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,