XLIV. ""T is 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 amass'd

Of sin and slaughter-from the Cæsars' school, Take the worst pupil; and produce a reign [slain. More drench'd with gore, more cumber'd with the XLV.

"He ever warr'd with freedom and the free: Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes, So that they utter'd the word ' Liberty!'

[Whose

Found George the Third their first opponent. History was ever stain'd as his will be

With national and individual woes ?

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!

My office (and his is no sinecure)

1 [George III.'s determination against the Catholic claims.] "From the opposite region,

Heavy and sulphurous clouds roll'd on, and completed the circle.
There with the Spirits accurst, in congenial darkness enveloped
Were the Souls of the Wicked, who, wilful in guilt and error,
Chose the service of sin, and now were abiding its wages.
Change of place to them brought no reprieval from anguish;
They in their evil thoughts and desires of impotent malice,
Envy, and bate, and blasphemous rage, and remorse unavailing,
Carried a hell within, to which all outer affliction,

So it abstracted the sense, might be deem'd a remission of torment.

At the edge of the cloud, the Princes of Darkness were marshall'd;
Dimly descried within were wings and truculent faces;
And in the thick obscure there struggled a mutinous uproar,
Railing, and fury, and strife, that the whole deep body of darkness
Roll'd like a troubled sea, with a wide and a manifold motion."
SOUTHEY.]

3 [A gold or gilt key, peeping from below the skirts of the coat, marks a lord chamberlain.]

4 [An allusion to Horace Walpole's expression in a letter"The summer has set in with its usual severity."]

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 appear'd
(I've seen a something like it in the skies
In the Ægean, ere a squall); it near'd,
And, growing bigger, took another guise;

Like an aerial ship it tack'd, and steer'd,
Or was steer'd (I am doubtful of the grammar

Of the last phrase, which makes the stanza stam

mer;

LVIII.

But take your choice); and then it grew a cloud; And so it was a cloud of witnesses. 1

But such a cloud! No land e'er saw a crowd

Of locusts numerous as the heavens saw these ; They shadow'd with their myriads space; their loud And varied cries were like those of wild geese (If nations may be liken'd to a goose), And realised the phrase of " hell broke loose."

LIX.

Here crash'd a sturdy oath of stout John Bull, Who damn'd away his eyes as heretofore: There Paddy brogued "By Jasus!"-" What's your wull ?" [swore The temperate Scot exclaim'd: the French ghost In certain terms I sha'n't translate in full,

As the first coachman will; and 'midst the war, 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,
Bitter as clubs in cards are against spades:
All summon'd by this grand "subpoena," to
Try if kings mayn't be damn'd like me or you.

LXI.

When Michael saw this host, he first grew pale, As angels can; next, like Italian twilight,

1 ["On the cerulean floor by that dread circle surrounded,
Stood the soul of the King alone. In front was the Presence
Veil'd with excess of light; and behind was the blackness of darkness;
When the trumpet was blown, and the Angel made proclamation--
Lo, where the King appears! Come forward, ye who arraign him!
Forth from the lurid cloud a Demon came at the summons.
It was the Spirit by whom his righteous reign had been troubled;
Likest in form uncouth to the hideous Idols whom India
(Long by guilty neglect to hellish delusions abandon'd,)
Worships with horrible rites of self-destruction and torture.
Many-headed and monstrous the Fiend; with numberless faces,
Numberless bestial ears erect to all rumours, and restless,

And with numberless mouths which were fill'd with lies as with arrows.
Clamours arose as he came, a confusion of turbulent voices,
Maledictions, and blatant tongues, and viperous hisses;

And in the hubbub of senseless sounds the watchwords of faction,Freedom, Invaded Rights, Corruption, and War, and OppressionLoudly enounced were heard."-SOUTHEY.]

[In reference to this part of Mr. Southey's poem, the Eclectic Reviewer, we believe the late Rev. Robert Hall, said Mr. Southey's Vision of Judgment is unquestionably a profane poem. The assertion will stagger those only who do not consider what is the import of the word. Profaneness is the irreverent use of sacred names and things. A burlesque of things sacred, whether intentional or not, is profaneness. To apply the language of Scripture in a ludicrous connection is to profane it. The mummery of prayer on the stage, though in a serious play, is a gross profanation of sacred things. And all acts which come under the taking of God's name in vain are acts of profaneness. According to this definition of the word, the Laureate's Vision of Judgment is a poem grossly and unpardonably profane. Mr. Southey's intention was, we are well persuaded, very far

He turn'd 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 address'd 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 is 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-

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 call'd "multifaced"
By multo-scribbling Southey)." Then we 'll call
One or two persons of the myriads placed

Around our congress, and dispense with all The rest," quoth Michael: "Who may be so graced As to speak first? there's choice enough- who shall It be?" Then Satan answer'd, "There are many; But you may choose Jack Wilkes as well as any."

LXVI.

A merry, cock-eyed, curious-looking sprite Upon the instant started from the throng,

2 [

"But when he stood in the Presence, Then was the Fiend dismay'd, though with impudence clothed as a gar

ment; And the lying tongues were mute, and the lips, which had scatter'd Accusation and slander, were still. No time for evasion This, in the Presence he stood: no place for flight; for dissembling No possibility there. From the souls on the edge of the darkness, Two he produced, prime movers and agents of mischief, and bade them Show themselves faithful now to the cause for which they had laheer's Wretched and guilty souls, where now their audacity? Where now Are the insolent tongues so ready of old at rejoinder Where the lofty pretences of public virtue and freedom? Where the gibe, and the jeer, and the threat, the envemum'd invective, Calumny, falsehood, fraud, and the whole ammunition of malice Wretched and guilty souls, they stood in the face of their Sovereign, Conscious and self-condemn'd; confronted with him they had injured, At the Judgment-seat they stood."-SOUTHEY.]

from being irreligious; and, indeed, the profaneness of the poem partly arises from the ludicrous effect produced by the bad taste and imbecility of the performance, for which his intentions are clearly not answerable Whatever liberties a poet may claim to take, in representations partly allegorical, with the invisible realities of the world to come, the fatuus of political zeal has, in this instance, carried Mr. Southey far be yond any assignable bounds of poetical license. It would have been enough to celebrate the apotheosis of the monarch; but, when he proceed in travestie the final judgment, and to convert the awful tribunal of Heaven into a drawing-room levee, where he, the Poet Laureate, takes upon lineself to play the part of a lord in waiting, presenting one Georgian wartly after another to kiss hands on promotion,- what should be grave a indeed, turned to farce."]

1

"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. But how was that countenance alter'd
Where emotion of fear or of shame had never been witness'd;
That invincible forehead abash'd; and those eyes wherein malice
Once had been wont to shine with wit and hilarity temper'd,
Into how deep a gloom their mournful expression had settled!
Little availed it now that not from a purpose malignant,
Not with evil intent, he had chosen the service of evil,
But of his own desires the slave, with profligate impulse,
Solely by selfishness moved, and reckless of aught that might follow
Could he plead in only excuse a confession of baseness?
Could he hide the extent of his guilt; or hope to atone for
Faction excited at home, when all old feuds were abated,
Insurrection abroad, and the train of woes that had follow'd!
Discontent and disloyalty, like the teeth of the dragon,

He had sown on the winds; they had ripen'd beyond the Atlantic ; *
Thence in natural birth, sedition, revolt, revolution,
France had received the seeds, and reap'd the harvest of horrors:
Where- where should the plague be stay'd? Oh, most to be pitied
They of all souls in bale, who see no term to the evil
They by their guilt have raised, no end to their inner upbraidings!
Him I could not choose but know," &c.-SOUTHRY.]

* [« Our new world has generally the credit of having first lighted the torch which was to illuminate, and soon set in a blaze, the finest part of Europe; yet I think the first flint was struck, and the first spark elicited, by the patriot John Wilkes, a few years before. In a time of profound

To see him punish'd here for their excess,

Since they were both damn'd 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 turn'd to half a courtier ere you died, 2 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,
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 gagg'd-'twas one of his own bills.

LXXIV.

"Call Junius!" 3 From the crowd a shadow stalk'd,
And at the name there was a general squeeze,
So that the very ghosts no longer walk'd
In comfort, at their own aërial ease,

But were all ramm'd, and jamm'd (but to be balk'd,
As we shall see), and jostled hands and knees,
Like wind compress'd and pent within a bladder.
Or like a human colic, which is sadder.

LXXV.

The shadow came-a tall, thin, grey-hair'd figure,
That look'd as it had been a shade on earth;
Quick in its motions, with an air of vigour,
But nought to mark its breeding or its birth:
Now it wax'd little, then again grew bigger,

With now an air of gloom, or savage mirth;
But as you gazed upon its features, they
Changed every instant- to what, none could say.

LXXVI

The more intently the ghosts gazed, the less

Could they distinguish whose the features were ; The Devil himself seem'd puzzled even to guess; They varied like a dream-now here, now there; And several people swore from out the press,

They knew him perfectly; and one could swear He was his father: upon which another Was sure he was his mother's cousin's brother:

2 [For the political history of John Wilkes, who died chamberlain of the city of London, we must refer to any history of the reign of George III. His profligate personal character is abundantly displayed in the collection of his letters, published by his daughter! since his death.]

3 ["Who might the other be, his comrade in guilt and in suffering,
Brought to the proof like hun, and shrinking like him from the trial?
Nameless the Libeller lived, and shot his arrows in darkness;
Undetected he pass'd 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.
Mask'd had he been in his life, and now a visor of iron,
Rivetted round his head, had abolish'd his features for ever.
Speechless the slanderer Яood, and turn'd 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."-SOUTHEY.]

peace, the restless spirit of men, deprived of other objects of public curiosity, seized with avidity on those questions which were then agitated with so much violence in England, touching the rights of the people and of the government, and the nature of power. The end of the political drama was in favour of what was called, and in some respects was, the liberty of the people. Encouraged by the success of this great comedian, the curtain was no sooner dropped on the scene of Europe, than new actors hastened to raise it again in America, and to give the world a new play, infinitely more interesting and more brilliant than the first."-M. SIMOND.]

LXXVII.

Another, that he was a duke, or knight,

An orator, a lawyer, or a priest, A nabob, a man-midwife 1 : but the wight Mysterious changed his countenance at least As oft as they their minds: though in full sight He stood, the puzzle only was increased; The man was a phantasmagoria in Himself - he was so volatile and thin. 2

LXXVIII.

The moment that you had pronounced him one,
Presto ! his face changed, and he was another;
And when that change was hardly well put on,
It varied, till I don't think his own mother
(If that he had a mother) would her son

Have known, he shifted so from one to t'other;
Till guessing from a pleasure grew a task,
At this epistolary "Iron Mask."3

LXXIX.

For sometimes he like Cerberus would seem"Three gentlemen at once" (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. 4

LXXX.

I've an hypothesis-'t is quite my own;
I never let it out till now, for fear
Of doing people harm about the throne,
And injuring some minister or peer,

On whom the stigma might perhaps be blown :
It is my gentle public, lend thine ear!
'Tis that what Junius we are wont to call
Was really, truly, nobody at all.

LXXXI.

I don't see wherefore letters should not be Written without hands, since we daily view

1 [Among the various persons to whom the Letters of Junius have been attributed we find the Duke of Portland, Lord George Sackville, Sir Philip Francis, Mr. Burke, Mr. Dunning, the Rev. John Horne Tooke, Mr. Hugh Boyd, Dr. Wilmot, &c.]

2 ["I don't know what to think. Why should Junius be dead? If suddenly apoplexed, would he rest in his grave without sending his owner to shout in the ears of posterity, Junius was X. Y. Z., Esq. buried in the parish of ** ** * ̧ Repair his monument, ye churchwardens! Print a new edition of his Letters, ye booksellers ! Impossible, the man must be alive, and will never die without the disclosure. I like him; he was a good hater."-Byron Diary, Nov. 23. 1813. Sir Philip Francis died in Dec. 1818.]

3 [The mystery of "I'homme au masque de fer," the everlasting puzzle of the last century, has at length, in general opinion, been cleared up, by a French work published in 1825, and which formed the basis of an entertaining one in English by Lord Dover. See Quarterly Review, vol. xxxiv. p. 19.]

[That the work entitled "The identity of Junius with a distinguished Living Character established" proves Sir Philip Francis to be Junius, we will not affirm; but this we can safely assert; that it accumulates such a mass of circumstantial evidence as renders it extremely difficult to believe he is not, and that, if so many coincidences shall be found to have misled us in this case, our faith in all conclusions drawn from proofs of a similar kind may henceforth be shaken. — MACKINTOSH.]

s [The well-known motto of Junius is, " Stat nominis umbra."]

6 ["Caitiffs, are ye dumb cried the multifaced Demon in anger;
Think ye then by shame to shorten the term of your penance?
Back t
dens! And with horrible grasp gigantic

Them written without heads; and books, we see,

Are fill'd 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, 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," 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 answer'd, "You had better First ask him for his answer to my letter:

LXXXIII.

"My charges upon record will outlast 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 5;" and while speaking yet, Away he melted in celestial smoke. 6 Then Satan said to Michael," Don't forget [Tooke, To call George Washington 7, and John Horne And Franklin; "- but at this time there was heard A cry for room, though not a phantom stirr'd.

LXXXV.

At length with jostling, elbowing, and the aid
Of cherubim appointed to that post,
The devil Asmodeus to the circle made

7 [

His way, and look'd as if his journey cost

Seizing the guilty pair, he swung them aloft, and in vengeance
Hurl'd them all abroad, far into the sulphurous darkness
Sons of Faction, be warn'd! And ye, ye Slanderers learn ye
Justice, and bear in mind that after death there is judgment.
Whirling, away they flew! Nor long himself did he tarry,
Ere from the ground where he stood, caught up by a velement ha
He too was hurried away: and the blast with lightning and thunder
Vollying aright and aleft amid the accumulate blackness,
Scatter'd its inmates accurst, and beyond the limits of ether
Drove the hircine host obscene; they howling and groaning
Fell precipitate down to their dolorous place of endurance."Seerat-)
"The roll of the thunder

Ceased, and all sounds were hush'd, till again from the gate adamantine
Was the voice of the Angel heard through the silence of Heaven.
Ho! he exclaim'd, King George of England standeth in judgment!
Hell hath been dumb in his presence. Ye who on earth arraign' him,
Come ye before him now, and here accuse or absolve him!
. From the Souls of the Blessed,
Some were there then who advanced; and more from the skirts of the
meeting,

Spirits who had not yet accomplish'd their purification,
Yet being cleansed from pride, from faction and error deliver'd,
Purged of the film wherewith the eye of the mind is clouded,
They, in their better state, saw all things clear...
One alone remain'd, when the rest had retired to their station
Silently he had stood, and still unmoved and in silence,
With a steady mien, regarded the face of the Monarch.
Thoughtful awhile he gazed:-

Here then at the Gate of Heaven we are met!" said the Spirit
King of England! albeit in life opposed to each other,
Here we meet at last. Not unprepared for the meeting
Ween I; for we had both outlived all enmity, rendering
Each to each that justice which each from each had withholdem,
In the course of events, to thee I seem'd as a Rebel,
Thou a Tyrant to me; so strongly doth circumstance rule men
During evil days, when right and wrong are confounded
Washington! said the Monarch, well hast thou spoken, and truly.
Just to thyself and to me. On them is the guilt of the contest
Who, for wicked ends, with foul arts of faction and falsehood,
Kindled and fed the flame: but verily they have their guerdon.
Thou and I are free from offence.' ---

When that Spirit withdrew, the Monarch around the assembly
Look'd, but none else came forth," &c.- Ind.)

"The former is the devil's scripture, and

The latter yours, good Michael; so the affair Belongs to all of us, you understand.

I snatch'd him up just as you see him there,
And brought him off for sentence out of hand:
I've scarcely been ten minutes in the air-
At least a quarter it can hardly be:

I dare say that his wife is still at tea."
LXXXVIII.

Here Satan said, "I know this man of old,
And have expected him for some time here;
A sillier fellow you will scarce behold,

Or more conceited in his petty sphere:
But surely it was not worth while to fold

Such trash below your wing, Asmodeus dear: We had the poor wretch safe (without being bored With carriage) coming of his own accord.

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;
But stuck fast with his first hexameter,
Not one of all whose gouty feet would stir.
XCI.

But ere the spavin'd dactyls could be spurr'd
Into recitative, in great dismay,

Both cherubim and seraphim were heard

To murmur loudly through their long array;

1 [Mr. Southey's residence is on the shore of Derwentwater, near the mountain Skiddaw.]

2

་་

[--" Mediocribus esse poetis Non Di, non homines, non concessere columnæ."-Horace.] 3 [The king's trick of repeating his words in this way was a fertile source of ridicule to Peter Pindar (Dr. Wolcot); for example

"The conquering monarch, stopping to take breath
Amidst the regiments of death,

Now turn'd to Whitbread with complacence round;
And, merry, thus address'd the man of beer:-
Whitbread, is 't true? I hear, I hear,

You 're of an ancient family-renown'd

[best

And Michael rose ere he could get a word
Of all his founder'd verses under way,
And cried," For God's sake, stop, my friend! 't were
Non Di, non homines — -you know the rest."2
XCII.

A general bustle spread throughout the throng,
Which seem'd 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;
[what ! 3
The monarch, mute till then, exclaim'd, "What!
Pye 4 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 pray'd to interpose (Himself an author) only for his prose.

XCIV.

The varlet was not an ill-favour'd knave;
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 still'd 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 overcrow'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; 't was his way
Upon all topics; 't was, besides, his bread,

Of which he butter'd both sides; 't would 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

"Wat Tyler". -"Rhymes on Blenheim" terloo."

XCVII.

He had written praises of a regicide;

"Wa

He had written praises of all kings whatever; He had written for republics far and wide, And then against them bitterer than ever;

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? he? he? ha?
Thirtieth of January don't you feed?

Yes, yes, you eat calf's head, you eat calf's head!'"]

4 [Henry James Pye, the predecessor of Mr. Southey in the poet-laureateship, died in 1813. He was the author of many works, besides his official Odes, among others "Alfred," an epic poem- all of which have been long since defunct. Pye was a man of good family in Berkshire, sat some time in parliament, and was eminently respectable in every thing but his poetry.]