fear, lest some unrepented or some wilful sin should seal their doom in everlasting fire. With that dreadful penalty before their eyes—with that tremendous sanction for the truth of all he spoke, Turner exclaimed loudly and distinctly, while the executioner was putting the rope round his neck, "this is all Oliver and the Government."[1] What more he might have said we know not, because the chaplain prevented any further observations. Troops of horse, with keen and glittering swords, hemmed in the multitudes collected to witness this abominable exhibition. "When the stroke of the axe was heard, there was a burst of horror from the crowd.[2] The instant the head was exhibited, there was a tremendous shriek set up, and the multitude ran violently in all directions, as if under the impulse of sudden frenzy. Those who resumed their stations, groaned and hooted."
- ↑ No doubt the contemporary press if searched would yield plenty ot evidence ot the hatred and contempt with which this government spy was regarded. Perhaps one of the most noteworthy utterances which he helped to inspire was Charles Lamb's grim poem The Three Graves, published in The Poetical Recreations of the Champion in the year of Shelley's death, and not as well known as it deserves to be, though given in Mr. Charles Kent's excellent edition of Lamb's Works (Routledge's "Popular Centenary Edition," without a date). I need not apologize for quoting the poem here. I give it from the Poetical Recreations.
Close by the ever-burning brimstone beds,
Where Bedloe, Oates and Judas, hide their heads,
I saw great Satan like a Sexton stand,
With his intolerable spade in hand,
Digging three graves. Of coffin shape they were,
For those who, coffinless, must enter there
With unblest rites. The shrouds were of that cloth
Which Clotho weaveth in her blackest wrath:
The dismal tinct oppress'd the eye, that dwelt
Upon it long, like darkness to be felt.
The pillows to these baleful beds were toads,
Large, living, livid, melancholy loads,
Whose softness shock'd. Worms of all monstrous size
Crawl'd round; and one upcoil'd, which never dies.
A doleful bell, inculcating despair,
Was always ringing in the heavy air.
And all about the detestable pit
Strange headless ghosts, and quarter'd forms, did flit;
Rivers of blood, from living traitors spilt,
By treachery stung from poverty to guilt.
I ask'd the fiend, for whom these rites were meant?
"These graves," quoth he, "when life's brief oil is spent,
When the dark night comes, and they're sinking bedwards,
—I mean for Castles, Oliver, and Edwards." - ↑ These expressions are taken from the Examiner, Sunday, Nov. 9.
[Shelley's Note.]
