Chapter 55 - Page 2

narrate what he was. For there is
no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and hell is a
democracy of devils, where all are equals. There, Nero howls side by
side with his own malefactors. If Napoleon were truly but a martial
murderer, I pay him no more homage than I would a felon. Though Milton's
Satan dilutes our abhorrence with admiration, it is only because he is
not a genuine being, but something altered from a genuine original. We
gather not from the four gospels alone, any high-raised fancies
concerning this Satan; we only know him from thence as the
personification of the essence of evil, which, who but pickpockets and
burglars will admire? But this takes not from the merit of our
high-priest of poetry; it only enhances it, that with such unmitigated
evil for his material, he should build up his most goodly structure. But
in historically canonizing on earth the condemned below, and lifting up
and lauding the illustrious damned, we do but make examples of
wickedness; and call upon ambition to do some great iniquity, and be
sure of fame.