388 Satires. 1819. PETER BELL THE THIRD. BY MICHING MALLECHO, ESQ. "Is it a party in a parlour, Crammed just as they on earth were crammed, All silent, and all-damned ?" Peter Bell, by W. WORDSWORTH. "Ophelia. What means this, my lord? Hamlet. Marry, this is Miching Mallecho; it means mischief." SHAKSPEAKE. Dedication. TO THOMAS BROWN, ESQ., THE YOUNGER, H.F. DEAR TOM,-Allow me to request you to introduce Mr. Peter Bell to the respectable family of the Fudges. Although he may fall short of those very considerable personages in the more active properties which characterize the Rat and the Apostate, I suspect that even you, their historian, will confess that he surpasses them in the more peculiarly legitimate qualification of intolerable dulness. You know Mr. Examiner Hunt; well-it was he who presented me to two of the Mr. Bells. My intimacy with the younger Mr. Bell naturally sprung from this introduction to his brothers. And, in presenting him to you, I have the satisfaction of being able to assure you that he is considerably the dullest of the three. There is this particular advantage in an acquaintance with any one of the Peter Bells-that, if you know one Peter Bell, you know three Peter Bells: they are not one, but three; not three, but one. An awful mystery, which, after having caused torrents of blood, and having been hymned by groans enough to deafen the music of the spheres, is at length illustrated, to the satisfaction of all parties in the theological world, by the nature of Mr. Peter Bell. Peter is a polyhedric Peter, or a Peter with many sides. He changes colours like a chameleon, and his coat like a snake. He is a Proteus of a Peter. He was at first sublime, pathetic, impressive, profound; then dull; then prosy dull; and now dull-oh, so very dull! it is an ultra-legitimate dulness. and You will perceive that it is not necessary to consider Hell and the Devil as supernatural machinery. The whole scene of my epic is in " this world which is"-so Peter informed us before his conversion to White Obi "The world of all of us, and where We find our happiness, or not at all." Let me observe that I have spent six or seven days in composing this sublime piece; the orb of my moonlight genius has made the fourth part of its revolution round the dull earth which you inhabit, driving you mad, while it has retained its calmness and its splendour, and I have been fitting this its last phase occupy a permanent station in the literature of my country." "to Your works, indeed, dear Tom, sell better; but mine are far superior. The public is no judge; posterity sets all to rights. Allow me to observe that so much has been written of Peter Bell that the present history can be considered only, like the Iliad," as a continuation of that series of cyclic poems which have already been candidates for bestowing immortality upon, at the same time that they receive it from, his character and adventures. In this point of view, I have viclated no rule of syntax in beginning my composition with a conjunction: the full stop which closes the poem continued by me being, like the full stops at the end of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," a full stop of a very qualified import. Hoping that the immortality which you have given to the Fudges you will receive from them; and in the firm expectation that, when London shall be an habitation of bitterns; when St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey shall stand, shapeless and nameless ruins, in the midst of an unpeopled marsh; when the piers of Waterloo Bridge shall become the nuclei of islets of reeds and osiers, and cast the jagged shadows of their broken arches on the solitary stream; some transatlantic commentator will be weighing, in the scales of some new and now unimagined system of criticism, the respective merits of the Bells and the Fudges, and their historians, December 1, 1819. I remain, dear Tom, Yours sincerely, MICHING MALLEcho. P.S.-Pray excuse the date of place; so soon as the profits of the publication come in, I mean to hire lodgings in a more respectable street. PROLOGUE. PETER BELLS, one, two, and three, First, the antenatal Peter, Wrapped in weeds of the same metre, The so long predestined raiment, Clothed in which to walk his way meant Is to link the proposition As the mean of two extremes (This was learnt from Aldrich's themes)— Shielding from the guilt of schism The orthodox syllogism; The first Peter-he who was His eyes turned up, his mouth turned down; III. But Peter now grew old, and had Some swore it was the gravel. IV. His holy friends then came about, And with long preaching and persuasion Convinced the patient that, without The smallest shadow of a doubt, He was predestined to damnation. V. They said: "Thy name is Peter Bell, VI. Then Peter set up such a yell The nurse who with some water gruel And broke them both-the fall was cruel. VII. The parson from the casement leapt VIII. And all the rest rushed through the door, And cursed his father and his mother. IX. And raved of God and sin and death, And said that with his clenched teeth X. As he was speaking, came a spasm, And wrenched his gnashing teeth asunder. Like one who sees a strange phantasm He lay, there was a silent chasm XI. And yellow death lay on his face; And a fixed smile that was not human Told, as I understand the case, That he was gone to the wrong place: I heard all this from the old woman. XII. 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. XIII. And I saw the black storm come XIV. The Devil was in it:-he had bought XV. The gaping neighbours came next day- PART II.-THE DEVIL. I. The Devil, I safely can aver, Has neither hoof nor tail, nor sting; A spirit neither here nor there,— II. He is what we are: for sometimes III. 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. IV. But in this case he did appear Like a slop-merchant from Wapping, And with smug face and eye severe On every side did perk and peer Till he saw Peter dead or napping. V. He had on an upper Benjamin |