III.

And how then was the Devil drest?

Oh! he was in his Sunday's best:

His jacket was red and his breeches were blue,
And there was a hole where the tail came through.

IV.

He saw a Lawyer killing a viper

On a dunghill hard by his own stable;
And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind
Of Cain and his brother Abel.

V.

He saw an Apothecary on a white horse

Ride by on his vocations;

And the Devil thought of his old friend

Death in the Revelations.

VI.

He saw a cottage with a double coach-house,

A cottage of gentility;

And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin
Is pride that apes humility.

VII.

He peeped into a rich bookseller's shop,
Quoth he, "We are both of one college!
For I sate myself, like a cormorant, once
Hard by the tree of knowledge."

And all amid them stood the tree of life

High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit

Of vegetable gold (query paper money :) and next to Life
Our Death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by.—

*

So clomb this first grand thief

Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life

Sat like a cormorant,

Par. Lost, iv.

The allegory here is so apt, that in a catalogue of various readings obtained from collating the MSS, one might expect to find it noted, that for "life" Cod.

VIII.

Down the river did glide, with wind and with tide,

A pig with vast celerity;

And the Devil look'd wise as he saw how the while, It cut its own throat. "There!" quoth he with a smile, "Goes England's commercial prosperity."

IX.

As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw

A solitary cell;

And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint
For improving his prisons in Hell.

X.

He saw a Turnkey in a trice

Fetter a troublesome blade,

"Nimbly," quoth he, "do the fingers move

If a man be but used to his trade."

XI.

He saw the same Turnkey unfetter a man
With but little expedition,

Which put him in mind of the long debate

On the Slave-trade abolition.

quid. habent, "trade." Though indeed the trade, i. e. the bibliopolic, so called Kar' óxny, may be regarded as Life sensu eminentiori; a suggestion, which I owe to a young retailer in the hosiery line, who on hearing a description of the net profits, dinner parties, country houses, &c., of the trade, exclaimed, "Ay! that's what I call Life now!"-This "Life, our Death," is thus happily contrasted with the fruits of authorship-Sic nos non nobis mellificamus apes.

Of this poem, which with the Fire, Famine, and Slaughter, first appeared in the Morning Post, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 9th, and 16th stanzas were dictated by Mr. Southey. See Apologetic Preface.

If any one should ask who General meant, the Author begs leave to inform him, that he did once see a red-faced person in a dream whom by the dress he took for a General; but he might have been mistaken, and most certainly he did not hear any names mentioned. In simple verity, the author never meant any one, or indeed any thing but to put a concluding stanza to his doggerel.

XII.

He saw an old acquaintance

As he passed by a Methodist meeting;— She holds a consecrated key,

And the Devil nods her a greeting.

XIII.

She turned up her nose, and said,
"Avaunt! my name's Religion,"
And she looked to Mr.

And leered like a love-sick pigeon.

XIV.

He saw a certain minister

(A minister to his mind) Go up into a certain House, With a majority behind.

XV.

The Devil quoted Genesis,

Like a very

learned clerk,

How "Noah and his creeping things

Went up into the Ark."

XVI.

He took from the poor,

And he gave to the rich,

And he shook hands with a Scotchman,

For he was not afraid of the

He saw with consternation,

And back to hell his way did take,

For the Devil thought by a slight mistake
It was general conflagration.

Sep. 6, 1799.

II-LOVE POEMS.

Quas humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in ævo,
Perlegis hic lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acuta
Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus.
Omnia paulatim consumit longior ætas,
Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manondo.
Ipse mihi collatus enim non ille videbor:

Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago,
Voxque aliud sonat-

Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes,
Janque arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumultus
Mens horret, relegensque alium putat ista locutum.

PETRARCE

LEWTI,

OR THE CIRCASSIAN LOVE-CHAUNT.

AT midnight by the stream I roved,
To forget the form I loved.
Image of Lewti! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

The Moon was high, the moonlight gleam
And the shadow of a star

Heaved upon Tamaha's stream;
But the rock shone brighter far,
The rock half sheltered from my view
By pendent boughs of tressy yew-
So shines my Lewti's forehead fair,
Gleaming through her sable hair.
Image of Lewti! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

I saw a cloud of palest hue,
Onward to the moon it passed;
Still brighter and more bright it grew,
With floating colours not a few,

Till it reached the moon at last:
Then the cloud was wholly bright,
With a rich and amber light!
And so with many a hope I seek,

And with such joy I find my Lewti;
And even so my pale wan cheek

Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty! Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind, If Lewti never will be kind.

The little cloud-it floats away,
Away it goes; away so soon?
Alas! it has no power to stay:
Its hues are dim, its hues are grey-
Away it passes from the moon!
How mournfully it seems to fly,
Ever fading more and more,
To joyless regions of the sky-

And now 'tis whiter than before!
As white as my poor cheek will be,

When, Lewti! on my couch I lie, A dying man for love of thee.

Nay, treacherous image! leave my mindAnd yet, thou didst not look unkind.

I saw a vapour in the sky,
Thin, and white, and very high;
I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud:
Perhaps the breezes that can fly