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."

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-'t was one of his own bilis.

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 hunian 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 uow 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:

66

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

i flim

“ Beholding the foremost,
Slim 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 sh une had never been witness'd;
That invincible forehead abash'd; and those eyes wherein malice
Once had twen wont to shine with wit and hilarity temper'd,
Into how deep a gloom their mournful express on had set ied!
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 finpu'se.
Solely by selfishness moved, and reckless of aucht that might follow
Could he plead in only excuse a confession of baseness?
Could he hide the extent of his hilt; or hope to atone for
Faction excited at home, when all old feuds were abitat,
Insurrection al road, wd the train of woes that had follow'd !
Discontent and disloyalty, like the teeth of the dragon,
He had sown on the winis ; they had ripen'i leyond the Atlantic ; *
Thence in natural birth, sedition, revoli, resolution,
France had received the seeds, and rept 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 lry their guilt have raiel, no end to their inner upbraidings!
Hin I could not choose but know," &c. - SOUTHEY.]

* ("Our new world has generally the creclit of having first lighted the torch which was to illuminate, and see in a blws, the finest part of Europe; et I think the first flint was struck, and the fint sparklicited, by the patrwi John Wulkes, a few years belure. In a time of profound

2 [For the political history of John Wilkes, who died cham. berlain of the city of London, we must refer to any history of the reign of George 111. His proilizate 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 cornrode in guilt and in suffering,

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:

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
llimself - he was so volatile and thin. ?

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 bis 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 — '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

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

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

' [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.)

3 ["I don't know what to think. Why should Junius be dead? If suddenly apoplexed, would he rest in his grave without sending his lower to shout in the ears of posterity, • Junius was X. Y. Z., Esq. buried in the parish of * Repair his monument, je church wardens ! 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 ever. lasting 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 athrm ; but this we can sarely 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. - Mack. INTOSH.)

5 [The well-known motto of Junius is, “ Stat nominis umbra."'] 6 ("Caitifts, are ve dumb » cried the multifaced Temon in anger:

Think ye then by shame to shorten the tern of your penance ?
Back to your penal dens ! - And with horrible grasp sganuc

Seizing the guilty pair, he swung them aloft, and in rengeance
Huri them all abroad, far into the sulphurous darkney.
Sons of Faction, be war'd! And ye, ye Slanderers ! leam re
Justice, and bear in mind that after death there is judgrnent.
Whirling, away they tlev! Vor long hirnseit did he tarry, (wind,
Ere from the ground where he stood, caught up by a vebement shirt-
He too was hurried away and the blast with lightning and Thunder
Vollying anight and alett amid the accumulate blackness,
Scatter'u its inmates accurst, and beyond the limits of ether
Drove the hircine host obscene; the howling and groaning

Fell precipitace down to their dolorous place of endurance."-SOUTIET.) 7 (

Some trouble. When his burden down he laid, " What's this?” cried Michael ; “ why, 't is not a

ghost ? “ I know it," quoth the incubus ; “ but he Shall be one, if you leave the affair to me.

LXXXVI. “ Confound the renegado! I have sprain'd

My left wing, he's so beavy; one would think Some of his works about his neck were chain'd.

But to the point; while hovering o'er the brink
Of Skiddaw' (where as usual it still rain'd),

I saw a taper, far below me, wink,
And stooping, caught this fellow at a libel-
No less on history than the Holy Bible.

LXXXVII.
“ 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.

LXXXIX. “ But since he's here, let's see what he has done."

“ Done!" cried Asmodeus," he anticipates The very business you are now upon,

And scribbles as if head clerk to the Fates. Who knows to what his ribaldry may run,

When such an ass as this, like Balaam's, prates ? " “Let's hear," quoth Michael, “what he has to say; You know we're bound to that in every way."

XC.
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 ;

And Michael rose ere he could get a word

Of all his founder'd verses under way, (bestAnd cried, “ For God's sake, stop, my friend ! 't were Non Di, non homires — you know the rest."9

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.

XCVI.
He said — (I only give the heads) — he said,

He meant no harm in scribbling; 't was his way Upon all topics; 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 -“ Waterloo."

XCVII.
He had written praises of a regicide ;

He had written praises of all kings whatever;
He had written for republics far and wide,

And then against them bitterer than ever ;

2

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

1-" Mediocribus esse poetis Non Di, non homines, non concessere columnæ."- Horace.)

What? What? I'm told that you're a limb
or l'ym, the famous fellow Pym:
What, Whitbreid, is it true what people say?
Son of a roundhead are you? h? h? ha?
Thirtieth of Januars don't you feed ?

Yes, yes, you eat call's head, you eat calf's head!" - (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 par. liament, and was eminently respectable in every thing but his poetry.]

Like king Alfonso. 3 When I thus see double, I save the Deity some worlds of trouble."

For pantisocracy he once had cried

Aloud, a scheme less moral than 't was 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 callid
Reviewing 1 “the ungentle craft," and then

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

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

CII.
He ceased, and drew forth an MS.; and do

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 “ inelodious twang." 4

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 Aed, gibbering, for their own domi(For 't is not yet decided where they dwell, (nions

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 !

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,

Times present, past, to come, heaven, hell, and all,

CIV.
Saint Peter, who has hitherto been known

For an impetuous saint, upraised his keys,
And at the fifth line knock'd the poet down ; 5

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
Reform shall happen either here or there.

Сү. .
He first sank to the bottom-like his works,

But soon rose to the surface - like himself;
For all corrupted things are buoy'd like corks, 8

By their own rottenness, light as an elf, Or wisp that flits o'er a morass : he lurks,

It may be, still, like dull books on a shelf, In his own den, to scrawl some“ Life" or " Vision," 7 As Welborn says—“ the devil turn'd precisian."

I See “ Life of Henry Kirke White."
2 (" Lift up your heads, ye Gates; and re everlasting Portals,

Be re lift up! For lo! a glorined stonarch approacheth,
One who in righteousness regn'd, and religiously govern' his people.
Who are these that await him within ?-Vasuthe Deliserer,
Ilim 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 pirince with lottier intellect gifted.

Bede I beheid, who, humble and holy,
Shone like a single star, serene in a night of darkness.
Bacon also was there, the marvellous Friar;
Thee, two, Father Chaucer! I saw, and delighted to see thee -
And Shasspeare, who in our hearts for himself hath erecteu an empire.

A tr in whom nearer duty attracted, Through the Gate of Bliss came forth to welcome their Sovereign. Many were ther, and glorious all. Conspicuous among them Wolfe was seen; and the Seaman who fell on the shores of Owhyhee.* And the might 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 I beheld there. Here, where wTONES are forgiven, was the injurut lasting beside him; There was our late-lost Queen, the nation's example of virtue, * &c. &c.

SOUTHXY.] · 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 trang;" 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 day-light; 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 Cook.

carry tapers in their hands, as they are sometimes depicted.
Dragging chains is not the fashion of English ghosts : chains
and black vestments being chiefly the accoutrements of foreign
spectres seen in arbitrary governments ; dead or alive, En.
Elish spirits are free. During the narration of its business, a
g'ost must by no means be interrupted by questions of any
kind: its narration being completed, it vanisbes away, fre-
quently in a flash of light; in which case, some ghosts have
been so considerate as to desire the party to whom they ap-
peared to shut their eyes :- sometimes its departure is at-
tended with most delightful music.")
5 " When I beheld them meet, the desire of my soul o'ercame me:

And when with harp and roice the loud hosannahs of welcome
Filled the rejoicing sky, as the happy company enter'd
Through the Everlasting Gates, 1, too, presa'd forward to enter -
But the reight of the body withheld me. - I stoop'd to the fountain,
Eacer to drink thereuf, and to put away all that was earthis.
Darkness came over me then at the chilling touch of the water,
And my feet methought sunk, and I feil precipitate. Starting,
Then I awoke, and beheld the mr.cuntains in twilight before me,
Dark and distinct ; and, instead of the rapturous sound of havannahs,
Heard the bell from the tower, TOLL! TOLL! through the silence of

evening. - SOCTHBY. 6 A drowned body lies at the bottom till rotten; it then foats, as most people know.

? [Southey's Vision of Judgment appears to us to be an illjudged, and not a well-executed work. It certainly has added nothing to the reputation of its author in any respect. The nobleness of his motive does not atone for the indiscretion of putting it into so reprehensible a form. Milton's example will, perhaps, be pleadeil in his vindication ; but Milton alone 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 constant 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