COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY. (1772-1834.) (1774-1843.) LIV. THE DEVIL'S WALK. Originally written in an album belonging to one of the Misses Fricker, the ladies whom the two poets married. What was the extent of the collaboration of the respective writers in the poem is unknown, but the fact is beyond a doubt that it was written by them in conjunction. From his brimstone bed at break of day A-walking the Devil is gone, To visit his snug little farm upon earth, And see how his stock goes on. Over the hill and over the dale, And he went over the plain, And backward and forward he switched his long tail, As a gentleman switches his cane. And how, then, was the Devil drest? Oh, he was in his Sunday best; His jacket was red, and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where his tail came through. He saw a lawyer killing a viper On a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother Abel. He saw an apothecary on a white horse Ride by on his own vocations; And the Devil thought of his old friend Death in the Revelations. He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility; And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin Is the pride that apes humility. He went into a rich bookseller's shop, Quoth he! we are both of one college, For I myself sate like a cormorant once, Fast by the tree of knowledge. Down the river there plied, with wind and tide, A pig, with vast celerity, And the Devil looked wise as he saw how the while It cut its own throat. There! quoth he, with a smile, Goes "England's commercial prosperity". As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw A solitary cell; And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint For improving his prisons in hell. General Gascoigne's burning face He saw with consternation; And back to hell his way did take, For the Devil thought by a slight mistake It was a general conflagration. SYDNEY SMITH. (1771-1845.) LV. THE LETTERS OF PETER PLYMLEY--ON "NO POPERY". In 1807 the _Letters of Peter Plymley_ to his brother Abraham on the subject of the Irish Catholics were published. "The letters", as Professor Henry Morley says, "fell like sparks on a heap of gunpowder. All London, and soon all England, were alive to the sound reason recommended by a lively wit." The example of his satiric force and sarcastic ratiocination cited below is the Second Letter in the Series. DEAR ABRAHAM,