irly asked, how does it happen that those two contending
spirits do not quarrel and give each other black eyes and broken heads
during their rivalship for pre-eminence? And why does the evil tempting
spirit so often prevail?

Instead of literally answering these difficult questions, it may be
resolved into a good argument, as an excellent allegory to represent the
struggle in the mind of man between good and evil inclinations. But to
take them as they actually are, and merely to talk by way of natural
consequence--for to argue from nature is certainly the best way to get
to the bottom of the devil's story,--if there are good and evil spirits
attending us, that is to say, a good angel and a devil, then it is no
unjust reproach to say, when people follow the dictates of the latter,
that _the devil's in them_, or that _they are devils_! or, to carry the
simile a point farther, that as the generality, and by far the greatest
number of people follow and obey the evil spirit and not the good one,
and that the power predominating is allowed to be the nominating power,
it must then of course be allowed that the greater part of mankind have
the devil in them, which brings us to the conclusion of our argument;
and in support of which the following stanzas come happily to our
recollection.

To persons and places he sends his disguises,
And dresses up all his banditti,
Who, as pickpockets flock to country assizes,
Crowd up to the court and the city.

They're at every elbow, and every ear,
And ready at every call, Sir;
The vigilant scout, plants his agents about,
And has something to do with us all, Sir.

In some he has part, and some he has whole,
And of some, (like the Vicar of _Baddow_)
It can neither be said they have body or soul;
And only are devils in shadow.

The pretty and witty are devils in masque;
The beauties are mere apparitions;
The homely alone by their faces are known,
And the good by their ugly conditions.

The beaux walk about like the shadows of men,
And wherever he leads them they follow;
But tak'em, and shak'em, there's not one in ten
But's as light as a feather, and hollow.

Thus all his affairs he drives on in disguise,
And he tickles mankind with a feather,
Creeps in at one's ear, and looks out at our eyes,
And jumbles our senses together.

He raises the vapours and prompts the desires,
And to ev'ry dark deed holds