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tell!” (11.77.609-10). The punchline which puts “Carotid-artery-cutting Castlereagh”(10.59.468) in Hell leaves open the inference by analogy that Napoleon is in Heavenand that there is a God to know this.The text is reinforcing, not challenging, the stereotypical belief position in thatparticular regard, whilst challenging the certainty of mortal knowledge about theseissues: non-specific theism is implicitly affirmed, and this is coherent with the poem’spreviously-discussed representation of the post-mortem existence of the soul, butmore specific formulations of belief are left undetermined by the criticism of theirepistemology.Another expression of agnosis is joined with an attack on cant. The first part is theplayfully sceptical one, not attacking religion, but gently questioning it. This beginswith the description of “this unriddled wonder, /The World, which at the worst’s aglorious blunder” (11.3.23-4), declaring the self-evident truth that the world is notunderstood by us, and moving on to a positive valuation which at the very leastimplies theism, since a blunder can only be made by an agent. This is furtherunderlined by the beginning of the next stanza, which identifies the theistic position ofthe Bible as better than the vagaries of pure randomness, and then proceeds into aconsideration of religious disputation:If it be Chance; or if it be accordingTo the Old Text, still better: – lest it shouldTurn out so, we’ll say nothing against the wording,As several people think such hazards rude:They’re right; our days are too brief for affordingSpace to dispute what no one ever couldDecide, and every body one day willKnow very clearly – or at least lie still. (11.4.25-4.32).136