CIV.
Saint Peter, who has hitherto been known
For an impetuous saint, upraised his keys,
And at the fifth line knocked the poet down;[564]
Who fell like Phaeton, but more at ease,
Into his lake, for there he did not drown;
A different web being by the Destinies
Woven for the Laureate's final wreath, whene'er
Reform shall happen either here or there.
CV.
He first sank to the bottom—like his works,
But soon rose to the surface—like himself;
For all corrupted things are buoyed like corks,[565]
By their own rottenness, light as an elf,
Or wisp that flits o'er a morass: he lurks,
It may be, still, like dull books on a shelf,
In his own den, to scrawl some "Life" or "Vision,"[ht]
As Welborn says—"the Devil turned precisian."[566]
CVI.
As for the rest, to come to the conclusion
Of this true dream, the telescope is gone[hu]
Which kept my optics free from all delusion,
And showed me what I in my turn have shown;
All I saw farther, in the last confusion,
Was, that King George slipped into Heaven for one;
And when the tumult dwindled to a calm,
I left him practising the hundredth psalm.[567]
Ra Oct. 4, 1821.
FOOTNOTES:
[ [492] {481} ["Aye, he and the count's footman were jabbering French like two intriguing ducks in a mill-pond; and I believe they talked of me, for they laughed consumedly."—Farquhar, The Beaux' Stratagem, act iii. sc. 2.]
[ [493] {482}[These were not the expressions employed by Lord Eldon. The Chancellor laid down the principle that "damages cannot be recovered for a work which is in its nature calculated to do an injury to the public," and assuming Wat Tyler to be of this description, he refused the injunction until Southey should have established his right to the property by an action. Wat Tyler was written at the age of nineteen, when Southey was a republican, and was entrusted to two booksellers, Messrs. Ridgeway and Symonds, who agreed to publish it, but never put it to press. The MS. was not returned to the author, and in February, 1817, at the interval of twenty-two years, when his sentiments were widely different, it was printed, to his great annoyance, by W. Benbow (see his Scourge for the Laureate (1825), p. 14), Sherwood, Neely and Jones, John Fairburn, and others. It was reported that 60,000 copies were sold (see Life and Correspondence of R. Southey, 1850, iv. 237, 241, 249, 252).]