From NOTES ON SPURZHEIM’S “OBSERVATIONS ON THE DERANGED MANIFESTATIONS OF THE MIND, OR INSANITY” LONDON 1817

Cowper came to me and said: “0 that I were insane always. I will never rest. Can you not make me truly insane? I will never rest till I am so. O that in the bosom of God I was hid. You retain health and yet are as mad as any of us all—over us all—mad as a refuge from unbelief—from Baoon, Newton and Locke.”

From ANNOTATIONS TO “POEMS” BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH VOL. I, LONDON 1815

I see in Wordsworth the Natural Man rising up against the Spiritual Man Continually, & then he is No Poet but a Heathen Philosopher at Enmity against all true Poetry or Inspiration.

There is no such Thing as Natural Piety Because The Natural Man is at Enmity with God.

I cannot think that Real Poets have any competition. None are greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven; it is so in Poetry.

Natural Objects always did & now do weaken, deaden & obliterate Imagination in Me. Wordsworth must know that what he Writes Valuable is Not to be found in Nature.

I Believe both Macpherson & Chatterton, that what they say is Ancient Is so.

I own myself an admirer of Ossian equally with any other Poet whatever, Rowley & Chatterton also.

Imagination has nothing to do with Memory.

From ANNOTATIONS TO DR. THORNTON’S “NEW TRANSLATION OF THE LORD’S PRAYER” LONDON 1827

I look upon this as a Most Malignant & Artful attack upon the Kingdom of Jesus By the Classical Learned, thro’ the Instrumentality of Dr. Thornton. The Greek & Roman Classics is the Anthichrist. I say Is & Not Are as most expressive & correct too. [on the title-page]

Christ & his Apostles were Illiterate Men; Caiaphas, Pilate & Herod were Learned.

If Morality was Christianity, Socrates was The Savior.

The Beauty of the Bible is that the most Ignorant & Simple Minds Understand it Best—Was Johnson hired to Pretend to Religious Terrors while he was an Infidel, or how was it?

The only thing for Newtonian & Baconian Philosophers to Consider is this: Whether Jesus did not suffer himself to be Mock’d by Caesar’s Soldiers Willingly, & to Consider this to all Eternity will be Comment Enough.

It is the learned that Mouth, & not the Vulgar.

Lawful Bread, Bought with Lawful Money, & a Lawful Heaven, seen thro’ a Lawful Telescope, by means of Lawful Window Light! The Holy Ghost, & whatever cannot be Taxed, is Unlawful & Witchcraft.

Spirits are Lawful, but not Ghosts; especially Royal Gin is Lawful Spirit. No Smuggling real British Spirit & Truth!

Give us the Bread that is our due & Right, by taking away Money, or a Price, or Tax upon what is Common to all in thy Kingdom.

Jesus, our Father, who art in thy heaven call’d by thy Name the Holy Ghost, Thy Kingdom on Earth is Not, nor thy Will done, but Satan’s, who is God of this World, the Accuser. Let his Judgment be Forgiveness that he may be cursed on his own throne.

Give us This Eternal Day our own right Bread by taking away Money or debtor Tax & Value or Price, as [words illegible] have all the Common [several words illegible] among us. Every thing has as much right to Eternal Life as God, who is the Servant of Man. His Judgment shall be Forgiveness that he may be consum’d on his own Throne.

Leave us not in Parsimony, Satan’s Kingdom; liberate us from the Natural Man & [words illegible] Kingdom.

For thine is the Kingdom & the Power & the Glory & not Ceasar’s or Satan’s. Amen.

Doctor Thornton’s Tory Translation, Translated out of its disguise in the Classical & Scotch languages into the vulgar English.

Our Father Augustus Ceasar, who art in these thy Substantial Astronomical Telescopic Heavens, Holiness to thy Name or Title, & reverence to thy Shadow. Thy Kingship come upon Earth first & then in Heaven. Give us day by day our Real Taxed Substantial Money bought Bread; deliver from the Holy Ghost whatever cannot be Taxed; for all is debts & Taxes between Caesar & us & one another; lead us not to read the Bible, but let our Bible be Virgil & Shakespeare; & deliver us from Poverty in Jesus, that Evil One. For thine is the Kingship, [or] Allegoric Godship, & the Power, or War, & the Glory, or Law, Ages after Ages in thy descendants; for God is only an Allegory of Kings & nothing Else. AMEN.

MIRTH AND HER COMPANIONS

[Engraved beneath a print of the first subject illustrating Milton’s L’Allegro.]

Solomon says, “Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity,” & What can be Foolisher than this?

NOTE IN CENNINI’S “TRATTATO DELLA PITTURA” ROMA. MDCCCXXI

The Pope supposes Nature & the Virgin Mary to be the same allegorical personages, but the Protestant considers Nature as incapable of bearing a Child.

NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS TO DANTE

[On design no. 7, a map of the classical conception of the Universe, written in the circles surrounding the central figure of Homer.]

Every thing in Dante’s Comedia shews That for Tyrannical Purposes he has made This World the Foundation of All, & the Goddess Nature Mistress; Nature is his Inspirer & not ... the Holy Ghost. As Poor Shakspeare said: “Nature, thou art my “Goddess.”

Round Purgatory is Paradise, & round Paradise is Vacuum or Limbo, so that Homer is the Center of All—I mean the Poetry of the Heathen, Stolen & Perverted from the Bible, not by Chance but by design, by the Kings of Persia & their Generals, The Greek Heroes & lastly by the Romans.

Swedenborg does the same in saying that in this World is the Ultimate of Heaven. This is the most damnable Falshood of Satan & his Antichrist.

On design no. 16, The Goddess Fortune.

The Goddess Fortune is the devil’s servant, ready to Kiss any one’s Arse.

On design no. 101, a diagram of the Circles of Hell.

It seems as if Dante’s supreme Good was something Superior to the Father or Jesus; for if he gives his rain to the Evil & the Good, & his Sun to the Just & the Unjust, He could never have Built Dante’s Hell, nor the Hell of the Bible neither, in the way our Parsons explain it—It must have been originally Formed by the devil Himself; & So I understand it to have been.

This [the diagram] is Upside Down When view’d from Hell’s gate, which ought to be at top, But right When View’d from Purgatory after they have passed the Center.

In Equivocal Worlds Up & Down are Equivocal.

Whatever Book is for Vengeance for Sin & Whatever Book is Against the Forgiveness of Sins is not of the Father, but of Satan the Accuser & Father of Hell.