And none know why or whence they come;
But most people think that from motives of spite,
There Beelzebub places his hellish rush-light.
But ere the clock tolls a quarter to four,
The Devils post back to the Stygian shore;
And ere the clock points at a quarter to six,
The Devils are safe on the banks of the Styx;
And like the people that travel to Dover,
Only wait for the packet to carry them over.
This parody, which has more relation to the second part of Christabel than to the first, is taken from “The Dejeuné, or Companion for the Breakfast Table.” Monday, November 6, 1820. The Dejeuné was a small paper issued daily at the price of twopence, by Gold & Northhouse, London, and afterwards gathered into a volume, which is now very scarce. After long and patient searching in the British Museum Library no copy of it could be found, nor was its name, even, known to the authorities there. But the parody it contained had been mentioned by authorities on Coleridge, and this collection would have been incomplete without it, hence further searching. At last, after all hopes of obtaining it had departed, the volume was found, in the original boards, clean, and uncut, amongst waste books and pamphlets outside a second-hand bookshop.