(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 seem'd a little sweeter). XXXI.

The cherubs and the saints bow'd 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.

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 't would take up hours. XXXIV.

And this is not a theologic tract,

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 The place where Death's grand cause is argued o'er, And souls despatch'd 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 pass'd a mutual glance of great politeness.
XXXVI.

The Archangel bow'd, not like a modern beau,
But with a graceful oriental bend,
Pressing one radiant arm just where below

The heart in good men is supposed to tend.
He turn'd as to an equal, not too low,

But kindly; Satan met his ancient friend 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

1"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

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." 1

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 reign'd 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, 't were (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 call'd him king: through many a storm
His isles had floated on the abyss of time;
For the rough virtues chose them for their clime.

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 ; 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.

this subject, Sir, hell is paved with good intentions.'" Boswell, vol. v. p. 305. ed. 1835.]

2 [

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

Heavy and sulphurous clouds roil'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 hate, 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 reinission of torment.

Than see this royal Bedlam bigot range

The azure fields of heaven, of that be sure! "Saint!" replied Satan, "you do well to avenge The wrongs he made your satellites endure; 1 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:

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 turn'd and waved his swarthy hand,
Which stirr'd 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. 2
LIII.

This was a signal unto such damn'd 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 assign'd; but where their inclination
Or business carries them in search of game,
They may range freely-being damn'd 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 3; or like to an "entré"
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.

LV.

When the great signal ran from heaven to hell-
About ten million times the distance reckon'd
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 beacon'd, The weathercocks are gilt some thrice a year,

If that the summer is not too severe : 4 —

LVI.

I say that I can tell-'t was half a minute:
I know the solar beams take up more time
Ere, pack'd up for their journey, they begin it;
But then their telegraph is less sublime,

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 Egean, ere a squall); it near'd,
And, growing bigger, took another guise;

Like an aërial 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 stammer;

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 "subpœna," 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
Vei'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 Oppression -
Loudly 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. Southes'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. Profineness is the irreverent use of sacred names and things. A burlesque of things sacred, whether intentional or not, is pro‘aneness. 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 pay, 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-

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, 't will 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 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 light; for dissembling
No possibility there. From the souls on the edge of the darkness,
To he produced, prime movers and agents of mischief, and bade them
Show themselves faithful now to the cause for which they had labour'd.
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 enveron'd invective,
Calumny, fa sehood, 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 prounced by the bad taste and imbecilits 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 ignis 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 proceeds to travestie the final judgment, and to convert the awful tribunal of Heaven into a drawing-room levee, where he, the Poet Laureate, takes upon humself to play the part of a lord in waiting, presenting one Georgian worthy after another to kiss hands on promotion, what should be grave is, indeed, turned to farce."]

Dress'd in a fashion now forgotten quite; 1
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.

LXVII.

The spirit look'd around upon the crowds

Assembled, and exclaim'd, " 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 't is for an election that they bawl, Behold a candidate with unturn'd coat! 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,"

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,

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, and shall be unwilling

"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 set,led!
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 iinpu'se,
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 alroad, 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. - SOUTHEY.]

*["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 celicited, by the patriot John Wilkes, a few years before. In a time of profound

"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-'t was 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 aerial 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 prodigate 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 him, and shrinking like him from the trial?
Nameless the Libeller lived, and shot his arrows in darkness;
Undetected he pass' 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 stood, 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 : 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

[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 owλe 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 "l'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 atfirm; 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.]

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

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

7 [

Seizing the guilty pair, he swung them aloft, and in vengeance
Hurid 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, [wind,
Ere from the ground where he stood, caught up by a vehement whirl-
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."-SOUTHEY.]
"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'd 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 nim 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 Eng and! albeit in life opposed to each other,
Here we meet at last. Not unprepared for the meeting
Wien 1; for we had both outlived all enmity, rendering
Each to each that justice which each from each had withholden.
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.- Ibid.]