'Whisper it, sister, so and so, In a dark hint--distinct and low.'
Upon which the playful Miss Slaughter replies:--
'Letters _four_ do form his name. * * * * * He came by stealth and unlock'd my den; And I have drunk the blood since then Of thrice three hundred thousand men.'
Good: but the sting of the hornet lies in the conclusion. If this quadriliteral man had done so much for _them_, (though really, we think, 6s. 8d. might have settled his claim,) what, says Fire, setting her arms a-kimbo, would they do for _him_? Slaughter replies, rather crustily, that, as far as a good kicking would go--or (says Famine) a little matter of tearing to pieces by the mob--they would be glad to take tickets at his benefit. 'How, you bitches!' says Fire, 'is that all?
'I alone am faithful; I _Cling to him everlastingly_.'
The sentiment is diabolical. And the question argued at the London dinner-table was--Could the writer have been other than a devil? The dinner was at the late excellent Mr. Sotheby's, known advantageously in those days as the translator of Wieland's _Oberon_. Several of the great guns amongst the literary body were present; in particular, Sir Walter Scott; and he, we believe, with his usual good-nature, took the apologetic side of the dispute. In fact, he was in the secret. Nobody else, barring the author, knew at first whose good name was at stake. The scene must have been high. The company kicked about the poor diabolic writer's head as if it had been a tennis-ball. Coleridge, the yet unknown criminal, absolutely perspired and fumed in pleading for the defendant; the company demurred; the orator grew urgent; wits began to _smoke_ the case, as active verbs; the advocate to _smoke_, as a neuter verb; the 'fun grew fast and furious;' until at length _delinquent arose_, burning tears in his eyes, and confessed to an audience, (now bursting with stifled laughter, but whom he supposed to be bursting with fiery indignation,) 'Lo! I am he that wrote it.'
For our own parts, we side with Coleridge. Malice is not always of the heart. There is a malice of the understanding and the fancy. Neither do we think the worse of a man for having invented the most horrible and old-woman-troubling curse that demons ever listened to. We are too apt to swear horribly ourselves; and often have we frightened the cat, to say nothing of the kettle, by our shocking [far too shocking!] oaths.