her walls, burst into tears.

Woe is me, Alhama!

23.

And from the windows o'er the walls

The sable web of mourning falls;

The King weeps as a woman o'er

His loss, for it is much and sore.

Woe is me, Alhama!

[First published, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV., 1818.]

SONETTO DI VITTORELLI.[575]

PER MONACA.

Sonetto composto in nome di un genitore, a cui era motta poco

innanzi una figlia appena maritata: e diretto al genitore della

sacra sposa.

Di due vaghe donzelle, oneste, accorte

Lieti e miseri padri il ciel ne feo,

Il ciel, die degne di più nobil sorte

L' una e l' altra veggendo, ambe chiedeo.

La mia fu tolta da veloce morte

A le fumanti tede d' Imeneo:

La tua, Francesco, in suggellate porte

Eterna prigioniera or si rendeo.

Ma tu almeno potrai dalla gelosa

Irremeabil soglia, ove s' asconde,

La sua tenera udir voce pietosa.

Io verso un flume d' amarissim' onde,

Corro a quel marmo, in cui la figlia or posa:

Batto, e ribatto, ma nessun risponde.

[_Opere Edite e Postume_ di J. Vittorelli, Bassano, 1841, p. 294.]

TRANSLATION FROM VITTORELLI.

ON A NUN.

Sonnet composed in the name of a father, whose daughter had

recently died shortly after her marriage; and addressed to the

father of her who had lately taken the veil.

Of two fair virgins, modest, though admired,

Heaven made us happy; and now, wretched sires,

Heaven for a nobler doom their worth desires,

And gazing upon _either, both_ required.

Mine, while the torch of Hymen newly fired

Becomes extinguished,--soon--too soon expires;

But thine, within the closing grate retired,

Eternal captive, to her God aspires.

But _thou_ at least from out the jealous door,

Which shuts between your never-meeting eyes,

May'st hear her sweet and pious voice once more:

I to the marble, where _my_ daughter lies,

Rush,--the swoln flood of bitterness I pour,

And knock, and knock, and knock--but none replies.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV., 1818.]

ON THE BUST OF HELEN BY CANOVA.[576]

In this belovéd marble view

Above the works and thoughts of Man,

What Nature _could_ but _would not_ do,

And Beauty and Canova _can!_

Beyond Imagination's power,

Beyond the Bard's defeated art,

With Immortality her dower,

Behold the _Helen_ of the heart.

_November_ 23, 1816.

[First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 61.]

VENICE. A FRAGMENT.[577]

'Tis midnight--but it is not dark

Within thy spacious place, St. Mark!

The Lights within, the Lamps without,

Shine above the revel rout.

The brazen Steeds are glittering o'er

The holy building's massy door,

Glittering with their collars of gold,

The goodly work of the days of old--

And the wingéd Lion stern and solemn

Frowns from the height of his hoary column,

Facing the palace in which doth lodge

The ocean-city's dreaded Doge.

The palace is proud--but near it lies,

Divided by the "Bridge of Sighs,"

The dreary dwelling where the State

Enchains the captives of their hate:

These--they perish or they pine;

But which their doom may none divine:

Many have passed that Arch of pain,

But none retraced their steps again.

It is a princely colonnade!

And wrought around a princely place,

When that vast edifice displayed

Looks with its venerable face

Over the far and subject sea,

Which makes the fearless isles so free!

And 'tis a strange and noble pile,

Pillared into many an aisle:

Every pillar fair to see,

Marble--jasper--and porphyry--

The Church of St. Mark--which stands hard by

With fretted pinnacles on high,

And Cupola and minaret;

More like the mosque of orient lands,

Than the fanes wherein we pray,

And Mary's blesséd likeness stands.--

Venice, _December_ 6, 1816.

SO WE'LL GO NO MORE A-ROVING.[578]

1.

So we'll go no more a-roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

And the moon be still as bright.

2.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And Love itself have rest.

3.

Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a-roving

By the light of the moon.

_Feb_. 28, 1817.

[First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 79.]

[LORD BYRON'S VERSES ON SAM ROGERS.][579]

QUESTION.