And if they ran a race, they would not win it LVII. Upon the verge of space, about the size Like an aerial ship it tack'd, and steer'd, 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, 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; Of all climes and professions, years and trades, When Michael saw this host, he first grew pale, 1["On the cerulean floor by that dread circle surrounded, And with numberless mouths which were fill'd with hes as with arrows. And in the hubbub of senseless sounds the watchwords of faction,- [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 And the lying tongues were mute, and the lips, which had scatter'd This, in the Presence he stood: no place for fight; to dissembling 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. 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."] "Beholding the foremost, Him by the cast of his eye oblique, I knew as the firebrand He had sown on the winds; they had ripen'd beyond the Atlantic ;* *["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 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, 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 LXXVIII. The moment that you had pronounced him one, Have known, he shifted so from one to t' other; 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; On whom the stigma might perhaps be blown: 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 Seizing the guilty pair, he swung them aloft, and in vengeance "The roll of the thunder Ceased, and all sounds were hush'd, till again from the gate adamartine 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, One alone remain'd, when the rest had retired to their station. Here then at the Gare of Heaven we are met sard the Spirit; When that Spirit withdrew, the Monarch around the assembly 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 Now turn'd to Whitbread with complacence round; • Whitbread, is 't true; I hear, I hear, You're of an ancient family-renown'd What? What? I'm told that you're a limb 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 With notes and preface, all that most allures 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, My offer, what says Michael? There are few 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! I settle all these things by intuition, Like king Alfonso. When I thus see double, He ceased, and drew forth an MS.; and no Those grand heroics acted as a spell; The angels stopp'd their ears and plied their pinions; And I leave every mau to his opinions ;) 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. Excellent Queen, wert there! and thy brother's beautiful spirit. . Thee, ton, Father Chaucer! I saw, and delighted to see thee- Through the Gate of Bliss came forth to welcome their Sovereign. 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 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 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 |