Note 63 — CANTO II. CONJURATIONS!
Reading edition
Or Monk-y Lewis’ Spanish Spectre!
I would have no impudent slanderer insinuate that I mean to bestow on the right honorable M. G. Lewis, M. P. any opprobrious epithet. No, gentlemen, I did not say monkey. The term which I use is an adjective, legitimately coined from the substantive Monk; and I affix it to this gentleman’s name as an honorary appellation, to which he is entitled, for having written that celebrated romance called The Monk. As to the Spanish Spectre, you will please to consult the romance aforesaid, and you will find a most horrible ballad, by which it appears that a certain Miss Imogene was carried off on her bridal night, if I mistake not, by the ghost of one Don Alonzo, to whom she had been betrothed, but proved false hearted. I would, however, caution against reading this doleful ditty by candle light, lest the story of
“The worms they crept in, and the worms they crept out, And they sported his eyes and his temples about,”
might sport with the senses of the more timid reader.