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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 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 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 realized the phrase of "hell broke loose."

LIX.

Here crash'd a sturdy oath of stout John Bull,
Who damu'd away his eyes as heretofore:

There Paddy brogued "By Jasus!"-"What's your wull?"

The temperate Scot exclaim'd: the French ghost

swore

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, a 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
Ved'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;
Lakest in forin uncouth to the hideous Idols whom India
(Long by guilty neglect to hellish de usions abandon'd,)
Worships with horrible rites of self-destruction and torture.
Many-headed and monstrous the Fiend; with numberless faces,
Nuniberless bestial ears erect to all rumors, and restless,

And with numberless mouths which were fill'd with hes as with arrows.
Ciamors 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. 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 munimery

of prayer on the stage, though in a serious play, is a gross profanation of sacred things. And all nets 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

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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 fight; to dissembling
No possibility there. From the souls on the edge of the darkness,
Two he produced, prine movers and agents of mis hie', as its le tem
Show themselves faithful now to the cause for which diey had 1-berd.
Wretched and guilty souls, where now their audacity! Where aow
Are the insolent tongues so ready of oid at rejoinder 1
Where the lofty pretences of public virtue and freedom?
Where the gibe, and the jeer, and the threat, the envenom'd invective,
Calumny, falsehood, fraud, and the whole ammunition of maize ?
Wretched and guilty souls, they stood in the face of their Sever gr,
Conscious and self-condemn'd; confronted with him they had anjired,
At the Judgment-seat they stood."—Southey.]

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from being irreligious; and, indeed, the profaneness of the poem pane arises from the ludicrous effect produced by the bad take and imbesti the performance, for which his intentions are cleary rot Whatever liberties a poet may claim to take, in representatase pr allegorical, with the invisible realities of the world to carce, the xola fatuus of political zeal has, in this instance, carried Mr. So yond any assignable bounds of poetical heense. It would have tren m to celebrate the apothecsis of the monarch; but, when he prove travestie the final judgment, and to convert the awful tits.

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into a drawing-room levee, where he, the Poet Laureate, takes lipoma self to play the part of a lord in waith g, presenting one Georgia after another to kiss hands on premotion,-what should be grace it, all turned to farce."]

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"Beholding the foremost,

Him by the cast of his eye oblique, I knew as the firebrand
When the thinking populace held for their stol and hero,
Lal of Murule in his day. But how was that countenance alter'd
Where emotion of tear or of shame hat never been witness'd;
That invincible forehead abash'd; and those eyes wherein malice
One ha! been wont to shine with wit and hilarity temper'd,
Ints how deep a gloon their mournful expression had settled!
Litt availed it now that not from a purpose maitgnant,
Not with evil intent, he had chosen the service of evil,
Bat of his own desires the slave, with profligate impulse,
8ely by selfishness moved, and reckless of aught that might follow
Cell he plead in only excuse a confession of baseness?
Cld be nule the extent of his guilt; or hope to atone for
Pat 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 tirth, sedition, revolt, revolution,
France bad received the seeds, and reap' the harvest of horrors;
Where--where should the plague be stay'd? Oh, most to be pitied
Ther of all culs in bale, who see no term to the evil
They by their guilt have raised, no end to their inner upbraidings!
Hun I could not choose but know," &c.-Southey.]

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

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The shadow came-a tall, thin, gray-hair'd figure, That look'd as it had been a shade on earth; Quick in its motions, with an air of vigor,

But naught 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 him, and shrinking like han 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,
Riveted round his head, had abolish'd his features forever.
Speechless the slanderer stood, and rurn'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 curosity, se:zed 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 favor 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, thau 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.*

LXXX.

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:
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 towλov 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 Dhary, 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.]

4 [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 accumulatęs 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 ye 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

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Seizing the guilty pair, he swung them aloft, and in vengeance
Huri'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 vetement wate
He too was hurried away; and the blast with lightning and thunder
Volleying aright and aleft amid the accumulate blackness,
Scatter'd its inmates accursed, and beyond the limits of ether
Drove the bircine host obscene, they howling and groaning
Fell precipitate down to their dolorous place of endurance."-Sondhry.)

"The roll of the thunder

Ceased, and all sounds were hush'd, till again from the gate adamartine
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 ham,
Come ye before him now, and here accuse or absolve him!
From the Souls of the Biennech,

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 Gare of Heaven we are met sard the Spirit;
King of England! albeit in hie 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 ech had withholden.
In the course of events, to thee I seem'd as a Rebel,
Thou a Tyrant to meso strongly doch circumstance rule men
During evil days, when right and wrong are coufcundled "
•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.)

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2

["Mediocribus esse poetis Non Di, non homines, non concessere columnæ."-Horace.] 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

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What? What? I'm told that you're a limb
Of Pyin, the famous fellow Pymn:
What, Whitbread, is it true what people say?
Son of a roundhead are you? bæ l'heel hei
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.]

For pantisocracy he once had cried

Aloud, a scheme less moral than 'twas clever; Then grew a hearty anti-jacobin—

Had turn'd his coat-and would have turn'd his skin

XCVIII.

He had sung against all battles, and again

In their high praise and glory; he had call'd Reviewing "the ungentle craft," and then

Become as base a critic as e'er crawl'dFed, paid, and pamper'd by the very men

By whom his muse and morals had been maul'd: He had written much blank verse, and blanker prose, And more of both than anybody knows.

XCIX.

He had written Wesley's life:-here turning round
To Satan, "Sir, I'm ready to write yours,
In two octavo volumes, nicely bound,

With notes and preface, all that most allures
The pious purchaser; and there's no ground

For fear, for I can choose my own reviewers : So let me have the proper documents That I may add you to my other saints."

C.

Satan bow'd, and was silent. "Well, if you,
With amiable modesty, decline

My offer, what says Michael? There are few
Whose memoirs could be render'd more divine.
Mine is a pen of all work; not so new

As it was once, but I would make you shine Like your own trumpet. By the way, my own Has more of brass in it, and is as well blown.

CI.

"But talking about trumpets, here's my Vision!
Now you shall judge, all people; yes, you shall
Judge with my judgment, and by my decision
Be guided who shall enter heaven or fall.2

I settle all these things by intuition,

Like king Alfonso. When I thus see double,
I save the Deity some worlds of trouble."
CII.

He ceased, and drew forth an MS.; and no
Persuasion on the part of devils, or saints,
Or angels, now could stop the torrent; so
He read the first three lines of the contents;
But at the fourth, the whole spiritual show
Had vanish'd, with variety of scents,
Ambrosial and sulphureous. as they sprang,
Like lightning, off from his "melodious twang."
CIII.

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 mau to his opinions ;)
Michael took refuge in his trump-but, lo!
His teeth were set on edge, he could not blow!

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Times present, past, to come, heaven, hell, and all, As Welborn says-" the devil turn'd precisian.”

1 See "Life of Henry Kirke White."

2 ["Lift up your heads, ye Gates; and ye everlasting Portals,

Be ye it up! For lo! a glorified Monarch approacheth,

One who in righteousness reign'd, and religiously govern'd his people.
Who are these that await him within 1-Nassau, the Deliverer,
Him I knew
Thou, too, O matchless Eliza,

Excellent Queen, wert there! and thy brother's beautiful spirit.
There too was he of the sable mail, the hero of Cressy,
Lion-hearted Richard was there, redoubtable warrior.
I saw the spirit of Alfred-
Alfred, than whom no prince with lottier intellect gifted.
Bede 1 beheld, who, humble and holy,
Shone like a single star, serene in a night of darkness.
Bacon also was there, the marvellous Friar;

.

Thee, ton, Father Chaucer! I saw, and delighted to see thee-
And Shakspeare, who in our hearts for himself hath erected an empire.
A train whom nearer duty attracted,

Through the Gate of Bliss came forth to welcome their Sovereign.
Many were they, and glorious all. Conspicuous among them
Wolfe was seen; and the Seaman who felt on the shores of Owhyhee.*
And the mighty Musician of Germany, ours by adoption,
Who beheld in the king his munificent pupil and patron-
There, too, Wesley, I saw and knew-And Burke 1 beheld there.
Here, where wrongs are forgiven, was the injured Hastings beside him;
There was our late lost Queen, the nation's example of virtue," &c. &c.
Southey.]

Alfonso, speaking of the Ptolomean system, said, that "had he been consulted at the creation of the world, he would have spared the Maker some absurdities."

See Aubrey's account of the apparition which disappeared "with a curious perfume and a most melodious twang;" or see the "Antiquary," vol. i. p. 225.-[" As the vision shut his volume, a strain of delightful music seemed to fill the apartment."-"The usual time," says Grose, at which ghosts make their appearance is midnight, and seldom before it is dark; though some audacious spirits have been said to appear even by daylight; but of this there are few instances, and those mostly ghosts who had been laid, and whose terms of confinement were expired. I cannot learn that ghosts

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carry tapers in their hands, as they are sometimes depicted. Dragging chains is not the fashion of English ghosts, chans and black vestments being chiefly the accoutrements of foreign spectres seen in arbitrary governments; dead or alive, English spirits are free. During the narration of its business, a ghost must by no means be interrupted by ques tions of any kind: its narration being completed, 1 vanishes away, frequently in a flash of light; in which case, some ghosts have been so considerate as to desire the party to whom they appeared to shut their eyes-sometimes its departure is attended with most delightful music.”)

5 ["When I beheld them meet, the desire of my soul o'ercame me
And when with harp and voice the loud bosannahs of welcome
Fill'd the rejoicing sky, as the happy company enter'd
Through the Everlasting Gates, I, too, press'd forward to enter —
But the weight of the body withheld me.-I stoop'd to the fuotain,
Eager to drink thereof, and to put away all that was cartaly.
Darkness came over me then at the chilling touch of the water,
And my feet methought sunk, and I tell precipitate. Starting.
Then I awoke, and beheld the mountains in twilight before me,
Dark and distinct; and, instead of the rapturous sound of bosa umahs,
Heard the bell from the tower, toll! toll! through the meme if
evening."-Southey.]

6 A drowned body lies at the bottom till rotten; it then floats, as most people know.

7 [Southey's Vision of Judgment appears to us to be an illjudged, and not a well-executed work. It certainly has adde! nothing to the reputation of its author in any respect. The nobleness of his motive does not atone for the indiscret.on of putting it into so reprehensible a form. Milton's example will, perhaps, be pleaded in his vindication; but Milton alcze has ever founded a fiction on the basis of revelation, without degrading his subject. He alone has succeeded in carrying his readers into the spiritual world. No other attempt of the kind has ever appeared that can be read without a consta:i feeling of something like burlesque, and a wish that the Tartarus and Elysium of the idolatrous Greeks should still be the hell and the heaven of poetry. A smile at the puerilities, and

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