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,