As the story about the bishop is a mere legend, I don't know
whether we can ascribe anger at him to VN.

I imagine that Southey wrote about the German bishop
because it's a striking, grotesque story and maybe because
of his (Southey's) proletarian sympathies.  It's a warning
to those who oppress the sans-culottes.

Has anyone mentioned that S. is also in the note to line 12,
on the subject of his Lingo-Grande as a forerunner of
/Finnegan's Wake/?  I know nothing about Lingo-Grande.

I must admit I've always just been stumped by both Stumparumper
and the rats, and didn't particularly "think of the Bishop of
Bingen/ In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!" (Longfellow).  To add
to what other people have suggested, I suspect one connection
between Southey and Prof. H. is that S.'s ballad is a definitive
example of poetic justice.  Kinbote in his "just anger" may
be thinking that when Prof. H. reads the disparagement of
"English Lit", in a poem he was so concerned about, he'll suffer
poetic justice.

Jerry Friedman

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