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.

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

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."

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

You turn'd to half a courtier 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.

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.

Call Junius!" 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 cholic, which is sadder.

The Shadow came! a tall, thin, gray-hair'd figure,

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;

With now an air of gloom, or savage mirth;

But as you gazed upon its features, they

say.

Written without hands, since we daily view

we see

At length, with jostling, elbowing, and the aid

Of cherubim appointed to that post,
The devil Asmodeus to the circle made
His way, and look'd 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.

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.

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.

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; 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 friends! 'twere best"Non Di, non homines—” you know the rest.”

Those grand heroics acted as a spell: The angels stopp'd their ears and plied their pinions;

The devils ran howling, deafen'd, 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!

Saint Peter, who has hitherto been known For an impetuous saint, upraised his keys, And at the fifth line knock'd the Poet down; 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

He first sunk to the bottom-like his work? But soon rose to the surface-like himself. For all corrupted things are buoy'd, like 1 corks,

By their own rottenness, light as an elf. Or wisp that flits o'er a morass: he larka, It may be, still, like dull books on a shef, In his own den, to scrawl some “Life* "Vision,"

As Wellborn says "the devil turn'd p

cisian."

As for the rest, to come to the conclusie Of this true dream, the telescope is gon Which kept my optics free from all delusin And show'd me what I in my turn hav shown:

All I saw further in the last confusion, Was, that King George slipp'd into heave for one;

A SKETCH FROM PRIVATE LIFE.

Honest-honest Iago!

If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee. SHAKSPEARE.

BORN in the garret, in the kitchen bred, Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head; Next for some gracious service unexprest, And from its wages only to be guess'dRaised from the toilet to the table, where Her wondering betters wait behind her chair:

With eye unmoved, and forehead unabash'd, She dines from off the plate she lately wash'd, Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie, The genial confidante, and general spy; Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess,

An only infant's earliest governess! She taught the child to read, and taught so well

That she herself, by teaching, learn'd to spell.

An adept next in penmanship she grows, As many a nameless slander deftly shows: What she had made the pupil of her art, None know-but that high soul secured the heart,

And panted for the truth it could not hear, With longing breast and undeluded ear.

Foil'd was perversion by that youthful mind,

Which flattery fool'd not, baseness could
not blind,
Deceit infect not, near contagion soil.
Indulgence weaken, nor example spoil,
Nor master'd science tempt her to look down
On humbler talents with a pitying frown,
Nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain,
Nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain,
Nor fortune change, pride raise, nor passion
bow,

Nor virtue teach austerity-till now.
Serenely purest of her sex that live,
But wanting one sweet weakness to forgive;
Too shock'd at faults her soul can never
know,

She deems that all could be like her below:
Foe to all vice, yet hardly virtue's friend-
For virtue pardons those she would amend.

But to the theme-now laid aside too long, The baleful burthen of this honest songThough all her former functions are no

more,

She rules the circle which she served before. If mothers-none know why-before her quake;

If daughters dread her for the mother's sake; If early habits-those false links, which bind