Produced by Sue Asscher PETER BELL THE THIRD. By Miching Mallecho Is it a party in a parlour, Crammed just as they on earth were crammed, Some sipping punch--some sipping tea; But, as you by their faces see, All silent, and all--damned! "Peter Bell", by W. WORDSWORTH. OPHELIA.--What means this, my lord? HAMLET.--Marry, this is Miching Mallecho; it means mischief. SHAKESPEARE. DEDICATION. TO THOMAS BROWN, ESQ., THE YOUNGER, H.F. DEAR TOM--Allow me to request you to introduce Mr. Peter Bell to the respectable family of the Fudges. Although he may fall short of those very considerable personages in the more active properties which characterize the Rat and the Apostate, I suspect that even you, their historian, will confess that he surpasses them in the more peculiarly legitimate qualification of intolerable dulness. You know Mr. Examiner Hunt; well--it was he who presented me to two of the Mr. Bells. My intimacy with the younger Mr. Bell naturally sprung from this introduction to his brothers. And in presenting him to you, I have the satisfaction of being able to assure you that he is considerably the dullest of the three. There is this particular advantage in an acquaintance with any one of the Peter Bells, that if you know one Peter Bell, you know three Peter Bells; they are not one, but three; not three, but one. An awful mystery, which, after having caused torrents of blood, and having been hymned by groans enough to deafen the music of the spheres, is at length illustrated to the satisfaction of all parties in the theological world, by the nature of Mr. Peter Bell. Peter is a polyhedric Peter, or a Peter with many sides. He changes colours like a chameleon, and his coat like a snake. He is a Proteus of a Peter. He was at first sublime, pathetic, impressive, profound; then dull; then prosy and dull; and now dull--oh so very dull! it is an ultra-legitimate dulness. You will perceive that it is not necessary to consider Hell and the Devil as supernatural machinery. The whole scene of my epic is in 'this world which is'--so Peter informed us before his conversion to "White Obi"-- 'The world of all of us, AND WHERE WE FIND OUR HAPPINESS, OR NOT AT ALL.' Let me observe that I have spent six or seven days in composing this sublime piece; the orb of my moonlike genius has made the fourth part of its revolution round the dull earth which you inhabit, driving you mad, while it has retained its calmness and its splendour, and I have been fitting this its last phase 'to occupy a permanent station in the literature of my country.' Your works, indeed, dear Tom, sell better; but mine are far superior. The public is no judge; posterity sets all to rights.