"Where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes MILTON. MEMORANDUM. As it has been said that in "The Vision of Hell" I have drawn the portraits of some individuals recently dead, I take the earliest opportunity of giving this assertion an unqualified denial. I do not think that any mortal is warranted in determining the final state of any fellow-creature, nor have I presumed to do so. But my purpose was, both for the moral and for the poetical effect, to sketch imaginary pictures of those classes of human characters, whose actions or works may be supposed to have been pernicious to mankind, and who therefore might be considered as having by their misconduct subjected themselves to be residents in the future kingdom of the Evil and of the Unhappy. Writing in modern times, it was necessary to invest these in modern drapery. On these principles, my first sketch was drawn as that of a great, ambitious Conqueror, desolating the world for his own gratification. I had not Napoleon more in my intention than Alexander, Cæsar, or Ghengis Khan; but as it was necessary to dress the ima ginary being in modern costume, in some features he may appear to resemble the late French Emperor, because my visionary portrait is represented in modern imagery. The same remark is applicable to all the rest, and especially to my second, which has also received a specific application, though Lucretius, Lord Rochester, and some French atheists, may with equal consistency be applied. The reader will therefore be pleased to consider all the portraits as imaginary characters, presenting only a collective assemblage of features, which, if applicable to any one person that has lived, are also applicable to many others, and are exhibited by me as general pictures of those classes and characters of mind and conduct, which, having been detrimental to human welfare, might be allowably placed in the region to which the "Vision" consigns them. R. M. A VISION OF HELL. No longer Death and Time remain'd: the doom Revokeless, by prophetic lips foretold, Was past; the universe had disappear'd, And chaos revell'd o'er demolish'd worlds! Apart, upon a throne of living fire, The Fiend was seated; in his eye there shone Tormented myriads, whose blaspheming shrieks |