For he was an evil Cotter,
And a polygamic Potter.'

And the last is Peter Bell,

Damned since our first parents fell,
Damned eternally to Hell-
Surely he deserves it well!

The oldest scholiasts read

A dodecagamic Potter.

This is at once more descriptive and more megalophonous, — but the alliteration of the text had captivated the vulgar ear of the herd of later commentators.

Peter Bell the Third

Part the First

Death

I.

ND Peter Bell, when he had been With fresh-imported Hell-fire warmed,

Grew serious-from his dress

and mien

'Twas very plainly to be seen

Peter was quite reformed.

His eyes

II.

turned his mouth turned down; up,

His accent caught a nasal twang;

He oiled his hair,' there might be heard
The grace of God in every word

Which Peter said or sang.

III.

But Peter now grew old, and had

An ill no doctor could unravel;

His torments almost drove him mad;-
Some said it was a fever bad-

Some swore it was the gravel.

IV.

His holy friends then came about,
And with long preaching and persuasion,
Convinced the patient that, without

The smallest shadow of a doubt,

He was predestined to damnation.

'To those who have not duly appreciated the distinction between Whale and Russia oil, this attribute might rather seem to belong to the Dandy than the Evangelic. The effect, when to the windward, is indeed so similar, that it requires a subtle naturalist to discriminate the animals. They belong, however, to distinct genera.

The one God made to rhyme with hell;

The other, I think, rhymes with you."

VI.

Then Peter set up such a yell! —

The nurse, who with some water gruel
Was climbing up the stairs, as well
As her old legs could climb them — fell,

And broke them both the fall was cruel.

VII.

The Parson from the casement leapt
Into the lake of Windermere -
And many an eel-though no adept
In God's right reason for it-kept
Gnawing his kidneys half a year.