37.
I call’d the devil, and he came,
And with wonder his form did I closely scan;
He is not ugly, and is not lame,
But really a handsome and charming man.
A man in the prime of life is the devil,
Obliging, a man of the world, and civil;
A diplomatist too, well skill’d in debate,
He talks right glibly of church and state.
He’s rather pale, but it’s really not strange,
For his studies through Sanskrit and Hegel range.
Fouqué is still his favourite poet;
But criticism he’ll touch no more,
But has handed that subject entirely o’er
To his grandmother Hecate, that she may know it.
My juridical works did he kindly praise,
His favourite hobby in former days.
He said that my friendship was not too dear,
And then he nodded, and look’d severe,
And afterwards asked if it wasn’t the case
We had met at the Spanish ambassador’s rout?
And when I look’d him full in the face
I saw him to be an old friend without doubt.