With the falsest of tongues, the sincerest of men His veracity were but deceit― And Nature must first have unmade him again, 180 Ere his breast or his face, or his tongue, or his pen, Conceived-uttered-looked-or wrote down letters ten, Which Truth would acknowledge complete. 22. Satan next took the army list in hand, And when he saw this high command Conferred on his Highness of Cumberland,1 "Oh! were I prone to cavil—or were I not the Devil, I should say this was somewhat partial; Since the only wounds that this Warrior gat, 190 Were from God knows whom-and the Devil knows what!" 23. He then popped his head in a royal Ball, 1. [Ernest Augustus (1771-1851), Duke of Cumberland and King of Hanover, fifth son of George III., was gazetted as Field-Marshal November 27, 1813. His "wounds," which, according to the Duke's sworn testimony, were seventeen in number, were inflicted during an encounter with his valet, Joseph Sellis (? Sélis), a Piedmontese, who had attempted to assassinate the Prince (June 1, 1810), and, shortly afterwards, was found with his throat cut. A jury of Westminster tradesmen brought in a verdict of felo de se against Sellis. The event itself and the trial before the coroner provoked controversy and the grossest scandal. The question is discussed and the Duke exonerated of the charges brought against him, by J. H. Jesse, Memoirs, etc., of George III., 1864, iii. 545, 546, and by George Rose, Diaries, etc., 1860, ii. 437-446. The scandal was revived in 1832 by the publication of a work entitled The Authentic Memoirs of the Court of England for the last Seventy Years. The printer and publisher of the work was found guilty. (See The Trial of Josiah Phillips for a Libel on the Duke of Cumberland, 1833.)] And who there besides but Corinna de Staël ! 1 Turned Methodist and Tory! "Aye-Aye "-quoth he-"'t is the way with them all, When Wits grow tired of Glory : 200 But thanks to the weakness, that thus could pervert her, And whenever I need a critic who can gloss over 24. The Devil waxed faint at the sight of this Saint, And he thought himself of eating; And began to cram from a plate of ham Wherewith a Page was retreating Having nothing else to do (for "the friends" each so near Had sold all their souls long before), 210 1. [“ At half-past nine [Wednesday, December 8, 1813] there was a grand dress party at Carlton House, at which her Majesty and the Prince Regent most graciously received the following distinguished characters from the Russian Court, viz. the Count and Countess Leiven, Mad. La Barrone (sic) de Staël, Monsieur de Staël," etc.Morning Chronicle, December 10, 1813.] 2. [In the review of Madame de Staël's De L'Allemagne (Edinburgh Review, October, 1813, vol. 22, pp. 198-238), Sir James Mackintosh enlarged upon and upheld the "opinions of Kant" as creative and seminal in the world of thought. In the same article he passes in review the systems of Hobbes, Paley, Bentham, Reid, etc., and finds words of praise and admiration for each in turn. See, too, a passage (p. 226) in which he alludes to Coleridge as a living writer, whose "singular character and unintelligible style" might, in any other country but England, have won for him attention if not approval. His own "conversion" from the extreme liberalism of the Vindicia Gallica of 1791 to the philosophic conservatism of the Introductory Discourse (1798) to his lecture on The Law of Nature and Nations, was regarded with suspicion by Wordsworth and Coleridge, who, afterwards, were still more effectually "converted" themselves.] As he swallowed down the bacon he wished himself a Jew For the sake of another crime more: For Sinning itself is but half a recreation, 25. But he turned him about, for he heard a sound Which even his ear found faults in ; For whirling above-underneath-and around- And quoth he-" though this be-the premier pas to me, 220 Should I introduce these revels among my younger devils, They would all turn perfectly carnal : And though fond of the flesh-yet I never could bear it Should quite in my kingdom get the upper hand of Spirit.” 26. The Devil (but 't was over) had been vastly glad To see the new Drury Lane, And yet he might have been rather mad To see it rebuilt in vain ; And had he beheld their Nourjahad," Would never have gone again : 230 1. [See Introduction to The Waltz, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 475.] 2. [Illusion, or the Trances of Nourjahad, a melodrama founded on The History of Nourjahad, By the Editor of Sidney Bidulph (Mrs. Frances Sheridan, née Chamberlaine, 1724-1766), was played for the first time at Drury Lane Theatre, November 25, 1813. Byron was exceedingly indignant at being credited with the authorship or adaptation. (See Letter to Murray, November 27, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 288, note 1.) Miss Sophia Lee, who wrote some of the Canterbury Tales, "made a very elegant musical_drama of it" (Memoirs of Mrs. F. Sheridan, by Alicia Lefanu, 1824, p. 296); but this was not the Nourjahad of Drury Lane.] VOL. VII. D And Satan had taken it much amiss, They should fasten such a piece on a friend of his— For this was "the book" which, of yore, Job, sorely smitten, Said, "Oh that mine enemy, mine enemy had written"! 27. Then he found sixty scribblers in separate cells,' And marvelled what they were doing, For they looked like little fiends in their own little hells, Damnation for others brewing 240 Though their paper seemed to shrink, from the heat of their ink, They were only coolly reviewing! And as one of them wrote down the pronoun “ We,” "That Plural"—says Satan-" means him and me, And render the believers in our 'Articles' sensible, [Stanzas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, first published, 1. [Millbank Penitentiary, which was built in the form of a pentagon, was finally taken in hand in the spring of 1813. Solitary confinement in the "cells" was, at first, reserved as a punishment for misconduct.-Memorials of Millbank, by Arthur Griffiths, 1875, i. 57.1 WINDSOR POETICS. LINES COMPOSED ON THE OCCASION OF HIS ROYAL ING BETWEEN THE COFFINS OF HENRY VIII. AND FAMED for contemptuous breach of sacred ties, Charles to his people, Henry to his wife, Ah, what can tombs avail !—since these disgorge [First published, Poetical Works, Paris, 1819, vi. 125.] 1. ["I cannot conceive how the Vault has got about; but so it is. It is too farouche; but truth to say, my satires are not very playful."-Letter to Moore, March 12, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 5758. Moore had written to him, "Your lines about the bodies of Charles and Henry are, I find, circulated with wonderful avidity; even some clods in this neighbourhood have had a copy sent to them by some 'young ladies in town.'"-Ibid., p. 57, note 3. The discovery "that King Charles I. was buried in the vault of King Henry VIII.," was made on completing the mausoleum which George III. caused to be built in the tomb-house. The Prince Regent was informed of the circumstance, and on April 1, 1813, the day after the funeral of his mother-in-law, the Duchess of Brunswick, he superintended in person the opening of the leaden coffin, which bore the inscription, "King Charles, 1648" (sic). See An Account of what appeared on Opening the Coffin of King Charles the First, by Sir H. Halford, Bart., 1813, pp. 6, 7. Cornelia Knight, in her Autobiography (1861, i. 227), notes that the frolic prince, the "Adonis of fifty," who was in a good humour, and "had given to Princess Charlotte the centre sapphire of Charles's crown," acted "the manner of decapitation on my shoulders." He had "forgotten" Cromwell, who, as Lord Auchinleck reminded Dr. Johnson, bad "gart kings ken that they had a lith in their neck!"] |