To go on with my story, This same Purga-tory, (There! I've got in the O, to my Muse's great glory), Is close lock'd, and the Pope keeps the keys of it--that I can Boldly affirm--in his desk in the Vatican; --Not those of St. Peter-- Those of which I now treat, are A bunch by themselves, and much smaller and neater-- And so cleverly made, Mr. Chubb could not frame a Key better contrived for its purpose--nor Bramah. Now it seems that by these Most miraculous keys Not only the Pope, but his "clargy," with ease Can let people in and out, just as they please; And--provided you "make it all right" about fees, There is not a friar, Dr. Wiseman will own, of them, But can always contrive to obtain a short loan of them; And Basil, no doubt, Had brought matters about, If the little old woman would but have "spoke out," So far as to get for her one of those tickets, Or passes, which clear both the great gates and wickets; So that after a grill, Or short turn on the Mill, And with no worse a singeing, to purge her iniquity, Than a Freemason gets in the "Lodge of Antiquity," She'd have rubb'd off old scores, Popped out of doors, And sheer'd off at once for a happier port, Like a white-wash'd Insolvent that's "gone through the Court." But Basil was one Who was not to be _done_ By any one, either in earnest or fun;-- The cunning old beads-telling son of a gun, In all bargains, unless he'd his _quid_ for his _quo_, Would shake his bald pate, and pronounce it "No Go." So, unless you're a dunce, You'll see clearly, at once, When you come to consider the facts of the case, he Of course never gave her his _Vade in pace_; And the consequence was, when the last mortal throe Released her pale Ghost from these regions of woe, The little Old Woman had no where to go! For, what could she do? She very well knew If she went to the gates I have mention'd to you, Without Basil's, or some other passport to shew, The Cheque-takers never would let her go through; While, as to _the other place_, e'en had she tried it, And really had wished it, as much as she shied it, (For no one who knows what it is can abide it,) Had she knock'd at the portal with ne'er so much din, Though she died in, what folks at Rome call, "Mortal sin," Yet Old Nick, for the life of him, daren't take her in, As she'd not been turn'd formally out of "the pale;"-- So much the bare name of the Pope made him quail, In the times that I speak of, his courage would fail Of Rome's vassals the lowest and worst to assail. Or e'en touch with so much as the end of his tail; Though, now he's grown older, They say he's much bolder, And his Holiness not only gets the "cold shoulder," But Nick rumps him completely, and don't seem to care a _Dump_--that's the word--for his triple tiara.