P.S.--Pray excuse the date of place; so soon as the profits of the
publication come in, I mean to hire lodgings in a more respectable
street.


PROLOGUE.

Peter Bells, one, two and three,
O'er the wide world wandering be.--
First, the antenatal Peter,
Wrapped in weeds of the same metre,
The so-long-predestined raiment _5
Clothed in which to walk his way meant
The second Peter; whose ambition
Is to link the proposition,
As the mean of two extremes--
(This was learned from Aldric's themes) _10
Shielding from the guilt of schism
The orthodoxal syllogism;
The First Peter--he who was
Like the shadow in the glass
Of the second, yet unripe, _15
His substantial antitype.--

Then came Peter Bell the Second,
Who henceforward must be reckoned
The body of a double soul,
And that portion of the whole _20
Without which the rest would seem