PART 7.
DOUBLE DAMNATION.
1.
The Devil now knew his proper cue.—
Soon as he read the ode, he drove
To his friend Lord MacMurderchouse’s, _655
A man of interest in both houses,
And said:—‘For money or for love,
2.
‘Pray find some cure or sinecure;
To feed from the superfluous taxes
A friend of ours—a poet—fewer _660
Have fluttered tamer to the lure
Than he.’ His lordship stands and racks his
3.
Stupid brains, while one might count
As many beads as he had boroughs,—
At length replies; from his mean front, _665
Like one who rubs out an account,
Smoothing away the unmeaning furrows:
4.
‘It happens fortunately, dear Sir,
I can. I hope I need require
No pledge from you, that he will stir _670
In our affairs;—like Oliver.
That he’ll be worthy of his hire.’
5.
These words exchanged, the news sent off
To Peter, home the Devil hied,—
Took to his bed; he had no cough, _675
No doctor,—meat and drink enough.—
Yet that same night he died.
6.
The Devil’s corpse was leaded down;
His decent heirs enjoyed his pelf,
Mourning-coaches, many a one, _680
Followed his hearse along the town:—
Where was the Devil himself?
7.
When Peter heard of his promotion,
His eyes grew like two stars for bliss:
There was a bow of sleek devotion _685
Engendering in his back; each motion
Seemed a Lord’s shoe to kiss.
8.
He hired a house, bought plate, and made
A genteel drive up to his door,
With sifted gravel neatly laid,— _690
As if defying all who said,
Peter was ever poor.
9.
But a disease soon struck into
The very life and soul of Peter—
He walked about—slept—had the hue _695
Of health upon his cheeks—and few
Dug better—none a heartier eater.
10.
And yet a strange and horrid curse
Clung upon Peter, night and day;
Month after month the thing grew worse, _700
And deadlier than in this my verse
I can find strength to say.
11.
Peter was dull—he was at first
Dull—oh, so dull—so very dull!
Whether he talked, wrote, or rehearsed— _705
Still with this dulness was he cursed—
Dull—beyond all conception—dull.
12.
No one could read his books—no mortal,
But a few natural friends, would hear him;
The parson came not near his portal; _710
His state was like that of the immortal
Described by Swift—no man could bear him.
13.
His sister, wife, and children yawned,
With a long, slow, and drear ennui,
All human patience far beyond; _715
Their hopes of Heaven each would have pawned,
Anywhere else to be.
14.
But in his verse, and in his prose,
The essence of his dulness was
Concentred and compressed so close, _720
’Twould have made Guatimozin doze
On his red gridiron of brass.
15.
A printer’s boy, folding those pages,
Fell slumbrously upon one side;
Like those famed Seven who slept three ages. _725
To wakeful frenzy’s vigil—rages,
As opiates, were the same applied.
16.
Even the Reviewers who were hired
To do the work of his reviewing,
With adamantine nerves, grew tired;— _730
Gaping and torpid they retired,
To dream of what they should be doing.
17.
And worse and worse, the drowsy curse
Yawned in him, till it grew a pest—
A wide contagious atmosphere, _735
Creeping like cold through all things near;
A power to infect and to infest.
18.
His servant-maids and dogs grew dull;
His kitten, late a sportive elf;
The woods and lakes, so beautiful, _740
Of dim stupidity were full.
All grew dull as Peter’s self.
19.
The earth under his feet—the springs,
Which lived within it a quick life,
The air, the winds of many wings, _745
That fan it with new murmurings,
Were dead to their harmonious strife.
20.
The birds and beasts within the wood,
The insects, and each creeping thing,
Were now a silent multitude; _750
Love’s work was left unwrought—no brood
Near Peter’s house took wing.
21.
And every neighbouring cottager
Stupidly yawned upon the other:
No jackass brayed; no little cur _755
Cocked up his ears;—no man would stir
To save a dying mother.
22.
Yet all from that charmed district went
But some half-idiot and half-knave,
Who rather than pay any rent, _760
Would live with marvellous content,
Over his father’s grave.
23.
No bailiff dared within that space,
For fear of the dull charm, to enter;
A man would bear upon his face, _765
For fifteen months in any case,
The yawn of such a venture.
24.
Seven miles above—below—around—
This pest of dulness holds its sway;
A ghastly life without a sound; _770
To Peter’s soul the spell is bound—
How should it ever pass away?
NOTES: (_8 To those who have not duly appreciated the distinction between Whale and Russia oil, this attribute might rather seem to belong to the Dandy than the Evangelic. The effect, when to the windward, is indeed so similar, that it requires a subtle naturalist to discriminate the animals. They belong, however, to distinct genera.—[SHELLEY’s NOTE.)
(_183 One of the attributes in Linnaeus’s description of the Cat. To a similar cause the caterwauling of more than one species of this genus is to be referred;—except, indeed, that the poor quadruped is compelled to quarrel with its own pleasures, whilst the biped is supposed only to quarrel with those of others.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])
(_186 What would this husk and excuse for a virtue be without its kernel prostitution, or the kernel prostitution without this husk of a virtue? I wonder the women of the town do not form an association, like the Society for the Suppression of Vice, for the support of what may be called the ‘King, Church, and Constitution’ of their order. But this subject is almost too horrible for a joke.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])
(_222 This libel on our national oath, and this accusation of all our countrymen of being in the daily practice of solemnly asseverating the most enormous falsehood, I fear deserves the notice of a more active Attorney General than that here alluded to.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])
_292 one Fleay cj., Rossetti, Forman, Dowden, Woodberry;
out 1839, 2nd edition.
_500 Betty]Emma 1839, 2nd edition. See letter from Shelley to Ollier,
May 14, 1820 (Shelley Memorials, page 139).
(_512 Vox populi, vox dei. As Mr. Godwin truly observes of a more famous saying, of some merit as a popular maxim, but totally destitute of philosophical accuracy.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])
(_534 Quasi, Qui valet verba:—i.e. all the words which have been, are, or may be expended by, for, against, with, or on him. A sufficient proof of the utility of this history. Peter’s progenitor who selected this name seems to have possessed A PURE ANTICIPATED COGNITION of the nature and modesty of this ornament of his posterity.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])
_602-3 See Editor’s Note.
(_583 A famous river in the new Atlantis of the Dynastophylic Pantisocratists.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])
(_588 See the description of the beautiful colours produced during the agonizing death of a number of trout, in the fourth part of a long poem in blank verse, published within a few years. [“The Excursion”, 8 2 568-71.—Ed.] That poem contains curious evidence of the gradual hardening of a strong but circumscribed sensibility, of the perversion of a penetrating but panic-stricken understanding. The author might have derived a lesson which he had probably forgotten from these sweet and sublime verses:—
‘This lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide,
Taught both by what she (Nature) shows and what conceals,
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.’—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])
(_652 It is curious to observe how often extremes meet. Cobbett and Peter use the same language for a different purpose: Peter is indeed a sort of metrical Cobbett. Cobbett is, however, more mischievous than Peter, because he pollutes a holy and how unconquerable cause with the principles of legitimate murder; whilst the other only makes a bad one ridiculous and odious.
If either Peter or Cobbett should see this note, each will feel more indignation at being compared to the other than at any censure implied in the moral perversion laid to their charge.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])