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

"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

XLIV. "T is true, he was a tool from first to last (I have the workmen safe); but as a tool So let him be consumed. From out the past

Of ages, since mankind have known the rule Of monarchs-from the bloody rolls amass'd

Of sin and slaughter-from the Cæsars' school, Take the worst pupil; and produce a reign [slain. More drench'd with gore, more cumber'd with the XLV.

"He ever warr'd with freedom and the free: Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes,

"I know he was a constant consort; own
He was a decent sire, and middling lord.
All this is much, and most upon a throne;
As temperance, if at Apicius' board,

Is more than at an anchorite's supper shown.
I grant him all the kindest can accord ;
And this was well for him, but not for those
Millions who found him what oppression chose.
XLVII.

"The New World shook him off; the Old yet groans
Beneath what he and his prepared, if not
Completed: he leaves heirs on many thrones
To all his vices, without what begot
Compassion for him- his tame virtues; drones
Who sleep, or despots who have now forgot
A lesson which shall be re-taught them, wake
Upon the thrones of earth; but let them quake!

"True! he allow'd them to pray God but as
A consequence of prayer, refused the law
Which would have placed them upon the same base
With those who did not hold the saints in awe.'
But here Saint Peter started from his place,

And cried, "You may the prisoner withdraw:
Ere heaven shall ope her portals to this Guelph,
While I am guard, may I be damn'd myself!
L.

"Sooner will I with Cerberus exchange
My office (and his is no sinecure)

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

Heary and sulphurous clouds rol'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 remission 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."

LL.

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 Ægean, 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 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
Veil'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 OppressionLoudly 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. Profineness 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 mummery of prayer on the stage, though in a serious play, 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

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 flight; for dissembling
No possibility there. From the souls on the edge of the darkness,
Two he produced, prime movers and agents of mischief, and bade them
Show themselves faithful now to the cause for which they had labourd.
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 envenom'd invective,
Calumny, falsehood, 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.”—SOUTKEY.]

from being irreligious; and, indeed, the profaneness of the poem partly arises from the ludicrous effect produced by the bad taste and imbecility a 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 ins 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 in travestie the final judgment, and to convert the awful tribunal of Heaven into a drawing-room levee, where he, the Poet Laureate, takes upon hims self 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.")

"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 settled:
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 impulse,
Solely by selfishness moved, and reckless of aught that might follow
Could he plead in only excuse a confession of baseness?
Could be bide the extent of his guilt; or hope to atone for
Faction 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 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 elicited, by the patriot John Wilkes, a few years before. In a time of profound

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 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:

[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 him 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,
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." — SOUTHAY.]

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.]

1 [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 so 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 affirm; 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 ["Caitiff's, are ye dumb? cried the multifaced Demon in anger; Think ye then by shame to shorten the term of your penance? Back to your peñal dens! And with horrible grasp gigantic

7 [

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

[wind,

Seizing the guilty pair, he swung them aloft, and in vengeance
Hurl'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 tarTY,
Ere from the ground where he stood, caught up by a vehement but
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 bowling and groaning
Fell precipitate down to their dolorous place of endurance."-SOUTEET-]

"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 Heave?
Ho! he exclaim'd, King George of England standeth in jederent!
Hell hath been dumb in his presence. Ye who on earth arraign'd Alam,
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 errur deliver,
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 Gate of Heaven we are met!' said the Spirit:
King of England! albeit in life opposed to each other,
Here we meet at last. Not unprepared for the meeting
Ween 1; for we had both outlived all enmity, rendering
Each to each that justice which each from each had withhekien.
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 trulje
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 bave their guerdon.
Thou and I are free from offence.'-

When that Spirit withdrew, the Monarch around the ambly
Look'd, but none else came forth," &c.— Ibid.]