Then there came down from Langdale Pike A cloud, with lightning, wind, and hail; It swept over the mountains like An ocean, and I heard it strike The woods and crags of Grasmere vale. And I saw the black storm come Nearer, minute after minute; The Devil was in it; he had bought The gaping neighbours came next day- PART THE SECOND. THE DEVIL. THE DEVIL, I safely can aver, Has neither hoof, nor tail, nor sting; He is what we are; for sometimes A thief, who cometh in the night, With whole boots and net pantaloons, Like some one whom it were not right To mention ;-or the luckless wight, From whom he steals nine silver spoons. But in this case he did appear He had on an upper Benjamin He called the ghost out of the corse;― The Devil knew not his name and lot, Peter thought he had parents dear, Solemn phiz in his own village; The produce of his neighbour's tillage, And the Devil thought he had, The world is full of strange delusion. That he had a mansion planned In a square like Grosvenor-square, And all this, though quite ideal,- After a little conversation, The Devil told Peter, if he chose, He'd bring him to the world of fashion By giving him a situation In his own service-and new clothes. And Peter bowed, quite pleased and proud, And after waiting some few days For a new livery-dirty yellow Turned up with black-the wretched fellow Was bowled to Hell in the Devil's chaise. PART THE THIRD. HELL. HELL is a city much like London— A populous and a smoky city ; There are all sorts of people undone, Small justice shown, and still less pity. There is a Castles, and a Canning, There is a * * *, who has lost His wits, or sold them, none knows which: He walks about a double ghost, And though as thin as Fraud almost Ever grows more grim and rich. There is a Chancery Court; a King; An army; and a public debt. Which last is a scheme of paper money, There is great talk of revolution And a great chance of despotism— German soldiers-camps-confusion— Tumults-lotteries-rage-delusion— Gin-suicide-and methodism. Taxes too, on wine and bread, And meat, and beer, and tea, and cheese, From which those patriots pure are fed, Who gorge before they reel to bed The tenfold essence of all these. There are mincing women, mewing, Lawyers—judges—old hobnobbers Are there-bailiffs-chancellors- Things whose trade is, over ladies To lean, and flirt, and stare, and simper, Grows cruel, courteous, smooth, inhuman, Thrusting, toiling, wailing, moiling, And all these meet at levees;- One of the attributes in Linnæus's description of the Cat. To a similar cause the caterwauling of more than one species of this genus is to be referred;-except, indeed, that the poor quadruped is compelled to quarrel with its own pleasures, whilst the biped is supposed only to quarrel with those of others. † What would this husk and excuse for a virtue be without its kernal prostitution, or the kernal prostitution without this husk of a virtue? I wonder the women of the town do not form an association, like the Society for the Suppression of Vice, for the support of what may be cal ed the "King, Church, and Constitution" of their order. But this subject is almost too horri ble for a joke. |