The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, by Dom Francisco de Quevedo, Translated by Roger L'Estrange This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas Author: Dom Francisco de Quevedo Release Date: January 24, 2013 [eBook #41908] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VISIONS OF DOM FRANCISCO DE QUEVEDO VILLEGAS***
Transcribed from the 1904 Methuen & Co. edition by David Price, email [email protected]
MADE ENGLISH BY R. L.
METHUEN & CO.
LONDON
This Issue, first published in 1904, is founded on the Third Edition, corrected, published by H. Herringman in 1668.
This Preface is merely for fashion-sake, to fill a space, and please the stationer, who says ’tis neither usual nor handsome, to leap immediately from the title-page to the matter. So that, in short, a Preface ye have, together with the reason of it, both under one: but as to the ordinary mode and pretence of prefaces, the translator desires to be excused. For he makes a conscience of a lie, and it were a damned one, to tell ye, that he has published this, either to gratify the importunity of friends, or to oblige the public, or for any other reason of a p. vihundred, that are commonly given in excuse of scribbling. Not but that he loves his friends, as well as any man, and has taken their opinion along with him. Nor, but that he loves the public too (as many a man does a coy mistress that has made his heart ache.) But to pass from what had no effect upon him in this publication, to that which overruled him in it. It was pure spite. For he has had hard measure among the physicians, the lawyers, the women, etc. And Dom Francisco de Quevedo, in English, revenges him upon all his enemies. For it is a satire, that taxes corruption of manners, in all sorts and degrees of people, without reflecting upon particular states or persons. It is full of sharpness and morality; and has found so good entertainment in the world, that it wanted only English of being baptized into all Christian languages.
Going t’other day to hear mass at a convent in this town, the door it seems was shut, and a world of people pressing and begging to get in. Upon enquiry what the matter was; they told me of a demoniac to be exorcised; (or dispossessed) which made me put in for one, to see the ceremony: though to little purpose; for when I had half smothered myself in the throng, I was e’en glad to get out again, and bethink myself of my lodging. Upon my way homeward, at the street’s end, it was my fortune to meet a familiar friend of mine of the same convent; who told me over again what I had heard before, and taking notice of my curiosity, bade me follow him; which I did, till with his passe-partout he brought me through a little back-door into the church, and so into the vestry: where p. 2we saw a wretched kind of a dog-looked fellow with a tippet about his neck, as ill ordered as you’d wish; his clothes all in tatters, his hands bound behind him, roaring and tearing after a most hideous manner. “Bless me,” quoth I, crossing myself, “what spectacle have we here?” “This,” said the good Father who was to do the feat, “is a man that’s possessed with an evil spirit.” “That’s a damned lie,” with respect of the company, cried the devil that tormented him, “for this is not a man possessed with a devil, but a devil possessed with a man; and therefore you should do well to have a care what you say, for it is most evident, both by the question and answer, that you are but a company of sots. You are to understand that we devils never enter into the body of a catchpole, but by force, and in spite of our hearts; and therefore to speak properly, you are to say, this is a devil catchpoled, and not a catchpole bedevilled. And, to give you your due, you men can deal better with us devils, than with the catchpoles, for we fly from the cross, whereas they make use of it, for a cloak for their villainy.
“But though we differ thus in our humours, we hold a very fair correspondence in our offices: if we draw men into p. 3judgment and condemnation, so do the catchpoles; we pray for an increase of wickedness in the world, so do they; nay and more zealously than we, for it is their livelihood, and we do it only for company: and in this the catchpoles are worse than the devils; they prey upon their own kind, and worry one another. For our parts, we are angels still, though black ones, and were turned into devils only for aspiring into an equality with our Maker: whereas the very corruption of mankind is the generation of a catchpole. So that, my good Father, your labour is but lost in plying this wretch with relics; for you may as soon redeem a soul from hell, as a prey out of his clutches. In fine, your algouazils (or catchpoles) and your devils are both of an order, only your catchpole-devils wear shoes and stockings, and we go barefoot after the fashion of this reverend Father; and (to deal plainly) have a very hard time on’t.”
I was not a little surprised to find the devil so great a sophister, but all this notwithstanding, the holy man went on with his exorcism, and to stop the spirit’s mouth, washed his face with a little holy water, which made the demoniac ten times madder than before, and set him a yelping p. 4so horribly, that it deafened the company, and made the very ground under us to tremble. “And now,” says he, “you may, perchance, imagine this extravagance to be the effect of your holy water; but let me tell you, that mere water itself would have done the same thing; for your catchpole hates nothing in this world like water [especially that of a Gray’s Inn pump]. But to conclude, they are so reprobated a sort of Christians, that they have quitted even the very name of misins, by which they were formerly known, for that of algouazils; the latter being of Pagan extraction, and more suitable to their manners.”
“Come, come,” says the Father, “there is no ear, nor credit to be given to this villain; set but his tongue at liberty, and you shall have him fall foul upon the Government, and the ministers of justice, for keeping the world in order and suppressing wickedness, because it spoils his market.” “No more chopping of logic good Mr. Conjurer,” says the devil, “for there’s more in’t than you are aware of; but if you’ll do a poor devil a good office, give me my dispatch out of this accursed algouazil; for I am a devil, you must know, of reputation and quality, and shall p. 5never be able to endure the gibes and affronts will be put upon me at my return to hell, for having kept this rascal company.” “All in good time,” said the Father, “thou shalt have thy discharge; that is to say, in pity to this miserable creature, and not for thy own sake. But tell me now, what makes thee torment him thus?” “Nothing in the world,” quoth the devil, “but a contest betwixt him and me, which was the greater devil of the two.”
The conjurer did not at all relish these wild and malicious replies; but to me the dialogue was extreme pleasant, especially being by this time a little familiarized with the devil. “Upon which confidence, my good Father,” said I, “here are none but friends; and I may speak to you as my confessor, and the confidant of all the secrets of my soul; I have a great mind, with your leave, to ask the devil a few questions, and who knows but a man may be the better for his answers, though perchance contrary to his intention! keep him only in the interim from tormenting this poor creature.” The conjurer granted my request, and the spirit went on with his babble. “Well,” says he smiling, “the devil shall never want a friend at court, so p. 6long as there’s a poet within the walls. And indeed the poets do us many a good turn, both by pimping and otherwise; but if you,” said he, “should not be kind to us,” looking upon me, “you’ll be thought very ungrateful, considering the honour of your entertainment now in hell.” I asked him then what store of poets they had? “Whole swarms,” says the devil; “so many, that we have been forced to make more room for them: nor is there anything in nature so pleasant as a poet in the first year of his probation; he comes ye laden forsooth, with letters of recommendation to our superiors, and enquires very gravely for Charon, Cerberus, Rhadamanthus, Æacus, Minos.”
“Well,” said I, “but what’s their punishment?” (for I began now to make the poets’ case my own). “Their punishments,” quoth the devil, “are many, and suited to the trade they drive. Some are condemned to hear other men’s works: (and this is the plague of the fiddlers too) we have others that are in for a thousand year, and yet still poring upon some old stanzas they have made of jealousy. Some again are beating their foreheads with the palms of their hands, and even boring their very noses with hot irons, in rage that they p. 7cannot come to a resolution, whether they shall say face or visage; whether they shall write jail or gaol; whether cony or cunny, because it comes from cuniculus, a rabbit. Others are biting their nails to the quick, and at their wits’ end for a rime to chimney; and dozing up and down in a brown study, till they drop into some hole at last, and give us trouble enough to get them out again. But they that suffer the most, and fare the worst, are your comic poets, for whoring so many queens and princesses upon the stage, and coupling ladies of honour with lackeys, and noblemen with common strumpets, in the winding up of their plays; and for giving the bastinado to Alexander and Julius Cæsar in their interludes and farces. Now be it known to you, that we do not lodge these with other poets, but with pettifoggers and attorneys, as common dealers in the mystery of shifting, shuffling, forging, and cheating: and now for the discipline of hell, you are to understand we have incomparable harbingers and quartermasters; insomuch that let them come in whole caravans, as it happened t’other day, every man is in his quarter before you can say what’s this.
“There came to us several tradesmen; p. 8the first of them a poor rogue that made profession of drawing the long bow; and him we were about to put among the armourers, but one of the company moved and carried it, that since he was so good at draughts, he might be sent to the clerks and scriveners; a sort of people that will fit you with draughts, good and bad, of all sorts and sizes, and to all purposes. Another called himself a cutter, we asked him whether in wood or stone? ‘Neither,’ said he, ‘but in cloth and stuff’ (Anglicè a tailor); and him we turned over to those that were in for detraction and calumny, and for cutting large thongs out of other men’s leather. There was a blind fellow would fain have been among the poets, but (for likeness’ sake) we quartered him among the lovers. After him, came a sexton, or (as he styled himself) a burier of the dead; and then a cook that was troubled in conscience for putting off cats for hares: These were dispatched away to the pastry-men. A matter of half a dozen crack-brained fools we disposed of among the astrologers and alchymists. In the number, there was one notorious murderer, and him we packed away to the gentlemen of the faculty, the physicians. The broken merchants we kennelled with Judas for p. 9making ill bargains. Corrupt ministers and magistrates, with the thief on the left hand. The embroilers of affairs, and the water-bearers take up with the vintners; and the brokers with the Jews. Upon the whole matter, the policy of hell is admirable, where every man has his place according to his condition.”
“As I remember,” said I, “you were speaking e’en now concerning lovers. Pray tell me, have you many of them in your dominions? I ask, because I am myself a little subject to the itch of love, as well as poetry.” “Love,” says the devil, “is like a great spot of oil, that diffuses itself everywhere, and consequently hell cannot but be sufficiently stocked with that sort of vermin. But let me tell you now, we have several sorts of lovers; some dote upon themselves; others upon their pelf; these upon their own discourses; those upon their own actions; and once in an age perchance, comes a fellow that dotes upon his own wife; but this is very rare, for the jades commonly bring their husbands to repentance, and then the devil may throw his cap at them. But above all, for sport (if there can be any in hell) commend me to those gaudy monsieurs, who by the variety of colours and ribands p. 10they wear (favours as they call them) one would swear, were only dressed up for a sample, or kind of inventory of all the gewgaws that are to be had for love or money at the mercers. Others you shall have so overcharged with perruque, that you’ll hardly know the head of a cavalier from the ordinary block of a tire-woman: and some again you’d take for carriers, by their packets and bundles of love-letters; which being made combustible by the fire and flame they treat of, we are so thrifty, as to employ upon the singeing of their own tails, for the saving of better fuel. But, oh! the pleasant postures of the maiden-lover, when he is upon the practice of the gentle-leer, and embracing the air for his mistress! Others we have that are condemned for feeling and yet never come to the touch: these pass for a kind of buffoon pretenders; ever upon the vigil, but never arrive at the festival. Some again have lost themselves with Judas for a kiss.
“One story lower is the abode of contented cuckolds; a nasty poisonous place, and strewed all over with the horns of rams and bulls, etc. Now these are so well read in woman, and know their destiny so well beforehand, that they never so much as trouble their heads for the matter. Ye p. 11come next to the admirers of old women; and these are wretches of so depraved an appetite, that if they were not kept tied up, and in chains, they’d horse the very devils themselves, and put Barabbas to his trumps, to defend his buttocks: for the truth is, whatever you may think of a devil, he passes with them for a very Adonis or Narcissus.
“So much for your curiosity; a word now for your instruction. If you would make an interest in hell, you must give over that roguy way ye have got of abusing the devils in your shows, pictures, and emblems: one while forsooth we are painted with claws, or talons, like eagles, or griffons. Another while we are dressed up with tails, like so many hackney-jades with their fly-flaps: and now and then ye shall see a devil with a coxcomb. Now I will not deny, but some of us may indeed be very well taken for hermits, and philosophers. If you can help us in this point, do; and we shall be ready to do ye one good turn for another. I was asking Michael Angelo here a while ago, why he drew the devils in his great piece of the Last Judgment, with so many monkey faces, and jack-pudding postures. His answer was, that he followed his fancy, p. 12without any malice in the world, for as then, he had never seen any devils; nor (indeed) did he believe that there were any; but he has now learned the contrary to his cost. There’s another thing too we take extremely ill, which is, that in your ordinary discourses, ye are out with your purse presently to every rascal, and calling of him devil. As for example. Do you see how this devil of a tailor has spoiled my suit? how the devil has made me wait? how this devil has cozened me, etc., which is very ill done, and no small disparagement to our quality, to be ranked with tailors: a company of slaves, that serve us in hell only for brush-wood; and they are fain to beg hard to be admitted at all: though I confess they have possession on their sides, and custom, which is another law. Being in possession of theft, and stolen goods; they make much more conscience of keeping your stuffs, than your holy days, grumbling and domineering at every turn, if they have not the same respect with the children of the family. Ye have another trick, too, of giving everything to the devil, that displeases ye, which we cannot but take very unkindly. ‘The devil take thee,’ says one: a goodly present I warrant ye; but the devil has p. 13somewhat else to do, than to take and carry away all that’s given him; if they’ll come of themselves, let them come and welcome. Another gives that whelp of a lackey to the devil; but the devil will none of your lackeys, he thanks ye for your love; a pack of rogues that are commonly worse than devils, and to say the truth, they are good neither roast nor sodden. ‘I give that Italian to the devil,’ cries a third; thank you for nothing: for ye shall have an Italian will choose the devil himself, and take him by the nose like mustard. Some again will be giving a Spaniard to the devil; but he has been so cruel where-ever he has got footing, that we had rather have his room than his company, and make a present to the grand-signior of his nutmegs.”
Here the devil stopped, and in the same instant, there happening a slight scuffle, betwixt a couple of conceited coxcombs, which should go foremost: I turned to see the matter, and cast my eye upon a certain tax-gatherer, that had undone a friend of mine: and in some sort to revenge myself of this ass in a lion’s skin, I asked the devil, whether they had not of that sort of blood-suckers among the rest, in their dominions (an informing, projecting generation p. 14of men, and the very bane of a kingdom). “You know little,” says he, “if you do not know these vermin to be the right heirs of perdition, and that they claim hell for their inheritance: and yet we are now e’en upon the point of discarding them, for they are so pragmatical, and ungrateful, there’s no enduring of them. They are at this present in consultation about an impost upon the highway to hell; and indeed payments run so high already, and are so likely to increase too, that ’tis much feared in the end, we shall quite lose our trading and commerce. But if ever they come to put this in execution, we shall be so bold, as to treat them next bout, to the tune of ‘Fortune my foe,’ etc. and make them cool their heels on the wrong side of the door, which will be worse than hell to them, for it leaves them no retreat, being expelled paradise, and purgatory already.” “This race of vipers,” said I, “will never be quiet, till they tax the way to heaven itself.” “Oh,” quoth the devil, “that had been done long since, if they had found the play worth the candles: but they have had a factor abroad now these half-score years, that’s glad to wipe his nose on his sleeve still, for want of a handkerchief.” “But these new impositions, p. 15upon what I pray ye do they intend to levy them?” “For that,” quoth the devil, “there’s a gentleman of the trade at your elbow can tell you all;” pointing to my old friend the publican. This drew the eyes of the whole company upon him, and put him so damnedly out of countenance, that he plucked down his hat over his face, clapped his tail between his legs, and went his way; with which we were all of us well enough pleased, and then the devil went on. “Well,” said the devil, and laughed, “my voucher is departed ye see; but I think I can say as much to this point as himself; the impositions now to be set on foot, are upon bare-necked ladies, patches, mole-skins, Spanish-paper, and all the mundus muliebris more than what is necessary and decent; upon your tour à la mode, and spring garden coaches; excess in apparel, collations, rich furniture, your cheating, and blaspheming gaming ordinaries, and, in general, upon whatsoever serves to advance our empire; so that without a friend at court, or some good magistrate to help us out at a dead lift, and stick to us, we may e’en put up our pipes, and you’ll find hell a very desert.” “Well,” said I, “and methinks I see nothing in all this, but what is very reasonable; p. 16for to what end serves it but to corrupt good manners, stir up ill appetites, provoke and encourage all sorts of debauchery, destroy all that is good and honourable in humane society, and chalk out in effect the ready way to the devil.
“But you said something e’en now of magistrates, I hope,” said I, “there are no judges in hell.” “You may as well imagine,” cried the spirit, “that there are no devils there; for let me tell you (friend mine) your corrupt judges are the great spawners that supply our lake; for what are those millions of catchpoles, proctors, attorneys, clerks, barristers, that come sailing to us every day in shoals, but the fry of such judges! Nay sometimes, in a lucky year, for cheating, forging, and forswearing, we can hardly find cask to put them in.”
“From hence now,” quoth I, “would you infer, that there’s no justice upon the face of the earth.” “Very right,” quoth the devil, “for Astræa (which is the same thing) is fled long since to heaven. Do not ye know the story?” “No,” said I. “Then,” quoth the devil, “mind me and I’ll tell ye it.
“Once upon a time Truth and Justice came together to take up their quarters p. 17upon the earth: but the one being naked, and the other very severe and plain-dealing, they could not meet with anybody that would receive them. At last, when they had wandered a long time like vagabonds in the open air, Truth was glad to take up her lodging with a mute; and Justice, perceiving that though her name was much used for a cloak to knavery, yet that she herself was in no esteem, took up a resolution of returning to heaven: and in order to her journey, she bade adieu in the first place to all courts, palaces, and great cities, and went into the country, where she met with some few poor simple cottagers, that gave her entertainment; but malice and persecution found her out in the end, and she was banished thence too. She presented herself in many places, and people asked her what she was? She answered them, ‘Justice,’ for she would not lie for the matter. ‘Justice?’ cried they, ‘she is a stranger to us; tell her here’s nothing for her,’ and shut the door. Upon these repulses, she took wing, and away she went to heaven, hardly leaving so much as the bare print of her footsteps behind her. Her name however is not yet forgotten, and she’s pictured with a sceptre in her hand, and is still called Justice; but call her what ye p. 18will, she makes as good a fire in hell as a tailor; and for sleight of hand, puts down all the gilts, cheats, picklocks, and trepanners in the world: to say the truth, avarice is grown to that height, that men employ all the faculties of soul and body to rob and deceive. The lecher, does not he steal away the honour of his mistress? (though with her consent). The attorney picks your pocket, and shows you a law for’t; the comedian gets your money and your time, with reciting other men’s labours; the lover cozens you with his eyes; the eloquent, with his tongue; the valiant, with his arm; the musician, with his voice and fingers; the astrologer, with his calculations; the apothecary, with sickness and health; the surgeon, with blood; and the physician, with death itself; and in some sort or other, they are all cheats; but the catchpole (in the name of justice) abuses you with his whole man; he watches you with his eyes; follows you with his feet; seizes with his hands; accuses with his tongue; and in fine, put it in your litany, from catchpoles, as well as devils, libera nos domine.”
“But how comes it,” said I, “that you have not coupled the women with the thieves? for they are both of a trade.” p. 19“Not a word of women as ye love me,” quoth the devil, “for we are so tired out with their importunities; so deafened with the eternal clack of their tongues, that we start at the very thought of them. And to say the truth, hell were no ill winter quarter, if it were not so overstocked with that sort of cattle. Since the death of the Witch of Endor, it has been all their business to improve themselves in subtlety and malice, and to set us together by the ears among ourselves. Nay some of them are confident enough, to tell us to our teeth, that when we have done our worst, they’ll give us a Rowland for our Oliver. Only this comfort we have, that they are a cheaper plague to us, than they are to you; for we have no Exchanges, Hyde Parks, or Spring Gardens in our territories.”
“You are well stored then with women, I see, but of which have you most?” said I, “handsome, or ill-favoured?” “Oh, of the ill-favoured, six for one,” quoth the devil, “for your beauties can never want gallants to lay their appetites; and many of them, when they come at last to have their bellies full, e’en give over the sport, repent and ’scape. Whereas nobody will touch the ill-favoured without a pair of tongs; and for want of water to quench p. 20their fire, they come to us such skeletons, that they are enough to affright the devil himself. For they are most commonly, old, and accompany their last groans with a curse upon the younger that are to survive them. I carried away one t’other day of threescore and ten, that I took just in the nick, as she was upon a certain exercise to remove obstructions: and when I came to land her, alas for the poor woman! what a terrible fit had she got of the toothache! when upon search, the devil a tooth had she left in her head, only she belied her chops to save her credit.”
“You have exceedingly satisfied me,” said I, “in all your answers; but pray’e once again, what store of beggars have ye in hell? Poor people I mean.” “Poor,” quoth the devil, “who are they?” “Those,” said I, “that have no possessions in the world.” “How can that be,” quoth he, “that those should be damned, that have nothing in the world? when men are only damned for cleaving to’t. And briefly I find none of their names in our books, which is no wonder, for he that has nothing to trust to, shall be left by the devil himself in time of need. To deal plainly with you, where have you greater devils than your flatterers, false friends, p. 21lewd company, envious persons, than a son, a brother, or a relation, that lies in wait for your life to get your fortune, that mourns over you in your sickness, and wishes you already at the devil. Now the poor have none of this; they are neither flattered, nor envied, nor befriended, nor accompanied: there’s no gaping for their possessions; and in short, they are a sort of people that live well, and die better; and there are some of them, that would not exchange their rags for royalty itself: they are at liberty to go and come at pleasure, be it war or peace; free from cares, taxes, and public duties. They fear no judgments or executions, but live as inviolable as if their persons were sacred. Moreover they take no thoughts for tomorrow, but setting a just value on their hours, they are good husbands of the present; considering that what is past, is as good as dead, and what’s to come, uncertain. But they say, ‘When the devil preaches, the world’s near an end.’”
“The Divine Hand is in this,” said the holy man that performed the exorcism, “thou art the father of lies, and yet deliverest truths able to mollify and convert a heart of stone.” “But do not you mistake yourself,” quoth the devil, “to p. 22suppose that your conversion is my business; for I speak these truths to aggravate your guilt, and that you may not plead ignorance another day, when you shall be called to answer for your transgressions. ’Tis true, most of you shed tears at parting, but ’tis the apprehension of death, and no true repentance for your sins that works upon you: for ye are all a pack of hypocrites: or if at any time you entertain those reflections, your trouble is, that your body will not hold out; and then forsooth ye pretend to pick a quarrel with the sin itself.” “Thou art an impostor,” said the religious, “for there are many righteous souls, that draw their sorrow from another fountain. But I perceive you have a mind to amuse us, and make us lose time, and perchance your own hour is not yet come to quit the body of this miserable creature; however, I conjure thee in the name of the Most High to leave tormenting him, and to hold thy peace.” The devil obeyed; and the good Father applying himself to us, “My masters,” says he, “though I am absolutely of opinion that it is the devil that has talked to us all this while through the organ of this unhappy wretch, yet he that well weighs what has been said, may doubtless reap some benefit by the discourse. p. 23Wherefore without considering whence it came; remember, that Saul (although a wicked prince) prophesied; and that honey has been drawn out of the mouth of a lion. Withdraw then, and I shall make it my prayer (as ’tis my hope) that this sad and prodigious spectacle may lead you to a true sight of your errors, and, in the end, to amendment of life.”
THE END OF THE FIRST VISION
Mean souls do naturally breed sad thoughts, and in solitude, they gather together in troops to assault the unfortunate; which is the trial (according to my observation) wherein the coward does most betray himself; and yet cannot I for my life, when I am alone, avoid those accidents and surprises in myself, which I condemn in others. I have sometime, upon reading the grave and severe Lucretius, been seized with a strange damp; whether from the striking of his counsels upon my passions, or some tacit reflection of shame upon myself, I know not. However, to render this confession of my weakness the more excusable, I’ll begin my discourse with somewhat out of that elegant and excellent poet.
“Put the case,” says he, “that a voice from heaven should speak to any of us after this manner; what dost thou ail, O mortal p. 25man, or to what purpose is it, to spend thy life in groans, and complaints under the apprehension of death? where are thy past tears and pleasures? Are they not vanished and lost in the flux of time, as if thou hadst put water into a sieve? Bethink thyself then of a retreat, and leave the world with the same content, and satisfaction, as thou wouldst do a plentiful table, and a jolly company upon a full stomach. Poor fool that thou art! thus to macerate and torment thyself, when thou may’st enjoy thy heart at ease, and possess thy soul with repose and comfort, etc.”
This passage brought into my mind the words of Job, cap. 14, and I was carried on from one meditation to another, till at length, I fell fast asleep over my book, which I ascribed rather to a favourable providence, than to my natural disposition. So soon as my soul felt herself at liberty, she gave me the entertainment of this following comedy, my fancy supplying both the stage and the company.
In the first scene, entered a troop of physicians, upon their mules, with deep foot-cloths, marching in no very good order, sometime fast, sometime slow, and to say the truth, most commonly in a huddle. They were all wrinkled and p. 26withered about the eyes; I suppose with casting so many sour looks upon the piss-pots and close-stools of their patients, bearded like goats; and their faces so over-grown with hair, that their fingers could hardly find the way to their mouths. In the left hand they held their reins, and their gloves rolled up together; and in the right, a staff à la mode, which they carried rather for countenance, than correction; (for they understood no other menage than the heel) and all along, head and body went too, like a baker upon his panniers. Divers of them, I observed, had huge gold rings upon their fingers, and set with stones of so large a size, that they could hardly feel a patient’s pulse, without minding him of his monument. There were more than a good many of them, and a world of puny practisers at their heels, that came out graduates, by conversing rather with the mules than the doctors: well! said I to myself, if there goes no more than this to the making a physician, it is no marvel we pay so dear for their experience.
After these, followed a long train of mountebank-apothecaries, laden with pestles, and mortars, suppositories, spatulas, glister-pipes and syringes, ready charged, and as mortal as gun-shot, and several p. 27titled boxes with remedies without, and poisons within: ye may observe that when a patient comes to die, the apothecary’s mortar rings the passing-bell, as the priest’s requiem finishes the business. An apothecary’s shop is (in effect) no other than the physician’s armoury, that supplies him with weapons; and (to say the truth) the instruments of the apothecary and the soldier are much of a quality: what are their boxes but petards? their syringes, pistols; and their pills, but bullets? And after all, considering their purgative medicines, we may properly enough call their shops purgatory; and why not their persons hell? their patients the damned? and their masters the devils? These apothecaries were in jackets, wrought all over with Rs, struck through like wounded hearts, and in the form of the first character of their prescriptions, which (as they tell us) signifies recipe (take thou) but we find it to stand for recipio (I take.) Next to this figure, they write ana, ana, which is as much as to say an ass, an ass; and after this, march the ounces and the scruples; an incomparable cordial to a dying man; the former to dispatch the body, and the latter, to put the soul into the highway to the devil. To hear them call over their p. 28simples, would make you swear they were raising so many devils. There’s your opopanax, buphthalmus, astaphylinos, alectorolophos, ophioscorodon, anemosphorus, etc.
And by all this formidable bombast, is meant nothing in the world but a few paltry roots, as carrots, turnips, skirrets, radish and the like. But they have the old proverb at their fingers’ end: “he that knows thee will never buy thee;” and therefore everything must be made a mystery, to hold their patients in ignorance, and keep up the price of the market. And were not the very names of their medicines sufficient to fright away any distemper, ’tis to be feared the remedy would prove worse than the disease. Can any pain in nature, think ye, have the confidence to look a physician in the face, that comes armed with a drug made of man’s grease? though disguised under the name of mummy, to take off the horror and disgust of it: or to stay for a dressing with Dr. Whachum’s plaster, that shall fetch up a man’s leg to the size of a mill-post? When I saw these people herded with the physicians, methought the old sluttish proverb, that says, “there is a great distance between the pulse and the arse,” was much to blame for making such a difference in their dignities, p. 29for I find none at all; but the physician skips in a trice from the pulse to the stool and urinal, according to the doctrine of Galen, who sends all his disciples to those unsavoury oracles, from whose hands the devil himself, if he were sick, would not receive so much as a glister. Oh! these cursed and lawless arbitrators and disposers of our lives! that without either conscience or religion, divide our souls and bodies, by their damned poisonous potions, scarifications, incisions, excessive bleedings, etc., which are but the several ways of executing their tyranny and injustice upon us.
In the tail of these, came the surgeons, laden with pincers, cranes-bills, catheters, desquamatories, dilaters, scissors, saws; and with them so horrid an outcry, of cut, tear, open, saw, flay, burn, that my bones were ready to creep one into another for fear of an operation.
The next that came in, I should have taken by their mien, for devils disguised, if I had not spied their chains of rotten teeth, which put me in some hope they might be tooth-drawers, and so they proved; which is yet one of the lewdest trades in the world; for they are good for nothing but to depopulate our mouths, and p. 30make us old before our time. Let a man but yawn, and ye shall have one of these rogues examining his grinders, and there’s not a sound tooth in your head, but he had rather see’t at his girdle, than in the place of its nativity: nay, rather than fail, he’ll pick a quarrel with your gums. But that which puts me out of all patience, is to see these scoundrels ask twice as much for drawing an old tooth as would have bought ye a new one.
“Certainly,” said I to myself, “we are now past the worst, unless the devil himself come next.” And in that instant I heard the brushing of guitars, and the rattling of citterns, raking over certain passacailles and sarabands. These are a kennel of barbers thought I, or I’ll be hanged; and any man that had ever seen a barber’s shop might have told you as much without a conjurer, both by the music and by the very instruments, which are as proper a part of a barber’s furniture as his comb-cases and wash-balls. It was to me a pleasant entertainment, to see them lathering of asses’ heads, of all sorts and sizes, and their customers all the while winking and sputtering over their basins.
Presently after these, appeared a consort of loud and tedious talkers, that tired and p. 31deafened the company with their shrill, and restless gaggle; but as one told me, these were of several sorts. Some they called swimmers from the motion of their arms in all their discourses, which was just as if they had been paddling. Others they called apes (and we mimics); these were perpetually making of mops, and mows, and a thousand antic ridiculous gestures, in derision and imitation of others. In the third place, were make-bates, and sowers of dissension, and these were still rolling their eyes (like a Bartlemey puppet, without so much as moving the head) and leering over their shoulders, to surprise people at unawares in their familiarities, and privacies, and gather matter for calumny and detraction. The liars followed next; and these seemed to be a jolly contented sort of people, well fed, and well clothed; and having nothing else to trust to, methought it was a strange trade to live upon. I need not tell you, that they are never without a full audience, since all fools and impertinents are of their congregation.
After these, came a company of meddlers, a pragmatical insolent generation of men that will have an oar in every boat, and are indeed the bane of honest conversation, and the troublers of all companies and p. 32affairs, the most prostitute of all flatterers, and only devoted to their own profit. I thought this had been the last scene, because no more came upon the stage for a good while; and indeed I wondered that they came so late themselves, but one of the babblers told me (unasked) that this kind of serpent carrying his venom in his tail; it seemed reasonable, that being the most poisonous of the whole gang, they should bring up the rear.
I began then to take into thought, what might be the meaning of this oglio of people of several conditions and humours met together; but I was quickly diverted from that consideration by the apparition of a creature which looked as if ’twere of the feminine gender. It was a person, of a thin and slender make, laden with crowns, garlands, sceptres, scythes, sheep-hooks, pattens, hobnailed shoes, tiaras, straw hats, mitres, Monmouth caps, embroideries, skins, silk, wool, gold, lead, diamonds, shells, pearl, and pebbles. She was dressed up in all the colours of the rainbow; she had one eye shut, the other open; young on the one side, and old o’ the other. I thought at first, she had been a great way off, when indeed she was very near me, and when I took her to be at my p. 33chamber door, she was at my bed’s head. How to unriddle this mystery I knew not; nor was it possible for me to make out the meaning of an equipage so extravagant, and so fantastically put together. It gave me no affright, however, but on the contrary I could not forbear laughing, for it came just then into my mind that I had formerly seen in Italy a farce, where the mimic, pretending to come from the other world, was just thus accoutred, and never was anything more nonsensically pleasant. I held as long as I could, and at last, I asked what she was. She answered me, “I am Death.” Death! (the very word brought my heart into my mouth) “and I beseech you, madam,” quoth I (with great humility and respect) “whither is your honour a going?” “No further,” said she, “for now I have found you, I am at my journey’s end.” “Alas, alas! and must I die then,” said I. “No, no,” quoth Death, “but I’ll take thee quick along with me; for since so many of the dead have been to visit the living, it is but equal for once, that one of the living should return a visit to the dead. Get up then and come along; and never hang an arse for the matter; for what you will not do willingly, you shall do in spite of your teeth.” This put me in a cold fit; p. 34but without more delay up I started, and desired leave only to put on my breeches. “No, no,” said she, “no matter for clothes, nobody wears them upon this road; wherefore come away, naked as you are, and you’ll travel the better.” So up I got, without a word more and followed her, in such a terror, and amazement, that I was but in an ill condition to take a strict account of my passage; yet I remember, that upon the way, I told her: “Madam, under correction, you are no more like the Deaths that I have seen, than an apple’s like an oyster. Our Death is pictured with a scythe in her hand; and a carcass of bones, as clean as if the crows had picked it.” “Yes, yes,” said she, turning short upon me, “I know that very well; but in the meantime your designers and painters are but a company of buzzards. The bones you talk of are the dead, or otherwise the miserable remainders of the living; but let me tell you that you yourselves are your own death, and that which you call death, is but the period of your life, as the first moment of your birth is the beginning of your death; and effectually, ye die living, and your bones are no more than what death has left and committed to the grave. If this were rightly understood, every man p. 35would find a memento mori, or a death’s head, in his own looking-glass; and consider every house with a family in’t but as a sepulchre filled with dead bodies; a truth which you little dream of, though within your daily view and experience. Can you imagine a death elsewhere, and not in yourselves? Believe’t y’are in a shameful mistake; for you yourselves are skeletons before ye are aware.”
“But, madam, under favour, what may all these people be that keep your ladyship company? and since you are Death (as you say) how comes it, that the babblers, and make-bates, are nearer your person, and more in your good graces than the physicians?” “Why,” says she, “there are more people talked to death and dispatched by babblers, than by all the pestilential diseases in the world. And then your make-bates, and meddlers kill more than your physicians, though (to give the gentlemen of the faculty their due) they labour night and day for the enlargement of our empire. For you must understand, that though distempered humours make a man sick, ’tis the physician kills him; and looks to be well paid for’t too: (and ’tis fit that every man should live by his trade) so that when a man is asked, what such p. 36or such a one died of, he is not presently to make answer, that he died of a fever, pleurisy, the plague, purples, or the like; but that he died of the doctor. In one point, however, I must needs acquit the physician; ye know that the style of right honourable, and right worshipful, which was heretofore appropriate only to persons of eminent degree and quality, is now in our days used by all sorts of little people; nay the very barefoot friars, that live under vows of humility and mortification, are stung with this itch of title and vainglory. And your ordinary tradesmen, as vintners, tailors, masons, and the like, must be all dressed up forsooth in the right worshipful: whereas your physician does not so much court honour of appellation (though, if it should rain dignities, he might be persuaded happily to venture the wetting) but sits down contentedly with the honour of disposing of your lives and moneys, without troubling himself about any other sort of reputation.”
The entertainment of these lectures, and discourses made the way seem short and pleasant, and we were just now entering into a place, betwixt light and dark, and of horror enough, if Death and I had not by this time been very well acquainted. Upon p. 37one side of the passage, I saw three moving figures, armed, and of human shape, and so alike, that I could not say which was which. Just opposite, on the other side, a hideous monster, and these three to one, and one to three, in a fierce, and obstinate combat. Here Death made a stop, and facing about, asked me if I knew these people. “Alas! no,” quoth I, “Heaven be praised, I do not, and I shall put it in my litany that I never may.” “Now to see thy ignorance,” cried Death; “these are thy old acquaintance, and thou hast hardly kept any other company since thou wert born. Those three are the world, the flesh, and the devil, the capital enemies of thy soul; and they are so like one another, as well in quality, as appearance, that effectually, whoever has one, has all. The proud and ambitious man thinks he has got the world, but it proves the devil. The lecher, and the epicure, persuade themselves that they have gotten the flesh, and that’s the devil too; and in fine, thus it fares with all other kinds of extravagants.” “But what’s he there,” said I, “that appears in so many several shapes? and fights against the other three?” “That,” quoth Death, “is the devil of money, who maintains that he himself alone is equivalent to them three, p. 38and that wherever he comes, there’s no need of them. Against the world, he argues from their own confession and experience: for it passes for an oracle, that there’s no world but money; he that’s out of money’s out of the world. Take away a man’s money, and take away his life. Money answers all things. Against the second enemy, he pleads that money is the flesh too: witness the girls and the ganymedes it procures, and maintains. And against the third, he urges that there’s nothing to be done without this devil of money. Love does much but money does all; and money will make the pot boil, though the devil piss in the fire.” “So that for ought I see,” quoth I, “the devil of money has the better end of the staff.”
After this, advancing a little further, I saw on one hand judgment, and hell on the other (for so Death called them). Upon the sight of hell, making a stop, to take a stricter survey of it, Death asked me, what it was I looked at. I told her, it was hell; and I was the more intent upon it, because I thought I had seen it somewhere else before. She questioned me, where? I told her, that I had seen it in the corruption and avarice of wicked magistrates; in the pride and haughtiness of grandees; in p. 39the appetites of the voluptuous; in the lewd designs of ruin and revenge; in the souls of oppressors; and in the vanity of divers princes. But he that would see it whole and entire, in one subject, must go to the hypocrite, who is a kind of religious broker, and puts out at five-and-forty per cent. the very Sacraments and Ten Commandments.
“I am very glad too,” said I, “that I have seen judgment as I find it here, in its purity; for that which we call judgment in the world is a mere mockery: if it were like this, men would live otherwise than they do. To conclude: if it be expected that our judges should govern themselves and us by this judgment, the world’s in an ill case; for there’s but little of’t there. And to deal plainly, as matters are, I have no great maw to go home again: for ’tis better being with the dead, where there’s justice, than with the living, where there’s none.”
Our next step was into a fair and spacious plain, encompassed with a huge wall, where he that’s once in must never look to come out again. “Stop here,” quoth Death, “for we are now come to my judgment-seat, and here it is that I give audience.” The walls were hung with sighs and groans, p. 40ill-news, fears, doubts, and surprises. Tears did not there avail either the lover or the beggar; but grief and care were without both measure and comfort; and served as vermin to gnaw the hearts of emperors and princes, feeding upon the insolent and ambitious, as their proper nourishment. I saw Envy there dressed up in a widow’s veil, and the very picture of the government of one of your noblemen’s houses. She kept a continual fast as to the shambles, preying only upon herself; and could not but be a very slender gentlewoman, upon so spare a diet. Nothing came amiss to her teeth (good or bad) which made the whole set of them yellow and rotten, and the reason was that, though she bit, and set her mark upon the good and the sound, she could never swallow it. Under her, sat discord; the legitimate issue of her own bowels. She had formerly conversed much with married people, but finding no need of her there, away she went to colleges and corporations, where it seems they had more already than they knew what to do withal; and then she betook herself to courts and palaces, and officiated there, as the devil’s lieutenant. Next to her was ingratitude, and she out of a certain paste made up of pride and malice, p. 41was moulding of new devils. I was extreme glad of this discovery, being of opinion, till now, that the ungrateful had been the devils themselves, because I read, that the angels that fell were made devils for their ingratitude. To be short, the whole place echoed with rage and curses. “What a devil have we here to do,” said I, “does it rain curses in this country?” With that; a death at my elbow asked me, what a devil could I expect else, in a place where there were so many matchmakers, attorneys, and common barristers, who are a pack of the most accursed wretches in nature. Is there anything more common in the world, than the exclamations of husbands and wives? “Oh! that damned devil of a pander: a heavy curse upon that bitch of a bawd that ever brought us together.” “The pillory and ten thousand gibbets to boot take that pickpocket attorney, that advised me to this lawsuit; h’ as ruined me for ever.” “But pray’e,” said I, “what do all these matchmakers and attorneys here together? Do they come for audience?” Death was here a little quick upon me, and called me fool for so impertinent a question. “If there were no matchmakers,” said she, “we should not have the tenth part of these p. 42skeletons, and desperadoes. Am not I here the fifth husband of a woman yet living in the world, that hopes to send twice as many more after me, and drink maudlin at the fifteenth funeral?” “You say well,” said I, “as to the business of matchmakers; but why so many pettifoggers, I pray’e?” “Nay, then, I perceive,” quoth Death, “now you have a mind to seize me; for that rascally sort of caterpillars have been my undoing. Had not a man better die by the common hangman than by the hand of an attorney? to be killed by falsities, quirks, cavils, delays, exceptions, cheats, circumventions: yes, yes, and it must not be denied, that these makers of matches, and splitters of causes, are the principal support of this imperial throne.”
At these words, I raised my eyes, and saw Death seated in her chair of state, with abundance of little deaths crowding about her: as the death of love, of cold, hunger, fear, and laughter; all, with their several ensigns and devices. The death of love, I perceived, had very little brain, and to keep herself in countenance, she kept company with Pyramus and Thisbe, Hero and Leander, and some Amadis’s and Palmerins d’Oliva; all embalmed, steeped in good vinegar, and well dried. I saw a p. 43great many other sorts of lovers too, that were brought, in all appearance, to their last agonies, but by the singular miracle of self-interest recovered to the tune of
Will, if looking well won’t move her,
Looking ill prevail?
The death of cold was attended by a many prelates, bishops, abbots, and other ecclesiastics, who had neither wives, nor children, nor indeed anybody else that cared for them, further than for their fortunes. These, when they come to a fit of sickness, are pillaged even to their sheets and bedding, before ye can say a paternoster. Nay, many times they are stripped, ere they are laid, and destroyed for want of clothes to keep them warm.
The death of hunger was encompassed with a multitude of avaricious misers that were cording up of trunks, bolting of doors and windows, locking up of cellars and garrets, and nailing down of trap doors, burying of pots of money, and starting at every breath of wind they heard. Their eyes were ready to drop out of their heads, for want of sleep; their mouths and bellies complaining of their hands, and their souls turned into gold and silver (the idols they adored.)
p. 44The death of fear had the most magnificent train and attendance of all the rest, being accompanied with a great number of usurpers arid tyrants, who commonly do justice upon themselves, for the injuries they have done to others, their own consciences doing the office of tormentors, and avenging their public crimes by their private sufferings; for they live in a perpetual anguish of thought, with fears and jealousies.
The death of laughter was the last of all, and surrounded with a throng of people, hasty to believe, and slow to repent, living without fear of justice, and dying without hope of mercy. These are they that pay all their debts and duties with a jest. Bid any of them, “Give every man his due, and return what he has either borrowed, or wrongfully taken,” his answer is, “You’d make a man die with laughing.” Tell him, “My friend, you are now in years, your dancing days are done, and your body is worn out; what should such a scarecrow as you are do with a bed-fellow? Give over your bawdy haunts for shame, and don’t make a glory of a sin, when you’re past the pleasure of it, and yourself upon all accounts contemptible into the bargain.” “This fellow,” says he, “would make a man p. 45break his heart with laughing.” “Come, come, say your prayers, and bethink yourself of eternity; you have one foot in the grave already, and ’tis high time to fit yourself for the other world.” “Thou wilt absolutely kill me with laughing. I tell thee I’m as sound as a rock, and I do not remember that ever I was better in my life.” Others there are, that, let a man advise them upon their deathbeds and even at the last gasp to send for a divine, or to make some handsome settlement of their estates, “Alas, alas!” they’ll cry; “I have been as bad as this many a time before, and (with Falstaffe’s hostess) I hope in the Lord there’s no need to think of him yet.” These men are lost for ever, before they can be brought to understand their danger. This vision wrought strangely upon me, and gave me all the pains and marks imaginable of a true repentance. “Well,” said I, “since so it is, that man has but one life allotted him and so many deaths; but one way into the world and so many millions out of it, I will certainly at my return make it more my care than it has been to live with a good conscience, that I may die with comfort.”
These last words were scarce out of my mouth, when the crier of the court with a p. 46loud voice called out, “The dead, the dead; appear the dead.” And so immediately, I saw the earth begin to move, and gently opening itself, to make way, first for heads and arms, and then by degrees for the whole bodies of men and women, that came out, half muffled in their nightcaps, and ranged themselves in excellent order, and with a profound silence. “Now,” says Death, “let everyone speak in his turn;” and in the instant, up comes one of the dead to my very beard, with so much fury and menace, in his face and action, that I would have given him half the teeth in my head for a composition. “These devils of the world,” quoth he, “what would they be at? my masters, cannot a poor wretch be quiet in his grave for ye? but ye must be casting your scorns upon him, and charging him with things that upon my soul he’s as innocent of as the child that’s unborn. What hurt has he done any of you (ye scoundrels you) to be thus abused?” “And I beseech you, sir,” said I, “(under your favourable correction) who may you be? for I confess I have not the honour either to know or to understand ye.” “I am,” quoth he, “the unfortunate Tony, that has been in his grave now this many a fair year, and yet your wise worships p. 47forsooth have not wit enough to make yourselves and your company merry, but Tony must still be one-half of your entertainment and discourse. When any man plays the fool or the extravagant, presently he’s a Tony. Who drew this or that ridiculous piece? Tony. Such or such a one was never well taught: no, he had a Tony to his master. But let me tell ye, he that shall call your wisdoms to shrift and take a strict account of your words and actions, will upon the upshot find you all a company of Tonys, and in effect the greater impertinents. As for instance: did I ever make ridiculous wills (as you do) to oblige others to pray for a man in his grave, that never prayed for himself in his life? Did I ever rebel against my superiors? Or, was I ever so arrant a coxcomb, as by colouring my cheeks and hair, to imagine that I could reform nature, and make myself young again? Can ye say that I ever put an oath to a lie? or broke a solemn promise, as you do every day that goes over your heads? Did I ever enslave myself to money? Or, on the other side, make ducks and drakes with it? and squander it away in gaming, revelling, and whoring? Did my wife ever wear the breeches? Or, did I ever marry p. 48at all, to be revenged of a false mistress? Was I ever so very a fool as to believe any man would be true to me, who had betrayed his friend? Or, to venture all my hopes upon the wheel of fortune? Did I ever envy the felicity of a court-life, that sells and spends all for a glance? What pleasure did I ever take in the lewd discourses of heretics and libertines? Or, did I ever list myself in the party, to get the name of a gifted brother? Who ever saw me insolent to my inferiors, or basely servile to my betters? Did I ever go to a conjurer, or to your dealers in nativities, and horoscopes upon any occasion of loss or death? Now if you yourselves be guilty of all these fopperies, and I innocent, I beseech ye where’s the Tony? So that you see Tony is not the Tony you take him for. But (to crown his other virtues) he is also endued with so large a stock of patience that whoever needed it had it for the asking, unless it were such as came to borrow money; or in cases of women, that claimed marriage of him; or lackeys that would be making sport with his bauble; and to these, he was as resolute as John Florio.”
While we were upon this discourse, another of the dead came marching up to p. 49me, with a Spanish pace and gravity; and giving me a touch o’ the elbow, “Look me in the face,” quoth he with a stern countenance, “and know, sir, that you are not now to have to do with a Tony.” “I beseech your lordship,” said I, “(saving your reverence) let me know your honour, that I may pay my respects accordingly; for I must confess, I thought all people here had been, hail fellow well met.” “I am called,” quoth he, “by mortals, Queen Dick; and whether you know me or not, I’m sure you think and talk of me often enough; and if the devil did not possess ye, you would let the dead alone, and content yourselves to persecute one another. Ye can’t see a high crowned hat, a threadbare cloak, a basket-hilt sword, or a dudgeon dagger, nay not so much as a reverend matron, well stricken in years, but presently ye cry, “This or that’s of the mode or date of Queen Dick.” If ye were not every mother’s child of ye stark mad, ye would confess that Queen Dick’s were golden days to those ye have had since, and ’tis an easy matter to prove what I say. Will ye see a mother now teaching her daughter a lesson of good government? ‘Child,’ says she, ‘you know that modesty is the great ornament of your sex; wherefore p. 50be sure, when ye come in company, that you don’t stand staring the men in the face, as if ye were looking babies in their eyes, but rather look a little downward, as a fashion of behaviour more suitable to the obligations of your sex.’ ‘Downward?’ says the girl, ‘I beseech you, madam, excuse me: this was well enough in the days of Queen Dick, when the poor creatures knew no better. Let the men look downward towards the clay of which they were made, but man was our original, and it will become us to keep our eyes upon the matter from whence we came.’ If a father give his son in charge, to worship his Creator, to say his prayers morning and evening, to give thanks before and after meat, to have a care of gaming and swearing, ye shall have the son make answer, that ’tis true, this was practised in the time of Queen Dick, but it is now quite out of mode; and in plain English, men are better known nowadays by their atheism and blasphemy than by their beards.”
Hereupon, Queen Dick withdrew, and then appeared a large glass-bottle, wherein was luted up (as I heard) a famous necromancer, hacked and minced according to his own order, to render him immortal. p. 51It was boiling upon a quick fire, and the flesh by little and little began to piece again, and made first an arm, then a thigh, after that a leg; and at last there was an entire body, that raised itself upright in the bottle. Bless me (thought I!) what’s here? A man made of a pottage, and brought into the world out of the belly of a bottle? This vision affrighted me to the very heart; and while I was yet panting and trembling, a voice was heard out of the glass. “In what year of our Lord are we?” “1636,” quoth I. “And welcome,” said he; “for ’tis the happy year I have longed for so many a day.” “Who is it, I pray’e,” quoth I, “that I now see and hear in the belly of this bottle?” “I am,” said he, “the great necromancer of Europe; and certainly you cannot but have heard both of my operations in general, and of this particular design.” “I have heard talk of you from a child,” quoth I, “but all those stories I took only for old wives’ fables. You are the man then it seems: I must confess that at first, at a distance I took this bottle for the vessel that the ingenious Rabelais makes mention of; but coming near enough to see what was in it, I did then imagine it might be some philosopher p. 52by the fire, or some apothecary doing penance for his errors. In fine, it has cost me many a heavy step to come hither, and yet to see so great a rarity I cannot but think my time and pains very well bestowed.” The necromancer called to me then to unstop the bottle, and as I was breaking the clay to open it, “Hold, hold a little,” he cried; “and I prithee tell me first how go squares in Spain? What money? Force? Credit?” “The plate fleets go and come,” said I, “reasonably well; but the foreigners that come in for their snips have half spoiled the trade. The Genoeses run out as far as the mountains of Potosi, and have almost drained them dry.” “My child,” quoth he, “that trade can never be secure and open, so long as Spain has any enemy that’s potent at sea. And for the Genoeses, they’ll tell you this is no injustice at all, but on the contrary, a new way of quitting old scores, and justifying his Catholic Majesty for a good paymaster. I am no enemy to that nation, but upon the account of their vices and encroachments; and I confess, rather than see these rascals prosper, I’d turn myself into a bouillon again, as ye saw me just now; nay, I did not care if ’twere into a powder, though I p. 53ended my days in a tobacco-box.” “Good sir,” said I, “comfort yourself, for these people are as miserable as you’d wish them. You know they are cavaliers and signiors already, and now (forsooth) they have an itch upon them to be princes: a vanity that gnaws them like a cancer; and by drawing on great expenses, breeds a worm in their traffic, so that you’ll find little but debt and extravagance at the foot of the accompt. And then the devil’s in them for a wench, insomuch, that ’tis well, if they bring both ends together; for what’s gotten upon the ’Change is spent in the stews.”
“This is well,” quoth the necromancer, “and I’m glad to hear it. Pray’e tell me now, what price bears honour and honesty in the world?” “There’s much to be said,” quoth I, “upon that point; but in brief, there was never more of it in talk, nor less in effect. ‘Upon my honesty,’ cries the tradesman; ‘Upon my honour,’ says his lordship. And in a word, every man has it, and every thing is it, in some disguise or other; but duly considered, there’s no such thing upon the face of the earth. The thief says ’tis more honourable to take than beg. He that asks an alms, pleads that ’tis honester to beg p. 54than steal. Nay the false witnesses and murderers themselves stand upon their points, as well as their neighbours, and will tell ye that a man of honour will rather be buried alive than submit (though they will not always do as they say). Upon the whole matter, every man sets up a court of honour within himself, pronounces everything honourable that serves his purpose, and laughs at them that think otherwise. To say the truth, all things are now topsy-turvy. A good faculty in lying is a fair step to preferment; and to pack a game at cards, or help the frail die, is become the mark and glory of a cavalier. The Spaniards were heretofore, I confess, a very brave, and well governed people; but they have evil tongues among them nowadays, that say they might e’en go to school to the Indians to learn sobriety and virtue. For they are not really sober, but at their own tables, which indeed is rather avarice than moderation; for when they eat or drink at another man’s cost, there are no greater gluttons in the world; and for fuddling, they shall make the best pot-companion in Switzerland knock under the table.”
The necromancer went on with his p. 55discourse, and asked me what store of lawyers and attorneys in Spain at present. I told him, that the whole world swarmed with them, and that there were of several sorts: some, by profession; others, by intrusion and presumption; and some again by study, but not many of the last, though indeed sufficient of every kind to make the people pray for the Egyptian locusts and caterpillars in exchange for that vermin. “Why then,” quoth the necromancer, “if there be such plagues abroad, I think I had best e’en keep where I am.” “It is with justice,” said I, “as with sick men; in time past, when we had fewer doctors (as well of law as of physic) we had more right, and more health: but we are now destroyed by multitudes, and consultations, which serve to no other end than to inflame both the distemper and the reckoning. Justice, as well as truth, went naked, in the days of old; one single book of laws and ordinances, was enough for the best ordered Government in the world. But the justice of our age is tricked up with bills, parchments, writs, and labels; and furnished with millions of codes, digests, pandects, pleadings, and reports; and what’s their use, but to make wrangling p. 56a science? and to embroil us in seditions, suits, and endless trouble and confusion. We have had more books published this last twenty years than in a thousand before, and there hardly passes a term without a new author, in four or five volumes at least under the titles of glosses, commentaries, cases, judgments, etc. And the great strife is, who writes most, not best; so that the whole bulk is but a body without a soul, and fitter for a churchyard than a study. To say the truth, these lawyers and solicitors are but so many smoke-merchants, sellers of wind, and troublers of the public peace. If there were no attorneys, there would be no suits; if no suits, no cheats, no serjeants; no catchpoles, no prisons; if no prisons, no judges; no judges, no passion; no passion, no bribery or subornation.
“See now what a train of mischiefs one wretched pettifogger draws after him! If you go to him for counsel, he hears your story, reads your case, and tells you very gravely: ‘Sir, this is a nice point, and would be well handled; we’ll see what the law says.’ And then he runs ye over with his eye and finger a matter of a hundred volumes, grumbling all the while, like a p. 57cat that claws in her play ’twixt jest and earnest. At last, down comes the book, he shows the law, bids ye leave your papers, and he’ll study the question. ‘But your cause is very good,’ says he, ‘by what I see already, and if you’ll come again in the evening, or to-morrow morning, I’ll tell ye more. But pardon me, sir, now I think on’t, I am retained upon the business of the Fens, it cannot be till Monday next, and then I’m for ye.’ When ye are to part, and that you come to the greasing of his fist (the best thing in the world both for the wit, and memory), ‘Good Lord! sir,’ says he, ‘what do you mean! I beseech you, sir; nay, pray’e sir,’ and if he spies you drawing back, the paw opens, seizes the guineas, and good-morrow countryman.” “Sayst thou me so?” quoth the good fellow in the glass, “stop me up close again as thou lovest me then: for the very air of these rascals will poison me, if ever I put my head out of this bottle, till the whole race of them be extinct. In the meantime, take this for a rule: he that would thrive by law, must fee his enemies’ counsel as well as his own.
“But now ye talk of great cheats; what news of the Venetians? Is Venice still p. 58in the world or no?” “In the world do ye say? Yes, marry is’t,” said I, “and stands just where it did.” “Why then,” quoth he, “I prithee give it to the devil from me as a token of my love; for ’tis a present equal to the severest revenge. Nothing can ever destroy that Republic but conscience; and then you’ll say ’tis like to be long-lived; for if every man had his own, it would not be left worth a groat. To speak freely, ’tis an odd kind of common-wealth. ’Tis the very arse-gut, the drain and sink of monarchies, both in war and peace. It helps the Turk to vex the Christians, and the Christians to gall the Turk, and maintains itself to torment both. The inhabitants are neither Moors nor Christians, as appears by a Venetian captain, in a combat against a Christian enemy: ‘Stand to’t my masters,’ says he, ‘ye were Venetians before ye were Christians.’
“Enough, enough of this,” cried the necromancer, “and tell me, how stand the people affected? What malcontents and mutineers?” “Mutiny,” said I, “is so universal a disease that every kingdom is (in effect) but a great hospital, or rather a Bedlam (for all men are mad) to entertain the disaffected.” “There’s no stirring p. 59for me then,” quoth the necromancer, “but pray’e commend me however to those busy fools, and tell them, that carry what face they will, there’s vanity and ambition in the pad. Kings and princes have their nature much of quick-silver. They are in perpetual agitation, and without any repose. Press them too hard (that is to say beyond the bounds of duty and reason) and they are lost. Ye may observe that your guilders and great dealers in quick-silver are generally troubled with the palsy; and so should all subjects tremble that have to do with majesty, and better to do it at first, out of respect, than afterward, upon force and necessity.
“But before I fall to pieces again, as you saw me e’en now (for better so than worse) I beseech ye, one word more, and it shall be my last. Who’s King of Spain now?” “You know,” said I, “that Philip the 3rd is dead.” “Right,” quoth he, “a prince of incomparable piety, and virtue (or my stars deceive me).” “After him,” said I, “came Philip the 4th.” “If it be so,” quoth he, “break, break my bottle immediately, and help me out; for I am resolved to try my fortune in the world once again, under the reign of that glorious p. 60prince.” And with that word, he dashed the glass to pieces against a rock, crept out of his case and away he ran. I had a good mind to have kept him company; but as I was just about to start, “Let him go, let him go,” cried one of the dead, and laid hold of my arm. “He has devilish heels, and you’ll never overtake him.”
So I stayed, and what should I see next but a wondrous old man, whose name might have been Bucephalus by his head; and the hair on his face might very well have stuffed a couple of cushions: take him together, and you’ll find his picture in the map, among the savages. I need not tell ye that I stared upon him sufficiently; and he taking notice of it, came to me, and told me: “Friend,” says he, “my spirit tells me that you are now in pain to know who I am; understand that my name is Nostradamus.” “Are you the author, then,” quoth I, “of that gallimaufry of prophecies that’s published in your name?” “Gallimaufry say’st thou? Impudent and barbarous rascal that thou art; to despise mysteries that are above thy reach, and to revile the secretary of the stars, and the interpreter of the destinies; who is so p. 61brutal as to doubt the meaning of these lines?
“From second causes, this I gather,
Nought shall befall us, good, or ill,
Either upon the land or water,
But what the Great Disposer will.
“Reprobated and besotted villains that ye are! what greater blessing could betide the world than the accomplishment of this prophecy? would it not establish justice and holiness, and suppress all the vile suggestions and motions of the devil? Men would not then any longer set their hearts upon avarice, cozening, and extortion; and make money their god, that vagabond money, that’s perpetually trotting up and down like a wandering whore, and takes up most commonly with the unworthy, leaving the philosophers and prophets, which are the very oracles of the heavens (such as Nostradamus) to go barefoot. But let’s go on with our prophecies, and see if they be so frivolous and dark, as the world reports them.
“When the married shall marry,
Then the jealous will be sorry;
And though fools will be talking,
To keep their tongues walking;
No man runs well I find,
But with’s elbows behind.”
p. 62This gave me such a fit of laughing that it made me cast my nose up into the air, like a stone-horse that hath got a mare in the wind: which put the astrologer out of all patience. “Buffoon, and dog-whelp, as ye are,” quoth he, “there’s a bone for you to pick; you must be snarling and snapping at everything. Will your teeth serve ye now to fetch out the marrow of this prophecy? Hear then in the devil’s name, and be mannerly. Hear, and learn I say, and let’s have no more of that grinning, unless ye have a mind to leave your beard behind ye. Do you imagine that all that are married marry? No, not the one half of them. When you are married, the priest has done his part; but after that, to marry, is to do the duty of a husband. Alack! how many married men live as if they were single; and how many bachelors on the other side, as if they were married! after the mode of the times. And wedlock to divers couples is no other than a more sociable state of virginity. Here’s one half of my prophecy expounded already, now for the rest. Let me see you run a little for experiment, and try if you carry your elbows before, or behind. You’ll tell me perhaps, that this is ridiculous, because everybody knows it. p. 63A pleasant shift: as if truth were the worse for being plain. The things indeed that you deliver for truths are for the most part mere fooleries and mistakes; and it were a hard matter to put truth in such a dress as would please ye. What have ye to say now, either against my prophecy or my argument? not a syllable I warrant ye, and yet somewhat there is to be said, for there’s no rule without an exception. Does not the physician carry his elbow before him, when he puts back his hand to take his patient’s money? And away he’s gone in a trice, so soon as he has made his purchase. But to proceed, here’s another of my prophecies for ye,
“Many women shall be mothers,
And their babbies,
Their n’own daddies.
“What say ye to this now? are there not many husbands do ye think (if the truth were known) that father more children than their own? Believe me, friend, a man had need have good security upon a woman’s belly, for children are commonly made in the dark, and ’tis no easy matter to know the workman, especially having nothing but the woman’s bare word for’t. This is meant of the court of assistance; p. 64and whoever interprets my prophecies to the prejudice of any person of honour, abuses me. You little think what a world of our gay folks in their coaches and six, with lackeys at their heels by the dozens, will be found at the last day, to be only the bastards of some pages, gentlemen-ushers, or valets de chambre of the family; nay perchance the physician may have had his hand in the wrong box, and in case of a necessity, good use has been made of a lusty coachman. Little do you think (I say) how many noble families upon that grand discovery, will be found extinct for want of issue.”
“I am now convinced,” said I to the mathematician, “of the excellency of your predictions; and I perceive (since you have been pleased to be your own interpreter) that they have more weight in them than we were aware of.” “Ye shall have one more,” quoth he, “and I have done.
“This year, if I’ve any skill i’ th’ weather,
Shall many a one take wing with a feather.
“I dare say that your wit will serve ye now to imagine, that I’m talking of rooks and jackdaws; but I say, No. I speak of lawyers, attorneys, clerks, scriveners, p. 65and their fellows, that with the dash of a pen can defeat their clients of their estates, and fly away with them when they have done.”
Upon these words Nostradamus vanished, and somebody plucking me behind, I turned my face upon the most meagre, melancholic wretch that ever was seen, and covered all in white. “For pity’s sake,” says he, “and as you are a good Christian, do but deliver me from the persecution of these impertinents and babblers that are now tormenting me, and I’ll be your slave for ever” (casting himself at my feet in the same moment; and crying like a child). “And what art thou,” quoth I, “for a miserable creature?” “I am,” says he, “an ancient, and an honest man, although defamed with a thousand reproaches and slanders: and in fine, some call me another, and others somebody, and doubtless ye cannot but have heard of me. As somebody says, cries one, that has nothing to say for himself; and yet till this instant, I never so much as opened my mouth. The Latins call me Quidam, and make good use of me to fill up lines, and stop gaps. When you go back again into the world, I pray’e do me the favour to own that you have seen me, and to justify me p. 66for one that never did, and never will either speak or write anything, whatever some tattling idiots may pretend. When they bring me into quarrels and brawls, I am called forsooth, a certain person; in their intrigues, I know not who; and in the pulpit, a certain author; and all this, to make a mystery of my name, and lay all their fooleries at my door. Wherefore I beseech ye help me;” which I promised to do. And so this vision withdrew to make place for another.
And that was the most frightful piece of antiquity that ever eye beheld in the shape of an old woman. She came nodding towards me, and in a hollow, rattling tone (for she spoke more with her chops than her tongue) “Pray’e,” says she, “is there not somebody come lately hither from the other world?” This apparition, thought I, is undoubtedly one of the devil’s scarecrows. Her eyes were so sunk in their sockets, that they looked like a pair of dice in the bottom of a couple of red boxes. Her cheeks and the soles of her feet were of the same complexion. Her mouth was pale, and open too; the better to receive the distillations of her nose. Her chin was covered with a kind of goose-down, as toothless as a lamprey; p. 67and the flaps of her cheeks were like an ape’s bags; her head danced, and her voice at every word kept time to’t. Her body was veiled, or rather wrapped up in a shroud of crape. She had a crutch in one hand, which served her for a supporter; and a rosary in t’other, of such a length, that as she stood stooping over it, a man would have thought she had been fishing for death’s heads. When I had done gaping upon this epitome of past ages, “Hola! grannum,” quoth I, good lustily in her ear, taking for granted that she was deaf, “what’s your pleasure with me?” With that she gave a grunt, and being much in wrath to be called grannum, clapped a fair pair of spectacles upon her nose, and pinking through them, “I am,” quoth she, “neither deaf, nor grannum; but may be called by my name as well as my neighbours,” (giving to understand, that women will take it ill to be called old, even in their very graves). As she spake, she came still nearer me, with her eyes dropping, and the smell about her perfectly of a dead body. I begged her pardon for what was past, and for the future her name, that I might be sure to keep myself within the bounds of respect. “I am called,” says she, “Doüegna, or Madam p. 68the Gouvernante.” “How’s that?” quoth I, in a great amazement. “Have ye any of those cattle in this country? Let the inhabitants pray heartily for peace then; and all little enough to keep them quiet. But to see my mistake now. I thought the women had died, when they came to be gouvernantes, and that for the punishment of a wicked world, the gouvernantes had been immortal. But I am now better informed, and very glad truly to meet with a person I have heard so much talk of. For with us, who but Madam the Gouvernante, at every turn? ‘Do ye see that mumping hag,’ cries one? ‘Come here ye damned jade,’ cries another. ‘That old bawd,’ says a third, ‘has forgotten, I warrant ye, that ever she was a whore, and now see if we do not remember ye.’” “You do so, and I’m in your debt for your remembrance, the great devil be your paymaster, ye son of a whore, you; are there no more gouvernantes than myself? Sure there are, and ye may have your choice, without affronting me.” “Well, well,” said I, “have a little patience, and at my return, I’ll try if I can put things in better order. But in the meantime, what business have you here?” Her reverence upon this was a little qualified, and told p. 69me that she had now been eight hundred years in hell, upon a design to erect an order of the gouvernantes; but the right worshipful the devil-commissioners are not as yet come to any resolution upon the point. For say they, if your gouvernantes should come once to settle here, there would need no other tormentors, and we should be but so many Jacks out of office. And besides, we should be perpetually at daggers-drawing about the brands and candle-ends which they would still be filching, and laying out of the way; and for us to have our fuel to seek, would be very inconvenient. “I have been in purgatory too,” she said, “upon the same project, but there so soon as ever they set eye on me, all the souls cried out unanimously, libera nos, etc. As for heaven, that’s no place for quarrels, slanders, disquiets, heart-burnings, and consequently none for me. The dead are none of my friends neither, for they grumble, and bid me let them alone as they do me; and be gone into the world again if I please, and there (they tell me) I may play the gouvernante in sæcula sæculorum. But truly I had rather be here at my ease than spend my life crumpling, and brooding over a carpet at a bed-side, like a thing of clouts, to p. 70secure the poultry of the family from strange cocks, which would now and then have a brush with a virgin pullet, but for the care of the gouvernantes. And yet ’tis she, good woman, bears all the blame, in case of any miscarriage: the gouvernante was presently of the plot, she had a feeling in the cause, a finger in the pie. And ’tis she in fine that must answer for all. Let but a sock, an old handkercher, the greasy lining of a masque, or any such frippery piece of business be missing, ask the gouvernante for this, or for that. And in short, they take us certainly for so many storks and ducks, to gather up all the filth about the house. The servants look upon us as spies and tell-tales: my cousin forsooth, and t’other’s aunt dares not come to the house, for fear of the gouvernante. And indeed I have made many of them cross themselves, that took me for a ghost. Our masters they curse us too for embroiling the family. So that I have rather chosen to take up here, betwixt the dead and the living, than to return again to my charge of a Doüegna, the very sound of the name being more terrible than a gibbet. As appears by one that was lately travelling from Madrid to Vailladolid, and asking where he might lodge that night. Answer p. 71was made at a small village called Doüegnas. ‘But is there no other place,’ quoth he, ‘within some reasonable distance, either short or beyond it?’ They told him no, unless it were at a gallows. ‘That shall be my quarter then,’ quoth he, ‘for a thousand gibbets are not so bad to me as one Doüegnas.’ Now ye see how we are abused,” quoth the gouvernante, “I hope you’ll do us some right, when it lies in your power.”
She would have talked me to death, if I had not given her the slip upon the removing of her spectacles; but I could not ’scape so neither, for looking about me for a guide to carry me home again, I was arrested by one of the dead; a good proper fellow, only he had a pair of rams’ horns on his head, and I was about to salute him for Aries in the Zodiac; but when I saw him plant himself, just before me, with his best leg forward, stretching out his arms, clutching his fists, and looking as sour as if he would have eaten me without mustard, “Doubtless,” said I, “the devil is dead and this is he.” “No, no,” cried a bystander, “this is a man:” “Why then,” said I, “he’s drunk, I perceive, and quarrelsome in his ale, for here’s p. 72nobody has touched him.” With that, as he was just ready to fall on, I stood to my guard, and we were armed at all points alike, only he had the odds of the headpiece. “Now, sirrah,” says he, “have at ye, slave that you are to make a trade of defaming persons of honour. By the death that commands here, I’ll ha’ my revenge, and turn your skin over your ears.” This insolent language stirred my choler I confess, and so I called to him “Come, come on, sirrah; a little nearer yet, and if ye have a mind to be twice killed, I’ll do your business; who the devil brought this cornuto hither to trouble me?” The word was no sooner out, but we were immediately at it, tooth and nail, and if his horns had not been flatted to his head, I might have had the worst on’t. But the whole ring presently came in to part us, and did me a singular kindness in’t, for my adversary had a fork, and I had none. As they were staving and tailing, “You might have had more manners,” cried one, “than to give such language to your betters, and to call Don Diego Moreno cuckold.” “And is this that Diego Moreno then?” said I. “Rascal that he is to charge me with abusing persons of honour. A scoundrel,” said I, “that ’tis p. 73a shame for death to be seen in’s company, and was never fit for anything in his whole life, but to furnish matter for a farce.” “And that’s my grievance, gentlemen,” quoth Don Diego, “for which with your leave he shall give me satisfaction. I do not stand upon the matter of being a cuckold, for there’s many a brave fellow lives in Cuckold’s-Row. But why does he not name others, as well as me? As if the horn grew upon nobody’s head but mine: I’m sure there are others that a thousand times better deserve it. I hope, he cannot say that ever I gored any of my superiors; or that my being cornuted has raised the price of post-horns, lanthorns, or pocket-ink-horns. Are not shoeing-horns and knife-handles as cheap now as ever? Why must I walk the stage then more than my neighbours? Beyond question there never lived a more peaceable wretch upon the face of the earth, all things considered, than myself. Never was man freer from jealousy, or more careful to step aside at the time of visit: for I was ever against the spoiling of sport, when I could make none myself. I confess I was not so charitable to the poor as I might have been; the truth of’t p. 74is, I watched them as a cat would do a mouse, for I did not love them. But then in requital, I could have out-snorted the Seven Sleepers, when any of the better sort came to have a word in private with my wife. The short on’t is, we agreed blessedly well together, she and I; for I did whatever she would have me; and she would say a thousand and a thousand times ‘Long live my poor Diego, the best conditioned, the most complaisant husband in the world; whatever I do is well done, and he never so much as opens his mouth good or bad.’ But by her leave that was little to my credit, and the jade when she said it was beside the cushion. For many and many a time have I said ‘This is well,’ and ‘That’s ill.’ When there came any poets to our house, fiddlers or morrice-dancers, I would say, ‘This is not well.’ But when the rich merchants came ‘Oh, very good,’ would I say, ‘this is as well as well can be.’ Sometimes we had the hap to be visited by some penniless courtier, or low-country officer perchance; then should I take her aside, and rattle her to some tune: ‘Sweetheart,’ would I say, ‘pray’e what ha’ we to do with these frippery fellows and damme boys. Shake them off, I’d advise ye, and take this for a p. 75warning.’ But when any came that had to do with the mint or exchequer, and spent freely (for lightly come, lightly go), ‘I marry, my dear,’ quoth I, ‘there’s nothing to be lost by keeping such company.’ And what hurt in all this now? Nay, on the contrary, my poor wife enjoyed herself happily under the protection of my shadow, and being a femme couverte, not an officer durst come near her. Why should then this buffoon of a poetaster make me still the ridiculous entertainment of all his interludes and farces, and the fool in the play?” “By your favour,” quoth I, “we are not yet upon even terms; and before we part, you shall know what ’tis to provoke a poet. If thou wert but now alive, I’d write thee to death, as Archilocus did Lycambes. And I’m resolved to put the history of thy life in a satire, as sharp as vinegar, and give it the name of The Life and Death of Don Diego Moreno.” “It shall go hard,” quoth he, “but I’ll prevent that,” and so we fell to’t again, hand and foot, till at length the very fancy of a scuffle waked me, and I found myself as weary, as if it had been a real combat. I began then to reflect upon the particulars of my dream, and to consider what advantage I might draw from it: for the p. 76dead are past fooling, and those are the soundest counsels which we receive from such as advise us without either passion or interest.
THE END OF THE SECOND VISION
Homer makes Jupiter the author or inspirer of dreams; especially the dreams of princes and governors; and if the matter of them be pious and important. And it is likewise the judgment of the learned Propertius that good dreams come from above, have their weight, and ought not to be slighted. And truly I am much of his mind, in the case of a dream I had the other night. As I was reading a discourse touching the end of the world, I fell asleep over the book, and dreamt of the last judgment. (A thing which in the house of a poet is scarce admitted so much as in a dream.) This fancy minded me of a passage in Claudian: that all creatures dream at night of what they have heard and seen in the day, as the hound dreams of hunting the hare.
Methought I saw a very handsome youth p. 78towering in the air, and sounding of a trumpet; but the forcing of his breath did indeed take off much of his beauty. The very marbles, I perceived, and the dead obeyed his call; for in the same moment, the earth began to open, and set the bones at liberty, to seek their fellows. The first that appeared were sword-men, as generals of armies, captains, lieutenants, common soldiers, who supposing that it had sounded a charge, came out of their graves, with the same briskness and resolution, as if they had been going to an assault or a combat. The misers put their heads out, all pale and trembling, for fear of a plunder. The cavaliers and good fellows believed they had been going to a horserace, or a hunting-match. And in fine, though they all heard the trumpet, there was not any creature knew the meaning of it (for I could read their thoughts by their looks and gestures). After this, there appeared a great many souls, whereof some came up to their bodies, though with much difficulty and horror; others stood wondering at a distance, not daring to come near so hideous and frightful a spectacle. This wanted an arm, that an eye, t’other a head. Upon the whole, though I could not but smile at the prospect p. 79of so strange a variety of figures, yet was it not without just matter of admiration at the all-powerful Providence, to see order drawn out of confusion, and every part restored to the right owner. I dreamt myself then in a churchyard; and there, methought, divers that were loth to appear were changing of heads; and an attorney would have demurred upon pretence that he had got a soul was none of his own, and that his body and soul were not fellows.
At length, when the whole congregation came to understand that this was the day of judgment, it was worth the while to observe what shifting and shuffling there was among the wicked. The epicure and whoremaster would not own his eyes, nor the slanderer his tongue, because they’d be sure to appear in evidence against them. The pickpockets ran away as hard as they could drive from their own fingers. There was one that had been embalmed in Egypt, and staying for his tripes, an old usurer asked him, if the bags were to rise with the bodies? I could have laughed at this question, but I was presently taken up with a crowd of cutpurses, running full speed from their own ears (that were offered them again) for fear of the sad stories they expected to hear. I saw all p. 80this from a convenient standing; and in the instant, there was an outcry at my feet, “Withdraw, withdraw.” The word was no sooner given, but down I came, and immediately a great many handsome ladies put forth their heads, and called me clown, for not paying them that respect and ceremony which belonged to their quality (now you must know that the women stand upon their pantofles, even in hell itself). They seemed at first very gay and frolic; and truly, well enough pleased to be seen naked, for they were clean-skinned and well made. But when they came to understand that this was the great day of accompt; their consciences took check, and all the jollity was dashed in a moment; whereupon they took to the valley, miserably listless and out of humour. There was one among the rest, that had had seven husbands, and promised every one of them never to marry again, for she could never love anything else she was sure: this lady was casting about for fetches, and excuses, and what answer she should make to that point. Another that had been as common as Ratcliff highway, would neither lead nor drive, and stood humming and hawing a good while, pretending she had forgot her night-gear, and p. 81such fooleries; but spite of her heart, she was brought at last within sight of the throne, where she found a world of her old acquaintance that she had carried part of their way to hell, who had no sooner set eye on her, but they fell a pointing and hooting, so that she took up her heels and herded herself in a troop of serjeants. After this, I saw a many people driving a physician along the bank of a river, and these were only such as he had unnecessarily dispatched before their time. They followed him with cries of, “Justice, justice,” and forced him on toward the judgment-seat, where they arrived in the end with much ado. While this passed, I heard, methought, upon my left hand a paddling in the water, as if one had been swimming: and what should this be, but a judge in the middle of a river washing and rinsing his hands, over and over. I asked him the meaning of it; and he told me, that in his lifetime he had been often daubed in the fist, to make the business slip the better, and he would willingly get out the grease before he came to hold up his hand at the bar. There followed next a multitude of vintners and tailors, under the guard of a legion of devils, armed with rods, whips, cudgels, and other instruments p. 82of correction: and these counterfeited themselves deaf, and were very loth to leave their graves, for fear of a worse lodging. As they were passing on, up started a little lawyer, and asked whither they were going; they made answer, that they were going to give an account of their works. With that the lawyer threw himself flat upon his belly in his hole again: “If I am to go downward at last,” says he, “I am thus much onward of my way.” The vintner sweat as he walked, till one drop followed another; “That’s well done,” cried a devil at’s elbow, “to purge out thy water, that we may have none in our wine.” There was a tailor wrapped up in sarcenets, crook-fingered and baker-legged, spake not one word all the way he went, but alas! alas! how can any man be a thief that dies for want of bread? But his companions gave him a rebuke for discrediting his trade. The next that appeared were a band of highwaymen, following upon the heels one of another, in great distrust and jealousy of thieves among themselves. These were fetched up by a party of devils in the turning of a hand and lodged with the tailors; “for,” said one of the company, “your highwayman is but a wild tailor.” They were a little quarrelsome p. 83at first, but in the conclusion, they went down into the valley, and kennelled quietly together. After these came Folly with her gang of poets, fiddlers, lovers, and fencers: the people of all the world, that dream the least of a day of reckoning; these were disposed of among the hangmen, Jews, scribes, and philosophers. There were also a great many solicitors wondering among themselves, that they should have so much conscience when they were dead, and none at all living. In fine, the word was given, Silence.
The throne being erected, and the great day come: a day of comfort to the good, and of terror to the wicked. The sun and the stars waited on the footstool; the wind was still; the water quiet; the earth in suspense and anguish for fear of her children: and in brief, the whole creation was in anxiety and disorder. The righteous they were employed in prayers and thanksgivings; and the ungodly in framing of shifts and evasions, to extenuate their pains. The guardian angels were at hand, on the one side to acquit themselves of their duties and commissions. And on the other side, were the devils hunting for more matters of aggravation and charge against offenders. The Ten Commandments had p. 84the guard of a narrow gate, which was so strait, that the most mortified body could not pass it, without leaving a good part of his skin behind him.
On one hand, there were in multitudes, disgraces, misfortunes, plagues, griefs, and troubles; all in a clamour against the physicians. The plague confessed, indeed, that she had struck many; but ’twas the doctor did their business. Melancholy and disgrace said the like; and misfortunes of all sorts made open protestation, that they never brought any man to his grave without the help and advice of a doctor. So that the gentlemen of the faculty were called to account for those they had killed. They took their places upon a scaffold, with pen, ink, and paper about them; and still as the dead were called, some or other of them answered to the name, and declared the year and day when such a patient passed through his hand.
They began the inquiry at Adam, who, methought, was severely handled about an apple. “Alas!” cried Judas that was by, “if that were such a fault, what will become of me that sold and betrayed my Lord and Master?” Next came the patriarchs, and then the apostles, who took their places by Saint Peter. It was worth p. 85the noting, that at this day there was no distinction between kings and beggars, before the judgment-seat. Herod and Pilate, so soon as they put out their heads, found it was like to go hard with them. “My judgment is just,” quoth Pilate. “Alack!” cried Herod, “what have I to trust to? Heaven is no place for me, and in Limbo I should fall among the innocents I have murdered; so that without more ado I must e’en take up my lodging in hell: the common receptacle of notorious malefactors.”
There came in immediately upon this a kind of a sour rough-hewn fellow. “Look ye,” says he, stretching out his arm, “here are my letters.” The company wondered at the humour, and asked the porter what he was; which he himself overhearing, “I am,” quoth he, “a master of the noble science of defence;” and, plucking out several sealed parchments, “These,” said he, “are the attestations of my exploits.” At which word, all his testimonials fell out of his hand, and a couple of devils would fain have whipped them up, to have brought them in evidence against him at his trial; but the fencer was too nimble for them, and took them up himself. At which time, an angel offered p. 86him his hand to help him in; but he, for fear of an attack, leaped a step backward, and with great agility, alonging withal, “Now,” says he, “if ye think fit, I’ll give ye a taste of my skill.” The company fell a laughing, and this sentence was passed upon him: that since by his rules of art he had occasioned so many duels and murders, he should himself go to the devil by a perpendicular line. He pleaded for himself, that he was no mathematician, and knew no such line; but while the word was in his mouth a devil came up to him, gave him a turn and a half, and down he tumbled.
After him, came the treasurers, and such a cry following them, for cheating and stealing, that some said the thieves were coming; others said no; and the company was divided upon’t. They were much troubled at the word, thieves, and desired the benefit of counsel to plead their cause. “And very good reason,” said one of the devils, “here’s a discarded apostle that has executed both offices, let them take him, where’s Judas?” When the treasurers heard that, they turned aside, and by chance, spied in a devil’s hand, a huge roll of accusations ready drawn into a formal charge against them. With that, p. 87one of the boldest among them: “Away, away,” cried he, “with these informations; we’ll rather come to a fine and compound, though it were for ten or twenty thousand years in purgatory.” “Ha! ha!” quoth the devil, a cunning snap that drew up the charge, “if ye are upon those terms ye are hard put to’t.” Whereupon the treasurers, being brought to a forced put, were e’en glad to make the best of a bad game, and follow the fencer.
These were no sooner gone, but in came an unlucky pastry-man; they asked him if he would be tried. “That’s e’en as’t hits,” said he. At that word, the devil that managed the cause against him, pressed his charge, and laid it home to him, that he had put off cats for hares; and filled his pies with bones instead of flesh; and not only so, but that he had sold horse-flesh, dogs, and foxes, for beef and mutton. Upon the issue, it was proved against him, that Noah never had so many animals in his ark as this poor fellow had put in his pies (for we read of no rats and mice there), so that he e’en gave up his cause, and went away to see if his oven were hot. Next, came the philosophers with their syllogisms, and it was no ill entertainment to hear them p. 88chop logic, and put all their expostulations, in mood and figure. But the pleasantest people in the world were the poets, who insisted upon it, that they were to be tried by Jupiter; and to the charge of worshiping false gods, their answer was that through them they worshipped the true one, and were rather mistaken in the name than in the worship. Virgil had much to say for himself, for his Sicelides Musæ; but Orpheus interrupted him, who being the father of the poets desired to be heard for them all. “What, he?” cried one of the devils, “yes; for teaching that boys were better bed-fellows than wenches; but the women had combed his coxcomb for him, if they could have catched him.” “Away with him to hell once again,” then they cried; “and let him get out now if he can.” So they all filed off, and Orpheus was their guide, because he had been there once before. So soon as the poets were gone, there knocked at the gate a rich penurious chuff; but ’twas told him that the Ten Commandments kept it, and that he had not kept them. “It is impossible,” quoth he, “under favour, to prove that ever I broke any one of them.” And so he went to justify himself from point to point: he had done this and that; and he p. 89had never done that, nor t’other; but in the end, he was delivered over to be rewarded according to his works. And then came on a company of house-breakers and robbers, so dexterous, some of them, that they saved themselves from the very ladder. The scriveners and attorneys observing that, ah! thought they; if we could but pass for thieves now! And yet they set a face good enough upon the business too; which made Judas and Mahomet hope well of themselves; “for,” said they, “if any of these fellows come off, there’s no fear of us.” Whereupon they advanced boldly, with a resolution to take their trial; which set the devils all a laughing. The guardian angels of the scriveners and attorneys moved that the evangelists might be of their counsel; which the devils opposed, “for,” said they, “we shall insist only upon the matter of fact, and leave them without any possibility of reply, or excuse. We might indeed content ourselves with the bare proof of what they are; for ’tis crime enough that they are scriveners and attorneys.” With that, the scriveners denied their trade, alleging that they were secretaries; and the attorneys called themselves solicitors. All was said, in effect, p. 90that the case would bear; but the best part of their plea was church-membership. And in fine, after several replications and rejoinders, they were all sent to Old Nick; save only two or three, that found mercy. “Well,” cried one of the scriveners, “this ’tis to keep lewd company!” The devils called out then, to clear the bar, and said they should have occasion for the scriveners themselves, to enter protestations in the quality of public notaries, against lawless and disorderly people; but the poor wretches, it seems, could not hear on that ear. To say the truth, the Christians were much more troublesome than the pagans, which the devils took exceeding ill; but they had this to say for themselves, that they were christened when they were children, so that ’twas none of their fault, and their parents must answer for’t. Judas and Mahomet took such courage, when they saw two or three of the scriveners and attorneys saved that they were just upon the point of challenging their clergy; but they were prevented by the doctor I told ye of, who was set first to the bar, in company with an apothecary and a barber, when a certain devil, with a great bundle of evidences in his hand, informed the court that the greatest part of the p. 91dead there present were sent thither by the doctor then at the bar, in confederacy with his apothecary and barber, to whom they were to acknowledge their obligation for that fair assembly. An angel then interposing for the defendant, recommended the apothecary for a charitable person and one that physicked the poor for nothing. “No matter for that,” cried the devil; “for I have him in my books, and am able to prove that he has killed more people with two little boxes than the King of Spain has done with two thousand barrels of powder, in the low-country wars. All his medicines are corrupted, and his compositions hold a perfect intelligence with the plague: he has utterly unpeopled a couple of his neighbour villages, in a matter of three weeks’ time.” The doctor he let fly upon the ’pothecary too, and said he would maintain, against the whole college, that his prescriptions were according to the dispensatory; and if an apothecary would play the knave, or the fool, and put in this for that, he could not help it. So that without any more words the ’pothecary was put to the sommersault, and the doctor and barber were brought off, at the intercession of St. Cosmus and St. Damian.
p. 92After these, came a dapper lawyer, with a tongue steeped in oil, and a great master of his words and actions; a most exquisite flatterer, and no man better skilled in the art of moving the passions than himself, or more ready at bolting a lucky president at a dead lift, or at making the best of a bad cause; for he had all the shifts and starting-holes in the law at his fingers’ ends. But all this would not serve, for the verdict went against him, and he was ordered to pay costs. In that instant, there was a discovery made of a fellow that hid himself in a corner, and looked like a spy. They asked him what he was. He made answer, “An empiric.” “What,” said a devil, “my old friend Pontæus: Alas! alas! thou hadst ten thousand times better be in Covent Garden now, or at Charing Cross; for upon my word thou’t have nothing to do here, unless, perhaps, for an ointment for a burn or so;” and so Pontæus went his way. The next that appeared were a company of vintners, who were accused for adulterating and mingling water with their wines. Their plea was that in compensation they had furnished the hospitals with communion-wine that was right, upon free cost; but this excuse signified as little as that of the p. 93tailors there present, who suggested that they had clothed so many friars, gratis; and so they were dispatched away together. After these, followed a number of bankers, that had turned bankrupt to cozen their creditors; who finding there several of their old correspondents, that they had reduced to a morsel of bread, began to treat of composition; but one of the devils presently cried out, “All the rest have had enough to do to answer for themselves; but these people are to reckon for other men’s scores as well as their own.” And hereupon, they were forthwith sent away to Pluto with letters of exchange; but, as it happened at that time, the devil was out of cash.
After this, entered a Spanish cavalier, as upright as Justice itself. He was a matter of a quarter of an hour in his legs and reverences to the company. We could see no head he had, for his prodigious starched ruff that stood staring up like a turkey-cock’s tail, and covered it. In fine, it was so fantastic a figure that the porter was gaping at it a good while, and asked if it were a man, or no? “It is a man,” quoth the Spaniard, “upon the honour of a cavalier, and his name is Don Pedro Rhodomontadoso,” etc. He was so long p. 94a telling his name and titles that one of the devils burst out a laughing in the middle of his pedigree, and demanded What he would be at. “Glory,” quoth he, which they taking in the worse sense, for pride, sent him away immediately to Lucifer. He was a little severe upon his guides, for disordering his mustachios, but they helped him presently to a pair of beard-irons, and all was well again.
In the next place, came a fellow, weeping and wailing. “But, my masters,” says he, “my cause is never the worse for my crying, for if I would stand upon my merits, I could tell ye that I have kept as good company, and had as much to do with the saints as another body.” “What have we here,” cried one, “Diocletian, or Nero?” For they had enough to do with the saints, though ’twere but to persecute them. But upon the upshot, what was this poor creature but a small officer, that swept the church and dusted the images and pictures. His charge was for stealing the oil out of the lamps and leaving all in the dark, pretending that the owls and jackdaws had drunk it up. He had a trick too of clothing himself out of the church habits, which he got new-dyed; and of cramming his porridge with consecrated p. 95bread, that he stole every Sunday. What he said for himself, I know not; but he had his mittimus, and took the left-hand way at parting.
With that, a voice was heard, “Make way there, clear the passage;” and this was for a bevy of handsome, buxom Bona Roba’s, in their caps and feathers that came dancing, laughing, and singing of ballads and lampoons, and as merry as the day was long. But they quickly changed their note, for so soon as ever they saw the hideous looks of the devils, they fell into violent fits of the mother; beating their breasts, and tearing their hair, with all the horror and fury imaginable. There was an angel offered in their favour that they had been great frequenters of Our Lady’s chapel. “Yes, yes,” cried a devil, “less of her chapel, and more of her virtue, would have done well.” There was a notable whipster, among the rest, that confessed the devil had reason. And then her trial came on, for making a cloak of a sacrament, and only marrying, that she might play the whore with privilege, and never want a father for her bastards. It was her fortune alone to be condemned; and going along, “Well!” she cried; “if I had thought ’twould have come to this, p. 96I should ne’er have troubled myself with so many masses.”
And now, after long waiting, came Judas and Mahomet upon the stage, and to them Jack of Leyden. Up comes an officer and asked which of the three was Judas. “I am he,” quoth Jack of Leyden. “Nay, but I am Judas,” cried Mahomet. “They’re a couple of lying rascals,” says Judas himself, “for I am the man: only the rogues make use of my name to save their credit. ’Tis true I sold my Master once, and the world has ever since been the better for’t; but these villains sell Him and themselves too every hour of the day, and there follows nothing but misery and confusion.” So they were all three packed away to their disciples.
The angel that kept the book found that the serjeants and remembrancers were to come on next; whereupon they were called, and appeared; but the court was not much troubled with them, for they confessed guilty at first word, and so were tied up without any more ado.
The next that appeared was an astrologer, loaden with almanacks, globes, astrolabes, etc., making proclamation as loud as he could bawl that there must needs be a gross mistake in the reckoning, p. 97for Saturn had not finished his course, and the world could not be yet at an end. One of the devils that saw how he came provided, and looked upon him as his own already: “A provident slave,” quoth he, “I warrant him, to bring his firing along with him. But this I must needs tell ye,” says he to the mathematician, “’tis a strange thing, ye should create so many heavens in your life, and go to the devil for want of one after your death.” “Nay, for going,” cried the astrologer, “ye shall excuse me; but if you’ll carry me, well and good.” And immediately order was given to carry him away and pay the porter.
Hereupon, methought, the court rose, the throne vanished; the shadows and darkness withdrew; the air sweetened; the earth was covered with flowers; the heavens clear: and then I waked, not a little satisfied to find that after all this, I was still in my bed, and among the living. The use I made of my dream was this: I betook myself presently to my prayers, with a firm resolution of changing my life, and putting my soul into such a frame of piety and obedience, that I might attend the coming of the great day with peace and comfort.
THE END OF THE THIRD VISION
About four o’clock, in a cold frosty morning, when it was much better being in a warm bed, with a good bedfellow, than upon a bier in the churchyard; as I lay advising with my pillow, tumbling and tossing a thousand love-toys in my head, I passed from one fancy to another, till at last I fell into a slumber; and there appeared the genius of disabuse, laying before me all the follies, and vanities of love, and supporting her opinions with great authorities and reasons. I was carried then (methought I knew not how) into a fair meadow: a meadow, pleasant and agreeable infinitely beyond the very fictions of your half-witted poets, with all their far-fetched gilding, and enamellings (for a paper of verses is worth nothing with them, unless they force nature for’t, p. 99and rifle both the Indies). This delicious field was watered with two rivulets, the one bitter, the other sweet; and yet they mingled their streams with a pretty kind of murmur, equal perhaps to the best music in the world. The use of these waters was (as I observed) to temper the darts of love; for while I was upon the prospect of the place, I saw several of Cupid’s little officers, and subjects, dipping of arrows there, for their entertainment and ease. Upon this, I fancied myself in one of the gardens of Cyprus, and that I saw the very hive, where the bee lived that stung my young master, and occasioned that excellent ode which Anacreon has written upon the subject. The next thing I cast my eye upon was a palace in the midst of the meadow; a rare piece, as well for the structure as design. The porches were of the Doric order, excellently wrought; and the pedestals, bases, columns, cornices, capitals, architraves, friezes (and in short the whole front of the fabric) was beautified with imaginary trophies, and triumphs of love, in half relief, which as they were intermixed with other fantastic works and conceits, carried the face of several little histories, and gave a great ornament to the building. Over the p. 100porch, there was in golden letters, upon black marble, this inscription:
This is called fools’ paradise,
From the loving fools that dwell in’t,
Where the great fools rule the less,
The rest obey, and all do well in’t.
The finishing and materials were pleasant to admiration. The portal spacious, the doors always open, and the house free to all comers, which were very many; the porter’s place was supplied by a woman; exquisitely handsome, both for face and person; tall, delicately shaped, and set off with great advantages of dress, and jewels. She was made up, in fine, of charms, and her name (as I understood) was Beauty. She would let any man in to see the house for a look; and that was all I paid for my passage. In the first court, I found a many of both sexes, but so altered in habit and countenance, that they could scarce know one another. They were sad, pensive; and their complexions tinted with a yellow paleness (which Ovid calls Cupid’s livery). There was no talk of being true to friends; loyal to superiors; and dutiful to parents: but kindred did the office of procurers; and procurers were called cousins. Wives p. 101loved their husbands’ she friends, and husbands did as much for them, in loving their gallants.
While I was upon the contemplation of these encounters of affection, there appeared a strange extravagant figure, but in the likeness of a human creature. It was neither perfectly man nor perfectly woman, but had indeed a resemblance of both. This person I perceived was ever busy, up and down, going and coming; beset all over with eyes and ears, and had one of the craftiest distrustful looks (methought) that ever I saw. And withal, (as I observed) no small authority in the place, which made me inquire after this creature’s name, and office. “My name,” quoth she, for now it proved to be a woman, “is Jealousy, and methinks, you and I should be better acquainted, for how came you here else? However, for your satisfaction, you are to understand that the greater part of the distempered people you see here are of my bringing; and yet I am not their physician, but their tormentor; and serve only to aggravate and embitter their misfortunes. If you would know anything further of the house, never ask me, for ’tis forty to one I shall tell you a lie; I have not told you half the truth even of myself; p. 102and to deal plainly with you, I am made up of inventions, artifice, and imposture: but the good old man that walks there, is the Major Domo, and will tell you all, if you will but bear with his slow way of discourse.”
Thereupon I went to the good man, whom I knew presently to be Time, and desired him to let me look into the several quarters and lodgings of the house, for there were some fools of my acquaintance there I’d fain visit; he told me that he was at present so busy about making of caudles, cock-broths, and jellies for his patients, that he could not stir; but yet he directed me where I might find all those I inquired for, and gave me the freedom of the house to walk at pleasure.
I passed out of the first court, into the maids’ quarter, which was the very strongest part of the whole building; and so’t had need; for divers of the young wenches were so extravagant and furious, that no other place would have held them. (The wives and widows were in another room apart.) Here ye should have one, sobbing and raging with jealousy of a rival. There another, stark mad for a husband, and inwardly bleeding because she durst not discover it. A third was p. 103writing of letters all riddle and mystery, mending and marring, till at last the paper had more blots than whole words in it. Some were practising in the glass the gracious smile, the roll of the eye, the velvet lip, etc. Others again were in a diet of oatmeal, clay, chalk, coal, hard wax, and the like. Some were conditioning with their servants for a ball, or a serenade, that the whole town might ring of the address. “Yes, yes,” they cried, “you can go to the park with this lady, and to a play with that lady, and to Banstead with t’other lady, and spend whole nights at beste or ombre with my Lady Pen-Tweezel; but by my troth, I think you are ashamed to be seen in my company.” Some I saw upon the very point of sealing and delivering. “I am thine,” cries one, “and thine alone, or let all the devils in hell, etc. But be sure you be constant.” “If I be not,” says he, “let my soul,” etc., and the silly jade believes him. In one corner ye should have them praying for husbands, that they might the better love at random; in another, nothing would please them but to be married men’s wives, and this disease was looked upon as a little desperate. Some again stood ready furnished with love letters p. 104and tickets to be cast out at the window, or thrust under the door, and these were looked upon not only as fools but beasts.
I had seen as much already as I desired, for I had learned of old that he that keeps such company seldom comes off without a scratched face; but if he misses a mistress, he gets a wife, and stands condemned to a repentance during life, without redemption, unless one of the two dies. For women in the case are worse than pirates; a galley-slave may compound for his freedom, but there’s no thought of ransom in case of wedlock. I had a good mind to a little chat with some of them, but (thought I) they’ll fancy I’m in love with them. And so I e’en marched off into the married quarter, where there was such ranting, damning, and tearing, as if hell had been broke loose. And what was all this? but a number of women that had been locked up and shackled by their husbands, to keep them in obedience, and had now broken their prisons, and their chains, and were grown ten times madder than before. Some I saw caressing and coaxing their husbands, in the very moment they designed to betray them. Others were picking their husbands’ pockets to p. 105pay now and then for a by-blow. Some again were upon a religious point, and all upon the humour (forsooth) of pilgrimages and lectures; when alas! they had no other business with the altars or churches than a sacrifice to Venus, or a love meeting. Divers there were that went to the bath; but bathing was the least part of their errand. Others to confession, that mistook their martyr for their confessor: some to be revenged of jealous husbands were resolving to do the thing they feared, and pay them in their own coin. Others were for making sure aforehand by way of advance; for that’s the revenge, they say, that’s as sweet as muscadine and eggs. One was melancholy for a delay; another for a defeat; a third is preparing to make her market at a play. There was one among the rest was never out of her coach; and asking her the reason, she told me, she loved to be jolted. In this crowd of women, you must know that there were no wives of ambassadors, soldiers, or merchants that were abroad upon commission; for such were considered in effect as single women, and not allowed as members of this commonwealth.
The next quarter was that of the grave p. 106and wise, the right reverend widows, women in appearance of marvellous severity and reserve, and yet every one of them had her weak side, and ye might read her folly and distemper through her disguise. One of them I saw crying with one eye for the loss of one husband, and laughing with t’other upon him that was to come next. Another, with the Ephesian matron, was solacing herself with her gallant before her husband was thorough cold in the mouth, considering, that he that died half an hour ago is as dead as William the Conqueror. There were several others passing to and again, quite out of their mourning, that looked so demurely (I warrant ye) as if butter would not have melted in their mouths, and yet apostate widows (as I was told) and there they were kept as strictly, as if they had been in the Spanish Inquisition. Some were laying wagers whose mourning was most à la mode, and best made, or whose peak or veil became her best, and setting themselves off with a thousand tricks of ornament and dress. The widows I observed that were marching off, with the mark out of their mouths, were hugely concerned to be thought young, and still talking of masks, balls, fiddles, treats; chanting and p. 107jigging to every tune they heard, and all upon the hoity-toity like mad wenches of fifteen. The younger, on the other side, made use of their time and took pleasure while ’twas to be had. There were too of the religious strain; a people much at their beads, and in private; and these were there in the quality of love heretics, or platonics, and under the penance of perpetual abstinence from the flesh they loved best (which is the most mortifying Lent of all other). Some, that had skill in perspective, were before the glass with their boxes of patch and paint about them; shadowing, drawing out, refreshing, and in short, covering and palliating, all the imperfections of feature and complexion, every one after her own humour. Now these women were absolutely insufferable, for they were most of them old and headstrong, having got the better of their husbands, so that they would be taking upon them to domineer here, as they had done at home; and indeed, they found the master of the college enough to do.
When I had tired myself with this variety of folly and madness, I went to the devotees, where I found a great many women and girls that had cloistered up themselves from the conversation of the p. 108world; and yet were not a jot soberer than their fellows. These one would have thought might have been easily cured, but many of them were in for their lives, in despite of either counsel or physic. The room where they were was barricaded with strong bars of iron; and yet when the toy took them, they’d make now and then a sally; for when the fit was upon them, they’d own no superior but love, come what would on’t in the event. The greater part of these good people were writing of tickets and dispatches, which had still the sign of the cross at the top, and Satan at the bottom, concluding with this, or some such postscript: I commend this paper to your discretion. The fools of this province would be twattling night and day; and if it happened that any one of them had talked herself a-weary (which was very rare), she would presently take upon her very gravely to admonish the rest, and read a lecture of silence to the company. There were some that for want of better entertainment fell in love with one another; but these were looked upon as a sort of fops and ninnies, and therefore the more favourably used; but they’d have been of another mind, if they had known the cause of their distemper.
p. 109The root of all these several extravagances was idleness, which (according to Petrarch’s observation) never fails to make way for wantonness. There was one among the rest that had more letters of exchange upon the credit of her insatiable desires than a whole regiment of bankers. Some of them were sick of their old visitor, and called for a freshman. Others, by intervals, I perceived, had their wits about them, and contented themselves discreetly with the physician of the house. In short, it e’en pitied my heart to see so many poor people in so sad a condition and without any hope of relief, as I gathered from him that had them in care; for they were still puddering and royling their bodies; and if they got a little ease for the present, they’d be down again as soon as they had taken their medicine.
From thence I went to the single women (such as made profession never to marry) which were the least outrageous and discomposed of all; for they had a thousand ways to lay the devil as well as to raise him. Some of them lived like common highwaymen, by robbing Peter to pay Paul; and stripping honest men to clothe rascals, which is (under favour) but p. 110a lewd kind of charity. Others there were, that were absolutely out of their seven senses, and as mad as March hares for this wit and t’other poet, that never failed to pay them again in rhymes and madrigals, with ruby lips, pearly teeth, so that to read their verses, a man would swear the whole woman to be directly petrified.
Of sapphire fair, or crystal clear,
Is the forehead of my dear, etc.
I saw one in consultation with a cunning man to know her fortune; another, dealing with a conjurer for a philter, or drink to make her beloved. A third was daubing and patching up an old ruined face, to make it fresh and young again; but she might as well have been washing of a blackamoor to make him white. In fine, a world there were, that with their borrowed hair, teeth, eyes, eyebrows, looked like fine folks at a distance, but would have been left as ridiculous as Æsop’s crow, if every bird had fetched away his own feather. ’Deliver me (thought I, smiling and shaking my head) if this be woman.
And so I stepped into the men’s quarter, which was but next door, and only a thick p. 111wall between. Their great misery was that they were deaf to good advice, obstinately hating and despising both physic and physician; for if they would have either quitted or changed, they might have been cured. But they chose rather to die, and though they saw their error, would not mend it. Which minded me of the old rhyme:
Where love’s in the case,
The doctor’s an ass.
These fools-male were all in the same chamber; and one might perfectly read their humour and distemper in their looks and gestures. Oh! how many a gay lad did I see there in his point band and embroidered vest that had not a whole shirt to his back! How many huffs and highboys that had nothing else in their mouths but the lives and fortunes they’d spend in their sweet ladies’ service! that would yet have run five miles on your errand, to have been treated but at a threepenny ordinary? How many a poor devil that wanted bread, and was yet troubled with the rebellion of the flesh! Some there were that spent much time in setting their perukes, ordering the mustache, and p. 112dressing up the very face of Lucifer himself for a beauty: the woman’s privilege, and in truth an encroachment, to their prejudice. There were others that made it their glory to pass for Hectors, sons of Priam, brothers of the blade; and talked of nothing but attacks, combats, reverses, stramazons, stoccados; not considering that a naked weapon is present death to a timorous woman. Some were taking the round of their ladies’ lodgings, at midnight, and went to bed again as wise as they rose. Others fell in love by contagion and merely conversing with the infected. Some again went post from church to chapel, every holy day, to hunt for a mistress; and so turned a day of rest into a day of labour. Ye might see others skipping continually from house to house, like the knight upon a chess-board, without ever catching the (queen or) dame. Some, like crafty beggars, made their case worse than ’twas: and others, though ’twere ne’er so bad, durst not so much as open their mouths. Really it grieved me for the poor mutes, and I wished with all my heart their mistresses had been witches, that they might have known their meaning by their mumping; but they were lost to all counsel, so that there was no advising p. 113them. There was another sort of elevated, and conceited lovers; and these forsooth were not to be satisfied without the seven liberal sciences, and the four cardinal virtues, in the shape of a woman; and their case was desperate. The next I observed were a generation of modest fools, that passed under the notion of people diffident of themselves. They were generally men of good understanding, but for the most part younger brothers, of low fortunes, and such as for want of wherewithal to go to the price of higher amours, were fain to take up with ordinary stuff, that brought them nothing in the end, but beggary and repentance. The husbands, I perceived, were horribly furious, although in manacles and shackles. Some of them left their own wives, and fell upon their neighbours’. Others, to keep the good women in awe and obedience, would be taking upon them, and playing the tyrants, but upon the upshot they found their mistake, and that though they came on as fierce as lions, they went off as tame as muttons. Some were making friendships with their wives’ she-cousins, and agreeing upon a cross-gossiping whoever should have the first child.
The widowers, that had bit of the bridle, p. 114passed from place to place, where they stayed more or less, according to their entertainment, and so were in effect, as good as married; for as long, or as little a while as themselves pleased. These lived single, and spent their time in visiting, first one friend, then another. Here they fell in love; there they kindled a jealousy, which they contracted themselves in one place, and cured it in another. But the miracle was, that they all knew, and confessed themselves a company of mad fools, and yet continued so. Those that had skill in music, and could either sing or fiddle, made use of their gifts, to put the silly wenches that were but half moped before, directly out of their wits. They that were poetical were perpetually hammering upon the subjects of cruelty and disappointment. One tells his good fortune to another, that requites him with the story of his bad. They that had set their hearts upon girls were beating the streets all day, to find what avenues to a lady’s lodgings at night. Some were tampering and caressing the chamber-maid, as the ready way to the mistress. Others chose rather to put it to the push, and attempt the lady herself. Some were examining their pockets and taking a view of their furniture, which p. 115consisted much in love-letters, delicately sealed up with perfumed wax, upon raw silk; and a thousand pretty devices within; all wrapt up in riddle, and cipher. Abundance of hair bracelets, lockets, pomanders, knots of riband, and the like. There were others, that were called the husband’s friends, who were ready upon all occasions to do this, and to do that kindness for the husband. Their purse, credit, coach and horses, were all at his service; and in the meantime, who but they to gallant the wife? To the park, the gardens, a treat, or a comedy, where forty to one, by the greatest good luck in the world, they stumble upon an aunt, an old housekeeper of the family, or some such reverend goer-between that’s a well-willer to the mathematics; she takes the hint, performs the good office, and the work is done.
Now there were two sorts of fools for the widows: the one was beloved, and the other not. The latter were content to be a kind of voluntary slaves, for the compassing their ends; but the other were the happier, for they were ever at perfect liberty to do their pleasure, unless some friend or child of the house perchance came in, in the mischievous nick, and p. 116then in case of a little colour more than ordinary, or a tumbled handkercher: ’twas but changing the scene, and struggling for a paper of verses, or some such business to keep all in countenance. Some made their assaults both with love and money, and they seldom failed, for they came doubly armed; and your Spanish pistols are a sort of battery hardly to be resisted.
I came now to reflect upon what I had seen, and as I was walking (in that meditation) toward another lodging, I found myself (ere I was aware) in the first court again; where I entered, and in it I observed new wonders: I saw that the number of the mad fools increased every moment; although time (I perceived) did all that was possible to recover them. There was Jealousy tormenting even those that were most confident of the faith of what they loved. There was Memory rubbing of old sores. There was Understanding, locked up in a dark cellar; and Reason with both her eyes out. I made a little pause, the better to observe these varieties and disguises. And when I had looked myself a-weary, I turned about and spied a door; but so narrow that it was hardly passable; and yet strait as it was, divers there were that ingratitude and infidelity p. 117had set at liberty, and made a shift to get through. Upon which opportunity of returning, I made what haste I could to be one of the first at the door, and in that instant, my man drew the curtain of my bed, and told me the morning was far spent. Whereupon I waked, and recollecting myself, found all was but a dream. The very fancy however of having spent so much time in the company of fools and madmen, gave me some disorder, but with this comfort, that both sleeping and waking, I had experimented passionate love to be nothing else than a mere frenzy and folly.
THE END OF THE FOURTH VISION
It is utterly impossible for anything in this world to fix our appetites and desires; but they are still flitting, and restless like pilgrims; delighted and nourished with variety: which shows how much we are mistaken in the value and quality of the things we covet. And hence it is, that what we pursue with the greatest delight and passion imaginable, yields us nothing but satiety and repentance in the possession; yet such is the power of these appetites of ours that when they call and command, we follow and obey; though we find in the end that what we took for a beauty, upon the chase proves but a carcass in the quarry; and we are sick on’t as soon as we have it. Now the world, that knows our palate and inclination, never fails to feed the humour, and to flatter and entertain us with all sorts of p. 119change and novelty, as the most certain method of gaining upon our affections.
One would have thought that these considerations might have put sober thoughts and resolutions in my head, but it was my fate to be taken off, in the very middle of my morality and speculations, and carried away from myself by vanity and weakness into the wide world, where I was for a certain time, not much unsatisfied with my condition. As I passed from one place to another, several that saw me (I perceived) did but make sport with me: for the further I went, the more I was at a loss in that labyrinth of delusions. One while I was in with the sword-men and bravoes; up to the ears in challenges, and quarrels; and never without an arm in a scarf, or a broken head. Another fit; I was never well, but at the Fleece Tavern, or Bear at bridge-foot, stuffing my guts with food and tipple, till the hoops were ready to burst. Beside twenty other entertainments that I found, every jot as extravagant as these, which to my great trouble and admiration left me not so much as one moment of repose.
As I was in one of my unquiet and pensive moods, somebody called after me, and plucked me by the cloak, which p. 120proved to be a person of a venerable age; his clothes miserably poor and tattered; and his face, just as if he had been trampled upon in the streets, which did not yet hinder but that he had still the air and appearance of one that deserved much honour and respect. “Good father,” said I to him, “why should you envy me my enjoyments? Pray’e let me alone, and do not trouble yourself with me or my doings. You’re past the pleasure of life yourself, and can’t endure to see other people merry, that have the world before them. Consider of it; you are now upon the point of leaving the world, and I am but newly come into’t, but ’tis the trick of all old men to be carping at the actions of their juniors.” “Son,” said the old man, smiling, “I shall neither hinder nor envy thy delights, but in pure pity I would fain reclaim thee. Dost thou know the price of a day an hour or a minute? Didst ever examine the value of time? If thou hadst, thou wouldst employ it better; and not cast away so many blessed opportunities upon trifles; and so easily, and insensibly, part with so inestimable a treasure. What’s become of thy past hours? have they made thee a promise to come back again at a call, p. 121when thou hast need of them? Or, canst thou show me which way they went? No, no; they are gone without recovery; and in their flight, methinks, Time seems to turn his head, and laugh over his shoulder in derision of those that made no better use of him, when they had him. Dost thou not know that all the minutes of our life are but as so many links of a chain that has death at the end on’t? and every moment brings thee nearer thy expected end, which perchance, while the word is speaking, may be at thy very door; and doubtless at thy rate of living, it will be upon thee before thou art aware. How stupid is he that dies while he lives, for fear of dying! How wicked is he that lives, as if he should never die; and only fears death when he comes to feel it! which is too late for comfort, either to body or soul: and he is certainly none of the wisest that spends all his days in lewdness and debauchery, without considering that of his whole life any minute might have been his last.”
“My good father,” said I, “I am beholding to you for your excellent discourses, for they have delivered me out of the power of a thousand frivolous and vain affections, that had taken possession of me. But who p. 122are you, I pray’ee? And what is your business here?” “My poverty and these rags,” quoth he, “are enough to tell ye that I am an honest man, a friend to truth, and one that will not be mealy-mouthed, when he may speak it to purpose. Some call me the plain-dealer; others, the undeceiver-general. You see me all in tatters, wounds, scars, bruises. And what is all this but the requital the world gives me for my good counsel and kind visits? And yet after all this endeavour to get shut of me they call themselves my friends, though they curse me to the pit of hell, as soon as ever I come near them; and had rather be hanged than spend one quarter of an hour in my company. If thou hast a mind to see the world I talk of, come along with me, and I’ll carry thee into a place where thou shalt have a full prospect of it, and without any inconvenience see all that’s in’t, or in the people that dwell in’t, and look it through and through.” “What’s the name of this place?” quoth I. “It is called,” said he, “the Hypocrites’ Walk; and it crosses the world from one Pole to th’ other. It is large, and populous; for I believe there’s not any man alive but has either a house or a chamber in’t. p. 123Some live in’t for altogether; others take it only in passage: for there are hypocrites of several sorts; but all mortals have, more or less, a tang of the leaven. That fellow there in the corner came but t’other day from the plow tail, and would now fain be a gentleman. But had not he better pay his debts, and walk alone, than break his promises to keep a lackey? There’s another rascal that would fain be a lord, and would venture a voyage to Venice for the title, but that he’s better at building castles in the air than upon the water. In the meantime he puts on a nobleman’s face and garb; he swears and drinks like a lord, and keeps his hounds and whores, which ’tis feared in the end will devour their master. Mark now that piece of gravity and form; he walks, ye see, as if he moved by clock-work; his words are few and low; he makes all his answers by a shrug or a nod. This is the hypocrite of a Minister of State, who with all his counterfeit of wisdom is one of the veriest noddies in nature.
“Face about now, and mind those decrepit sots there that can scarce lift a leg over a threshold, and yet they must be dyeing their hair, colouring their beards, and playing the young fools again, with a p. 124thousand hobby-horse tricks and antique dresses. On the other side, ye have a company of silly boys taking upon them to govern the world, under a visor of wisdom and experience.” “What lord is that,” said I, “in the rich clothes there, and the fine laces?” “That lord,” quoth he, “is a tailor, in his holiday clothes; and if he were now upon his shop-board, his own scissors and needles would hardly know him: and you must understand that hypocrisy is so epidemical a disease that it has laid hold of the trades themselves as well as the masters. The cobbler must be saluted Mr. Translator. The groom names himself gentleman of the horse; the fellow that carries guts to the bears, writes, one of His Majesty’s officers. The hangman calls himself a minister of justice. The mountebank, an able man. A common whore passes for a courtesan. The bawd acts the Puritan. Gaming ordinaries are called academies; and bawdy-houses, places of entertainment. The page styles himself the child of honour; and the foot-boy calls himself my lady’s page. And every pick-thank names himself a courtier. The cuckold-maker passes for a fine gentleman; and the cuckold himself, for the best-natured husband in the world: and a very p. 125ass commences master-doctor. Hocus-pocus tricks are called sleight-of-hand; lust, friendship; usury, thrift; cheating is but gallantry; lying wears the name of invention; malice goes for quickness of apprehension; cowardice, meekness of nature; and rashness carries the countenance of valour. In fine, this is all but hypocrisy, and knavery in a disguise, for nothing is called by the right name. Now there are beside these, certain general appellations taken up, which by long usage are almost grown into prescription. Every little whore takes upon her to be a great lady; every gown-man, to be a councillor; every huff to be a soldat; every gay thing to be a cavalier; every parish-clerk to be a doctor; and every writing-clerk in the office must be called Mr. Secretary.
“So that the whole world, take it where you will, is but a mere juggle; and you will find that wrath, gluttony, pride, avarice, luxury, murder, and a thousand other heinous sins, have all of them hypocrisy for their source, and thither they’ll return again.” “It would be well,” said I, “if you could prove what you say; but I can hardly see how so great a diversity of waters should proceed from one and the same fountain.” “I do p. 126not wonder,” quoth he, “at your distrust, for you are mistaken in very good company; to fancy a contrariety in many things, which are, in effect, so much alike. It is agreed upon, both by philosophers and divines, that all sins are evil; and you must allow, that the will embraces or pursues no evil but under the resemblance of good; nor does the sin lie in the representation, or knowledge of what is evil, but in the consent to it. Which consent itself is sinful, although without any subsequent act: it’s true, the execution serves afterward for an aggravation, and ought to be considered under many differences and distinctions. But in fine, evident it is that the will entertains no ill, but under the shape of some good. What do ye think now of the hypocrite that cuts your throat in his arms, and murders you, under pretence of kindness? ‘What is the hope of an hypocrite?’ says Job. He neither has nor can have any: for he is wicked as he is an hypocrite; and even his best actions are worth nothing, because they are not what they seem to be. So that of all sinners he has the most to answer for. Other offenders sin only against God. But the hypocrite sins with Him, as well as against Him, making p. 127use of His holy Name as a cloak and countenance for his wickedness. For which reason, our blessed Saviour, after many affirmative precepts delivered to His disciples for their instruction, gave only this negative: ‘Be not sad as the hypocrites,’ which lays them open in few words; and He might as well have said ‘Be not hypocrites, and ye shall not be wicked.’”
We were now come to the place the old man told me of, where I found all according to my expectation, and took the higher ground, that I might have the better prospect of what passed. The first remarkable thing I saw was a long funeral train of kindred and guests, following the corpse of a deceased lady, in company with the disconsolate widower, who marched with his chin upon his breast, a sad and a heavy pace, muffled up in a mourning hood, enough to have stifled him, with at least ten yards of cloth upon his body, and no less in his train. “Alack, alack!” cried I, “that ever I should live to see so dismal a spectacle! Oh blessed woman! How did this husband love thee in thy lifetime, that follows thee with this infinite faith and affection, even to thy grave! And happy the husband, doubtless, in a wife that deserved this kindness! and p. 128in so many tender friends and relations, to take part with him in his sorrows. My good father, let me entreat you to observe this doleful encounter.” With that (shaking his head and smiling) “My son,” quoth he, “thou shalt by and by perceive that all is nothing in the world but vanity, imposture, and constraint; and I will shew thee the difference between things themselves, and their appearances. To see this abundance of torches, with the magnificence of the ceremony and attendance, one would think there should be some mighty matter in the business; but let me assure thee that all this pudder comes to no more than much ado about nothing. The woman was nothing (effectually) even while she lived: the body now in the coffin is somewhat a less nothing: and the funeral honours, which are now paid her come to just nothing too. But the dead it seems must have their vanities, and their holidays as well as the living. Alas! what’s a carcass but the most odious sort of putrefaction? A corrupted earth, fit neither for fruit nor tillage. And then for the sad looks of the mourners: they are only troubled at the invitation; and would not care a pin, if the inviter and body too were both at the devil. And that you p. 129might see by their behaviour, and discourses; for when they should have been praying for the dead, they were prating of her pedigree, and her last will and testament. ‘I’m not so near akin,’ says one, ‘but I might have been spared; and I had twenty other things to do.’ Another should have met company at a tavern; a third, at a play. A fourth mutters that he is not placed according to his quality. Another cries out, ‘A pox o’ your meetings where there is nothing stirring but worms’ meat.’ Let me tell ye further, that the widower himself is not grieved as you imagine for the dead wife; but for the damned expense in blacks, and scutcheons, tapers, and mourners; and that she was not fairly laid to rest, without all this ado: for he persuades himself, that she might have found the way to her grave without a candle. And since she was to die, ’tis his opinion, that she should have made quicker work on’t: for a good wife is (like a good Christian) to put her conscience in order betimes, and get her gone; without lingering in the hands of doctors, ’pothecaries, and surgeons, to murder her husband too. Or (to save charges) she might have had the discretion to have died of the plague, which would have staved off company. p. 130This is the second wife he has already turned over, and (to give the man his due) he has had the wit to secure himself of a third, while this lay on her deathbed. So that his case is no more than chopping of a cold wife for a warm one, and he’ll recover this affliction, I warrant ye.”
The good man, methought, spoke wonders; and being thoroughly convinced of the danger of trusting to appearances, I took up a resolution, never to conclude upon anything, though never so plausible, without due examination and inquiry. With that, the funeral vanished, leaving us behind; and for a farewell, this sentence: “I am gone before, you are to follow; and in the meantime, to accompany others to their graves, as you have done me; and as I, when time was, have attended many others, with as little care and devotion as yourselves.”
We were taken off from this meditation by a noise we heard in a house behind us, where we had no sooner set foot over the threshold, but we were entertained with a concert of six voices, that were set and tuned to the sighs and groans of a woman newly become a widow. The passion was acted to the life; but the dead little the p. 131better for’t. They would be ever and anon clapping and wringing of their hands; groaning and sighing, as if their hearts would break. The hangings, pictures, and furniture were all taken down and removed; the rooms hung with black, and in one of them lay the poor disconsolate upon a couch with her condoling friends about her. It was as dark as pitch, and so much the better, for the parts they had to play; for there was no discovering of the horrid faces and strains they made, to fetch up their artificial tears and lamentations. “Madam,” says one, “tears are but thrown away; and really the grief to see your ladyship in this condition has made me as lost a woman to all thought of comfort as yourself.” “I beseech you, madam, cheer up,” cries another, with almost as many sighs as words, “your husband’s e’en happy that he is out of this miserable world. He was a good man, and now he finds the sweet on’t.” “Patience, patience, dear madam,” cries a third, “’tis the will of Heaven, and there’s no contending.” “Dost talk of patience,” says she, “and no contending? Wretched creature that I am! to outlive that dear man! Oh that dear husband of mine! Oh that I p. 132should ever live to see this day!” And then she fell to blubbering, sobbing, and raving a thousand times worse than before. “Alas, alas, who will trouble himself with a poor widow! I have never a friend left to look after me; what shall become of me!”
At this pause came in the chorus with their nose-instruments; and there was such blowing, snobbing, snivelling, and throwing snot about, that there was no enduring the house. And all this, you must know, served them to a double purpose; that is to say, for physic and for complement: for it passed for the condoling office, and purged their heads of ill humours all under one. I could not choose but compassionate the poor widow, a creature forsaken of all the world; and I told my guide as much; and that a charity (as I thought) would be well bestowed upon her. The Holy Writ calls them mutes, according to the import of the Hebrew: in regard that they have nobody to speak for them. And if at any time they take heart to speak for themselves, they had e’en as good hold their tongues, for nobody minds them. Is there anything more frequently given in charge throughout the whole Bible, than to protect p. 133the fatherless, and defend the cause of the widow? as the highest and most necessary point of Christian charity: in regard that they have neither power, nor right to defend themselves. Does not Job in the depth of his misery and disgraces make choice to clear himself toward the widow, upon his expostulations with the Almighty? [If I have caused the eyes of the widow to fail] (or consumed the eyes of the widow; after the Hebrew) so that it seems to me, beside the general duty of charity, we are also bound by the laws of honour and generosity to assist them: for the poor souls are fain to plead with their eyes, and beg with their eyes, for want of either hands or tongues to help themselves. “Indeed you must pardon me my good father,” said I, “if I cannot hold any longer from bearing a part in this mournful concert, upon this sad occasion.” “And is this,” quoth the old man, “the fruit of your boasted divinity? to sink into weakness and tears, when you have the greatest need of your resolution and prudence. Have but a little patience, and I’ll unfold you this mystery; though (let me tell ye) ’tis one of the hardest things in nature, to make any man as wise as he should be, that conceits himself p. 134wise enough already. If this accident of the widow had not happened, we had had none of the fine things that have been started upon’t: for ’tis occasion that awakens both our virtue and philosophy; and ’tis not enough to know the mine where the treasure lies, unless a man has the skill of drawing it out, and making the best of what he has in his possession. What are you the better for all the advantages of wit and learning, without the faculty of reducing what you know into apt and proper applications?
“Observe me now, and I will show you that this widow that looks as if she had nothing in her mouth but the service for the dead, and only hallelujahs in her soul, that this mortified piece of formality has green thoughts under her black veil, and brisk imaginations about her, in despite of her calamity and misfortune. The chamber you see is dark; and their faces are muffled up in their funeral dresses. And what of all this? when the whole course of their mourning is but a thorough cheat. Their weeping signifies nothing more, than crying, at so much an hour; for their tears are hackneyed out, and when they have wept out their stage, they take up, and are quiet. If you p. 135would relieve them, leave them to themselves; and as soon as your back is turned, you shall have them singing and dancing, and as merry as Greeks: for take away the spectators, their hypocrisy is at an end, and the play is done; and now the confidents’ game begins. ‘Come, come, madam, ’faith we must be merry’ cries one, ‘we are to live by the living, and not by the dead. For a bonny young widow as you are, to lie whimpering away your opportunities and lose so many brave matches! There’s, you know who, I dare swear, has a month’s mind to you; by my troth I would you were in bed together, and I’d be hanged, if you did not find one warm bedfellow worth twenty cold ones.’ ‘Really, madam,’ cries a second, ‘she gives you good counsel; and if I were in your place, I’d follow it, and make use of my time. ’Tis but one lost, and ten found. Pray’e tell me, madam, if I may be so bold; what’s your opinion of that cavalier that was here yesterday? Certainly he has a great deal of wit; and methinks he’s a very handsome proper gentleman. Well! if that man has not a strange passion for you, I’ll never believe my eyes again for his sake; and, in good faith, if all parties were agreed, I would p. 136you were e’en well in his arms the night before to-morrow. Were it not a burning shame to let such a beauty lie fallow?’ This sets the widow a-pinking, and simpering like a furmety-kettle; at length she makes up the pretty little mouth, and says, ‘’Tis somewhat of the soonest to talk of those affairs; but let it be as Heaven pleases. However, madam, I am much beholden to you for your friendly advice.’ You have here the very bottom of her sorrow: she has taken a second husband into her heart before her first was in his grave. I should have told you that your right widow eats and drinks more the first day of her widowhood than in any other of her whole life: for there appears not a visitant, but presently out comes the groaning cake, a cold baked meat, or some restorative morsel or other, to comfort the afflicted; and the cordial bottle must not be forgotten neither, for sorrow’s dry. So to’t they fall, and at every bit or gulp, the lady relict fetches ye up a heavy sigh, pretends to chew false, and makes protestation that for her part she can taste nothing; she has quite lost her digestion; and has such an oppression in her stomach that she dares not eat any more, for fear of over-charging nature. ‘And in truth,’ p. 137says she, ‘how can it be otherwise; since (unhappy creature that I am!) he is gone that gave the relish to all my enjoyments; but there is no recalling him from the grave, and so, no remedy but patience.’ By this time, you see,” quoth the old man, “whether your exclamations were reasonable, or no.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth, when hearing an uproar among the rabble in the street, we looked out to see what was the matter. And there we saw a catchpole, without either hat or band, out of breath, and his face all bloody, crying out, “Help, help, in the king’s name! stop thief, stop thief!” and all the while, running as hard as he could drive, after a thief that made away from him, as if the devil had been at his breech. After him, came an attorney, all dirty, a world of papers in his hand, an inkhorn at his girdle, and a crowd of nasty people about him; and down he sat himself just before us, to write somewhat upon his knee. Bless me (thought I) how a cause prospers in the hand of one of these fellows, for he had filled his paper in a trice. “These catchpoles,” said I, “had need to be well paid, for the hazards they run to secure us in our lives and fortunes; and indeed they p. 138deserve it. Look how the poor wretch is torn, bruised, and battered, and all this for the good and benefit of the public.”
“Soft and fair,” quoth the old man; “I think thou wouldst never leave talking, if I did not stop thy mouth sometime. You must know, that he that made the escape and the catchpole are a couple of ancient friends and pot-companions. Now the catchpole quarrels the thief for not giving him a snip in the last booty; and the thief, after a great struggle, and a good lusty rubber at cuffs, has made a shift to save himself. You’ll say the rogue had need of good heels, to outrun this gallows-beagle; for there’s hardly any beast will outstrip a bailiff that runs upon the view of a quarry. So that there’s not the least thought of a public good in the catchpole’s action; but merely a prosecution of his own profit, and a spite to see himself choused. Now if the catchpole, I confess, without any private interest had made this attempt upon the thief, (being his friend) to bring him to justice, it had been well; and yet, take this along with you: it is as natural to let slip a serjeant at a pickpocket as a greyhound at a hare. The whip, the pillory, the axe, and the halter make up the best part of the catchpole’s p. 139revenue. These people are of all sorts the most odious to the world; and if men in revenge would resolve to be virtuous, though but for a year or two, they might starve them all. It is in fine an unlucky employment, and catchpoles as well as the devils themselves have the wages of tormentors.”
“I hope,” said I to my guide, “that the attorneys shall have your good word too.” “Yes, yes, ye need not doubt it,” said the old man, “for your attorney and your catchpole always hunt in couples. The attorney draws the information, and has all his forms ready, so that ’tis no more then but to fill up the blanks, and away to the jail with the delinquent; if there be anything to be gotten ’tis not a halfpenny matter, whether the party be guilty or innocent: give but an attorney pen, ink, and paper, and let him alone for witnesses. In case of an examination, he has the grace not to insist too much upon plain and naked truth; but to set down only what makes for his purpose, and then when they come to signing, to read over in the deponent’s sense (for his memory is good) what he has written in his own; and by this means, the cause goes on as he pleases. To prevent this villainy, it p. 140were well, if the examiners were as well sworn to write the truth as the witnesses are to speak it. And yet there are some honest men of all sorts but among the attorneys; the very calling does by the honest catchpoles, marshal’s men, and their fellows, as the sea by the dead: it may entertain them for a while, but in a very short space it spews them up again.”
The good man would have proceeded, if he had not been taken off by the rattling of a gilt coach, wherein was a courtier that was blown up as big as pride and vanity could make him. He sat stiff and upright, as if he had swallowed a stake; and made it his glory to show himself in that posture: it would have hurt his eyes, to have exchanged a glance with anything that was vulgar, and therefore he was very sparing of his looks. He had a deep laced ruff on, that was right Spanish, which he wore erect, and stiff starched, that a man would have thought he had carried his head in a paper-lanthorn. He was a great studier of set faces, and much affected with looking politic and big. But, for his arms and body, he had utterly lost or forgotten the use of them: for he could neither bow nor move his hat to any man that saluted him; no, nor so much as turn p. 141from one side to the other; but sat as if he had been boxed up, like a Bartlemew-baby. After this magnificent statue, followed a swarm of gaudy butterfly-lackeys: and his lordship’s company in the coach was a buffoon and a parasite. “Oh blessed prince!” said I, “to live at this rate of ease and splendour, and to have the world at will! What a glorious train is that! Beyond all doubt, there never was a great fortune better bestowed.” With that, the old man took me up, and told me that the judgment I had made upon this occasion, from one end to the other, was all dotage and mistake; save only, when I said he had the world at will: “and in that,” says he, “you have reason; for what is the world but labour, vanity, and folly; which is likewise the composition and entertainment of this cavalier.
“As for the train that follows him let it be examined, and my life for yours, you shall find more creditors in’t, than servants: there are bankers, jewellers, scriveners, brokers, mercers, drapers, tailors, vintners; and these are properly the stays and supporters of this animated machine. The money, meat, drink, robes, liveries, wages, all comes out of their pockets; they have this honour for their security; p. 142and must content themselves with promises, and fair words for full satisfaction, unless they had rather have a footman with a cudgel for their pay-master. And after all, if this gallant were taken to shrift, or that a man could enter into the secrets of his conscience, I dare undertake, it would appear that he that digs in a mine for his bread lives ten thousand times more at ease than the other, with beating of his brains night and day for new shifts, tricks and projects to keep himself above water.
“Observe his companions now, his fool and his flatterer. They are too hard for him, ye see; and eat, drink, and make merry at his expense. What greater misery or shame in the world, than for a man to make a friendship with such rascals, and to spend his time and estate in so brutal, and insipid a society! It costs him more (beside his credit) to maintain that couple of coxcombs than would have bought him the conversation of a brace of grave and learned philosophers. But will ye now see the bottom of this scandalous and dishonourable kindness? ‘My lord,’ says the buffoon, ‘you were most infallibly wrapt in your mother’s smock; for let me be — if ye have not set all the ladies about the court agog.’ ‘The p. 143very truth is,’ cries the parasite, ‘all the rest of the nobility look like corn-cutters to you; and indeed, wherever you come, you have still the eyes of the whole company upon you.’ ‘Go to, go to, gentlemen,’ says my lord, ‘you must not flatter your friends. This is more your courtesy than my desert; and I have an obligation to you for your kindness.’ After this manner these asses knab and curry one another, and play the fools by turns.”
The old man had his words yet between his teeth, when there passed just by us a lady of pleasure, of so excellent a shape and garb, that it was impossible to see her without a passion for her, and no less impossible to look upon anything else, so long as she was to be seen. They that had seen her once were to see her no more, for she turned her face still to new-comers. Her motion was graceful and free. One while she’d stare ye full in the eyes, under colour of opening her hood, to set it in better order. By and by she’d steal a look at ye with one eye, and a side face, from the corner of her visor, like a witch that’s afraid to be known when she comes from a caterwaul. And then out comes the delicate hand, and discovers the more delicious neck, and breasts, to adjust the handkercher p. 144or the scarf, or to remove some other grievance that made her ladyship uneasy. Her hair was most artificially disposed into careless rings; and the best red and white in nature was in her cheeks, if that of her lips and teeth did not exceed it. In a word, all she looked upon was her own; and this was the vision for my money, from all the rest. As she was marching off, I could not choose but take up a resolution to follow her. But my old man laid a block in the way, and stopped me at the very starting; which was an affront to a man that was both in love and in haste, that might very well stir his choler. “My officious friend,” said I, “he that does not love a woman sucked a sow. And questionless, he must be either blind or barbarous that’s proof against the charms of so divine a beauty. Nor would any but a sot let slip the blessed opportunity of so fair an encounter. A handsome woman? why, what was she made for, but to be loved? And he that has her, has all that’s lovely or desirable in nature. For my own part, I would renounce the world for the fellow of her, and never desire anything either beyond her, or beside her. What lightning does she carry in her eyes! What charms, and p. 145chains in her looks, and motions, for the very souls of her beholders! Was ever anything so clear as her forehead? or so black as her eyebrows? One would swear that her complexion had taken a tincture of vermilion and milk: and that nature had brought her into the world with pearl and rubies in her mouth. To speak all in little, she’s the masterpiece of the creation, worthy of infinite praise, and equal to our largest desires and imaginations.”
Here the old man cut me short, and bade me make an end of my discourse, “for thou art,” said he, “a man of much wonder, and small experience, and delivered over to the spirit of folly and blindness. Thou hast thy eyes in thy head, and yet not brain enough to know either why they were given thee, or how to use them. Understand then that the office of the eye is to see, but ’tis the privilege of the soul to distinguish and choose, whereas you either do the contrary, or else nothing, which is worse. He that trusts his eyes, exposes his mind to a thousand torments and confusions: he shall take clouds for mountains, straight for crooked, one colour for another, by reason of an undue distance, or an indisposed medium. We are not able sometimes to say which way p. 146a river runs, till we throw in a twig or straw to find out the current. And what will you say now, if this prodigious beauty, your new mistress, prove as gross a cheat and imposture as any of the rest? She went to bed last night as ugly as a witch; and yet this morning she comes forth in your opinion as glorious as an angel. The truth of it is, she hires all by the day; and if you did but see this puppet taken to pieces, you would find her little else but paint and plaister. To begin her anatomy at the head. You must know that the hair she wears is borrowed of a tire-woman, for her own was blown off by an unlucky wind from the coast of Naples. Or if she has any left, she keeps it private, as a memorial of her antiquity. She is beholden to the pencil for her eyebrows and complexion. And upon the whole matter, she is but an old picture refreshed. But the wonder is, to see a picture, with life and motion; unless perchance she has got the necromancer’s receipt that made himself young again in his glass bottle. For all that you see of her that’s good, comes from distilled waters, essences, powders, and the like; and to see the washing of her face would fright the devil. She abounds in pomanders, sweet waters, p. 147Spanish pockets, perfumed drawers; and all little enough to qualify the poisonous whiffs she sends from her toes and arm-pits, which would otherwise out-stink ten thousand pole-cats. She cannot choose but kiss well, for her lips are perpetually bathed in oil and grease. And he that embraces her, shall find the better half of her the tailor’s, and only a stuffing of cotton and canvas, to supply the defects of her body. When she goes to bed, she puts off one half of her person with her shoes. What do ye think of your adored beauty now? or have your eyes betrayed ye? Well, well; confess your error and mend it; and know that (without more descant upon this woman) ’tis the design and glory of most of the sex to lead silly men captive. Nay take the best of them, and what with the trouble of getting them and the difficulty of pleasing them, he that comes off best will find himself a loser at the foot of the account. I could recommend you here to other remedies of love, inseparable from the very sex, but what I have said already, I hope, will be sufficient.”
THE END OF THE FIFTH VISION
Being one autumn at a friend’s house in the country (which was indeed a most delicious retreat) I took a walk one moonlight night into the park, where all my past visions came fresh into my head again, and I was well enough pleased with the meditation. At length the humour took me to leave the path, and go further into the wood: what impulse carried me to this, I know not. Whether I was moved by my good angel, or some higher power, but so it was that in half a quarter of an hour, I found myself a great way from home, and in a place where ’twas no longer night; with the pleasantest prospect round about me that ever I saw since I was born. The air was calm and temperate; and it was no small advantage to the beauty of the place, that it was both innocent and silent. On the one hand, I was entertained p. 149with the murmurs of crystal rivulets; on the other, with the whispering of the trees; the birds singing all the while either in emulation, or requital of the other harmonies. And now, to show the instability of our affections and desires, I was grown weary even of tranquillity itself, and in this most agreeable solitude began to long for company.
When in the very instant (to my great wonder) I discovered two paths, issuing from one and the same beginning but dividing themselves forwards, more and more, by degrees, as if they liked not one another’s company. That on the right hand was narrow, almost beyond imagination; and being very little frequented, it was so overgrown with thorns and brambles, and so stony withal, that a man had all the trouble in the world to get into’t. One might see, however, the prints and marks of several passengers that had rubbed through, though with exceeding difficulty; for they had left pieces of heads, arms, legs, feet, and many of them their whole skins behind them. Some we saw yet upon the way, pressing forward, without ever so much as looking back; and these were all of them pale-faced, lean, thin, and miserably mortified. There was p. 150no passing for horsemen; and I was told that St. Paul himself left his horse, when he went into’t. And indeed, there was not the footing of any beast to be seen. Neither horse nor mule, nor the track of any coach or chariot. Nor could I learn that any had passed that way in the memory of man. While I was bethinking myself of what I had seen, I spied at length a beggar that was resting himself a little to take breath; and I asked him what inns or lodgings they had upon that road. His answer was that there was no stopping there, till they came to their journey’s end. “For this,” said he, “is the way to paradise, and what should they do with inns or taverns, where there are so few passengers? Do not you know that in the course of nature, to die is to be born, to live is to travel; and the world is but a great inn, after which, it is but one stage either to pain or glory?” And with these words he marched forward, and bade me God-b’w’ye, telling me withal that it was time lost to linger in the way of virtue, and not safe to entertain such dialogues as tend rather to curiosity than instruction. And so he pursued his journey, stumbling, tearing his flesh, and sighing, and groaning at every step; and weeping as if he thought p. 151to soften the stones with his tears. This is no way for me, thought I to myself; and no company neither; for they are a sort of beggarly, morose people, and will never agree with my humour. So I drew back and struck off into the left-hand way.
And there I found company enough and room for more. What a world of brave cavaliers! Gilt coaches, rich liveries, and handsome, lively lasses, as glorious as the sun! Some were singing and laughing, others tickling one another and toying; some again, at their cheese-cakes and China oranges, or appointing a set at cards: so that taking all together, I durst have sworn I had been at the park. This minded me of the old saying, “Tell me thy company, and I’ll tell thee thy manners;” and to save the credit of my education, I put myself into the noble mode, and jogged on. And there was I at the first dash up to the ears, in balls, plays, masquerades, collations, dalliances, amours, and as full of joy as my heart could hold.
It was not here, as upon t’other road, where folks went barefoot and naked, for want of shoemakers and tailors, for here were enow, and to spare; beside mercers, drapers, jewellers, bodice-makers, peruke-makers, milliners, and a French ordinary p. 152at every other door. You cannot imagine the pleasure I took in my new acquaintance; and yet there was now and then some justling and disorder upon the way, chiefly between the physicians upon their mules, and the infantry of the lawyers, that marched in great bodies before the judges, and contested for place. But the physicians carried it in favour of their charter, which gives them privilege to study, practise, and teach the art of poisoning, and to read lectures of it in the universities. While this point of honour was in dispute, I perceived divers crossing from one way to the other, and changing of parties. Some of them stumbled and recovered; others fell down right. But the pleasantest gambol of all was that of the vintners. A whole litter of them tumbled into a pit together, one over another, but finding they were out of their element, they got up again as fast as they could. Those that were in the right-hand way, which was the way of paradise, or virtue, advanced very heavily, and made us excellent sport. “Prithee look what a Friday-face that fellow makes!” cries one; “Hang him, prick-eared cur,” says another; “Damn me,” cries a third, “if the rogue be not drunk with holy water;” p. 153“If the devil had raked hell, he could not have found such a pack of ill-looked rascals,” says another. Some of them stopped their ears, and went on without minding us. Others we put out of countenance, and they came over to us. And a third sort came out of pure love to our company.
After this, I observed a great many people afar off in a by-path: with as much contrition and devotion in their looks and gestures as ever I saw in men. They walked shaking their heads, and lifting up their hands to heaven; and they had most of them large ears, and, to my thinking, Geneva Bibles. These, thought I, are a people of singular integrity, and strictness of life, above their fellows; but coming nearer, we found them to be hypocrites; and that though they’d none of our company upon the road, they would not fail to meet us at our journey’s end. Fasting, repentance, prayer, mortification, and other holy duties, which are the exercise of good Christians, in order to their salvation, are but a kind of probation to these men, to fit them for the devil. They were followed by a number of devotees, and holy sisters, that kissed the skirts of their garments all the way they went, but whether out of zeal, spiritual, or natural, p. 154is hard to say; and undoubtedly, some women’s kisses are worse than Judas’s. For though his kiss was treacherous in the intention, it was right yet in the application: but this was one Judas kissing another, which makes me think there was more of the flesh than of the spirit in the case. Some would be drawing a thread now and then out of the holy man’s garment, to make a relic of. Others would cut out large snips, as if they had a mind to see them naked. Some again desired they would remember them in their prayers; which was just as much as if they had commended themselves to the devil by a third person. Some prayed for good matches for their daughters; others begged children for themselves: and sure the husband that allows his wife to ask children abroad will be so civil as to take them home, when they are given him. In fine, these hypocrites may for a while perchance impose upon the world, and delude the multitude; but no mask or disguise is proof against the all-piercing eye of the Almighty. There are I must confess many religious and godly men, for whose persons and prayers I have a great esteem. But these are not of the hypocrites’ humour, to build their hopes and ambition upon p. 155popular applause, and with a counterfeit humility, to proclaim their weakness and unworthiness; their failings; yea and their transgressions in the market-place; all which is indeed but a true jest; for they are really what they say, though they would not be thought so.
These went apart, and were looked upon to be neither fish nor flesh nor good red-herring. They wore the name of Christians; but they had neither the wit nor the honesty of pagans. For they content themselves with the pleasures of this life, because they know no better. But the hypocrite, that’s instructed both in the life temporal and eternal, lives without either comfort in the one, or hope in the other; and takes more pains to be damned than a good Christian does to compass his salvation. In short, we went on our way in discourse. The rich followed their wealth, and the poor the rich; begging there what Providence had denied them. The stubborn and obstinate went away by themselves, for they would hear nobody that was wiser than themselves, but ran huddling on, and pressed still to be foremost. The magistrates drew after them all the solicitors and attorneys. Corrupt judges were carried away by passion and p. 156avarice. And vain and ambitious princes trailed along with them principalities and commonwealths. There were a world of clergy upon this road too. And I saw one full regiment of soldiers there, which would have been brave fellows indeed, if they had but been half so good at praying and fighting, as they were at swearing. Their whole discourse was of their adventures, how narrowly they came off at such an assault; what wounds they received upon t’other breach; and then what a destruction they made at such a time, of mutton and poultry. But all they said came in at one ear and went out at t’other. “Don’t you remember, sirrah,” says one, “how we clawed it away at such a place!” “Yes, ye damned rogue you,” cries t’other, “when you were so drunk you took your aunt for the bawd.” These and such as these were the only exploits they could truly brag of.
While they were upon these glorious rhodomontades, certain generous spirits from the right-hand way, that knew what they were, by the boxes of passports, testimonials, and recommendations they wore at their girdles, cried out to them, as if it had been to an attack: “Fall on, fall on, my lads, and follow me. This, this is the path of honour, and if you were not p. 157poltroons you would not quit it for fear of a hard march, or an ill lodging. Courage comrades; and be assured that this combat well fought makes all your fortunes, and crowns ye for ever. Here, ye shall be sure both of pay and reward, without casting the issue of all your hazards and hopes upon the empty promises of princes. How long will ye pursue this trade of blood and rapine? And accustom your ears and tongues to the tragical outcries of, Burn; No quarter; Kill, or Die. It is not pay, or pillage, but Virtue that’s a brave man’s recompense. Trust to her, and she’ll not deceive ye. If it be the war ye love, come to us; bear arms on the right side, and we’ll find you work. Do not you know that man’s life is a warfare? That the world, the flesh, and the devil, are three vigilant enemies? And that it is as much as his soul is worth, to put himself, but for one minute, out of his guard. Princes tell ye, that your bloods and your lives are theirs, and that to shed the one, and lose the other, in their service, is no obligation, but a duty. You are still however to look to the cause; wherefore turn head, and come along with us, and be happy.” The soldiers heard all this with exceeding patience and attention; but the p. 158brand of cowardice had such an effect upon them, that without any more ado, like men of honour, they presently quitted the road; drew; and as bold as lions, charged headlong into a tavern.
After this, we saw a great troop of women, upon the highway to hell, with their bags and their fellows, at their heels, ever and anon hunching and justling one another. On the other side, a number of good people, that were almost at the end of their journey, came over into the wrong road; for the right-hand way growing easier and wider toward the end, and that on the left hand, on the contrary, narrower, they thought they had been out of their way, and so came in to us; as many of ours went over to them, upon the same mistake. Among the rest, I saw a great lady, without either coach, sedan, or any living creature with her, foot it all the way to hell: which was to me so great a wonder, considering how she had lived in the world, that I presently looked about for a public notary to make an entry of it. The woman was in a most miserable pickle; and I did not know what design she might drive on, under that disguise; but finding never a notary, or register at hand, though I missed my particular aim, yet I was well p. 159enough pleased with it, for I took it then for granted that I was in my ready way to heaven. But when I came afterward to reflect upon the crosses, afflictions, and mortifications, that lie in the way to paradise; and to consider that there was nothing of that upon this road; but on the contrary, laughing, singing, frollicking, and all manner of jollity: this I must confess gave me a qualm, and made me a little doubtful whither I was going.
But I was quickly delivered of that doubt by a gang of married men, that we overtook with their wives in their hands, in evidence of their mortifications: “My wife’s my witness,” cries one, “that every day since I married her has been a fasting day to me; to pamper her with cock-broth, and jellies. And my wife knows how I have humbled my body by nakedness; for I have hardly allowed myself a rag to my backside; or a shoe to my foot, to maintain her in her coach, pages, gowns, petticoats, and jewels.” So that upon the matter, I perceive an unlucky hit with a wife gives a man as much right to the catalogue of martyrs, as if he had ended his days at the stake.
The misery these poor wretches endured made me think myself in the right again; p. 160till I heard a cry behind me, “Make way there; make way for the ’pothecaries.” Bless me, thought I, if they be here, we are certainly going to the devil. And so it proved, for we were just then come to a little door, that was made like a mousetrap, where ’twas easy to get in, but there was no getting out again.
It was a strange thing, that scarce anybody so much as dreamt of hell, all the way we went; and yet everybody knew where they were, as soon as they came there; and cried out with one voice, “Miserable creatures! we are damned, we are damned.” That word made my heart ache; and is it come to that? said I. Then did I begin with tears in my eyes to reflect upon what I had left in the world, as my relations, friends, ladies, mistresses, and in fine, all my old acquaintance: when with a heavy sigh, looking behind me, I saw the greater part of them posting after me. It gave me, methought, some comfort, that I should have so good company; vainly imagining that even hell itself might be capable of some relief.
Going farther on I was gotten into a crowd of tailors, that stood up sneaking in a corner, for fear of the devils. At the first door, there were seven devils, taking p. 161the names of those that came in; and they asked me mine, and my quality, and so they let me pass. But, examining the tailors, “These fellows,” cried one of the devils, “come in such shoals, as if hell were made only for tailors.” “How many are they?” says another. Answer was made, “About a hundred.” “About a hundred? They must be more than a hundred,” says t’other, “if they be tailors; for they never come under a thousand, or twelve hundred strong. And we have so many here already, I do not know where we shall ’stow them. Say the word, my masters, shall’s let them in or no?” The poor prick-lice were damnedly startled at that, for fear they should not get in: but in the end, they had the favour to be admitted. “Certainly,” said I, “these folks are but in an ill condition, when ’tis a menace for the devils themselves to refuse to receive them.” Thereupon a huge, overgrown, club-footed, crump-shouldered devil, threw them all into a deep hole. Seeing such a monster of a devil, I asked him how he came to be so deformed. And he told me, he had spoiled his back with carrying of tailors: “for,” said he, “I have been formerly made use of as a sumpter to fetch them; but now of late they save me that labour, and come p. 162so fast of themselves, that ’tis one devil’s work to dispose of them.” While the word was yet speaking, there came another glut of them, and I was fain to make way, that the devil might have room to work in, who piled them up, and told me they made the best fuel in hell.
I passed forward then into a little dark alley, where it made me start to hear one call me by my name, and with much ado I perceived a fellow there all wrapt up in smoke and flame. “Alas! sir,” says he; “have you forgotten your old bookseller in Popes-Head Alley?” “I cry thee mercy, good Livowell,” quoth I, “what? art thou here?” “Yes, sir,” says he, “’tis e’en too true. I never dreamt it would have come to this.” He thought I must needs pity him, when I knew him: but truly I reflected rather upon the justice of his punishment. For in a word, his shop was the very mint of heresy, schism, and sedition. I put on a face of compassion however, to give him a little ease, which he took hold of, and vented his complaint. “Well sir,” says he, “I would my father had made me a hangman, when he made me a stationer; for we are called to account for other men’s works, as well as for our own. And one thing that’s cast in our p. 163dish, is the selling of translations, so dog cheap, that every sot knows now as much as would formerly have made a passable doctor, and every nasty groom and roguey lackey is grown as familiar with Homer, Virgil, Ovid, as if ’twere Robin the Devil, The Seven Champions, or a piece of George Withers.” He would have talked on, if a devil had not stopped his mouth with a whiff from a roll of his own papers, and choked him with the smoke on’t. The pestilent fume would have dispatched me too, if I had not got presently out of the reach on’t. But I went my way, saying this to myself, If the bookseller be thus criminal, what will become of the author!
I was diverted from this meditation, by the rueful groans of a great many souls that were under the lash, and the devil tyrannising over them with whips and scourges. I asked what they were, and it was told me, that there was a plot among the hackney-coachmen to exhibit an information against the devils, for taking the whip out of their hands, and setting up a trade they had never served to, (which is directly contrary to Quinto Elizabethæ). “Well,” said I: “but why are these tormented here?” With that, an old sour-looked coachman took the answer out of the devil’s p. 164mouth, and told me, that it was because they came to hell a horseback, which they pretended was a privilege that did not belong to rogues of their quality. “Speak truth, and be hanged,” cried the devil; “and make an honest confession here. Say, sirrah, how many bawdy voyages have you made to Hackney? How many nights have you stood pimping at Marybone? How many whores and knaves have you brought together? And how many lies have you told, to keep all private, since you first set up this scandalous trade?” There was a coachman by, that had served a judge, and thought ’twas no more for his old master to fetch a rascal out of hell than out of Newgate; which made this fellow stand upon his points, and ask the devil, how he durst give that language to so honourable a profession; “for,” says he, “who wears better clothes than your coachmen? Are not we in our velvets, embroideries, and laces? and as glorious as so many phaetons? Have not our masters reason to be good to us, when their necks are at stake and their lives at our mercy? Nay, we govern those, many times, that govern kingdoms; and a prince is almost in as much danger of his coachman as of his physician. And there are that understand p. 165it too, and themselves, and us; and that will not stick to trust their coachmen as far as they would do their confessors. There’s no absurdity in the comparison; for if they know some of their privacies, we know more; yes, and perhaps more than we’ll speak of.” “What have we here to do?” cried a devil that was ready to break his heart with laughing. “A coachman in his tropes and figures? An orator instead of a waggoner? The slave has broke his bridle, and got his head at liberty, and now he’ll never have done.” “No, why should he?” says another that had served a great lady more ways than one. “Is this the best entertainment you can afford your servants? your daily drudges? I’m sure we bring you good commodity, well packed; well conditioned; well perfumed; right, neat, and clean: not like your city-ware that comes dirty to you, up to the hocks; and yet every daggle-tailed wench, and skip-kennel, shall be better used than we. Ah! The ingratitude of this place! If we had done as much for somebody else, as we have done for you, we should not have been now to seek for our wages. When you have nothing else to say, you tell me that I am punished for carrying the sick, the gouty, the lame, p. 166to church, to mass; or some straggling virgins, back again to their cloister: which is a damned lie; for I am able to prove, that all my trading lay at the play-houses, bawdy-houses, taverns, balls, collations: or else at the Tour à la Mode, where there was still appointed some after-meeting; to treat of certain affairs, that highly import the interest and welfare of your dominions. I have indeed carried my mistress sometimes to the church door, but it signified no more than if I had carried her to a conventicle; for all her business there was to meet her gallant, and to agree when they should meet next; according to the way of devotion now in mode. To conclude: It is most certain, that I never took any creature (knowingly) into my coach, that had so much as a good thought. And this was so well known, that it was all one to ask, If a lady were a maid, or if she had ever been in my coach. If it appeared she had, he that married her knew beforehand what he had to trust to. And after all this, ye have made us a fair requital.” With that the devil fell a-laughing, and with five or six twinging jerks, half flayed the poor coachman; so that I was e’en glad to retire, in pity partly to the coachman and partly to myself; p. 167for the currying of a coachman is little better than the turning up of a dunghill.
My next adventure was into a deep vault, where I began immediately to shudder, and my teeth chattered in my head. I asked the meaning of it; and there came up to me a devil, with kibed heels and his toes all mortified; and told me that that quarter was allotted to the buffoons and drolls, “which are a people,” says he, “of so starved a conceipt, and so cold a discourse, that we are fain to chain and lock them up, for fear they should spoil the temper of our fire.” I asked if a man might see them. The devil told me yes, and showed me one of the lewdest kennels in hell. And there were they at it, pecking at one another, and nothing but the same fooleries over and over again that they had practised upon earth. Among the buffoons, I saw divers that passed here in the world for men of honesty and honour; which were in, as the devil told me, for flattery, and were a sort of buffoon, that goes betwixt the bark and the tree. “But, why are they condemned?” said I. “The other buffoons are condemned,” quoth the devil, “for want of favour; and these, for having too p. 168much, and abusing it. You must know, they come upon us, still at unawares; and yet they find all things in readiness; the cloth laid, and the bed made, as if they were at home. To say the truth, we have some sort of kindness for them; for they save us a great deal of trouble, in tormenting one another.
“Do you see him there? That was a wicked, and a partial judge; and all he has to say for himself, is, that he remembers the time when he could have broke the neck of two honest causes, and he put them only out of joint. That good fellow there was a careless husband, and him we lodge too with the buffoons. He sold his wife’s portion, wife and all, to please his companions; and turned both into an annuity. That lady there (though a great one) is fain to take up too with the buffoons, for they are both of a humour: what they do with their talk, she does with her body, and seasons it to all appetites. In a word, you shall find buffoons in all conditions; and, in effect, there are nigh as many as there are men and women: for the whole world is given to jeering, slandering, backbiting, and there are more natural buffoons than artificial.”
At my going out of the vault, I saw a p. 169matter of a thousand devils following a drove of pastry-men, and breaking their heads as they passed along, with iron peels. “Alack!” cried one of them, that was yet in a whole skin, “it is hard the sin of the flesh should be laid to our charge, that never had to do with women.” “Impudent, nasty rascals,” quoth a devil, “who has deserved hell, if they have not? How many thousand men have these slovens poisoned, with the grease of their heads and tails, instead of mutton-suet? with snot-pies for marrow; and flies for currants? How many stomachs have they turned into lay-stalls with the dogs’-flesh, horse-flesh and other carrion that they have put into them? And do these rogues complain (in the devil’s name) of their sufferings! Leave your bawling, ye whelps,” says he, “and know, that the pain you endure is nothing to that of your tormentors. And for your part,” says he, to me, with a sour look, “because you are a stranger, you may go about your business; but we have a crow to pluck with these fellows, before we part.”
I went next down a pair of stairs into a huge cellar, where I saw men burning in unquenchable fire; and one of them roaring, cried out, “I never over-sold; I p. 170never sold, but at conscionable rates, why am I punished thus?” I durst have sworn it had been Judas, but going nearer to him, to see if he had a red head, I found him to be a merchant of my acquaintance, that died not long since. “How now, old Martin,” said I, “art thou there?” He was dogged, because I did not call him Sir, and made no answer. I saw his grief, and told him how much he was to blame, to cherish that vanity even in hell, that had brought him thither. “And what do ye think on’t now,” said I, “had not you better have traded in blacks than Christians? Had not you better have contented yourself with a little, honestly got, than run the hazard of your soul for an estate; and have gone to heaven afoot, rather than to the devil on horseback?” My friend was as mute as a fish; whether out of anger, shame, or grief, I know not. And then a devil in office took up the discourse. “These pickpocket rogues,” says he, “did they think to govern the world with their own weights and measures, in secula seculorum? Methinks, the blinking and false lights of their shops should have minded them of their quarter, in the other world, aforehand. And ’tis all a case, with jewellers, goldsmiths, and other p. 171trades, that serve only to flatter and bolster up the world in luxury and folly. But if people would be wise, these youths should have little enough to do. For what’s their cloth of gold and silver, their silks, their diamond and pearl, (which they sell at their own price) but matter of mere wantonness and superfluity? These are they that inveigle ye into all sorts of extravagant expenses, and so ruin ye insensibly, under colour of kindness and credit. For they set everything at double the rate; and if you keep not touch at your day, your persons are imprisoned, your goods seized, and your estates extended. And they that helped to make you princes before, are now the forwardest to put you into the condition of beggars.”
The devil would have talked on, if I had given him the hearing, but there was such a laugh set up on one side of me, as if they would all have split; and I went to see what the matter was; for ’twas a strange thing, methought, to hear them so merry in hell. The business was, there were two men upon a scaffold, in Gentile habits, gaping as loud as they could bawl. One of them had a great parchment in his hand, displayed, with divers’ labels hanging p. 172at it, and several seals. I thought at first it might have been execution-day, and took the writing for a pardon or reprieve. At every word they spoke, a matter of seven or eight thousand devils burst out a-laughing, as they would have cracked their sides. And this again made me think, it might be some jack-pudding or mountebank, showing his tricks or his attestations, with his congregation of fools about him. But, nearer hand, I found my mistake; and that the devils’ mirth made the gentlemen angry. At last, I perceived that this great earnestness of theirs was only to make out their pedigree, and get themselves passed for gentlemen; the parchment being a testimonial from the Heralds Office to that purpose. “My father,” says he with the writing in’s hand, “bore arms for His Majesty in many honourable occasions of watching and warding; and has made many a tall fellow speak to the constable, at all hours of the night. My uncle was the first man that ever was of the Order of the Black-Guard: and we have had five brave commanders of our family, by my father’s side, that have served the State in the quality of marshal’s men and turnkeys, and given His Majesty a fair account of all the p. 173prisoners committed to their charge. And by my mother’s side, it will not be denied but that I am honourably descended; for my grandmother was never without a dozen chamber-maids and nurses in family.” “It may be ’twas her trade,” quoth the devil, “to procure services and servants, and consequently to deal in that commodity.” “Well, well,” said the cavalier, “she was what she was; and I’m sure I tell you nothing but truth. Her husband wore a sword, by his place, for he was a Deputy-Marshal; and to prove myself a man of honour, I have it here in black and white, under the Seal of the Office. Why must I then be quartered among a pack of rascals?” “My gentleman friend,” quoth the devil, “your grandfather wore a sword, as he was usher to a fencing school; and we know very well what his son and grandchild can pretend to. But let that pass; you have led a wicked and infamous life, and spent your time in whoring, drinking, blaspheming, and in lewd company; and do you tell us now of the privileges of your nobility? Your testimonials; and the Seal of the Office? A fart for your privileges, testimonials, office and all. There is no honour, but virtue. And if p. 174your children, though they had a scoundrel to their father, should come to do honourable and worthy things, we should look upon them as persons sacred, and not dare to meddle with them. But talking is time lost; you were ever a couple of pitiful fellows, and your tails scarce worth the scalding. Have at ye,” says he, and at that word, with a huge iron bar he gave him such a salute over the buttocks, that he took two or three turns in the air, heels over head, and dropped at last into the common-shore; where never any man as yet found the bottom.
When his companion had seen him cut that caper, “This usage,” says he, “may be well enough for a parchment gentleman; but for a cavalier of my extraction, and profession, I suppose you’ll treat him with somewhat more of civility and respect.” “Cavalier,” quoth the devil, “if you have brought no better plea along with you than the antiquity of your house, you may e’en follow your comrade, for ought I know, for we find very few ancient families that had not some oppressor or usurper for their founders; and they are commonly continued by the same means they were begun. How many are there of our titular nobility, that write Noble purely upon the p. 175account of their violence and injustice? Their subjects and tenants, what with impositions, hard services, and racked rents, are they not worse than slaves? If they happen to have anything extraordinary, as a pleasant fruit, a handsome colt, a good cow; and that the landlord, or his sweet lady take a liking to it, they must either submit to part with it gratis, or else take their pay in foul language or bastinadoes. And ’tis well if they ’scape so: for many times when the sign’s in Gemini, their wives and daughters go to pot, without any regard of laws either sacred or profane. What damned blasphemies and imprecations do they make use of, to get credit with a mistress or a creditor, upon a faithless promise! How intolerable is their pride and insolence, even towards many considerable officers, both in Church and State! for they behave themselves as if all people below their quality and rank in the world were but as so many brutes, or worse. As if human blood were not all of a colour; as if nature had not brought them into the world the common way, or moulded them of the same materials with the meanest wretches upon the earth. And then, for such as have military charges and commands, how many great officers are p. 176there, that without any consideration of their own, or their princes’ honour, fall to spoil and pillage? Cozening the State with false musters, and the soldiers of their pay; and giving them, instead of their due from the prince, a liberty of taking what is not their due from the people; forcing them to take the bread out of the poor labourers’ mouths to fill their own bellies, and protecting them when they have done in the most execrable outrages imaginable. And when the poor soldier comes at last to be dismissed, or disbanded; lame, sick, beggarly, naked almost, and enraged; with nothing left him to trust to but the highway to keep him from starving. What mischief is there in the world, that these men are not the cause of? How many good families are utterly ruined, and at this day in the hospital, for trusting to their oaths and promises! and becoming bound for them, for vast sums of money to maintain them in tipple, and whores, and in all sorts of luxury and riot?” This rhetorical devil would have said a thousand times more, but that his companions called him off, and told him they had business elsewhere. The cavalier hearing that, “My friend,” said he, “your morals are very good, but p. 177yet with your favour, all men are not alike.” “There’s never a barrel better herring,” said the devil, “you are all of ye tainted with original sin, and if you had been any better than your fellows you had never been sent hither. But if you are indeed so noble, as you say, you’re worth the burning, if ’twere but for your ashes. And that you may have no cause of complaint, you shall see, we’ll treat you like a person of your condition.” And in that instant, two devils presented themselves; the one of them bridled and saddled; and the other, doing the office of the squire; holding the stirrup, with his left hand, and giving the gentleman a lift into the saddle with the other. Which was no sooner done, but away he went like an arrow out of a bow. I asked the devil then into what country he carried him. And he told me, not far: for ’twas only matter of decorum, to send the nobility to hell a-horseback. “Look on that side now,” says he, and so I did; and there I saw the poor cavalier in a huge furnace, with the first inventors of nobility, and arms: as Cain, Cham, Nimrod, Esau, Romulus, Tarquin, Nero, Caligula, Domitian, Heliogabalus; and a world of other brave fellows, that had made p. 178themselves famous by usurpation and blood. The place was a little too hot for me, and so I retired, meditating on what I had heard; and not a little satisfied with the discourse of so learned a devil. Till that time I took the devil for a notorious liar; but I find now that he can speak the truth too, when he pleases; and I would not for all I am worth but have heard him preach.
When I was thus far, my curiosity carried me still farther; and within twenty yards I came to a huge muddy, stinking lake, near twice as big as that of Geneva; and heard in’t so strange a noise that I was almost out of my wits to know what it was. They told me that the lake was stored with Doüegnas, or Gouvernantes, which are turned into a kind of frogs in hell, and perpetually drivelling, sputtering, and croaking. Methought the conversion was apt enough; for they are neither fish, nor flesh, no more than frogs; and only the lower parts of them are man’s-meat, but their heads are enough to turn a very good stomach. I could not but laugh to see how they gaped, and stretched out their legs as they swam, and still as we came near they’d scud away and dive.
p. 179This was no place to stay in, there was so noisome a vapour; and so I struck off, upon the left hand, where I saw a number of old men beating their breasts and tearing their faces, with bitter groans and lamentations. It made my heart ache to see them, and I asked what they were: answer was made, that I was now in the quarter of the fathers that damned themselves to raise their posterity; which were called by some, the unadvised. “Wretch that I am!” cried one of them, “the greatest penitent that ever lived, never suffered the mortification I have endured. I have watched, I have fasted, I have scarce had any clothes to my back; my whole life has been a restless course of torment, both of body and mind: and all this, to get money for my children; that I might see them well married; buy them places at court, or procure them some other preferment in the world: starving myself in the conclusion, rather than I would lessen the provision I had made for my posterity. And yet, notwithstanding this my fatherly care, I was scarce sooner dead, than forgotten: and my next heir buried me without tears, or mourning; and indeed without so much as paying of legacies, or praying for my soul: as if they p. 180had already received certain intelligence of my damnation. And to aggravate my sorrows, the prodigals are now squandering and consuming that estate, in gaming, whoring, and debauches, which I had scraped together by so much industry, vexation and oppression, and for which I suffer at this instant such insupportable torments.” “This should have been thought on before,” cried a devil, “for sure you have heard of the old saying, ‘Happy is the child whose father goes to the devil.’” At which word, the old misers brake out into fresh rage and lamentation, tearing their flesh, with tooth and nail, in so rueful a manner, that I was no longer able to endure the spectacle.
A little farther there was a dark, hideous prison, where I heard the clattering of chains, the crackling of flames, the slapping of whips, and a confused outcry of complaints. I asked what quarter this was; and they told me it was the quarter of the Oh that I had’s! “What are those,” said I? Answer was made, that they were a company of brutish sots, so absolutely delivered up to vice, that they were damned insensibly, and in hell before they were aware. They are now reflecting upon their miscarriages and p. 181omissions, and perpetually crying out, “Oh that I had examined my conscience!” “Oh that I had frequented the Sacraments!” “Oh that I had humbled myself with fasting, and prayer!” “Oh that I had served God as I ought!” “Oh that I had visited the sick, and relieved the poor!” “Oh that I had set a watch before the door of my lips!”
I left these late repentants, (as it appeared) in exchange for worse, which were shut up in a base court, and the nastiest that ever I saw. These were such as had ever in their mouths, “God is merciful, and will pardon me.” “How can this be,” said I, “that these people should be damned? when condemnation is an act of justice, not of mercy.” “I perceive you are simple,” quoth the devil, “for half these you see here, are condemned with the mercy of God in their mouths. And to explain myself, consider I pray’e how many sinners are there, that go on in their ways, in spite of reproof, and good counsel; and still this is their answer, ‘God is merciful, and will not damn a soul for so small a matter.’ But let them talk of mercy as they please, so long as they persist in a wicked life, we are like to have their company at last.” “By your argument,” said p. 182I, “there’s no trusting to Divine Mercy.” “You mistake me,” quoth the devil, “for every good thought and work flows from that mercy. But this I say: He that perseveres in his wickedness, and makes use of the name of mercy, only for a countenance to his impieties, does but mock the Almighty, and has no title to that mercy. For ’tis vain to expect mercy from above, without doing anything in order to it. It properly belongs to the righteous and the penitent; and they that have the most of it upon the tongue have commonly the least thought of it in their hearts: and ’tis a great aggravation of guilt, to sin the more, in confidence of an abounding mercy. It is true that many are received to mercy, that are utterly unworthy of it, which is no wonder, since no man of himself can deserve it: but men are so negligent of seeking it betimes, that they put that off to the last, which should have been the first part of their business; and many times their life is at end, before they begin their repentance.” I did not think so damned a doctor could have made so good a sermon. And there I left him.
I came next to a noisome dark hole, and there I saw a company of dyers, all in dirt and smoke, intermixed with the devils, p. 183and so alike that it would have posed the subtlest inquisitor in Spain to have said, which were the devils and which the dyers.
There stood at my elbow a strange kind of mongrel devil, begot betwixt a black and a white; with a head so bestruck with little horns, that it looked at a distance like a hedgehog. I took the boldness to ask him, where they quartered the Sodomites, the old women and the cuckolds. “As for the cuckolds,” said he, “they are all over hell, without any certain quarter or station; and in truth, ’tis no easy matter to know a cuckold from a devil, for (like kind husbands) they wear their wives’ favours still, and the very same headpieces in hell that they wore living in the world. As to the Sodomites, we have no more to do with them than needs must; but upon all occasions, we either fly, or face them: for if ever we come to give them a broadside, ’tis ten to one but we get a hit betwixt wind and water; and yet we fence with our tails, as well as we can, and they get now and then a flap o’er the mouth into the bargain. And for the old women, we make them stand off; for we take as little pleasure in them, as you do: and yet the jades will be persecuting us with their passions; and ye shall have a bawd of five-and-fifty p. 184do ye all the gambols of a girl of fifteen. And yet, after all this, there’s not an old woman in hell; for let her be as old as Paul’s — bald, blind, toothless, wrinkled, decrepit: this is not long of her age, she’ll tell you; but a terrible fit of sickness last year, that fetched off her hair, and brought her so low that she has not yet recovered her flesh again. She lost her eyes by a hot rheum; and utterly spoiled her teeth with cracking of peach-stones and eating of sweet-meats when she was a maid. And when the weight of her years has almost brought both ends together, ’tis nothing she’ll tell ye but a crick she has got in her back: and though she might recover her youth again, by confessing her age, she’ll never acknowledge it.”
My next encounter was, a number of people making their moan that they had been taken away by sudden death. “That’s an impudent lie,” cried a devil, “(saving this gentleman’s presence) for no man dies suddenly. Death surprises no man, but gives all men sufficient warning and notice.” I was much taken with the devil’s civility and discourse; which he pursued after this manner. “Do ye complain,” says he, “of sudden death? that have carried death about ye, ever since you p. 185were born; that have been entertained with daily spectacles of carcasses and funerals; that have heard so many sermons upon the subject; and read so many good books upon the frailty of life and the certainty of death. Do ye not know that every moment ye live brings ye nearer to your end? Your clothes wear out, your woods and your houses decay, and yet ye look that your bodies should be immortal. What are the common accidents and diseases of life, but so many warnings to provide yourself for a remove? Ye have death at the table, in your daily food and nourishment; for your life is maintained by the death of other creatures. And you have the lively picture of it, every night for your bedfellow. With what face then can you charge your misfortunes upon sudden death? that have spent your whole life, both at bed, and at board, among so many remembrances of your mortality. No, no; change your style, and hereafter confess yourselves to have been careless and incredulous. You die, thinking you are not to die yet; and forgetting that death grows upon you, and goes along with ye from one end of your life to the other, without distinguishing of persons or ages, sex or quality; and whether it finds ye p. 186well or ill-doing; As the tree falls, so it lies.”
Turning toward my left hand, I saw a great many souls that were put up in gallipots, with Assa fœtida, Galbanum, and a company of nasty oils that served them for syrup. “What a damned stink is here,” cried I, stopping my nose. “We are now come undoubtedly to the devil’s house of office.” “No, no,” said their tormentor, (which was a kind of a yellowish complexioned devil) “’tis a confection of apothecaries. A sort of people, that are commonly damned for compounding the medicines by which their patients hoped to be saved. To give them their due, these are your only true and chemical philosophers; and worth a thousand of Raymund Lullius, Hermes, Geber, Ruspicella, Avicen, and their fellows; ’tis true, they have written fine things of the transmutation of metals; but did they ever make any gold? Or if they did, we have lost the secret. Whereas your apothecaries, out of a little puddle-water, a bundle of rotten sticks, a box of flies—nay out of toads, vipers, and a Sir Reverence itself, will fetch ye gold ready minted, and fit for the market; which is more than all your philosophical projectors ever pretended to. There is no p. 187herb so poisonous, (let it be hemlock) nor any stone so dry, (suppose the pumice itself) but they’ll draw silver out of it. And then for words, ’tis impossible to make up any word out of the four-and-twenty letters, but they’ll show ye a drug, or a plant of the name; and turn the alphabet into as good money as any’s in your pocket. Ask them for an eye-tooth of a flying toad; they’ll tell ye, yes, ye may have of it, in powder; or if you had rather have the infusion of a tench of the mountains, in a little eel’s milk, ’tis all one to them. If there be but any money stirring, you shall have what you will, though there be no such thing in nature. So that it looks as if all the plants and stones of the creation had their several powers and virtues given them, only for the apothecaries’ sakes; and as if words themselves had been only made for their advantage. Ye call them apothecaries, but instead of that, I pray’e call them armourers; and their shops, arsenals; are not their medicines as certain death as swords, daggers, or muskets? while their patients are purged and blooded into the other world, without any regard either to distemper, measure, or season.
“If you will now see the pleasantest sight you have seen yet, walk up but these two p. 188steps, and you shall see a jury (or conspiracy) of barber-surgeons, sitting upon life and death.” You must think that any divertisement there was welcome, so that I went up, and found it in truth a very pleasant spectacle. These barbers were most of them chained by the middle, their hands at liberty, and every one of them a cittern about his neck, and upon his knees a chess-board; and still as he reached to have a touch at the cittern, the instrument vanished; and so did the chess-board, when he thought to have a game at draughts; which is directly tantalising the poor rogues, for a cittern is as natural to a barber as milk to a calf. Some of them were washing of asses’ brains, and putting them in again; and scouring of negroes to make them white.
When I had laughed my fill at these fooleries, my next discovery was, of a great many people, grumbling and muttering, that there was nobody looked after them; no not so much as to torment them; as if their tails were not as well worth the toasting as their neighbours’. Answer was made, that being a kind of devils themselves, they might put in for some sort of authority in the place, and execute the office of tormentors. This made me ask what they p. 189were. And a devil told me (with respect) that they were a company of ungracious, left-handed wretches, that could do nothing aright. And their grievance was that they were quartered by themselves; but not knowing whether they were men or no, or indeed what else to make of them, we did not know how to match them, or in what company to put them. In the world they are looked upon as ill omens; and let any man meet one of them, upon a journey in a morning, fasting, ’tis the same thing as if a hare had crossed the way upon him; he presently turns head in a discontent, and goes to bed again. Ye know that Scævola, when he found his mistake, in killing another for Porsenna (the secretary, for the prince) burned his right hand in revenge of the miscarriage; now the severity of the vengeance, was not so much the maiming or the crippling of himself, but the condemning of himself to be for ever left-handed. And so ’tis with a malefactor that suffers justice; the shame and punishment does not lie so much in the loss of his right hand, as that the other is left. And it was the curse of an old bawd, to a fellow that had vexed her, that he might go to the devil by the stroke of a left-handed man. If the poets speak truth, (as ’twere a wonder p. 190if they should not) the left is the unlucky side; and there never came any good from it. And for my last argument against these creatures; the goats and reprobates stand upon the left hand, and left-handed men are, in effect, a sort of creature that’s made to do mischief; nay whether I should call them men, or no, I know not.
Hereupon, a devil beckoned me to come softly to him; and so I did, without a word speaking or the least noise in the world. “Now,” says he, “if you’ll see the daily exercise of ill-favoured women, look through that lattice window.” And there I saw such a kennel of ugly bitches, you would have blest yourself. Some, with their faces so pounced and speckled, as if they had been scarified, and newly passed the cupping-glass; with a world of little plaisters, long, round, square; and briefly, cut out into such variety, that it would have posed a good mathematician to have found out another figure; and you would have sworn that they had been either at cat’s play or cuffs. Others, were scraping their faces with pieces of glass; tearing up their eyebrows by the roots, like mad; and some that had none to tear were fetching out of their black boxes, such as they could get, or make. Others were p. 191powdering and curling their false locks, or fastening their new ivory teeth in the place of their old ebony ones. Some were chewing lemon peel, or cinnamon, to countenance a foul breath; and raising themselves upon their ciopines, that their view might be the fairer and their fall the deeper. Others were quarrelling with their looking-glasses, for showing them such hags’ faces: and cursing the State of Venice for entertaining no better workmen. Some were stuffing out their bodies, like pack saddles, to cover secret deformities: and some again had so many hoods over their faces, to conceal the ruins, that I could hardly discern what they were; and these passed for penitents. Others, with their pots of hog’s grease and pomatum were sleeking and polishing their faces, and indeed their foreheads were bright and shining, though there were neither suns nor stars in that firmament. Some there were (in fine) that would have fetched a man’s guts up at’s mouth, to see them with their masques of after-births; and with their menstruous slibber slobbers, daubing one another to take away the heats and bubos. “Nasty and abominable!” I cried. “Well,” quoth the devil, “you see now how far a woman’s wit and invention will carry her to her own destruction.” p. 192I could not speak one word for astonishment at so horrid a spectacle, till I had a little recollected myself; and then said I, “If I may deal freely without offence, I dare defy all the devils in hell to outdo these women. But pray’e let’s be gone, for the sight of them makes my very heart ache.”
“Turn about then,” said the devil, and there was a fellow sitting in a chair, all alone; never a devil near him; no fire or frost; no heat or cold, or anything else, that I could perceive, to torment him; and yet crying and roaring out the most hideously of anything I had yet heard in hell; tearing his flesh, and beating his body, like a bedlam; and his heart, all the while, bleeding at his eyes. Good Lord, thought I, what ails this wretch, to yell out thus when nobody hurts him! So I went up to him. “Friend,” said I, “what’s the meaning of all this fury and transport? for, so far as I can see, there’s nothing to trouble you.” “No, no,” says he with a horrid outcry, and with all the extravagances of a man in rage and despair, “you do not see my tormentors; but the all-searching eye of the Almighty sees my pains as well as my transgressions, and with a severe and implacable justice has condemned me to p. 193suffer punishments answerable to my crimes.” (Which words he uttered with redoubled clamours.) “My executioners are in my soul, and all the plagues of hell in my conscience. My memory serves me instead of a cruel devil. The remembrance of the good I should have done, and omitted; and of the ill I should not have done, and did. The remembrance of the wholesome counsels I have rejected, and of the ill example I have given. And for the aggravation of my misery; where my memory leaves afflicting me, my understanding begins: showing me the glories and beatitudes I have lost, which others enjoy, who have gained heaven with less anxiety and pain than I have endured to compass my damnation. Now am I perpetually meditating on the comforts, beauties, felicities, and raptures of paradise, only to enflame and exasperate my despair in hell; begging in vain but for one moment’s interval of ease, without obtaining any; for my will is also as inexorable as either my memory or my understanding. And these (my friend of the other world) are the three faculties of my soul, which Divine Justice, for my sins, has converted into three tormentors, that torture me without noise; into three flames, that burn me p. 194without consuming. And if I chance at any time to have the least remission or respite, the worm of my conscience gnaws my soul, and finds it, to an insatiable hunger, an immortal aliment and entertainment.” At that word, turning towards me with a hellish yell, “Mortal,” says he, “learn, and be assured from me, that all those that either bury or misemploy their talents, carry a hell within themselves, and are damned even above ground.” And so he returned to his usual clamours. Upon this, I left him, miserably sad and pensive. Well, thought I, what a weight of sin lies upon this creature’s conscience! Whereupon the devil observing me in a muse, told me in my ear, that this fellow had been an atheist, and believed neither God nor devil. “Deliver me then,” said I, “from that unsanctified wisdom, that serves us only for our further condemnation.”
I was gone but a step or two aside, and I saw a world of people running after burning chariots, with a great many souls in them, and the devils tearing them with pincers; and before them marched certain officers, making proclamation of their sentence, which with much ado I got near enough to hear, and it was to this effect. “Divine Justice hath appointed this punishment p. 195to the scandalous, for giving ill examples to their neighbours.” And at the same time, several of the damned laid their sins to their charge, and cried out, that ’twas ’long of them they were thus tormented. So that the scandalous were punished both for their own sins and for the offences of those they had misled to their destruction. And these are they of whom ’tis said, that they had better never have been born.
My very soul was full of anguish, to see so many doleful spectacles; and yet I could not but smile, to see the vintners everywhere up and down hell, as free as if they had been in their taverns, and only prisoners upon parole. I asked how they came by that privilege; and a devil told me, there was no need of shackling them, or so much as shutting them up; for there was no fear of their making a ’scape, that took so much pains in the world, and made it their whole business to come thither. “Only,” says he, “if we can keep them from throwing water in the fire, as they do in their wines, we are well enough. But if you would see somewhat worth the while, leave these fellows, and follow me; and I’ll show ye Judas and his brethren, the stewards, and purse-bearers.” So I did p. 196as he bade me, and he brought me to Judas, and his companions, who had no faces, divers of them, and most of them no foreheads.
I was well enough pleased to see him, and to be better informed; for I had ever fancied him to be a kind of an olive-coloured, tawny-complexioned fellow, without a beard; and an Eunuch into the bargain: which perhaps (nay probably) he was; for nothing but a capon, a thing unmanned, could ever have been guilty of so sordid and treacherous a villainy, as to sell and betray his Master, with a kiss; and after that, so cowardly, as to hang himself in despair, when he had done. I do believe, however, what the Church says of him, that he had a carrot beard and a red head; but it may be his beard was burnt, and as he appeared to me in hell I could not but take him for an Eunuch, which to deal freely, is my opinion of all the devils, for they have no hair; and they are for the most part wrinkled and baker-legged.
Judas was beset with a great many money-mongers and purse-bearers, that were telling him stories of the pranks they had played, and the tricks they had put upon their masters, after his example. p. 197Coming up to them, I perceived that their punishment was like that of Titius, who had a vulture continually gnawing upon his liver; for there were a number of ravenous birds perpetually preying upon them, and tearing off their flesh; which grew again as fast as they devoured it; a devil in the meantime crying out, and the damned filling the whole place with clamour and horror; Judas, with his purse, and his pot by his side, bearing a large part in the outcry and torment. I had a huge mind (methought) to have a word or two with Judas, and so I went to him with this greeting: “Thou perfidious, impudent, impious traitor,” said I, “to sell thy Lord and Master at so base a price, like an avaricious rascal.” “If men,” said he, “were not ungrateful, they would rather pity, or commend me, for an action so much to their advantage, and done in order to their redemption. The misery is mine, that am to have no part myself in the benefit I have procured to others. Some heretics there are (I must confess to my comfort) that adore me for’t. But do you take me for the only Judas? No, no. There have been many since the death of my Master, and there are at this day, more wicked and ungrateful, ten thousand times p. 198than myself; that buy the Lord of Life, as well as sell Him, scourging and crucifying Him daily with more spite and ignominy than the Jews. The truth is, I had an itch to be fingering of money, and bartering, from my very entrance into the apostleship. I began, you know, with the pot of ointment, which I would fain have sold, under colour of a relief to the poor. And I went on, to the selling of my Master, wherein I did the world a greater good than I intended, to my own irreparable ruin. My repentance now signifies nothing. To conclude, I am the only steward that’s condemned for selling; all the rest are damned for buying: and I must entreat you, to have a better opinion of me; for if you’ll look but a little lower here, you’ll find people a thousand times worse than myself.” “Withdraw then,” said I, “for I have had talk enough with Judas.”
I went down then some few steps, as Judas directed me; and there I saw a world of devils upon the march, with rods and stirrup-leathers in their hands, lashing a company of handsome lasses, stark naked, and driving them out of hell, (which methought was pity, and if I had had some of them in a corner, I p. 199should have treated them better) with the stirrup-leathers, they disciplined a litter of bawds. I could not imagine why these, of all others, should be expelled the place, and asked the question. “Oh,” says a devil, “these are our factresses in the world, and the best we have, so that we send them back again to bring more grist to the mill: and indeed, if it were not for women, hell would be but thinly peopled; for what with the art, the beauty, and the allurements of the young wenches, and the sage advice and counsel of the bawds, they do us very good service. Nay, for fear any of our good friends should tire upon the road, they send them to us on horseback, or bring them themselves, e’en to the very gates, lest they should miss their way.”
Pursuing my journey, I saw, a good way before me, a large building, that looked (methought) like some enchanted castle, or the picture of ill-luck; it was all ruinous, the chimneys down, the planchers all to pieces, only the bars of the windows standing; the doors all bedaubed with dirt, and patched up with barrel-heads, where they had been broken. The glass gone, and here and there a quarrel supplied with paper. I made no doubt at first but the p. 200house was forsaken; but, coming nearer, I found it otherwise, by a horrible confusion of tongues and noises within it. As I came just up to the door, one opened it, and I saw in the house many devils, thieves, and whores. One of the craftiest jades in the pack, placed herself presently upon the threshold, and made her address to my guide and me. “Gentlemen,” says she, “how comes it to pass, I pray’e, that people are damned both for giving and taking? The thief is condemned for taking away from another; and we are condemned for giving what is our own. I do not find, truly, any injustice in our trade; and if it be lawful to give every one their own, and out of their own, why are we condemned?” We found it a nice point, and sent the wench to counsel learned in the law, for a resolution in the case. Her mentioning of thieves made me inquire after the scriveners and notaries. “Is it possible,” said I, “that you should have none of them here? for I do not remember that I have seen so much as one of them upon the way; and yet I had occasion for a scrivener, and made a search for one.” “I do believe indeed,” quoth the devil, “that you have not found any of them upon the road.” “How then?” p. 201said I, “what, are they all saved?” “No, no,” cried the devil, “but you must understand, that they do not foot it hither, as other mortals; but come upon the wing, in troops like wild geese; so that ’tis no wonder you see none of them upon the way. We have millions of them, but they cut it away in a trice, for they are damnedly rank-winged, and will make a flight, in the third part of a minute, betwixt earth and hell.” “But if there be so many,” said I, “how comes it we see none of them?” “For that,” quoth the devil, “we change their names, when they come hither once, and call them no longer notaries or scriveners, but cats: and they are so good mousers, that though this place is large, old, and ruinous, yet you see not so much as a rat or a mouse in hell, how full soever of all other sorts of vermin.” “Now ye talk of vermin,” said I, “are there any catchpoles here?” “No, not one,” says he. “How so,” quoth I, “when I dare undertake there are five hundred rogues of the trade for one that’s ought.” “The reason is,” says the devil, “that every catchpole upon earth carries a hell in’s bosom.” “You have still,” said I, crossing myself, “an aching tooth at those poor varlets.” “Why not,” cried p. 202he, “for they are but devils incarnate, and so damnedly versed in the art of tormenting, that we live in continual dread of losing our places, and that His Infernal Majesty should take these rascals into his service.”
I had enough of this, and travelling on, I saw a little way off a great enclosure, and a world of souls shut up in’t; some of them weeping and lamenting without measure, others in a profound silence. And this I understood to be the lovers’ quarter. It saddened me to consider, that death itself could not kill the lamentations of lovers. Some of them were discoursing their passions, and teasing themselves with fears and jealousies; casting all their miseries upon their appetites and fancies, that still made the picture infinitely fairer than the person. They were for the most part troubled with a simple disease, called (as the devil told me) “I thought.” I asked him what that was, and he answered me, it was a punishment suitable to their offence: for your lovers, when they fall short of their expectations, either in the pursuit or enjoyment of their mistresses, they are wont to say, “Alas! I thought she would have loved me; I thought she would never have pressed me to marry p. 203her; I thought she would have been a fortune to me; I thought she would have given me all she had; I thought she would have cost me nothing; I thought she would have asked me nothing; I thought she would have been true to my bed; I thought she would have been dutiful and modest; I thought she would never have kept her gallant.” So that all their pain and damnation comes from I thought this or that, or so, or so.
In the middle of them was Cupid, a little beggarly rogue, and as naked as he was born, only here and there covered with an odd kind of embroidery: but whether it was the workmanship of the itch, pox, or measles, I could not perfectly discover; and close by him was this inscription—
Many a good fortune goes to wrack;
And so does many an able back;
With following whores and cards and dice,
Were poxed and beggared in a trice.
“Aha!” said I, “by these rhymes methinks the poets should not be far off;” and the word was hardly out of my mouth, when I discovered millions of them through a park pale, and so I stopped to look upon them. (It seems in hell they are not p. 204called poets now, but fools.) One of them showed me the women’s quarter there hard by, and asked me what I thought of it, and of the handsome ladies in it. “Is it not true,” says he, “that a buxom lass is a kind of half chamber-maid to a man? when she has stripped him and brought him to bed, she has done her business, and never troubles herself any further about the helping him up again, and dressing him.” “How now,” said I, “Have ye your quirks and conceipts in hell? In troth ye are pleasant: I thought your edge had been taken off.” With that, out stepped the most miserable wretch of the whole company laden with irons: “Ah!” quoth he, “I would to God the first inventor of rhymes and poetry were here in my place,” and then he went on with this following and sad complaint.
A Complaint of the Poets in Hell
Oh, this damned trade of versifying
Has brought us all to hell for lying!
For writing what we do not think;
Merely to make the verse cry clink.
For rather than abuse the metre,
Black shall be white, Paul shall be Peter.p. 205One time I called a lady, whore;
Which in my soul she was no more
Than I am; a brave lass, no beggar,
And true, as ever man laid leg o’er.
Not out of malice, Jove’s my witness,
But merely for the verses fitness.
“Now we’re all made,” said I, “if luck hold,”
And then I called a fellow cuckold;
Though the wife was (or I’ll be hanged)
As good a wench as ever twanged.
I was once plaguely put to’t;
This would not hit, that would not do’t;
At last, I circumcised (’tis true)
A Christian, and baptized a Jew.
Nay I’ve made Herod innocent
For rhyming to Long-Parliament:
Now to conclude, we are all damned ho,
For nothing but a game at crambo.
And for a little jingling pleasure,
Condemned to torments without measure:
Which is a little hard in my sense,
To fry thus for poetic licence.
’Tis not for sin of thought or deed,
But for bare sounds, and words we bleed:
While the cur Cerberus lies growling
In consort with our catterwowling.
So soon as he had done. “There is not in the world,” said I, “a more ridiculous p. 206frenzy than yours, to be poetising in hell. The humour sticks close sure, or the fire would have fetched it out.” “Nay,” cried a devil, “these versifiers are a strange generation of buffoons. The time that others spend in tears and groans for their sins and follies, these wretches employ in songs and madrigals; and if they chance to light upon the critical minute, and get a snap at a lady, all’s worth nothing, unless the whole kingdom ring of it, in some miserable sing-song or other, under the name forsooth of Phyllis, Chloris, Silvia, or the like: and the goodly idol must be decked and dressed up with diamond, pearl, rubies, musk, and amber, and both the Indies are too little to furnish eyes, lips, and teeth for this imaginary goddess. And yet after all this magnificence and bounty, it would put the poor devil’s credit upon the stretch, to take up an old petticoat in Long Lane, or a pair of cast-shoes, at the next cobbler’s. Beside, we can give no account either of their country or religion. They have Christian names, but most heretical souls; they are Arabians in their hearts: and in their language, Gentiles; but to say the truth, they fall short of the right Pagans in their manners.” If I stay here a little p. 207longer, (said I to myself) this spiteful devil will hit me over the thumbs ere I’m aware; for I was half jealous, that he took me already for a piece of a poet.
For fear of being discovered, I went my way, and my next visit was to the impertinent devotees, whose very prayers are made up of impiety and extravagance. Oh! what sighing was there, and sobbing! groaning and whining! Their tongues were tied up to a perpetual silence; their souls drooping, and their ears condemned to hear eternally the hideous cries and reproaches of a wheezing devil, greeting them after this manner. “Oh, ye impudent and profane abusers of prayer and holy duties! that treat the Lord of heaven and earth in His own house, with less respect than ye would do a merchant upon the Change, sneaking into a corner with your execrable petitions, for fear of being overheard by your neighbours; and yet without any scruple at all, ye can expose and offer them up to that Eternal Purity! shameless wretches that ye are! ‘Lord,’ says one, ‘take the old man, my father, to Thyself, I beseech Thee, that I may have his office and estate. Oh, that this uncle of mine would but march off! There’s a fat Bishopric, and a good Deanery; I p. 208would the devil had the incumbent so I had the dignity. Now for a lusty pot of guineas, or a lucky hand at dice if it be Thy pleasure, and then I would not doubt of good matches for my children. Lord, make me His Majesty’s favourite and Thy servant; that I may get what’s convenient, and keep what I have gotten. Grant me this, and I do here engage myself, to entertain six blue-coats, and bind them out to good trades; to set up a lecture for every day of the week; to give one-third part of my clear gains to charitable uses; and another, toward the repairing of Paul’s; and to pay all honest debts, so far as may stand with my private convenience.’ Blind and ridiculous madness! for dust and ashes thus to reason and condition with the Almighty! for beggars to talk of giving, and obtrude their vain and unprofitable offerings upon the inexhaustible fountain of riches and bounty! To pray for those things as blessings, which are commonly showered down upon us for our confusion and punishment. And when, in case your wishes take effect, what becomes of all the sacred vows and promises ye made, in storms, (perhaps) sickness or adversity? so soon as ye have gained your port, recovered your health; p. 209or patched up a broken fortune, you show yourselves, all of ye, a pack of cheats; your vows and promises are not worth so many rushes: they are forgotten with your dreams; and to keep a promise upon devotion, that you made out of necessity, is no article of your religion. Why do ye not ask for peace of conscience? Increase of grace? The aid of the Blessed Spirit? But you are too much taken up with the things of this world, to attend those spiritual advantages and treasures; and to consider, that the most acceptable sacrifices and obligations you can make to the Almighty, are purity of mind, an humble spirit, and a fervent charity. The Almighty takes delight to be often called upon, that He may often pour down His blessings upon His petitioners. But such is the corruption of human nature, that men seldom think of Him, unless under afflictions; and therefore it is that they are often visited; for by adversity they are brought to the knowledge and exercise of their duty. I would now have you consider, how little reason there is in your ordinary demands. Put case you have your asking; what are you the better for the grant? since it fails you at last; because you did not ask aright. p. 210When you die, your estate goes to your children; and for their parts, you are scarce cold, before you are forgotten. You are not to expect they should bestow much upon works of charity; for if nothing went that way while you were living, they’ll live after your example when you are dead. And, beside, there’s no merit in the case.” At this word some of the poor creatures were about to reply; but the devils had put barnacles upon their lips, that hindered them.
From thence, I went to the witches and wizards; such as pretend to cure man and beast by charms, words, amulets, characters: and these were all burning alive. “These,” says a devil, “are a company of cozening rogues; the most accursed villains in nature. If they help one man, they kill another, and only remove the disease from a worse to a better: and yet there’s no great clamour against them neither; for if the patient recover, he’s well enough content, and the doctor gets both reputation and reward for his pains. If he dies, his mouth is stopped, and forty to one the next heir does him a good turn for the dispatch. So that, hit or miss, all is well at last. If you enter into a debate with them about their remedies, they’ll tell you, p. 211they learned the mystery of a certain Jew; and there’s the original of the secret. Now to hear these quacks give you the history of their cures, is beyond all the plays and farces in the world. You shall have a fellow tell you of fifteen people that were run clean through the body, and glad for a matter of three days to carry their puddings in their hands; that in four-and-twenty hours he made them as whole as fishes, and not so much as a scar for a remembrance of the orifice. Ask him, when and where? you’ll find it some twelve hundred leagues off, in a terra incognita, by the token, that at that time he was physician in ordinary to a great prince that died about five-and-twenty years ago.”
“Come, come,” cried a devil, “make an end of this visit, and you shall see those now that Judas told you were ten times worse than himself.” I went along with him, and he brought me to a passage into a great hall, where there was a damned smell of brimstone, and a company of match-makers, as I thought at first; but they proved afterward to be alchymists, and the devils examining them upon interrogatories, who were filthily put to’t, to understand their gibberish. Their talk was much of the planetary metals; gold they p. 212called Sol; silver, Luna; tin, Jupiter; copper, Venus. They had about them their furnaces, crucibles, coal, bellows, clay, minerals, dung, man’s blood, powders, and alembics. Some were calcining, others washing, here purifying, there separating. Fixing what was volatile in one place, and rarefying what was fix in another. Some were upon the work of transmutation, and fixing of mercury with monstrous hammers upon an anvil. And after they had resolved the vicious matter, and sent out the subtler parts, that they came to the coppel, all went away in fume. Some again were in a hot dispute, what fuel was best; and whether Raymund Lullius his fire, and no fire, could be anything else than lime; or otherwise to be understood of the light effective of heat, and not of the effective heat of fire. Others were making their entrance upon the great work, after the hermetical method. Here they were watching the progress of their operations, and making their observations upon proportions and colour. While all the rest of these blind oracles lay waiting for the recovery of the materia prima, till they brought themselves to the last cast both of their lives and fortunes, and instead of turning base metals and p. 213materials into gold, as they pretended, they made the contrary inversion, and were glad at length to take up with beggarly fools and false coiners. What a stir was there, with crying out, ever and anon! “Look ye, look ye! the old father is got up again; down with him, down with him;” what glossing and commenting upon the old chymical text, that says, “Blessed be Heaven, that has ordered the most excellent thing in nature out of the vilest.” “If so,” quoth one, “let’s try if we can fetch the Philosopher’s Stone out of a common strumpet, which is of all creatures undoubtedly the vilest.” And the word was no sooner out, but a matter of three-and-twenty whores went to pot, but the flesh was so cursedly mawmish and rotten, that they soon gave over the thought of that projection. And then they entered upon a fresh consultation, and concluded, nemine contradicente, that the mathematicians, by that rule, were the only fit matter to work upon; as being most damnably dry, (to say nothing of their divisions among and against themselves) so that with one voice, they called for a parcel of mathematicians, to the furnace, to begin the experiment. But a devil came in just in the God-speed, and told p. 214them, “Gentlemen philosophers,” says he, “if you would know the wretchedest and most contemptible thing in the world, it is an alchymist: and we are of opinion, that you’ll make as good philosopher’s stones as the mathematicians. However, for curiosity’s sake, we’ll try for once.” And so he threw them all together into a great caldron; and to say the truth, the poor snakes suffered very contentedly; out of a desire, I suppose, to help on toward the perfecting of the operation.
On the other side were a knot of astrologers, and one among the rest that had studied chiromancy or palmistry, who took all the damned by the hands, one after another. One he told, that it was as plain as the nose on his face, that he was to go to the devil, for he perceived it by the Mount of Saturn. “You,” says he to another, “have been a swindging whore-master in your days; I see that by the Mount of Venus here, and by her girdle.” And in short, every man’s destiny he read in his fist. After him advanced another, creeping upon all four, with a pair of compasses betwixt his teeth, his spheres and globes about him, his Jacob’s staff before him, and his eyes upon the stars, as if he were taking a height or making p. 215an observation. When he had gazed a while, up he starts of a sudden, and, wringing his hands, “Good Lord,” says he, “what an unlucky dog was I! If I had come into the world but one half quarter of an hour sooner, I had been saved; for just then Saturn shifted, and Mars was lodged in the house of life.” One that followed him, bade his tormentors be sure he was dead; “for,” says he, “I am a little doubtful of it myself; in regard that I had Jupiter for my ascendant, and Venus in the house of life, and no malevolent aspect to cross me. So that by the rules of astrology, I was to live, precisely, a hundred years and one, two months, six days, four hours, and three minutes.” The next that came up was a geomancer; one that reduced all his skill to certain little points, and by them would tell you, as well things past as to come: these points he bestowed at a venture, among several unequal lines; some long, others shorter, like the fingers of a man’s hand; and then, with a certain ribble-rabble of mysterious words, he proceeds to his calculation, upon even or odd, and challenges the whole world to allow him the most learned and infallible of the trade.
There were divers great masters of the p. 216science that followed him. As Haly, Gerard, Bart’lemew of Parma, and one Toudin; a familiar friend, and companion of the great Cornelius Agrippa, the famous conjurer, who though he had but one soul was yet burning in four bodies. (I mean the four damnable books he left behind him.) There was Trithemius too, with his polygraphy and stenography; that had devils now, his belly-full, though in his lifetime his complaint was, that he could never have enough of their company; over against him was Cardan; but they could not set their horses together, because of an old quarrel, whether was the more impudent of the two. And there I saw Misaldus, tearing his beard, in rage, to find himself pumped dry; and that he could not fool on, to the end of the chapter. Theophrastus was there too, bewailing himself for the time he had spent at the alchymist’s bellows. There was also the unknown author of Clavicula Solomonis, and The Hundred Kings of Spirits, with the composer of the book, Adversus Omnia pericula Mundi; Taysnerus too, with his book of Physiognomy and Chiromancy; and he was doubly punished, first for the fool he was, and then for those he had made. Though, to give the man his due, p. 217he knew himself to be a cheat, and that he that gives a judgment upon the lines of a face takes but a very uncertain aim. There were magicians, necromancers, sorcerers, and enchanters innumerable, beside divers private boxes that were kept for lords and ladies; and other personages of great quality, that put their trust in these disciples of the devil, and go to Strand Bridge or Billiter Lane, for resolution in cases of death, love, or marriage, and now and then to recover a gold watch or a pearl necklace.
Not far from these were a company of handsome women, that were tormented in the quality of witches, which grieved my very heart to see it; but to comfort me, “What?” says a devil, “have you so soon forgot the roguery of these carrions? Have you not had trial enough yet of them? they are the very poison of life, and the only dangerous magicians that corrupt all our senses, and disturb the faculties of your soul; these are they that cozen your eyes with false appearances, and set up your wills in opposition to your understanding and reason.” “’Tis right,” said I, “and now you mind me of it, I do very well remember, that I have found them so; but let’s go on and see the rest.”
p. 218I was scarce gone three steps farther, but I was got into so hideous a dark place that it was e’en a mercy we knew where we were. There was first at the entrance, Divine Justice, which was most dreadful to behold; and a little beyond stood Vice, with a countenance of the highest pride and insolence imaginable; there was Ingratitude, Malice, Ignorance, obstinate and incorrigible Infidelity, brutish and headstrong Disobedience, rash and imperious Blasphemy, with garments dipped in blood, eyes sparkling, and a hundred pair of chops, barking at Providence, and vomiting rage and poison. I went in (I confess) with fear and trembling, and there I saw all the sects of idolaters and heretics, that ever yet appeared upon the stage of the universe; and at their feet, in a glorious array, was lascivious Barbara, second wife to the Emperor Sigismund, and the queen of harlots: one that agreed with Messalina in this, that virginity was both a burden and a folly; and that in her whole life she was never either wearied or satisfied; but herein she went beyond her, in that she held the mortality as well of the soul as of the body; but she was now better instructed, and burnt like a bundle of matches.
p. 219Passing forward still, I spied a fellow in a corner, all alone, with the flames about his ears, gnashing his teeth and blaspheming through fury and despair. I asked him what he was, and he told me he was Mahomet. “Why, then,” said I, “thou art the damnedest reprobate in hell, and hast brought more wretches hither than half the world beside: and Lucifer has done well to allot thee a quarter here by thyself, for certainly thou hast well deserved the first place in his dominions. But since every man chooses to talk of what he loves, I prithee, good impostor, tell me, what’s the reason that thou hast forbidden wine to all thy disciples?” “Oh,” says he, “I have made them so drunk with my Alchoran they need no tipple.” “But why hast thou forbidden them swines’ flesh too?” said I. “Because,” says he, “I would not affront the jambon; for water upon gammon would be false heraldry. And beside I never loved my people well enough to afford them the pleasure, either of the grape or the spare-rib. Nay, and for fear they should chance to grope out the way to heaven, I have established my power and my dominion by force of arms; without subjecting my laws to idle disputes and discourses of reason. Indeed there is little of reason in my precepts, p. 220and I would have as little in their obedience. A world of disciples I have, but I think they follow me more out of appetite than religion, or for the miracles I work. I allow them liberty of conscience; they have as many women as they please, and do what they list, provided they meddle not with the Government. But look about ye now, and you’ll find that there are more knaves than Mahomet.”
I did so, and found myself presently surrounded with a ring of heretics, and their adherents; many of which were ready to tear out the throats of their leaders. One among the rest was beset with a brace of devils, and either of them a pair of bellows, puffing into each ear fire instead of air, which made him a little hot-headed. There was another, that, as I was told, was a kind of a symoniac, and had taken up his seat in a pestilential chair; but it was so dark I could not well discern whether it was a Pope or a Presbyter.
By this time I had enough of hell, and began to wish myself out again; but as I was looking about for a retreat, I stumbled upon a long gallery before I was aware: and there I saw Lucifer himself, with all his nobility about him, male and female. (For let married men say their pleasure, p. 221there are she-devils too,) I should have been at a damned loss what to do, or how to behave myself among so many strange faces, if one of the ushers had not come to me, and told me, that, being a stranger, it was His Majesty’s pleasure I should enter and have free liberty of seeing what was there to be seen. We exchanged a couple or two of compliments, and then I began to look about me, but never did I see a palace so furnished, nor indeed comparable to it.
Our furniture at the best is but a choice collection of dead and dumb statues, or paintings, without life, sense, or motion; but there, all the pieces were animated, and no trash in the whole inventory; there was hardly anything to be seen, but emperors and princes, with some few (perhaps) of their choicest nobility and privados. The first bank was taken up by the Ottoman family; and after them sat the Roman emperors, in their order; and the Roman kings down to Tarquin the proud; beside highnesses and graces, lords spiritual and temporal innumerable. My lungs began now to call for a little fresh air, and I desired my guide to show me the way out again. “Yes, yes, with all my heart,” says he, “follow me then:” and so he p. 222carried me away by a back passage into Lucifer’s house of office, where there was I know not how many ton of Sir Reverence, and bales of flattering panegyrics, not to be numbered; all of them licensed, and entered according to order. I could not but smile at this provision of tail-timber, and my guide took notice of it, who was a good kind of a damned droll. But I called still to be gone, and at length he led me to a little hole like the vent of a vault, and I crept through it as nimbly as if the devil himself had given me a lift at the crupper; when, to my great wonder, I found myself in the park again, where I begun my story: not without an odd medley of passions, partly reflecting upon what others endured, and in part upon my own condition of ease and happiness, that had deserved, perhaps, the contrary as well as they. This thought put me upon a resolution of leading such a course of life, for the future, that I might not come to feel these torments in reality which I had now only seen in vision.
And I must here entreat the reader to follow my example, without making any further experiment; and likewise not to cast an ill construction upon a fair meaning. My design is to discredit and discountenance the works of darkness, p. 223without scandalising of persons; and since I speak only of damned, I’m sure no honest man alive will reckon this discourse a satire.
THE END OF THE SIXTH VISION
There happened lately so terrible an uproar, and disorder in hell, that (though it be a place of perpetual outrage and confusion) the oldest devil there never knew the fellow of it; and the inhabitants expected nothing less than an absolute topsy-turvy and dissolution of their empire. The devils fell upon the damned; and the damned fell upon the devils, without knowing one from t’other: and all running helter-skelter, to and again, like mad; for, in fine, it was no other than a general revolt. This hurly-burly lasted a good while, before any mortal could imagine the meaning of it; but at length there came certain intelligence of a monstrous talker, a pragmatical, meddling undertaker, and an old bawd of a gouvernante, that had knocked off their shackles, and made all this havoc: which may give the reader to understand what kind of p. 225cattle these are, that could make hell itself more dangerous and unquiet.
Lucifer, in the meantime, went yelping up and down, and bawling for chains, handcuffs, bolts, manacles, shackles, fetters, to tie up his prisoners again; when, in the middle of his career, he and the babbler or talker I told ye of met full-butt; and after a little staring one another in the face, upon the encounter, the babbler opened. “Prince mine,” says he, “you have a pack of lazy, droning devils in your dominions, that look after nothing but sit with their arms and legs across, and leave all your affairs at six and seven. And you have divers abroad too, upon commission, that have stayed out their time, and yet give you no account of their employment.” The gouvernante, who had been blowing the coal and whispering sedition from one to another, chanced to pass by in the interim, and, stopping short, addressed herself to Lucifer: “Look to yourself,” she cried, “there is a desperate plot upon your diabolical crown and dignity. There are two tyrants in’t, three parasites, a world of physicians, and whole legions of lawyers and attorneys. One word more in your ear. There is among them a p. 226mongrel priest (a kind of a lay-elder) that will go near to sit upon your skirts, if you have not a care of him.”
At the very name of priest and lay-elder Lucifer looked as pale as death, stood stone-still, as mute as a fish, and in his very looks discovered his apprehensions. After a little pause he roused himself as out of a trance: “A priest do ye say? a lay-elder? tyrants? lawyers? physicians? A composition to poison all the devils in hell, and purge their very guts out.” With that, away he went to visit the avenues and set his guards, and who should he met next but the meddler, in a monstrous haste and hurry. “Nay then,” says he, “here is the forerunner of ill-luck. But what’s the matter?” “The matter?” cried the meddler; and then with a huge deal of tedious and impertinent circumstance, he up and told him that a great many of the damned had contrived an escape; and that there was a design to call in four or five regiments of hypocrites and usurers, under colour forsooth of establishing a better intelligence betwixt earth and hell, with a hundred other fopperies; and had gone on till this time, if Lucifer would have found ears. But he had other fish to fry; for neck p. 227and all was now at stake; and so he went about his business of putting all in a posture, and strengthening his guards. And for the further security of his royal person, he entertained into his own immediate regiment several reformadoes of the society, that he particularly knew to be no flinchers.
He began his survey in the vault and dungeons, among his jailers and prisoners. The make-bate babbler marched in the van, breathing an air that kindled and inflamed wherever he passed, without giving any light (setting people together by the ears, they know not why). In the second place the gouvernante, as full of news and tittle-tattle as she could hold, and telling her tale all the way she went. In the breech of her followed the meddler, leering as he passed along, first on one side then on the other, without ever moving his head, and making fair with every soul he saw in’s way. He gave one a bow, t’other a kiss; “Your most humble servant,” to a third; “Can I serve you, sir,” to a fourth: but every compliment was worse to the poor creatures than the fire itself. “Ah, traitor!” says one; “for pity’s sake away with this new tormentor!” cries another. “This fellow p. 228is hell upon hell,” says a third. As he trudged on there was a rabble of rascals got together; and in the middle of the crowd a most eminent knight of the post, a (great master of his trade) that was reading a lecture to that venerable assembly, of the noble mystery of swearing and lying; and would have taught any man in one quarter of an hour to prove anything upon oath, that he never saw nor heard of in his life. This doctor had no sooner cast his eye upon the inter-meddler, but up he started in a fright. “How now,” says he, “is that devil here? I came hither on purpose to avoid him; and if I could but have dreamt he’d have been in hell, beyond all dispute I’d have gone myself to paradise.”
As he was speaking we heard a great and a confused noise of arms, blows, and outcries; and presently we discovered several persons falling one upon another like lightning; and in short with such a fury, that ’tis not for any tongue or pen to describe the battle. One of them appeared to be an emperor; for he was crowned with laurel, and surrounded with a grave sort of people, that looked like counsellors or senators; and had all the old statutes and records at their finger’s end: by which p. 229they endeavoured to make it out, that a king might be killed in his personal capacity, and his politic capacity never the worse for’t. And upon this point were they at daggers drawn with the emperor. Lucifer came then roundly up to him, and with a voice that made hell quake, “What are you, sir,” says he, “that take upon you thus in my dominions?” “I am the great Julius Cæsar,” quoth he, “that in this general tumult thought to have revenged myself upon Brutus and Cassius, for murdering me in the Senate, under colour (forsooth) of asserting the common liberty: whereas these traitors did it merely out of envy, avarice, and ambition. It was the emperor, not the empire they hated. They pretended to destroy me, for introducing a monarchy; but did they overthrow the monarchy itself? No; but on the contrary, they confirmed it; and did more mischief, in taking away my life than I did in dissolving their republic. However, I died an emperor, and these villains carried only the infamy and brand of regicides to their graves, and the world has ever since adored my memory and abhorred theirs. Tell me,” quoth he, “ye cursed bloodhounds,” (turning p. 230toward them) “whether was your government better, think ye, in the hands of your senators, a company of talking gown-men, that knew not how to keep it, or in the hands of a soldier that won it by his merit? It is not the drawing of a charge, or making of a fine oration, that fits people for government; nor will a crown sit well upon the head of a pedant; but let him wear it that deserves it. He is the true patriot that advances the glory of his country, by actions of bravery and honour. Which has more right to rule, think ye, he that only knows the laws, or he that maintains them? The one only studies the government; the other protects it. Wretched republic! Thou call’st it freedom to obey a divided multitude, and slavery to serve a single person; and when a company of covetous little fellows are got together, they must be styled fathers of their country, forsooth; and shall one generous person take up with the name of tyrant? Oh! how much better had it been for Rome to have preserved that one son that made her mistress of the world, than that multitude of fathers, who by so many intestine wars rendered her but a stepmother to her own children. Barbarous and cruel that you p. 231are! so much as to mention the name of a commonwealth, considering that since the people tasted of monarchy they have preferred even the worst of princes (as Nero, Tiberius, Caligula, Heliogabalus, etc.) before your tribe of senators.”
This discourse of Cæsar’s struck Brutus with exceeding shame and confusion; but at length, with a feeble and trembling voice, he delivered himself to this effect. “Gentlemen of the Senate,” says he, “do ye not hear Cæsar? or will ye add sin to sin, and suffer all the blame to be cast upon the instruments, when you yourselves were the contrivers of the villainy? Why do ye not answer? for Cæsar speaks to you, as well as to us. Cassius and myself were but your bravoes, and governed by your persuasions and advice, little dreaming of that insatiable ambition that lay lurking under the gravity of your long beards and robes. But ’tis the practice of you all, to arraign that tyranny in the prince, which you would exercise yourselves: in effect, when you have gotten power, and the colour of authority in your hands, it is more dangerous for a prince not to comply with you than for a vassal to rebel against his prince. To what end served your perfidious and ungrateful p. 232treason? Make answer to Cæsar. But for our parts, in the conscience of our sin, we feel the severity of our punishment.”
At these words a hollow-eyed, supercilious senator (that had been of the conspiracy, and was then blazing like a pitched barrel) raised himself, and with a faint voice asked Cæsar what reason he had to complain! “For, prince,” says he, “if King Ptolomy murdered Pompey the Great, upon whose score he held his kingdom, why might not the Senate as well kill you, to recover what you had taken from them? And in the case betwixt Cæsar and Pompey, let the devils themselves be judges. As for Achilles (who was one of the murderers) what he did, was by Ptolomy’s command, and then he was but a free-booter neither, a fellow that got his living by rapine and spoil: but Cæsar was undoubtedly the more infamous of the two. ’Tis true, you wept at the sight of Pompey’s head, but such tears as were more treacherous than the steel that killed him. Ah cruel compassion and revengeful piety! that made thee a more barbarous enemy to Pompey, dead than living. Oh that ever two hypocrite eyes should creep into the first head of the world! To conclude, the death of Cæsar p. 233had been the recovery of our republic, if the multitude had not called in others of his race to the government, which rendered thy fall the very hydra of the empire.”
We had had another skirmish upon these words, if Lucifer had not commanded Cæsar to his cell again, upon pain of death; and there to abide such correction as belonged to him, for slighting the warnings he had of his disaster. Brutus and Cassius too were turned over to the politic fools: and the senators were dispatched away to Minos and Rhadamanthus, and to sit as assistants in the devils’ bench.
After this I heard a murmuring noise, as of people talking at a distance, and by degrees I made it out that they were wrangling and disputing still louder and louder, till at length it was but a word and a blow, and the nearer I came the greater was the clamour. This made me mend my pace; but before I could reach them, they were all together by the ears in a bloody fray: they were persons of great quality all of them, as emperors, magistrates, generals of armies. Lucifer, to take up the quarrel, commanded them peace and silence, and they all obeyed, but it vexed them to the hearts to be so p. 234taken off in the full career of their fury and revenge. The first that opened his mouth was a fellow so martyred with wounds and scars, that I took him at first for an indigent officer; but it proved to be Clitus (as he said himself). And one at his elbow told him, he was a saucy companion, for presuming to speak before his time; and so desired audience of Lucifer, for the high and mighty Alexander, the son of Jupiter, and the emperor and terror of the world: he was going on with his qualities and titles; but an officer gave the word, Silence, and bade Clitus begin; which he took very kindly, and told his story.
“If it may please your Majesty,” says he, “I was the first favourite of this emperor, who was then lord of all the known world, bare the title of the King of Kings, and boasted himself for the son of Jupiter Hammon; and yet after all this glory and conquest, he was himself a slave to his passions: he was rash and cruel, and consequently incapable either of counsel or friendship. While I lived I was near him, and served him faithfully; but it seems he did not entertain me so much for my fidelity as to augment the number of his flatterers; but I found p. 235myself too honest for a base office; and still as he ran into any foul excesses, I took a freedom, with all possible modesty, to show him his mistakes. One day, as he was talking slightly of his father Philip (that brave prince, from whom he received as well his honour as his being) I told him frankly what I thought of that ingratitude and vanity, and desired him to treat his dead father with more reverence, as a prince worthy of eternal honour and respect. This commendation of Philip so inflamed him, that presently he took a partisan and struck me dead in the place with his own hand. After this, pray’e where was his divinity, when he gave Abdolominus, (a poor garden-weeder) the kingdom of Sidonia, which was not, as the world would have it, out of any consideration of his virtue, but to mortify and take down the pride and insolence of the Persians. Meeting him here just now in hell, I asked him what was become of his father Jupiter now, that he lay so long by’t, and whether he were not yet convinced that all his flatterers were a company of rascals, who with their incense and altars would persuade him that he was of divine extraction and heir-apparent to the throne and thunder of Jupiter. p. 236This now was the ground of our quarrel. But, invectives apart, who but a tyrant would have put a loyal subject to death, only for his affection and regards to the memory of his dead father? how barbarously did he treat his favourites, Parmenio, Philotas, Calisthenes, Amintas, etc., so that good or bad is all a case, for ’tis crime enough to be the favourite of a tyrant; as, in the course of human life, every man dies because he is mortal, and the disease is rather the pretext of his death than the cause of it.” “You find now,” says Satan, “that tyrants will show their people many a dog trick, when the humour takes them. The good they hate, for not being wicked; and the bad, because they are no worse. How many favourites have you ever seen come to a fair and timely end? Remember the emblem of the sponge, and that’s the use that princes make of their favourites: they let them suck and fill, and then squeeze them for their own profit.”
At that word there was heard a lamentable cry, and at the same time a venerable old man, as pale as if he had no blood in his veins, came up to Lucifer, and told him that his emblem of the sponge came very pat to his case; “for,” says he, “I p. 237was a great favourite, and a great hoarder of treasure, a Spaniard by birth, the tutor and confidant of Nero, and my name is Seneca. Indeed his bounties were to excess, he gave me without asking, and in taking I was never covetous but obedient. It is in the nature of princes, and it befits their quality, to be liberal where they take a liking, both of honour and fortunes; and ’tis hard for a subject to refuse, without some reflection upon the generosity or discretion of his master. For ’tis not the merit or modesty of the vassal, but the glory of the prince that is in question; and he is the best subject that contributes the most to the splendour and reputation of his sovereign. Nero indeed gave me as much as such a prince could bestow, and I managed his liberalities with all the moderation imaginable; yet all too little to preserve me from the strokes of envious and malicious tongues, which would have it, that my philosophising upon the contempt of the world was nothing else but a mere imposture, that with less danger and notice I might feed and entertain my avarice, and with the fewer competitors. Finding my credit with my master declining, it stood me upon to provide some way or other for my p. 238quiet, and to withdraw myself from being the mark of a public envy. So I went directly to Nero, and with all possible respect and humility made him a present back again of his own bounties. The truth is, I had so great a passion for his service, that neither the severity of his nature nor the debauchery of his manners could ever deter me from exhorting him to nobler courses, and paying him all the duties of a loyal subject. Especially in cases of cruelty and blood, I laid it perpetually home to his conscience, but all to little purpose; for he put his mother to death, laid the city of Rome in ashes, and indeed depopulated the empire of honest men. And this drew on Piso’s conspiracy, which was better laid than executed; for upon the discovery, the prime instruments lost their lives; and by Divine Providence this prince was preserved, in order (as one would have thought) to his repentance and change of life. But upon the issue the conspiracy was prevented, and Nero never the better. At the same time he put Lucan to death, only for being a better poet than himself. And if he gave me my choice what death to die, it was rather cruelty than pity; for in the very deliberation which death to choose, I suffered all p. 239even in the terror and apprehension that made me refuse the rest. The election I made was to bleed to death in a bath, and I finished my own dispatches hither; where, to my further affliction, I have again encountered this infamous prince, studying new cruelties and instructing the very devils themselves in the art of tormenting.”
At that word Nero advanced, with his ill-favoured face and shrill voice. “It is very well,” says he, “for a prince’s favourite or tutor to be wiser than his master; but let him manage that advantage then with respect, and not like a rash and insolent fool make proclamation presently to the world, that he’s the wiser of the two. While Seneca kept himself within those bounds, I lodged him in my bosom, and the love I had for that man was the glory of my government; but when he came to publish once (what he should have dissembled or concealed) that it was not Nero but Seneca that ruled the empire, nothing less than his blood could make satisfaction for so intolerable a scandal, and from that hour I resolved his ruin. And I had rather suffer what I do a hundred times over than entertain a favourite that should raise his credit upon my dishonour. Whether I have reason on my side or no, I p. 240appeal to all this princely assembly: draw near, I beseech ye, as many as are here, and speak freely, my royal brethren, Did ye ever suffer any favourite to escape unpunished, that had the impudence to write [I and my king] to make a stale of majesty, and to publish himself a better statesman than his master?” “No, no,” they cried out all with one voice, “it never was, and never shall be endured, while the world lasts: for we have left our successors under an oath to have a care on’t. ’Tis true, a wise counsellor at a prince’s elbow is a treasure, and ought to be so esteemed while he makes it his business to cry up the abilities and justice of his sovereign; but in the instant that his vanity transports him to the contrary, away with him to the dogs, and down with him, for there’s no enduring of it.”
“All this,” cried Sejanus, “does not yet concern me; for though I had indeed more brains than Tiberius, yet I so ordered it that he had the credit in public of all my private advices. And so sensible he was of my services, that he made me his partner and companion in the empire; he caused my statues to be erected, and invested them with sacred privileges. ‘Let Sejanus live,’ was the daily cry of the p. 241people; and in truth, my well-being was the joy of the empire; and far and near there were public prayers and vows offered up for my health. But what was the end of all? When I thought myself surest in my master’s arms and favour, he let me fall, nay he threw me down, caused me to be cut in pieces, delivering me up to the fury of a barbarous and enraged multitude, that dragged me along the streets, and happy was he that could get a piece of my flesh to carry upon a javelin’s point in triumph. And it had been well if this inhuman cruelty had stopped here; but it extended to my poor children, who, though unconcerned in my crimes, were yet to partake in my fate. A daughter I had, whom the very law exempted from the stroke of justice, because of her virginity; but to clear that scruple, she was condemned first to be ravished by the hangman, and then to be beheaded, and treated as her father. My first failing was upon temerity and pride: I would outrun my destiny, defy fortune; and for Divine Providence I looked upon it as a ridiculous thing. When I was once out of the way, I thought doing worse was somewhat in order to being better; and then I began to fortify myself by violence, against craft and malice. p. 242Some were put to death, others banished, till, in fine, all the powers of heaven and earth declared themselves against me. I had recourse to all sorts of ill people and means. I had my physician for poisoning, my assassins for revenge; I had my false witnesses and corrupt judges; and, in truth, what instruments of wickedness had I not? And all this, not upon choice or inclination, but purely out of the necessity of my condition. Whenever I should come to fall, I was sure to be forsaken both of good and bad; and therefore I shunned the better sort, as those that would only serve to accuse me; but the lewd and vicious I frequented, to increase the number of my complices, and make my party the stronger. But, after all, if Tiberius was a tyrant, I’ll swear he was never so by my advice; but, on the contrary, I have suffered more from him for plain dealing and dissuading him, than the very subjects of his severity have commonly suffered by him. I know, ’tis charged upon me, that I stirred him up to cruelty, to render him odious, and to ingratiate myself to the people. But who was his adviser, I pray ’e, in this butcherly proceeding against me? Oh Lucifer, Lucifer! you know very well that ’tis the practice of tyrants, when they do amiss p. 243themselves, and set their people a-grumbling, to lay all the blame (and punishment too) upon the instrument; and hang up the minister for the master’s fault. ‘This is the end of all favourites,’ cries one; ‘Not a halfpenny matter if they were all served so,’ says another. And every historian has his saying upon this catastrophe, and sets up a buoy to warn after-ages of the rock of court favours. The greatness of a favourite, I must confess, proclaims the greatness of his maker; and the prince that maintains what he has once raised does but justify the prudence of his own choice; and whenever he comes to undo what he has done, publishes himself to be light and unconstant, and does as good as declare himself (even against himself) of the enemy’s party.”
Up stepped Plaintain then, (Severus his favourite) he that was tossed out of a garret window to make the people sport. “My condition in the world,” says he, “was perfectly like that of a rocket or fire-work: I was carried up to a prodigious height in a moment, and all people’s eyes were upon me, as a star of the first magnitude; but my glory was very short-lived, and down I fell into obscurity and ashes.” After him, appeared a number of other p. 244favourites; and all of them hearkening to Bellisarius the favourite of Justinian, who, blind as he was, had already knocked twice with his staff, and shaking his head, with a weak and complaining voice, desired audience; which was at length granted him, silence commanded; and he said, as follows.
“Princes,” said he, “before they destroy the creatures they have raised and chosen, should do well to consider, that cruelty and inconstancy is much a greater infamy to a prince than the worst effects of it can be to a favourite. For my own part, I served an emperor that was both a Christian and a great lover and promoter of justice. And yet, after all the services I had done him, in several battles and adventures, (insomuch that he was effectually become my debtor, for the very glory of his empire) my reward, in the end, was to have my eyes put out, and (with a dog and a bell) to be turned a-begging from door to door. Thus was that Bellisarius treated, whose very name formerly was worth an army, and he was the soul of his friends as well as the terror of his enemies. But a prince’s favour is like quick-silver—restless and slippery, never to be fixed, never secured. Force it, and it spends itself in fumes; sublime p. 245it, and ’tis a mortal poison. Handle it only, and it works itself into the very bones; and all that have to do with it, live and die pale and trembling.”
At these words, the whole band of favourites, set up a hideous and a heavy groan, trembling like aspen leaves, and at the same time reciting several passages out of the Prophet Habbakuk, against careless and wicked governors. By which threatenings is given to understand, that the Almighty, when He has a mind to destroy a wicked ruler, does not always punish one potentate by another, and bring His ends about by a trial of arms, or the event of a battle; but many times makes use of things the most abject and vile, to confound the vanity and arrogance of the mighty; and makes even worms, flies, caterpillars, and lice to serve Him as the ministers of His terrible justice; nay, the stone in the wall and the beam in the house shall rise in judgment against them.
This discourse might have gone further, but that the company presently parted, to know the meaning of a sudden noise and clatter they heard, that half-deafened the auditory. And what was it at last? but a scuffle between the Gown-men and the Brothers of the Blade; and there were p. 246persons of great honour and learning, young and old, engaged in the fray; the men of war were at it dashing with their swords, and the gentlemen of the long robe, fencing, some with tostatus, others with huge pandects, that with their old wainscot covers were as good as bucklers, and would now and then give the foe a heavy rebuke, over and above. The combat had certainly been very bloody, if one of Lucifer’s constables had not commanded them in the king’s name to keep the peace; which made it a drawn battle. And with that, one of the combatants, with the best face he had, said aloud, “If ye knew, gentlemen, either us, or our quarrel, you’d say we had reason, and perhaps side with us.” At that instant, there appeared Domitian, Commodus, Caracalla, Phalaris, Heliogabalus, Alcetes, Andronicus, Busiris, and old Oliver, with a world of great personages more; which, when Lucifer saw, he disposed himself to treat that majestical appearance, as much to their satisfaction as was possible. And then came up a grave ancient man, with a great train at his heels, that were all bloody, and full of the marks they had received under the persecution of these tyrants.
“You have here before ye,” quoth the p. 247old man, “Solon; and these are the seven sages, native of Greece, but renowned throughout the universe. He there in the mortar is that Anaxarchus that was pounded to death by command of Nicocreon. He with the flat nose is Socrates; the little crump-shouldered wretch was the famous Aristotle; and t’other there, the divine Plato. Those in the corner are all of the same profession too, grave and learned philosophers, that have displeased tyrants with their writings; and, in fine, the world is stored with their works and hell with the authors. To come to the point, most mighty Lucifer, we are all of us dealers in politics, great writers and deep-read men in the maxims of State and Government. We have digested policy into a method, and laid down certain rules, by which princes may make themselves great and beloved. We have advised them impartially to administer justice; to reward virtue, as well military as civil; to employ able men, banish flatterers; to put men of wisdom and integrity in places of trust; to reward or punish without passion, and according to the merits of the cause, as God’s vice-gerents. And this now is our offence. We name no body, we design no body; but ’tis crime enough to wish p. 248well to the way and to the lovers of virtue.” With that, turning toward the tyrants. “Oh most unjust princes,” said he, “those glorious kings and emperors from whom we took the model of our laws and instructions are now in a state of rest and comfort, while you are tormented. Numa is now a star in the firmament and Tarquin a fire-brand in hell. And the memory of Augustus and Trajan is still fresh and fragrant, when the names of Nero and Sardanapalus are more putrid and odious than their bodies.”
When Dionysius the tyrant heard this, (with his companions about him) flesh and blood could hold no longer; and he cried out in a rage, “That roguy philosopher has told a thousand lies. Legislators, with a pox? Yes, yes, they are sweet legislators, and princes have many a fair obligation to them. No, no, sirrah,” says he to Solon, “you are all of you a company of quacks; ye prate and speculate of things ye don’t understand; and with your damned moralities set the people agog upon liberty, cry up the doctrine of free-born subjects, and then our portion is persecution in one world and infamy in t’other.”
“We shall have a fine time on’t, my most gracious prince,” cried Julian the p. 249apostate, staring Lucifer in the face, “when these dunghill pedants, a company of cock-brained, ridiculous, mortified, ill-bred, beggarly tatterdemalions, shall come to erect a committee for politics, and pass sentence upon governors and governments; stiling themselves (forsooth) the supporters of both, without any more skill than my horse in what belongs to either. Tell me,” says he, “if a brave prince had not better be damned than subject himself to hear one of these turdy-facy-paty-nasty lowsie-fartical rascals, with a scabbed head and a plantation of lice in his beard, and his eyes crept into the nape of his neck, pronouncing, for an aphorism, that a prince that looks only to one is a tyrant, and that a true king is the shepherd and servant of his people. Ah, rash and besotted coxcombs! If a king looks only to others, who shall look to him? As if princes had not enemies enough abroad, without being so to themselves too. But you may write your hearts out, and never the nearer. Where’s our sovereignty? if we have not our subjects’ lives and estates at our mercy. And where’s our absolute power? if we submit to the counsels of our vassals. If we have not to satisfy our appetites, avarice and revenge, we want power to discharge p. 250the noblest ends of government. These contemplative idiots would have us make choice of good officers, to keep the bad in order; which were a madness, in our condition. Let them be complaisant, and no matter for any other merit or virtue. A parcel of good offices, handsomely disposed among a pack of cheats and atheists, will make us a party another day; whereas all is lost that’s bestowed upon honest men, for they’re our enemies; speak truth then all of ye, and shame the devil; for the butcher fats his sheep only for the shambles.
“I have said enough, I suppose, to stop your mouths, but here’s an orator will read you another-gates lecture of politics than any you have had yet, if you’ll give him the hearing. Photinus, advance,” said Julian, “and speak your mind;” whereupon there appeared a brazen-faced fellow, with a hanging look and twenty other marks of a desperate villain who, with a hellish yell, and three or four wry mouths for a prologue, brake into his discourse.
The wicked advice of one of Ptolomy’s courtiers, about the killing of Pompey: taken out of Lucan’s Pharsalia, Lib. 8.
“Methinks, under favour (most renowned p. 251Ptolomy) we are now slipped into a debate, a little beside the business. The question is whether Pompey should be delivered up to Cæsar, or no. That is to say, whether in reason of state it ought to be done; and we are formalising the matter, whether in point of equity and justice it may be done. Bodies politic have no souls, and never did any great prince turn a council of state into a court of conscience, but he repented it. Kingdoms are to be governed by politicians, not by casuists; and there is nothing more contrary to the true interest of crowns and empires, than in public cases to make a scruple of private duties. The argument is this: Pompey is in distress; and Ptolomy under an obligation, so that it were a violation of faith and hospitality not to relieve him. Now give me leave to reason in the other way. Pompey is forsaken, and persecuted by the Gods; Cæsar upon the heels of him, with victory and success. Shall Ptolomy now ruin himself, to protect a fugitive, against both heaven and Cæsar! I must confess, where honesty and profit are both of a side, ’tis well; but, where they disagree, the prince that does not quit his religion, for his convenience, falls into a direct conspiracy against himself. p. 252He shall lose the hearts of his soldiery, and the reputation of his power. Whereas, on the contrary, the most hateful tyrant in the world shall be able to keep his head above water, let him but give a general licence to commit all sorts of wickedness; you’ll say ’tis impious, but I say, what if it be? who shall call you to account? These deliberations are only for subjects that are under command, and not for sovereign princes whose will is a law.”
Exeat Aulâ
Qui volet esse pius,He was never cut out
For a Court, that’s devout.
“In fine, since either Pompey or Ptolomy must suffer, I am absolutely for the saving of Ptolomy, and the presenting of Pompey’s head, without any more ado, to Cæsar. A dead dog will never bite.”
Photinus had no sooner made an end, but Domitian appeared in a monstrous rage, and lugging of poor Suetonius after him like a bear to the stake. “There is not in nature,” says he, “so damned a generation of scribbling rogues as these historians. We can neither be quiet for them, living nor dead: for they haunt p. 253us in our very graves; and when they have vented the humour and caprice of their own brains, that forsooth must be called, The Life of such an Emperor. And, for an instance, I’ll show ye what this impertinent chronicler says of myself. ‘He had squandered away his treasure,’ says he, ‘in expensive buildings, comedies, and donatives to the soldiers.’
“Now would I fain know which way it could have been better employed.
“In another place, he says, that ‘Domitian had some thoughts of easing himself in his military charges, by reducing the number; but that he durst not do, for fear some of his neighbours should put an affront upon him. So that, to lick himself whole, he fell to raking and scraping whatever he could get, either from dead or living; and any rascal’s testimony was proof enough for a confiscation: for there needed no more to undo an honest man, than to tell a tale at court that such a one had spoken ill of the prince.’
“Is this the way of treating majesty? what could this impudent pedant have said worse, if he had been speaking of a pick-pocket or a pirate? But princes and thieves are all one to them.
“He says further, that ‘Domitian made p. 254seizure of several estates, without any sort of right whatsoever; and there went no more to his title than for a false witness to depose that he heard the defunct declare, before he died, that he made Cæsar his heir. He set such a tax upon the Jews, that many of them denied their religion to avoid it; and I remember that, when I was a young fellow, I saw an old man of fourscore and ten taken upon suspicion by one of Domitian’s spies, and turned up in a public assembly, to see if he were circumcised.’
“Be ye now judges, gentlemen of the Black Guard, if this be not a most intolerable indignity. Am I to answer for the actions of my inferior officers? It amazes me that my successors should ever endure these scandalous reports to be published, especially against a prince that had laid out so much money in repairing the libraries that were burnt.”
“It is very true,” said Suetonius in a doleful tone, “and I have not forgotten to make mention of it to your honour. But what will you say, if I show you, in a warrant under your hand, this execrable and impious blasphemy? It is the command of your Lord and God. And in fine, if I speak nothing but truth, where’s your cause of complaint? I have written p. 255the Lives too of the great Julius Cæsar, and the divine Augustus, and the world will not say but I have done them right. But for yourself, and such as you, that are effectually but so many incarnate and crowned plagues, what fault have I committed in setting before your eyes those tyrannies, which heaven and earth cannot but look upon with dread and horror?”
This discourse of Suetonius was interrupted by the babbler, or Boutefeu, that rounded Lucifer in the ear, and told him, “Look ye, sir,” says he, pointing with his finger, “that limping devil there, that looks as if he were surbated with beating the hoof, has been abroad in the world, this twenty year, and is but just now come back again.” “Come hither, sirrah,” cries Lucifer; and so the poor cur went wriggling and glotting up toward his prince. “You are a fine rogue to be sent of an errand, are ye not?” says Lucifer, “to stay twenty year out, and come back again e’en as wise as ye went: what souls have ye brought now? or what news from t’other world?” “Ha! your highness,” quoth the devil, “has too much honour and justice to condemn me unheard. Wherefore be pleased to remember, that at my going out you gave me charge of a certain merchant; p. 256it cost me the first ten year of my time to make him a thief, and ten more to keep him from turning honest again, and restoring what he had stolen.” “A fine fetch for a devil this, is it not?” cried Lucifer. “But hell is no more the hell it was when I knew it first, than chalk is cheese; and the devils nowadays are so damnedly insipid and dry, they’re hardly worth the roasting. A senseless puppy to come back to me with a story of Waltham’s calf, that went nine mile to suck a bull. But he’s not master of his trade yet.” And with that Lucifer bade one of his officers take him away and put him to school again; “for I perceive he’s a rascal,” says he, “and he has e’en been roguing at a play-house, when he should have been at church.” In that instant, from behind a little hill, a great many men came running as hard as they could drive after a company of women: the men crying out, “Stop, stop,” and the women crying for help. Lucifer commanded them all to be seized, and asked what was the matter. “Alas, alas!” cried one of the men, quite out of breath, “these carrions have made us fathers, though we never had children.” “Govern your tongue, sirrah,” cried a devil of honour, out of respect to the ladies, “and speak p. 257truth: for ’tis utterly impossible you should be fathers without children.” “Pardon me,” said the fellow, “we were married men, and honest men and good house-keepers, and have born offices in the parish, and have children that call us fathers; but ’tis a strange thing, we have been abroad some of us by the seven year together; others, as long bed-rid; and so impotent, that the civilians would have put us inter frigidos et maleficiatos: and yet our wives have brought us every year a child, which we were such fools as to keep and bring up, and give ourselves to the devil at last to get them estates; out of a charitable persuasion (forsooth) they might yet be our own, though for a twelve-month together (perhaps) we never so much as examined whether our wives were fish or flesh. But now since the mothers are dead, and the children grown up, we have found the tools that made them. One has the coachman’s nose, another the gentleman-usher’s legs, a third a cousin-german’s eyes. And some, we are to presume, conceived purely by strength of imagination, or else by the ears like weazels.”
Thereupon appeared a little remnant of a man, a dapper Spaniard, with a kind of a besome-beard, and a voice not unlike the p. 258yapping of a foysting cur. As he came near the company, he set up his throat, and called out, “Ah jade!” says he, “I shall now take ye to task, ye whore you, for making me father my negro’s bastard, and for the estate I settled upon him. I did ever misdoubt foul play, but should never have dreamt of that ugly toad, when there was such choice of handsome, lusty young fellows about us; but it may be she had them too. I cursed the monks many and many a time, I remember, to the pit of hell, heaven forgive me for’t; for the strumpet would be perpetually gadding abroad, under colour of going to confession, and in sooth I was never any great friend to penance and mortification. And then would I be easing my mind ever and anon to this cursed Moor. ‘I cannot imagine,’ said I, ‘where this mistress of thine should commit all the sins that she goes every hour of the day to confess at yonder monastery.’ And then would this dog-Moor answer me. ‘Alas, good lady! I would e’en venture my soul with hers with all my heart; she spends all her time you see in holy duties.’ I was at that time so innocent, that I suspected nothing more than a pure respect and civility to my wife; but I have learnt better since, and p. 259that effectually his soul and hers were commonly ventured in the same bottom; yes, and their bodies too, as I perceive by their magpie issue, for the bastards take after both father and mother.”
“So that at this rate,” cried the adopted fathers, “the husband of a whore has a pleasant time on’t. First, he’s subjected to all the pukings, longings, and peevish importunities, that a breeding woman gives those about her till she’s laid; and then comes the squalling of the child, and the twittle-twattle-gossipings of the nurse and midwife, that must be well treated too, well lodged, and well paid. ‘A sweet baby,’ says one (to the jade the mother on’t) ‘’tis e’en as like the father as if he had spit it out on’s mouth; it has the very lips, the very eyes of him,’ when ’tis no more like him than an apple is like an oyster. And, in conclusion, when we have borne all this, and twenty times more in t’other world with a Christian patience, we are hurried away to hell, and here we lie a company of damned cuckolds of us; and here we are like to lie, for ought I see, in sæcula sæculorum: which is very hard, and in truth out of all reason.”
I cut this visit short, to see what news in a deep vault near at hand, where we p. 260heard a great bustle and contest betwixt divers souls and the devils. There were the presumptuous, the revengeful, and the envious, gaping and crying out as they would break their hearts. “Oh, that I could but be born again!” says one; “Oh, that I might back into the world again!” says another; “Oh, that I were but to die once more!” cries a third. Insomuch that they put the devils out of all patience, with their impertinent and unprofitable wishes and exclamations. “Hang yourselves,” cried they, “for a pack of cozening, bawling rascals: you live again? and be born again? and what if you might do’t a thousand times over? You would only die at last a thousand times greater villains than now you are, and there would be no clearing hell of you with a dog-whip. However, to try you and make you know yourselves, we have commission to let you live again and return. Up then ye varlets, go, be born again; get ye into the world again. Away,” cried the devils, with a lusty lash at every word, and thrust hard to have got them out. But the poor rogues hung an arse, and were struck with such a terror, to hear of living again, and returning, that they slunk into a corner, and lay as quiet upon’t, as lambs.
p. 261At length, one of the company that seemed to have somewhat more brain and resolution than his fellows, entered very gravely upon the debate, whether they should go out or no. “If I should now,” says he, “at my second birth, come into the world a bastard, the shame would be mine, though my parents committed the fault; and I should carry the scandal and the infamy of it to my grave. Now put case, my mother should be honest, (for that’s not impossible) and that I came into the world, legitimate; how many follies, vices, and diseases are there that run in a blood! Who knows, but I should be mad, or simple? swear, lie, cheat, whore; nay if I came off, with a little mortification of my carcase, as the stone, the scurvy, or the noble pox, I were a happy man. But oh the lodging, the diet, and the cookery that I am to expect for a matter of nine months in my mother’s belly; and then the butter and beer that must be spent to sweeten me, when I change my quarter. I must come crying into the world, and live in ignorance even of what life is till I die; and then as ignorant of death too, till ’tis passed. I fancy my swaddling-clouts and blankets to be worse than my winding-sheet; my cradle represents my tomb. And then who p. 262knows, whether my nurse shall be found, or no? She’ll over-lay me perhaps; leave me some four and twenty hours, it may be, without clean clouts, and a pin or two all the while, perchance, up to the hilts in my backside. And then follows breeding of teeth, and worms; with all the gripes and disorders that are caused by unwholesome milk. These miseries are certain, and why should I run them over again?
“If it happen that I pass the state of infancy, without the pox or measles, I must be then packed away to school, to get the itch, a scaled head, or a pair of kibed heels. In winter, ’tis ten to one you find me with a snotty nose, and perpetually under the lash, if I either miss my lesson or go late to school. So that hang him, for my part, that would be born again, for any thing I see yet.
“When I come up toward man, the women will have me as sure as a gun, for they have a thousand ginnes and devices to catch wood-cocks; and if ever I come to set eye upon a lass that understands dress and raillery, I’m gone, if there were no more lads in Christendom. But, for my part, I am as sick as a dog, of powdering, curling, and playing the ladybird. I would not for all the world be in p. 263the shoemaker’s stocks, and choke myself over again in a straight doublet, only to have the ladies say, ‘Look, what a delicate shape and foot that gentleman has.’ And I would take as little pleasure to spend six hours, of the four and twenty, in picking grey hairs out of my head or beard, or turning white into black. To stand half ravished in the contemplation of my own shadow; to dress fine, and go to church only to see handsome ladies; to correct the midnight air with ardent sighs and ejaculations; and to keep company with owls and bats, like a bird of evil omen; to walk the round of a mistress’ lodging, and play at bo-peep at the corner of every street; to adore her imperfections, (or as the song says, — for her ugliness, and for her want of coin); to make bracelets of her locks, and truck a pearl necklace for a shoestring. At this rate, I say, cursed again and again be he, for my part, that would live over again so wretched a life.
“Being come now to write full man, if I have an estate how many cares, suits, and wrangles go along with it! If I have none, what murmuring and regret at my misfortunes! By this time, the sins of my youth are gotten into my bones; I grow sour and melancholy; nothing pleases p. 264me; I curse old age to ten thousand devils; and the youth which I can never recover in my veins, I endeavour to fetch out of the barbers’ shops, from perruques, razors, and patches, to conceal, or at least disguise all the marks and evidences of Nature in her decay. Nay, when I shall have never an eye to see with nor a tooth left in my head, gouty legs, wind-mills in my crown, my nose running like a tap, and gravel in my reins by the bushel, then must I make oath that all this is nothing but mere accident, gotten by lying in the field, or the like, and out-face the truth in the very teeth of so many undeniable witnesses. There is no plague comparable to this hypocrisy of the members. To have an old fop shake his heels, when he’s ready to fall to pieces; and cry, these legs would make a shift yet to play with the best legs in the company; and then, with a lusty thump on’s breast, fetch ye up a hem, and cry, ‘Sound at heart, boy,’ and a thousand other fooleries of the like nature. But all this is nothing to the misery of an old fellow in love, especially if he be put to gallant it against a company of young gamesters. Oh the inward shame and vexation, to see himself scarce so much as neglected. It happens sometimes that p. 265a jolly lady, for want of better entertainment, may content herself with one of these reverend fornicators, instead of a whetstone; but alack, alack! the poor man is weak though willing; and after a whole night spent in cold and frivolous pretences and excuses, away he goes with torments of rage and confusion about him, not to be expressed; and many a heavy curse is sent after him for keeping a poor lady from her natural rest to so little purpose. How often must I be put to the blush too, when every old toast shall be calling me old acquaintance, and telling me, ‘Oh sir, ’tis many a fair day since you and I knew one another first. I think ’twas in the four and thirtieth of the Queen, that we were school-fellows. How the world’s altered since!’ etc. And then must my head be turned to a memento mori; my flesh dissolved into rheums; my skin withered and wrinkled; with a staff in my hand, knocking the earth at every trembling step, as if I called upon my grave to receive me; walking, like a moving phantosme; my life little more than a dream; my reins and bladder turned into a perfect quarry; and the urinal or pisspot my whole study. My next heir watching, every minute, for the long-looked-for and happy hour of my p. 266departure; and in the meantime, I’m become the physician’s revenue, and the surgeon’s practice, with an apothecary’s shop in my guts; and every old jade calling me grandsire. No, no; I’ll no more living again, I thank ye: one hell rather than two mothers.
“Let us now consider the comforts of life, the humours and the manners. He that would be rich must play the thief or the cheat; he that would rise in the world must turn parasite, informer, or projecter. He that marries ventures fair for the horn, either before or after. There is no valour without swearing, quarrelling, or hectoring. If ye are poor, nobody owns ye. If rich, you’ll know nobody. If you die young, ‘What pity it was,’ they’ll say, ‘that he should be cut off thus in his prime.’ If old, ‘He was e’en past his best; there’s no great miss of him.’ If you are religious, and frequent the church and the sacrament, you’re an hypocrite; and without this, you’re an atheist or an heretic. If you are gay and pleasant, you pass presently for a buffoon; and if pensive and reserved, you are taken to be sour and censorious. Courtesy is called colloguing and currying of favour; downright honesty and plain-dealing is interpreted to be p. 267pride and ill manners. This is the world; and for all that’s in’t I would not have it to go over again. If any of ye, my masters,” said he to his camerades, “be of another opinion, hold up your hands.” “No, no,” they cried all unanimously, “no more generation-work, I beseech ye; better the devils than the midwives.”
After this came a testator, cursing and raving like a bedlam, that he had made his last will and testament. “Ah villein!” said he, “for a man to murder himself as I have done! If I had not sealed, I had not died. Of all things, next a physician, deliver me from a testament. It has killed more than the pestilence. Oh miserable mortals, let the living take warning by the dead, and make no testaments. It was my hard luck, first to put my life into the physician’s power, and then, by making my will, to sign the sentence of death upon myself, and my own execution. ‘Put your soul and your estate in order,’ says the doctor, ‘for there’s no hope of life;’ and the word was no sooner out, but I was so wise and devout (forsooth) as to fall immediately upon the prologue of my will, with an In nomine Domini, Amen, etc. And when I came to dispose of my goods and chattels p. 268I pronounced these bloody words (I would I had been tongue-tied when I did it), ‘I make and constitute my son, my sole executor. Item, to my dear wife, I give and bequeath all my plays and romances, and all the furniture in the rooms upon the second storey. To my very good friend T. B. my large tankard, for a remembrance. To my foot-boy Robin, five pound to bind him prentice. To Betty, that tended me in my sickness, my little caudle-cup. To Mr. Doctor, my fair table diamond, for his care of me in my illness.’ After signing, and sealing, the ink was scarce dry upon the paper, but methought the earth opened as if it had been hungry to devour me. My son and my legatees were presently casting it up, how many hours I might yet hold out. If I called for the cordial julep, or a little of Dr. Gilbert’s water, my son was taking possession of my estate, my wife so busy about the beds and hangings that she could not intend it. The boy and the wench could understand nothing but about their legacies. My very good friend’s mind was wholly upon his tankard. My kind Dr. I must confess took occasion, now and then, to handle my pulse, and see whether the diamond were of the p. 269right black water, or no. If I asked him what I might eat, his answer was, ‘Anything, anything, e’en what you please yourself.’ At every groan I fetched, they were calling for their legacies, which they could not have till I was dead.
“But if I were to begin the world again, I think I should make another kind of testament. I would say: ‘A curse upon him that shall have my estate when I am dead, and may the first bit of bread he eats out on’t choke him. The devil in hell take what I cannot carry away, and him too, that straggles for’t, if he can catch him. If I die, let my boy Robin have the strappado, three hours a day, to be duly paid him during life. Let my wife die of the pip, or the mother (not a halfpenny matter which), but let her first live long enough to plague the damned doctor, and indite him for poisoning her poor husband.’ To speak sincerely, I can never forgive that dog-leech. Was it not enough to make me sick when I was well, without making me dead when I was sick? And not to rest there neither, but to persecute me in my grave too. But, to say the truth, this is only neighbours’ fare; for all those fools that trust in them are served with the same sauce. A vomit or p. 270a purge is as good a passport into the other world as a man would wish. And then, when our heads are laid, ’tis never to be endured the scandals they cast upon our bodies and memories! ‘Heaven rest his soul,’ cries one, ‘he killed himself with a debauch.’ ‘How is’t possible,’ says another, ‘to cure a man that keeps no diet?’ ‘He was a madman,’ cries a third, ‘a mere sot, and would not be governed by his physician. His body was as rotten as a pear, he had as many diseases as a horse, and it was not in the power of man to save him. And truly ’twas well that his hour was come, for he had better a great deal die well than live on as he did.’ Thieves and murtherers that ye are, you yourselves are that hour ye talk of. The physician is only death in a disguise, and brings his patient’s hour along with him. Cruel people! Is it not enough to take away a man’s life, and like common hangmen to be paid for’t when ye have done, but you must blast the honour too of those you have dispatched, to excuse your ignorance? Let but the living follow my counsel, and write their testaments after this copy, they shall live long and happily, and not go out of the world at last like a rat with a p. 271straw in his arse (as a learned author has it) or be cut off in the flower of their days, by these counterfeit doctors of the faculty of the close-stool.”
The dead man plied his discourse with so much gravity and earnestness, that Lucifer began to believe what he said. But because all truths are not to be spoken, especially among the devils, where hardly any are admitted; and for fear of mischief, if the doctors should come to hear what had been said, Lucifer presently ordered the fellow to be gagged, or put in security for his good behaviour.
His mouth was no sooner stopped but another was opened; and one of the damned came running cross the company, and so up and down, back and forward (like a cur that had lost his master) bawling as if he had been out of his wits, and crying out, “Oh! where am I? Where am I? I am abused, I am choused; what’s the meaning of all this? Here are damning devils, tempting devils, and tormenting devils, but the devil a devil can I find of the devils that brought me hither; they have gotten away my devils; where are they? Give me my devils again.”
It might well make the company stare, p. 272to see a fellow hunting for devils in hell, where they swarm in legions. But as he was in this hurry, a gouvernante caught him by the arm, and gave him a half turn and stopped him. “Old lucky-bird,” says she, “if thou wantest devils here, where dost expect to find them?” He knew her as soon as he saw her. And “Art thou here old Beelzebub in a petticoat?” said he, “the very picture of Satan, the coupler of male and female, the buckle and thong of lechery, the multiplier of sin and the guide of sinners, the seasoner of rotten mutton, the interpretress betwixt whores and knaves, the preface to the remedy of love, and the prologue to the critical minute. Speak, and without more ado, tell me, where are the devils and their dams that brought me hither? These are none of them. No, no; I am not such an awfe as to be trepanned and spirited away by devils with tails, horns, bristles, wings, that smell as if they had been smoked in a chimney-corner. The devils that I look for are worse than these. Where are the mothers that play the bawds to their own daughters? and the aunts that do as much for their nieces, and make them caper and sparkle like wild-fire? The black-eyed girls that carry fire in their eyes, and p. 273strike as sure as a lance from the rest of a cavalier? Where are the flatterers that speak nothing but pleasing things? The make-bates and incendiaries, that are the very canker of human society? Where are the story-mongers? The masters of the faculty of lying? that report more than they hear, affirm more than they know, and swear more than they believe. Those slanderous backbiters, that like vultures prey only upon carrion? Where are the hypocrites that turn devotion into interest, and make a revenue of a commandment? That pretend ecstasy when they are drunk, and utter the fumes and dreams of their luxury and tipple for revelations? That make chapels of their parlours, preachments of their ordinary entertainments, and everything they do is a miracle. They can divine all that’s told them, and raise people to life again; that counterfeit sick, when they should work, and give an honest man to the devil with a Deo gratias. These are the devils I would be at; these are they that have damned me; look them out, and find them for me, ye impudent hag, or I shall be so bold as to search your French hood for them.” And with that word he fell on upon the poor gouvernante, tore off her head-gear, p. 274and laid about him so furiously that there would have been no getting him off, if Lucifer had not made use of his absolute authority to quiet him.
Immediately upon the composing of this fray we heard the shooting of bars and bolts, the opening of doors and hinges that creaked for want of grease, and a strange humming of a great number of people. The first that appeared were a company of bold, talkative, and painted old women; but as bonny and gamesome, tickling and toying with one another, as if they had never seen thirteen; and carrying it out with an air of much satisfaction and content. The babbler was somewhat scandalised at their behaviour, and told them how ill they did to be merry in hell; and several others admired it as much, and asked them the reason of it, considering their condition. With that one of the gang, that was wretchedly thin and pale, and raised upon a pair of heels that made her legs longer than her body, told Lucifer, with great respect, that at their first coming they were as sad as it was possible for a company of damned old jades to be. “But,” says she, “we were a little comforted when we heard of no other punishments here, than weeping and gnashing of p. 275teeth, and in some hope to come off upon reasonable terms; for we have not among us all so much as a drop of moisture in our bodies, nor a tooth in our heads.” “Search them presently,” cried the intermeddler, “squeeze the balls of their eyes, and let their gums be examined, you’ll find snags, stumps, or roots; or enough of somewhat or other there to spoil the jest.” Upon the scrutiny they were found so dry that they were good for nothing in the world but to serve for tinder or matches, and so they were disposed of into the devils’ tinder-boxes.
While they were casing up the old women there came on a number of people of several sorts and qualities, that called out to the first they saw, “Pray’e gentlemen,” said they, “before we go any further, will ye direct us to the court of rewards?” “How’s that,” cried one of the company, “I was afraid we had been in hell, but since you talk of rewards I hope ’tis but purgatory.” “Good, good,” said the whole multitude, “you’ll quickly find where you are.” “Purgatory!” cried the intermeddler, “you have left that up the hill there, upon the right hand. This is hell, and a place of punishment; here’s no registry of rewards.” “Then we are p. 276mistaken,” said he that spake first. “How so?” cried the intermeddler. “You shall hear,” said the other, “we were in the Other world entitled to the order of the squires of the pad, and borrowed now and then a small sum upon the King’s highway; we understood somewhat too of the cross-bite and the use of the frail dye. Some of our conscientious and charitable friends would fain have drawn us off from the course we were in, and, to give them their due, bestowed a great deal of good counsel upon us to very little purpose; for we were in a pretty way of thriving, and had gotten a habit and could not leave it. We asked them, ‘What would you have us do? Money we have none, and without it there’s no living; should we stay till it were brought, or came alone? How would ye have a poor individuum vagum to live? that has neither estate, office, master, nor friend to maintain him, and is quite out of his element unless he be either in a tavern, a bawdy-house, or a gaming ordinary. Now, that’s the man that Providence has appointed to live by his wits.’ Our advisers saw there was no good to be done, and went their way, telling us that in the other world we should meet with our reward.
p. 277“They would tell us some time, how base a thing it was to defame the house and abuse the bed of a friend. Our answer was ready, ‘Well! and had we not better do it there where the house is open to us, the master and lady kind, the occasion fair and easy, than to run a caterwauling into a family where every servant in the house is a spy, and (perhaps) a fellow behind every door in the house with a dagger or pistol in his hand to entertain us.’ Upon this, our grave counsellors finding us so resolute, e’en gave us over, and told us as before, that in the other world we should meet with our reward. Now taking this to be the other world these honest men told us of, we are inquiring after the rewards they promised us.”
“Abominable scoundrels!” said an officer of justice, there at hand, “how many of your reprobated companions have squandered away their fortunes upon whores and dice, exposing not only their wives and children but many a noble family to a shameful and irreparable ruin; and let any man put in a word of wholesome advice, their answer is, ‘Tush, tush; our wives and children are in the hands of Providence; and let Him provide for the p. 278rooks, that feeds the ravens.’ Then was it told ye, you should find your reward in the other world; and the time is now come wherein ye shall receive it; up, up then, ye cursed spirits, and away with them.” At which word a legion of devils fell on upon the miserable caitiffs, with whips and firebrands, and gave them their long-expected reward; and at every lash a voice was heard to say, “In the other world you shall receive your reward;” these wretches, in the meanwhile, damning and sinking themselves to the pit of hell, still, as if they had been upon earth, and vomiting their customary and execrable blasphemies.
Just as this storm blew over there drew near a multitude of bailiffs, sergeants, Catchpoles, and other officers of prey, with the thieves’ devil, bound hand and foot, and a foul accusation against him. Whereupon Lucifer, with a fell countenance, took his seat in a flaming chair, and called his officers about him. So soon as the prince had taken his place, a certain officer began his report. “Here is before thee,” quoth he, “a devil, most mighty Lucifer, that stands charged with ignorance in his trade; and the shame of his quality and profession, instead of damning men, he has made it his p. 279business to save them.” The word save put the court in such a rage, that they bit their lips till the blood started and the fire sparkled at their eyes; and Lucifer, turning about to his attorney, “Who would ever have imagined,” said he, “that so treacherous a rascal could have been harboured in my dominions?” “It is most certain, my gracious lord,” replied the attorney, “that this devil has been very diligent in drawing people into thefts and pilferies, and then, when they come to be discovered, they are clapped up and hanged, or some mischief or other. But still, before execution, the ordinary calls them to shrift; and many times the toy takes them in the head to confess and repent, and so they are saved. Now this silly devil thinks, that when he has brought them to steal, murder, coin, and the like, he has done his part, and so he leaves them; whereas he should stick close to them in the prison, and be tempting of them to despair and make away themselves. But when they are once left to the priest, he commonly brings them to a sight of their sins, and they ’scape. Now this simple devil was not aware, it seems, that many a soul goes to heaven from the gallows, the wheel, and the faggot: and this failing has lost your p. 280Highness many a fair purchase.” “Here’s enough,” cried the president, “and there needs no more charge against him.” The poor devil thought it was high time to speak now, when they were just upon the point of passing his sentence; and so he cried out, “My lord,” said he, “I beseech you hear me; for though they say the devil is dead, it is not meant of your greatness.” So there was a general silence, and thus he proceeded.
“I cannot deny, my lord, but Tyburn is the way to paradise, and many a man goes to heaven from the gallows. But if you will set those that are damned for condemning others, against those that are saved from the gallows, hell will be found no loser by me at the foot of the account. How many marshal’s-men, turn-keys, and keepers have I sent ye for letting a coiner give them the slip now and then, with his false money (always provided they leave better money instead on’t). How many false witnesses and knights of the post, that would set their consciences like clocks to go faster or slower, according as they had more or less weight, and swear ex tempore, at all rates and prices! How many solicitors, attorneys, and clerks, that would draw ye up a declaration or an indictment, so slyly, that p. 281I myself could hardly discover any error in’t; and yet, when it came to the test, it was as plain as the nose on a man’s face (that is to say again, provided they were well paid for the fashion). How many jailers that would wink at an escape for a lusty bribe! And how many attorneys that would give ye dispatch or delay thereafter, as they were greased! Now, after all this, what does it signify, if one thief of a thousand comes to the gallows? he only suffers because he was poor, that there may be the better trading for the rich, and without any design in the world to suppress stealing. Nay, it often falls out, that they that bring the malefactor to the gibbet are the worse criminals of the two. But they are never looked after; or, if they should be, they have tricks and fetches enough to bring themselves off; so that it fares in this case, as it did with him that had his house troubled with rats, and would needs take in a company of cats to destroy them: the rats would be nibbling at his cheese, his bacon, a crust of bread, and now and then a candle’s end; but when the cats came, down went a milk-bowl, away goes a brace of partridges or a couple of pigeons, and the poor man must content himself to go supperless to bed. In the conclusion, the rats were troublesome, p. 282but the cats were intolerable. And then there’s this in’t: Suppose one poor fellow hangs and goes to heaven: I do but give him in truck for two hundred, at least, that deserve to be hanged but ’scape and go to hell at last. Beside, a thief upon a gibbet is as good as a roasted dog in a pigeon house; for ye shall immediately have two or three thousand witches about him, for snips of his halter, an eye-tooth, or a collop of his fat, which is of sovereign use in many of their charms. But, in fine, let me do what I will my services are not understood. My successor, it may be, will discharge his duty better, and indeed I am very well content to lay down my commission; for (to say the truth) I am in years, and would gladly have a little rest now, in my old age, which I rather propose to myself in the service of some pretender than where I am.”
Lucifer heard him with great patience, and, in the end, gave him all the satisfaction imaginable; strictly charging the evil spirits that had abused him to do so no more, upon hazard of pains corporal and spiritual; and they desired him, too, that he would not lay down his employment, for he was strong enough yet to do very good service in it. But to think of easing himself, p. 283by going to a pretender, he’d find himself mistaken, for ’twas a duty he’d never be able to endure. “Well!” says he, “e’en what your Highness pleases. But truly I thought a devil might have lived very comfortably in that condition; for he has no more to do, that I can see, than to keep his ears open, and learn his trade. For put case it should be some pretender to a good office, or a fat bishopric (though the fathers and councils are against pretenders in this case) I fancy to myself all the pleasure and divertisement that may be. It is as good as going to school, for these people teach the devils their A B C. And all that we have to do is to sit still and learn.”
The vision that followed this was the dæmon of tobacco, which I must confess did not a little surprise me. I have indeed often said to myself, “Certainly these smokers are possessed;” but I could never swear it till now. “I have,” said the devil, “by bringing this weed into Spain, revenged the Indians upon the Spaniards for all the massacres and butcheries they committed there, and done them more mischief than ever Colon, Cortes, Almero, Pizarro did in the Indies: by how much it is more honourable to die upon a sword’s point p. 284by gunshot, or at the mouth of a cannon, than for a man to snivel and sneeze himself into another world; or to go away in a meagrim or a spotted fever, perchance, which is the ordinary effect of this poisonous tobacco. It is with tobacconists as ’tis with demoniacs under an exorcism, they fume and vapour, but the devil sticks to them still. Many there are that make a very idol of it; they admire, they adore it, tempting and persecuting all people to take it, and the bare mention of it puts them into an ecstasy. In the smoke it is a probation for hell, where another day they must endure smoking; taken in powder, at the nose, it draws upon youth the incommodities of old age, in the perpetual annoyance of rheum and drivel.”
The devil of subornation came next, which was a good-complexioned and a well-timbered devil, to my great amazement I must acknowledge, for I had never seen any devils till now but what were extreme ugly. The air of his face was so familiar to me that methought I had seen it in a thousand several places; sometime under a veil, sometime open; now under one shape and then under another. One while he called himself child’s-play; another while, kind entertainment; here, payment; p. 285there, restitution; and, in a third place, alms: but, in fine, I could never learn his right name. I remember in some places I have heard him called inheritance, profit, good cheap, patrimony, gratitude. Here he was called doctor; there, bachelor. With the lawyers, solicitors, and attorneys, he passed under the name of right; and the confessors called him charity.
He was well accompanied, and styled himself Satan’s lieutenant; but there was a devil of consequence that opposed him, might and main, and made this proclamation of himself. “Be it known,” says he, “that I am the great embroiler and politic entangler of affairs. The deluder of princes, the pretext of the unworthy, and the excuse of tyrants. I can make black, white; and give what colour I please to the foulest actions in nature. If I had a mind to overturn the world, and put all in a general confusion, I could do it; for I have it in my power to banish order and reason out of it; to turn sauciness and importunity into merit, example into necessity; to give law to success, authority to infamy, and credit to insolence. I have the tongues of all counsellors at my girdle, and they shall speak neither more nor less than just as I please. In short, that’s easy to me which p. 286others account impossible, and while I live ye need never fear either virtue, justice, or good government in the world. This devil of subornation, that talks of his lieutenancy, what could he ever have done without me? He’s a rascal that no person of quality would admit into his company, if I did not fit him with vizors and disguises. Let him hold his tongue then, and know himself; and let me hear no more of those disputes about the lieutenancy of hell, for I have Lucifer’s broad seal to show for my title to’t.”
“For my part,” cried another mutinous spirit, “I am one of those humble-minded devils that can content myself to hold the door, upon a good occasion; or knock under the table, and play at small game rather than stand out. But few words among friends are best, and when I have spoken three or four, let him come up that lists. I am then,” says he, “the devil interpreter, and my business is to gloss upon the text; in which case, the cuckolds are exceedingly beholden to me; for I have much to say for the honour of the horn. How should a poor fellow that has a handsome wench to his wife, and never a penny to live on, hold up his head in the world, if it were not for that quality? I have a p. 287pretty faculty in doing good offices for distressed ladies, at a time of need; and I make the whole sex sensible how great a folly and madness it is to neglect those sweet opportunities. Among other secrets, I have found out a way to establish an office for thievery, where the officers shall be thieves and justify it when they have done.” Here he stopped.
There was a short silence, and then there appeared another devil of about a foot and a half long. “I am,” says he, “a devil but of a small size, and perhaps one of the least in hell; and yet the door opens to me as well as to another, for I never come empty handed.” “Why, what have you brought them?” says the intermeddler, and came up to him, “What have I brought?” quoth he, “I have brought an eternal talker and a finical flatterer; they are two pieces that were in high esteem in the cabinets of two great princes, and I have brought them for a present to Lucifer.” With that, Lucifer cast his eye upon them, and with a damned-verjuice-face, as if he had bitten a crab, “You do well,” says he, “to say ye had them at court; and I think you should do well to carry them thither again; for I had as lief have their room as their company.”
p. 288After him followed another dwarf devil, complaining that he had been a matter of six years about so infamous a rascal, that there was no good to be done with him, for the bad as well as the better sort were scandalised at his conversation. “A mighty piece of business,” cried the gouvernante. “And could you not have gotten him a handsome office or employment? That would have made him good for something, and you might have done his business.”
In the meantime the babbler went whispering up and down and finding faults, till at length he came to a huge bundle of sleeping devils in a corner, that were fagotted up, and all mouldy and full of cobwebs, which he immediately gave notice of, and they cut the band to give them air. With much ado they waked them, and asked what devils they were, what they did there, and why they were not upon duty. They fell a-yawning, and said that they were the devils of luxury: “But since the women have taken a fancy to prefer guinies and jacobusses before their modesty and honour, there has been no need of a devil in the case to tempt them; for ’tis but showing them the merry spankers, they’ll dare like larks, and fall down before ye, and then ye may e’en do what you will p. 289with them, and take them up in a purse-net. Gold supplies all imperfections; it makes an angel of a crocodile, turns a fool into a philosopher, and a dressing-box well lined is worth twenty thousand devils. So that there is no temptation like a present; and take them from top to bottom, the whole race of woman is frail, and one thread of pearl will do more with them than a million of fine stories.”
Just as this devil made an end we heard another snorting; and ’twas well he did so, for we had trod upon his belly else. He was laid hold of, upon suspicion that he slept dog-sleep, or rather the sleep of a contented cuckold, that would spoil no sport where he made none. “I am,” says he, “the nuns’ devil, and for want of other employment I have been three days asleep here as you found me. My mistresses are now choosing an abbess, and always when they are at that work I make holiday: for they are all devils themselves then; there is such canvassing, flattering, importuning, cajoling, making of parties; and in a word so general a confusion, that a devil among them would do more hurt than good. Nay, the ambitious make it a point of honour upon such an occasion, to show that they can out-wit the devils. And if p. 290ever hell should be in danger of a peace, it is my advice that you presently call in a convention of nuns to the election of an abbess, which would most certainly reduce it to its ancient state of sedition, mutiny, and confusion, and bring us all in effect to such a pass that we should hardly know one another.”
Lucifer was very well pleased with the advice, and ordered it to be entered upon the register, as a sure expedient to suppress any disorders that might happen for the future to the disturbance of his government: after which he commanded the issuing out of a summons to all his companies and livery-men, who forthwith appeared in prodigious multitudes; and Lucifer with a hideous yell delivered himself most graciously as follows.
“To our trusty and despairing legions, and well-beloved subjects, lying under the condemnation of perpetual darkness, that lived pensioners to sin, and had death for their pay-master, greeting. This is to let you understand, that there are two devils, who pretend a claim to the honour p. 291of our lieutenancy; but we have absolutely refused to gratify either the one or the other, in that point, out of a singular affection and respect to our right trusty and well-beloved cousin, a certain she-devil that deserves it before all others.”
At this the whole assembly fell to whispering and muttering, and staring one upon another, till at last Lucifer observing it bade them never trouble themselves to guess who it might be, but fetch good fortune to him, known otherwise by the name of Madam Prosperity, who presently appeared in the tail of the assembly, and with a proud and disdainful air marched up and planted herself before the degraded seraphim, who looked her wistly in the face, and then he on in the tone he first began.
“It is our will, pleasure, and command, that next and immediately under our proper person, you pay all honour and respect to the Lady Prosperity, and obey her, as the most mighty and supreme governess of these our dominions. Which titles and qualities we have conferred upon her, as due to her merit; for she hath damned more souls than all you together. She it is that makes men cast off all fear of God and love of their neighbour. She it is p. 292that makes men place their sovereign good in riches; that engages and entangles men’s minds in vanity; strikes them blind in their pleasures; loads them with treasure, and buries them in sin. Where’s the tragedy that she has not played her part in’t? Where’s the stability and wisdom that she has not staggered? Where’s the folly that she has not improved and augmented? She takes no counsel and fears no punishment. She it is that furnishes matter for scandal, experience for story, that entertains the cruelty of tyrants, and bathes the executioners in innocent blood. How many souls that lived innocent, while they were poor, have fallen into impiety and reprobation, so soon as ever they came to drink of the enchanted cup of prosperity! Go to then, be obedient to her, we charge ye all, as to ourself; and know, that they that stand their ground against prosperity are none of your quarry. Let them e’en alone, for ’tis but time lost to attempt them. Take example from that impertinent devil, that got leave to tempt Job; he persecuted him, beggared him, covered him all over with scabs and ulcers. Sot that he was! if he had understood his business, he would have gone another way to work, and begged leave to have multiplied p. 293riches upon him, and to have possessed him of health and pleasures. That’s the trial; and how many are there that when they thrive in the world turn their backs upon Heaven, and never so much as name their Creator, but in oaths, and then too, without thinking on Him? Their discourse is all of jollities, banquets, comedies, purchases, and the like. Whereas the poor man has God perpetually both in his mouth and heart. ‘Lord,’ says he, ‘be mindful of me, and have mercy upon me, for all my trust is in Thee.’ Wherefore,” says Lucifer, redoubling his accursed clamour, “let it be published forthwith throughout all our territories, that calamities, troubles, and persecutions are our mortal enemies, for so we have found them upon experience; they are the dispensations of Providence, the blessings of the Almighty, to fit sinners for Himself, and they that suffer them are enrolled in the militia of heaven.
“Item; For the better administration of our government, it is our will and pleasure, and we do strictly charge and command, that our devils give constant attendance in all courts of judicature; and they are hereby totally discharged from any further care of little pettifoggers, flatterers, and envious p. 294persons, for they are so well acquainted with hell road, that they’ll guide one another without the help of a devil to bring them hither.
“Item; We do ordain and command that no devil presume for the future to entertain any confident, but profit; for that’s the harbinger that provides vice the most commodious quarter, even in the straitest consciences.
“Item; We do ordain, as a matter of great importance to the conservation of our empire, that in what part soever of our dominions the devil of money shall vouchsafe to appear, all other devils there present shall rise, and, with a low reverence, present him the chair, in token of their submission to his power and authority.
“Item; We do most expressly charge and command all our officers, as well civil as military, to employ their utmost diligence and industry, for the establishing a general peace throughout the world. For that’s the time for wickedness to thrive in, and all sorts of vices to prosper and flourish—as luxury, gluttony, idleness, lying, slandering, gaming, and whoring; and, in a word, sin is upon the increase and goodness in the wane. Whereas in a p. 295state of war, men are upon the exercise of valour and virtue; calling often upon Heaven, in the morning, for fear of being knocked on the head after dinner: and honest men and actions are rewarded.
“Item; We do from this time forward discharge all our officers and agents whatsoever, from giving themselves any further trouble of tempting men and women to sins of incontinence, for as much as we find, upon experience, that adultery and fornication will never be left, till the old woman scratches the stool for her backside. And though there may be several intervals of repentance, and some faint purposes of giving it over, yet the humour returns again with the next tide of blood, and concupiscence is as loyal a subject to us as any we have in our dominions.
“Item; In consideration of the exemption aforesaid, by which means several poor devils are left without present employment; and forasmuch as there are many merchants and tradesmen in London, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, and elsewhere, up and down the world, that are very charitably disposed to relieve people in want, especially young heirs newly at age, and spendthrifts, that come to borrow money of them; but the times being dead, p. 296and little money stirring, all they can do is to furnish them with what the house affords; and if a hundred pound or two in commodity will do them any good, ’tis at their service (they say). This the gallant takes up at an excessive rate, to sell again immediately for what he can get; and the merchant has his friend to take it off underhand, at a third part of the value (which is the way of helping men in distress). Now out of a singular respect to the said merchants and tradesmen, and for their better encouragement, as also, to the end that the devils aforesaid may not run into lewd courses for want of business, we will and require that a legion of the said devils shall from time to time be continually aiding and assisting to the said merchants and tradesmen, in the quality of factors, to be relieved monthly by a fresh legion, or oftener if occasion shall require.
“Item; We will and command that all our devils, of what degree or quality soever, do henceforth entertain a strict amity and correspondence with our trusty and well beloved the usurers, the revengeful, the envious, and all pretenders to great places and dignities; and, above all others, with the hypocrites, who are the most p. 297powerful impostors in nature, and so excellently skilled in their trade that they steal away people’s hearts and souls at the eyes and ears insensibly, and draw to themselves adoration and reward.
“Item; We do further order and command, that all care possible be taken for the maintaining of blabs, informers, incendiaries, and parasites in all courts and palaces, for thence comes our harvest.
“Item; That the babblers, tale-bearers, make-bates, and instruments of divorces and quarrels, be no longer called fanes, but bellows; in regard that they draw and inflame, without giving any allay or refreshment.
“Item; That the intermeddlers be hereafter called and reputed the devils’ body-lice, because they fetch blood of those that feed and nourish them.”
Lucifer then casting a sour look over his shoulder, and spying the gouvernante: “I’m of his mind,” quoth he, “that said, ‘Let God dispose of the Doüegnas (or gouvernantes) as He pleases; for I’m in no little trouble how to dispose of these confounded carrions.’” Whereupon, the damned cried out, with one voice, “Oh, Lucifer! let it never be said that it rained Doüegnas in thy dominions. Are we not p. 298miserable enough without this new plague of being baited by hags?” “Ah! cursed Lucifer,” cried every one to himself, “stow them anywhere, so they come not near me.” And with that, they all clapped their tails between their legs, and drew in their horns, for fear of this new torment. Lucifer, finding how the dread of the old women wrought upon the devils, contented himself, at the present, to let it pass only in terrorem; but withal he swore, by the honour of his imperial crown, and as he hoped to be saved, that what devil devil’s dam, or reprobate soever, should in time to come be found wanting to his duty and in the least degree disobedient to his laws and ordinances, all and every the said devil or devils, their dams and reprobates so offending, should be delivered up to the torture of the Doüegna, and tied muzzle to muzzle; so to remain in sæcula sæculorum, without relief or appeal, or any law, statute, or usage to the contrary notwithstanding. “But in the meantime, cast them into that dry ditch,” says he, “that they may be ready for use upon any occasion.”
Immediately, upon the pronouncing of this solemn decree, Lucifer retired to his cell, the weather cleared up, and the p. 299company dispersed in a fright, at so horrible a menace, and so went about their business: when a voice was heard out of the clouds, as the voice of an angel, saying, “He that rightly comprehends the morality of this discourse, shall never repent the reading of it.”
THE END
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