THE DEVIL’S PROGRESS ON EARTH.
Friar Bacon walks again,
And Doctor Faustus too;
Proserpine and Pluto,
And many a goblin crew.
With that, a merry devil
To make the airing vowed;
Huggle Duggle, Ha! ha! ha!
The Devil laughed aloud.
Why think you that he laughed?
Forsooth he came from Court;
And there amongst the gallants
Had spied such pretty sport;
There was such cunning juggling,
And ladies gone so proud;
Huggle Duggle, Ha! ha! ha!
The Devil laughed aloud.
With that into the city
Away the Devil went;
To view the merchants’ dealings
It was his full intent!
And there along the brave Exchange
He crept into the crowd,
Huggle Duggle, Ha! ha! ha!
The Devil laughed aloud.
He went into the city,
To see all there was well,
Their scales were false, their weights were light,
Their conscience fit for Hell;
And Pandars chose magistrates,
And Puritans allowed.
Huggle Duggle, Ha! ha! ha!
The Devil laughed aloud.
With that unto the country
Away the Devil goeth;
For there is all plain dealing,
For that the Devil knoweth.
But the rich man reaps the gains
For which the poor man ploughed.
Huggle Duggle, Ha! ha! ha!
The Devil laughed aloud.
With that the Devil in haste
Took post away to Hell,
And called his fellow furies,
And told them all on earth was well:
That falsehood there did flourish,
Plain dealing was in a cloud.
Huggle Duggle, Ha! ha! ha!
The Devils laughed aloud.
Anonymous.
This very odd, old poem doubtless gave the hint for the modern “Devil’s Walk,” of which several different versions exist, and the authorship of which has been variously ascribed to Professor Porson, to Robert Southey, and to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
——:o:——
The generally accepted account of the origin of “The Devil’s Walk” is that one evening, at the house of the late Dr. Vincent, Professor Porson, being cut out at a whist table was about to take his leave. Mrs. Vincent pressed him to stay, saying: “I know you will not stay if you are doing nothing; but the rubber will soon be over, when you may go in, and, in the meantime, take a pen and ink at another table and write us some verses.” Dr. Vincent, in the midst of the game, seconded this request, and added, “I will give you a subject.”
“You shall suppose that the Devil is come up among us to see what we are doing, and you shall tell us what observations he makes.” Porson obeyed these injunctions, sat down to write, and carried on his composition till his cruel proscription from the cards was at an end. Sitting down to the new rubber he put the manuscript into his pocket.
At supper he was asked to read it, and, as he commonly resisted every application for copies of his productions of this kind, a lady, with her pencil, beneath the table, wrote down what he read. Afterwards, with suitable apologies, she told him what she had done, and intreated him to revise her writing. Porson complied with her request, and the following is printed from the copy corrected by himself.
As usual, under such circumstances, there are other M.S. copies with material variations. The lines are coloured by the party feelings of the author, and several of the topics introduced serve to mark the date of the composition.
The Devil’s Walk.
From his brimstone-bed at break of day,
The Devil’s a walking gone;
To visit his snug little farm on the earth,
And see how his stock there goes on;
And over the hill, and over the dale,
He rambled, and over the plain—
And backwards and forwards he switched his long tail,
As a gentleman switches his cane.
And pray, now, how was the Devil drest?
Oh, he was in his Sunday best;
His coat it was red, and his breeches blue,
With a hole behind, which his tail went through.
He saw a lawyer killing a viper,
On a dunghill by his own stable;
And the Devil he smiled, for it put him in mind
Of Cain and his brother Abel.
He saw an apothecary on a white horse,
Ride by on his avocations.
The Devil he smiled, for it put him in mind
Of Death in the Revelations.
He stept into a rich bookseller’s shop,
Said he, “We are both of one college,
For I myself sat, like a cormorant,[112] once,
Hard by the tree of knowledge.”
He saw school-boys acting prayers at morn,
And naughty plays at night.
And “Oho, Mr. Dean!” he shouted, “I ween,
My own good trade goes right.”
He saw a cottage with a double coach-house,
A cottage of gentility;
And the devil did grin, for his darling sin,
Is pride that apes humility,
Down the river did glide, with wind and tide,
A pig with vast celerity;
And the Devil grinned, for he saw all the while
How it cut its own throat, and he thought with a smile
Of England’s commercial prosperity.
As he passed through Coldbath Fields, he saw
A solitary cell;
And the Devil he paused, for it gave him a hint
For improving his prisons in hell.
He saw a turnkey in a trice
Fetter a troublesome jade;
“Nimbly,” quoth he, “do the fingers move,
If a man be but used to his trade.”
He saw the same turnkey unfetter a man,
With but little expedition;
Which put him in mind of the long debates
On the slave trade abolition.
He saw a certain minister
(A minister to his mind),
Go up into a certain house,
With a majority behind;
The Devil quoted Genesis,
Like a very learned clerk,
How “Noah and all his creeping things
Went up into the Ark.”
Sir Nicholas grinned and switched his tail
With joy and admiration;
For he thought of his daughter Victory,
And his darling babe Taxation,
He saw General Gascoigne’s burning face,
Which put him in consternation:
So he hied to his lake, for, by a slight mistake
He thought ’twas a general conflagration.
A very similar version is included in the poetical works of S. T. Coleridge, with a note stating that several of the stanzas were written by Robert Southey. This version is dated September 1799, and it is stated that it was first printed in the Morning Post. Several slight verbal alterations occur in it, as well as the three following very inferior stanzas which do not occur in the version ascribed to Professor Porson:—
He saw an old acquaintance
As he passed by a methodist meeting;—
She holds a consecrated key,
And the Devil nods her a greeting.
She turned up her nose, and said,
“Avaunt! my name’s Religion,”
And she looked to Mr. ——
And leered like a love sick pigeon.
He took from the poor,
And he gave to the rich,
And he shook hands with a Scotchman,
For he was not afraid of the itch.
In the edition of Southey’s works, collected by himself, Vol. III., the “Devil’s Walk,” is included, with a rather lengthy “Advertisement,” in which Southey states that, although the poem was the joint composition of Coleridge and himself, it had been claimed for Professor Porson. “Professor Porson,” he says, “never had any part in these verses as a writer, and it is for the first time that he now appears in them as the subject of two or three stanzas written some few years ago, when the fabricated story of his having composed them … was revived.” The stanzas in question are more explicit than complimentary to Porson, or to any other claimant of the authorship. This edition of the poem contains a somewhat detailed account of the manner in which Southey and Coleridge composed it between them—
“While the one was shaving
Would he the song begin;
And the other when he heard it at breakfast,
In ready accord join in,” &c.
In 1830 an Edition of The Devil’s Walk, was published in London, with numerous illustrations by Robert Cruikshank with a memoir of Porson by H. W. Montagu, and long and somewhat superfluous foot notes.
Following close upon this were two inferior imitations, both illustrated by Robert Cruikshank, “The Devil’s Visit; a poem, with notes by a Barrister,” London, W. Kidd 1830, and “The Real Devil’s Walk, NOT by Professor Porson,” London W. Kidd, 1831.
“Of the ‘Devil’s Walk’ there’s been much talk,
And folks seem mighty curious;
Now this is the ‘Real Devil’s Walk,’
And all the rest are spurious.”
This poem consists of sixty stanzas, many of which are directed against leading politicians of the day, and generally it is out of date and uninteresting. Another long political imitation, entitled “Satan Reformer, by Montgomery the Third,” appeared in Blackwood for April 1832, this was in seven parts, and was a strong protest against the Reform Agitation, the great political question of the day. It is too long to quote in full, but the first part will give an idea of its tone, although not nearly so strong in its language as the others:
Satan Reformer.
Part I.
Satan laugh’d loud, when he heard that peace
Was sign’d by the Ruling Powers:
He was sipping his coffee with Talleyrand,
And he put down his cup, and he slapp’d his hand,
And cried, Now then the field is ours!
He pack’d his portmanteau—for England, ho!—
Reach’d Calais—and sailing over
Look’d back upon France; for he sympathized
With a nation so thoroughly Satanized—
Till he landed him safe at Dover.
He had sported his tail and his horns in a land
Of blasphemy, vice, and treason,
The vast admiration of Monsieur Frog;
But in England, quoth he, I must travel incog.
At least till the “Age of Reason.”
So his tail he tuck’d into his pantaloons,
With a Brutus, all stivering and hairy,
He hid his pared horns, or rather the roots;
And he look’d, with his hoofs in Wellington boots,
Like a Minister’s Secretary.
As he travell’d to London, he star’d about,
And it caused him some vexation
To see matters looking so very well,
But he went the first night to a noted Hell,
And it gave him consolation.
The Whigs left their cards as a matter of course,
For he’d letters of introduction;
And a very learned Gentleman Devil was he,
In Political Whig-Economy,
And gave them the best instruction.
They feasted him often at Holland House;
But he found so little to teach ’em,
They were such adepts in the art of misrule,
That he left them to lecture the Radical School,
Lest the Whigs should overreach ’em.
For that, quoth Satan, yet must not be,
And I hold it my chiefest glory,
If I make Whig and Radical coalesce—
And thus bring affairs to a damnable mess—
Then adieu to the reign of Tory.
* * * * *
The Devil’s Drive;
An Unfinished Rhapsody.
The Devil returned to hell by two,
And he stay’d at home till five;
When he dined on some homicides done in ragout,
And a rebel or so in an Irish stew,
And sausages made of a self-slain Jew—
And bethought himself what next to do,
“And,” quoth he, “I’ll take a drive.
I walk’d in the morning, I’ll ride to night;
In darkness my children take most delight,
And I’ll see how my favourites thrive.
“And what shall I ride in?” quoth Lucifer, then—
“If I followed my taste, indeed,
I should mount in a waggon of wounded men,
And smile to see them bleed.
But these will be furnish’d again and again,
And at present my purpose is speed;
To see my manor as much as I may,
And watch that no souls shall be poach’d away.
“I have a state-coach at Carlton House,[113]
A chariot in Seymour Place;
But they’re lent to two friends, who make me amends,
By driving my favourite pace:
And they handle their reins with such a grace.
I have something for both at the end of their race,
“So now for the earth to take my chance:”
Then up to the earth sprung he;
And making a jump from Moscow to France,
He stepped across the sea,
And rested his hoof on a turnpike road,
No very great way from a bishop’s abode.
But first as he flew, I forgot to say
That he hover’d a moment upon his way,
To look upon Leipsic plain;
And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare,
And so soft to his ear was the cry of despair,
That he perched on a mountain of slain;
And he gazed with delight from its growing height,
Nor often on earth had he seen such a sight,
Nor his work done half as well:
For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead,
That it blushed liked the waves of hell!
Then loudly, and wildly, and long laugh’d he:
“Methinks they have here little need of me!”
* * * * *
But the softest note that soothed his ear
Was the sound of a widow sighing;
And the sweetest sight was the icy tear,
Which horror froze in the blue eye clear
Of a maid by her lover lying—
As round her fell her long fair hair;
And she looked to heaven with that frenzied air,
Which seem’d to ask if a God were there!
And, stretch’d by the wall of a ruined hut,
With its hollow cheek, and eyes half shut,
A child of famine dying:
And the carnage begun, when resistance is done
And the fall of the vainly flying.
But the Devil has reached our cliffs so white,
And what did he there, I pray?
If his eyes were good, he but saw by night
What we see every day:
But he made a tour, and kept a journal
Of all the wondrous sights nocturnal,
And he sold it in shares to the Men of the Row,[114]
Who bid pretty well—but they cheated him though!
The Devil first saw, as he thought, the Mail,
Its coachman and his coat;
So instead of a pistol he cock’d his tail,
And seized him by the throat:
“Aha!” quoth he, “what have we here?
’Tis a new barouche, and an ancient peer.”
So he sat him on his box again,
And bade him have no fear,
But be true to his club, and staunch to his rein,
His brothel, and his beer;
“Next to seeing a lord at the council board,
I would rather see him here.”
* * * * *
The Devil gat next to Westminster,
And he turn’d to “the room” of the Commons;
But he heard as he purposed to enter in there,
That “the Lords” had received a summons;
And he thought as a “quondam aristocrat”
He might peep at the peers, though to hear them were flat;
And he walk’d up the house so like one of our own,
That they say that he stood pretty near the throne.
He saw the Lord Liverpool[115] seemingly wise,
The Lord Westmoreland certainly silly,
And Johnny of Norfolk—a man of some size—
And Chatham, so like his friend Billy;
And he saw the tears in Lord Eldon’s eyes,
Because the Catholics would not rise,
In spite of his prayers and his prophecies;
And he heard, which set Satan himself a staring—
A certain Chief Justice say something like swearing.
And the Devil was shock’d—and quoth he, “I must go,
For I find we have much better manners below:
If thus he harangues, when he passes my border,
I shall hint to friend Moloch to call him to order.”
Lord Byron.
Death’s Walk.
Death rose from off his tombstone bed,
With joy and agitation,
For he had had Malthusian dreams
Of an overcharged population.
And first he ’gan to don his clothes,
His bony ribs to hide;
Of a couple of palls he made his smalls,
For his shanks they were somewhat wide.
For a kerchief around his neck he tied
A winding sheet in a noose,
And he slipt his feet in the coffins of twins,
Which made him a pair of shoes.
From fifty coffins the cloth he tore,
(The owners were dead as mutton)
And a gay coat made—for on it he wore,
A death plate for every button.
As to what he had to cover his skull
I really cannot speak poz,
But he made of his dart a walking stick,
And went forth like a Plague as he was.
First he called on a brewer of high renown,
And begged of him to taste his own swig,
But scarce had he time to twig the hop
Ere Death made him hop the twig.
He saw a parson, like many there are,
Much fonder of taking than giving,
So Death for once played the Bishop’s part,
And deprived him of his living.
He made a lawyer (who was first in the law)
And disclaimed all interference
With the courts on earth—on those below,
Soon enter his appearance.
He caught a thief with purse in hand—
The halter stopped his breath—
For, as if by the sudden tidings killed,
The noose it was his death.
A bellows maker at his work
Death saw, and seeing, grinned,
And he who made the bellows blow,
Right soon did slip the wind.
Unto a cobbler in his stall
No better fate befell,
Death quickly made him leave his awl,
And bid his last farewell.
A gardener—one of old Adam’s trade—
Who rose before Aurora,
Death saw and straight his power displayed
By proving the florist’s Floorer.
But Death at last met with his match,
An annuitant eighty and eight,
Death knew that his life would be death to a score,
(For nought kills like envy and hate),
So, because he should thereby get victims galore,
He bade the old gentleman wait.
Anonymous.
From The Original, No. III. March 17, 1832. A weekly magazine, published by G. Cowie, Strand, London.
The Printer’s Devil’s Work.
To Printing-house Square at close of day
The young Printer’s Devil is bound
To set up the Paper that circulates most,
Or the paper that most turns round.
And over the leader, and over the news
He skimm’d, and over the speeches;
And the lines in the leader stood wide apart,
Like W——l’s waistcoat and breeches.
And pray what did the Devil do?
Oh! he was expert at the art;
At first just to keep his hand in play,
In a “Horrible Murder” took part.
But the Devil he very soon finish’d the job,
And came to a regular stand;
When, for the want of some better employment
In a “Robbery” he had a hand.
He set up a joke by W——l;
But, thinking it couldn’t be meant,
The Devil smil’d, for he headed it
“A Serious Accident.”
A speech of the Marquis of L——’s came next
But it was beyond endurance;
So the Devil took pity and headed it
“A Melancholy Occurence.”
But then the young Devil bethought himself,
He might in an error fall;
For a speech such as that, he clearly saw,
Requir’d no head at all.
He then had a speech of H——t’s to do,
Where, mirabile dictu! a word or
Two of his Latin Mr. H. recollected;
And he called that a “Horrible Murder.”
A Joke, too, by C——r, came into his hands,
But it was too witty a brevity
To be C——r’s own; so he headed it
“Extraordinary Longevity.”
However, he thought at a heading like that,
Some persons might kick up a bobbery;
And, as the joke was a decided Joe Miller,
He called it a “Daring Robbery.”
He set up a leading article on
The advantage ’twould be to the nation—
If Lord Grey would but make a new batch of peers,
Which he called “Beauties of the Creation.”
A speech on Reform, too, by W——l, he did
So full of disjointed inelegance,
And so far from the purpose, he headed it
With the title of “Foreign Intelligence.”
The debate on Pluralities next he compos’d;
But, finding the incomes so large
And the duty so little, he headed it
“Extraordinary Charge.”
An extract from Satan Montgomery’s poems
Is the next thing the Devil commences;
But he sees that it’s humbug, and, when it’s composed
He puts it among the “Offences.”
A speech of St. P——l was his next job;
But it was too much for the elf.
And he was unable to set up the speech,
For he could’nt set up himself.
So into a corner the Devil sneaks,
O’ercome by so prosy a sample,
Composes himself, and leaves the Times
To follow his example.
This originally appeared in The Comic Magazine, 1832. It was afterwards included in “Songs of the Press, and other Poems relating to Printing,” collected by C. H. Timperley. London. Fisher, Son & Co. 1845.
The Devil’s Dream.
The Devil, one day, lay down to sleep,
Though the fact improbable seem:
(Mankind is so used to his whip and rein,
He knew he could trust his team!)
And straightway, having a quiet mind,
The Devil began to dream.
And as dreams recall what best is known
To men in their waking hours,
The Devil, of course, could do no less
Than dream of this world of ours,
Where, though the Tomahawk is deceased,
His potent effigy towers.
He first imagined himself in France;
But his stay had been so long
Therein, with the godly Emperor-King
And the Communistic throng,
That he flew hap-hazard over the seas,
With an execration strong.
He lit him down on a chalky shore,
That a mist perpetual cools;
And he knew at once he was in the land
That an absent Sovereign rules;
For had he mistaken England’s fogs,
He had recognized her fools!
And hereabout, he wandered at will,
’Mid sights that gladdened his heart;
For his friends seemed many in every place,—
The church, the camp, and the mart;
And the foes of himself and Ignorance,
Were few and weary at heart,
He heard in his dream a curate preach
The horrible sin of doubt,
The duty of mental cecity,
And of Some-one always about;
And the Devil smiled; for he knew such men
Were certain to find that out.
He saw a person, who wrote burlesques,
In the act of forcing puns,
And thought he must be a man of weight;
For he knew, though such things he shuns,
That the heads of persons who write burlesques
Weigh ever so many tons.
He dreamed of a Minister who told
His electors all his mind,
And he smiled in his dream, remembering
That the blind conducting the blind
Shall both be housed in the well-known ditch
For all such unions designed.
He dreamed that he smelt a corpse-like smell,
And flying, by instinct, o’er to it,
Discovered a Small-Pox Hospital,
And, in high good humour, swore to it,—
“If not the abode itself of Death,
You certainly are next door to it!”
A knot of persons exceeding wise
Were trying a sailor brave
Who, sent to sea, in a rotten ship,
His crew had contrived to save;
And the devil bowed,—respecting the man
Who had beaten both him, and the wave.
(Six verses omitted.)
The Hornet. November, 22, 1871.
The Devil’s Politics.
From his brimstone bed at break of day
The devil a walking is gone,
To visit his snug little farm, the earth,
And see how his stock goes on.
At St. James’s Hall, like a prophet of good
He commences humanity’s work—
“Unsheathe holy Russia, thy sanctified sword,
Nor spare the ‘unspeakable Turk.’”
With a twist and a twirl, and a sulphurous smell,
He departs with applause at his hoof;
And glancing at Bennet’s, he winds up his tail,
And to Constantinople spins off.
At Berlin he stops for a minute to breathe
And to tell the good news to his cousin:
“The doting ‘old woman’ to me you may leave,
But, dear Biz, you must rub up the Russian.”
He passed by Vienna, Count Andrassy saw him,
And asked him to stop for a chat;
But the Devil replied, “You may keep on see-sawing,
I’ll call on you when I come back.”
Arriving in Turkey, but changing his dress,
He repaired to the Russian Headquarters,
And gave in his card—“A gentleman of the press—
Instructed to write up Bulgarian slaughters.”
Anonymous.
January 1, 1878.
Of the three following imitations only short extracts are given, with the dates on which they appeared, the complete poems can easily be obtained at Punch office, Fleet Street, London.
The Forestaller’s Walk.
(After Southey—and after a bad night.)
From his restless bed at break of day
The Forestaller walking has gone,
To visit the half-ruined farms for his mirth,
And see how the crops get on.
And over the hills, and through the wet fields
He walked, and over the plain,
And outward or homeward he heard the long tale
Of the ruin caused by the rain.
He saw a Widow with Orphans three
Go up to a Baker’s door,
But she had to leave the loaf untouched,
For he wanted a penny more.
Just then the Sun’s bright turning face,
He saw with consternation,
And home pell-mell his way did take;
For the Forestaller thought ’twas a great mistake,
And it filled him with indignation!
Punch. September 10, 1881.
The Devil’s Walk.
From his sulphurous realm as the sun goes down
The Devil is walking once more,
To visit his favourite vineyard, the Town
That stretches by Thames’s shore.
Over the bridges and through the Parks
He strolls, and along the streets,
A presence that fails to elicit remarks
From the hurrying hundreds he meets.
There is nought to suggest that he comes as a guest
From regions torrid and drouthy,
He has altered his ways since the simpler days
Of Coleridge and Southey.
A jacket of red and breeches of blue
He knows would be far too striking,
And as for a tail!—even Darwin’s crew
Would hold that in sore misliking.
He sees a spectral scare-crow thing
Slink into a slum-fouled alley,
And he mutters, “With cowl and with scythe and wing,
He might lord it in Death’s own Valley.”
He sees a roof-rotten, muck-sodden den,
To the gutter ready to tumble.
Says he, “Well, if this be the dwelling of men,
We haven’t much reason to grumble.”
Then steps he into a “tenement-house,”
Through a dark but doorless entry.
“Little need,” chuckles he, “for a lock or a key
Whilst my brace of friends stand sentry.”
He climbs a rotten and rickety stair,
Foul filth its cracked walls smearing.
“Why, chaos,” says he, “had a pleasanter air,
And needed less careful steering.”
He sees commingling of Labour and Vice
In joint contamination.
Quoth he, “This, indeed, were a spectacle nice
For Belial’s contemplation.”
Sees Childhood, broken with ill-paid toil,
’Midst sin’s contagious venom.
Says he, “For friend Moloch’s favourite spoil,
This beats the Valley of Hinnom.”
Then he sees a House-jobber grubbing for gold
Amidst festering Vice and Poverty cold,
And says he, “I’ve one henchman more trusty and bold
Than the ogre worshipped in Ammon:
Beelzebub’s doughty, and Astaroth’s good,
As snarers of souls with a crown or a snood,
But the first, most ubiquitous, best of my brood,
Is my ruthless, respectable Mammon!”
So Satan, seeing that all went right
In his big branch-Hades by day and night
To his personal pleasure and profit,
Back to headquarters swift wended his way.
“I shall sicken,” said he, “if much longer I stay:
For though sulphur’s not pleasant, I really must say
‘Mammon’s Rents’ are more choky than Tophet.”
Punch. November 17, 1883.
The Devil’s Latest Walk.
From his villa in town at the dawn of day,
A-walking the Devil is gone,
To visit his snug little urban estates,
And see how his game goes on.
Over the city, the suburb, the slum,
He rambled from pillar to post,
And backward and forward, observant, though dumb,
As a fleetly noctivagant ghost.
He peeped in the Houses of Parliament,
And found but a factious Babel.
To a smile he was moved, for he thought, “They’ve improved
On the story of Cain and Abel.”
He saw Law trying a Viper for slander,
And searching a muck-heap for truth;
And he held his nose, and he said, “I suppose
That poison and filth in a duplicate dose
Have medicinal virtues for Youth.”
He went into a Bookseller’s shop
Hard by to a learned College;
And there, peeping over the shoulder of Youth,
He saw how new Pilates played ninepins with Truth;
How neo-Greek noodles, in poem and fiction,
Draped dirtiest thoughts in the daintiest diction;
How Art uninspired sought some stimulant fresh
In charnel conceits, and the lusts of the flesh.
Cried he, “This is culture! The gauntest vulture
On garbage will fatten, allowed to batten
On the fruit of this tree of knowledge.”
He saw huge Stores that small shopkeepers smashed,
To whose portals cash-paying patricians up dashed;
Big Companies, that piled lucre—and crashed;
And the eyes of the Devil they sparkled and flashed,
And he capered with great agility.
Said he, “Big Monopoly’s now all the go;
Mankind is enamoured of size and of show,
Modest industry’s stupid, small enterprise slow,
No room now for trade’s little fishes, oh! no.
To succeed you must be a big whale who can ‘blow.’
I shall re-arrange all my affairs down below,
And convert them into a Joint-Stock Co.,
With ‘Limited Liability.’”
Punch. June 18, 1887.
The Devil’s Excursion to London.
Old Nick had just finished his London reports,
Which gave him so much satisfaction,
That he tucked up his tail, took the Underground rail,
Bought a “Saturday Sneer” and a “Dublin Mail,”
And went off to the scene of action.
As he passed the palatial mansions and clubs,
He nodded to many a friend;
And he feasted his eyes on the fetid styes,
And his ears on the brutal oaths and cries,
Where the poor were packed and penned.
And it made his sable majesty grin,
For it needed no prophet to tell
That the seeds thus sown of sorrow and sin,
Harrowed by filthiness, watered by gin,
Would provide a rich harvest for hell.
He saw civic Dives, and some of his brood,
At a sybarite feast in the City;
And he thought of the thousands pining for food,
And the Devil himself was almost in the mood
To feel a sensation of pity.
He called at the Mansion House, saw the Lord Mayor,
“Permit me to wish you good day, sir.
The City and I have been excellent friends,
But if all comes about that our Ritchie intends,
The last of Lord Mayors is Decay-sir.”
To the Houses of Parliament next he went,
But to stay he was quite unable,
For the jabber and jaw made him feel so queer,
That he swore to his friend Hughes-Hallett, “Oh dear,
It is worse than the Tower of Babel!”
But as Balfour was near, he said, “Arthur, my dear,
Never care for J. M. or Trevelyan.
Your uncle’s bold policy just pleases me,
So stick to coercion, and soon we may see
Pat goaded right into rebellion.”
At midnight he wandered around the West-end,
And remarked, with a dash of profanity,
“It’s a terrible, dissolute, profligate sink;
It makes me laugh, and I wink as I think
Of British Christianity.”
But the London Sunday tickled him most,
And he stroked his tail with glee;
“Shut up all innocent recreation,
And open your gin-shops, Pecksniffian nation—
And so pay homage to ME.
Looking in at a meeting of Brewers and Bungs,
He said, amidst deafening cheers,
Such allies deserve my best consideration,
And if you’re disturbed without full compensation,
Come for it to ME, my dears.
Some Jingoes were busy creating a scare.
And he murmured, with jubilation,
“All Europe is stuffed with combustible matter,
And a single live spark from this truculent chatter
Would cause a vast conflagration.”
The very idea of another great war
Amongst Europe’s countless legions
Made him chuckle, and dance, and yell;
And he sent a sixpenny wire to hell,
“Enlarge the infernal regions.”
He heard some sailors, in Ratcliff Highway,
“Rule Britannia” bawling;
And his tail with pleasure began to wag,
For he loved this bit of blasphemous brag,
And joined in the caterwauling.
He called at the School Board, and gave the big D.
A nice little bit of soft solder.
It gave him, he said, a most pleasant sensation
To see how they tinkered at education,
(D. sternly called him to order.)
Just as he was thinking where next he should go,
For Diggle had caused him a flurry,
Who should he see but his Grace the Primate
So “to oblige Benson,” and cursing the climate,
He went back to Hell in a hurry.
William Phillips.
——:o:——
“There is a Lying Spirit Abroad.”
The spirit of lying and lawless might
Flew out of the Czar’s dominions,
He neither swerved to the left nor right
But tore the air in his headlong flight
With the stroke of his blood-sprent pinions,
For far away in that woeful land
They toasted Warren and Balfour’s band,
And he hurried to offer a helping hand
To autocratic opinions.
He flew right over Trafalgar Square
And looked at the crowded street,
And said to himself with joyful stare,
I hardly seem to be needed here!
Ah, that was a gallant feat;
Up with the bobbies and down with the Reds,
Break their banners and smash their heads,
Men and women and boys and maids,
And trample ’em under your feet!”
His beak was dashed with a blood-red stain,
And his heart was all aglow,
As he hurried to Hatfield House amain
And tapped, tapped, tapped at the window-pane,
Like the Raven of Edgar Poe;
Till a churl with a full black-bearded chin,
Opened the window and spake “Come in,
And welcome, welcome, thou spirit of sin
And herald of human woe!”
Not long he tarried, but flew from there
Over the Irish seas,
To where young Arthur so debonair
Was playing a Tory election air
On Tullamore prison keys;
With philosophical doubtful pose,
Eyeing a bundle of stolen clothes,
And chanting merrily through his nose,
“My uncle deals in these.”
The spirit of lying and lawless might
Is a master of trimming and tacking,
He sits on the Treasury bench all night,
And teaches the Tories to scorn all right
And send the Truth a-packing;
He favors “my uncle” with Irish news,
He is hand and glove with “my nephew’s” views.
And polishes Mr. Matthews’ shoes
With Warren’s infallible blacking.
He will flourish a pen for the London Times,
And prove to his own content—
With the faultless logic of pantomimes—
That lawful actions are legal crimes
And landlords are heaven-sent,
Till a wrathful people takes its stand
Shoulder to shoulder and hand to hand,
And drives him back to his native land,
With his ugly pinions rent.
Ernest A. Beard.
The Star. February 14, 1888.
