The Devil's Walk

Broadside Version

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

edited by Donald H. Reiman and Neil Fraistat

The Devil's Walk  exists in both a broadside and a letter version. See the editors' headnote as well as the sections entitled Other Romantic Devils, Historical Contexts, Printing and Attempts to Circulate "The Devil's Walk", Textual Transmission, and Copy-text for a fuller description of its history and significance. Line numbers lead to variants within that line. When a line number is italicized, there is a variation between this text and the copy-text. Clicking on a highlighted number will take you directly to its linked variant. This variant will appear, in most cases, at the very top of a page that will also contain variants for subsequent lines. Links to more local editors' notes are highlighted in the text. Clicking on a highlighted portion of the text will take you directly to its linked annotation. This annotation will appear, in most cases, at the very top of a page that will also contain annotations to subsequent lines. If you wish, you can browse the variants and the annotations independently:

• primary variants from our critically edited text as collated against the copy of the 1812 broadside in the Public Record Office (1812.PRO).
• broadside variants from our critically edited text as collated against all witnesses (i.e., the primary witness and 1871, 1876, 1892, 1927, 1970, 1972, and 1989).
• letter variants from our diplomatic text as collated against all witnesses (i.e., 1890, 1927/i, 1927/viii, 1964J, 1972, and 1989).
• annotations by the editors:
  • for the broadside version
  • for the letter version

For full citations of these sources and sources in the editors' notes, see the bibliography.

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Broadside Version

THE DEVIL'S WALK,
A BALLAD

01	ONCE, early in the morning,
02	Beelzebub arose,
03	With care his sweet person adorning,
04	He put on his Sunday clothes.
05	He drew on a boot to hide his hoof,
06	He drew on a glove to hide his claw,
07	His horns were concealed by Bras Chapeau,
08	And the Devil went forth as natty a Beau,
09	As Bond-street ever saw.
10	He sate him down, in London town,
11	Before earth's morning ray,
12	With a favourite imp he began to chat,
13	On religion, and scandal, this and that,
14	Until the dawn of day.
15	And then to St. James's court he went,
16	And St. Paul's Church he took in his way,
17	He was mighty thick with every Saint,
18	Tho' they were formal and he was gay.
19	The Devil was an agriculturist,
20	And as bad weeds quickly grow,
21	In looking over his farm, I wist
22	He wouldn't find cause for woe.
23	He peeped in each hole, to each chamber stole,
24	His promising live stock to view;
25	Grinning applause, he just shewed them his claws,
26	And they shrunk with affright from his ugly sight,
27	Whose works they delighted to do.
28	Satan poked his red nose into crannies so small,
29	One would think that the innocents fair,
30	Poor lambkins! were just doing nothing at all,
31	But settling some dress or arranging some ball,
32	But the Devil saw deeper there.
33	A Priest, at whose elbow the Devil during prayer,
34	Sate familiarly, side by side,
35	Declared, that if the tempter were there,
36	His presence he would not abide;
37	Ah! Ah! thought Old Nick, that's a very stale trick,
38	For without the Devil, O! favourite of evil,
39	In your carriage you would not ride.
40	Satan next saw a brainless King,
41	Whose house was as hot as his own,
42	Many imps in attendance were there on the wing,
43	They flapped the pennon and twisted the sting,
44	Close by the very Throne.
45	Ah, ha! thought Satan, the pasture is good,
46	My Cattle will here thrive better than others,
47	They dine on news of human blood,
48	They sup on the groans of the dying and dead,
49	And supperless never will go to bed;
50	Which will make them as fat as their brothers.
51	Fat as the fiends that feed on blood,
52	Fresh and warm from the fields of Spain,
53	Where ruin ploughs her gory way,
54	When the shoots of earth are nipped in the bud,
55	Where Hell is the Victor's prey,
56	Its glory the meed of the slain.
57	Fat­as the death birds on Erin's shore,
58	That glutted themselves in her dearest gore,
59	And flitted round Castlereagh,
60	When they snatched the Patriot's heart, that his grasp
61	Had torn from its widow's maniac clasp,
62	And fled at the dawn of day.
63	Fat­as the reptiles of the tomb,
64	That riot in corruption's spoil,
65	That fret their little hour in gloom,
66	And creep, and live the while.
67	Fat as that Prince's maudlin brain,
68	Which addled by some gilded toy,
69	Tired, gives his sweetmeat, and again
70	Cries for it, like a humoured boy.
71	For he is fat, his waistcoat gay,
72	When strained upon a levee day,
73	Scarce meets across his princely paunch,
74	And pantaloons are like half moons,
75	Upon each brawny haunch.
76	How vast his stock of calf! when plenty
77	Had filled his empty head and heart,
78	Enough to satiate foplings twenty,
79	Could make his pantaloon seams start.
80	The Devil, (who sometimes is called nature,)
81	For men of power provides thus well,
82	Whilst every change, and every feature,
83	Their great original can tell.
84	Satan saw a lawyer, a viper slay,
85	That crawled up the leg of his table,
86	It reminded him most marvellously,
87	Of the story of Cain and Abel.
88	The wealthy yeoman, as he wanders,
89	His fertile fields among,
90	And on his thriving cattle ponders,
91	Counts his sure gains, and hums a song;
92	Thus did the Devil, thro' earth walking,
93	Hum low a hellish song.
94	For they thrive well, whose garb of gore,
95	Is Satan's choicest livery,
96	And they thrive well, who from the poor,
97	Have snatched the bread of penury,
98	And heap the houseless wanderer's store,
99	On the rank pile of luxury.
100	The Bishops thrive, tho' they are big,
101	The Lawyers thrive, tho' they are thin;
102	For every gown, and every wig,
103	Hides the safe thrift of Hell within.
104	Thus pigs were never counted clean,
105	Altho' they dine on finest corn;
106	And cormorants are sin-like lean,
107	Altho' they eat from night to morn.
108	Oh! why is the Father of Hell in such glee,
109	As he grins from ear to ear?
110	Why does he doff his clothes joyfully,
111	As he skips, and prances, and flaps his wing,
112	As he sidles, leers, and twirls his sting,
113	And dares, as he is, to appear?
114	A Statesman pass'd­alone to him,
115	The Devil dare his whole shape uncover,
116	To show each feature, every limb,
117	Secure of an unchanging lover.
118	At this known sign, a welcome sight,
119	The watchful demons sought their King,
120	And every fiend of thy Stygian night,
121	Was in an instant on the wing.
122	Pale Loyalty, his guilt steeled brow,
123	With wreaths of gory laurel crowned:
124	The hell-hounds, Murder, Want and Woe,
125	For ever hungering flocked around;
126	From Spain had Satan sought their food,
127	'Twas human woe and human blood!
128	Hark, the earthquake's crash I hear,
129	Kings turn pale, and Conquerors start,
130	Ruffians tremble in their fear,
131	For their Satan doth depart.
132	This day fiends give to revelry,
133	To celebrate their King's return,
134	And with delight its sire to see,
135	Hell's adamantine limits burn.
136	But were the Devil's sight as keen,
137	As Reason's penetrating eye,
138	His sulphurous Majesty I ween,
139	Would find but little cause for joy.
140	For the sons of Reason see,
141	That ere fate consume the Pole,
142	The false Tyrant's cheek shall be,
143	Bloodless as his coward soul.

Annotations (Broadside Version)

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The following notes, which relate The Devil's Walk, A Ballad to its cultural and textual histories, include discussion of all our departures from our copy-text: 1812.

line 2. Beelzebub : in the Hebrew Bible (2 Kings 1), Baalzebub ("King of the Flies") was a Philistine god; in the Greek New Testament, Beelzebul ("Lord of the Dwelling" or "Lord of the Dung") was the ruler of evil spirits (Matt. x.25, xii.24; Mark iii.22; Luke xi.15 ff.). Unlike Milton, who in Paradise Lost I-II personalizes Beëlzebub as second in rank to Satan, Shelley follows popular tradition by using interchangeably the names Devil, Satan, Beelzebub, and Old Nick.

line 7. Previous editors a before Bras Chapeau; chapeau-bras was "a small three-cornered silk hat . . . worn by gentlemen at court or in full dress in the 18th century" (Oxford English Dictionary). Years later, Shelley was to say in Peter Bell III, "The Devil is a gentleman"; here this "natty . . . Beau" (8) begins to survey England at Bond-street, site of London's most fashionable tailors and luxury shops.

line 15. St. James's Court : St. James's Palace, built by Henry VIII on the site of a medieval hospital, was still the governing seat of the British monarch in 1812 ("the Court of St. James"); according to The Picture of London for 1817, "This palace is used by the king only for purposes of state" (London: Longman [etc.], p. 84). Major governmental offices (e.g., Whitehall) and the Houses of Parliament are clustered near the palace and St. James's Park.

line 16. St. Paul's Cathedral--near the Bank of England, the East India House, and other centers of British commercial power--symbolized the establishment interests of the Church of England.

in : other texts substitute on for this 1812 reading.

line 17. every Saint : here Shelley implicates both the Anglican religious tradition and the evangelical Parliamentary bloc led by William Wilberforce (1759-1833, Dictionary of National Biography), known as the Saints; they opposed slavery and supported other reforms, but their ostentatious piety, social conservatism, and support of the censorious Society for the Suppression of Vice offended both the Foxite Whigs and more radical reformers.

line 19. agriculturist : i.e., a landed proprietor whose income came from farming--socially superior, in the view of Shelley, heir to such a fortune, to one whose income was earned from entrepreneurship or a profession.

line 22. wouldn't : misprinted would'nt in 1812.

line 24. In 1989, Matthews and Everest follow an apparent typo in 1927 that replaces the semicolon after view at the end of this line with a comma.

lines 25-27. Though as in the letter-version (line 46) Satan shows his satisfaction by Grinning his applause ("marked approval," OED .2) at those who delighted to do his work, they still fear him.

lines 28-32. These lines satirizing fashionable young ladies may bear sexual implications when Satan pokes into crannies so small (28).

line 37. Ah! Ah! : 1812 leaves no space between the first exclamation point and the second Ah!.

lines 40-41. Perhaps the Windsor Castle quarters of King George III, who had become incurably insane late in 1811, were kept exceptionally warm for England in that period--knowledge available to Shelley either from the frequent contact that Etonians generally had with members of the King's household at nearby Windsor, or from Shelley's mentor Dr. James Lind, one of the King's personal physicians. Alternatively, the allusion may derive from (out-of-date) gossip about the Prince Regent: On 5 Nov. 1811, Thomas Creevey noted in his journal that at the Brighton Pavilion, Mrs. Creevey told the Prince that "she was glad on account of his health that he kept his rooms cooler than he used to do , and he said that he was quite altered in that respect--that he used to be always chilly, and now was never so--" (The Creevey Papers, ed. John Gore [1963], p. 83).

line 41. In 1812 hot as was misprinted hot at.

line 43. twisted : 1989 emends this word to twirled because the editors perceive that to be the reading in the letter text of several months earlier. We read twisted in the letter as well, but we do not emend the reading of the later, more authoritative text, which makes perfect sense.

lines 45-79. As noted in the headnote, W. M. Rossetti added quotation marks around these stanzas to indicate that they embody Satan's words; we prefer to consider them, more precisely, as what Satan thought (45). In either case, Shelley evades uttering seditious libel against Castlereagh and the Prince Regent by putting his charges into the mind--or mouth--of the Devil.

line 46. Cattle : "A collective name for live animals held as property" (Oxford English Dictionary II.4.A).

line 48. The end punctuation, which has slipped low in the type chase, is a comma.

line 50. their was misspelled thier in 1812, where either the compositor slavishly followed Shelley's copy, or Shelley introduced this characteristic erratum while setting type himself; when correcting this error, most editors through 1972 omit the first as in the line.

lines 51-56. 1989 cites the bloody British siege of Badajos in April 1812; if Shelley wrote this passage as late as August 1812, it could also refer to the equally bloody Battle of Salamanca on 22 July. (Though the British and their allies won both battles, British casualties alone were ca. 5,000 in each.) The Whigs, including Lord Byron, thought that Viscount (later Duke of) Wellington's Peninsular Campaign against the French in Spain was simply an exercise in Tory political aggrandizement; Shelley believed that all military actions harmed common people and weakened liberty. Robert Southey, who had conveyed a similar message in "The Battle of Blenheim" (1798), was at this time writing a series of poems in which he commemorated each of Wellington's victories.

line 54. Other editors, seeking rhetorical parallelism, have emended When (1812) to "Where"--perhaps because in Shelley's handwriting these two words are difficult to distinguish and may have confused a compositor setting from Shelley's MS. But here Shelley may have set the type himself, and since When adds variety and makes equally good sense, we retain the reading of 1812.

line 57. Fat--: the initial F is a malformed piece of type.

lines 57-59. Robert Stewart (1769-1822), eldest son of the 1st Marquis of Londonderry, though not himself a peer till his father's death in 1821, was known by his courtesy title (i.e., his father's second title) as Viscount Castlereagh. In Parliament, he originally supported enfranchisement of Catholics in Ireland (Erin). But in 1797-98, as chief deputy to the Viceroy of Ireland, he suppressed the rebellion of the United Irishmen by arresting their leaders just before the event, and in 1800 he engineered (through wholesale bribery) the votes by which the Irish Parliament united Ireland with Great Britain and then dissolved itself.

Atrocities involved in crushing the rebellion in 1798, Castlereagh's harsh methods of interrogating rebel prisoners, and the corruption with which he pushed through the Act of Union earned him the lasting enmity of Irish nationalists. In Feb. 1811 he was pilloried in the London press during the trial of Peter Finnerty, who as part of his defense presented affidavits from Irish prisoners who had been tortured under Castlereagh's direction. These accounts, quoted and discussed in Cobbett's Political Register and the Hunt brothers' Examiner, probably helped to deepen both Shelley's and Lord Byron's hatred of Castlereagh during his years as Foreign Secretary and Tory leader in the House of Commons.

lines 60-62. 1989 (p. 235) relates these lines to the death of Robert Emmet in 1803, and another note (1989, p. 204) quotes records of the Irish rebellion of 1798 that involved cutting out rebels' hearts. Shelley's allusion here, probably informed by many such anecdotes that he heard during his stay in Ireland, is generic, not specific.

line 61. clasp : misprinted as claps in 1812; such an error suggests the clandestine haste involved in the illegal production, whether or not Shelley actually set any type himself.

line 65. fret their little hour : cf. Shakespeare, Macbeth V.v.25.

lines 67-70. Shelley, who like Lord Byron despised the Prince of Wales for his extravagant selfishness and his betrayal of the Whigs and reform when he became Regent, portrays the Prince as a spoiled child. The word maudlin (67), and the complicated mixed metaphor in which the gilded toy of line 68 apparently becomes a sweetmeat in 69, suggest that Shelley is subtly alluding to the Prince of Wales's sentimental love affair with the twice-widowed Maria Fitzherbert (1756-1837), a Roman Catholic whom he could not wed legally without forfeiting the crown. The Prince did, in fact, marry Mrs. Fitzherbert surreptiously on 15 Dec. 1785 after threatening to stab himself if she would not consent--events retold in the gossip of two generations--but after that marriage took place, he carried on a long series of other love affairs.

lines 71-75. For the specific occasion of this attack on the Prince's obesity, see Historical Contexts. A levee (72) was a formal afternoon reception at St. James's Palace at which the ruler received only men. (The name alludes to the origins of the ceremony in the practice of counsellors calling upon the monarch in his bedchamber when he was arising.)

line 76. plenty is the subject of Could make . . . start (79).

line 80. Shelley's parenthetical statement (signaled, according to a practice of the time, with both commas and parentheses) seems to be saying that the Devil is identical to Nature; but the references to Nature in Queen Mab and other poems of this period suggest that Shelley held no such belief at this time. More likely, he is noting that people use "human nature" as their excuse for following their own evil desires--i.e., Satan.

line 82. change : Shelley alludes to the Prince of Wales's betrayal of his old Whig friends when he became Regent in 1812.

line 83. This line burlesques line 4 in Joseph Addison's "Ode," later the text of a standard hymn, the opening stanza of which follows the thought of Psalm 19, verse 1 ("The Heavens declare the glory of God" etc.): "The Spacious Firmament on high, | With all the blue Etherial sky, | And spangled Heav'ns, a Shining Frame, | Their great Original proclaim" (The Spectator, No. 465, 23 Aug 1712; ed. D. F. Bond, IV [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965], 144).

lines 84-87. This stanza is the only one that, in both the letter text and the broadside version of Shelley's poem, replicates the idea of an entire stanza of The Devil's Thoughts by R. Southey and S. T. Coleridge (1799), which reads in a note to J. D. Campbell's edition of Coleridge (p. 621): "He saw a lawyer killing a viper | On the dunghill beside his stable; | Oh-oh; quoth he, for it put him in mind | Of the story of Cain and Abel."

In 84 the medial comma marks a rhetorical pause to indicate the inversion of natural word-order at the end of the line.

line 88. yeoman: an independent farmer who owned (rather than leased or rented) the land that he worked.

line 91. The punctuation ending this line is a semicolon, though in facsimiles it might be read as a colon.

line 94. garb of gore: i.e., the red coats of the British soldiers.

lines 96-97. Perhaps a reference to those who collect and live on rents, taxes, and tithes.

lines 100-107. That is, Bishops = pigs and Lawyers = cormorants. In Paradise Lost when Satan entered Eden, he "Sat like a Cormorant" upon the Tree of Life (IV.196).

line 106. In the second half of The Devil's Walk, we have restored several rhetorical commas found in 1812 but omitted by earlier editors, whom we join, however, in deleting a comma between are and sin-like. Though Shelley may have intended this comma to indicate the location of the caesura, it confuses the syntax more than it clarifies the rhythm of the line.

line 114. statesman : though the Oxford English Dictionary finds positive connotations to this word, opposing it to the modern connotations of "politician," English writers from Dryden through Lockhart frequently used it as a term of contempt: e.g., "like Great Statesmen, we encourage those who betray their Friends" (Gay, Beggar's Opera II.x); "Tho' equal to all things, for all things unfit, | Too nice [i.e., ethical] for a statesman, too proud for a wit: | . . . And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient" (from Retaliation, Goldsmith's "epitaph" on Burke, 37-40). Shelley used "statesman" pejoratively in Queen Mab IV.80, 104, 168, and V.93.

line 115. dare is conditional or subjunctive; i.e., "The Devil would, could, or might dare . . . ."

line 120. thy, the reading in 1812, has been emended to the by earlier editors; but this phrase, addressing Satan directly, may begin the intentional shift from Satan's perspective to that of the author that carries on in Hark . . . I hear (128) and the judgmental final two stanzas.

Stygian, pertaining to the Styx, the river boundary of the classical underworld; hence, Hellish. Milton uses the adjective in L'Allegro, Comus, and five times in Paradise Lost.

line 123. gory laurel : though the reference is generic for honors won in war, it may also allude to poets who praise war and specifically to Southey, who as Shelley would know was publishing many poems in support of the Peninsular Campaign. Though Southey did not become Poet Laureate till 1813, he had actively pursued a government sinecure since 1809 to help support his family--and Coleridge's family as well (Jack Simmons, Southey 137 ff.). During their frank discussions at Keswick, Southey may have told Shelley of his hopes for the Laureateship whenever it became time to appoint a successor to Henry James Pye (1745-1813), the laughably bad poet who was the current Laureate.

line 128. An early use of Shelley's favorite symbolism equating earthquake with political revolution.

lines 140-143. ere (141) suggests that the sons of reason may bring about a Millennium before the final Apocalypse. It appears here that Shelley thought that Earth's destruction was likely to follow from a conflagration generated by the Sun or a wayward comet. The thought he later pursued in Queen Mab about a millennium introduced by the preseccion of the equinoxes to the point at which the pole on which the earth rotates would no longer be tilted in relation to the Sun does not seem to be relevant her, since the Pole is here to be "consumed" or destroyed, rather than realigned. But the main point of interest may be that at this early age, when he was most politically active, Shelley was already able to look past the "World's great age" to a return of "hate and death" without abandoning or minimizing the benefits of even temporary political reform and social improvement.

All Witnesses

Broadside Version

We have modified this part of the editorial apparatus for P.B. Shelley's The Devil's Walk from the way it will appear in The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited by Donald H. Reiman and Neil Fraistat and published by The Johns Hopkins University Press. In the letterpress edition we do not combine the primary and historical variants; in this electronic edition, however, we have combined the two in order to use the linking capabilities of hypertext most efficiently.

Listed here are the variants from 1812.PRO (the Public Record Office copy), 1871, 1880, 1892W, 1904, 1927, 1972, and 1989 for the broadside version of the poem. Primary variants (i.e. those from the copy-text) have been typographically emphasized and can also be browsed separately, as a subset of this list. For full citations of the historical (i.e. not primary) editions, see the bibliography.

We have omitted from our comprehensive collation all variants that seem to us purely formal features of the printers or publishers involved in these editions, such as the length of indentions, the use of full capitals, small caps, and italic or Gothic type in the titles and subtitles­a practice at one time subject to the fonts available in a print-shop or the conventions of its compositorial staff and more recently under the control of publishers, book designers, and copy-editors. In a like manner, when quotation marks have been added, we have not differentiated between single and double quotation marks. Instead, we treat both as double quotes unless evidence suggests an editorial rather than typographical explanation for the appearance of the single quotes.

Broadside Variants

These are variants from 1812.PRO, 1871, 1876, 1892W, 1904, 1927, 1972, and 1989.

In 1876, 1892W, 1904, and 1927, the stanzas are numbered with roman numerals

Title.  THE DEVIL'S WALK] II 1972

 A BALLAD. ] omitted 1972

 Title in Gothic type. Both lines of title are centered.

 Beneath title is elaborate swell rule. Text is devided into

 three columns. 1812.PRO


line 1. ONCE, ] ONCE 1871


line 2. Beelzebub ] Beëlzebuth 1871

 arose, ] arose; 1871


line 6. claw, ] claw; 1871


line 7. Bras Chapeau,] a bras chapeau; 1871

 a Bras Chapeau, 1876 1892W 1904 1927 1972


line 8. Beau, ] beau 1871

 Beau  1892W 1904 1927 1972 1989


line 9. Bond-street ] Bond Street 1871 1989

line 11. ray, ] ray 1812.PRO

 ray. 1871

 ray; 1892W 1904 1927 1972


line 12. favourite ] favorite 1892W

 chat, ] chat 1989


line 13. religion, ] religion 1871


line 15. court ] Court 1871 1904 1927 1972


line 16. in ] on 1871 1876 1892W 1904 1927 1972

 way, ] way; 1871 1892W 1904 1927 1972


line 17. Saint, ] saint, 1871


line 18. Tho' ] Though 1892W 1904 1927 1972 1989

line 19. Devil ] devil 1871

 agriculturist, ] agriculturist: 1871

line 20. And ] And, 1871


line 21. wist ] wist, 1871 1892W 1904 1927 1972


line 22. wouldn't ] would'nt 1812.PRO


line 24. live stock ] live-stock 1871 1876 1892W 1904 1972

 livestock 1989

 view; ] view. 1871

 view, 1812.PRO 1927 1989

line 25. shewed ] showed omnia

 claws, ] claws; 1871


line 26. sight, ] sight 1871 1989


line 27. works ] work 1871 1876 1892W 1904 1927 1972


line 28. small, ] small 1871 1892W 1904 1927 1972 1989


line 30. lambkins! ] lambkins, 1972

 all, ] all 1892W 1904 1927 1972 1989


line 31. dress ] dress, 1871

 ball, ] ball; 1871


line 32. Devil ] devil 1871


line 33. Priest, ] priest, 1871

 the Devil ] he 1871

 prayer, ] prayer 1871 1892W 1904 1972 1989


line 35. Declared, ] Declared 1871 1892W 1904 1972

 that ] that, 1871 1892W 1904 1972

 tempter ] Tempter 1904 1972


line 36. abide; ] abide. 1871 1876 1892W 1904 1972


line 37. Ah! Ah! ] Ah!Ah! 1812.PRO

 "Ah! ah!" 1871

 Ah! ah! 1892W 1904 1927 1972

 that's ] "that's 1871

 trick, ] trick; 1871


line 38. Devil, ] devil, 1871

 O! ] O 1871 1892W 1904 1927 1972

 favourite ] favorite 1892W

 evil, ] Evil, 1904 1972


line 39. ride. ] ride." 1871


line 40. King, ] king, 1871


line 41. as ] at 1812.PRO

 own, ] own. 1871 own; 1892W 1904 1972


line 42. imps ] Imps 1904 1972

 wing, ] wing; 1871


line 43. twisted ] twirled 1989


line 44. Throne. ] throne. 1871


line 45. Ah, ] "Ah! 1871

 Ah! 1904 1927 1972

 ha! ] ha!" 1871

 ah! 1904 1927 1972

 the ] "the 1871


line 46. Cattle ] cattle 1871

 others, ] others; 1871 1892W 1904 1972


line 49. bed; ] bed: 1871

line 50. as fat ] fat 1871 1876 1892W 1904 1927 1972

 their ] thier 1812.PRO


line 51. Fat ] "Fat 1871

 fiends ] Fiends 1904 1972


line 52. Spain, ] Spain,­1871


line 53. ruin ] Ruin 1904 1972

 way, ] way 1989


line 54. When ] Where 1871 1892W 1904 1972


line 55. Victor's ] victor's 1871


line 57. Fat­as the ] "Fat as 1871


 death birds ] death-birds 1871 1876 1892W 1927 1989

 Death-birds 1904 1972


line 60. Patriot's ] patriot's 1871

 his ] his 1871


line 61. clasp, ] claps, 1812.PRO


line 63. Fat­as ] "Fat as 1871

 reptiles ] Reptiles 1904 1972

 tomb, ] tomb 1871


line 67. Fat ] "Fat 1871

 Prince's ] prince's 1871

 brain, ] brain 1871


line 68. Which ] Which, 1871 1892W 1904 1972


line 70. humoured ] humored 1892W


line 71. For ] "For 1871

 fat, his ] fat; his 1871

 fat,­his 1892W 1904 1927 1972


line 73. paunch, ] paunch; 1892W 1904 1927 1972


line 74. half moons, ] half-moons 1871 1904 1927 1972

 moons, ] moons 1876 1892W


line 76. How ] "How 1871


line 78. twenty, ] twenty 1871 1989

line 79. pantaloon seams ] pantaloon-seam 1871

 start. ] start." 1871


line 80. Devil, ] devil 1871 Devil 1892W 1904 1927 1972 1989

 nature,) ] Nature) 1871 nature), 1892W 1927 Nature), 1904 1972 nature) 1989


line 82. change, ] change 1871 1876 1892W 1904 1927 1972

 feature, ] feature 1871

line 84. lawyer, ] lawyer 1871 1892W 1904 1927 1972 1989

 slay, ] slay 1871


line 85. table, ] table; 1871


line 86. marvellously, ] marvellously 1871 1892W 1904 1927 1972 1989


line 88. wanders, ] wanders 1871 1892W 1904 1972 1989


line 92. thro' ] through 1892W 1904 1972 1989


line 94. well, ] well 1871 1892W 1904 1927 1972

 gore, ] gore 1871 1892W 1904 1927 1972 1989


line 95. livery, ] livery; 1871


line 96. well, ] well 1871 1892W 1904 1972

 poor, ] poor 1871 1892W 1904 1972 1989


line 97. penury, ] penury. 1927


line 98. store, ] store 1871 1904 1972 1989


line 100. Bishops ] bishops 1871

 tho' ] though 1892W 1904 1972 1989

 big, ] big; 1871 1892W 1904 1927 1972


line 101. tho' ] though 1892W 1904 1927 1972 1989


line 102. gown, ] gown 1871

 wig, ] wig 1871


line 105. Altho' ] Although 1871 1892W 1904 1972 1989


line 106. are ] are, 1812.PRO


line 107. Altho' ] Although 1871 1892W 1904 1927 1972 1989


line 111. skips, ] skips 1871

 wing, ] wing,­ 1871


line 112. sidles, ] slides, 1871


line 113. dares, ] dares 1871

 is, ] is 1871


line 114. Statesman ] statesman 1871 1876 1892W 1904 1972

 pass'd­alone ] passed:­alone 1871

 passed­alone 1892W 1904 1972 1989

 him, ] him 1871 1989


line 115. uncover, ] uncover,­ 1871


line 119. King, ] king; 1871


line 120. fiend ] Fiend 1904 1972

 thy ] the omnia

 night, ] night 1871 1989


line 122. guilt steeled ] guilt-steeled 1871 1892W 1904 1972 1989


 brow, ] brow 1871 1989


line 123. crowned: ] crowned; 1871

line 124. hell-hounds, ] hell-hounds 1871

 Want ] Want, 1871


line 125. For ever ] Forever 1892W 1904 1927 1972

 hungering ] hungering, 1904 1927 1972


line 126. food, ] food,­ 1871


line 128. Hark, ] Hark 1812.PRO 1876

 Hark! 1871 1892W 1904 1927 1972

 hear, ] hear; 1871

 hear,­ 1892W 1904 1972


line 129. Conquerors ] conquerors 1871

 start, ] start; 1871

line 132. fiends ] Fiends 1904 1972

 revelry, ] revelry 1892W 1904 1927 1972


line 133. King's ] king's 1871


line 134. sire ] Sire 1904 1972

 see, ] see 1871 1892W 1904 1927 1972


line 136. But ] But, 1871

 keen, ] keen omnia


line 138. Majesty ] Majesty, 1871

 ween, ] ween 1989


line 139. joy. ] joy 1927


line 140. Reason ] reason 1871

 see, ] see 1871 1892W 1904 1927 1972 1989


line 141. That ] That, 1871 1892W 1904 1972

 Pole, ] pole, 1871


line 142. Tyrant's ] tyrant's 1871

 be, ] be 1871 1904 1972 1989

DW Critical Text (Broadside Version) DW Diplomatic Transcription (Letter)