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A PROPHETIC ACCOUNT OF
A GRAND NATIONAL EPIC
POEM, ΤΟ BE ENTITLED

ing, a grand national Epic Poem,
the Eneid, or the Jerusalem, will be
worthy to be compared with the Iliad,
published in London.

"THE WELLINGTONIAD," AND TO BE PUBLISHED A.D. 2824. (NOVEMBER, 1824.)

How I became a prophet it is not very important to the reader to know. Nevertheless I feel all the anxiety which, under similar circumstances, troubled the sensitive mind of Sidrophel; and, like him, am eager to vindicate myself from the suspicion of having practised forbidden arts, or held intercourse with beings of another world. I solemnly declare, therefore, that I never saw a ghost, like Lord Lyttleton; consulted a gipsy, like Josephine; or heard my name pronounced by an absent person, like Dr. Johnson. Though it is now almost as usual for gentlemen to appear at the moment of their death to their friends as to call on them during their life, none of my acquaintance have been so polite as to pay me that customary attention. I have derived my knowledge neither from the dead nor from the living; neither from the lines of a hand, nor from the grounds of a tea-cup; neither from the stars of the firmament, nor from the fiends of the abyss. I have never, like the Wesley family, heard "that mighty leading angel," who "drew after him the third part of heaven's sons," scratching in my cupboard. I have never been enticed to sign any of those delusive bonds which have been the ruin of so many poor creatures; and, having always been an indifferent horseman, I have been careful not to venture myself on a broomstick.

the adventures of every eminent writer. Men naturally take an interest in I will, therefore, gratify the laudable curiosity, which, on this occasion, will doubtless be universal, by prefixing to my account of the poem a concise memoir of the poet.

Richard Quongti will be born at Westminster on the 1st of July, 2786. He will be the younger son of the younger branch of one of the most respectable families in England. He will be lineally descended from Quongti, the famous Chinese liberal, who, after the failure of the heroic attempt of his party to obtain a constitution from the Emperor Fim Fam, will take refuge in England, in the twenty-third century. Here his descendants will obtain considerable note; and one branch of the family will be raised to the peerage.

Richard, however, though destined to exalt his family to distinction far nobler than any which wealth or titles can bestow, will be born to a very scanty fortune. He will display in his early youth such striking talents as will attract the notice of Viscount Quongti, his third cousin, then secretary of state for the Steam Department. At the expense of this eminent nobleman, he will be sent to prosecute his studies at the university of Tombuctoo. To that illustrious seat of the muses all the ingenuous youth of every country will then be attracted by the high scientific character of Professor Quashaboo, and the eminent literary attainments of Professor Kissey Kickey. My insight into futurity, like that of In spite of this formidable competition, George Fox the quaker, and that of however, Quongti will acquire the our great and philosophic poet, Lord highest honours in every department of Byron, is derived from simple pre- knowledge, and will obtain the esteem sentiment. This is a far less artificial of his associates by his amiable and process than those which are employed unaffected manners. The guardians of by some others. Yet my predictions the young Duke of Carrington, premier will, I believe, be found more correct peer of England, and the last remainthan theirs, or, at all events, as Siring scion of the ancient and illustrious Benjamin Backbite says in the play, house of Smith, will be desirous to "more circumstantial." secure so able an instructor for their I prophesy, then, that, in the year ward. With the Duke, Quongti will 2824, according to our present reckon-perform the grand tour, and visit the

polished courts of Sydney and Cape-over an imaginative mind. The cold town. After prevailing on his pupil, worldling may not comprehend it; but with great difficulty, to subdue a vio- it will find a response in the bosom lent and imprudent passion which he of every youthful poet, of every enthuhad conceived for a Hottentot lady, of siastic lover, who has seen an Ornigreat beauty and accomplishments in- thorhynchus Paradoxus by moonlight. deed, but of dubious character, he will But we were yet to learn that he travel with him to the United States of possessed the comprehension, the America. But that tremendous war judgment, and the fertility of mind which will be fatal to American liberty indispensable to the epic poet. will, at that time, be raging through "It is difficult to conceive a plot the whole federation. At New York more perfect than that of the 'Wellingthe travellers will hear of the final de-toniad.' It is most faithful to the feat and death of the illustrious cham- manners of the age to which it relates. pion of freedom, Jonathan Higginbot-It preserves exactly all the historical tom, and of the elevation of Ebenezer circumstances, and interweaves them Hogsflesh to the perpetual Presidency. most artfully with all the speciosa They will not choose to proceed in a miracula of supernatural agency." journey which would expose them to the insults of that brutal soldiery, whose cruelty and rapacity will have devastated Mexico and Colombia, and at length, enslaved their own

Thus far the learned Professor of Humanity in the university of Tombuctoo. I fear that the critics of our time will form an opinion diametrically now, opposite as to these very points. Some country. will, I fear, be disgusted by the On their return to England, A.D. machinery, which is derived from the 2810, the death of the Duke will com-mythology of ancient Greece. I can pel his preceptor to seek for a subsis-only say that, in the twenty-ninth centence by literary labours. His fame will be raised by many small productions of considerable merit; and he will at last obtain a permanent place in the highest class of writers by his great epic poem.

The celebrated work will become, with unexampled rapidity, a popular favourite. The sale will be so beneficial to the author that, instead of going about the dirty streets on his velocipede, he will be enabled to set up his balloon.

tury, that machinery will be universally in use among poets; and that Quongti will use it, partly in conformity with the general practice, and partly from a veneration, perhaps excessive, for the great remains of classical antiquity, which will then, as now, be assiduously read by every man of education; though Tom Moore's songs will be forgotten, and only three copies of Lord Byron's works will exist: one in the possession of King George the Nineteenth, one in the Duke of Carrington's collection, and one in the library of the British Museum. Finally, should any good people be concerned to hear that Pagan fictions will so long retain their influence over literature, let them reflect that, as the Bishop of St. David's says, in his "In pathos, in splendour of lan- "Proofs of the Inspiration of the guage, in sweetness of versification, Sibylline Verses," read at the last Mr. Quongti has long been considered meeting of the Royal Society of Literaas unrivalled. In his exquisite poem | ture, "at all events, a Pagan is not a on the Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus all Papist." these qualities are displayed in their greatest perfection. How exquisitely does that work arrest and embody the undefined and vague shadows which flit

The character of this noble poem will be so finely and justly given in the Tombuctoo Review for April, 2825, that I cannot refrain from translating the passage. The author will be our poet's old preceptor, Professor Kissey Kickey.

Some readers of the present day may think that Quongti is by no means entitled to the compliments which his Negro critic pays him on his adherence

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to the historical circumstances of the time in which he has chosen his subject; that, where he introduces any trait of our manners, it is in the wrong place, and that he confounds the customs of our age with those of much more remote periods. I can only say that the charge is infinitely more applicable to Homer, Virgil, and Tasso. If, therefore, the reader should detect, in the following abstract of the plot, any little deviation from strict historical accuracy, let him reflect, for a moment, whether Agamemnon would not have found as much to censure in the Iliad,-Dido in the Eneid, or Godfrey in the Jerusalem. Let him not suffer his opinions to depend on circumstances which cannot possibly affect the truth or falsehood of the representation. If it be impossible for a single man to kill hundreds in battle, the impossibility is not diminished by distance of time. If it be as certain that Rinaldo never disenchanted a forest in Palestine as it is that the Duke of Wellington never disenchanted the forest of Soignies, can we, as rational men, tolerate the one story and ridicule the other? Of this, at least, I am certain, that whatever excuse we have for admiring the plots of those famous poems our children will have for extolling that of the "Wellingtoniad."

I shall proceed to give a sketch of the narrative. The subject is "The Reign of the Hundred Days."

BOOK I.

THE poem commences, in form, with a solemn proposition of the subject. Then the muse is invoked to give the poet accurate information as to the causes of so terrible a commotion. The answer to this question, being, it is to be supposed, the joint production of the poet and the muse, ascribes the event to circumstances which have hitherto eluded all the research of political writers, namely, the influence of the god Mars, who, we are told, had some forty years before usurped the conjugal rights of old-Carlo Buonaparte, and given birth to Napoleon. By his incitement it was that the emperor

with his devoted companions was now on the sea, returning to his ancient dominions. The gods were at present, fortunately for the adventurer, feasting with the Ethiopians, whose entertainments, according to the ancient custom described by Homer, they annually attended, with the same sort of condescending gluttony which now carries the cabinet to Guildhall on the 9th of November. Neptune was, in consequence, absent, and unable to prevent the enemy of his favourite island from crossing his element. Boreas, however, who had his abode on the banks of the Russian ocean, and who, like Thetis in the Iliad, was not of sufficient quality to have an invitation to Ethiopia, resolves to destroy the armament which brings war and danger to his beloved Alexander. He accordingly raises a storm which is most powerfully described. Napoleon bewails the inglorious fate for which he seems to be reserved. "Oh! thrice happy," says he, "those who were frozen to death at Krasnoi, or slaughtered at Leipsic. Oh, Kutusoff, bravest of the Russians, wherefore was I not permitted to fall by thy victorious sword?" He then offers a prayer to Eolus, and vows to him a sacrifice of a black ram. In consequence, the god recalls his turbulent subject; the sea is calmed; and the ship anchors in the port of Frejus. Napoleon and Bertrand, who is always called the faithful Bertrand, land to explore the country; Mars meets them disguised as a lancer of the guard, wearing the cross of the legion of honour. He advises them to apply for necessaries of all kinds to the governor, shows them the way, and disappears with a strong smell of gunpowder. Napoleon makes a pathetic speech, and enters the governor's house. Here he sees hanging up a fine print of the battle of Austerlitz, himself in the foreground giving his orders. This puts him in high spirits; he advances and salutes the governor, who receives him most loyally, gives him an entertainment, and, according to the usage of all epic hosts, insists after dinner on a full narration of all that has happened to him since the battle of Leipsic.

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Louis snaps his pistol in vain. The bullet of Napoleon, on the contrary, carries off the tip of the king's ear. Napoleon then rushes on him sword in hand. But Louis snatches up a stone, such as ten men of those degenerate days will be unable to move, and hurls it at his antagonist. Mars averts it. about to strike a fatal blow, when BacNapoleon then seizes Louis, and is chus intervenes, like Venus in the third book of the Iliad, bears off the king in

tel at Lille, with a bottle of Maraschino and a basin of soup before him. Both armies instantly proclaim Napoleon

emperor.

BOOK VI.

NAPOLEON describes his sojourn at Elba, and his return; how he was driven by stress of weather to Sardinia, and fought with the harpies there; how he was then carried southward to Si-a thick cloud, and seats him in an hocily, where he generously took on board an English sailor, whom a man of war had unhappily left there, and who was in imminent danger of being devoured by the Cyclops; how he landed in the bay of Naples, saw the Sibyl, and descended to Tartarus; how he held a long and pathetic conversation with Poniatowski, whom he found wandering unburied on the banks of Styx; how he swore to give him a splendid funeral; how he had also an affectionate interview with Desaix; how Moreau and Sir Ralph Abercrombie fled at the sight of him. He relates that he then re-embarked, and met with nothing of importance till the commencement of the storm with which the poem opens.

BOOK IV.

THE scene changes to Paris. Fame, in the garb of an express, brings intelligence of the landing of Napoleon. The king performs a sacrifice: but the entrails are unfavourable; and the victim is without a heart. He prepares to encounter the invader. A young captain of the guard,-the son of Maria Antoinette by Apollo,-in the shape of a fiddler, rushes in to tell him that Napoleon is approaching with a vast army. The royal forces are drawn out for battle. Full catalogues are given of the regiments on both sides; their colonels, lieutenant-colonels, and uni

form.

BOOK V.

NEPTUNE, returned from his Ethiopian revels, sees with rage the events which have taken place in Europe. He flies to the cave of Alecto, and drags out the fiend, commanding her to excite universal hostility against Napoleon. The Fury repairs to Lord Castlereagh; and, as, when she visited Turnus, she assumed the form of an old woman, she here appears in the kindred shape of Mr. Vansittart, and in an impassioned address exhorts his lordship to war. His lordship, like Turnus, treats this unwonted monitor with great disrespect, tells him that he is an old doting fool, and advises him to look after the ways and means, and leave questions of peace and war to his betters. The Fury then displays all her terrors. The neat powdered hair bristles up into snakes; the black stockings appear clotted with blood; and, brandishing a torch, she announces her name and mission. Lord Castlereagh, seized with fury, flies instantly to the Parliament, and recommends war with a torrent of eloquent invective. All the members instantly clamour for vengeance, seize their arms which are hanging round the walls of the house, and rush forth to prepare for instant hostilities.

BOOK VII.

THE king comes forward and defies Napoleon to single combat. Napoleon accepts it. Sacrifices are offered. The IN this book intelligence arrives at ground is measured by Ney and Mac- London of the flight of the Duchess donald. The combatants advance. d'Angoulême from France. It is stated

that this heroine, armed from head to Newmarket and Moulsey Hurst, and foot, defended Bordeaux against the which will be considered by our deadherents of Napoleon, and that she scendants with as much veneration as fought hand to hand with Clausel, and the Olympian and Isthmian contests beat him down with an enormous stone. by classical students of the present Deserted by her followers, she at last, time. In the combat of the cestus, like Turnus, plunged, armed as she was, Shaw, the life-guardsman, vanquishes into the Garonne, and swam to an Eng- the Prince of Orange, and obtains a lish ship which lay off the coast. This bull as a prize. In the horse-race, the intelligence yet more inflames the Eng-Duke of Wellington and Lord Uxlish to war.

A yet bolder flight than any which has been mentioned follows. The Duke of Wellington goes to take leave of the duchess; and a scene passes quite equal to the famous interview of Hector and Andromache. Lord Douro is frightened at his father's feather, but begs for his epaulette.

BOOK VIII.

bridge ride against each other; the Duke is victorious, and is rewarded with twelve opera-girls. On the last day of the festivities, a splendid dance takes place, at which all the heroes attend.

BOOK X.

MARS, seeing the English army thus inactive, hastens to rouse Napoleon, who, conducted by Night and Silence, NEPTUNE, trembling for the event of the unexpectedly attacks the Prussians. war, implores Venus, who, as the off- The slaughter is immense. Napoleon spring of his element, naturally vene- kills many whose histories and families rates him, to procure from Vulcan a are happily particularised. He slays deadly sword and a pair of unerring Herman, the craniologist, who dwelt pistols for the Duke. They are accord-by the linden-shadowed Elbe, and ingly made, and superbly decorated. measured with his eye the skulls of all The sheath of the sword, like the shield who walked through the streets of Berof Achilles, is carved, in exquisitely fine lin. Alas! his own skull is now cleft miniature, with scenes from the common by the Corsican sword. Four pupils of life of the period; a dance at Almack's, the University of Jena advance toa boxing match at the Fives-court, a gether to encounter the Emperor; at lord mayor's procession, and a man four blows he destroys them all. Bluhanging. All these are fully and ele- cher rushes to arrest the devastation; gantly described. The Duke thus armed Napoleon strikes him to the ground, hastens to Brussels. and is on the point of killing him, but Gneisenau, Ziethen, Bulow, and all the other heroes of the Prussian army, gather round him, and bear the venerTHE Duke is received at Brussels by able chief to a distance from the field. the King of the Netherlands with great The slaughter is continued till night. magnificence. He is informed of the In the meantime Neptune has deapproach of the armies of all the con-spatched Fame to bear the intelligence federate kings. The poet, however, to the Duke, who is dancing at Brussels. with a laudable zeal for the glory of The whole army is put in motion. his country, completely passes over the Duke of Brunswick's horse speaks to exploits of the Austrians in Italy, and admonish him of his danger, but in the discussions of the congress. Eng-vain. land and France, Wellington and Napoleon, almost exclusively occupy his attention. Several days are spent at Brussels in revelry. The English heroes astonish their allies by exhibiting splendid games, similar to those which draw the flower of the British aristocracy to

BOOK IX.

BOOK XI.

The

PICTON, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Prince of Orange, engage Ney at Quatre Bras. Ney kills the Duke of Brunswick, and strips him, sending his belt to Napoleon. The English fall

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