The Banned Lecture

living, about the time of William Blake. He wrote a number of words arranged in some scheme con- nected with rhyme and rhythm ; apparently, like golf clubs, “ a set of instruments very ill-adapted to the purpose.” But, anyway, he called it a poem, and the title was something to do with the old woman of Berkeley and who rode behind her. The person who rode behind her was Mr. Montague Summers’ friend, the Devil. What she actually did to merit this favour is to me rather obscure, because I have forgotten the whole beastly thing. But I do remem- ber two lines, because I am in the same line of business myself. I have candles made of infants’ fat, I have feasted on rifled graves. Southey was an ambitious man. He was not content with the brilliant success of this masterpeice of the poetic art. He immediately sat down and wrote another alleged poem all about infants’ fat and rifled graves and the Devil coming for the villain at the proper moment. This poem has nothing to do with witchcraft. It is called “ The Surgeon’s Warning.” I think this is the best evidence in support of my thesis—whatever that is, I am not quite sure— that it is possible to adduce. In the minds of the kind of people who believe in their neighbours making candles of infants’ fat and digging up corpses to economise on the butcher’s bill, the surgeon—that is to say, the man in pursuit of knowledge which it is hoped may alleviate human pain—is the same kind of animal as the witch and the ritual-murdering Jew. It is, no doubt, because it is a part of the old taboo complex about the corpses of one’s relatives,