But when a Liberal asks me what I think-
Scar'd by the blood and soot of Cobbett's ink,
And Jeffrey's glairy phlegm and Connor's foam,
In search of some safe parable I roam―
An emblem sometimes may comprise a tome!

Disclaimant of his uncaught grandsire's mood,
I see a tiger lapping kitten's food:

And who shall blame him that he purrs applause,
When brother Brindle pleads the good old cause;
And frisks his pretty tail, and half unsheathes his claws!
Yet not the less, for modern lights unapt,

I trust the bolts and cross-bars of the laws
More than the Protestant milk all newly lapt,
Impearling a tame wild-cat's whisker'd jaws !

And backward and forward he switched his long tail
As a gentleman switches his cane.

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

Vol. VII

On a dung-hill hard by his own stable;
N

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 peep'd 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.—

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. quid. habent, "trade." Though indeed the trade, i. e. the bibliopolic, so called kar' ¿óxnv, 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, 2d, 3d, 9th, and 16th stanzas were dictated by Mr. Southey. See Apologetic Preface, p. 221.

If any one should ask who General

meant, the Author begs leave

VIII.

Down the river did glide, with wind and with tide,
A pig with vast celerity;

And the Devil looked wise as he saw how the while,

It cuts 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

Unfetter 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.

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,"

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 conclud ing stanza to his doggerel.

He saw with consternation,

And back to hell his way did he take,
For the Devil thought by a slight mistake
It was general conflagration.

THE TWO ROUND SPACES ON THE TOMB-STONE.

SEE the apology for the "Fire, Famine, and Slaughter," p. 221. This is the first time the author ever published these lines. He would have been glad, had they perished; but they have now been printed repeatedly in magazines, and he is told that the verses will not perish. Here, therefore, they are owned, with a hope that they will be taken as assuredly they were composed-in mere sport.

THE Devil believes that the Lord will come,
Stealing a march without beat of drum,
About the same time that he came last,

On an old Christmas-day in a snowy blast:

Till he bids the trump sound, neither body nor soul stirs, For the dead men's heads have slipt under their bolsters.

Oh! ho! brother Bard, in our church-yard,
Both beds and bolsters are soft and green;

Save one alone, and that's of stone,

And under it lies a Counsellor keen.

'Twould be a square tomb, if it were not too long, And 'tis fenced round with irons sharp, spearlike, ånd strong.

This fellow from Aberdeen hither did skip,
With a waxy face, and a blubber lip,

And a black tooth in front, to show in part
What was the color of his whole heart.
This Counsellor sweet,

This Scotchman complete,

(The Devil scotch him for a snake) I trust he lies in his grave awake.

On that stone tomb to you I'll show
Two round spaces void of snow.

I swear by our Knight, and his forefathers' souls,
That in size and shape they are just like the holes
In the house of privity

Of that ancient family.

On those two places void of snow,

There have sate in the night for an hour or so,

Before sunrise and after cock-crow,

He kicking his heels, she cursing her corns,
All to the tune of the wind in their horns,
The Devil, and his Grannam,

With a snow-blast to fan 'em ;

Expecting and hoping the trumpet to blow,
For they are cock-sure of the fellow below.