‘And when that last and most momentous hour Beheld the re-risen cause of evil yield To the Red Cross and England’s arm of power, I sung of Waterloo’s unrivalled field, Paying the tribute of a soul embued With deepest joy, devout and awful gratitude.’ This passage occurs in the Proem. In the Dream the Angel of the English Church is made to warn the Princess— ‘Think not that lapse of ages shall abate The inveterate malice of that Harlot old; Fallen tho’ thou deemest her from her high estate, She proffers still the envenomed cup of gold, And her fierce Beast, whose names are blasphemy, The same that was, is still, and still must be.’ It is extraordinary that both these passages relate to one and the same thing, namely, Popery, which our author in the first identifies with the Christian religion, thus invoking to his aid every pure feeling or pious prejudice in the minds of his readers, and in the last denounces as that Harlot old, ‘whose names are blasphemy,’ with all the fury of plenary inspiration. This is a great effort of want of logic. Mr. Southey will hardly sing or say that it was to establish Protestantism in France that England’s arm of power was extended on this occasion. Nor was it simply to establish Popery. That existed there already. It was to establish ‘the inveterate malice of that Harlot old,’ her ‘envenomed cup,’ to give her back her daggers and her fires, her mummeries, her holy oil, her power over the bodies and the minds of men, to restore her ‘the same that she was, is still, and still must be,’ that that celebrated fight was fought. The massacres of Nismes followed hard upon the triumph of Mr. Southey’s Red Cross. The blood of French Protestants began to flow almost before the wounds of the dying and the dead in that memorable carnage had done festering. This was the most crying injustice, the most outrageous violation of principle, that ever was submitted to. What! has John Bull nothing better to do now-a-days than to turn bottle-holder to the Pope of Rome, to whet his daggers for him, to light his fires, and fill his poisoned bowl; and yet, out of pure complaisance (a quality John has learnt from his new friends the Bourbons) not venture a syllable to say that we did not mean him to use them? It seems Mr. Southey did not think this a fit occasion for the interference of his Red Cross Muse. Could he not trump up a speech either for ‘divine Speranza,’ or ‘Charissa dear,’ to lay at the foot of the throne? Was the Angel of the English Church dumb too—‘quite chopfallen?’ Yet though our Laureate cannot muster resolution enough to advise the Prince to protect Protestants in France, he plucks up spirit enough to urge him to persecute Catholics in this country, and pretty broadly threatens him with the consequences, if he does not. “’Tis much,” as Christopher Sly says.