Produced by Sue Asscher
PETER BELL THE THIRD.
By Miching Mallecho
Is it a party in a parlour,
Crammed just as they on earth were crammed,
Some sipping punch--some sipping tea;
But, as you by their faces see,
All silent, and all--damned!
"Peter Bell", by W. WORDSWORTH.
OPHELIA.--What means this, my lord?
HAMLET.--Marry, this is Miching Mallecho; it means mischief.
SHAKESPEARE.
DEDICATION.
TO THOMAS BROWN, ESQ., THE YOUNGER, H.F.
DEAR TOM--Allow me to request you to introduce Mr. Peter Bell to the
respectable family of the Fudges. Although he may fall short of those
very considerable personages in the more active properties which
characterize the Rat and the Apostate, I suspect that even you, their
historian, will confess that he surpasses them in the more peculiarly
legitimate qualification of intolerable dulness.
You know Mr. Examiner Hunt; well--it was he who presented me to two of
the Mr. Bells. My intimacy with the younger Mr. Bell naturally sprung
from this introduction to his brothers. And in presenting him to you, I
have the satisfaction of being able to assure you that he is
considerably the dullest of the three.
There is this particular advantage in an acquaintance with any one of
the Peter Bells, that if you know one Peter Bell, you know three Peter
Bells; they are not one, but three; not three, but one. An awful
mystery, which, after having caused torrents of blood, and having been
hymned by groans enough to deafen the music of the spheres, is at length
illustrated to the satisfaction of all parties in the theological world,
by the nature of Mr. Peter Bell.
Peter is a polyhedric Peter, or a Peter with many sides. He changes
colours like a chameleon, and his coat like a snake. He is a Proteus of
a Peter. He was at first sublime, pathetic, impressive, profound; then
dull; then prosy and dull; and now dull--oh so very dull! it is an
ultra-legitimate dulness.
You will perceive that it is not necessary to consider Hell and the
Devil as supernatural machinery. The whole scene of my epic is in 'this
world which is'--so Peter informed us before his conversion to "White
Obi"--
'The world of all of us, AND WHERE
WE FIND OUR HAPPINESS, OR NOT AT ALL.'
Let me observe that I have spent six or seven days in composing this
sublime piece; the orb of my moonlike genius has made the fourth part of
its revolution round the dull earth which you inhabit, driving you mad,
while it has retained its calmness and its splendour, and I have been
fitting this its last phase 'to occupy a permanent station in the
literature of my country.'
Your works, indeed, dear Tom, sell better; but mine are far superior.
The public is no judge; posterity sets all to rights.
Allow me to observe that so much has been written of Peter Bell, that
the present history can be considered only, like the Iliad, as a
continuation of that series of cyclic poems, which have already been
candidates for bestowing immortality upon, at the same time that they
receive it from, his character and adventures. In this point of view I
have violated no rule of syntax in beginning my composition with a
conjunction; the full stop which closes the poem continued by me being,
like the full stops at the end of the Iliad and Odyssey, a full stop of
a very qualified import.
Hoping that the immortality which you have given to the Fudges, you will
receive from them; and in the firm expectation, that when London shall
be an habitation of bitterns; when St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey
shall stand, shapeless and nameless ruins, in the midst of an unpeopled
marsh; when the piers of Waterloo Bridge shall become the nuclei of
islets of reeds and osiers, and cast the jagged shadows of their broken
arches on the solitary stream, some transatlantic commentator will be
weighing in the scales of some new and now unimagined system of
criticism, the respective merits of the Bells and the Fudges, and their
historians. I remain, dear Tom, yours sincerely,
MICHING MALLECHO.
December 1, 1819.
P.S.--Pray excuse the date of place; so soon as the profits of the
publication come in, I mean to hire lodgings in a more respectable
street.
PROLOGUE.
Peter Bells, one, two and three,
O'er the wide world wandering be.--
First, the antenatal Peter,
Wrapped in weeds of the same metre,
The so-long-predestined raiment 5
Clothed in which to walk his way meant
The second Peter; whose ambition
Is to link the proposition,
As the mean of two extremes--
(This was learned from Aldric's themes) 10
Shielding from the guilt of schism
The orthodoxal syllogism;
The First Peter--he who was
Like the shadow in the glass
Of the second, yet unripe, 15
His substantial antitype.--
Then came Peter Bell the Second,
Who henceforward must be reckoned
The body of a double soul,
And that portion of the whole 20
Without which the rest would seem
Ends of a disjointed dream.--
And the Third is he who has
O'er the grave been forced to pass
To the other side, which is,-- 25
Go and try else,--just like this.
Peter Bell the First was Peter
Smugger, milder, softer, neater,
Like the soul before it is
Born from THAT world into THIS. 30
The next Peter Bell was he,
Predevote, like you and me,
To good or evil as may come;
His was the severer doom,--
For he was an evil Cotter, 35
And a polygamic Potter.
And the last is Peter Bell,
Damned since our first parents fell,
Damned eternally to Hell--
Surely he deserves it well! 40
PART 1. DEATH.
1.
And Peter Bell, when he had been
With fresh-imported Hell-fire warmed,
Grew serious--from his dress and mien
'Twas very plainly to be seen
Peter was quite reformed. 5
2.
His eyes turned up, his mouth turned down;
His accent caught a nasal twang;
He oiled his hair; there might be heard
The grace of God in every word
Which Peter said or sang. 10
3.
But Peter now grew old, and had
An ill no doctor could unravel:
His torments almost drove him mad;--
Some said it was a fever bad--
Some swore it was the gravel. 15
4.
His holy friends then came about,
And with long preaching and persuasion
Convinced the patient that, without
The smallest shadow of a doubt,
He was predestined to damnation. 20
5.
They said--'Thy name is Peter Bell;
Thy skin is of a brimstone hue;
Alive or dead--ay, sick or well--
The one God made to rhyme with hell;
The other, I think, rhymes with you. 25
6.
Then Peter set up such a yell!--
The nurse, who with some water gruel
Was climbing up the stairs, as well
As her old legs could climb them--fell,
And broke them both--the fall was cruel. 30
7.
The Parson from the casement lept
Into the lake of Windermere--
And many an eel--though no adept
In God's right reason for it--kept
Gnawing his kidneys half a year. 35
8.
And all the rest rushed through the door
And tumbled over one another,
And broke their skulls.--Upon the floor
Meanwhile sat Peter Bell, and swore,
And cursed his father and his mother; 40
9.
And raved of God, and sin, and death,
Blaspheming like an infidel;
And said, that with his clenched teeth
He'd seize the earth from underneath,
And drag it with him down to hell. 45
10.
As he was speaking came a spasm,
And wrenched his gnashing teeth asunder;
Like one who sees a strange phantasm
He lay,--there was a silent chasm
Between his upper jaw and under. 50
11.
And yellow death lay on his face;
And a fixed smile that was not human
Told, as I understand the case,
That he was gone to the wrong place:--
I heard all this from the old woman. 55
12.
Then there came down from Langdale Pike
A cloud, with lightning, wind and hail;
It swept over the mountains like
An ocean,--and I heard it strike
The woods and crags of Grasmere vale. 60
13.
And I saw the black storm come
Nearer, minute after minute;
Its thunder made the cataracts dumb;
With hiss, and clash, and hollow hum,
It neared as if the Devil was in it. 65
14.
The Devil WAS in it:--he had bought
Peter for half-a-crown; and when
The storm which bore him vanished, nought
That in the house that storm had caught
Was ever seen again. 70
15.
The gaping neighbours came next day--
They found all vanished from the shore:
The Bible, whence he used to pray,
Half scorched under a hen-coop lay;
Smashed glass--and nothing more! 75