Ye lateste D'evil. A contribution to universal biography by ... J. G. Taylire ... Setting forth ... some account of the life and death of his Satanic Majesty ... Edited by S.P.E.C.K

Front matter

A CONTRIBUTION TO UNIVERSAL BIOGRAPHY BY THAT LEARNED AND PIOUS divine:, JACOB G. TAYLIRE, A.M., K " — SETTING FORTH BRIEFLY SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF HIS SATANIC MAJESTY, jjram ©rtgt'rtal documents lufjcr More pufiltaljrt). EDITED BY S. P. B. C. K. " But fare you well, auld Nickie-ben Oh, wad ye tak' a thought an' men ! Ye aiblins might — I dinna ken." Burns. LONDON : THOS. BOSWORTH & CO., 66, GREAT RUSSELL STREET. 1884. \_ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] i3 e o it a t e b TO THE CURATES, CRITICS, AND OLD MAIDS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH, &c , IV, THE S P E C I A la P V. P. MISSION OF MY MOTHER-IN-LAW, WHO WILL GLADLY GIRD UP HER WRINKLES, AND SETTLE THE POINT WITH ONE OR ALL THREE TOGETHER, WHO MAY WISH TO CONTEST HER PRIVILEGE; BUT I ADVISE THEM NOT TO.

N.B. — All persons, to whom this book is dedicated, are permitted by above Mother-in-law, to receive a copy of this immortal work, post free, — if they can get one.

Preface

. In the middle of a modern English winter, when one can neither see for fog, nor walk for mud, if I find myself in the fluent stage of catarrh, with Christmas close at hand, no money and many bills, instead of beating the children and being angry with their mother, I leave the room, put on an overcoat and sit in the garret without a fireplace, where I can see the smoke of my neighbours' chimnies. Here I dream. I revisit the early spring tides of my childhood. I hear the bees humming among the gooseberry bloom, I chase the butterfly among the wild flowers, I stand in silence beneath the pine trees, delighted to hear the first note of the cuckoo. It is one mad revel in reality, without its dregs. I utter a yell of delight. Then the turbulent waves subside into soft vibrations and I descend into the

PREFACE.

. VIII world of catarrh and debt, in a state of gently suffused sunshine, as if I was enchanted. This is the method of my madness. So, to-day, because all is brilliant and I feel in a mood of moral and religious exaltation, I write the life of the Devil. By some fatal sympathy, any marks of decay of former grandeur flood me with mournfulness that will not be translated into language, whether I sit on the ruins of the Coliseum, or see a wrinkled old woman raking for cinders, as she shivers in a March wind. So I crave indulgence, if I describe the for tunes and fall of an ancient house, with a melancholy earnestness by no means suited to a guide-book. September \th, 1884.. I YE LATESTE D'EVIL.

Chapter I. Ihe

family of the Devils is so ancient that its rise is lost in obscurity. Though many of them have become nationalized in this country, you must not look for their origin in England. They do not primarily belong to the British nobility, by which you will know they did not "come over with William the Conqueror ;" neither do they owe their start in life to the noble but irregular passions of the second Charles, since whose day there have been no important additions to the British peerage. It would seem from the evolution theory that originally this haughty family were sons of the soil, differing from their neighbours mainly because they were more quarrelsome and more selfish. By these virtues they early acquired a superiority over the quieter sort, and what they gained they guarded zealously, till it passed into a proverb "to fight like devils."

Centuries after the proverb had spread over the European continent and its origin was defaced by time, the Monarch, who had reached a position of splendour undreamt of by the founders of the family, lived in regal luxury and all but dominated the world. In every land his palaces and castles reared their haughty fronts and spread the terrors of his name. His minions slept not by day or night, that they might subdue the earth to him. The Monarch no mortal had seen, and human imagination had pictured him as an ubiquitous giant with more than savage ferocity, finding delight only in the banqueting hall of Hades, where the shouts of wretches or revellers resounded perpetually round its blazing fire. A wave of gloom flooded the civilized world, known as the Dark Ages, and it is no exaggeration to say that during that period the only undimmed light was the fire of Hades.

There were persons who had never heard of the Creator of the world ; but all had heard of King Beelzebub. For centuries pious men exhausted their genius and their art to decorate their churches with scenes from the life history of the Tyrant. The earliest service composed for the infant mind uttered his name with solemnity, and the last prayer of the dying spoke of him with respect mingled with awe.* * The superstitious rustic felt that he kindled the sun's western glow, and decorated the breast of the robin. — Cf. Lecky, European Morals, vol. ii., pp. 224, 225. Here, then, we see him established in a vast superiority of power. His dependents were countless, his offspring innumerable. His harem blazed with the wit and beauty of all lands. One small despised society, conducted mainly by some fishermen, alone refused his claim to imperial rule.

The historian has therefore to inquire into the causes of the decline of this unparalleled power. Some attribute this to his polygamy, and this theory is very current amongst the Teutonic race. It was originated by a lady of some eminence, and much temper, whose husband had eloped with her maid ; and it was so illogical that nearly all women have adopted it. Others are of opinion that he never recovered from a sudden blow he received from an ink-bottle, thrown at him by a German commentator. This opinion is held by all theologians who are commentators. Cambridge men say it was owing to a lack of mathematical accuracy in keeping the records of births and marriages in his family. Oxford men allege that it was his indifference to the " dead languages," which cost him his life. But I could fill volumes of this method of treating a great historical question.

Permit me to say, then, that this vast downfall arose (if a down-fall can rise) from even a more trivial cause than women or ink-bottles. I have already stated that the Monarch was I * never seen by men, and this contributed greatly to his power, as we shall see hereafter. Then it was generally believed that he had a cloven foot, a caudal process and a horn. Whether this belief was purely false, or contained some glimpses of truth revealed by one of the flunkeys, every intelligent reader of this veracious history will prefer to decide for himself. But the fact remains that they exercised a potent spell over the human mind. Nearly all historians agree that the Monarch possessed unrivalled intellectual powers, but they have failed to note that there was a restlessness, which often took the form of suspicion.

It was this very suspicion which indirectly led to his downfall. For it happened that he was uneasy about a disaffected portion of his kingdom, and thought that his captains were receiving bribes from the enemy, so one evening he stole forth in disguise and unattended to visit this district in person. He had wandered about in the shape of a tax-gatherer for some hours and made many interesting notes. Occasionally he had been told to go to himself or invited to take a seat by his own fire, in the monosyllabic vernacular of that country. He was musing on the causes of his unpopularity, and in a fit of abstraction sat on a gate devising how he should bring about a marriage with this race and thus reinstate his authority. A singular figure had noted him some hours before with an ominous scowl, and, feeling a growing curiosity about the strange tax gatherer, had followed him.

Now when the Monarch did a bit of extra tough intellectual work, he had a habit of constantly apply ing his fore-finger to his horn, and so on this occasion he had laid aside his huge Quaker-like hat and sat ruminating abstractedly. The figure that had followed him was no other than the valiant George, a general in the army, and a knight-errant, who would draw his sword on any thing from a wood-louse to a dragon. When George saw the horn, his worst suspicions were confirmed. He felt a heavy weight at his stomach, as if he had dined off horse-shoes and swallowed them whole. Then he thought of fame. The visions of glory which had filled his young being came back like an electric flash, scattering sparks of radiant light on the whole track of the future. Often had he fought with forms of evil — now he might cope with evil itself.

He felt his rusty sword and then came in sight of the Monarch, who immediately resumed his hat and began with such an insinuating address to make general inquiries, that the Knight almost doubted his own senses, and wondered whether his eyes or his ears had abandoned their normal functions. But in the parley he noted the limping gait of the stranger, and discovered that all was not right with one foot. He no longer doubted. His answers grew curt ; his inquiries were not courteous ; words ran on apace, and then it came to blows. Each drew his sword, and many a stroke whistled in the wind, while the fortunes of the human race hung on a single parry and thrust. Little harm had been done, except that George had cleft the Quaker-hat and slightly wounded the horn of the Monarch, when a band of monks on a pilgrimage passed down the lane.

The Monarch disappeared. The Knight told a strange tale of the adventure to the gaping monks. At first they grew pale and trembled, whether from fright at an adversary or from fear for an ally, we need not inquire. But the Knight laughed and chuckled. He only demanded a grind-stone to take the rust off his sword, and an oyster supper to give him the nightmare, then nothing could please him better than a stand-up fight with this terror of all the earth. Each monk spread his own version of the story ; and in no long time it became current that the Monarch was wounded, that he was dead, that he was buried, &c, &c. George was discharged from the army because he had shown some bravery and much prompt tact, and, above all, because he had begun and finished a battle without the consent of the House of Com mons ; but he received offers of marriage from every female who had a whole heart and a fractional fortune in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

He was prayed to or for at many a shrine ; the shape of his shield was held proof against witchcraft ; and a survival of this faith may still be seen in the horse-shoes nailed on doors of cow-sheds and pig-styes. What an apotheosis ! The Monarch returned home, removed his disguise, dressed for dinner, and appeared at the head of the table with the true state of his feelings as well concealed as if he were a lady of fashion. His favourite wife thought his salute a little chilly, and wished he would always stay by the fire and keep his affections up to bridal temperature. But a banquet remedies many ills, and dinner mellowed the royal gourmand into affability. When all was over the King sought a sense of life in the freedom from restraint, as in dressing gown and smoking-cap he pulled at an eternal hookah, whilst his confidential secretary came to give him the news of the last twenty-four hours.

Foremost amongst the items he gave the information that two of his wives had died in his absence. This was not a new occurrence. The family of Devils had become proverbial for their longevity, and the hoary Monarch had seen many vacancies in the changing pantomime of his harem, and, like all old married people, be had long survived sentiment. But there was the bother. Funerals are a necessary evil, and Court-mourning an inevitable compliment. But it formed a favourable opening for negotiating a marriage with the inhabitants of the country which had been the scene of his late duel. Thus even to monarchs, though the most pitiable objects of the human race, there is some alleviation to that burden we call life. One of his sons had formed a powerful political alliance in the capital of the very country which had been the cause of his late visit.

For the Prime Minister of that island had, by means of a very tempting offer, secured his permanent residence there, with a lucrative post and every honour that an office of the Crown could confer. No duties were attached to the post, except to smoke cigarettes, read the morning papers, and instruct the statesman how to speak like truth but mean nothing. So, although the Monarch was uneasy about his duel and the rumours that would arise from it, to say nothing of his horn, which ached considerably, he felt more hopeful with regard to this country than he had done for weeks, and passed through his harem with an amount of waggery that was unusual.

Chapter II

|EXT morning, however, matters were more serious ; for the wounded horn had become much worse, and throbbed so violently that it seemed to open like the mouth of a barrister's clerk when he names his master's fee. The Monarch was confined to his room, and there he remained some months. It appears that the poisonous rust of George's sword had accomplished what all his valour and strength might have failed to achieve. Probably if he had possessed a true, bright blade, no serious harm had been done, and the history of the world would have been changed. Thus we see the wisdom of the English Government in making third-rate provisions of arms and ammunition for their soldiers. I state this frankly, as I need no longer disguise the country where the Monarch had his duel. In that country meantime the disaffection had spread rapidly.

George's story was told with every possible admixture of exaggeration and falsehood; and this is said to have been the occasion on which news papers originated. From some versions of George's story it seemed that the Monarch was a black, deformed, dis reputable character, to be loathed and kicked, but no longer to be feared. His palace was no mansion of splendour, but a dungeon somewhere in the earth, a little lower than where potatoes grow. Some scurrilous poet made a caricature of this subterranean polygamy, in which the word Hades chinked with ladies; and after ballad singers had circulated the intelligence " Hades " could no longer be used without a smile, and, for the sake of pulpit oratory, his mansion was called " Hell." So much power rests in a name. The most cultured nations and the keenest intellects had accepted Hades as a realm of sombre pageantry, where untainted gloom brooded over its sunless rivers, and shadowy forms passed an afternoon existence in its gloaming, fed with the hope of Elysian sunlight.

But to call it Hell was to tear down the venerable arras woven by long generations over its bare walls, which no fire could render cheerful. Then pious people began to see visions, and one, more saintly than the rest, had a direct revelation, and he saw the Monarch bound on a red-hot grid iron, writhing and clutching at the fleeting shades of men. This vision was circulated among the common people, and spread with amazing rapidity. Meanwhile, in his mansion, the King had re covered, but he was maimed for life. The horn having divided where the sword caught it, was no longer an object of terror, for it grew gradually less, a scale periodically falling off. This was a subject of great uneasiness to the King ; his emissaries, moreover, told him of the rumours that were current in this disaffected corner of his kingdom.

So he determined to make another journey thither. Less disguise was necessary, as he was growing more human in appearance day by day. He found the district in arms against him, and more than one valiant saint interviewed him with phials of holy water and crucifixes, with beads and jargon, which seemed like gibing taunts over the fallen. He was compelled to remain for some time, or give up the contest.

Chapter III

EpfijOW libellers plied a brisk trade. The RB-I Monarch was down, and the only thing tfr-l*-:Jj\ was tQ jjjt him, and to strike hard. Those who had seen him declared that he was like other men ; his horn was only an ordinary wart ; his clothes were good, but he had been known to take money, for many had sold themselves into his service. The years rolled on ; sedition spread ; tbe horn grew less ; his wives dropped off, and new brides did not take their places ; the seraglio had the forbidding aspect of a mother-in-law doing up her back hair ; relics of old mourning and wrinkles of new date gave a tawdry look even to the best boudoir. The King grew rather slobbering ; he carefully kept the scales of his horn in a box, and spent a good deal of time in arranging and re-arranging them. They were not inviting, and about as full of sentiment as a worn-out tooth-brush.

He was thus employed in the soft twilight of an autumn evening when his chief Captain returned, and was at once announced, for he had news of importance. The old Monarch paused, as he saw his vigorous and exultant Captain, and turned from his scales, as Justinian from Theodora, to receive this second Belisarius. The Captain described how that, amongst a fair haired race, he had met with a young widow, whose spell of witchery and radiance of beauty would re-establish the tottering empire of the earth. In her presence men forgot their bitterness and their greed, and renounced the rewards of earth to dream in vacancy of coming glories. Troops of young, ardent, heroic souls, deluded by her smile, realized every dream of chivalry, and devoted every gift of life to her service. Many felt she could not be mortal, and all owned she looked god-like.

Nations had coalesced to found her kingdom ; statesmen defended her ; priests rendered her ceaseless adoration ; and, above all, women envied her not, but deemed a single smile from her as a passport to the home of immortal light. The Captain was a man of action, noted for his shrewdness and hard metallic soul. That he should lose himself in a rhapsody of panegyric on a common marketable commodity like female beauty, filled the Monarch with a dumb surprise. But it soon roused more active passions, and an electric radiance, too fascinating to be called light, filled his eyes for an instant, and lent his haggard face a passing flush of that youthful charm which had won every Court of the civilized world, and created him Monarch of a realm so vast, that even in its decay, it hid the splendours of the petty dynasties that stood gaping to gorge upon its wreckage.

So in a few brief questions the Monarch asked her name, her pedigree, and her fortune. For he had a musical ear and a name was something, he belonged to an unsullied aristocracy, and pedigree was as indispensable to him as to a prize dog. He had reaped every benefit, without the disadvantages, of polygamy, for his empire had grown with his wives, but he had suffered no inconvenience on account of them. The Captain knew the difficulties, but felt un daunted, and smiling with an air of triumph, said — " May it please your Majesty, her name is as harmonious as her beauty, it would seem that upon her voluptuous form have settled soft cadences of distant music, for her maiden name was Miss Bamboozle Cant. " Her pedigree extends beyond the known limits of time, and in her meet and mingle those long lines of lineage whose blue blood deepens into the darkness of mythology.

Her father's name is Success, the only survivor of the two most ancient ruling dynasties, Force and Fraud. Her mother's name was Religion, the sole heiress, by marriage, of the oldest of the human families, Ignorance and Fear. "Though a widow, she is but a girl, for in her childhood she was espoused to Truth ; but that potentate died soon after their marriage, leaving no heir to his dominions. " Her fortune is her empire, which is that part of the world that does not belong to your Majesty." The Captain bowed and waited for the effect with the inimitable pose of Randy Pandy's moustache, when he has fired one chamber of his pocket revolver-eloquence into the face of two yawning local reporters. The proposal met with the Monarch's approval, and some hours were spent that evening in making the necessary arrangements. YE LATESTE D'EVIL.

Chapter IV. Ieantime

history had not stood still in the disaffected region with which our biography is so closely connected. Many a pious person, as an enemy to spiritual darkness, had vigorously stirred the fires of hell, that he might spread a truer light. Caricatures of the Monarch became still more gross and even bestial. Many saints had seen him in the form of a black dog that had no master, and kept remarkably late hours ; or in the shape of a præternaturally dark hued cat, whose tail had lost its sense of proportion, and whose eyes were strangely luminous when the sun did not shine. I can give no idea to a modern reader of the effect of this method of treatment. For at that time the bulk of uneducated Britishers had not trained their intellect to the subtleties of transcendental philosophy. Yet the character of the laws and religion of the country was mainly determined by them.

Parliament finally settled both the laws and the religion ; but at that remote period Parliament was formed not of the men who knew most, but of men who possessed some wealth, and the rare art of persuading the mob that they were martyrs to the cause of the people, whilst they were only serving their own interests. So that the reader will perceive that any foolish legend which made its way through every village and town of England, by its influence on the popular feelings, changed the destiny of all that was highest in the nation. Some years before the Monarch had wooed his last bride, a man of great intellect and goodness, called John Methody, had made a lasting impression on the people. His name was almost a proverb for sanctity. Many pages could not tell of the benefits which he conferred upon his country.

Though he may have shared in some of the erroneous views about the Monarch, he did not call him " Old Nick," and use disparaging epithets, for he had been brought up to regard him as almost a friend, and spoke of him tenderly as " Old Tom." John lived in one of those cycles when Egyptian darkness is rendered tenfold more ghastly by English cold. Every day he saw the poor dying without food or comfort, consolation or hope, whilst their reverend shepherds called them together once a week to taunt them because they were poor, and lean, and despairing. He gave his life to succour the helpless, and his memory still lives to cheer the weak and despised. After his death, his followers refusing his advice and incapable of his self-devotion, adopted his weaknesses, and calling themselves after his name, established the first religious co-operative stores.

They avowed that their chief objects were to supply a cheap article and to warrant that everything was home-made. To the world they were known as Methodies, but those of the inner brotherhood called themselves, We-sly-uns. They offered rewards for works of the highest imitative skill, and soon they were able to produce all the solid articles of religion as rapidly as a Birmingham manufactory can turn out old Roman coins. For the rest they trusted to the state of the weather, the liver, and the more violent emotions. With regard to their relationship to the Monarch, evidence is conflicting. Their enemies maintain that originally they were his subjects, but that the higher officers being dissatisfied with their salary, struggled into a less dependent condition. Others aver that the more ignorant belonged to the Fisher man's Guild, already named, but they had been seduced by the charms of Mrs. Bamboozle to support her cause, and finally had become a suzerainty of the Monarch as part of her dowry.

I regret to leave this important step in doubt, but as it is to a great extent theological, no historian has yet been able to clear it up. However, when they come into any prominence, we find them a singular and flourishing body, with peculiar tenets and methods. For whilst the Monarch had been leisurely arranging " the cold remains " of his horn, the noble army of Weslyuns had grown apace by a new mode of propagandism. They described the Monarch as being in a restless state of somnambulism. He was held forth as a creature that roamed up and down the earth, sharpening his teeth with the grim purpose of an ill-fed solicitor. It shows how flunkeys delude the world, when they undertake to write the life of their masters. As there are many persons who are greatly terrified at strange cats and dogs in the dark, these clever people took out a patent for a process, or said they had, by which all persons might be freed from four-footed and other forms of devilry ; the operation is mis-named Conversion.

It consisted mainly in turning the patient round in a dexterous manner till he was giddy, and telling him to believe that he could walk straight. In some cases the operation had to be repeated often, and not unfrequently produced violent hysteria, when the patient's shouting was relieved by all the rest shouting in chorus. Now the persons who received a direct salary for spreading this patent, used to go from place to place, in their own language " like the first bishops to visit our flock." Perhaps there was a singular appropriateness in the word " flock," for never were sheep more easily led astray than these converts from ignorance and brutality. The tides of passion 2 * ran high, great excitement led to frequent divisions ■ — too often increased by those who should have healed them. About the time of the most formid able of these agitations, they began to call themselves ministers, but woe unto the flock that did not minister unto them.

Now, as the ministers could not always be present they appointed at each place a roll-caller who kept a register of the inner-brotherhood and collected their weekly pence, on which occasion he used to inquire into their general condition and special experience, what they had felt and what triumphs of faith they had enjoyed. On one of these occasions a man related that the Lord had made him ill, and, whilst he was living on faith and gruel, one evening the Devil entered the house in the form of a black sheep, and after butting over two or three of the children, it made for his wife ; she was a nervous woman and felt at once that it was the Devil ; she looked at the old family Bible and said " Lord help me," then fell to a hand-to-band fight with the enemy of souls. She wrestled long and made the wool fly.

At last her faith conquered, and the Devil went home leaving much of his fleece behind him. She picked up the wool and made him a pair of stockings out of it. When he had finished they were all in tears, and a shout of Hallelujah rent the air at the sight of the stockings. They told this story to the next minister who went, and, as he was a young man with a great gift for anecdotes, who meant to be President of the Conference, he went to the woman and took down all the details and received the stockings as a proof that they were true. This story went through all Eng land amongst the lower folk who attend missionary meetings to hear jokes about black men, who are only monkeys with their tails rubbed off by sitting. Mark the descent of his Sublime Highness. He was a Monarch, he became a soldier, a man, a faithful animal, a silly sheep.

Human vision was now unfettered ; and ecstasy and indigestion, aided by faith and ignorance, peopled space with fleeting shadows that were felt to be the lodgings of the Monarch. This all contributed to a great popular movement, which, like other popular movements, was slowly tending to an end which the authors had never seen and of which they had never dreamt.

Chapter V

|ppS|j|UT long before some of these things had l|fe|i taken place, the marriage had been arranged, BS-Hl and Mrs. Cant (for in her own country she was still called by her better known, family name) had laid aside her name to develop her nature. Fabulous sums had been spent in trimming up the Monarch's favourite palace, at Blackingbox — (some antiquarians have suggested it was so called because all black things, such as coffee and dress suits, were supposed to come originally from that country) — and more than one steward had gone mad in trying to stem the tide of expenses. Tailors and dentists and hair-dressers had racked their ingenuity in trying to screw up the royal piece of antiquity into something like a traditional bridegroom, and finally a few men of science by the aid of galvanism and protoplasm had so quickened his circulation and filled up his wrinkles, that the azure eyes of Mrs. Cant sparkled with witchery, treacherous as summer lightning, when first they beheld him.