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, | |
590 | 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; | |
595 | 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 | |
600 | Changed every instant – to |
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; | |
605 | 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: | |
LXXVII | |
Another, that he was a duke, or knight, | |
610 | An orator, a lawyer, or a priest, |
A nabob, a man-midwife; but the wight | |
Mysterious changed his countenance at least | |
As oft as they their minds: though in full sight | |
He stood, the puzzle only was increased; | |
615 | The man was a phantasmagoria in |
Himself – he was so volatile and thin. | |
LXXVIII | |
The moment that you had pronounced him | |
Presto! his face changed, and he was another, | |
And when that change was hardly well put on, | |
620 | It varied, till I don’t think his own mother |
(If that he had a mother) would her son | |
Have known, he shifted so from one to t’other; | |
Till guessing from a pleasure grew a task, | |
At this epistolary ‘Iron Mask.’ | |
LXXIX | |
625 | For sometimes he like Cerberus would seem – |
‘Three gentlemen at once’ (as sagely says | |
Good Mrs Malaprop); then you might deem | |
That he was not even | |
Were flashing round him; and now a thick steam | |
630 | Hid him from sight — like fogs on London days: |
Now Burke, now Tooke, he grew to people’s fancies, | |
And certes often like Sir Philip Francis. | |
LXXX | |
I’ve an hypothesis – ’tis quite my own; | |
I never let it out till now, for fear | |
635 | Of doing people harm about the throne, |
And injuring some minister or peer, | |
On whom the stigma might perhaps be blown: | |
It is – my gentle public, lend thine ear! | |
’Tis, that what Junius we are wont to call | |
640 | Was |
LXXXI | |
I don’t see wherefore letters should not be | |
Written without hands, since we daily view | |
Them written without heads; and books, we see, | |
Are fill’d as well without the latter too: | |
645 | And really till we fix on somebody |
For certain sure to claim them as his due, | |
Their author, like the Niger’s mouth, will bother | |
The world to say if | |
LXXXII | |
‘And who and what art thou?’ the Archangel said. | |
650 | ‘For |
Replied this mighty shadow of a shade: | |
‘If I have kept my secret half an age, | |
I scarce shall tell it now.’ – ‘Canst thou upbraid,’ | |
Continued Michael, ‘George Rex, or allege | |
655 | Aught further?’ Junius answer’d, ‘You had better |
First ask him for | |
LXXXIII | |
‘My charges upon record will outlast | |
The brass of both his epitaph and tomb.’ | |
‘Repent’st thou not,’ said Michael, ’of some past | |
660 | Exaggeration? something which may doom |
Thyself if false, as him if true? Thou wast | |
Too bitter – is it not so? – in thy gloom | |
Of passion?’ – ‘Passion!’ cried the phantom dim, | |
‘I loved my country, and I hated him. | |
LXXXIV | |
665 | ‘What I have written, I have written: let |
The rest be on his head or mine!’ So spoke | |
Old ‘Nominis Umbra;’ and while speaking yet, | |
Away he melted in celestial smoke. | |
Then Satan said to Michael, ‘Don’t forget | |
670 | To call George Washington, and John Horne Tooke, |
And Franklin;’ – but at this time there was heard | |
A cry for room, though not a phantom stirr’d. | |
LXXXV | |
At length with jostling, elbowing, and the aid | |
Of cherubim appointed to that post, | |
675 | The devil Asmodeus to the circle made |
His way, and look’d as if his journey cost | |
Some trouble. When his burden down he laid, | |
‘What’s this?’ cried Michael; ‘why, ’tis not a ghost?’ | |
‘I know it,’ quoth the incubus; ‘but he | |
680 | Shall be one, if you leave the affair to me. |
LXXXVI | |
‘Confound the renegado! I have sprain’d | |
My left wing, he’s so heavy; one would think | |
Some of his works about his neck were chain’d. | |
But to the point; while hovering o’er the brink | |
685 | Of Skiddaw (where as usual it still rain’d), |
I saw a taper, far below me, wink, | |
And stooping, caught this fellow at a libel – | |
No less on history than the Holy Bible. | |
LXXXVII | |
‘The former is the devil’s scripture, and | |
690 | The latter yours, good Michael; so the affair |
Belongs to all of us, you understand. | |
I snatch’d him up just as you see him there, | |
And brought him off for sentence out of hand: | |
I’ve scarcely been ten minutes in the air – | |
695 | At least a quarter it can hardly be: |
I dare say that his wife is still at tea.’ | |
LXXXVIII | |
Here Satan said, ‘I know this man of old, | |
And have expected him for some time here; | |
A sillier fellow you will scarce behold, | |
700 | Or more conceited in his petty sphere: |
But surely it was not worth while to fold | |
Such trash below your wing, Asmodeus dear: | |
We had the poor wretch safe (without being bored | |
With carriage) coming of his own accord. | |
LXXXIX | |
705 | ‘But since he’s here, let’s see what he has done.’ |
‘Done!’ cried Asmodeus, ‘he anticipates | |
The very business you’re now upon, | |
And scribbles as if head clerk to the Fates. | |
Who knows to what his ribaldry may run, | |
710 | When such an ass as this, like Balaam’s, prates?’ |
‘Let’s hear,’ quoth Michael, ‘what he has to say; | |
You know we’re bound to that in every way.’ | |
XC | |
Now the bard, glad to get an audience, which | |
By no means often was his case below, | |
715 | Began to cough, and hawk, and hem, and pitch |
His voice into that awful note of woe | |
To all unhappy hearers within reach | |
Of poets when the tide of rhyme’s in flow; | |
But stuck fast with his first hexameter, | |
720 | Not one of all whose gouty feet would stir. |
XCI | |
But ere the spavin’d dactyls could be spurr’d | |
Into recitative, in great dismay | |
Both cherubim and seraphim were heard | |
To murmur loudly through their long array; | |
725 | And Michael rose ere he could get a word |
Of all his founder’d verses under way, | |
And cried, ‘For God’s sake stop, my friend! ’twere best – | |
Non Di, non homines | |
XCII | |
A general bustle spread throughout the throng, | |
730 | Which seem’d to hold all verse in detestation; |
The angels had of course enough of song | |
When upon service; and the generation | |
Of ghosts had heard too much in life, not long |