“Antichrist! what? can a feeble old creature,
      Pope though they style him, be rank’d in his place
    As the Goliath in fashion and feature
      Warring gigantic with God and His grace? 
    Is he so great—­to be dreaded, abhorred,
      Single antagonist, braving God’s wrath,
    Bearing foul Babylon’s seal on his forehead,
      Chosen Triumvir with Sin and with Death?

    “Yea; the presumption of priestly succession
      Make the all one a whole Popedom of Time,
    So that each head for his hour of possession
      Wears the tiara of ages of crime: 
    Rome is infallible, Rome is eternal,
      Rome is unchangeable, cruel, and strong,
    Leagued with the legions of darkness infernal,
      Crushing all right and upholding all wrong.”

Note.—­The value of the Greek letters, as numerals, in the two words above, is as follows:—­The three kappas = 60, the three omicrons = 210, the three iotas = 30, the two pis = 160, the one sigma = 200, the one epsilon = 5, and the one alpha = 1; in all exactly making 666.  This is “a private interpretation” of the writer’s own discovery, not to be found elsewhere, and quite as convincing as Lateinos and the inscription on St. Peter’s.

My friend Evelyn contributed to the perfection of the discovery.  It was he who suggested Kakoi to Episcopoi, to make up the number.  There are also some who say that our eccentric Premier’s name sums up ominously to the same three sixes.

CHAPTER XXVI.

COURTLY AND MUSICAL.

My several royal poems, some twenty in number, may deserve a short and special notice; though it is far from my intention to detail any gracious condescensions of a private nature.  I may however state, as a curiosity of literature, that the 35th of my “Three Hundred Sonnets,” published by Virtue in 1860, is headed “India’s Empress,” written certainly twenty years before such a title was thought of, even by Lord Beaconsfield in his pupa phase of D’Israeli.  As very few have the volume, long out of print, I will here produce that fortunate prophecy; the “way chaotic” is the Sepoy Mutiny:—­

    “Our Empress Queen!—­Victoria’s name of glory
      Added as England’s grace to Hindostan: 
    O climax to this age’s wondrous story,
      Full of new hope to India, and to Man
    In heathendom’s dark places!  For the light
      Of our Jerusalem shall now shine there
      Brighter than ever since the world began:—­
    Yet by a way chaotic, drear and gory
    Travelled this blessing; as a martyr might
      Wrestling to heaven through tortures unaware: 
      Our Empress Queen! for thee thy people’s pray’r
    All round the globe to God ascends united,
      That He may strengthen thee no guilt to spare
    Nor leave one act of goodness unrequited.”