Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 7.djvu/61

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE DEVILS DRIVE.
29

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.[1]
And the Devil was shocked—and quoth he, "I must go,
For I find we have much better manners below.151
If thus he harangues when he passes my border,
I shall hint to friend Moloch to call him to order."


19.

Then the Devil went down to the humbler House,
Where he readily found his way
As natural to him as its hole to a Mouse,
He had been there many a day;
And many a vote and soul and job he

Had bid for and carried away from the Lobby:

    7, 1812; John Fane (1759-1841), tenth Earl of Westmoreland, was Lord Privy Seal, 1798-1827; Charles Howard (1746-1815), eleventh Duke of Norfolk, known as "Jockey of Norfolk," was a Protestant and a Liberal, and at one time a friend of the Prince of Wales. Wraxall, Posthumous Memoirs, 1836, i. 29, says that "he might have been mistaken for a grazier or a butcher by his dress and appearance." He figures largely in Gillray, see e.g. "Meeting of the Moneyed Interest," December, 1798. John Pitt (1756-1835), second Earl of Chatham, the hero of the abortive Walcheren expedition, had been made a general in the army January 1, 1812. He "inherited," says Wraxall, ibid., iii. 129, "his illustrious father's form and figure; but not his mind."]

  1. [Edward Law (1750-1818), first Baron Ellenborough, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, 1802-18, was given to the use of strong language. His temper (see Moore's "Sale of the Tools") was "none of the best." On one occasion, speaking in the House of Lords (March 22, 1813) with regard to the "delicate investigation," he asserted that the accusation ["that the persons intrusted had thought fit to fabricate an unauthorized document"] "was as false as hell;" and by way of protest against the tedious harangues of old Lord Darnley, "I am answerable to God for my time, and what account can I give at the day of judgment if I stay here longer?"]