Note 321:1 — THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS[319:1]
Reading edition
This anecdote is related by that most interesting of the Devil's Biographers, Mr. John Milton, in his Paradise Lost, and we have here the Devil's own testimony to the truth and accuracy of it. M. P.
'And all amid them stood the tree of life High, eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable gold (query paper-money), and next to Life Our Death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by.— * * * * * * * * * * So clomb this first grand thief— Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life Sat like a cormorant.'—Par. Lost, iv.
The allegory here is so apt, that in a catalogue of various readings obtained from collating the MSS. one might expect to find it noted, that for 'Life' Cod. quid. habent, 'Trade.' Though indeed the trade, i. e. the bibliopolic, so called κατ' ἐξοχήν, may be regarded as Life sensu eminentiori; a suggestion, which I owe to a young retailer in the hosiery line, who on hearing a description of the net profits, dinner parties, country houses, etc., of the trade, exclaimed, 'Ay! that's what I call Life now!'—This 'Life, our Death,' is thus happily contrasted with the fruits of Authorship.—Sic nos non nobis mellificamus Apes.
Of this poem, which with the 'Fire, Famine, and Slaughter' first appeared in the Morning Post [6th Sept. 1799], the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 9th, and 16th stanzas[321:A] were dictated by Mr. Southey. See Apologetic Preface [to Fire, Famine and Slaughter]. [Between the ninth and the concluding stanza, two or three are omitted, as grounded on subjects which have lost their interest—and for better reasons. 1828, 1829.]
If any one should ask who General —— meant, the Author begs leave to inform him, that he did once see a red-faced person in a dream whom by the dress he took for a General; but he might have been mistaken, and most certainly he did not hear any names mentioned. In simple verity, the author never meant any one, or indeed any thing but to put a concluding stanza to his doggerel.
[321:A] The three first stanzas, which are worth all the rest, and the ninth 1828, 1829.