79 For sometimes he like Cerberus would 83 "My charges upon record will outlast The brass of both his epitaph and seem 991 "Three gentlemen at once (as sagely tomb." "Repent'st thou not," said Michael, "of some past Exaggeration? something which may doom "I know it," quoth the incubus;2 "but he Shall be one, if you leave the affair to me. 86 "Confound the renegado! I have sprain'd My left wing, he's so heavy; one would think Some of his works about his neck were chain'd. But to the point; while hovering o'er the brink Öf Skiddaw (where as usual it still rain 'd), No less on history than the Holy Bible. 87 "The former is the devil's scripture, and The latter yours, good Michael: so the affair Belongs to all of us, you understand. 1 See John, 19:22. evil spirit I snatch'd him up just as you see him there, And brought him off for sentence out of hand: I've scarcely been ten minutes in the At least a quarter it can hardly be: 88 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: Non Di, non homines1-you know the rest." 92 A general bustle spread throughout the throng, We had the poor wretch safe (without 93 being bored Which seem'd to hold all verse in de testation; 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, exclaim'd, "What! what! Pye come again? No more-no more of that!"' 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 des Was by no means so ugly as his case; But that, indeed, was hopeless as can be, Quite a poetic felony "de se. Upon decorous silence, few will twice Lift up their lungs when fairly over crow'd; And now the bard could plead his own bad cause, With all the attitudes of self-applause. 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, 1 neither gods nor men nor booksellers have granted to poets to be mediocre.-Horace, Ars Poetica. 372. 2 felony upon himself,-i. e.. suicide 1 One of Southey's early poems is entitled In8cription for the Apartment in Chepstow Castle, where Henry Martin, the Regicide, Was Imprisoned Thirty Years. In Wat Tyler, written in 1794, Southey expressed strong republican ideas; in The Poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo, written in 1816, he rejoiced over the downfall of the French Republic. The name given to a scheme for an ideal community which Southey, Coleridge, and others103 planned in 1794 to establish in America. It was perfectly moral. One opposed to democratic, or revolutionary, principles. Southey, The Life of Henry Kirke White Southey became a regular contributor to The But at the fourth, the whole spiritual show Had vanish'd, with variety of scents, Ambrosial and sulphureous, as they |