To agitate Io,* and which Ezekiel † mentions That the Lord whistled for out of the mountains Of utmost Ethiopia, to torment

Mesopotamian Babylon. The beast

Has a loud trumpet like the scarabee;

His crooked tail is barbed with many stings,

Each able to make a thousand wounds, and each
Immedicable; from his convex eyes

He sees fair things in many hideous shapes,
And trumpets all his falsehood to the world.
Like other beetles he is fed on dung;

He has eleven feet with which he crawls,
Trailing a blistering slime; and this foul beast
Has tracked Iona from the Theban limits,
From isle to isle, from city unto city,
Urging her flight from the far Chersonese
To fabulous Solyma, and the Ætnean Isle,
Ortygia, Melite, and Calypso's Rock,
And the swart tribes of Garamant and Fez,
Eolia and Elysium, and thy shores,
Parthenope, which now, alas! are free,-
And through the fortunate Saturnian land,
Into the darkness of the West.

MAMMON.

But if

This Gadfly should drive Iona hither?

The Prometheus Bound of Eschylus.

† And the Lord whistled for the gadfly out of Ethiopia, and for the bee out of Egypt, &c.—EZEKIEL.

PURGANAX.

Gods! what an if! but there is my gray rat,
So thin with want, he can crawl in and out
Of any narrow chink and filthy hole,

And he shall creep into her dressing-room,
And-

MAMMON.

My dear friend, where are your wits? as if She does not always toast a piece of cheese, And bait the trap? and rats, when lean enough To crawl through such chinks

PURGANAX.

But my leech-a leech

Fit to suck blood, with lubricous round rings,
Capaciously expatiative, which make

His little body like a red balloon,

As full of blood as that of hydrogen,

Sucked from men's hearts; insatiably he sucks

And clings and pulls-a horse-leech, whose deep

maw

The plethoric King Swellfoot could not fill,
And who, till full, will cling for ever.

MAMMON.

This

For Queen Iona might suffice, and less;
But 'tis the swinish multitude I fear,
And in that fear I have-

PURGANAX.

Done what?

MAMMON.

Disinherited

My eldest son Chrysaor, because he

Attended public meetings, and would always
Stand prating there of commerce, public faith,
Economy, and unadulterate coin,

And other topics, ultra-radical;

And have entailed my estate, called the Fool's
Paradise,

And funds, in fairy-money, bonds, and bills,
Upon my accomplished daughter Banknotina,
And married her to the Gallows.*

PURGANAX.

A good match!

MAMMON.

A high connection, Purganax. The bridegroom
Is of a very ancient family

Of Hounslow Heath, Tyburn, and the New Drop,
And has great influence in both Houses. O,
He makes the fondest husband; nay too fond:
New-married people should not kiss in public;
But the poor souls love one another so!
And then my little grandchildren, the Gibbets,
Promising children as you ever saw,—

"If one should marry a gallows, and beget young gibbets I never saw one so prone."-CYMBELINE.

The young playing at hanging, the elder learning How to hold radicals. They are well taught too, For every Gibbet says its catechism,

And reads a select chapter in the Bible

Before it goes to play.

[A most tremendous humming is heard.

PURGANAX.

Ha! what do I hear?

Enter GADFly.

MAMMON.

Your Gadfly, as it seems, is tired of gadding.

GADFLY.

Hum, hum, hum!

[scalps

From the lakes of the Alps, and the cold gray Of the mountains, I come!

Hum, hum, hum!

From Morocco and Fez, and the high palaces
Of golden Byzantium ;

From the temples divine of old Palestine,

VOL. III.

From Athens and Rome,

With a ha! and a hum!

I come, I come!

All inn-doors and windows

Were open to me!
I saw all that sin does,
Which lamps hardly see

2

That burn in the night by the curtained bedThe impudent lamps ! for they blushed not red. Dinging and singing,

From slumber I rung her,

Loud as the clank of an ironmonger!
Hum, hum, hum!

Far, far, far,

With the trump of my lips, and the sting at my hips, I drove her-afar!

Far, far, far,

From city to city, abandoned of pity,
A ship without needle or star.
Homeless she past, like a cloud on the blast,
Seeking peace, finding war;

She is here in her car,

From afar, and afar.
Hum, hum!

I have stung her and wrung her!

The venom is working;

And if you had hung her

With canting and quirking,

She could not be deader than she will be soon.
I have driven her close to you, under the moon.
Night and day, hum, hum, ha!

I have hummed her and drummed her

From place to place, till at last I have dumbed her Hum, hum, hum!