The Project Gutenberg eBook of The second volume of the works of Mr Thomas Brown.

I Had done myself the honour to write to you long ago, but wanted a convenience of sending my letter; for you must not imagine ’tis as easy a matter for us on this side the river Styx, to maintain a correspondence with you in the upper world, as ’tis to send a pacquet from London to Rotterdam, or from Paris to Madrid: But upon the news of a fresh war ready to break out in your part of the world, (which, by the by, makes us keep holy-day here in hell) Pluto having thought fit to dispatch an extraordinary messenger to see how your parliament, upon whose resolutions the fate of Europe seems wholly to depend, will behave themselves in this critical{2} conjuncture. I tipp’d the fellow a George to carry this letter for me, and leave it with the master at Will’s in his way to Westminster.

I am not insensible, gentlemen, that Homer, Virgil, Dante, Don Quevedo, and many more before me, have given an account of these subterranean dominions, for which reason it may look like affectation or vanity in me to meddle with a subject so often handled; but if new travels into Italy, Spain and Germany, are daily read with approbation, because new matters of enquiry and observation perpetually arise, I don’t see why the present state of the Plutonian kingdoms may not be acceptable, there having been as great changes and alterations in these infernal regions, as in any other part of the universe whatever.

When I shook hands with your upper hemisphere, I stumbled into a dark, uncouth, dismal lane, which, if it be lawful to compare great things with small, somewhat resembles that dusky dark cut under the mountains called the grotto of Puzzoli in the way to Naples. I was in so great a consternation, that I don’t remember exactly how long it was, but this I remember full well, that there were a world of ditches on both sides of the wall, adorned and furnished with harpies, gorgons, centaurs, chimeras, and such like pretty curiosities, which could not but give a man a world of titillation as he traveled on the road. The three-headed Gerion, put me in mind of the master of the Temple’s three intellectual minds, and when I saw Briares with his hundred arms and hands, out of my zeal to king William and his government, I could not but wish that we had so well qualify’d a person for secretary of state ever since the Revolution; for having so many heads and hands to employ, he might easily have managed all affairs domestick and foreign, and been both dictator and clerk to himself. Which besides the advantage of keeping secret all orders and instructions, (and that you know, gentlemen, is of no small importance in politicks) would have saved his majesty no inconsiderable sum in his civil list.

Being arrived at the end of this doleful and execrable lane, I came into a large open, barren plain, thro’ which ran a river, whose water was as black as my hat: Coming{3} to the banks of this wonderful river, an old ill-look’d wrinkl’d fellow in a tatter’d boat, which did not seem to be worth a groat, making towards the shoar, beckon’d, and held out his right-hand to me: Knowing nothing of his business or character, I could not imagine what he meant by doing so; but upon second thoughts, thinking he had a mind to have his fortune told, You must understand, old gentleman, says I to him, that there are three principal lines in a man’s hand, the first of which is called by the learned Ludovicus Vives, Secretary to Tamerlain the magnificent, the linea boetica, line of life; the second, the linea hepatica, or liver line; the third and last, the linea intercalaris, so call’d by Sebastian Munster and Erra Pater, because it crosses the two aforesaid lines in an equicrural parabola. Hold your impertinent stuff, says the old ferryman, erra me no erra paters, but speak to the point, and give me my fare, if you design to come over. By this I perceiv’d my mistake, and knew him to be Charon: So I dived into my pockets, but alas! I found all the birds were flown, if ever any had been there, which you may believe, gentlemen, was no small mortification to me. Get you gone for a rascally scoundrel as you are, says Charon, some son of whore of a fiddler, or player, I warrant you; go and take up your quarters with those pennyless rogues that are sunning themselves on yonder hillock. To see now how a man may be mistaken by a fair outside! when I came up to ’em, I found them a parcel of jolly well-look’d fellows, who, one would have thought were wealthy enough to have fined for sheriffs: I counted, let me see, six princes of the empire that were younger brothers, ten French counts, fourteen knights of Malta, twelve Welsh gentlemen, sixteen Scotch lairds, with abundance of chymists, projectors, insurers, noblemens creditors, and the like; that were all wind-bound for want of the ready rhino. Two days we continued in this doleful condition; and as Dr. Sherlock says of himself, in relation to the 13th chapter of the Romans, here I stuck, and had stuck till the last conflagration, if it had not been for bishop Overall’s Convocation-Book; e’en so here we might have tarry’d world without end, if an honest teller of the Exchequer, and a clerk of the pay-office, had not come to our relief; who understanding our case, cry’d out, Come{4} along, gentlemen, we have money enough to defray twenty such trifles as this; God be prais’d, we had the good luck to die before the parliament looked into our accounts. With that they gave Charon a broad-piece each of ’em, so our whole caravan consisting of about 70 persons in all, that had not a farthing in the world to bless themselves, ferry’d over to the other side of the river.

As we were crossing the stream, Charon told us how an Irish captain would have trick’d him. He came strutting down to the river-side, says he, as fine as a prince, in a long scarlet cloak, all bedaub’d with silver lace, but had not a penny about him. Dear joy, crys he to me, I came away in a little haste from the other world, and left my breeches behind me, but I’ll make thee amends by Chreest and St. Patrick, for I’ll refresh thy antient nostrils with some of Hippolito’s best snuff, which cost me a week ago, a crown an ounce. I told the Hibernian, that old birds were not to be taken with chaff, nor Charon to be banter’d out of his due with a little dust of sot-weed; and giving him a reprimand with my stretcher over the noddle, bid him go, like a coxcomb as he was, about his business. The wretch santer’d about the banks for a month, but at last, pretended to be a Frenchman, got over gratis this summer, among the duke of Orlean’s retinue. But what was the most surprizing piece of news I ever heard, Charon assured us, upon his veracity, that the late king of Spain was forc’d to lie by full a fortnight, for want of money to carry him over; for cardinal Portocarero had been so busy in forging his will, that he had forgot to leave the poor monarch a farthing in his pocket; and that at last, one of his own grandees, coming by that way, was so complaisant as to defray his prince’s passage; and well he might, says our surly ferryman, for in five years time he had cheated him of two millions.

We were no sooner landed on the other side of the river, but some of us fil’d off to the right, and others to the left, as their business called them: For my part, I made the best of my way to the famous city Brandinopolis, seated upon the river Phlegethon, as being a place of the greatest commerce and resort in all king Pluto’s dominions. Who should I meet upon the road but my old friend said acquaintance Mr. Nokes, the comedian, who received{5} me with all imaginable love and affection? Mr. Haines, says he, I am glad with all my heart to see you in Hell; upon my salvation, we have expected you here this great while, and I question not but our royal master will give you a reception befitting a person of your extraordinary merit. Mr. Nokes, said I, Your most obedient servant, you are pleas’d to compliment, but I know no other merit I have, but that of being honour’d with your friendship. But my dear Jo., cries he, how go affairs in Covent-Garden? Does cuckoldom flourish, and fornication maintain its ground still against the reformers? And the play-house in Drury-Lane, is it as much frequented as it us’d to be? I had no sooner given him a satisfactory answer to these questions, but we found ourselves in the suburbs; so my friend Nokes, with that gaity and openness, which became him so well at the play-house, Jo., says he, I’ll give thee thy welcome to Hell; with that he carry’d me to a little blind coffee-house, in the middle of a dirty alley, but certainly one of the worst furnish’d tenements I ever beheld: there was nothing to be seen but a few broken pipes, two or three founder’d chairs, and bare naked walls, with not so much as a superannuated almanack, or tatter’d ballad to keep ’em in countenance; so that I could not but fancy myself in some of love’s little tabernacles about Wildstreet, or Drury-Lane. Come, Mr. Haines, and what are you disposed to drink? What you please, Sir. Here, madam, give the gentleman a glass of Geneva. As soon as I had whipp’d it down, my friend Nokes plucking me by the sleeve, and whispering me in the ear, prithee Jo., who dost think that lady at the bar is? I consider’d her very attentively, by the same token she was three times as ugly as my lady Frightall, countess of —— and three times as thick and bulky as Mrs. Pix the poetress, and very fairly told him, I knew her not. Why then I shall surprize you. This is the famous Semiramis. The Devil she is! answer’d I: What is this the celebrated and renowned queen of Babylon, she that built those stupendious walls and pensile gardens, of which antient historians tell us so many miracles; that victorious heroine, who eclipsed the triumphs of her illustrious husband; that added Æthiopia to her empire; and was the wonder as well as the ornament of her sex? Is it possible she should{6} fall so low as to be forced to sell Geneva, and such ungodly liquors for a subsistence? ’Tis e’en so, says Mr. Nokes, and this may serve as a lesson of instruction to you, that when once death has laid his icy paws upon us, all other distinctions of fortune and quality immediately vanish. These words were no sooner out of his mouth, but in came a formal old gentleman, and plucking a large wooden box from under his cloak, Will you have any fine snuff, gentlemen, here is the finest snuff in the universe, gentlemen; a never failing remedy, gentlemen, against the megrims and head-ach. And who do you take this worthy person to be? says Mr. Nokes, But that I am in this lower world, cry’d I, I durst swear ’tis the very individual quaker that sells his herb-snuff at the Rainbow coffee-house. Damnably mistaken, says Mr. Nokes, before George, no less a man than the great Cyrus, the first founder of the Persian monarchy. I was going to bless myself at this discovery, when a jolly red-nos’d woman in a straw-hat popt into the room, and in a shrill treble cry’d out, Any buckles, combs or scissars, gentlemen, and tooth-picks, bottle-screws or twizers, silver buttons or tobacco-stoppers, gentlemen; well now, my worthy friend, Mr. Haines, who do you think this to be? The Lord knows, reply’d I, for here are such an unaccountable choppings and changings among you that the Devil can’t tell what to make of ’em. Why then, in short, this is the virtuous Thalestris, Queen of the Amazons, the same numerical princess, that beat the hoof so many hundred leagues to get Alexander the Great to administer his royal nipple to her. But Jo. since I find thee so affected at these alterations that have happen’d to persons who lived so many hundred years ago, I am resolv’d to shew thee some of a more modern date, and particularly of such as either thou wast acquainted with in the other world, or at lead hast often heard mention’d in company. So calling for the other glass of Geneva, he left a tester at the bar, and Semiramis, to shew her courtly breeding, dropp’d us abundance of curtesies, and paid us as much respect at our coming out, as your two-penny French barbers in Soho do to a gentleman that gives them a brace of odd half-pence above the original contract in their sign.

We walk’d thro’ half a dozen streets without meeting any thing worthy of observation. At last my friend Nokes, pointed to a little edifice, which exactly resembles Dr. Burgess’s conventicle in Russel-Court; says he, your old acquaintance Tony Lee, who turn’d presbyterian parson, upon his coming into these quarters, holds forth most notably here every Sunday; Jacob Hall and Jevon are his clerks, and chant it admirably. Mother Stratford, the duchess of Mazarine, my lord Warwick, and Sir Fleetwood, are his constant hearers; and to Tony’s everlasting honour be it spoken, he delivers his fire and brimstone with so good a grace, splits his text so judiciously, turns up the whites of his eyes so theologically, cuffs his cushion so orthodoxly, and twirls his band-strings so primitively, that Pluto has lately made him one of his chaplains in ordinary. From this we crossed another street, which one may properly enough call the Bow-street, or Pall-Mall of Brandinopolis. No sawcy tradesman or mechanick dares presume to live here, but ’tis wholly inhabited by fine gaudy fluttering sparks, and fine airy ladies; who in no respect are inferior to yours in Covent-Garden. When the sky is serene, and not a breath of wind stirring, you may see whole covies of them displaying their finery in the street; but at other times you never see ’em our of a chair, for fear of discomposing their commodes or periwigs. We had not gone twenty paces, before we met three flaming beaux of the first magnitude, the like of whom we never saw at the Vourthoot at the Hague, the Tuilleries at Paris, or the Mall in St. James’s-park. They were all three in black (for you must know we are in deep mourning here for the death of my lady Proserpine’s favourite monkey) but he in the middle, tho’ he had neither face nor shape to qualify him for a gallant: for he had a phyz as forbidden as beau Whitaker, and was as thick about the waste, as the fat squab porter at the Griffin-tavern in Fuller’s-Rents, yet he made a most magnificent figure: His periwig was large enough to have loaded a camel, and he had, bestowed upon it at least a bushel of powder, I warrant you. His sword-knot dangled upon the ground, and his steenkirk that was most agreeably discolour’d with snuff from top to bottom, reach’d down to his waste; he carry’d his hat under his left-arm, walk’d with both his{8} hands in the wastband of his breeches, and his cane that hung negligently down in a string from his right-arm, trail’d most harmoniously against the pebbles, while the master of it, tripping it nicely upon his toes, was humming to himself,

Having given you this description of him, I need not trouble myself to enlarge upon the dress of his two companions, who, tho’ they fell much short of his inimitable original in point of garniture and dress, yet they were singular enough to have drawn the eyes of men, women and children after ’em in any part of Europe. As I observed this sight with a great deal of admiration, Mr. Nokes very gravely asked me, who I took the middlemost person to be; upon my telling him I had never seen him before, nor knew a syllable of him or his private history; why, says Mr. Nokes, this is Diogenes the famous cynic philosopher, and his two companions are George Fox and James Naylor the quakers. Diogenes, reply’d I to him, why he was one of the arrantest slovens in all Greece, and a profess’d enemy to laundresses, for he never parted with his shirt, ’till his shirt parted with him. No matter for that, says Mr. Nokes, the case is alter’d now with him, for he has the vanity and affectation of twenty Sir Courtly Nice’s blended together; he constantly dispatches a courier to Lisbon every month, to bring him a cargo of Limons to wash his hands with; he sends to Montpelier for Hungary-water; Turin furnishes him with Rosa Solis; Nismes with Eau de Conelle, and Paris with Ratifia to settle his maw in the morning. Nothing will go down with him but Ortolans, Snipes, and Woodcocks; and Matson, that some years ago liv’d at the Rummer in Queen-street, is the administrator of his kitchen. This, said I to him, is the most phantastick change I have seen since my passing the Styx: for who the plague wou’d have believ’d that that antient quaker Diogenes, and those modern cynicks, Fox and Naylor, should degenerate so much from their primitive institution, as to set up for fops? When we came up to ’em, Diogenes gave us a most gracious bow, but those{9} two everlasting complimenters, his friends, I was afraid wou’d have murder’d me with their civilities; for which reason I disingaged myself from ’em something abruptly, by the same token I overheard James Naylor call me bougre insulare and tramontane, for my ill manners.

When the coast was clear of ’em, says I to my Nokes, every thing is so turned topsy-turvy here with you, that I can hardly resolve myself whether I walk upon my head or my feet: right, Mr. Haines, says he, but time is precious; so let’s mend our pace if you please, that we may see all the curiosities of this renowned city before ’tis dark.

The next street we came into, we saw a tall thin-gutted mortal driving a wheel-barrow of pears before him, and crying in a hoarse tone, pears twenty a penny; looking him earnestly in the face, I presently knew him to be beau Heveiningham, but I found he was shy, and so took no further notice of him. Not ten doors from hence, says Mr. Nokes, lives poor Norton, that shot himself. I ask’d him in what quality, he answered me, as a sub-operator to a disperser of darkness, anglicè, a journeyman to a tallow-chandler. I would willingly have made him a short visit, but was intercepted in my design by a brace of fellows that were link’d to their good behaviour, like a pair of Spanish galley-slaves; tho’ they agreed as little as Jowler and Ringwood coupled together, for one of ’em lugg’d one away, and his brother the other. I soon knew them to be Dick Baldwin, the whig-bookseller, and Mason the non-swearing parson, whom, as I was afterwards informed, judge Minos, had order’d to be yoak’d thus, to be a mutual plague and punishment to one another. Both of ’em made up to us as hard as they could drive. Well, Sir, says the Levite, what comfortable news do you bring from St. Germains? Our old friend Lewis le Grand is well I hope. Damn Lewis le Grand, and all his adherents, cries Dick Baldwin. Pray Sir, what racy touches of scandal have been publish’d of late, by my worthy friends, Sam. Johnson, Mr. Tutchin, and honest Mr. Atwood; and the gallows that groan’d so long for Robin Hog the messenger, when is it like to lose its longing? Have no fresh batteries attack’d the court lately from honest Mr. Darby’s in Bartholomew-Close? And prithee what new piracies{10} from the quakers at the Pump in Little-Britain? What new whales, devils, ghosts, murders; from Wilkins in the Fryars? But above all, dear Sir, of what kidney are the present sheriffs; and particularly my lord-mayor, how stands he affected? Why Dick, says I to him, fearing to be stunn’d with more interrogatories, tho’ most of the folks I have seen here are changed either for the better or the worse, yet I find thou art the true, primitive, busy, pragmatical, prating, muttering Dick Baldwin still, and will be so to the end of the chapter. In the name of the three furies, what should make thee trouble thyself about sheriffs and lord-mayor? But thou art of the same foolish belief, I find, with thy brother coxcombs at North’s coffee-house, who think all the fate of christendom depends upon the choice of a lord-mayor; whereas to talk of things familiarly, and as we ought to do, what is this two-legg’d animal ycleped a lord-mayor, but a certain temporary machine of the city’s setting up, who on certain appointed days is oblig’d to ride on horse-back to please the Cheapside wives, who must scuffle his way thro’ so many furlongs of custard, who is only terrible to delinquent-bakers, oyster-women, and scavengers; and has no other privilege above his brethren, as I know of, but that of taking a comfortable nap in his gold chain at Paul’s or Salter’s-Hall; to either of which places his conscience, that is, his interest, carries him. Surly Dick was going to say something in defence of the city magistrate, but my brother Nokes and I prevented him, by calling to the next hackney coachman, whom, to my great surprise, I found to be the famous Dr. Busby of Westminster-school; who now, instead of flogging boys, was content to act in an humbler sphere, and exercise his lashing talent upon horses. We ordered him to set us down at Bedlam, where my friend Nokes assured me we should find diversion enough, and the first person we met with in this celebrated mansion, was the famous queen Dido of Carthage, supported by the ingenious Mrs. Behn on the one side, and the learned Christiana, queen of Sweden, on the other. Gentlemen, cry’d she, I conjure you, by that respect which is due to truth, and by that complaisance which is owing to us of the fair sex, to believe none of those idle lies that Virgil hath told of me. That impudent versifyer has given out, that I{11} murder’d myself for the sake of his pious Trojan, the hero of his romance; whereas I declare to you, gentlemen, as I hope to be sav’d, that I never saw the face of that fugitive scoundrel in my life, but dy’d in my bed with as much decency and resignation as any woman in the parish: but what touches my honour most of all, is that most horrid calumny of my being all alone with Æneas in the cave. Upon this I humbly remonstrated to her majesty, that altho’ Virgil had taken the liberty to leave her and his pious Trojan in a grotto together, yet he no where insinuated that any thing criminal had passed between ’em. How, says Mr. Behn, in a fury, was it not scandal enough in all conscience, to say that a man and a woman were in a dark blind cavern by themselves? What tho’ there was no such convenience as a bed or a couch in the room; nay, not so much as a broken-back’d chair, yet I desire you to tell me, sweet Mr. Haines, what other business can a man and a woman have in the dark together, but——. Ay, cries the queen of Sweden, what other business can a man and a woman have in the dark, but, as the fellow says in the Moor of Venice, to make the beast with two backs? not to pick straws I hope, or to tell tales of a tub. Under favour, ladies, reply’d I, ’tis impossible I should think, for a grave sober man, and a woman of discretion, to pass a few hours alone, without carrying matters so far home as you insinuate. What in the dark? cries queen Dido, that’s mine a —— in a band-box. Let peoples inclinations be never so modest and virtuous, yet this cursed darkness puts the devil and all of wickedness into their heads: the man will be pushing on his side, that’s certain; and as for the woman, I’ll swear for her, that when no body can see her blush, she will be consenting. In fine, tho’ the soul be never so well fortify’d to hold out a siege, yet the body, as soon as love’s artillery begins to play upon it, it will soon beat a parley, and make a separate treaty for itself.

Thus her Punick majesty ran on, and the Lord knows when her royal clack would have done striking, if a female messenger had not come to her in the nick of time, and whisper’d her in the ear, to go to the famous Lucretia’s crying-out, who, it seems, was got with child upon a hay-cock, by Æsop the fabulist. As soon as queen{12} Dido and her two prattling companions were gone out of the room, Mr. Nokes, says I, you have without question seen Æsop very often, therefore pray let me beg the favour of you, to tell me whether he is such a deformed ill-favoured wight, as the historians represent him; for you must know we have a modern critick of singular humanity, near St. James’s, that has been pleased, in some late dissertation upon Phalaris’s epistles, to maintain that he was a well-shap’d, handsome gentleman; and for a proof of this, insists much upon Æsop’s intriguing with his fellow-slave, the beautiful Rhodope. No, no, replies Mr. Nokes, Æsop is just such a crumpled hump-shoulder’d dog, for all the world, as you see him before Ogilby’s translation of his fables; and let the above-mentioned grammarian, I think they call him, Dr. Bentivolio, say what he will to the contrary, ’tis even so as I tell you. And now, we are upon the chapter of Dr. Bentivolio; about a month ago I happen’d to make merry over a bowl of punch with Phalaris the Sicilian tyrant, who swore by all that was good and sacred, that he would trounce the unmannerly slave for robbing him of those epistles, which have gone unquestion’d under his name for so many ages: but the time is coming, said he, when I shall make this impudent pedant cry peccavi for the unworthy treatment he has given me: I have my brazen-bull, heaven be prais’d, ready for him, and as soon as he comes into these quarters, will shut him up in it, and roast him with his own dull volumes, and those of his dearly beloved friends the Dutch commentators.

By this time we were got to the upper end of the room, when, says Mr. Nokes to me, I will shew you a most surprising sight. You must know this place, like Noah’s ark, contains beasts of all sorts and sizes; some have their brains turn’d by politicks, who, except some three or four that are suffer’d to go abroad with a keeper, are lock’d up in a large apartment up stairs. These puppies rave eternally about liberty and property, and the jura populi, and are so damn’d mischievous, that it is dangerous to venture near them. England sends more of this sort to Bedlam, than all the countries of Europe besides. Others again have their intellects fly-blown by love, by the same token that most of the poor wretches{13} that are in this doleful predicament come out of France, Spain, Italy, and such hot climates. Now and then, indeed, we have a silly apprentice or so, takes a leap from London-Bridge into the Thames, or decently hangs himself in a garret, in his mistress’s garters, but these accidents happen but seldom; and besides, since fornication has made so great a progress among us, love is observed not to operate so powerfully in England as it formerly did, when there was no relief against him but matrimony. Some again have their pia mater addled by their religion, but neither are the sots of this species so numerous in Britain, or elsewhere, as they were in the days of yore; for the priests of most religions have play’d their game so aukwardly, that not one man in a thousand will trust them with shuffling of the cards.

But of all the various sorts of mad-men that come hither, the rhimers or versifyers far exceed the rest in number: most of these fellows in the other world were mayors, or aldermen, or deputies of wards, that knew nothing but the rising and falling of stocks, squeezing young heirs, and cheating their customers: but now the tables are turn’d, for they eat and drink, nay, sleep and dream in rhime, and have a distich to discharge at you upon every occasion. With that he open’d the wicket of the uppermost door, and bid me peep in. ’Tis impossible to describe to you the surprize I was in, to see so many of my city acquaintance there, whom I should sooner have suspected of burglary or sacrilege, than of tacking a pair of rhimes together: but it seems this is a judgment upon these wretches, for the aversion they have to the muses when they are living. The walls were lined with verses from top to bottom, and happy was the wretch that could get a bit of charcoal to express the happiness of his fancy upon the poor plaister. The first man I saw was Sir John Peak, formerly lord-mayor of London, who bluntly came up to the door, and asked me what was rhime to Crambo? Immediately Sir Thomas Pilkington popp’d over his shoulder, and pray friend, says he, for I perceive you are newly come from the other world, how go the affairs of Parnassus? What new madrigals, epithilamiums, sonnets, epigrams, and satires, have you brought with you? What pretty conceits had Mr. Settle{14} in his last London triumphs? What plays have taken of late? Mrs. Bracegirdle, doth she live still unmarried? And pray, Sir, how doth Mr. Betterton’s lungs hold out? But now I think on’t, I have a delicious copy of verses to shew you, upon the divine Melesinda’s frying of pancakes, only stay a minute, while I step yonder to fetch ’em: he had no sooner turn’d his back, but I pluck’d too the wicket, and gave him the slip; for certainly of all the plagues in hell, or t’other side of it, nothing comes up to that of a confounded repeater. Leaving these versifying insects to themselves, we walked up a pair of stairs into the upper room, one end of which was the quarter for distracted lovers, as the other was for the lunatick republicans. I just cast my eyes into Cupid’s Bear-Garden, and observed that the walls were all adorned with mysterious hieroglyphicks of love, as hearts transfixed, and abundance of odd-fashion’d battering rams, such as young lovers use to trace upon the cieling of a coffee-house with the smoke of a candle. Some half a score of ’em were making to the door, but having seen enough of these impertinents in the other world, I had no great inclination to suffer a new persecution from ’em in this. So my friend and I turn’d up to the apartment where the republicans were lock’d up, who made such a hurricane and noise, as if a legion of devils had been broke loose among them. Harrington, I remember, was the most unruly of the whole pack. Thanks to my friends in London, says he, I hear my Oceana is lately reprinted, and furbish’d with a new dedication to those judicious and worthy gentlemen, my lord-mayor and court of aldermen, by Mr. Toland. You need not value yourself so much upon that, says Algernoon Sidney, for my works were published there long before yours. And so were mine, cries Milton, at the expence of some worthy patriots, that were not afraid to publish them under a monarchical government. But what think you of my memoirs, cries Ludlow, for if you talk of histories, there’s a history for you, which, for sincerity and truth, never saw its fellow since the creation. Upon this the uproar began afresh, so thinking it high time to withdraw, I jogg’d my friend Nokes by the elbow, and as we went down stairs told him, that Pluto was certainly in the right on’t, to lock{15} up these hot-headed mutineers by themselves, allow them neither pen, ink, fire, nor candle; for should he give them leave to propagate their seditious doctrines, he would only find himself king of Erebus, at the courtesy of his loving subjects.

Just as we were going out of this famous edifice; I have an odd piece of news to tell you, says Mr. Nokes, which is, that altho’ we have men of all countries, more or less here, yet there never was one Irishman in it. How comes that about, I beseech you? said I to him. Why, replies he, madness always supposes a loss of reason; but the duce is in’t if a man can lose that which he never possess’d in his life. Oh your humble servant, answer’d I, ’tis well none of our swaggering Dear Joys in Covent-Garden hear you talk so, for if they did, ten to one but they would cut your throat for this reflection upon the intellects of their country, and send you to the Devil for the honour of St. Patrick.

When we came out into the open air again, and had taken half a dozen turns in the neighbouring fields, Mr. Nokes, says I, ’tis my misfortune to come in this place without a farthing of money in my pocket, and Alecto confound me, if I know what course to take for my maintenance, therefore I would desire you to put me in a way. Have no care for that, says Mr. Nokes, his infernal majesty is very kind and obliging to us players, and because we act so many different parts in the other world, as kings, princes, bishops, privy-counsellors, beaux, cits, sailors, and the like, gives us leave to fellow what profession we have most a fancy to. For my part, I keep a nicknackatory, or toy-shop, as I formerly did over against the Exchange, and turn a sweet penny by it, for our gallants here throw away their money after a furious rate. Now Jo. I think thou can’st not do better than to set up for a High-German fortune-teller; thou knowest all the cant and roguery of that practice to perfection, and besides, has the best phiz in the world to carry on such an affair. As for money to furnish thee an house, and set up a convenient equipage, to buy thee a pair of globes, a magick looking-glass, and all other accoutrements of that nature, thou shalt command as much as thou hast occasion for. I was going to thank my friend{16} for so courteous an offer, when who should pop upon us on the sudden, but his Polish majesty’s physician in ordinary, the late famous Dr. Conner of Bowstreet, but in so wretched a pickle, so tatter’d a condition, that I could hardly know him. How comes this about, noble doctor, said I to him, what is fortune unkind, and do the planets frown upon merit? I remember you were going to set up your coach, and marry the widow Bently in Russel-street, just before your last distemper hurry’d you out of the world. Is it possible the learned author of Evangelium Medici should want bread? or, doctor, did you leave all your Hibernian confidence behind you! I thought a true Irishman could have made his fortune in any part of the universe.

Mr. Haines, says he, Pluto, to say no worse of him, is very ungrateful to the gentlemen of our faculty; and were he not a crown’d head, I would not stick to call him a Poltroon. I am sure no body of men cultivate his interest with more industry and success, than we physicians. What would his dominions be but a bare wilderness and solitude, if we did not daily take care to stock them with fresh colonies? This I can say for myself, that I did not let him lose one patient that fell into my hands; nay, rather than he should want customers, I practised upon myself. But after the received maxim of most princes, I find he loves the treason, and hates the traytor; so that no people are put to harder shifts in hell, than the sons of Galen. Would you believe it, Mr. Haines, the immortal Dr. Willis is content to be a flayer of dead horses; the famous Harvey is turn’d higgler, and you may see him ride every morning to market upon a pannier of eggs; Mayern is glad to be pimp to noblemen’s valets de chambre; old Glisson sells vinegar upon a lean scraggy tit; Moreton is return’d to his occupation, and preaches in a little conventicle you can hardly swing a cat round in; Lower sells penny prayer-books all the week, and curls an Amen in a meeting-house on sundays; Needham, in conjunction with Capt. Dawson, is bully to a Bordello; and the celebrated Sydenham empties close-stools. As{17} for myself, I am sometimes a small retainer to a billiard-table; and sometimes, when the matter on’t is sick, earn a penny by a whimsy-board. I lie with a link-man upon a flock-bed in a garret, and have not seen a clean shirt upon my back since I came into this cursed country. By my troth, said I, I am sorry to hear matters go so scurvily with you; but pluck up a good heart, for when the times are at worst they must certainly mend. But, pray doctor, before you go any farther, satisfy me what church you dy’d a member of, for we had the devil and all to do about you when you were gone. The parson of St. Giles’s stood out stifly that you dy’d a sound Protestant, but all your countrymen swore thou didst troop off like a good Catholick. Why really Jo. cry’d the doctor, to deal plainly with you, I don’t know well what religion I dy’d in; but if I dy’d in any, as physicians you know seldom do, it was, as I take it, that of the Church of England. I remember, indeed, when I grew light-headed, and the bed, room, and every thing began to turn round with me, that a forster-brother of mine, an Irish Priest, offer’d me the civility of Extreme Unction, and I that knew I had a long journey to go, thought it would not be amiss to have my boots well liquor’d before-hand, tho’ ofter all, for any good it did me, he might as well have rubb’d my posteriors with a brick-bat. This is all I remember of the matter; but what signifies it to the business we are talking of? In short, Jo. if thou could’st put me in a way to live, I should be exceedingly beholden to thee. Doctor, cry’d I, if you will come to me a week hence, something may be done; for I intend to build me a stage in one of the largest Piazzas of this city, take me a fine house, and set up my old trade of fortune-telling; and as I shall have occasion now and then for some understrapper to draw teeth for me, or to be my toad-eater upon the stage, if you will accept of so mean an employment, besides my old cloaths, which will be something, I’ll give you meat, drink, washing, and lodging, and four marks per annum.

I am sensible, gentlemen, that I have tried your patience with a long tedious letter, but not knowing when I should find so convenient an opportunity to send another, I resolved to give you a full account in this, of all{18} the memorable things that fell within the compass of my observation, during my short residence in this country. At present, thanks to my kind stars, I live very comfortably; I keep my brace of geldings, and half a dozen servants; my house is as well furnish’d as most in this populous city; and to tell you what prodigious number of persons of all ages, sexes and conditions flock daily to me, to have their fortunes told, ’twould hardly find belief with you. If the celestial phenomena’s deceive me not, and there is any truth in the conjunction of Mercury and Luna, I shall in a short time rout all the pretenders to Astrology, who combine to ruin my reputation and practice, but without effect; for this opposition has rather increased my friends at court than lessen’d them. I am promised to be maître des langues, to the young prince of Acheron, (so we call the heir apparent to these subterranean dominions) and Proserpine’s camariera major assured me t’other morning, I should have the honour of teaching the beautiful princess Fuscamarilla, his sister, to dance. Once more, gentlemen, I beg your excuse for this prolix epistle, and hoping you will order one of your fraternity to send me the news of your upper world, I remain,

WE received your letter, dated Dec. 21. 1701. and read it yesterday in a full assembly at Will’s. The whole company lik’d it exceedingly, and return you their thanks for the ample and satisfactory account you have given them of Pluto’s dominions, from which we have{19} had little or no news, however it has happened, since the famous Don Quevedo had the curiosity to travel thither.

Whereas you desire us, by way of exchange, to furnish you with some of the most memorable transactions that have lately fallen out in this part of the globe; we willingly comply with your proposal, and are proud of any opportunity to shew Mr. Haines how much we respect and value him.

Imprimis, Will’s coffee-house, Mr. Haines, is much in the same condition, as when you left it; and as a worthy gentleman has lately distributed them into their proper classes, we have four sorts of persons that resort hither; first, Such as are beaux and no wits, and these are easy to be known by their full periwigs and empty sculls; secondly, Such as are wits and no beaux, and these, not to talk of their out-sides, are distinguish’d by censuring the ill taste of the age, and railing at one another; thirdly, Such as are neither wits nor beaux, I mean your grave plodding politicians that come to us every night piping hot from the parliament-house, and finish treaties that were never thought of, and end wars before they are begun; and fourthly, Such as are both wits and beaux, to whose persons, as well as merits, you can be no stranger.

In the next place, the Playhouse stands exactly where it did. Mr. Rich finds some trouble in managing his mutinous subjects, but ’tis no more than what princes must expect to find in a mixt monarchy, as we take the Playhouse to be. The actors jog on after the old merry rate, and the women drink and intrigue. Mr. Clinch of Barnet, with his pack of dogs and organ, comes now and then to their relief; and your friend Mr. Jevon would hang himself, to see how much the famous Mr. Harvey exceeds him in the ladder-dance.

We have had an inundation of plays lately, and one of them, by a great miracle, made shift to hold out a full fortnight. The generality are either troubled with convulsion-fits, and die the first day of the representation, or by meer dint of acting, hold out to the third; which is like a consumptive man’s living by cordials, or else die a violent death, and are interr’d with the solemnity of catcalls. A merry virtuoso, who makes one of the congregation de propagando ingenio, designs to publish a weekly{20} bill for the use of the two theatres, in imitation of that published by the parish clerks, and faithfully to set down what distemper every new play dies of.

If the author of a play strains hard for wit, and it drivels drop by drop from him, he says it is troubled with a strangury. If it is vicious in the design and performance, and dull throughout, he intends to give it out in his bill, that it died by a knock in the cradle; if it miscarries for want of fine scenes, and due acting, why then he says, ’tis starv’d at nurse; if it expires the first or second day he reckons it among the abortive; and lastly, if it is damn’d for the feebleness of its satire, he says it dies in breeding of teeth.

As our wit, generally speaking is debauch’d, so our wine, the parent of it, is sophisticated all over the town; and as we never had more plays in the two houses, and more wine in city than at present, so we were never encumber’d with worse of the two sorts than now. As for the latter, we sell that for claret which has not a drop of the juice of the grape in it, but is downright cyder. The corporation does not stop short here, but our cyder, instead of apples, is made of turnips. Who knows where the cheat will conclude? perhaps the next generation will debauch our very turnips.

’Tis well, Mr. Haines, you dy’d when you did, for that unhappy place, where you have so often exerted your talent, I mean Smithfield, has fallen under the city magistrate’s displeasure; so that now St. George and the Dragon, the Trojan horse, and Bateman’s ghost, the Prodigal Son, and Jeptha’s Daughter: In short, all the drolls of glorious memory, are routed, defeated, and sent to grass, without any hopes of a reprieve.

Next to plays, we have been over-run, in these times of publick ferment and distraction, with certain wicked things, called pamphlets; and some scriblers that shall be nameless, have writ pro and con upon the same subject, at least six times since last spring.

Both nations are at bay, and like two bull-dogs snarl at one another, yet have not thought fit, as yet, to come to actual blows. What the event will be, we cannot prophesy at this distance, but every little corporation in the kingdom has laid Lewis le Grand upon his back, and as{21} good as call’d him perjur’d knave and villain. However, ’tis the hardest case in the world if we miscarry; our Grub-street pamphleteers advise the shires and boroughs what sort of members to chuse; the shires and boroughs advise their representatives what course to steer in parliament; and the senators, no doubt on’t, will advise his majesty what ministers to rely on, and how to behave himself in this present conjuncture. Thus, advice, you see, like malt-tickets, circulates plentifully about the kingdom; so that if we fail in our designs, after all, the wicked can never say, ’twas for want of advice. We forgot to tell you, Mr. Haines, that since you left this upper world, your life has been written by a brother-player, who pretends he received all his memoirs from your own mouth, a little before you made a leap into the dark; and really you are beholden to the fellow, for he makes you a master of arts at the university, tho’ you never took a degree there. That, and a thousand stories of other people he has father’d upon you, and the truth on’t is, the adventures of thy life, if truly set down, are so romantick, that few besides thy acquaintance would be able to distinguish between the history and the fable. But let not this disturb the serenity of your soul, Mr. Haines, for after this rate the lives of all illustrious persons, whether ancient or modern, have been written. This, Mr. Haines, is all we have to communicate to you at present, so we conclude, with subscribing ourselves,

Scarron to Lewis le Grand. By Mr. Brown.

ALL the conversation of this lower world, at present, runs upon you; and the devil a word we can hear in any of our coffee-houses, but what his Gallic Majesty is more or less concern’d in. ’Tis agreed on by all our{22} Virtuosos, that since the days of Dioclesian, no prince has been so great a benefactor to hell as your self; and as much a matter of eloquence as I was once thought to be at Paris, I want words to tell you, how much you are commended here for so heroically trampling under foot the treaty of Reswick, and opening a new scene of war in your great climateric, at which age most of the princes before you were such recreants, as to think of making up their scores with heaven, and leaving their neighbours in peace. But you, they say, are above such sordid precedents, and rather than Pluto should want men to people his dominions, are willing to spare him half a million of your own subjects, and that at a juncture too, when you are not overstock’d with them.

This has gain’d you an universal applause in these regions; the three Furies sing your praises in every street; Bellona swears there’s never a prince in Christendom worth hanging besides your self; and Charon bustles for you in all companies: he desir’d me, about a week ago, to present his most humble respects to you; adding, that if it had not been for your majesty, he, with his wife and children, must long ago been quarter’d upon the parish; for which reason he duly drinks your health every morning in a cup of cold Styx next his conscience.

Indeed I have a double title to write to you, in the first place, as one of your dutiful, tho’ unworthy, subjects, who formerly tasted of your liberality; and secondly, as you have done me the honour to take away my late wife, not only into your private embraces, but private councils. Poor soul! I little thought she would fall to your majesty’s share when I took my last farwel of her, or that a prince that had his choice of so many thousands, would accept of my sorry leavings. And therefore, I must confess, I am apt to be a little vain, as often as I reflect, that the greatest monarch in the universe and I are brother-stallions, and that the eldest son of the church, and the little Scarron have fish’d in the same hole. Some sawcy fellows have had the impudence to tell me to my face, that Madam Maintenon (for so, out of respect to your majesty, I must call her) is your lawful wife, and that you were clandestinely marry’d to her. I took them up roundly, as they deserv’d, and told them, I was sure it was a dam{23}n’d lie; for, said I to them, if my master was marry’d to her, as you pretend, she had broke his heart long ago, as well as she did mine; from whence I positively concluded, that she might be your mistress, but was none of your wife.

Last week, as I was sitting with some of my acquaintance in a publick-house, after a great deal of impertinent chat about the affairs of the Milanese, and the intended siege of Mantua, the whole company fell a talking of your majesty, and what glorious exploits you had perform’d in your time. Why, gentlemen, says an ill-look’d rascal, who prov’d to be Herostratus, for Pluto’s sake let not the grand monarch run away with all your praises. I have done something memorable in my time too; ’twas I, who out of the Gaiete de Cœur, and to perpetuate my name, fir’d the famous temple of the Ephesian Diana, and in two hours consumed that magnificent structure which was two hundred years a building: therefore, gentlemen, lavish not away all your praises, I beseech you, upon one man, but allow others their share. Why, thou diminutive inconsiderable wretch said I, in a great passion to him, thou worthless idle logger head, thou pigmy in sin, thou Tom Thumb in iniquity, how dares such a puny insect as thou art, have the impudence to enter the lists with Lewis le Grand? thou valuest thy self upon firing a church, but how? when the mistress of the house, who was a midwife by profession, was gone out to assist Olympias, and deliver’d her of Alexander the Great. ’Tis plain, thou hadst not the courage to do it when the goddess was present, and upon the spot; but what is this to what my royal master can boast of, that had destroyed a hundred and a hundred such foolish fabricks in his time, and bravely ordered them to be bombarded, when he knew the very God that made and redeemed him had taken up his Quarters in ’em. Therefore turn out of the room, like a paltry insignificant villain as thou art, or I’ll pick thy carcass for thee.

He had no sooner made his exit, but cries an odd sort of a spark, with his hat button’d up before, like a country scraper, under favour, Sir, what do you think of me? Why, who are you? reply’d I to him, Who am I, answer’d he, Why Nero, the sixth emperor of Rome, that murder’d my—— Come, said I to him, to stop your prating, I know your history as well as yourself, that{24} murder’d your mother, kick’d your wife down stairs, dispatch’d two Apostles out of the world, begun the first persecution against the christians, and, lastly, put your master Seneca to death. As for the murder of your mother, I confess it shew’d you had some taste of wickedness, and may pass for a tolerable piece of gallantry; but prithee, what a mighty matter was it to send your wife packing with a good kick in the guts, when once she grew nauseous and sawcy; ’tis no more than what a thousand tinkers and foot-soldiers have done before you: or to put the penal laws in execution against a brace of hot-headed bigots, and their besotted followers, that must needs come and preach up a new religion at Rome: or, in fine, to take away a haughty, ungrateful pedant’s life, who conspir’d to take away your’s; altho’ I know those worthy gentlemen, the school-masters, make a horrid rout about it in their nonsensical declamations? Whereas his most Christian Majesty, whose advocate I am resolved to be against all opposers whatever, has bravely and generously starv’d a million of poor Hugonots at home, and sent t’other million of them a grasing into foreign countries, contrary to solemn edicts, and repeated promises, for no other provocation, that I know of, but because they were such coxcombs, as to place him upon the throne. In short, friend Nero, thou may’st pass for a rogue of the third or fourth class; but be advised by a stranger, and never shew thyself such a fool as to dispute the pre-eminence with Lewis le Grand, who has murder’d more men in his reign, let me tell thee, than thou hast murder’d tunes, for all thou art the vilest thrummer upon cat-gut the sun ever beheld. However, to give the Devil his due, I will say it before thy face, and behind thy back, that if thou had’st reign’d as many years as my gracious master has done, and had’st had, instead of Tigellinus, a Jesuit or two to have govern’d thy conscience, thou mightest, in all probability, have made a much more magnificent figure, and been inferior to none but the mighty monarch I have been talking of.

Having put my Roman emperor to silence, I look’d about me, and saw a pack of grammarians (for so I guessed them to be by their impertinence and noise) disputing it very fiercely at the next table; the matter in de{25}bate was, which was the most heroical age; and one of them, who valu’d himself very much upon his reading, maintain’d, that the heroical age, properly so call’d, began with the Theban, and ended with the Trojan war, in which compass of time, that glorious constellation of heroes, Hercules, Jason, Theseus, Tidæus, with Agamemnon, Ajax, Achilles, Hector, Troilus, and Diomedes flourished: men that had all signaliz’d themselves by their personal gallantry, and valour. His next neighbour argued very fiercely for the age wherein Alexander founded the Grecian monarchy, and saw so many noble generals and commanders about him. The third was as obstreperous for that of Julius Cæsar, and manag’d his argument with so much heat, that I expected every minute when these puppies wou’d have gone to loggerheads in good earnest. To put an end to your controversy, gentlemen, says I to them, you may talk till your lungs are founder’d, but this I positively assert, that the present age we live in is the most heroical age, and that my master, Lewis le Grand is the greatest hero of it. Hark you me, Sir, how do you make that appear, cry’d the whole pack of them, opening upon me all at once: by your leave, gentlemen, answer’d I, two to one is odds at foot-ball; but having a hero’s cause to defend, I find myself possess’d with a hero’s vigour and resolution, and don’t doubt but I shall bring you over to my party. That age therefore is the most heroical which is the boldest and bravest; the antients, I grant you, whor’d and got drunk, and cut throats as well as we do; but, gentlemen, they did not sin upon the same foot as we, nor had so many wicked discouragements to deter them; we whore when we know ’tis ten to one but we get a clap for our pains; whereas our fore-fathers, before the siege of Naples, had no such blessing to apprehend; we drink and murther one another in cold blood, at the same time we believe that we must be rewarded with damnation; but your old hero’s had no notion at all, or at least an imperfect one of a future state: so ’tis a plain case, you see, that the heroism lies on our side. To apply this then to my royal master; he has fill’d all Christendom with blood and confusion; he has broke thro’ the most solemn treaties sworn at the altar; he has stray’d and undone infinite{26} numbers of poor wretches; and all this for his own glory and ambition, when he’s assured that hell gapes every moment for him: now tell me, whether your Jasons, your Agamemnons, or Alexanders, durst have ventur’d so heroically; or whether your pitiful emperors of Germany, your mechanick kings of England and Sweden, or your lousy States of Holland, have courage enough to write after so illustrous a copy.

Thus, Sir, you may see with what zeal I appear in your majesty’s behalf, and that I omit no opportunity of magnifying your great exploits to the utmost of my poor abilities. At the same time I must freely own to you, that I have met with some rough-hewn sawcy rascals, that have stopp’d me in my full career, when I have been expatiating upon your praises, and have so dumbfounded me with their villainous objections, that I could not tell how to reply to them.

Some few days ago it was my fortune to affirm, in a full assembly, that since the days of Charlemagne, France was never bless’d with so renown’d, so victorious, and so puissant a prince as your majesty. You lame, gouty coxcomb, says a sawcy butter-box of a Dutchman to me, don’t give yourself these airs in our company; Lewis, the greatest prince that France ever had! Why, I tell thee, he has no more title to that crown, than I have to the Great Mogul’s; and Lewis the thirteenth was no more his father than the Pope of Rome is thine. I bless’d myself to hear the fellow deliver this with so serious a mien, when a countryman of his taking up the cudgels; ’Tis true, says he, your mighty monarch has no right to the throne he possesses; the late king had no hand in the begetting of him, but a lusty proper young fellow, one le Grand by name, and an Apothecary by profession, was employ’d by cardinal Mazarine, who had prepar’d the queen’s conscience for the taking of such a dose, to strike an heir for France out of her majesty’s body; by the same token that this scarlet agent of hell, got him fairly poison’d as soon as he had done the work, for fear of telling tales. If you ever read Virgil’s life written by Donatus, cries a third to me, you’ll find that Augustus having rewarded that famous poet for some little services done him, with a parcel of loaves, had the curiosity once to en{27}quire of him who he thought was his father? to which question of the emperor, Virgil fairly answer’d, that he believ’d him to be a Baker’s son, because he still paid him in a Baker’s manufacture, viz. bread. And thus, were there no other proofs to confirm it, yet any one would swear that Lewis le Grand is an Apothecary’s son, because he has acted all his life-time the part of an Apothecary.

Imprimis, He has given so many strong purges to his own kingdom, that he has empty’d it of half its people and money. Item, He apply’d costives to Genoa and Brussels, when he bombarded both those cities. Item, He gave a damn’d clyster to the Hollanders with a witness, when he fell upon the rear of their provinces, in the year 72. Item, He lull’d king Charles the second asleep with female opiates. Item, He forced Pope Innocent the eleventh, to swallow the unpalatable draught of the Franchises. Item, He administrated a restorative cordial to Mahumetanisme, when he enter’d into an alliance with the Grand Turk against the emperor. Item, He would have bubbled the prince of Orange with the gilded pill of sovereignty, but his little cousin was wiser than to take it. And lastly, If he had restor’d king James to his crown again, he would have brought the people of England a most conscientious Apothecary’s bill for his waiting and attending. In short, shake this mighty monarch in a bag, turn him this way, and that way, and t’other way, sursum, deorsum, quaquaversum, I’ll engage you’ll find him nothing but a meer Apothecary; and I hope the emperor and king of England will play the Apothecary too in their turn, and make him vomit up all those provinces and kingdoms he has so unrighteously usurp’d. Prince Eugene of Savoy has work’d him pretty well this last summer, and ’tis an infallible prognostic, that he’s reduced to the last extremities, when his spiritual physicians apply pigeons to the soles of his feet; I mean prayers and masses, and advise him to reconcile himself to that Heaven he has so often affronted with his most execrable perjuries.

’Tis impossible for me to tell your majesty, what a surprize I was in to hear this graceless Netherlander blaspheme your glorious name after this insufferable rate.{28} But to see how one persecution treads upon the heels of another! I was hardly recover’d out of my astonishment, when a son of a whore of a German, advancing towards me, was pleas’d to explain himself as follows:

You keep a pother and noise here about your mighty monarch, says he to me, but what has this mighty monarch, and be damn’d to you, done to merit any body’s good word? I say, what one generous noble exploit has he been guilty of in his whole reign, as long as it is, to deserve so much incense and flattery, so many statues and triumphal arches, which a pack of mercenary, nauseous, fulsome slaves have bestow’d upon him? For my part, continues he, when I first heard his historians and poets, his priests and courtiers, talk such wonderful things of him, I fancy’d that another Cyrus or Alexander had appeared upon the stage; but when I observed him more narrowly, and by a truer light, I found this immortal man, as his inscriptions vainly stile him, to be a little, tricking, pilfering Fripon, that watch’d the critical minute of stealing towns, as nicely as your rogues of an inferior sphere do that of nimming cloaks; and tho’ he had the fairest opportunity of erecting a new western monarchy that ever any prince cou’d boast of, since the declension of the Roman empire; yet to his eternal disgrace be it said, no man could have made a worse use of all those wonderful advantages, that fortune, and the stupid security of his neighbours conspir’d to put into his hands. To convince you of the truth of this, let us only consider what posture the affairs of France were in at his accession to that crown, and several years after, as likewise how all the neighbouring princes and states about him stood affected: to begin then with the former, he found himself master of the best disciplin’d troops in the universe, commanded by the most experienced generals that any one age had produc’d, and spirited by a long train of victories, over a careless, desponding, lazy enemy. All the great men of his kingdom so depressed and humbled by the fortunate artifices of Richlieu and Mazarine, that they were not capable of giving him any uneasiness at home, the sole power of raising money entirely in his own hands, and his parliaments so far from giving a check to his daily encroachments upon their li{29}berties, that they were made the most effectual instruments of his tyranny: In short, his clergy as much devoted, and the whole body of his people as subservient to him as a prince cou’d wish. As far his neighbours, he who was best able of any to put a stop to his growing greatness, I mean the king of England, either favour’d his designs clandestinely, or was so enervated by his pleasure, that provided he cou’d enjoy an inglorious effeminacy at home, he seem’d not to lay much to heart what became of the rest of Christendom.

The emperor was composing anthems for his chapel at Vienna, when he shou’d have appeared at the head of his troops on the Rhine. The princes of Germany were either divided from the common interest by the underhand management of France, or not at all concerned at the impending storm that threatned them. The Hollanders within an ace of losing their liberty by the preposterous care they took to secure it; I mean, by diverting that family of all power in their government, which, as it had formerly erected their republick, so now was the only one that cou’d help to protect it.

The little states and principalities of Italy, looking on at a distance, and not daring to declare themselves in so critical a conjuncture, when the two keys of their country, Pignerol and Casal hung at the girdle of France. In short, the dispeopl’d monarchy of Spain, governed by a soft unactive prince, equally unfit for the cabinet and the field; his counsellors, who manag’d all under him, taking no care to lay up magazines, and put their towns in a posture of defence, but wholly relying as for that, upon their neighbours; like some inconsiderate spend-thrift thrown into a jail by his creditors, that smoakes and drinks, and talks merrily all the while, but never advances one step to make his circumstances easy to him, leaving the burthen of that affair to his friends and relations, whom perhaps he never obliged so far in his prosperity, as to deserve it from their hands.

Here now, says he, was the fairest opportunity that ever presented itself for a prince of gallantry and resolution, for a Tamerlane and a Scanderbeg, to have done something eminently signal in his generation; and if in the last century, a little king of Sweden, with a handful{30} of men, cou’d force his way from the Baltick to the Rhine, and fill all Germany with terror and consternation, what might we not have expected from a powerful king of France, in the flower of his youth, and at the head of two hundred thousand effective men, especially when there was no visible power to oppose him? But this wonderful monarch of yours, instead of carrying his arms beyond the Danube, and performing any one action worthy for his historians to record in the annals of his reign, has humbly contented himself, now and then, in the beginning of the year, when he knew his neighbours were unprepared for such a visit, to invest some little market-town in Flanders, with his invincible troops; and when a parcel of silly implicit fools had done the business for him; then, forsooth, he must appear at the head of his court harlots and minstrels, and make a magnificent entry thro’ the breach: And after this ridiculous piece of pageantry is over, return back again to Versailles, with the fame equipage, order’d new medals, operas, and sonnets to be made upon the occasion; and what ought by no means to be omitted, our most trusty and well-beloved counsellor and cousin, the archbishop of Paris, must immediately have a letter sent him, to repair forthwith, at the head of his ecclesiastick myrmidons, to Nôtre Dame, and there to thank God for the success of an infamous robbery, which an honest moral pagan would have blush’d at. So that when the next fit of his fistula in ano shall send this immortal town-stealer, this divine village-lifter, this heroic pilferer of poor hamlets and their dependancies, down to these subterranean dominions, don’t imagine that he’ll be allowed to keep company with the Pharamonds and Charlemagnes of France, the Edwards and Henries of England, the Williams of the Nassovian family, or the Alexanders and Cæsars of Greece and Rome. No, shou’d he have the impudence to shew his head among that illustrious assembly, they wou’d soon order their footmen to drub him into better manners: Neither, cries a surly Englishman, clapping his sides, and interrupting him, must he expect the favour to appear even among our holyday heroes, and custard stormers of Cheapside, those merry burlesques of the art military in Finsbury-fields, who, poor creatures! never meant the destruction of any mortal thing, but transitory roast-beaf and{31} capon: no, friend, says he, Lewis le Grand must expect to take up his habitation in the most infamous quarter of Hell, among a parcel of house-breakers and shop-lifters, rogues burnt in the cheek for petty-larceny and burglary, brethren of the moon, gentlemen of the horn-thumb, pillagers of the hedges and henroosts, conveyers of silver spoons, and camblet cloaks, and such like enterprising heroes, whose famous actions are faithfully register’d in our sessions-papers and dying-speeches, transmitted to posterity by the Ordinary of Newgate; a much more impartial historian than your Pelissons and Boileaus. However, as I was inform’d last week by an understrapper at court; Pluto, in consideration of the singular services your royal master has done him, will allow him a brace of fiddlers to scrape and sing to him wherever he goes, since he takes such a delight to hear his own praises.

I must confess, says another leering rogue, a countryman of his, that since the grand monarch we have been speaking of, who has all along done more by his bribing and tricking, than by the conduct of his generals, or the bravery of his troops, who has plaid at fast and loose with his neighbours ever since he came to the crown, who has surprised abundance of towns in his time, and at the next treaty been forced to spue up those very places he ordered Te Deum to be sung for a few months before. I must confess, says he, that since in conjunction with a damn’d mercenary priest, he has forg’d a will for his brother-in-law of Spain, and plac’d his grandson upon that throne, I should think the rest of Christendom in a very bad condition indeed, if he should be suffered to go on quietly with his show a few years more: Then for all I know, he might bid fair to set up a new empire in the west, which he has been aiming at so long: But if the last advice from the other world don’t deceive us: If the parliament of England goes on as unanimously as they have begun, to support their prince in so pious and necessary a war; in short, if the emperor, the Dutch, and the other allies, act with that vigour and resolution as it becomes them upon this pressing occasion, I make no question to see this mighty hero plunder’d like the jay in the fable, of all the fine plumes he has borrow’d, and reduc’d to so low an ebb, that he shall not find it in his power, tho’ he has never so{32} much in his will, to disturb the peace of the christian world any more. And this, continues he, is as favourable an opportunity as we could desire, to strip him of all his usurpations; for heaven be praised, Spain at present is a burthen to him, and by grasping at too much, he’s in a fair way to lose every farthing. Besides, this late forgery of the will has pluck’d off his old mask, and shews that ’tis an universal monarchy he intends, and not the repose of Europe, which has been so fortunate a sham to him in all his other treaties; so that the devil’s in the allies now, if they don’t see thro’ those thin pretences he so often bubbled them with formerly; or lay down their arms, till they have made this French bustard, who is all feathers, and no substance, as bare and naked as a skeleton; and effectually spoil his new trade of making wills for other people. And this they may easily bring about, continues he, if they lay hold on the present opportunity, for as I observed to you before, he has taken more business upon his hands than he’ll ever be able to manage, and by grasping at too much, is in the direct road to lose all. For my part, I never think of him, but he puts me in mind of a silly foolish fellow I knew once in London, who was a common knife-grinder about the streets, and having in this humble occupation gathered a few straggling pence, must needs take a great house in Fleetstreet, and set up for a sword-cutler; but before quarter-day came, finding the rent too bulky for him, he very fairly rubb’d off with all his effects, and left his landlord the key under the door. Without pretending to the spirit of Nostradamus, or Lilly, this I foresee, will be the fate of Lewis le Grand; therefore when you write next to your glorious monarch, pray give my respects to him, and bid him remember the sad destiny of the poor knife-grinder of London.

Thus you see, Sir, how I am daily plagu’d and harrass’d by a parcel of brawny impudent rascals, and all for espousing your quarrel, and crying up the justice of your arms. For Pluto’s sake let me conjure your majesty to lay your commands upon Boileau, Racine, or any of your panegyrists, to instruct me how I may stop the mouths of these impertinent babblers for the future, who make Hell ten times more insupportable than otherwise it would be, and threaten to toss me in a blanket the next time I come{33} unprovided for your defence into their company. In the mean time, humbly desiring your majesty to present my love to the quondam wife of my bosom, I mean the virtuous madam Maintenon, who, in conjunction with your most christian majesty, now governs all France; and put her in mind of sending me a dozen of new shirts by the next pacquet, I remain,

Hannibal to the Victorious Prince Eugene of Savoy. By Mr. Brown.

’TWAS with infinite satisfaction that I receiv’d the news of the happy success of your arms in Italy. My worthy friend Scipio, (for so I may justly call him, since we have dropp’d our old animosities, and now live amicably together) is eternally talking of your conduct and bravery; nay, Alexander the Great, who can hardly bear any competitor in the point of glory, has freely confessed, that your gallantry in passing the Po and Adige, in the face of so powerful an enemy, falls not short of what he himself formerly shew’d upon the banks of the Granicus. For my part, I have a thousand obligations to you. My march over the Alpes, upon which I may deservedly value myself, was look’d upon here to be fabulous, till your late expedition over those rugged mountains confirm’d the belief of it. Thus neither hills nor rivers can stop the progress of your victories, and ’tis you who have found out the lucky secret, how to baffle the circumspect gravity of the Spaniards, and repress the furious impetuosity of the French. His Gallic majesty, who minds keeping his word as little, as that mercenary republick of tradesmen whom it was my misfortune to serve, will find to his cost, that all the laurels he has been so long, a plun{34}dering, will at last fall to your excellency’s share; and that he has been labouring forty years together to no other purpose, than to enrich you with the spoils of his former triumphs. Go on, therefore, in the glorious track as you have begun, and be assured, that the good wishes of all the great and illustrious persons now resident in this lower world attend you in all your enterprizes. As nothing can be a greater pleasure to virtuous men, than to see villains rewarded according to their deserts; so true heroes never rejoice more than when they see a sham-conqueror, and vain glorious bully, such as Lewis XIV. plunder’d of all his unjust acquisitions, and reduced to his primitive state of nothing. Were there a free communication between our territories and yours, Cyrus, Miltiades, Cæsar, and a thousand other generals, would be proud to offer you their service the next campaign; but ’tis your happiness that you want not their assistance; your own personal bravery, join’d to that of your troops, and the justice of your cause, being sufficient to carry you thro’ all your undertakings.

Pindar of Thebes to Tom. Durfey. By Mr. Brown.

HOWEVER it happen’d so, I can’t tell, but I could never get a sight of thy famous Pindaric upon the late queen Mary, ’till about a month ago. Most of the company would needs have me declare open war against thee that very minute, for prophaning my name with such execrable doggrel. Stensichorus rail’d at thee worse than the man of the Horseshoe-Tavern in Drury-lane; Alcæus, I believe, will hardly be his own man again this fortnight, so much concerned he is to find thee crowding thy self upon the Lyric poets; nay, Sappho the patient, laid about her like a fury, and call’d thee a thousand pimping stuttering ballad-fingers. As for me, far from taking any thing amiss at my hands, I am mightily pleased with the honour thou hast done me, and besides, must own thou hast been the cheapest, kindest physician to me I ever met with; for whenever my circumstances sit uneasy upon me, (and{35} for thy comfort Tom, we poets have our plagues in this world, as well as we had in your’s) when my landlord persecutes me for rent, my sempstress for my linnen, my taylor for cloaths, or my vintner for a long pagan score behind the bar, I immediately read but half a dozen lines of thy admirable ode, and sleep as heartily as the monks in Rabelais, after singing a verse or two of the seven penitential psalms. All I am afraid of, is, that when the virtues of it are known, some body or other will be perpetually borrowing it of me, either to help him to a nap, or cure him of the spleen, for I find ’tis an excellent specifick for both; therefore I must desire thee to order trusty Sam. to send me as many of them as have escap’d the Pastry-cook, and I will remit him his money by the next opportunity. If Augustus Cæsar thought a Roman gentleman’s pillow worth the buying, who slept soundly every night amidst all his debts, can a man blame me for bestowing a few transitory pence upon thy poem, which is the best opiate in the universe? In short, friend Tom, I love and admire thee for the freedom thou hast taken with me; and this I will say in commendation, that thou hast in this respect done more than even Alexander the Great durst do. That mighty conqueror, upon the taking of Thebes, spared all of my family; nay, the very house I lived in: but thou, who hast a genius superior to him, hast not spared me, even in what I value most, my verification and good name, for which Apollo in due time reward thee.

King James II. to Lewis XVI. By Mr. Boyer.

THO’ I have travers’d the vast abyss that lies betwixt us; and am now at some hundred millions of leagues distance from you, yet do I still remember the promise I made you before my departure, to send you an account of my journey hither. Know then, that all the stories you hear of the mansions of the dead, are flim-flams, invented by the crafty, to terrify and manage the weak. Here’s no such thing as Hell or Purgatory; no Lake of fire and{36} brimstone; no cleven-footed devils; no land of darkness. This place is wonderfully well lighted by a never decaying effulgence, which flows from the Almighty; and the pleasures we dead enjoy, and the torments we endure, consist in a full and clear view of our past actions, whether good or bad; and in being in such or such company as is allotted us. For my part, I am continually tormented with the thoughts of having lost three goodly kingdoms by my infatuation and bigotry; and to aggravate my pain, I am quarter’d with my royal father Charles I. my honest well meaning brother Charles II. and the subtle Machiavel; the first reproaches me ever and anon, with my not having made better use of his dreadful examples; the second, with having despis’d his wholsome advices; and the third, with having misapply’d his maxims, thro’ the wrong suggestions of my father confessor. Oh! that I had as little religion as your self, or as S—— M——, R—— H——, and some others, of my ministers, and my predecessors; then might I have reign’d with honour, and in plenty over a nation, which is ever loyal and faithful to a prince who is tender of their laws and liberties; and peacefully resign’d my crown my lawfully begotten son; whereas thro’ the delusions of priest-craft, and the fond insinuations of a bigotted wife, I endeavoured to establish the superstitions of Popery, and the fatal maxims of a despotick, dispensing power, upon the ruins of the Protestant Religion, and of the fundamental laws of a free people, which at last concluded with my abdication and exile. I am sorry you have deviated from your wonted custom of breaking your word, and that you have punctually observ’d the promise you made me at my dying bed, of acknowledging my dear son as king of Great-Britain; for I fear my quondam subjects, who love to contradict you in every thing, will from thence take occasion to abjure him for ever; whereas had you disowned him, they would perhaps have acknowledged him in mere spite. Cardinal Richlieu, who visits me often, professes still a great deal of zeal and affection for your government, but is extremely concern’d at the wrong measures you take to arrive at universal monarchy. He has desir’d me to advise you to keep the old method he chalk’d out for you, which is, to trust more to your gold than to{37} your arms. I cannot but think he is in the right on’t, considering the wonderful success the first has lately had with the archbishop of Cologn, and some other of the German and Italian princes, and the small progress your armies have made in the Milanese. But the wholesomeness of his advice is yet better justify’d by your dealings with the English, whom you know, you have always found more easily bribed than bullied. Therefore, as you tender the grandeur of your monarchy, and the interest of my dear son, instead of raising new forces, and fitting out fleets, be sure to send a cart-load of your new-coin’d Lewis d’ors into England, in order to divide the nation, and set the Whigs and Tories together by the ears. But take care you trust your money in the hands of a person that knows how to distribute it to more advantage than either count T——d or P——n, who, as I am told, have lavish’d away your favours all at once upon insatiable cormorants, and extravagant gamesters and spendthrifts. ’Tis true, by their assistance, and the unwearied diligence of my loyal Jacobites, you have made a shift to get the old ministry discarded, and to retard the grand alliance; but let me tell you, unless you see them afresh, they will certainly leave you in the lurch at the next sessions; for ingratitude and corruption do always go together. Therefore to keep these mercenary rogues to their behaviour, and in perpetual dependance, you must feed them with small portions, as weekly, or monthly allowance. Above all, bid your agents take heed how they deal with a certain indefatigable writer, who, as long as your gold has lasted, has been very useful to our cause, and boldly defeated the dangerous counsels of the Whigs, your implacable enemies; but who, upon the first withdrawing of your bounty, will infallibly turn cat in pan, and write for the house of Austria.

I could give you more instructions in relation to England, but not knowing whether they would be taken in good part, I forbear them for the present. Pray comfort my dear spouse with a royal kiss, and tell her, I wait her coming with impatience. Bid my beloved son not despair of ascending my throne, that is, provided he shakes off the fetters of the Romish superstition; let him not despond upon account of my unfaithful servant Fuller’s evidence against his legitimacy, for the depositions of my{38} nobility, which are still upon record in the Chancery, will easily defeat that perjur’d fellow’s pretended proof, with all honest considering men. And as for the numerous addresses, which I hear, are daily presented to my successor against him, he may find as many in my strong box, which were presented to me in his favour, both before and after his birth. The last courier brought us news of a pretended miracle, wrought by my body at the Benedictines church; I earnestly desire you to disabuse the world, and keep the imposture from getting ground; for how is it possible I should cure eye-fistulas, now I am dead, that could not ease myself of a troublesome corn in my toe when living? My service to all our friends and acquaintance; be assur’d that all the Lethean waters shall never wash away from my memory the great services I have received at your hands in the other world; nor the inviolable affection, which makes me subscribe myself,

Lewis XIV’s. Answer to K. James II. By the same Hand.

YOUR’S I received this morning, and no sooner cast my eyes upon the superscription, but I guess’d it to be written by one of my fellow kings, by the scrawl and ill spelling. I am glad your account of the other world agrees so well with the thoughts I always entertained about it: For, between friends, I never believ’d the stories the priests tell us of hell and purgatory. Ambition has ever been my religion; and my grandeur the only deity to which I have paid my adorations. If I have persecuted the protestants of my kingdom, ’twas not because I thought their perswasions worse than the Romish, but because I look’d upon them as a sort of dangerous, antimonarchical people; who, as they had fixed the crown upon my head, so they might as easily take it off, to serve{39} their own party; and because by that means I secur’d the Jesuits, who must be own’d the best supporters of arbitrary power. Nay, to tell you the truth, my design in making you, by my emissaries, a stickler of popery, was only to create jealousies betwixt you and your people, so that ye might stand in need of my assistance, and be tributary to my power. I am sorry you are in the company of the three persons you mention. To get rid of their teasing and reproaching conversation, I advise you to propose a match at whisk, and if by casting knaves you can but get Machiavel on your side, I am sure you will get the better of the other two. Since you mention my owning the prince your son as king of Great Britain, I must needs tell you, that neither he nor you, have reason to be beholden to me for it; for what I did was not to keep my promise to you, but only to serve my own ends; I considered, that an alliance being made between the English, the Emperor, and the Dutch, in order to reduce my exorbitant power, a war must inevitably follow. Now, I suppose, that after two or three years fighting, my finances will be pretty near exhausted, and that I shall be forced to condescend to give peace to Europe, as I did four years ago. The Emperor, I reckon, will be brought to sign and seal upon reasonable terms, and be content with having some small share in the Spanist monarchy, as will the Dutch also with a barrier in Flanders. These two less considerable enemies being quieted, how shall I pacify those I fear most, I mean the English? Why, by turning your dear son out of my kingdom, as I formerly did you and your brother. Not that I will wholly abandon him neither: no, you may rest assured that I will re-espouse his quarrel, as soon as I shall find an opportunity to make him instrumental to the advancement of my greatness. I am obliged to cardinal Richlieu for the concern he shews for the honour of France, and will not fail to make use of his advice, as far as my running cash will let me. But I am somewhat puzzled how to manage matters in England at the next sessions; for my agent P——n, by taking his leave in a publick tavern, of three of our best friends, has render’d them suspected to the nation, and consequently useless to me. I wish you could direct me to some trusty{40} Jacobite in England, to distribute my bribes; for I find my own subjects unqualify’d for that office, and easily bubbled by the sharp mercenary English. However, I will not so much depend upon my Lewis d’ors, as to disband my armies, and lay up my fleets, as you and cardinal Richlieu seem to counsel me to do. I suppose you have no other intelligence but the London-Gazette, else you would not entertain so despicable an opinion of my arms in Italy. I send you here enclos’d a collection of the Gazettes printed this year in my good city of Paris, whereby you will find, upon a right computation, that the Germans have lost ten men to one of the confederates. Pray fail not sending me by the next post, all the instructions you can think of, in relation to England: for tho’ you made more false steps in this world, than any of your predecessors; yet I find by your letter, you have wonderfully improv’d your politicks by the conversation of Machiavel and Richlieu. I have communicated your letter to your dear spouse and beloved son, who cannot be perswaded to believe it came from you; not thinking it possible that so religious a man, whilst living, should turn libertine after his death: I cannot, with safety, comply to your desire of disabusing the world, concerning the miraculous cure pretended to be wrought by your body at the Benedictines church. Such pious frauds being the main prop of the Popish religion; as this is of my sovereign authority. Your son may hope to be one day seated on your throne, not by turning Protestant (to which he is entirely averse, and which I shall be sure to prevent) but by the superiority of my arms, and the extensiveness of my power, after I shall have fix’d my son on the monarchy of Spain. Madam Maintenon desires to be remembred to you, she writes by this post to Mr. Scarron, her former husband, to desire him to wait on you, and endeavour to divert your melancholy thoughts, by reading to you the third part of his comical romance, which we are inform’d he has lately written, for the entertainment of the dead. I remain as faithfully as ever,

THAT you may not wonder at an address from hell, or be scandaliz’d at the correspondence, I must let you know first, that by the uncertainty of the road, and the forgetfulness of my old acquaintance, all my former letters are either miscarried, or have been neglected by my correspondents, who, tho’ they were fond enough of my scandal, nay, courted my favours when living, now I am past gratifying their vices, like true men, they think no more of me. The conscious tub-tavern can witness, and my Berry-street apartment testify the sollicitations I have had, for the first copy of a new lampoon, from the greatest lords of the court; tho’ their own folly, and their wives vices were the subject. My person was so sacred, that the terrible scan-man had no terrors for me, whose business was so publick and so useful, as conveying about the faults of the great and the fair; for in my books the lord was shewn a knave or fool, tho’ his power defended the former, and his pride would not see the latter. The antiquitated coquet was told of her age and ugliness, tho’ her vanity plac’d her in the first row in the king’s box at the play-house, and in the view of the congregation at St. James’s church. The precise countess that wou’d be scandaliz’d at a double entendre, was shewn betwixt a pair of sheets with a well made footman, in spite of her quality and conjugal vow. The formal statesman that set up for wisdom and honesty, was exposed as a dull tool, and yet a knave, losing at play his own revenue, and the bribes incident to his post, besides enjoying the infamy of a poor and fruitless knavery without any concern. The demure lady, that wou’d scarce sip off the glass in company, carousing her bottles in private, of cool Nantz too, sometimes to correct the crudities of her last night’s debauch. In short, in my books were{42} seen men and women as they were, not as they wou’d seem; stripp’d of their hypocrisy, spoil’d of their fig-leaves of their quality. A knave was a call’d a knave, a fool a fool, a jilt a jilt, and a whore a whore. And the love of scandal and native malice that men and women have to one another, made me in such request when alive, that I was admitted to the lord’s closet, when a man of letters and merit would be thrust out of doors. And I was as familiar with the ladies as their lap-dogs; for to them I did often good services, under a pretence of a lampoon, I conveying a Billet-deux; and so whilst I expos’d their past vices in the present, I prompted matter for the next lampoon. After all these services, believe me, Sir, I was no sooner dead, than forgotten: I have writ many letters to the brib’d countries, of their fore-runner’s arrival in these parts, but not one word of answer. I sent word to my lord Squeezall that his good friend Sir Parcimony Spareall was newly arriv’d, and clapp’d into the bilbows for a fool as well as a knave, that starv’d himself to supply the prodigality of his heirs. But he despises good counsel I hear, and starves both himself and his children, to raise them portions. I writ another letter to my lady Manishim, that virtuous Mrs. Vizoe was brought in here, and made shroving-fritters for the hackney devils, for her unnatural lusts; but Sue Frousy that came hither the other day, assures me, that she either received not my letter, or at least took no notice of it; for that she went on in her old road, and had brought her vice almost into fashion; and that the practical vices of the town bounded an eternal breach betwixt the sexes, while each confin’d itself to the same sex, and so threaten’d a cessation of commerce in propagation betwixt them. In short, Sir, I have tired my self with advices to my quondam acquaintance, and that should take away your surprise at my sending to you, who must be honest, because you are so poor; and a man of merit because you were never promoted; for your world of the theatre, is the true picture of the greater world, where honesty and merit starve, while knavery and impudence get favour from all men. For you, Sir, if I mistake not, are one of the most ancient of his majesty’s servants, under the denomination of a player, and yet cannot advance above{43} the delivering of a scurvy message, which the strutting leaders of your house wou’d do much more aukwardly, and by consequence ’tis the partiality of them, or the town, that have kept you in this low post all this while. This perswades me, that from you I may hope a true and sincere account of things, and how matters are now carried above; for lying, hypocrisy, and compliment, so take up all that taste of fortune’s favour, that there is scarce any credit to be given to their narrations; for either out of favour or malice, they give a false face to histories, and misrepresent mankind to that abominable degree, that the best history is not much better than a probable romance; and Quintus Curtius, and Calprenede, are distinguished more by their language than sincerity. Thus much by shewing the motive of my writing to you, to take away your surprise; tho’, before I pass, to remove the shame of such a correspondence, I must tell you, that your station qualifying you for a right information of the scandal of the town, I hope you will not fail to answer my expectation: Behind your scenes come all the young wits, and all the young and old beaus, both animals of malice, and wou’d no more conceal any woman’s frailty, or any man’s folly, than they will own any man’s sense, or any woman’s honesty.

I know that hell lies under some disadvantages, in the opinion even of those who are industrious enough to secure themselves a retreat here. They play the devil among you, and yet are ashamed of their master, and rail at his abode, as much as if they had no right to the inheritance. The miser, whose daily toils, and nightly cares and study is how to oppress the poor, cheat or overreach his neighbour, to betray the trusts his hypocrisy procured; and, in short, to break all the positive laws of morality, cries out, Oh diabolical! at a poor harmless double meaning in a play, and blesses himself that he is not one of the ungodly; rails at Hell and the Devil all the while he is riding post to them. The holy sister, that sacrifices in the righteousness of her spirit the reputation of some of her acquaintance or other every day; that cuckolds her husband in the fear of the Lord with one of the elect; rails at the whore of Babylon, and lawn-sleeves, as the diabolical invention of Lucifer, tho’ she is laying up{44} provisions here for a long abode in these shades of reverend Satan, whom she so much all her life declaims against. The lawyer that has watched whole nights, and bawl’d away whole days in bad causes, for good gold; that never car’d how crafty his client’s title was, if his bags were full; that has made a hundred conveyances with flaws, to beget law-suits, and litigious broils; when he’s with the Devil, has the detestation of Hell and the Devil in his mouth, all the while that the love of them fills his whole heart; and so thro’ the rest of our false brothers, whose mouths bely their minds, and fix an infamy on what they most pursue.

This is what may make you ashamed of my correspondence, but when you will reflect on what good company we keep here, you will think it more an honour than disgrace; for our company here is chiefly composed of princes, great lords, modern statesmen, courtiers, lawyers, judges, doctors of divinity, and doctors of the civil-law, beaux, ladies of beauty and quality, wits of title, men of noisy honour, gifted brothers, boasters of the spirits supply’d them from hence: In short, all that make most noise against us: which will, I hope, satisfy you so far, as to make me happy in a speedy answer; which will oblige,

Will. Pierre’s Answer. By the same Hand.

YOURS I received, and have been so far from being surpriz’d at, or asham’d of your correspondence, that the first I desired, and the latter was transported with. My mind has been long burdened, and I wanted{45} such a correspondence to disclose my grievances to, for there is no man on earth that wou’d give me the hearing, for Popery makes a man of the best parts a jest, and every fool with a feather in his cap, can overlook a man of merit in rags. Wit from one out at heels, sounds like nonsense in the ears of a gay fop, that knows no other furniture of a head, but a full wig; and he that would split himself with the half jest of a lord he wou’d flatter, is deaf to the best thing from the mouth, of a poor fellow he can’t get by. These considerations, Sir, have made me proud of this occasion, of replying to your obliging letter, in the manner you desire. For as scandal was your occupation here above, you, like vintners and bawds, living on the sins of the times; so a short impartial account of the present state of iniquity and folly, cannot be disagreeable to you.

Poetry was the vehicle that conveyed all your scandal to the town, and I being conversant about the skirts of that art, my scandal must dwell chiefly thereabouts; not omitting that scantling of general scandal of the town, that is come to my knowledge; for you must know, since your death, and your successor Summerton’s madness, lampoon has felt a very sensible decay, and seldom is there any attempt at it, and when there is, ’tis very heavy and dull, cursed verse, or worse prose: so gone is the brisk spirit of verse, that us’d to watch the follies and vice of the men and women of figure, that they could not start new ones faster than lampoons expos’d them. This deficiency of satire is not from a scarcity of vices, which abound more than ever, or follies more numerous than in your time, but from a meer impotence of malice, which tho’ as general as ever, confines itself to discourse; and railing is its utmost effort, defaming over one bottle, those they caress over another. Every man abuses his friend behind his back, and no man ever takes notice of it, but does the same thing in his turn: And for sincerity, women have as much: the women grow greater hypocrites than ever, lewder in their chamber practice, and more formal in publick; they rail at the vices they indulge; they forsake publick diversions, as plays, &c. to gain the reputation of virtue, to give a greater loose to the domestick diversions of a bottle and gallant; and hypocrisy heightens their pleasures. The mode now is not as of{46} old, in all amorous encounters, every man to his woman, but like nuns in a cloyster, every female has her privado of her own sex; and the honester part of men, must either fall in with the modish vice, or live chastly; to both which I find a great many extreamly averse. There has a terrible enemy arose to the stage, an abdicate divine, who when he had escaped the pillory for sedition, and reforming the state, set up for the reformation of the stage. The event was admirable, fanaticks presented the nonjuror, and misers and extortioners gave him bountiful rewards: one grave citizen, that had found the character too often on the stage, and famous for the ruin of some hundreds of poor under-tradesmen’s families, laid out threescore pounds in the impression, to distribute among the saints, that are zealous for God and mammon at the same time: Bullies and republicans quarrell’d for the passive obedience spark; grave divines extoll’d his wit, and atheists his religion; the fanaticks his honesty, the hypocrite his zeal, and the ladies were of his side, because he was for submitting to force. There is yet a greater mischief befall’n the stage; here are societies set up for reformation of manners; troops of informers, who are maintain’d by perjury, serve God for gain, and ferret out whores for subsistence. This noble society consists of divines of both churches, fanatick as well as orthodox saints and sinners, knights of the post, and knights of the elbow, and they are not more unanimous against immorality in their informations, than for it in their practice; they avoid no sins in themselves, and will suffer none in any one else. The fanaticks, that never preached up morality in their pulpits, or knew it in their dealings, would seem to promote it in the ungodly. The churchmen, that would enjoy the pleasure of sinners, and the reputation of saints, are for punishing whores and drinking in all but themselves. In short, the motive that carries the Popish apostles to the richer continents, makes these gentlemen so busy in our reformation money. Nay, reformation is grown a staple commodity, and the dealers in it are suddenly to be made into a corporation, and their privileges peculiar are to be perjury without punishment, and lying with impunity. The whores have a tax laid on them towards their maintenance, {47}in which they share with captain W——, and the justices of the peace; for New-Prison knows them in all their turns, and twenty or thirty shillings gives them a license for whoring, till next pay-day; so that the effect of their punishment only raising the price of the sin, and the vices of the nation maintain the informers. Drinking, swearing and whoring are the manufactures they deal in; for should they stretch their zeal to cozening, cheating, injury, extortion, oppression, defamation, secret adulteries, and fornication, and a thousand other of these more crying immoralities, the city would rise against these invaders of their liberties, and the cuckolds one and all, for their own and their wives sakes, rise against the reformers. These worthy gentlemen, for promoting the interest of the Crown Office, and some such honest place, pick harmless words out of plays, to indict the players and squeeze twenty pound a week out of them, if they can, for their exposing pride, vanity, hypocrisy, usury, oppression, cheating, and the other darling vices of the master reformers, who owe them a grudge, not to be appeas’d without considerable offerings; for money in these cases wipes off all defects.

There are other matters of smaller importance, I shall refer to my next, as who kisses who in our dominions; that hypocrisy has infected the stage too, where whores with great bellies would thrust themselves off for virgins, and bully the audience out of their sight and understanding; where maids can talk bawdy for wit, and footmen pass on quality for gentlemen; fools sit as judges on wit, and the ignorant on men of learning; where the motto is Vivitur Ingenio, the dull rogues have the management and the profits; where farce is a darling, and good sense and good writing not understood: and this brings to my mind a thing I lately heard from a false smatterer in poetry behind the scenes, and which if you see Ben. Johnson, I desire you to communicate to him. A new author, says one, that has wrote a taking play, is writing a treatise of Comedy, in which he mauls the learned rogues, the writers, to some purpose; he shews what a coxcomb Aristotle was, and what a company of senseless pedants the Scaligers, Rapins, Vossi, &c. are; proves that no good play can be regular, and that all rules are as ridiculous as useless. He tells us, Aristotle knew nothing of poetry, (for he knew nothing{48} of his fragments so extoll’d by Scaliger) and that common sense and nature was not the same in Athens as in Drury-lane; that uniformity and coherence was green-sleeves and pudding-pies, and that irregularity and nonsense were the chief perfections of the drama. That the Silent Woman, by consequence was before the Trip to the Jubilee, and the Ambitious Step-Mother, better than the Orphan; that hiccius doctius was Arabick, and that Bonnyclabber is the black broth of the Lacedæmonians; and thus he runs on with paradoxes as new as unintelligible; but this noble treatise being yet in embryo, you may expect a farther account of it in the next, from,

Antiochus to Lewis XIV. By Mr. Henry Baker.

YOU will be surpriz’d, I know, to receive this letter from a stranger; and of all the damn’d, perhaps, I am the only man from whom you least of all expect any news; because I have always passed for so impious and cruel a prince, and my name has given people such horrid ideas of me, that they think me insensible of pity, as having never practised any in my life-time.

When I sat upon the throne of Syria, having no more religion than your Most Christian Majesty, I stifled all the dictates of my conscience, pillaged the temple of the Jews, caroused with their blood, and running from one crime to another, drew infinite desolations every where after me. But after I had exercised my tyranny on the innocent posterity of several great kings, and left a thousand monuments of my barbarity, I found to my sorrow, that I was mortal, and obliged to submit to that fare, whose attacks feeble nature cannot resist. I then fell into an abyss, which is enlightened only by those flames which will for ever roast such monsters as we; and where I was loaded{49} with heavier irons than any I had plagu’d poor mortals with above. To welcome me into this place of horror, and refresh me after my voyage, I was plung’d into a bath of fire and brimstone, cupp’d by a Master-devil, rubb’d, scrubb’d, &c. by a parcel of smoaking, grinning hobgobblins, and afterwards presented with a musical entertainment of groans, howling, and gnashing of teeth. I soon began to play my part in this hideous consort, where despair beat the measure; and because my pains were infinitely greater than those of others, I immediately asked the reason of my torments, and was told it was for having hindered the peopling of Hell, by the multitude of martyrs my long persecutions had made, and of which you cannot be ignorant, if you delight in useful reading. Since I have been in this empire of sorrow, where I found the Pharaohs, Ahabs, Jezebels, Athaliahs, Nebuchadnezzars, &c. and where I have seen arrive the Neroes, Dioclesians, Decii,[1] Philips of Austria, [2] Charles of Valois, whose names would fill a volume; the recruits of Loyola arrive every day in search of their captain, but in some confusion, for fear of meeting Clement and Ravillac, who never cease cursing them. Your apartments, Most Christian Hero, has been some fifty years a rearing, but now they redouble their care, your coming being daily expected; I give you timely notice of it, that you may take your measures accordingly. Perhaps you will be offended at this familiarity, and tell me no man can deserve hell for fighting against hereticks, under the command of an infallible general; but if you know the present state of those miter’d leaders, it would not a little terrify you. Lucifer has turned them into several shapes, and peopl’d his back yard with them; the place ’tis true, is not so delightful as your Menagerie and Trianon at Versailles, but much excels it in variety and number of monsters. Your cell is in the same yard, that you may be near your good friends, who advis’d you to make the habitation of the shades a desart; for which the prince of darkness hates you mortally, and designs you something worse than a fistula, or the bull of Phalaris. Your ingenious emissaries, Marillac, la Rapine, and la Chaise, will meet in the squadrons of Pluto{50} with more invenom’d dragoons, than those they let loose against their poor countrymen in France: ’twill be their employment to keep this Menagerie clean, whose stench would otherwise poison the rest of hell. That renegado Pelisson too makes so odious a figure here, that he frights the boldest of our jaylors; and his eyes, red with crying for his sins, which were so much the greater, because they were voluntary, make him asham’d to look anyone in the face. Our learned think him profoundly ignorant; yet you must be the Trajan of that Pliny, for he is now writing your history in such a terrible manner, that it will but little resemble that which your pensionary wits are composing. The voyage having made him lose some part of his memory, and forget the particulars of your virtues; he will therefore take me for his model, and draw my life under your name. Tho’ your dear [3] Dulcinea, whose head he dresses like a girl’s, at the age of threescore and ten, makes the court of Proserpine rejoice before-hand; yet the deformed [4] author of the comical romance, cannot laugh, as facetious as he is; I will tell you no more, because some may think I give this counsel out of my private interest; for having been always ambitious, it would doubtless grieve me to see a more wicked and cruel tyrant than myself; but on the faith and word of one that endures the sharpest of torments, ’tis pure compassion.

Lewis the XIVth’s Answer.

I Just now receiv’d your’s by a courier, who, had he not been too nimble for me, had been rewarded according to his deserts for his impudent message. But are you such a coxcomb as to imagine that the most ambitious monarch upon earth, whose power puts all the princes and states of Europe into convulsions, can be frighted at the threats of a wretch condemn’d to everlasting punishments? The insolence of your comparison, I must confess, threw me into a rage: and not reflecting at first on the impossi{51}bility of the thing, I sent immediately for Boufflers to dragoon you. But, villain! because your malice has been rampant for so many ages, must you now level it at the eldest son of the church, whom the godly Jesuits have already canoniz’d? I am not so ignorant of the history of Asia, tho’ I never read any of the books of the Maccabees; but I know you were both judge and executioner, and that there is not in the universe one monument consecrated to your glory. Thanks to the careful Jesuits, la place des victoris, is a sufficient proof that my reputation is no chimera, and my name, which is to be seen in golden characters over several monasteries, assures me of a glorious immortality. ’Tis true, to keep in favour with the church, I have compell’d a handful of obstinate fools to leave their country and estates, by forcing them to renounce their God, and implicitly take up with mine. Therefore the world has no reason to make such a noise about it. Are you mad to call Pelisson, who has read more volumes than a rabbi, and cou’d give lessons of hypocrisy to the most exquisite sect of the Pharisees, a block-head? Your torments are so great, you know not on whom to spit your venom, and my poor [5] mistress, forsooth, must suffer from your malice: Is she the worse for being born in the reign of my grandfather? Pray ask Boileau, whose sincerity has cost him many a tear, what he thinks of her. All the world knows her virtues, and that she is grown grey in the school of dissimulation and lewdness, which have render’d her so charming in the feats of love, that she pleases me more than the youngest beauty; therefore are her wrinkles the objects of my wonder, and the provocatives of my enervated limbs, instead of being antidotes; and I would not give a saint a wax-candle to make her younger. Tho’ I am seiz’d by a cancer on the shoulder, yet I am under no apprehensions, for I have given a fee to St. Damian, who will cure me of it, as well as of that nauseous malady of Naples: And I have plenipotentiaries now bribing heaven for its friendship, and a new term of years. Then ’tis in vain for Lucifer, or you, ever to expect me; and when I must leave this terrestial paradice, ’twill be with such a convoy of{52} Masses, as will hurry me by the very gate of Purgatory, without touching there. In the mean time correct your saucy liberty, and let a monarch who wou’d scorn to entertain such a pitiful wretch as thou art for his pimp, still huff the world, and sleep quietly in his seraglio.

Catharine de Medicis, to the Duchess of Orleans.

I Have long bewailed your condition, and tho’ I am in a place of horror, yet I should think myself in some measure happy, if I knew how to deliver you from those anxieties which torment you. We have some body or other arrives here daily from Versailles, and as my curiosity inclines me to enquire after your highness, I have received so advantageous a character of your goodness from all hands, that I think every one ought to pity you. Your life, madam, has been very unhappy, for you were married very young to a jealous ill-natur’d prince, who had no love for you; tho’ no person in the world was fitter either to inspire or receive it than yourself: However, you have had better luck than his former wife, which I take to be owing to your prudence, and not his generosity. The desolations of the Palatine, and persecution of a religion you once approved, must infallibly have given you many uneasy moments, but your misfortunes did not stop here, for even your domestick pleasures have been poison’d by the dishonour and injustice of the court you live in. In short, tho’ I was very unfortunate, yet I think you much more worthy of compassion: When I married Henry II. I was both young and handsome, yet his doting on the haughty duchess of Valentinois, who was a grandmother before Francis II. was born, made me pass many melancholy nights. Notwithstanding the injustice as well as cruelty of keeping a saucy strumpet under my nose, yet with the veil of prudence and religion, I easily covered my inclinations, because the pious{53} cardinal of Lorrain, who had an admirable talent to comfort an afflicted heart, commiserating my condition, gave me wonderful consolation. As the refreshing cordials of the church soon made me forget the king’s ill usage of me; so, madam, it is not so much the infidelity of your husband, as the cruel constraint and jealousy, that makes me think your life to be miserable; for how great soever your occasions are, you dare not I know, accept of those assistances, I daily receive from a plump agreeable prelate, and I am heartily sorry for it. To divert this discourse, which may perhaps aggravate your uneasiness, by renewing your necessities, you’ll tell me, I suppose, that I shou’d have had as much compassion, when France was dy’d with the blood of so many thousand victims, and that I might easily have moderated the fury of my son, and of the house of Guise; but besides, you must consider, I was a zealous Papist; and they, you know, think the cutting of poor hereticks throats is doing heaven good service; so that I beheld the dreadful massacre of St. Bartholomew with as much satisfaction as ever I did the most glorious and solemn festival. I am not for it at present, madam, and could I have been so sooner, it would have been much more for my ease. All my comfort is, that I am not by myself in a strange and unknown country: for the old duchess, who robbed me of my due benevolence in the other world, continually follows me to upbraid me; the Guises rave, brandishing bloody daggers in their hands; and every hour I meet with numbers of my former acquaintance and nearest relations, but I avoid their company as much as I can, for the love of my dear cardinal, who continues as great a gallant as ever. I ask no masses of you, for the dead are not a farthing the better for them. But, madam, since all the world has not so good an opinion of me at Brantome, let me conjure you not to let my memory be too much insulted. Some may say I was as cunning as Livia, that I was even with my husband, and govern’d my children; but their fate did not answer my care: For Francis liv’d but a little time, Elizabeth found her tomb in the arms of a jealous husband, the queen of Navarre was a wandering star, Charles a cautious coxcomb, that sacrificed all to his safety; and Henry, on whom I had founded all my hopes, a dis{54}solute debauchee, whom the justice of heaven would not spare. You know his history, and if you shou’d see a tragedy, of the like nature acted on your stage, let your constancy, which makes you respected even in hell, support you. Let old [6] Messalina enjoy the famous honour of the royal bed; you need not blush at it, since all the world esteems you as much as they.

The Answer of the Duchess of Orleans to Catharine de Medicis.

’TWAS with much reason you pity me; and tho’ I have said nothing all this while, yet I have not thought the less. If the practice of our court did not teach me to dissemble, I should give myself some ease, by imparting many things to you, which would fill you with horror; and then you would find that the cruelties of your sons were trifles in comparison of these. The most impartial censurers of barbarity maintain that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was milder than the present persecution of the Protestants: Ambition was the chiefest motive of the Guises; but now their cruelties are covered with the cloak of religion; for the virtuous favourite [7] Sultaness, with the pitious [8] Mufti in waiting, are resolved to cause the christians to be more cruelly persecuted than they were at Algiers, and the Roman church is resolved, at any rate, to merit the name of the blood-thirsty beast. They value not exposing the reputation of princes; I blush for my race, and am often obliged to swallow my tears. I believe the efficacy of masses no more than you, therefore I will not offer you any. I am very glad to hear the cardinal of Lorrain proves so constant; for a prelate of his talent and constitution must certainly be a great consolation to a distressed princess. Brantome who has so much flatter’d you, may do it again; and tho’ Sancy has been too sincere, yet he dares not contradict him in your presence. I hope to see the ruins of my country rais’d up again; for tho’ our ambitious monarch huffs and hectors{55} all Christendom, yet his game to me seems very desperate, and I believe he’ll prove the dog in the fable; since he has so depopulated and impoverish’d his dominions by persecutions, that those pious drones the Monks, only can support the church’s grandeur in their faces, with three story-chains; the rest of his people being reduc’d to wooden-shoes and garlick. Tho’ our Gazettes are little better than romances, yet they will serve to divert you and your cardinal, when not better employ’d; and I wish I could send them to you weekly. ’Tis true, great numbers set out daily from hence, for your country; and among them, people of the best quality, but I carefully avoid all commerce with them; and tho’ I have a wonderful esteem for you, take it not amiss, madam, if I endeavour never to see you.

Cardinal Mazarine, to the Marquis de Barbasiux.

I Am surpriz’d to think you have profited so little by your father’s example: as great a beast he was, he govern’d himself better than you; for contenting himself with pillaging all France, according to our maxims, he never attempted the life of any man, nor ever set any [9] Ravillacs to work. Is it not a horrible thing to see the [10] servant of a minister of state suffer upon the wheel, and publish the shame of him that set him to work? You were mightily mistaken in the choice of your villain; for whenever you have a king to dispatch, you must employ a Jesuit, or some novice inspired by their religious society; and had you been so wise, the prince [11] you had a plot against wou’d not be now in the way, to hinder the designs of a [12] king, for whom I have the tenderness of a father, who was always under my subjection, and wou’d have married my niece, if I had pleas’d. I fell into a cold sweat even in the midst of my fire and brimstone, at the news of your{56} conspiracy; because it so severely reflected on his reputation. Ought you to have exposed his credit in so dubious an enterprize? Is it not sufficient that poets set upon him [13] Mont Pagnotte, whilst other princes gave glorious examples at the head of their troops? That they reproach him with incest, sodomy, adultery, and an unbridled passion for the relict of a poor [14] poet, who is a turn-spit here below, and who had nothing to keep him from starving when upon earth, but the pension which the charity of Anne of Austria granted to his infirmities, rather than his works, tho’ very diverting. What was your aim in this cowardly design? wou’d you have more servants, and more whores? Or, ought you to effect that, to revive those scenes of cruelty and treachery which we banish’d after the death of the most eminent cardinal Richlieu? All the wealth you can raise, will never amount to the treasures I was master of; and how much is there now left, ask the duke of Mazarine, and my nephew of Nevers; one has been the bubble of the priests, and the other of his pleasures. So that the children of the first will hardly share one year of my revenue. His wife for several years was no charge to him, she for her beauty, being kept by strangers; whilst he fool’d away those vast riches he had by her. In short, you see the praying coxcomb I made choice of, which, I must confess, I did when I was in my cups, has thro’ his zeal and bigotry ruin’d all, even my most beautiful statues; and that there is a curse entail’d upon such estates as begin with a miracle, and end with a prodigy. I was born at Mazare, without any other advantage than that of my beauty; but as a young fellow can scarce desire a better portion than that, in Italy, so it mov’d cardinal Anthony to lead me lovingly from his chamber to his closet, where on a soft easy couch, he preach’d to me morals after the Italian fashion; by which, and some other virtuous actions of the same stamp, I became the richest favourite in the universe. You may as well as I, heap a mighty treasure, and lose it foolishly. Do not be guilty then of murder, for things so uncertain in the possession. Poor Louvois! who left you all, who drank more than Alexander, and{57} thiev’d better than Colbert, or I, has not now water to quench his thirst. You will undoubtedly meet the same destiny; for this is the residence of traitors, murtherers, thieves, and all other notorious villains. ’Tis not altogether so pleasant a place as [15] Meudon and Chaville; for we drink nothing but Aqua-fortis, and eat burning charcoal; all happiness is banish’d, misery only triumphs; and notwithstanding all those lying stories the priests may tell you, yet you’ll be strangly surpriz’d, when you come to judge it by your own experience.

The Answer of Monsieur le Marquis de Barbasieux, to Cardinal Mazarine.

YOUR eminence I find, is in a great passion, because my father did not get an estate in your service: Must you therefore abuse him, and turn that as a crime upon me, which has been practis’d ever since there have been kings in the world? If your talent only lay in pillaging and plundering, must it therefore prescribe to mine? And do you think the glory of taking away by dagger or poison the enemies of one’s prince, deserves less immortality, than of ruining of his subjects? You have, I confess, very meritoriously eterniz’d your name by that method, for which reason you ought in conscience to allow me the liberty to find out another. You are much in the wrong on’t, to complain of the duke of Mazarine, who did you the honour to think you were only in purgatory, and lavish’d your treasures upon bigots, in hopes to pray you out of it. If he in a holy fit of zeal, dismember’d your fine statues, which perhaps too often recalled to your memory the pious sermons of cardinal Anthony, he is severely punish’d in a libel made against him, in vindication of your beauteous niece. If that satire reaches your regions below, you’ll soon be convinced what a coxcomb you were when you chose the worst of men, to couple with the most charming of women. This, with several other passages of your life, makes me not much wonder at your condemning me by your cardinal’s authority, to{58} drink Aquafortis, and eat burning charcoal; it may perhaps be a proper diet for Epicurean cardinals and Italians, who love hot liquors, and high-season’d ragoos; but the lords of Chaville and Meudon do not desire your entertainments. How do you know, I beseech you, but I may take the cell of the young Marquis d’Ancré at [16] Mont Valerine; there, by a long penitence, to purge me of those sins you say I have committed? Therefore if you reckon me in the number of those reprobates, doom’d to people the infernal shades, time will at last make it appear, that your eminence has reckoned without your host.

Mary I. of England to the Pope.

THE malignant planet that governed at my birth, so influenc’d all the faculties of my soul, that I was the most outragious and barbarous princess till that time mounted the English throne; and as it is no extraordinary thing to continue in the same temper, in a country inhabited only with tyrants, and the butchers of their subjects, so you ought not to be surprised, if I am not now dispossessed of it. I had not long troubled the world before my mother [17] was divorced, and I myself declared incapable of succeeding Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn was then brought to the royal bed; and what was worse, with her was introduced a religion so conformable to the laws of God, that it never suited with my inclinations. The proud rival of Catherine, was afterwards sacrific’d to the inconstancy of her voluptuous husband; but that insipid religion, to my grief, was not confounded with her; for the young and simple Edward countenanced it during his reign. But then came my turn, and you know, sovereign pontiff, with what pride and malice I mounted the throne; the means I used to destroy that cursed heretical doctrine; the pleasure I took in shedding my subjects blood; what magnificence and splendor I gave to the mass; how barbarously I treated that innocent and beautiful princess Jane Gray; with what severity I used my sister Elizabeth, and also the{59} immoderate joy that seized my precious soul, when I married a prince who had, as well as I, the good quality of being cruel to the highest degree, is not unknown to you. Notwithstanding what I said in the beginning of my letter, you may, perhaps, think my sentiments now altered: but I assure you the contrary, and that I cannot behold with patience your present insensibility and mildness. Is it possible you can suffer a religion, destitute of all ornaments, that has nothing but truth and simplicity to recommend it, to get the advantage of your Rome, which reigns in blood and purple, subsists by falshood and idolatry, and sets up and pulls down kings? how can you endure it? what a horrid shame and weakness is this? are there no more Ravillacs? is there neither powder nor daggers, in the arsenal of the Jesuits? have they forgot how to build wheels, gibbets, and scaffolds? or is your malice, envy, hatred, and fury, seized with a lethargy? ’s death! holy father, I am distracted when I think that nothing succeeds in England, where I took so much pains, and practised so much cruelty to establish Popery, and root out the doctrine of the apostles; and where your pious emissaries following my zeal, had invented most admirable machines to sacrifice, with James I. all the enemies of your Anti-christian Holiness. Do you sleep? and must France only brandish the glorious flambeau of persecution? Consider, I pray, that I employ the best of my time in imprecations against the deserters from your church; that I so inflamed my blood in those transports, that it threw me into a dropsy, which hurried me to the grave. My husband, who was too much of my temper to love me, was very little concerned: In short, that filthy disease stifled me, a certain presage of the continual thirst I now suffer. But I once more beseech you, most holy father, to re-inforce your squadrons, to join them with the Most Christian King’s, and, with your holy benediction, give them strict orders to grant no quarters to the disciples of St. Paul. You will infinitely oblige by it both me and Lucifer, who is now as zealous a Romanist as your eldest son, and who, like him, would not willingly suffer any but good Papists, the friends and pensioners of Versailles, those sworn enemies of liberty and property, in his dominions. I am so ill-natur’d, that my husband Philip is as cautious of em{60}bracing me, as he was in the other world; but that’s no misfortune either to Earth or Hell, for we could produce nothing but a monster between us, which would be the terror of mankind, and horror of devils.

The Pope’s Answer to Queen Mary I.

YOU are too violent, dear madam, and men of my age and grandeur require more moderation. I am acquainted with your history, and know your zeal; by the same token, you need not waste your lungs to acquaint me with either the one or the other. To be free with you, I am not of the humour to espouse madly other peoples passions, tho’ I should leave the triple crown destitute of all pomp and greatness. But I will make the hereticks blot out of their writings, if possible, the names of Antichrist, devouring Dragon, Wolf disguis’d in sheeps-skin, and several others as abusive. Do you not believe people are weary of paying a blind obedience to the see of Rome? Imperious France has made us sensible of it; and it is not the fault of the eldest son of the Church, if he does not dethrone his mother. Ecclesiastical censures are now out of fashion, and no more minded than pasquinades. We were scorn’d and ridicul’d in your father’s time; and tho’ you were as handsome as my quondam mistress, Donna Maria di S. Germano, you would not oblige me to put up fresh affronts for your sake. Your husband is to blame to treat you with such indifference, and I think it very ill for an infected worm-eaten carcase to despise so devout a queen. But I cannot imagine why the popes, who live all under the same zone with you, suffer such coldness. Suppose your husband should, like a heretick, despise their exhortations, one of their decrees has power enough to divorce you; which in time, I hope, may advance your grandeur; for we hear Pluto is in love with you for your zeal, and Proserpine is given over by the physicians. Therefore take my advice, and drink as little water as you can; for being dropsical, the water of Styx must needs be prejudicial to you, and the church would lose an admirable good friend. I offer you no indulgences, they are pure mountebank drugs, and were you got no farther yet than Purgatory, have not the virtue{61} to bring you out. But grant they had that power, as your amours stand now, I suppose you would not desire it; so, till I have the happiness of wishing your imperial majesty much joy, I am, &c.

Harlequin to Father la Chaise.

SINCE we were of the same trade, with this difference only, that I compos’d farces to make the world laugh, and that you invent tragedies that gave them horror: I believe, reverend father, you will not condemn the liberty I take of writing to you.

In the first place, I beseech your reverence, not to put your penitents out of conceit with those harmless diversions which make me and my brother-players live so plentifully; but be pleased to take our small flock into your protection: that power lies in the breast of you and your pious society: and who wou’d grudge it to such holy men, who have no other aim than settling and satisfying men’s consciences, by clearing all the controverted difficulties of Christianity, and rendring religion so plain and easy, that our enemies cannot find the least doubt or difficulty in it. Nay, like a dextrous artist you can, with your admirable morals, remove the justest scruples; for they give so pious an air, so devout a shade to the greatest crimes, that they enchant the world, and hide their deformity, without opposing the licentiousness of passions, or destroying their pleasures or intention. These admirable talents, most holy confessor, open to your society the closets and hearts of princes, and bring all the lovers of voluptuousness and barbarity to be your confessionaries. Truly, reverend father, your fame is infinite, and the great St. Loyola may be proud of having so many righteous disciples. But these miracles make the world believe him something related to Simon Magus; for without inchantments ’tis impossible to do so many prodigies. The lameness in his feet, and megrim he’s daily troubled with, by being too near a hot furnace of brimstone, makes him so peevish and out of humour, that he cannot write to any of you; therefore look upon me as his secretary, and not a-jot the lesser saint for having been upon the stage; all Paris can{62} witness for me, that as soon as I laid aside my comical mask and habit, I could, upon occasion, look as demure and devout as a fresh pardoned penitent; so that the employment is neither above my gravity, nor I hope above my sincerity and capacity; for I have often had the honour of shewing my parts before his most christian majesty in his seraglio, to make him more prolifick, and more disposed to the mighty work of propagation. But, reverend father, ’tis time now to tell you, as a good catholick and your friend, that we are so scandaliz’d here at his conduct, that we cannot believe he follows your holy advice; and were it not for this doubt, and our sollicitations, Lucifer had last summer sent Loyola under the command of Monsieur Luxembourg, to dragoon you. Zounds! says he, is the order that daily sent me so many subjects revolted? ’Tis true, the rogues Ravillac and Clement have a little disgrac’d you, but we don’t value now what they say, for the wits have espoused your quarrel, and blinded the eyes of detraction. Indeed it is no wonder to us, since they sing to Apollo’s harp, which had the power to claim the transports of Jupiter. Is there any thing so charming as the discourse of [18] Ariste and Eugene, and that little Je ne sçai quoi, they speak so wittily of? Who can resist the art of good invention in the work of wit, or an exquisite choice of good verses? And who would not be charm’d with all those panegyricks upon the ladies? Is not once reading of them a thousand times more diverting, than those profound writings you so prudently forbid your penitents the perusal of? I own indeed, that this conduct is not altogether so apostolical, but ’tis much easier than to be always puzzling and hammering our parables. ’Tis certain, most reverend father, shou’d you leave the sacred writ open to all readers, it would fare with a thousand good souls, as with king Ahasuerus, who became favourable to the true religion, by reading a true chronicle, how many blind wretches think ye would see clear? How many favourites would be hang’d, and Mordecai’s raised to honour? And how many Jesuits would be treated as the priests of Baal? But you, I’m sure, will take care to hinder that; for tru{63}ly ’twould be contrary to your ecclesiastical prudence; and it is much safer for you to darken the divine lights, and confound by sophisms the sacred truths of holy writ: for what would become of your church, if the clouds were once dispersed, since it flourishes by their favour, and the protection of ignorance? Nothing can keep up the credit of a repudiated cheat, whose shams are so notorious, and whole equipage so different from that of the legitimate spouse of Jesus Christ, that neither he, nor any of his faithful servants know or own her, but ignorance and falshood. I ask your pardon, most reverend father, these expressions flow so naturally from my subject, that they have escaped my sincerity; and I own this is not the style of a flatterer. But to atone for my fault, I will give you some wholsome advice, which is, to make hay while the sun shines, for you must not expect much fair weather in these doleful quarters. Those worthy gentlemen called Confessors, being looked upon here to be no better than so many Ignes fatui, that lead their followers into precipices; for which reason they are not allowed ice with their liquor. This I can allure you to be true, in verbo histrionis: Therefore since you know what you must trust to, I need not advise a person of your profound parts, what measures to take. Amen.

Father la Chaise’s Answer to Harlequin.

THO’ you convers’d with none but impudent lousy rhimers, yet you are not ignorant, you little jack-pudding of the stage, that all comparisons are odious; and that there can be none between the confessor of a monarch, and a buffoon. But to answer your letter with the moderation and prudence of a Jesuit, I will suppose the first part of it not meant to me. And now to take into consideration the essential points in it: have we not proscribed heresy by sound of trumpet? And notwithstanding all the pretty books we have published, and the cajoling tricks we have used, is not heresy still the same? But to be serious, Harlequin, good Roman Catholicks must follow no other lights than those of tradition; and they, who are so incredulous and obstinate as not to believe it, must have their eyes opened with the sword.{64} ’Twould be a fine enterprize, wou’d it not, and very profitable to the church, to condemn images, candles, holy-water, beads, scapularies, relicks, with an hundred others, which are so many golden mines, and offer only to bigots the slovenly equipage of Calvin’s reformation? Devotion meerly spiritual, is too flat and insipid; therefore we must set it off with jubilees, pilgrimages, processions, drums, trumpets, crosses, banners, and all the mountebank tricks, and noble nick-nacks of St. Germain’s fair. If I did not know that jesting was an habitual sin in you, I wou’d never pardon you; for the Society of Jesus does not teach us to forgive injuries. Tell St. Loyola, the first of us that shall be sent post to mighty Lucifer, to desire his assistance in those important affairs our great monarch has undertaken by his instigation, and which are too tedious now to relate, shall put into his portmantle some ice to refresh him, plaisters for his megrim, and ointment for his burns: tell him also, that the memory of the glorious prophet Mahomet, is not more respected than his; and that I am,

The Duke of Alva to the Clergy of France.

I Believe, worthy gentlemen, you are very well satisfy’d that I am damn’d; and—— indeed there was little likelihood that such a monster as myself should enjoy happiness, after having committed so much wickedness, and taken so much pleasure in it. I took a fancy to acts of cruelty from my very cradle, and with great fidelity serv’d Philip II. The celebrated apostle of the Gentiles never made so many miserable wretches when he was as violent a zealot of the law; I, like him, made use of chains, racks, fire, and all that an ingenious fury cou’d imagine most tormenting; but it was never any part of my destiny to be converted at last like him. Thus I{65} went on in my iniquities, and became the strongest brute that bigottry ever debauch’d; so that at my first arrival to Hell, there was never a Devil of the whole pack but fell a trembling, tho’ he had been never so much accustomed to such company before. But, gentlemen, why are you not become wise by my example? For you must not flatter yourselves, that the difference of our professions makes any in our crimes. You are warriors when you please; for the monastick soldiery follow’d the duke of Mayeney’s standard during the league; crowned themselves with immortal shame at the barbarous triumph of St. Bartholomew; and shoulder’d the musket after they had preached those bloody sermons, which made christians treat their fellow-creatures like beasts of prey. I confess, I never troubled my head about scruples of conscience, and if I have not obeyed that article of the decalogue, Thou shalt not kill, I never roared out with a wide mouth, as the priests of the Roman Church, persecute, imprison, kill, destroy, force them to obey. My fury came only from your brethren, who had so thoroughly corrupted me, that I thought Heaven would be my reward, if I butcher’d all they were pleased to stigmatize with heresy. So I gave a loose to my passions, as you may read in history, where, I think, they have used me but too kindly. To seduce men of weak understandings is no extraordinary matter; but that princes, who ought to have a competent knowledge of every thing, should be cheated by you, is a miracle to me. No age of the world ever saw a greater example of it, than in my master Philip, whose natural sloth, and besotted bigottry, gave so fair a field to these ecclesiastical impostors, so fair an opportunity to manage him as they pleased; and his father’s [19] ashes are a sufficient proof of it. Instead of setting before his eyes the example of that invincible prince, these sanctify’d villains only plunged him deeper in superstition and idolatry. And as a domineering lazy lord of a country village, will never go out of his own parish, so he never travelled farther than from Madrid to the Escurial. His wife, father, son, and brother, felt the effects of their barbarous doctrine. And, to leave{66} behind him a pious idea of his soul, when he was dying, he ordered his crown and coffin to be set before him. This was hypocrisy with a witness, but that is no crime in a zealot. You’ll tell me perhaps, I direct my discourse to improper persons, who know not the history of Philip of Austria, ignorance being common enough in those of your fraternity, yet let me tell you, I am not mistaken; for the diabolical spirit that now possesses you, is the very same that influenced the priests of my time; and I may safely affirm, that France is the theatre of cruelty and iniquity. Your monarch, who is much such another saint as my master, spares the poor Protestants lives, for no other reason, but to make, by his inhuman torments, death more desirable to them. These, and a thousand more unjust actions does he commit, to satiate your hellish vanity, which would for ever domineer in the city built on seven mountains. To this you will answer, What doth it signify if we make him persecute the Protestants, murther their kings, and keep no faith or treaties with them, since it encreases our power, and propagates our religion? But, gentlemen, when you come to be where I am, you will, I’m certain, sing another tune.

The Answer of the Clergy of France to the Duke of Alva.

HAD you made as sincere a confession in the days of yore, as you do now, you might, for your zeal in persecuting heresy, have obtain’d an ample absolution of all your sins, tho’ they had been never so numerous and black, and been a glorious saint in the Roman calendar; which induces us to believe, your zeal tended rather towards the propagation of your own power and interest, than that of the church. Thus in cheating us, you likewise cheated yourself; and we are not sorry at your calamities. But, does it become you, who once fill’d Flanders and Spain with horror, to reproach the apostolick legions with the noble effects of their fervency? And was it not absolutely necessary, after we had once preached the destruction of the Protestants, that Lewis the{67} Great, to compleat his glory, and our satisfaction, should send his holy troops to burn, ravish, and pillage at discretion; that he might say with an emperor of Rome, whom he very much resembles, Let them hate, so they fear me? Where, Sir, do you find us commanded to keep faith with hereticks, or suffer their princes to live, when ’tis against our interest? Does not the Roman church dispense with these little peccadillo’s? And are not those who wear her cloth, and eat her bread, oblig’d to obey her precepts? What pleases us most is to hear a whining recreant as thou art, sing peccavi at this time of day, and pretend to remorse of conscience. For your comfort, you may desire Cerberus, if you please, to join in the consort with you; but rest assured, that if you had three mouths like that triple-headed cur, your barking would be all in vain.

Philip of Austria to the Dauphine.

WHAT do you mean, worthy kinsman, by pretending to be a man of honour! Does it become a person of your birth? Do you find any precedent for it in your family? Did your father make himself formidable by it? Or do you find in history, that any merciful or generous prince made himself so great, or reigned so prosperously for almost sixty years, as your debauched and perjured father has done, who is now the terror and scourge of Europe, and will be its tyrant, if treachery and gold can prevail? But do you think those things to be crimes in sovereigns? If he has indulg’d his lust, does he not severely persecute heresy? And besides, does not his [20] mistress constantly pray and offer sacrifice? You know she’s old enough to be prudent, and lives upon the gravity of her age, since she stretches her devotion, even to the stage, by the same token, she will suffer none of her husband’s [21] diverting farces to be acted there any more. Thank Heaven therefore for sending you that bountiful patroness from the [22] new world, who is{68} the comfort and preservation of your father and his kingdoms; and tho’ your mother was my near relation, yet I am not ashamed to see so pure and zealous a saint supply her place in the royal bed. I wonder she has not yet prevailed with you to have more regard for the interest of the Roman Church; to promote the grandeur, whereof I destroy’d many thousands of its enemies, by the ministry of the duke of Alva, and order’d my father’s bones to be dug out of the ground and burnt, for having tolerated Luther’s heresy. Otherwise I should never have concern’d myself about it, supposing none but flegmatick coxcombs would espouse a church which does not keep open house all the year round, and won’t pardon the greatest crimes for money. You know, I don’t doubt, what my jealousy cost my [23] son and [24] wife, and how I treated the [25] conqueror at Levanto: to balance that account with Heaven, I gave largely to the priests, built monasteries, went to processions, was loaded like a mule with beads and relicks, and by this means passed for a saint. And this I think may properly enough be called a good religion. ’Tis true, I never saw any engagement but in my closet, or at a distance, like your prudent father: what then, does the world talk less of me, or him for that? The end of my life, I must confess, was something singular, for the worms serv’d an execution upon my carcase before the time; and so we hear they do his. But what does that signify, so a man satisfies his own humour? Be not infatuated then with vain-glory; for if they, who are exempt from the flames of hell, boast of having angels, saints, and martyrs for their companions, we can brag of having popes, cardinals, emperors, kings, queens, jesuits, monks, and priests in abundance. I must own, our walks have not the charming fountains and shades of [26] Versailles, and the Escurial; and that it is always as hot weather with us here, as with the good folks under the Torrid Zone: but such a trifle as this ought not to make you shun the company of so many choice friends, as have an entire affection for you.{69}

The Dauphine’s Answer To Philip of Austria.

Neither the examples you have quoted, nor those which are daily before my eyes, have power enough to pervert me, I have a veneration for virtue, which you, forsooth, call the quality of a coxcomb; and an abhorrence for all that bears the stamp of vice, tho’ you have illustrated it with the prosperous and glorious reign of the French monarch. But were the first unknown to me, I would not look for it in your life; since, according to your best friends, it is a thing you never practised. As sons have no authority to condemn the conduct of their fathers, so I will not presume to examine into that of Lewis XIV. But tell me, I beseech you, what advantages you reaped from your bigottry and superstition? For my part, had I some of the ashes of every saint, in the Roman Calendar, in my snuff-box, and carried beads as big as cannon-bullets about me, I should not believe myself either a better christian, or less exposed to danger. But to what purpose did you, who never exposed your royal person in battle, arm yourself with all those imaginary preservatives? Or can you say they defended you from being devoured alive by millions of vermine, that punished you in this life, for the iniquities you daily committed, and were only the prelude to more terrible punishment. Let not my indifference for the church of Rome break your rest; I have no power at present, and I can’t tell what my sentiments would be, had I a crown on my head: but it now cruelly troubles me, to see France so weakened by the dispersion of so many thousand innocent people: and did my opinion signify any more in our councils than wind, I would advise the recalling of them. But the nymph, you see, with so much satisfaction, supply the place of your grandchild, and who has more power now than ever, is there as absolute as a dictator. The French monarchy, which has subsisted for so many ages, might be still supported without her; she being good for nothing that I know of, but to instruct youth in the nicest ways of debauchery; therefore I could wish the king would transport her to her native soil, and make{70} her governess of the American monkies; a fitter employment for her than that she usurps over our princesses. To deal plainly with you, I have no ambition to see your jesty, being satisfy’d with knowing you from publick report; so will carefully avoid coming near your torrid zone, if ’tis possible for a man to be any time a king of France, without it.

Juvenal to Boileau.

SINCE we don’t dispatch couriers every day from the kingdom of Pluto, you ought not to be surprized, that I have not had an opportunity till now, of telling you what sticks in my stomach. I thought your first satires very admirable, your expressions just and laboriously turn’d, yet charming and natural. Were the distribution of rewards in my power, I should certainly give you something for your Art of Poetry: but for your Lutrin, that master-piece of your wit, that highest effort of your imagination, I see nothing in it worthy of you, but the verification. Every one owns you can write, nay, your very enemies allow it; but you know a metamorphosis requires an entire change; therefore, since you resolve to imitate Virgil, you should have made choice of noble heroes. He that travestied the Æneis, understood it better than you, and did not fatigue himself so much; and as he was a man of clear and good sense, has judiciously remark’d, that his queen disguised like a country-wench, is infinitely beyond your clockmaker’s wife dress’d like an empress. But let us leave this subject, which now it is too late to amend, since what is done cannot be undone. What did you mean, you I say, who have been accused of stealing my lines, and who, to deal honestly with you, have often followed the same road I have traced? What did you mean, I say, by reflecting on particulars in your satire against women: Did I ever set you that example? Is not my sixth satire against the sex in general; and when I look back as far as the reigns of Saturn and Rhea for [27] modesty, do I pretend the least shadow of it is left upon the earth? Unthinking{71} fool! those different characters you have drawn, will make you so many particular enemies; and I question, if the patroness you have chosen can secure you from their claws.

If an affected zeal inspires you with so much veneration for a saint of the Italian fashion, in truth you ought to have burnt your incense so privately, that the smoke might not have offended others. How can the bard that boasts of eating no flesh in Lent, that would frankly discipline himself in the face of the godly, like one of the [28] militia of St. Francis, adore a golden cow, and adorn an idol each blast of wind can overthrow, with those garlands which should be preserv’d for the statues of the greatest heroes! She is, it is true, very singular in her kind; but will you stain your name, of illustrious poet, by creeping before a walking mummy of her superannuated gallantry? your sordid interest has made you a traytor to Satire; and thereby you occasion here continual divisions, [29] Chaquelian and St. Amant have been at cuffs with [30] Moliere and Cornielle, because you have not treated them so civilly as your [31] Urgande. The two first ridicule your sordid covetous humour, and say you learnt that baseness while you belong’d to the Register’s Office. The other two, who were perhaps of your trade, defend the honour of your extraction. But St. Amant[32], who will never forget the unworthy character you have given him concerning his poverty, which he swears is false; and submitting his verses to the judgment of unprejudiced persons, for which you ridicule him, said in a haughty tone, (which set us all a laughing) that when he was a gentleman of the chamber in ordinary to the queen of Poland, and embassador extraordinary at the coronation of the queen of Sweden, he kept several footmen of better quality than yourself. Chaquelian, who cannot say so much for himself, is content with singing the terrible valour of the duke de Nevers’s lackeys, who kept time with their cudgels on your shoulders. We were forced to call for a bottle to appease this war; and{72} St. Amant, taking the glass in his hand, swore by his maker, he had rather you had call’d him drunkard than fool, tho’ he drinks very moderately in this place, where it is no great scandal to be thirsty. Be not concerned at this paragraph, because the rest of my letter sufficiently testifies the esteem I have for you, and my concern for your welfare: therefore to preserve both, renounce your sordid way of praising vice, and employ your happy talent in teaching good manners, and correcting the bad, which will be an employment worthy of your great genius, and is the only way to recommend you to the good opinion of the learned ancients.

Boileau’s Answer to Juvenal.

A Messenger from the Muses never fill’d me with so much transport, as the first sight of your letter; but I had not read six lines, before I wish’d you had never done me that honour. To praise my Satires and fall foul upon my Lutrin (which made me sweat more drops of water, than your drunkard St. Amant (since I must call him so) ever drank of wine) is no favour. After many laborious and fruitless endeavours, finding, to my great grief and distraction, I could not match you in wit, I resolv’d if possible to out-do you in malice, which made me take the liberty of romancing a little on St. Amant, falling foul upon people’s characters and manners, and treating several scurvy poets more roughly than you did the Theseis of Codrus, when you sang,

Thus suffering the gall of my heart to flow thro’ the channel of my pen, I procur’d myself enemies in abundance, and since I must confess all to you, some stripes with a bull’s-pizzle, which was a most terrible mortification to my shoulders; but I bore all this with the patience of a philosopher, as will appear by the following lines.{73}

The four first lines, I must own, are something against the grain; and the natural inclination I have to rail, and be thought an excellent poet, gives my tongue the lie; but the four last, which shew more prudence than wit, reconcile that matter. ’Tis certainly, illustrious bard, more difficult to please the world now than it was in your time; for if I write satire, I am beaten for it; if I praise, I am call’d a mercenary flatterer, which so disheartens me, that I address myself now to my Gardener only; and do not doubt but some busy nice critick will be censuring this poem also. Not being in the best humour when I writ it, perhaps it may appear something dark and abstruse; but I can easily excuse that, by maintaining that ’tis impossible for the best author in the world to keep up always to the same strain, Have you ever heard of the tales of the Peau d’Asne, & Grisedilis? if Proserpine had any little children, ’twould be a most agreeable diversion for them, and I wou’d send it ’em for a present. Tho’ that author furnishes you with sufficient matter to laugh at me, yet I must confess he has found the art of making something of a trifle. Every one here learns his verses by heart; and in spight of my translation of Longinus, which makes it so plainly appear, I understand Greek, and know something of poetry, my book begins to be despis’d. Wou’d it not break a Man’s heart to see such impertinent stuff preferr’d before so many sublime pieces? But, as for your glory that will eternally subsist, and nothing can destroy it, since time has not already done it.{74}

Diana of Poictiers, Mistress to Hen. II. of France, to Madam Maintenon.

SINCE the spirit of curiosity possesses us here in this world, no less than it did in your’s, ’tis an infinite trouble for those persons, Madam, who were acquainted with every thing while they liv’d, not to know all that passes after their death; and of this you’ll one day make an experiment. I am not desirous to know, Madam, what you have done to succeed the greatest beauties of the earth, in the affection of an old libidinous monarch, nor what charms you make use of to secure the possession of his heart, at an age you cannot please without a miracle. My planet, dear Madam, has rendered me somewhat knowing in these affairs, for Henry II. was my gallant as long as he liv’d; and tho’ I was little handsomer than you, I was not, I think, much younger. But I must tell you, I cannot comprehend what procures you those loud commendations and applauses which reach even to our ears, and are by their noise most horribly offensive to us. The advantages of my birth were great; and it is well known my charms so captivated Francis I. that they redeem’d my father from the gallows. I marry’d a very considerable man, and the name of Breze Reneschal of Normandy, sounds somewhat better than that of Scarron the queen’s ballad-maker. The house of Poictiers too, from which I was descended, may surely take place of those monarchs from whom that mercenary fellow Boileau derives your extraction; and lastly, if I had a few particular enemies, I did nothing to make myself generally odious. Yet for all this, I was neither canoniz’d nor prais’d, but openly laugh’d at, and by one of my own profession, I mean the duchess of Estampe, who was mistress to the father of my lover, and said she was born on my wedding-day. Blundering impudent Bayard was banish’d for speaking too freely of me; and tho’ it was said, That for me alone beauty had the privilege not to grow old, the compliment was so forc’d, that I was little the better for it. Ragged Marot was the only poet that ever pretended to couple rhimes in my praise;{75} and I will appeal to you if he did not deserve to go naked.

What think you, Madam, of this, is it not rather satire than praise? Shou’d the bard, that sings your virtues from the top of Parnassus down to the market-place, be as sincere, how wou’d you reward him? Tho’ I know he has more prudence, yet I cannot believe he compares you to Helen for beauty, to Hebe for youth, for chastity to Lucretia, for courage to Clelia, and for wisdom to Minerva, as common report says; because, were it true, it is not to be suppos’d you would have but a poor deform’d poet in possession of such mighty treasures. For were there not scepters and crowns then enticing? Were not then the eyes of princes open? Did you chuse an author for your love, out of caprice or despair? Did you take his wicker-chair for a throne? Or did the love of philosophy draw you in? Had the latter wrought upon you, you would not have been the first, I must confess; for the famous Hirparchia, handsome, young, and rich, preferr’d poor crooked Crates before the wealthiest and most beautiful gentleman of Greece. I am unwilling to judge uncharitably, but I cannot be perswaded that such an alliance could be contracted without some pressing necessity. When I reflect on the beginning, increase, and circumstances of your fortune, I am astonish’d? for neither your hair, which was grey when you began to grow{76} in favour; nor the remembrance of [33] a vestal once adorned; nor the idea of a [34] blooming beauty, whom cruel death suddenly snatch’d away by the help of a little poison; nor the presence of a [35] rival, by so much the more dangerous, because she had triumph’d over several others, could prove any obstacles to your prosperity. The beautiful lady that brought you out of your mean obscurity; and in whose service you thought yourself happy, is now content if you let her enjoy the least shew of her former greatness. In this Chaos I lose myself, Madam; but if you will bring me out of my confusion, I faithfully promise to give you an exact account of all that concerns me, when I shall have the pleasure of embracing you. I exceedingly commend your prudent conduct; for those young plants you cultivate in a [36] terrestial paradice, will one day produce flowers to crown you; and the zeal you profess for a religion which began to act furiously in my time, must stop the mouths of the nicest bigots, and make the tribunal of confession favourable to you; tho’ perhaps, dear Madam, it may make that of Minos a little more severe.

Madam Maintenon’s Answer to Diana of Poictiers.

CUriosity, Madam, being the character of the great and busy, I will answer you according to your merit and birth, tho’ you have not treated me so, since you know what charms a lover when youth is gone; I will dismiss that point to come to the history of my life, and the virtuous actions I am prais’d for. I know you are of an antient family, that you marry’d a man of power and riches; and that you were Francis the First’s bedfellow, before his son fell in love with you. As for me, I was born in the [37] new world, under a favourable constellation; and the offspring of a Jaylor’s daughter, with whom my father, tho’ of royal blood, was oblig’d, ei{77}ther thro’ love, or rather necessity, to cohabit. Fortune, which never yet forsook me, first deprived me of my beggarly relations, without leaving me wherewithal to cover my nakedness, and then brought me into Europe, where I found a great many lovers, and few husbands. Poor deform’d Scarron at last offer’d me his hand; I had my reasons for accepting him, and his infirmities did not hinder me from receiving that title which was convenient for one in my circumstances. In short, I lost him without much concern; and liv’d so prudently during my widowhood, that Madam Montespan took me out of my cell, to bring me into the intrigues of the court. Every one knows I drove my generous patroness from the royal bed; and that since my being in favour, I have been profusely liberal to all my idolaters. Our poets, who do not resemble Marot, value not honour, provided they have good pensions, which I generously bestow on them, and they repay me in panegyricks; by which means I am handsome, young, chaste, virtuous, wise, and of as noble blood as Alexander the Great. Tho’ I was a Protestant, the church is not so foolish as to enquire into my religion, thus out of a principle of gratitude, and to fix her in my interest, I have fill’d the heart of our monarch with the godly zeal of persecution. I have also founded a stately [38] edifice, where I breed up a great many pretty young virgins, who, no doubt on’t, will prove as modest and discreet as their founder; and I play so well the part of a queen, that the world thinks me so in reality. These few hints may give you some light into my history, Madam, therefore to reward my sincerity, if you find Minos dispos’d to use me severely, prepare him, I beseech you, to be more favourable.

LET all those that are ambitious of the title of favourite learn by the history of my life, how dan{78}gerous a folly it is to monopolize their prince’s smiles. A man climbs to the top of this slippery ascent thro’ a thousand difficulties; and if he is not moderate in his prosperity, (which few are) he often falls with a more precipitated shame into disgrace. I acquir’d, or rather usurp’d, the favour of Edward II. in whose breast the proud Gaveston had before me licentiously revell’d. To effect this, my father lent me his helping hand; but without growing wiser by the examples of others, the vanity of my ambition made me follow that wandring star, call’d fortune. I no sooner had possess’d myself of the king’s ear, but I crept into the secrets of his heart, and infected it with the blackest venom of mine; acting the part of a self-interested, not an honest minister. As I valued not the glory of his reign, or ease of his people, provided I governed him, and render’d myself master of his treasures; so did I never move him to relieve the miserable, or reward the faithful and deserving, but endeavour’d to blacken the merit of their greatest actions, and so settled the first motions of his liberality, with reasons of sordid interest. If any places of trust were to be fill’d, covering my treachery still with the veil of zeal and love for my country, I recommended only such as were devoted to my service; pretending ill management in every thing that went not thro’ my hands; and that the nation was betray’d, whilst I, like some of you now, was selling it, and was in reality the worst enemy it had. After I had sacrific’d the great duke of Lancaster to my revenue, and a hundred persons of quality besides, I sow’d discord in the royal family, The queen, with the prince of Wales her son, and the earl of Kent, the king’s brother, retir’d into France; during which time I govern’d at my ease, wallow’d in luxury and riches, and had interest enough to hinder Charles the Fair from protecting his sister. The Pope, who was of my religion, storm’d like a true father, son of the church, and so frighted the king of France, that in spite of their nearness of blood, he hunted the queen of England out of his dominions. But at last the king being reconciled, the queen returns; I was taken prisoner, and by the laws of the kingdom, sentenc’d to be drawn on a sledge, at sound of trumpet, thro’ the streets of Hereford. The circumstances of my{79} death were infamous; my head was expos’d at London, my bowels, heart, and some others parts of body burn’d, my carcass abandon’d to the crows, in four parts of the kingdom; the justest reward a villain, who had almost destroy’d both king and country cou’d expect. This is, gentlemen, favourites and ministers, a picture you ought all to have in your closets, to keep you from resembling it. When in favour, banish not justice, clemency and generosity, from the thrones of your master; and to avoid a just hatred, and make men of virtue your friends, study the publick interest. Turn over old histories and you’ll find there is scarce one, or few of us, got peaceably to the grave, but either starv’d or rotted, or immortaliz’d a gibbet. Not one eye ever wept for our sufferings, pity itself rejoiced. Thus detested on earth, and curs’d by heaven, our last refuge is to become the prey of devils. Consider well, gentlemen, and arm yourselves against all those vicious passions, which will certainly undo you, if you listen to them as I did. Therefore in the slippery paths of a court, take prudence and justice for your supports.

The Answer of the Chief Ministers of the King of Iveter to Hugh Spencer.

THE picture you have drawn of your life and death, shews you were notoriously wicked, and rewarded according to your deserts. But let me tell you, Sir, that ’tis a great mistake to believe a minister cannot manage or steer his prince, without abusing him and the publick. Because you were the horror of your age, is it an inevitable destiny for other favourites to be so too? I will not here make my own panegyrick, but leave that care to posterity: However, I will boldly maintain, that to suffer a master to divide his benevolence, when one can secure it all to ones self, is folly and stupidity. A prudent man knows how to make a right use of his master’s weakness; and if he finds him inclin’d now and then to gratify eminent services, he will not seem much averse to it, provided still he loses nothing by the bargain: But if his prince is of a covetous temper, charity, which always be{80}gins at home, then bids him shut up his Exchequer, and reserve to himself the sole privilege of opening it at leisure. ’Tis likewise no ill step in our politicks to cry down those actions, which might otherwise by their weight out-value ours: Upon such occasions to testify the least zeal, fidelity and care, will be thought meritorious. Tho’ the escutcheons we leave our children, have some blots in them, what signifies that, provided we leave them rich and noble titles, which will procure them honour, and all sorts of pleasures in this world, and a saint’s place hereafter, in that uncertain volume of the Roman Almanack.

Julia to the Princess of Conti.

AS you may wonder, madam, that I who lived so many ages ago, and at present am so many thousand leagues from you, should esteem and love you; might I wonder too, in my turn, if you should have a good opinion of me, after so many historians have conspired to blacken my reputation. But there are, dear sister, such circumstances in our fortunes, as ought to make us love one another, and hold a friendly correspondence; since you are like me, the daughter of a beautiful, treacherous prince, who drags good fortune at his heels; and of a mother who renounced the world before it did her the injury of renouncing her. I was once the ornament of the court of Augustus, and you now shine like a star, in that of Lewis XIV. I was marry’d very young to Marcellus, the hopes of the Romans; and almost in your infancy, you were given to the most amiable man that ever was of the Bourbons: I lost the son of Octavia some months after our marriage, and your forehead was bound with the fatal sable, before Hymen’s garlands were in the least withered; you are handsome, I was not ugly; you occasion jealousy, and I suffer’d the sharpest darts of destruction: I had lovers beyond number; and who is able to reckon your’s? They have not perhaps been so favourably received; and I believe the air, and want of opportunity, not our inclinations, to be the cause, for you never yet despis’d those pleasures I daily enjoy’d and sigh’d after; and tho’ by the death of Agrippa, I came under the tyranny of Tiberius,{81} I pursu’d my inclinations to the last. Widows of your age generally enter the list again: But, princess, the counsel I have to give you, is, to reserve to yourself the liberty of your choice. There are so many Tiberius’s where you are, that one may easily fall to your share, and after that nothing but banishment will be wanting to finish the comparison. A very malignant [39] planet at present commands your destiny; and ’tis in vain to expect justice from that jealous, ill-natur’d fury. Now I have given you advice, which, if I could return into the world, I would follow myself, permit me to justify my actions.

Historians tell you, I endeavoured to reign in every heart, whatever it cost me, without any regard to the owner’s birth and condition: But do you think that so very criminal? Does a little kindness deserve so severe a censure? Must persons of quality be always oblig’d to have an eye on their dignity? and did not he that made the prince, make the coachman? But what I cannot with patience suffer, is the impudent lie some have made concerning Ovid; that versifyer had a nicer fancy in poetry than beauty; like your father, My dear sister, he imagin’d wonderful charms in grey hairs; for Marcellus was but newly dead when he fell in love with Livia. ’Twas her he celebrated under the feigned name of Corinna; and when he pleas’d, disciplin’d, she, like a child not daring to resist. Thus people being ignorant of closer privacies, invent malicious lies; for do you suppose I would have suffer’d such insolent usage? And that if I had not been strong enough to have cuff’d that rhiming puppy, I would not have found out some other way to have been even with him? You very well see my reasons have some appearance of truth, and I am confident, that when we meet we shall agree very well. The emperor who had his private amours, never troubled those of his wife; and Merena’s spouse, proud of possessing the affections of so great a monarch, returned in soft embraces the favours bestowed on her husband. I have insensibly made you an ingenuous consession; do you the same, madam, for hell is so damnable tiresome, that I gape and stretch a thousand times an hour. When your hand is in, pray send me word{82} what they are doing in your part of the world; but above all, give me a true account of your amours and conquests; for those relations tickle us, even when we have lost the power of acting. Therefore to invite you to be very plain with me, as likewise to divert myself in my present melancholy moments, I will give you some of my thoughts in metre, such as it is.

As reproaching and talking freely is not here discouraged; so had I done any lewd trick, your confessor wou’d have acquainted you with it; for he keeps a strict correspondence with the chiefest ministers of our monarch. You have been jealous where you ought not, and the saints of St. Germains and Versailles, when they come to discover the mystery of your curiosity, will never forgive you. The mealy mouth’d Goddess was always easy to be corrupted, and the old monster Envy prospers but too much;{83} therefore take care of one, and prevent the other, that the sins of others may not be imputed to you. All that the world can say against your virtue, shall never diminish my good opinion of it; and if you do not believe the character I give of myself, consult [40] Calprinede, who has drawn me to the life, and was a great master in that way, as Apelles in his. Farewel, fair princess, and remember that Julia languishes with desire to see you.

The Princess of Conti’s Answer to Julia.

I Did not expect to be honoured with a letter from so famous a princess as Julia: This makes my joy so much the greater. I do sincerely declare, that I take all you say to me so reasonable, that I can do no less than applaud it: And I further assure you, that I never search’d for your character in those disobliging authors who magnify the lest false step, and make an elephant of a mouse. I am satisfy’d to know you, as I find you in Calprinede; and the complaisance he pretends you had for Ovid, does not hinder me from having a great affection for your amiable qualities; and believing as advantageously of your modesty as you can desire. I am not so severe as to imagine a little indulgence can be a greater crime; but think those who will, for a little natural civility, ruin the reputation of courteous ladies, to be malicious people, only envying those gallantries which are addressed to others. But, madam, you have strangely surprized me with what you tell me of Livia; for I always believed, that when old ambition was her only blind side; but am astonished to hear she was amorous. This discovery confirms the received opinion, that old age has a wanton inclination, as well as youth, tho’ not so much ability; and since the wife of Cæsar lov’d the language of the muses, I am not astonished that our saints of St. Cyril have been charm’d with it. But, dear madam, is it certain that Ovid disciplin’d her like a child; I thought the Roman ladies had not wanted that exercise; and I believe my gallants will never be obliged to come to that extremity with me. I need{84} not use much precaution against the folly of a second marriage; for tho’ I was coupled to a very charming young man, yet I soon found my expectations bilk’d, because the name of husband and wife, and thoughts of duty so lessened the pleasures of our softest embraces, that it made them odious. So that now I only love a spouse for a night, from whom I may be divorced the next morning; and this perhaps, you’ll find more plainly expressed in the following lines, as I doubt not, dearest sister, but you have made the experiment.

And will be always so, illustrious princess, to our great comfort and satisfaction. You have heard, I suppose, what the writing of a few letters has cost me; so that I have laid aside all commerce of that nature at present, and am often oblig’d to trifle my thoughts. Had I not fear’d Mercury’s being searched, I would have opened my heart a little more to you; but if the times ever change, or madam Maintenon, the governess of Versailles, becomes less inquisitive, you may certainly expect to receive an epistle, or rather a volume from me.

I put no confidence in the king my father, and he is so jealous of me, that should he pack up his awls for the other world, I wou’d not trust him. I pity you for being{85} kept so close, and having so bad company. That you may yawn and stretch less, and laugh a little more, entertain yourself with la Fontain’s tales, or the school of Venus, both excellent books in their kind, which I am confident will extreamly divert you; not so much upon the account of their novelty, as by recalling to your mind some past actions of your life.

For my part, I highly esteem them both, and you’ll oblige by telling the author so.

Dionysius the Younger, to the Flatterers of what Degree or Country soever.

THO’ the torments I now suffer for my former tyrannies, are as great as they are just; yet you cursed villains, deserve much greater, for being the promoters of them. You, with your infernal praises, blind the eyes of princes, and hurry them on headlong to their ruin: therefore I charge you with all the ill actions of my reign. I was no sooner seated on my throne, but you so swell’d me with pride, by applauding all my perjuries, oppressions and cruelties, that I believ’d it lawful for our race to be tyrants, from father to son, with impunity. Every one knows my father was equally wicked and covetous, neither sparing, or fearing men or Gods; and of this Jupiter and Æsculapius are examples. In a fit of impiety, till then unpractised by the most desperate villains, he stripp’d the first of his golden mantle, excusing it with this jest, That ’twas too hot for the summer, and too cold for the Winter. To the second he turn’d barber and cut off his golden beard, which with great devotion had been presented to him, alledging, It was improper for the son, since his father Apollo went without one. When his conduct had thus render’d him odious to the world he thought it necessary to make himself secure; for which end, he ordered a large deep ditch to be dug about his palace; but that was no fortification against fear, which could creep in at every key-hole; and his distrust increased to that degree, that he suspected his nearest relations. Not so much as a Maintenon came near him. At last his guards to oblige the world, cut his throat, and sent his soul as{86} a harbinger to the Devil, to provide room for his body; and the people thinking me to be a much honester man, without difficulty plac’d me on his throne. But I soon took care to convince these credulous sots, that a worse was come in his room, far exceeding him in cruelty, I endeavoured to secure my throne by actions then unknown to the world. First, I caused my brothers to be put to death, and when I had glutted myself with the blood of these victims, I made no scruple to violate the laws, and trample upon all the just rights and liberties of my people. By those and a thousand other barbarities, tiring the patience of the Syracusans, they drove me into Italy, where the Locrians kindly received me: and I to requite them for their civility, ravish’d their women, murder’d numbers of their citizens, and pillag’d their country. At last, by a now contrived treachery, I re-entered Syracuse, with design to revenge myself by new desolations; but Dion and Timolion, much honester men than either myself or you, prevented me by putting me a second time to flight. ’Twas my destiny, and I wonder historians do not add the epithet of coward, to my just name of tyrant. I then retired to Corinth, where in a short time my misery became so pressing, that I was forc’d to turn bum-brusher in my own defence, a condition which best suited with a man that delighted in tyranny and blood; and as I had been one of Pluto’s disciples, I taught a sort of philosophy which I had learned, but never practised. Thus was my throne turn’d into a desk; and my scepter into a ferula. Heavens! what a shameful metamorphosis was this. But, gentlemen sycophants, with a murrian to you, I may thank you for it. You, like the Cameleon, can put on any colour, can turn vice into virtue, and virtue into vice, to deceive your masters; and under the specious pretence of religion can commit the greatest barbarities. But tho’ under the shelter of that reverend name, you think all your iniquities undiscovered, so you possess your prince with the abominable zeal of persecution; yet heaven sees and detests your hypocrisy, and even men at long-run, discover the cheat. Oh! ye unworthy enemies of virtue, whose only aim is to raise your own fortunes upon the ruin of others. How useful are you to the Devil? You matter it not, provided you compass your de{87}sired ends; if we lay waste the universe, and afterwards become the hate and scorn of all mankind: As for example, ’tis long of you that I have been a pedant in Greece, and that [41] one of my rank, had he not been taken to rest, would have been forced to cover his follies under a stinking cowl, in the lousy convent of la Trape. You will not fail, I know, to applaud all his actions, and say, if he lost all, ’twas only for obliging his subjects to take the true road to heaven, and give the title of resignation to meer necessity and compulsion. But is it a sacrifice to renounce thro’ despair, the grandeur we cannot maintain any longer? Is it not rather imitating the animal in the fable, that despises the grapes which are out of his reach? But I waste my lungs in vain, and talk to the deaf: however, if I have been humbled, believe that you will not always be exalted. ’Tis my comfort that you will one day be condemned to turn a wheel like Ixion, to roll stones like Sysiphus, to be devoured like Prometheus, continually thirsty like Tantalus, and to heighten your evils, that you will never lose the remembrance of those villanies you committed.

The Answer of the News-Mongers to Young Dionysius.

THE flatterers have done you too much honour, Mr. Pedant, and shou’d they believe you, and turn honest, (of which I think there is no great danger) and perswade their masters to be just to their oaths and treaties, wou’d not they govern in peace and unity? And wou’d not that very thing cast the world into such a drowsy tranquility, that it wou’d be melancholy living in it, and starve millions of all degrees and professions, who now, lord it very handsomely? We, I’m sure, shou’d be first sensible of it, by having no variety of news to stuff our London Gazettes, Mercuries and Slips with; which wou’d make the booksellers withdraw our stipends, and by consequence oblige us to leave off tipping the generous juice of the grape, and content ourselves with Geneva, or some more phlegmatick manufacture. Therefore keep your{88} harangues for your school-boys, and do not maliciously take our daily bread from us, and seek to ruin those complaisant persons, that can condescend to sooth the vanities and inclinations of their princes. But to dismiss this point, and return to yourself; ’tis plain you have not a jot of honour about you, since you pay no regard to your father’s reputation. We easily perceive you have been a pedagogue by your tattling; which indiscretion makes you unworthy the title of great Pluto’s disciple. But has your pedantick majesty no better rewards to bestow on gentlemen of courtly breeding than wheels, vultures, millstones, and an eternal thirst? Truly ’tis very liberal, and school-master like in every respect; but you are desired to keep those mighty blessings for yourself, who deserve them much better than any one else; and if you were cullied by those about you, talk no more on’t, but keep your weakness to yourself.

Christiana, Queen of Sweden, to the Ladies.

THAT I, who never testify’d much esteem for the fair sex, should at this time address myself to them, will without doubt be thought strange; but if necessity breaks laws, it ought also to cancel aversion, and excuse me for seeking protection amongst a sex I have so often despised, being compelled to it by a thousand injuries done to my memory. Therefore I now ask pardon of the ladies; and am perswaded I do them no little honour, (since there has seldom been a more extraordinary woman than I was) in owning myself one of the female kind. First, I may boast of all the advantage of a glorious birth, being daughter of the Great Gustavus Adolphus, who did not only fill the north, but all the universe with admiration; and of Mary Elianor of Brandenburgh, the worthy wife of such a husband. If I was not as handsome as Helen, and those other beauties, whom the poets have from age to age recorded in the book of fame, yet all the world own’d me a woman of incomparable parts. I was queen at five years of age, and even so early took upon me that important trust, which but few men are capable to dis{89}charge, and which fewer would covet, if they knew the troubles that attend it; yet I supported the weight of all affairs with such a grace and prudence, that my crown did not seem too heavy for me. As soon as reason had made me sensible of my power, my only thoughts were how to make myself worthy of it. To this end, I invited to my court those I thought the most capable of improving it; which was no sooner known by the beggary French, but Stockholm swarm’d with masters of all sciences. Among the rest I had a pack of hungry poets; but he that took the most pains, was not the best rewarded, because he did not resemble Boileau, who can in half an hour make a saint of a devil. In my green years, I seem’d only addicted to grandeur and virtue; for I studied like a doctor, argued like a philosopher, and gave lessons of morality to the most learned; so that every body imagin’d I should eclipse the most famous heroines. But I had not yet heard the voice of a certain deity, whose language I no sooner understood, but it poison’d all my former good dispositions; for whereas till then I had been charm’d with the conversation of the dead, I began now to have passionate inclinations for the living. But not to undeceive the world, which thought my conduct blameless, I was forc’d to put a curb to my desires, or at least to pursue them with more precaution, whether the trouble to find myself so inclin’d, or my grandeur, which wou’d not allow of those liberties I sigh’d for, oblig’d me to punish the flatterers of my passion, I know not; but I committed many barbarities. As my desires were insatiable, so ’twas not in my power to confine them; and this gave my subjects too many opportunities to discover several indecencies in my management; and because I wou’d not be tumbled headlong from my throne by them, I very prudently condescended, and put my cousin Charles Adolphus in my place. Then did I, under pretence of visiting the beauties of France, take large doses of those joys I durst no longer take at Stockholm. I was treated every where as a queen, had palaces at my command, and I made at Fountainbleau, which was before a bawdy-house, a slaughter-house also before I left it.{90}

But I know not whether the monarch of France had long ears like his brother Midas, or some little familiar whisper’d it in his ear; but what I thought could never be detected, was publickly discoursed at court. Perceiving this, I resolved on a voyage to Rome, and the rather, because I thought the Romish religion most commodious for a woman of inclinations, and that it would illustrate my history, to abjure the opinion of Luther at the feet of the pope; tho’ I had as little believed and followed the doctrine of the Reformed, as I have since the absurdities of the Roman church. Italy seem’d to me a paradice, and I thought my past troubles fully recompensed, when I found myself in that famous city, which has been the mistress of this world, without subjects to controul me; saucy chattering Frenchmen to revile me, and amongst a mixture of strangers, which made all my actions pass unregarded. ’Twas enough for me to be esteemed a saint, that I was turn’d Papist in a place where debauchery is tolerated; and you’ll find me, perhaps, one day canonized by the Roman clergy. ’Tis true, I was not so rigorous to them as others for the pope, cardinals, legates, bishops, abbots, priests, and monks, composed my court, where licentiousness reign’d most agreeably. Not that I had renounced the company{91} of young virgins; for I was intimate enough with some of them, to have it said, I was of the humour of Sappho; and as I liv’d at Rome, so I thought myself obliged to practise their manners. But the chief reason of my writing, is to desire you to protect me against those ignorant coxcombs, who endeavour to put me among the number of the foolish virgins; for I began and finished my course, as I have told you, and will now leave you, to judge if there can be any probability in such a scandalous story. My good friend the pope, to whom I had been wonderfully civil, solemnly swore, that whenever I left this world, I mould not languish in Purgatory, tho’ he knew very well I should go to another place. But as it was the promise of a tricking Jesuit, so I did not much credit it, nor was much surpriz’d to see myself turn’d into a sty, among a company of boars and old lascivious goats, a sort of animals I had formerly been well acquainted with at my palace in Rome, and who came then grunting and leaping to embrace me. I cannot in this place hear of the poor gentleman whom I murthered; I asked one of my he-companions concerning him, who knows no more of him than I do; therefore I verily believe he is among the martyrs.

The Answer of a young Vestal to the Queen.

GOOD Heavens! Madam, how piously did your majesty begin your letter! and what pleasure did I take to see such hopeful dispositions to virtue! But what was that enchanting vice that put you out of the good road? Was it the Devil? If so, why did you not make use of holy-water? For we, poor creatures, oppose no other buckler against the darts of Satan, when he conjures up the frailty of the flesh to disturb us: but I beg your pardon, you were then a Lutheran, and holy-water has no efficacy, but only for true Catholicks. My confessor has so often preached charity to me, that I cannot but bewail the fate of the poor gentleman you lov’d so dearly, and treated so barbarously. Oh, my dear St. Francis! What sort of love was that! And how unfortunate are those precious souls that have parts of pleasing you!{92} One may very well perceive, by that piece of barbarity, you neither believed Purgatory, or fear’d Hell; and I would not have been guilty of such an action for all your excellent qualities and grandeur. I hear you talk’d of sometimes, and in such a manner, that it makes me often sigh, pant, and pull down my veil; and I feel a terrible fit coming upon me by reading your confession.

But ’tis easy to judge your conscience is as large as the sleeve of a [42] Cordelier, since you began in the spirit, and ended in the flesh. Notwithstanding what I have merrily own’d in rhime, more to entertain your majesty, than express my true sentiments, there are certain hours when I could willingly follow your example; and if you would obtain from the holy father a dispensation of my vows, which now grow burthensome to me, I would break a lance in your quarrel: this I am sure of, that the world will think it less strange to see a nun renounce her convent, than a queen her crown.{93}

Francis Rablais, to the Physicians of Paris.

IT is in vain for your flatterers to cry you up for able doctors, for you will never arrive at my knowledge; and I am asham’d every hour to hear such asses are admitted into the college. Do not believe ’tis a sensible vanity that induces me to say this, but the perfect knowledge I have of my own worth; and tho’ I was design’d for a more lazy profession, yet that does not in the least diminish my merit. You know I was born at Chinon, and that my parents, hoping I should one day make a precious saint, put me, in my foolish infancy, into a convent of Cordeliers: but that greasy habit, in a little time, seem’d to me as heavy and uneasy as the armour of a giant; so that by intercession made to Pope Clement VII. I was permitted to change my grey frock for a black; so I quitted the equipage of St. Francis for that of St. Benedict, and that I was as weary of in a short time as of the other. As I had learnt a great deal of craft, and but little religion, during my noviciate in those good schools, so I found a way to get loose from that cloyster for ever, and took to the study of Hippocrates. Besides that I had a subtle and clear genius; my comrades discover’d in me an acute natural raillery, which made me acceptable to the best companions, Cardinal Bellay, who made me his physician, took me to Rome with him in that quality, where the sanctity of the triple crown, the ador’d slipper, and all-opening key, could not hinder me from jesting in the presence of his holiness. ’Twas Paul III. before called Alexander Fernese, who then fill’d the apostolical chair, and was more remarkable for his lewdness than piety. I had the good fortune to please him with the inclination he found in me to lewdness; and he gave me a bull of absolution for my apostacy, free from all fee and duties, which I think was a gracious reward for a foreign, atheistical buffoon. After I had compil’d a catalogue of his vices, to make use of as I should find an opportunity, the cardinal, my patron, return’d to Paris, and I with him, where he immediately{94} gratify’d me with a canonship of St. Maur, and the benefice of Meudon. Hiving all I could desire, I liv’d luxuriously; and the love of satire pleasing me much more than the service of God, after I had wrote several things without success, for the learned, I composed the history of Gargantua and Pantagruel; for the ignorant, things which some call a cock and a bull, and others the product of a lively imagination. I know most men understand them as little as they do Arabick; and as it is not to our present purpose, so do not I intend to explain that stuff to them, but will now, since ’tis more a propos, give you some advice concerning the malady of your blustering monarch. The residence I made at the court of France, in the reign of Francis I. makes me more bold in judging of the nature of those distempers. You conceal the virulency of Lewis XIVth’s disease, because you dare not examine into the bottom of the cause, and are more modest in proposing remedies, than he has been in contracting the distemper. Yet every one talks according to his interest, and the news-mongers always keep a blank to set down the manner of his death. If he does not tremble, he must be thorow-pac’d in iniquity, for he has several reckonings to make up with Heaven, which are not so easily adjusted; and as he has often affronted the majesty of several popes, he will scarce obtain a pass-port to go scot-free into the other world. We are told here, by some of his good friends, he begins to putrify, and has ulcers a yard in length, where vermin, very soldier like, intrench themselves. There is no other remedy for this, according to old Æsculapius, but to make him a new man, by a severe penitential pilgrimage into some of the provinces of Mercury and Turpentine. If he still fears the danger of war, let him go in disguise; and if at this age he cannot be without a she-companion, let him take his old friend Maintenon along with him, she is poison-proof, and may, to save charges, serve him in three capacities, viz. as a bedfellow, nurse, and guide; keep him also to a strict diet; scrape his bones, and purge him thoroughly, and all may be found again but his conscience. You cannot imagine how merrily we gentlemen of the faculty live at Pluto’s court: I am secretary to the same Paul III. who pardon’d me gratis the viola{95}tion of my vows, my irreverence for the church, and my want of respect for him; Scaramouch is his gentleman-usher, Harlequin his page, and Scarron his poet laureat. Don’t suppose I was such a blockhead as to kiss his sweaty toe, when I visited him in the Vatican; he had nothing from me, but such an hypocritical hug, as your monks give each other at the ridiculous ceremony of high-mass. This old goat still keeps his amorous inclinations; and I, who have so often made others blush, am often asham’d to hear his ribaldry. He would certainly make love to Proserpine, but our sultan would not be pleas’d with his courtship; and besides, his seraglio is as well guarded as the grand seignior’s, otherwise we might have a litter of fine puppies betwixt them. Little hump-shoulder’d Luxembourg, lately mareschal of France, is the captain of her guards, and so damnably jealous, that he will not suffer any to come near her; at which Pluto is very well pleas’d, and does not mistrust him, thinking it impossible for any body to be in love with such a lump of deformity. But to return to our friend Paul, he scorns to copy after the Devil, who turn’d hermit when he was old; and I am now making another collection of his impieties and amours, which will be ready to come out with a Gazette Nostradamus he has been composing since the year 1600. That sly conjurer is so earnest upon the matter, that he lifts not up his head, tho’ Pluto’s black-guard boys are continually burning brimstone under his nose. However, I do not know but this mountain may bring forth a mouse; for to speak freely, I put as little faith in those prophets, who, like sots, lose their reason in the abyss of futurity, as the honest whigs of England do in the oaths and treaties of your swaggering master. As for you, brother doctor, cut, scarify, blister, and glyster, since ’tis your profession; but take this along with you, that they who do the least mischief, pass with me for the ablest men. But I would advise you not to suffer any longer those barbarous names of assassins, poisoners, closestool-mongers, factors of death, &c. the world gives you. I have had high words with Moliere on your account, and I expect that fine rhiming fellow, Boileau, will give him a wipe over the nose in{96} one of his satires. For tho’ I have made bold to talk freely with you, yet I do not mean all the world should take the same liberty.

YOU are a very pretty gentleman, friend Rablais, to boast of yourself so much, and value the rest of your fraternity so little. Do not you know that I am of the tribe of Judah, and perhaps related to some of the kings of Israel? Had you heard me preach in a synagogue, you wou’d soon be convinc’d whether I am an illiterate fellow or no. Is it such an honour to be of your college? Or wou’d it be any advantage to be like you? You have been, by your own confession, a most horrid rake-hell; and I would not, for all the mammon of unrighteousness in my king’s coffer, transgress one point of the law. You ought not to be astonished at my greatness, for I concern myself with more than one trade, and no man was ever in such favour, and grew so rich, by only applying warm injections to the backside. If you enjoy’d a prebend, and other benefices, you must, I know, have assisted cardinal Bellay in his amours. For my part, I boast of having been a broker, sollicitor, and, under the rose, Billet-deux carrier and door-keeper, because all employments at court are honourable, especially in that great concern of S——y. Do not you think you were the first that thought of the remedy you speak of; we had several learned consultations about it, but know not which way to mention it, for Madam Scarron, who is very tender of her reputation, and reigns sovereignly at court, will say we accuse her of bringing the Neapolitan distemper to Versailles, and have us sent to the gallies, or hang’d for our good advice. I have often reflected on the scandalous bantering stuff of those they call wits, have said, and do say of us; and wish with all my heart, the first brimstone they take for the itch, and mercury for the pox, may poison ’em; but for us to stir in’t, would bring ’em all about our ears; and we know the conse{97}quence of that from a neighbouring [43] country, where they have mumbled a poor physician [44], and one that can versify also, almost as severely as a troop of hungry wolves would a fat ass. However, we thank you for your zeal; but at the same time advise you not to make a quarrel for so small a business; and I, in a particular manner, kiss your hand, and desire you will give my service to Nostradamus. I cannot beat it out of my head, but that he has put me into his [45] centuries; and that an ingenious man might discover me there. I own ’tis looking for a needle in a bottle of hay; but you know I sprung up like a mushroom, and that he foretels nothing but prodigies.

The Duchess of Fontagne to the Cumean Sibyl.

I Desir’d Mercury to call, en passant, at your cave; and as he has wings at his feet, and complaisance in heart, so he will, I don’t doubt, go a little out of his way to oblige me, by delivering you this letter: I have from my infancy had you in my mind, and heard my nurse, when I lay squawling in shitten clouts in my cradle, tell frightful stories of you. As soon as I began to prattle, my maids taught me to call all old wrinkled women wither’d sibyls; and the idea of the den you were confin’d in, fill’d me with fear. But since I have been inform’d of the truth of your history, that fear is chang’d into veneration, and I now look upon your cell as a sacred place. To assure you of my respect and the confidence I repose in you, I will consult you about some future events, and tell you one part of my griefs. I am nobly born, handsome and young enough to inspire and receive the softest love. The French king, who had spoil’d the shape, and wore out the charms of several mistresses, long before I appear’d at his court, had a mind to do the same by me. Being naturally proud and wanton, and tempted by the fine compliments of a great and vigorous prince, and title of duchess, (a temptation none of us{98} women can resist) I soon yielded to his desires; which so mortify’d the haughty Montespan, that she, with a ragoo a-la-mode d’Espagne, dispatch’d me out of the world, before I could get a true taste of greatness, or the pleasures of a royal bed. Alas! What a mighty difference there is between you and me; your years are innumerable; you are still mentioned in history; your voice still remains, and you enjoy the divine faculty of prediction; but I was murther’d in my bloom, when ripe and juicy as the luscious grape; and that ungrateful perjur’d man, who rifled my virgin treasures, has not so much as thought or spoke of me since. He dotes on nothing but old age; and could you appear in something more solid than air, I do not doubt but he’d make his addresses to you: I believe his being born with teeth presag’d he would always be a tyrant to his people, and in his latter days the cully of such a tough piece of carrion as Mrs. Maintenon. Morbleu! Have I barbarously been sacrific’d; and must a miss of threescore and fifteen live unpunish’d, and be treated better than I was in the greatest heighth of that prince’s passion, and warmth of my desires, when capable both of receiving and giving joy? It really distracts me! And I conjure you, in the name of Apollo, who never refus’d you any thing, to let me know by one of your oracles, if I shall never return to France again. You came hither, I know, with the brave Æneas, (but stay’d no longer than you lik’d the place) and I have heard some people say, that knight-errant diverted himself extremely upon the road, and made a great deal of hot love to you; but I take that to be a meer story, because Virgil, who would not have let slip so pleasant a passage, has said nothing of it. However, could I return but a short time to dislodge Maintenon, and take a frisk with my former lover, if he be not too old for that business; or were I but your shadow, provided I liv’d, I should be pretty well pleas’d; for ’tis a melancholy thing to think that the fates should spin such a long thread for an old lascivious ape [46], who never was to be compared with me; and that there should remain no more of poor Fontagne, than an unfortunate name, over{99} which oblivion will in a little time triumph. At the writing of this, in came a courier from Versailles, who brings us word, that Lewis the Great has undertook such a piece of work, that the weight and consequence makes him sick of the world: that Mrs. Maintenon has wore out his teeth; that legions of vermin devour him, and that we may suddenly expect him in these dominions; which, if true, will be some satisfaction to me; and tho’ he be toothless, worm-eaten and rotten: I will grant him the same liberty he often took with me on a couch at the Trianon, to get him again under my empire, that I may at leisure revenge myself for his forgetfulness.

But I believe this foolish constancy was only owing to my want of experience; and if I had liv’d a little longer, I should have had the curiosity to try the variety of human performance, like the rest of my neighbours. You have been, my dear demi-goddess, in love, and have been belov’d; therefore, I beseech you, give me some healing advice, or consolation, as my case requires.

The Cumean Sybil’s Answer to the Duchess of Fontagne.

IS it possible that so charming a beauty should think of such an old decrepid creature as I am! I was desirous to talk with Mercury about you, but he flew away like a{100} bird. It extremely troubles me, dear child, that I am oblig’d, in answer to your letter, to tell you there is no hopes of your returning to Versailles; for you must consider that when I conducted Æneas, I was then living, and that ’tis impossible for any under a Hercules to fetch you from whence you are; and where shall we find one now? The bravest Boufflers in France is but a link-boy in comparison to him. Your lover, fair lady, is so fast link’d to his old [47] Duegna’s tail, that he thinks no more of you and your complaints are insignificant.[48] She that hurried you out of the world in the flower of your youth, with a favourable dose of poison, is now neglected, and grown so monstrous fat and lecherous, by living lazily in a nunnery, that she’s not a fit companion for any creature that has but two legs to support it. You know not what you do, when you envy my destiny, for I’m sometimes so teiz’d and tir’d with answering the virtuosos and beaux, that it turns my very brain. I own, ’tis a sad thing to dye at eighteen, in the heighth of one’s greatness and pleasures, because nature always thinks she pays her tribute to death before-hand. I would willingly divert you a little, but I know not which way, unless this little history I send you, which a traveller gave me not long since, and which has novelty to recommend itself, will do it. Do not believe, good lady, the scandalous story some ignorant rhiming puppy has made of Æneas and me; he was not so brisk as that comes to; and I can assure you, never put the question to me. Ask Dido, she can tell you more of him than I can; and as modest as Virgil describes her, yet she was forc’d to take this Trojan prince by the throat to make him perform the duty of a gallant; by this you may judge of his constitution: besides, had he been never so amorously inclin’d, yet not knowing my inclinations, he might think his courtship would displease me, and so disoblige Apollo, for whose assistance he then had occasion. Therefore laugh at all those idle railleries of impertinent people, and turn your eyes and thoughts on the following dialogue.

The MITRED HOG: A Dialogue between Abbot Furetiere and Scarron.

Furetiere. OH! Have I found you at last, old friend? Tho’ I were certain you were here, and desir’d earnestly to see you; yet being gouty, and tir’d with walking, I began to have no more thoughts of searching after you. How many troublesome journeys I have made, and leagues have I travell’d, and all to kiss your hands, tho’ I am a virtuoso, I cannot tell; for in truth, I am quite out of my element, and confounded ever since I have lost sight of sun and moon.

Scarron. Who are you, and please ye? What’s your name? For the dead having neither beard nor bonnet, nor any thing else to distinguish them by, I know not exactly what, or who you are; but by your language and mien, suppose you some mungril of the French academy.

Furet. Well guess’d; I am call’d Monsieur l’Abbé Furetiere,[49] alias Porc de bon Dieu, who has long, but in vain, been gaping and scraping at Versailles for a mitre, that I might wallow in peace and plenty like a hog. But alas! what a left-handed planet was I born under? A debauch with stummed wine, setting an old pox, which lay dormant in my bones, into a ferment, soon carry’d me off, almost in the heighth of my desires, and when I bad fairest for the bishoprick.

Scar. I am sorry for your misfortune; but am at the same time heartily glad to see you, Monsieur l’Abbé. You will not, perhaps, meet with all these conveniencies here, you enjoy’d at Paris; but, in recompense, you will meet with much honester dealing. For my part, I must own myself infinitely happy; for now I am neither troubled with lawyers, physicians, apothecaries, collectors of taxes, priests, nor wife, the plague and torment of men’s days when on earth. But how have you had your health since you have been in the country.{102}

Furet. Thanks to our master Pluto, I have not yet felt any cold. I was so very tender and chill for six months in the year at Paris, that tho’ I was loaded with ermins, and always had a dram of the best Nantz in my pocket, I could scarce keep my blood from freezing in my veins.

Scar. That’s an affliction you will not meet with here, take my word for’t; for ’tis something hotter than under the torrid zone, and the nicest wits of your academy, need not fear spoiling their brains, by catching cold here. It is not long since I met with the illustrious Balzac, who does not complain now of the cold in his head, as he did when he liv’d on the pleasant banks of the Charante. But, what news have you?

Furet. I don’t doubt, by your inquisitiveness, but you are very desirous to hear some news of your wife.

Scar. May pox and itch devour the nasty jade! I know but too much of her by mareschal d’Albert formerly, and lately, by my likeness Monsieur Luxemburg; yes, I know she’s a duchess; that she’s one of the privy-council; and she serves Lewis the XIV. in the same capacity as Livia did Augustus. But why did not the prostitute make her poor deform’d husband a duke? I should not have been the first duke and peer of France, that had been a cuckold.

Furet. By your discourse, Mr. Scarron, one would think you had lost your senses and memory: But you cannot surely have forgot how, instead of laurel, she adorn’d your learned brow with horns, before she was taken notice of at court; Indeed how could a pretty, witty, buxom, young woman, forbear making such an infirm, deform’d Æsop as you a cuckold?

Scar. I should not have much valued that, because I had brethren enough to herd with, if the damn’d whore had but got my pension augmented; but the confounded jade, instead of that, gave me the cursed’st garrison to maintain, that ever poor husband was mortify’d with: To appease which, I was forc’d to have recourse to Unguentum contra pediculos inguinales, &c. But prithee let’s discourse of something else, for the thoughts of the duchess of Maintenon, will disturb my brain, and easily put me into a fever, which is dangerous in this warm climate.{103}

Furet. I’ll tell you but three or four words more of this famous duchess, and conclude. First, That she has kick’d her patroness, Madam Montespan out of the royal bed: And Secondly, That she is very great with the pious jesuit, father la Chaise, the monarch’s confessor.

Scar. Oh! oh! by my troth, I don’t wonder at the lascivious harlot, for closing with him! as there is no feast like the misers, so there is no gallantry like those monks. When those hypocrites undertake that business, they do it all like heroes. But you have said all, by saying he is a jesuit, since those gallants have been in reputation, they have engrossed all good whoring to their society, especially in France, and more particularly at Paris, where they have so well behav’d themselves, that they have chang’d an antient authentick proverb, Jacobine en [50] chair, Cordelier en [51] chœur, Carme en [52] cusine, & Augustine en [53] bordel, for now they say, Jesuit en bordel, &c. But so much for those gentlemen, pray what are you a doing now in the French academy?

Furet. There are as many follies committed there, as in any society in the universe; judge of the whole by this one example. That company was never so highly honour’d as it is at present, by the particular care that great monarch takes of it; for which he is repaid in flattering panegyricks. Nevertheless, these insipid, florid, gentlemen, scold and scratch like so many fish-women in an alehouse. The other day the great Charpentier fell into such a passion about a trifle, that he reproach’d the learned Taleman, of being the son of a broken apothecary at Rochel; to which Taleman with as much heat reply’d, Charpentier was the son of poor hedge ale-draper at Paris. From this Billingsgate language they came to blows. Charpentier threw Nicot’s dictionary at his adversary’s head, and Taleman threw Morery’s at Charpentier’s. We all wish’d heartily we could have recall’d you from the dead, to write the various accidents of this battle, in your comical and satyric style.

Scar. Ha, ha, ha, had I been there, they should have beat the academy dictionary and Morery’s too in pieces about each other’s ears, before I would have parted them.{104} But I hope these two sputtering coxcombs did each other justice; I declare, whoever hinder’d it, deserv’d to be severely fined. Pray how did you behave yourself during this combat?

Furet. I happen’d not to be there; for you must know, there has been such a difference between those gentlemen and me, concerning a dictionary I have publish’d, that it came at last to a contentious law-suit; but what was laid on either side, only made the world laugh at both, and is not half so diverting as the epigram you made upon an, old lady that went to law with you: I think I still remember it.——

Scar. May that be the fate of Taleman, Charpentier, and the rest of those reformers of the alphabet, and in a more especial manner of that thieving flattering rogue [54] Despaux, who has made a faithless poltron, a Mars, and a super-annuated lascivious adultress, a saint. So much for that —— But give me some little account now of your clergy, I mean the great plump rogues, the hogs with mitres on their heads, and crosiers on their shoulders, those janizaries of antichrist.

Furet. I know your meaning—— Never was nickname given with more justice to any society of men. In Normandy, and those parts they call all the minor clergy, as the fat monks, canons, abbots, &c. who are not mitred, Jesus Christ’s porkers; which distinction is not very fan{105}tastical, if we allow the other expression. But no more of those gentlemen, ’tis dangerous.

Scar. Prithee, dear abbot, be not so mealy-mouth’d; when I was in the world, the greatest pleasure I had, was in attacking those gentleman’s vices, and exposing them to the hereticks, that still-born generation of vipers, as they call them, and therefore let us be free now; ’tis the only enjoyment we can have. Pray what says your Monthly Mercury of those gentleman, whom the earth is more oblig’d to for bodies, than heaven for souls?

Furet. Never fuller of who made such a man a cuckold, and who pox’d such a woman, as now; neither were ever the women half so impudent; no not in the reigns of Caligula and Nero. Never was debauchery so much in fashion; nor never were the whores so often cover’d with purple.

Scar. Is there not in your herd, such a thing as a tame gentle weather? or what Virgil calls Dux Gregis? you understand me.

Furet. A weather! oh, fy, fy! not such a creature among them, I can assure you. The most christian king would not suffer such an impertinent scandalous animal, so much as at shew his head in his seraglio. ’Tis as easy to find there a pretty woman chaste, or hair in the palm of your hand, as an emasculated beast among the mitred hogs: for the Dux Gregis, Virgil speaks of, we have one at the head of our prelates, who has all the qualities requisite for so great an honour, tho’ he has neither beard nor horns: and should I name him, you’d be of my opinion.

Scar. Wou’d I recollect my memory, and their virtues, I cou’d guess within two or three; but pray save me that labour.

Furet. Do you not remember a famous song you made in praise of a sick wanton goat. Creque fait & defend l’archeveque de Roüen.

Scar. Oh, dear! oh, dear! the right reverend Francis Harley, archbishop of Paris! my most renowned friend! a worthy chief!

Furet. The very same, and ’tis a precious jewel, both for body and soul. A hedgehog has not more bristles than{106} this prelate has mistresses, and there’s not a stallion in France that leaps oftner.

Scar. You rejoice my heart Mons. Furetiere. He was, I remember, always at Paris, when archbishop of Rouen: no man fitter for that employment. To be free, if Paris be the hell of hackney horses, ’tis the paradice of whore-masters and hackney-whores. I can guess at what he does now, by what he did formerly. Several ladies also of our neighbouring countries are witnesses of his prowess; but more especially some of the fair English ladies; the luscious morsels of a lustful monarch. But on to the rest.

Furet. I am willing to satisfy your curiosity, Mr. Scarron, but to run thro’ the whole herd, would be too tedious at present, tho’ they all deserve to be chronicled: so I will only, en passant, give you the history of those you have heard preach, both at Paris and the court, with wonderful applause; and who, for their modesty and regular lives, had the reputation of saints, whilst they were only fathers of oratory.

Scar. Take your own method, Mons. l’Abbé; but let me tell you one thing, by the way, this place is call’d the wits corner, but by some late guests, because of the smoak and liquor, the wits Coffee-House. Now you know the wits of all countries laugh at the clergy in their poems and plays; and that the clergy, to be reveng’d of them, and keep up their own reputation with the ignorant, call them atheists; therefore you may freely give a true description of them. All here are their enemies; and a priest would as soon venture his carcass in Sweden as in this place; he dreads a poet, as much as dogs do a sow-gelder.

Furet. Still a merry man, Mr. Scarron. But to return to your mitred hogs; do you remember father le Bone, and father Mascron. The first is now bishop of Perigueux, and the other bishop of Agen.

Scar. How! are these two famous preachers, those scourgers of pride and immorality, got into the herd of the mitred hogs? by my troth, I always took them for credulous humble weathers, believers of what they preached; tho’ I know most priests seldom believe what they profess.

Furet. Well, Mr. Scarron, tho’ you can see as far thro’ a mill-stone as any man, yet I find you are not infallible.{107}

Scar. Faith, a man sees as far thro’ a mill-stone, as a priest’s surplice, tho’ ’tis reckon’d the emblem of purity. But, Mons. l’Abbé, what Montaigne said formerly of the women, I now say of the priests: Ils envoyen leur conscience au bordel, & tiennent leur countenance en regle: they send their conscience to the stews, and keep their countenance within rule.

Furet. ’Tis even as true of one, as of the other, Mr. Scarron, and my following discourse will verify it. What virtue there is in a mitre, I know not, for I could never obtain one; I was thought too good a christian in the bottom; but before I had bad adieu to Paris, your innocent believing apostles were become too as rampant and fine coated hogs as any of the herd. The reverend father le Bone, bishop of Perigueux, has so bravely plaid the county boar, that there’s not a pretty nun in his diocese but has been with pig by him; as I have been credibly informed by persons of honour.

Scar. Oh! the excellent apostle: I remember a story of him when he was bishop of Agde, which will not be unpleasant to you, if you can bear with a pun, and a poet’s making merry with several languages, a thing he can no more avoid than flattery. This worthy prelate not meeting with that plenty at Agde his voluptuousness required, made his monarch this compliment: Sir, Je suis né gueux, j’ay vecu gueux, benais s’il plait a votre majeste, je voux Perigueux.

Furet. Faith, a very comfortable reward for a very filthy pun; I have said forty pleasanter things to the king, and never could get beyond Mons. l’Abbé, which makes me believe there is a critical minute for a wit, as well as love: an excellent Roman poet was sensible of it, when he said,

There’s a Latin quotation for you, to shew you I understand it; and that I have been an author as well as you.

Scar. Believe me, Mons. l’Abbé, you’ll fare much the better for it here; and tho’ those gentlemen made us poor{108} poets pass for scoundrels and impious ridiculers of piety in the other world, yet we have much the whip-hand of them in these quarters, therefore take comfort. Tell me pray how the pious Julius Mascaron behaves himself at Agen, where he meets with greater plenty than he did at Thute.

Furet. Oh! the acorns and chesnuts of Agen have made him so plump and wanton, ’twould rejoice your heart to see him. All the females of the town caress him, and strive which shall yield him most delight; and he out of zeal and gratitude, and to preserve peace and charity among them, like a holy prelate, has given to each her hour of rendezvous, which they keep as regularly as the clock strikes.

Furet. But his favourite is a pretty gentle nun, with whom he often goes to Beauregard, there tete a tete, or rather ne a ne, under the shady limes, do they both act that which will one day procure a third. There are forty other better stories of these two prelates; for they value not what common report says. They are above it: But if you will listen to the exploits of the bishop of Laon, now cardinal d’Estrée, I will shew you what a mitred hog is capable of.

Scar. As I am acquainted with the strength of his genius, so I do not doubt of the greatness of his performances. You have now named a man that would make a parish bull jealous.

Furet. The history I shall give you, will justify your opinion of him. Know then that the cardinal d’Estrée being passionately in love with the marchioness de Cœuvres, who was supposed to have granted the duke de Seaux the liberty of rifling her placket, was resolv’d to put in for his snack. To compass this, he acquainted his nephew, the marquis de Cœuvres, with the scandalous familiarity that was between the duke and his wife. Upon which their parents met at the mareschal d’Estrée’s, where it was concluded to send the young adultress into a convent; but the old mareschal, made wiser by long experience, was against it. In good faith, said he, you are more nice than wise; had not our mothers plaid the same wanton trick, not one{109} of us had been here. I know very well what I say; there’s not a handsome nose nor leg in the company, but has been stole; and not a farthing matter from whom, whether prince or coachman, it has mended our breed: therefore we have more reason to praise those, who discreetly follow the examples of their grandmothers and mothers, than banish ’em, and so render them fruitless. Do not suppose, when I married my grandson de Cœuvres, to young mademoiselle de Lionne, that I consider’d her riches, or that her father was a minister of state; such thoughts are beneath a man of my age and experience. My great hopes were, that she being young and handsome, will still support the grandeur of our family, which as you all very well know, has been made more considerable by the intrigues of the women, than by the valour of the men. I’m sure I never discourag’d what I now maintain; and why my grandson should be more squeamish than I, or his forefathers have been, I take it to be unreasonable: therefore, since the marchioness de Cœuvres is only blam’d for having tasted those pleasures which nature allows, and which are customary in our family, I declare my self her protector. Yet I would not have this be the talk of the court; I would not have it pass my threshold; because the world might say of one of us, as of a fine curious piece of clock-work, that a great many excellent workmen had a hand in it.

Scar. In this generous and considerate speech, do I plainly discover the inclinations of the famous Gabriele d’Estrée, Harry the fourth’s mistress. But I am in trouble for the poor marchioness; I know a convent must be insupportable to a woman that has tasted the pleasures of a licentious court.

Furet. The cardinal was against publishing his niece’s wantonness, as well as the mareschal, and took upon him the care of reprimanding her, and bringing her into the path of virtue: to which the marquis de Cœuvres readily consented, not imagining he deliver’d the pretty lamb to the ravenous wolf. This being agreed on, the lustful prelate went immediately to his niece; I come, Madam, said he, from doing you a very considerable piece of service: all our family has been in consultation against you, and could think of no milder punishment for you than a{110} convent, with all its mortifications, viz. Praying, fasting, whipping, and abstaining from the masculine kind, &c. I know, dear niece, this was as unjust as severe; but, in short, it had been your doom, had I not been your friend. Such a piece of service as this, beautiful niece, deserves a suitable return, and I believe you too generous to be ungrateful: but I shall think this, and all the other services I can render you, highly recompenc’d, if you’ll but permit me to see you often, and embrace you.

Scar. A very pious speech! I hope that which is to follow will answer this excellent beginning. Now do I imagine a place formally besieged; the next news will be of the opening the trenches.

Furet. We proceed very regularly, Mr. Scarron; the place makes a noble defence, and does not surrender till a breach is made. To be thus unjustly accused, said the marchioness, is a very great misfortune; and tho’ I will not disown my obligation to you, yet you must permit me to say, that your proceeding destroys that very obligation: if you will not have any regard to my virtue, and the fidelity I owe to my husband, you ought, nevertheless, to remember your character, and how nearly we are related. But I know the meaning of this; you believe the scandalous and malicious story that has been raised of me, and design to make your advantage of it. What can be more injurious than this attempt! Tho’ you thought me a whore, had you but thought me still virtuous enough to abhor your beastly, incestuous proposition, I should have had some reason to esteem you—

Scar. Poor prelate! Egad, I pity thee; thou hast receiv’d such a bruise in this repulse, that I cannot think thou wilt have the courage to return to the attack.

Furet. Have patience; you are not acquainted with the craft and courage of a mitred hog. The prelate, who by this resistance, was become more amorous, resolv’d to watch so narrowly his niece’s conduct, that he would oblige her to do that out of fear, which all his rhetorick and protestations of love could not tempt her to. To be short, he managed so well this important affair, that he surpris’d the duke de Seaux in bed, between Madam de Lionne and the marchioness de Cœuvres her daughter:{111} and to magnify charity, as well as other virtues in this matter, he took Monsieur de Lionne along with him. I will leave you to imagine the confusion of these two ladies; the first to see her husband, and the other the man she had so vigorously repuls’d. The marchioness thinking wisely, her compliance would yet conceal her intrigue; taking the cardinal by the hand, and gently squeezing it, said, If you’ll promise to appease my father, and by your ghostly authority, make my mother and him good friends again, and keep this frolick from my husband, you shall, whenever you please, find me grateful, and sensible of your affection.

Scar. What said Monsieur de Lionne? The surprise of a poor cuckold, who finds a handsome, brawny young fellow in bed with his wife and daughter, surpasses my imagination.

Furet. If, like Actæon, he had been immediately metamorphosed into a stag, he could not have been more surprized.

Scar. How did the prelate behave himself after this charitable brave exploit? The breach is now made, there has been a parley; the preliminaries are agreed on; nothing now is wanting, but taking possession of the place.

Furet. You move very soldier like, Mr. Scarron. The prelate being resolv’d to perform all the articles of the treaty, like a man of honour, first preach’d on charity, and then forgiveness of crimes; then on human prudence, policy, the reputation of their family, and quoted some of the old mareschal’s remarks; which altogether so prevail’d on the poor cuckold, that he consented to put his horns in his pocket, and forgive his daughter. Then did the prelate, under the pious pretence of correcting his faulty niece, lead her with a seeming austere gravity into his chamber, where he summon’d her to the performance of articles on her part; which, on a couch, were reciprocally exchanged; she not daring to refuse it, for fear he should acquaint her husband with her intrigue with the duke de Seaux.

Scar. Oh brave hog! worthy prelate! pious cardinal. What a fine way of mortification is this! Well, for sincerity, humility, charity, sobriety, &c. commend me to a prelate.{112}

Furet. The cardinal, tho’ he had obtained his desires, yet could not but be sensible that fear, not love, made her consent; therefore doubting she would return to her first amours, or that he should have but little share of her, so contriv’d it, that her husband sent her to a house he had in the cardinal’s diocese, and not far from his palace. This had a very good effect; because the cardinal, for the love of her, resided always in his diocese. Thus did the cardinal and his niece live very lovingly for two or three years; but the intrigues of the court calling the prelate out of the kingdom, ambition stepp’d into the place of love, and put an end to an incestuous commerce, to which the marchioness had first consented, purely in her own defence.

Scar. I find there are hogs with cardinal caps, as well as mitres. But I believe they are not so numerous; that dignity, perhaps, is a kind of curb to their licentiousness.

Furet. You mistake the matter, Mr. Scarron, inclination never changes; the only reason is, there are more bishops than cardinals, and most of them reside at Rome, at glorious Rome, which is but one entire stew; Sodom was not what Rome is now. Have you forgot the famous cardinal Bonzi? He is as absolute in Montpelier, as the grand signior in his seraglio; he needs but beckon to the dame he has a mind to enjoy. The brave cardinal de Bouillon, notwithstanding his court intrigues is as well known in all the bawdy-houses of Paris, as a young debauch’d musqetteer, or garde de corps. The cardinal de Furstenburg too was as wicked as his purse would allow him before I left the town.

Scar. I verily believe it, Monsieur l’Abbé: But pray give me leave to reckon your dignities upon my fingers, that I may not forget them. First, There is your porkers of Jesus Christ; then your mitred hogs; and lastly, your purple hogs. ’Tis wondrous pretty! pray how must we distinguish the Pope, who is chief of this herd? Must we call him the swine-herd? Some of them, ’tis true, were swine-herds before they took the order of priesthood, as Sixtus Quintus, who was swine-herd to the village of Montaste: But there is another thing that puzzles me worse than all this: you know Lewis XIV. calls{113} himself the eldest son of St. Peter, Lewis the Great then, for all his ambition is the son of a swine-herd. Well, I know not how to settle this point; therefore pray continue your history.

Furet. I’ll make an end of my history, if you are not already glutted with the infamy of the afore-mentioned prelates; with that of the archbishop of Rheims.

Scar. How! Monsieur l’Abbé, how! Is he a hog too? I have heard him call’d by some of our new guests a horse.

Furet. You are in the right of that: the mareschal de la Feuillade was his god-father, and one day honour’d him with the title of coach-horse.

Scar. A horse is a degree of honour above a hog—— Has la Feuillade the privilege of distributing titles at the court of France? Has he more wit than in cardinal Mazarine’s days, who always greeted him in these words, Monsieur de la Feuillade, All your brains would lie in a nutshell.

Furet. ’Tis true, there is no more substance in his brains, than in whipt cream; and as that fills up the desart, and serves to cool and refresh the stomach after a plentiful dinner; so does he serve to unbend and divert the mind, after solid conversation and business. To prove this, I will tell you how he made the king to laugh very heartily, concerning the archbishop of Rheims.

Scar. As a wise politick lady, when she has not the fool her husband to divert her, will have her monkey; so must the great statesman have his buffoon. He is the same to the politician as a clyster is to the man that’s costive. But go on with your story.

Furet. He being one day with the king, looking out at a window of Versailles, that faces the great road to Paris, and observing the passengers, the king at last discover’d a coach with more, as he thought, than six horses; and turning to la Feuillade, praising the equipage, ask’d him if it was not the archbishop of Rheims’s livery: yes, Sir, said la Feuillade. I can discover but seven horses, reply’d the king: Oh! Sir, said la Feuillade, the eighth is in the coach. But I pretend to degrade this archbishop, and prove that he’s but a mitred hog as well as the rest of his brethren.{114}

Scar. Ah dear Monsieur l’Abbé, for the love of Monsieur le Tellier, who has render’d his king and country such great service, take not from him the honour la Feuillade conferr’d on him, and with the king’s approbation.

Furet. Plead not so earnestly for him, but hear me with patience. I do not say but the archbishop of Rheims is a brute, a very animal, a coach-horse, per omnes casus; but yet he pursues the affairs of love with as much zeal, and as little conscience, as any prelate in Europe, therefore must not be distinguish’d from his brethren. Besides, if you take him from his lawful title of mitred hog, you will hinder his preferment.

Scar. Oh! by no means. I have read that Caligula honour’d one of his horses with the title of senator; why then may not the Pope, who is the successor of that emperor, call into his senate your coach-horse?

Furet. With all my heart. Nevertheless, I’ll call him if you please, mitred hog, as I did the bishop of Loan before he was cardinal d’Estrée. Now to matter of fact. The duchess d’Aumont having surpris’d one of her chamber-maids in a very indecent posture with the marquis de Villequier, her son-in-law, turn’d her out of her service. The poor wench, distracted to find herself separated from her lover, told him, out of pure revenge, that the archbishop of Rheims lay with the duchess every time the duke went to Versailles. How! my uncle! Ah! I cannot believe it; thou say’st this out of malice.

Scar. Oh fie! oh fie! The archbishop of Rheims debauch the duchess d’Aumont, his brother-in-law’s wife! Do not you plainly perceive this jade’s malice? If the duchess had but suffer’d her intrigue with the marquis, she would not have open’d her mouth. Oh, horrible! Oh, horrible!

Furet. As much as you seem to wonder now, and abhor the thoughts of such doings, you were not formerly so nice, nor incredulous.

Scar. Be not angry, good Monsieur l’Abbé; I do believe as bad of a priest, as you can desire to have me; therefore pray continue.

Furet. By what follows you’ll find that the spirit of revenge discover’d a most luscious intrigue. Since you{115} will not believe what I say, reply’d the wench to her gallant, I will, the next time the duke goes to Versailles, make your eyes convince you. The duchess, you must know, had imprudently given her leave to stay three or four days in her house. As it happen’d, the duke went that afternoon to court, who was no sooner gone, and the marquis plac’d in a dark room leading to the duchess’s bed-chamber, but by comes the archbishop, muffled up with a dark-lanthorn in his hand. This convinced the young marquis, and was enough to convince a more incredulous man than your worship.

Scar. It was perhaps some phantome, or some amorous Devil, who to do himself honour, had taken the archbishop’s goodly form and sanctify’d mien.

Furet. Still excusing the priests! You were not such an advocate of theirs in the other world, witness your answer to your parish-priest, some few hours before you pack’d up for this place.

Scar. I have since drank a swinging draught of Lethe’s forgetful stream; I remember nothing of it: You would, perhaps, scandalize me.

Furet. It was thus, Sir, the grave hypocrite administring the last idolatrous ceremonies, asked if you knew what you received; to which you made this short answer: The body of your God carried by an ass.

Scar. ’Tis true, ’tis true, Monsieur l’Abbé; pray who can endure to be disturb’ by an impertinent coxcomb, when he’s going to take a long voyage? But go on, I will not speak one word more in their behalf.

Furet. The marquis, convinced by what he had seen, went the next morning to Versailles, and told all the young nobility of his acquaintance what had pass’d; which by being buzz’d about, in four and twenty hours became the talk of all the court.

Scar. Oh brave archbishop of Rheims! Was no body worthy of being made a cuckold by you, but your brother in-law?

Furet. Again mistaken, Mr. Scarron, for the charitable archbishop has assisted his nephew too, as well as his brother-in-law, and intends to go round the family.

Scar. The Devil! This is the most insatiable hog I ever heard of! He devours both the hen and her chickens.{116} Pray excuse me, Monsieur l’Abbé: I cannot but think you wrong him now.

Furet. You may judge of that by the following relation. The archbishop being passionately in love with Madam d’Aumont his niece, and the marquis de Crequi’s wife, was resolv’d, the better to insinuate himself with her, to make her jealous of her husband, which he found no difficult matter to do. This done, he went to visit her, and finding her melancholy, said, Madam, I know no reason you have to be so much concern’d at your husband’s infidelity, since it lies in your power to be reveng’d. If he has a mistress, why don’t you get a gallant? I know no injustice in it; and it is the only recompensing counsel I can give you.

Scar. Ah! Marchioness, have at you; I find the hog grows rampant—— Go on, good Sir, this is like a brave metropolitan.

Furet. The young marchioness did not listen to this proportion; but on the contrary, was surpris’d to find her uncle, an archbishop, make a motion, which had she been inclined to follow, he ought to have given her more virtuous advice. Perceiving her aversion to his proposition, he suspected she might suppose he only said it to try her inclinations, therefore he was resolved to declare his mind in more intelligible terms; which he did in so amorous a style, that the marchioness plainly perceiv’d the archbishop intended to have a share in the revenge. But the young lady, tho’ she would not have made any scruple of it, had it not been for his character, was infinitely concerned at it.

Scar. Notwithstanding all this, do I see the purple victorious, and the poor victim prostrate.

Furet. As the archbishop made her frequent presents, and she expected great advantages at his death, so she did not think it prudence to mortify him too much; this filled him with hopes, and made him more amorous: therefore, to blind the husband, and have a better opportunity of lying with his wife, he proposed taking them into his palace, and defraying all their charges.

Scar. Money is the sinew of love as well as war. The poor marquis, I don’t doubt, was blinded with this fine proposal. More men are made cuckolds by their own follies than by their wives.{117}

Furet. So it proved by our cuckold, who was so transported at the bounteous offer of the archbishop, supposing it an uncle’s kindness, not a lover’s, that he every where boasted of it, that is to say, he thought himself oblig’d to his uncle for lying with his wife at that price. The mareschal de Crequi, his father, had quite another opinion of that matter, and was affronted at the excessive liberalities of the archbishop, knowing that the most devout and zealous of their tribe were adulterers, incestuous, and sodomites. He complain’d of it to the marquis Louvois, who told him, covetousness was the reason of his complaint. The mareschal not satisfied with this answer, went to the king, who immediately commanded the archbishop to retire into his diocese. The disconsolate archbishop, whilst all were preparing for his journey, went to visit his niece, and with tears desired her ever to remember, that it was for the love of her he was banish’d.

Scar. Could the afflictions of the living affect me, I shou’d be mightily concern’d for the grief this poor prelate, who was oblig’d to leave so dear, so pretty a niece; a niece that afforded him so much pleasure and delight. Have not you left behind you other mitred hogs, whose lives and conversations are worthy your remembrance? Those you have already been so kind to relate, have been a banquet to me; and I heartily wish I may always meet with such entertainment.

Furet. Your servant, Mr. Scarron, I am extremely pleased they have diverted you; and that you may promise yourself such another entertainment, nay, twenty such; be assur’d, that there is not a bishop, archbishop, or cardinal, that is not as very a hog, as either the archbishop of Rheims, or cardinal d’Estrée, except the bishop of Escar, who lives in a barren soil, and can scarce afford himself a bellyfull of chesnuts above once in fifteen days. Poverty is a kind of leprosy, not a fair sleek female will come near him. The reason why I entertain you with the histories of these two prelates, rather than of the archbishop of Paris, the bishop of Meaux, the bishop of Beauvais, the bishop of Valence, and all the other bishops, is, because having heard the famous actions of those worthy metropolitans, faithfully related some few days before my de{118}parture, those ideas are the most present and lively. But in time, and with a little rubbing up my memory, I may be able to give you the lives of all the mitred hogs. Besides, as we have now settled three couriers weekly from this place to Versailles, because of the importance of affairs now on foot, I expect now and then a pacquet; so I don’t doubt of keeping my word, and often diverting you with stories of the like nature, and of fresher date.

Scar. ’Tis very obliging, Monsieur l’Abbé: But your last paragraph has put an odd whim into my noddle. This place, as I told you before, is now call’d the wits coffee-house; none but authors are sent hither. What think you if we should join our heads together, and digest all your stories and intelligence into form; if we should compile a book of them, we could make it very diverting, having able men both for verse and prose, whose very names would give it the reputation of a faithful history, because the dead neither hoping nor fearing any thing from the living, cannot be suspected of flattery and partiality, as they justly were when in the world.

Furet. I protest, a noble thought! The lives of the Roman prelates will make a most curious history. We have a famous history of the Roman emperors; and why should we not then have another of the Roman prelates, since they as justly deserve to be transmitted to posterity?

YOU will soon be satisfy’d what mighty changes we suffer by death; and that there is no two things at more distance from one another, than to be and not to be. You know how, Roman like, I took pett, and dar’d to die! for time had bejaded me a little, and to renounce the tyranny of the fickle goddess, I was oblig’d to renounce your light. Since my arrival at the grim Tartarian territories, I have received the usual compliments of the place; and tho’ the most accurate courtiers that ever{119} was bred at Versailles, and all the wits of the most gallant courts in the universe, are here in whole shoals; yet to my great wonder and amazement, not one of them said a genteel thing to me. But with a strange familiar air, that favour’d much of our bear-garden friendship, some a hundred or two, hall’d me by the ears, and puffing out thick clouds of flaming sulphur, cry’d all with a hoarse and dismal voice, well, Doily, this was kindly done of thee, to take pas avance of destiny, and shew the world, that no man need be miserable, but who is afraid to die.

I was (amongst friends) as much out of countenance at this saucy proceeding, as when our old friends, Shore and la Rocha, refus’d to lend me five paultry guineas, after I had equipp’d them with more than one thousand apiece. I wonder’d at the roughness of their acueil, and they burst out a laughing at the impertinency of my astonishment. Well, gentlemen, give me leave to tell you, that if I had but suspected a quarter part of this inhuman and ungentleman-like reception, I would have suspended the honours of my self-sacrifice, and have chosen rather to wait the fatal period of life in a more contracted orb, than thus suddenly have plung’d myself into such a disappointment. After having allotted me my portion for my vanity and foppery, and I had been put into possession of my shop, you cannot conceive how heavy it lay upon my spirits; but suffer it I must; and if it had not been the odiousest and most abominable, most nauseous, and most execrable function I could have laboured under, they would not have been so merciful as to have enjoin’d it me. ’Twas long before I could obtain leave to insinuate thus much to you; for they are no ways here below inclined to grant any the minutest thing imaginable, that may contribute to the benefit of mankind. Jo. Haines came to me, (and his breath had as much augmented its stench, as light is different from darkness: In a word, there was as great disproportion for the worse, as between us and you) and with a displayed pair of chaps, told me, I must not have any correspondency with the upper regions, for it might tend to the dispeopling the Acherontic territories; and that I was a bubble to think they had not as much of self-interest here below, as any merchant, statesman, lawyer, or nobleman in all the dominions above. But seeing{120} my and your old acquaintance, (gentlemen) I took heart a little, and held my nose; and after some usual ceremonies, (to which he made but a scurvy return) I told him, look you Mr Haines, you know, as well as I, that those powder’d members of the vain fraternity are all of them incorrigible; present smart and future fear affects them not; they are out of the reach of good advice; reason was never their talent; for if they were ever in election to have a thought, as it would be the first, so would it be the fatalest too. Could any glass but shew them to themselves as really they are, they would all despair like me, and die like me. A sly young whelp of the second class of Pluto’s footmen, said, well, Mr. Haines, there may be much in what he says, he came last from thence, therefore let him make an end of his epistle, it may turn to better account than we are aware of. I thank’d the gentleman for his civility, and would have administred a half-crown; but you know (my worthy brothers) that the last twelve shillings I had was laid out in three glasses of Ratifia, and a bottle of Essence; with which, I first comb’d out my wig, then clean’d my shoes, and then oil’d the locks of my pistols, and so set out for this tedious and lugubrous journey: and that you may see, that Pluto’s skip-kennels are not so insolent as yours are, the fellow told me, with a malicious smile, that if the powder’d gentry of the other world were so very despicable animals, as I represented them, he would take a small tour with me, and then I might have something material to communicate to them.

We had not walk’d so far as from the chocolate-house to the Rose, but in a narrow, obscure, obscene alley, there hung out a piece of a broken chamber-pot, upon which was written in sulphurous characters, Fleshly relief for the sons of Adam. I had hardly made an end of reading this merry motto, but the door open’d, and what should my eyes behold, but a reverend lady, of illustrious charms, that gave us too visible proofs of the depredations of time: I recollected her phiz, as engineers tell by the very ruins, whether the fabric were Doric or Ionic, &c. and who should this be but the celebrated fair Rosamond; her present occupation was to be runner to this bawdy coffee-house. Queen Eleanor, her mortal enemy, sells sprats, and has

her stall in Pluto’s stable-yard. In my peregrination, I met several things unexpected, and therefore surprising; I shall not give you the trouble of every particular dark passage we went thro’, but in general terms relate the most memorable things that occurred during a very considerable walk that we had together. Taking a solitary walk on the gloomy banks of Acheron, I met a finical fellow, powder’d from top to toe, his hands in his pocket, a-la-mode de Paris, humming a new minuet; and who would it be, but Gondamour, that famous Spaniard. Helen of Greece cry’d kitchin-stuff, and Roxano had a little basket of tripe and trotters; Agamemnon sold bak’d ox-cheek, hot, hot; Hannibal sells Spanish-nuts, come crack it away; the so famous Hector of Troy is a head-dresser; the Decii keep a coblers-stall, in the corner of the Forum, and the Horatii a chandler’s-shop; Sardanapalus cries lilly-white-vinegar, and Heliogabalus bakes fritters, in the via appia of this metropolis; Lucius Æmilius Paulus is a bayliff’s follower, and the famous queen Thomyris proportions out the offals for Cerberus; Tarquin sweeps his den, and Romulus is a turnspit in Pluto’s kitchen; Artaxerxes is an under scullion, and Pompey the magnificent, a rag-man; Mark Anthony, that disputed his mistress at the price of the whole universe, goes now about with dancing-dogs, a monkey and a rope; Cleopatra, that could swallow a province at one draught, when it was to drink her lover’s health, submits now to the humble employment of feeding Proserpine’s pigs: that luxurious Roman, who was once so dissolv’d in ease, as that a very rose-leaf doubled under him, prevented his rest, is now labouring at the anvil with a half hundred hammer; Oliver Cromwell is a rat-catcher, and my lord Bellew a chimney-sweeper.

There was besides these, a list of people nearer hand; but you may easily guess upon what score they are left out of the list. We needed not have gone so far back in the records of persons and things, to have met instances of barbarity, luxury, avarice, lust of dominion, as well as of sensuality. Malversations of government in sovereigns and subjects; publick justice avoided, private feuds fomented, every thing sacrificed to a Colbert, Maintenon, or a Loüis.{122}

There is somebody hollows most damnably on the other side of Styx, and lest I lose this opportunity, I shall only relate some memorable things to you: Therefore pray pardon me that I cannot dilate upon every particular. In short then, Alexander the Great is bully to a guinea-dropper; and cardinal Mazarine keeps a nine-holes; Mary of Medicis foots stockings, and Katherine, queen of Sweedland cries two bunches a penny card-matches, two bunches a penny; Henry the fourth of France carries a rary-show; and Mahomet, muscles; Seneca keeps a fencing-school, and Julius Cæsar a two-penny ordinary; Xenophon, that great philosopher, cries cucumbers to pickle; and Cato is the perfectest Sir Courtly of the whole Plutonian kingdom; Richelieu cries topping bunno; and the late pope, any thing to day; Lewis the thirteenth is a corn-cutter; Gustavus Adolphus cries sparrowgrass, with a thousand more particulars of this nature. You must allow the scenes to be mightily alter’d from their former stations; but alas! Sir, this change we suffer, and as pleasure is the reward of virtue, so disgrace and infamy is of cruelty, pride, and hypocrisy. What can be more surprising than to see the renowned Penthefilea, queen of the Amazons, crying new almanacks, and Darius gingerbread, van Trump cries ballads, and admiral de Ruyter long and strong thread-laces.

This disproportion is their punishment; for it must be anxious to the last degree, to fall so low even beyond a possibility of rising again. That is the advantage of moving in an humble sphere; they are not capable of those enormities that the great ones can hardly avoid; for temptation will generally have the better of mankind.

Perkin Warbeck to the pretended Prince of Wales. By Capt. Ayloff.

WE had a fierce debate here on the 13th passato, between my lord Fitz-Walter, Sir Simon Mountford, Sir William Stanley, and myself; whether by a parity of reason, England might not once more have the same card trumpt up upon them? In a word, we were consulting your affairs, and they were most of ’em of opinion, that there could not be any good success expected from your personal endowments, and princely qualifications. For you must give me leave to tell you, Cuz, that I was a smart child, and a smock-fac’d youth; I had not the good luck to kill a wild boar at your years, but I could sit the great horse before I could go alone, I had all the advantages of friends that you have, and the interest of my good aunt the duchess or Burgundy, let me tell you, was as capable of seconding me, as the house of Modena is you: Nay, I had the Scotch on my side, assistance from Ireland, and not without a party, you see, even in England too. But the English mob is the most giddy, wretched, senseless mob of all the mobs in the world. How they crowded into me at Whitsand-Bay, and in their first fury fought well enough before Exeter: But when they heard of an army coming against ’em, the scoundrels ran away and left me; all my blooming hopes and fancied kingdoms dwindled away in a sanctuary, that I exchanged for a prison, and brought my Habeas Corpus, and so turn’d myself over to Tyburn, and am now in the rules of Acheron. Our kinsman Lambert Simnel and I, drank your health t’other morning in a curious cup of Styx, and the arch sawcy rogue, said, how he should laugh to see his brother of Wales succeed him in this great employment at court; continually turning a spit would harden and inure you, and so prepare you for these smoaky and warmer climates: not but that there is matter of speculation in it too. The turning a spit is an emblem of the vicissitude of human affairs. But before I take my leave, good{124} cousin, I must offer a little of my advice to you, if it be possible any ways to meliorate your destiny; and that is, that you would make a campaign or two in Italy: Marshal Villeroy will shew you what it is to be well beaten; and till then you’ll never be a great general. But Charon is just landing a multitude of French from those parts; I must go see what news, and inform myself further of your welfare and prosperity.

Mr. Dryden, to the Lord—— By Capt. Ayloff.

ON the 25th passato, there happen’d a very considerable dispute in the Delphick vale; the literati had hard words, and it was fear’d by Pluto himself, that the angry shades would come to somewhat worse. It may be you in those grosser regions, do not believe that we here below lose nothing of ourselves by death, but the terrene part: nay, the very soul itself retains some of those unhappy impressions it receiv’d from flesh and blood. Here Cæsar bites his thumbs when Alexander walks by; frowns upon Brutus, and blushes when he talks of king William: The great Gustavus Adolphus only wishes himself upon earth again, to serve a captain under him: Turenne wants to be in Italy, and Wallesteen assures him that prince Eugene of Savoy would have had the same glorious success against him, as Catinat and Villeroy. Hannibal own’d that his march over, or rather thro’ the Alpes, was not so honourable an action as the prince’s; and tho’ arts and experience may make a general, yet nature can only inform an Eugene. Surly Charon had been so plagu’d with the French from those parts, that he has been forc’d to leave whole shoals of them behind. Once they crowded in so fast, as they almost overset the boat, and still as they press’d forward, cry’d Vauban, Vauban: But the old gentleman, unwilling to hazzard himself, push’d a multitude of them back with his sculls, and so put off—— However, this is not the business I design’d to mention; something more particular, and of more weighty consequence{125} is the occasion of this letter. The real wits refus’d to take notice of prince Arthur, and king Arthur, who were walking hand in hand; some shallow-pated versificators would resent the indignity put upon ’em. This was very disgusting to the literati, and it is inconceivable what a horrid stench they made with uttering those verses. The more robust spirits were almost choak’d; you may then judge what condition the delicate and nice stomachs of the men of wit were in; but while every one was wishing for their cloaths of humanity again to be less sensible of this execrable smell, a worthy literati came in from London, who being informed of the occasion of that terrible inconveniency, repeated a few commendatory verses, and immediately the air grew tolerable, and the brimstone burnt serene. Job himself did confess, that had he been in the flesh again, he was terribly afraid he should have murder’d the doctor: When a merry spirit standing at his elbow, said, it was no such wonderful thing to have a sirreverence of a man be mine arse of a poet. But Charon waits, I must conclude; and as conveniency serves, shall inform you of what passes in those gloomy regions.

THE shatter’d lawrels of the Acherontic-walks, owe not so much of their misfortune to the shallowness of Aganippe, as to the ungenerous procedure of the sons of Helicon. Either the hill of Parnassus is fortify’d, and what with antient and modern wit, even you, gentlemen of real parts, have none of you that applause, which in a thousand occasions you have so justly merited. These melancholy reflections, gentlemen, add a new thickness to the gloomy sulphur; and we cannot enjoy a perfect quiet here, seeing there is so great and so dangerous a misunderstanding between you on the other side of Phlegethon. Why should there be so many pointed satires{126} against one another? Why mould you shew the very blockheads themselves where you men of sense are not quite such as you would pass upon the world for? Your invidious criticisms only shew others where you are vulnerable, and give an argument under your own hand against your own selves. There is a charity in concealing faults; but to make them more obvious, has a double ill-nature in it. Can’t Arthur be a worthless poem, but a squadron of poets must tell all the world so? Is there honour in rummaging a dunghil, or telling the neighbours where there is one? The bee gathers honey from every flower, ’tis the beetles that delight in horse-dung. Is it not much more preferable to make something ones self useful to mankind, than only to shew wherein another is a coxcomb? Partisans in wit never do well; they only lay the country waste; they gratify their own private spleen, it may be, but they do not help the publick. Unite your forces, gentlemen, against ignorance, that growing and powerful enemy to you and us. Erect triumphal arches, to one another, and do not enviously pull down what others are endeavouring to set up. Your mutual quarrels have shaken the very foundation of wit and good humour. ’Tis the faction a man is of, determines what he is, not his learning and parts; we cannot hear, gentlemen, of those intestine dissensions, without a great concern and displeasure; and must take the liberty to tell you, we apprehend the muses may shortly be reduced to the necessity of shutting up the Delphic library, and write upon the doors, Ruit ipsa suis Roma viribus.

Charon to the most Illustrious and High-born Jack Catch, Esq; by Capt. Ayloff.

I Cannot but with the last degree of sorrow and anguish, inform you of our present wretched condition; we have even tired our palms, and our ribs at slappaty-pouch; and if it had not been for some gentlemen that came from the coasts of Italy, I had almost forgot to handle my sculls.{127} There came a sneaking ghost here, some a day or two or three ago, and he surpriz’d me with an account, (I may call it indeed a terrible one) that you have had a maiden-sessions in your metropolis. Was it then possible that Newgate should be without a rogue, or our patron, the most worshipful Sir Senseless Lovel without any execution in his mouth? You talk of having hang’d Tyburn in mourning: Why cousin Catch, upon my sincerity, and for fear you should question my veracity, by the thickest mud in Acheron, I swear, it is almost high time that my boat was in mourning. What, he upon the bench and no man hang’d! Well, as assuredly as the blood of the horses will rise up in judgment against our friend Whitney: this maiden-sessions shall rise up in judgment against him. Such shoals as I have had from time to time, meer sacrifices to his avarice or his malice, that unless his conscience begins to fly in his face, I cannot comprehend what should occasion this calm at the Old-Baily: For give me leave, dear cousin, to tell you, that formerly he never sav’d any man for his money, but hang’d another in his room; trading was then pretty good, cousin, and there was a penny to be got; but indeed, on your side it is very dull: nay, in Flanders too, that fertile soil of blood and wounds, there has not one leg nor one arm been brought us all this summer. Prithee be you Charon, and let me be recorder, I’ll warrant you somewhat more to do.

From Sir Bartholomew—— to the Worshipful Serjeant S——. By the same Hand.

THE friendship that was between us formerly, equally obliges me to give you a relation of my travels, and assures me of its welcome. Since my peregrination from your factious regions, I have palled over various and stupendious lakes; the roads are somewhat dark indeed, but the continued exhalations of those amazing streams, make the travellers able to pass, without running foul of one another. But ’tis equally remarkable, considering the length and darkness of the passage, that no person was{128} ever cast away on this river Styx, as I am credibly inform’d by the ferryman, who has ply’d here time out of mind. The dogs are pretty rife in this country, and full as insufferable as ever they were among you: I unfortunately forgot my lozenge-box, and have much impair’d my lungs; but they assure me, that these defluxions of rheums never kill. ’Tis prodigious, I protest, brother, to see how soon we learn the language, or rather jargon of the place! how fast they come in from all parts of the habitable world! And yet there is but one boat neither, and that no bigger than above-bridge-wherry. At my coming ashoar, I was very familiarly entertain’d, and directed to an apartment in Cocytus: But there was not one corner in all my passage, but I met some or other of the wrangling fraternity of Westminster. I immediately suggested to myself, that there might be (peradventure) a call of serjeants by his majesty Pluto, who is sovereign of these gloomy regions; and who besides his general residence here, has a most magnificent palace about twenty miles off, at Erebus, on the side of the river Phlegethon. He is one of a somewhat stern aspect, not easy of access; haughty in his deportment, and barbarous to the last degree in his nature. There is no sort of people he sets so much by, as those of our profession, tho’ I have not heard of any lawyer that had the honour to be in his cellar as yet. Our old friend and fellow-toper judge D—— has very good business here, upon my word, as likely to be preferr’d, as vacancies happen; for ’tis always term-time in this kingdom throughout; and besides, when he had his quietus sent him by the hands of Sir Thin-chops Mors, you and I remember very well, that he had not the best reputation for a man of parts. In the crowd of our pains-taking brethren in the litigious school, I remark’d an innumerable quantity that I was not quite an utter stranger to their faces, more particularly, Mr. Fil——, who, you know, did not want for sense, wit, law, and good manners; and yet had so profound a genious, that he could dispatch more business, and more wine in one night’s time, than Bob. Weeden would have wish’d for a patrimony: He very humanly accosted me, and after a million of mutual civilities, he forced me to accept of my mornings draught with him.{129} At night you know, I never refuse my bottle; but for morning tippling, it was always my aversion, my abomination, my hatred, my noli me tangere: Besides, the dismal prospect of the place, gave me many shrewd suspicions, that those taverns were not furnish’d with the best accommodations, neither for man’s meat, or horse meat either; not that I had the vanity to take my coach with me neither, but ’tis to use an old proverb, that as yet I have not blotted out of my memory. I had hardly disengag’d myself from his civilities, but Mr. Nicholas Hard— mighty gravely admonish’d me of his former familiarity, and with an air that was no ways contumelious, desir’d to know how F—— preach’d, and Burg—— pray’d; whether the grave Dr. W—— continued his pious endeavours to convert the martyr’d men of his parish from the crying and heinous sin of ebriety; and yet at the same instant almost, to contrive plausible ways and means of perverting the modest and chaste propensities of their respective wives; and while they would not quietly let their husbands be (by accident of good company, or good wine) beasts, for but a few transitory nocturnal hours, could yet drive to make them so beyond a possibility of redress; for amongst friend, (brother) what collateral security can an honest, prudent, wary, wise, good, upright, understanding, cautious, indulgent, loving husband take, when that same godly man in black twirls his primitive band-strings, and with his other hand has your dear spouse, your help-mate, the wife of your bosom, the partner of your bed, by the conscience, and somewhat else that begins with the same letter? ’Twas not want of leisure, (for alas! and alack) we have supernumerary hours here; but pretended curiosity, (the last thing that dies with us but hypocrisy) made me cut short the harangue, that this precise attorney seem’d by his demureness to expect from me: So, in short, I told him, that his fellow-companions at six o’ clock prayers had not forgot him; and by what I could understand from those that were last with me, the pew-keeper lamented his loss extreamly: nay, was inconsolable, for now he was forced to use a pailful of water extraordinary once a week more in the church than formerly; because he had gotten to such a perfection in hy{130}pocrisy, that what his knees did not rub clean, his eyes always wash’d clean: but for his father’s comfort, since he was got clear of his super-tartarian concern, money was fallen, and his dearest darling sin of all, extortion, was not a little under the hatches: but that he might not be quite cast down, there was some seeds of it left still, that would always keep old Charon well employ’d. I had hardly bless’d myself for having got rid of him, but a merry fellow (not to say impertinent and sawcy to one of my capacity, volubility, and eloquence; character, conduct, and reputation) pull’d me by the coif; but as in strange places ’tis prudence to pass by small affronts and indignities, because want of acquaintance is worse than want of knowledge; and the law, you know brother, is not so expensive, as it is captious in the main; not but that our industry does help it mightily to the one, if we find it to be the other. Now who should this Caitiff be, but Harry C——ff the attorney; and all his mighty business was to know how his laundress did; and if the maid got the better of her in the legacy he gave her for her last consolations. Before I could recollect the secret history of his amours, I was very courteously address’d by Mr. Common Serjeant C——p, who likewise in a florid stile, requested me to inform him, if any of his modern bawds, that so punctually attended him, had suffer’d any prejudice by his absence: He was mightily in doubt of their success, because experience had taught him, that paupers in matters of law proceed but heavily; however, he could but wish them well, because that tho’ they were bad clients, he had always found them good procurators—— My lady Tysiphone made a sumptuous entertainment, and the countess of Clotho danc’d smartly; the king of Spain resented mightily that so many English were there, and had almost bred a quarrel; but Don Sebastian king of Portugal, made up the matter, by declining the Spanish faction, and said, it was highly unjust that the English should be male-treated in their universal interest, because he was a fool, and the cardinal that made his will a knave, and the king of France a tyrant. But the catastrophe of this fit of the spleen of the supercilious Spaniard was comical enough; for in the crowd that was come together upon{131} the notice of his heart-burning, who should stumble upon one another but Godfrey Wood—— the attorney, who you may remember (brother) was committed for saying to a certain lord chancellor, that he was his first maker; tho’ the truth of the matter was, their intimacy at play made him presume to beg the small favour of his lordship, to pass an unjust decree in favour of his client. Well, Sir, said the attorney to his lordship, now you are without your mace, I must tell you, that had not you invited me to supper the same day you sent me to the Fleet, I should have taken the freedom to have let you known, that in this king’s dominions we are all equal. I left ’em hard at all-fours for a quart of Acheron, where they bite their nails like mad, and divert others with their passion and concern—— But the postillion is mounting, and I must defer the rest of my adventurers to the next opportunity.

LETTERS

F R O M T H E

Dead to the Living.

Part II.

UNLESS my memory fails me since my coming into these subterranean dominions, ’twas much about this time last year, that I did myself the honour to write to you: perhaps you expected a frequenter commerce from me; and indeed, I should have been very proud to have maintained it on my side, since nothing so much relieves me in these gloomy regions, as to reflect on the many pleasant moments I have formerly pass’d in Covent-Garden; but, alas! gentlemen, not to mention the great difficulty of keeping such a correspondence, our lower world is nothing near so fruitful in news as yours; one single sheet of paper will almost contain the occurrences of a whole year; and were it not for the numerous crowds of Spaniards, French, Poles, Germans, &c. that daily arrive here, and entertain us with the transactions of Europe, hell would be as melancholy a place as Westminster-Hall in the long vacation; and the generality of people among us would have as little to{133} employ their idle hours, as a lord-treasurer in Scotland, or a barber in Muscovy. Besides, to speak more particularly, as to myself, that everlasting hurry and tide of business, wherein I hive been overwhelm’d ever since I honour’d myself with the title of High-German doctor and astrologer, does so entirely challenge all my time, that if you will take my word, (and I hope you don’t suspect a person of my veracity) I am forc’d, at this present writing, to deny myself to all my patients, tho’ there are at least some half a score coaches with coronets waiting now at my door, that I might receive no interruption from any visitants, while I was dispatching this epistle to you.

My last, gentlemen, as you may easily remember, if you have not buried such a trifle in oblivion, concluded with my taking a large house here in Brandinopolis, and setting up for a physician and fortune-teller: I shall now proceed to acquaint you, by what laudable artifices and stratagems I advanced myself into that mighty reputation; in which, to the admiration of this populous town, I at present flourish; what notable cures I have performed, what sort of customers chiefly resort to me; and lastly, To give you a short account of the most memorable occurrences that have lately happen’d in these parts.

By the direction of my worthy friend, Mr. Nokes, who liberally supply’d me with money to carry on this affair, I took a spacious house in the great Piazza here, then empty by the death of one of the most eminent physicians of this famous city. This you must own to me, gentlemen, was as favourable a step at my first setting out, as a man could possibly wish; for you cannot be ignorant how many sorry brothers of the faculty in London keep their coaches, and wriggle themselves into business, with no other merit to recommend them, than that of dwelling in the same house where a celebrated doctor lived before them. For this reason, I suppose, it was, (if you can pardon so short a digression) that the popes came to monopolize the ecclesiastical practice of the western world to themselves, by succeeding so great a bishop as St. Peter. So much is the world govern’d by appearances, and so apt to be cheated, as if knowledge and learning were bequeath’d to one house or place; and{134} like a piece of common furniture, went to the next inhabiter.

But to dismiss this speculation, which perhaps may seem somewhat odd, from a man of my merry character; having provided my house with every thing convenient, adorn’d my hall with the pictures of Galen, Hippocrates, Albumazar, and Paracelsus; cramm’d my library with a vast collection of books, in all arts and languages, (tho’ under the rose be it spoken, my worthy friends, your humble servant does not understand a syllable of them) furnish’d it with a pair of globes curiously painted, with the exuviæ of two or three East-India animals, a rattlesnake and a crocodile; and set up a fine elaboratory in my court-yard. In short, after having taken care to set off my hall, parlour and study, with all those noble decorations that serve to amuse the multitude, and create strange ideas in them, I order’d a spacious stage to be erected before my own habitation, got my bills ready printed, together with a long catalogue of the cures perform’d by me, during the time of my practising physick in your upper world; and then I broke out with a greater expectation and eclat than any doctor before me was ever known to do.

Three or four weeks before I made my appearance in publick, which, as I told you before, I intended to make with all the magnificence imaginable, Mr. Nokes and I, in conjunction with my brother comedian, Tony Lee, laid our heads together, how to sham me upon the town for a virtuoso, a miracle-monger, and what not. To favour this design, we sent for three or four topping apothecaries to the tavern, gave them a noble collation, and when half a dozen bumpers of wine had got us a free admission into their hearts, we fairly let them into the secret; which was, That they were to trumpet me up in all coffee-houses and places of publick resort in town, for the ablest physician that ever came into these parts; and as one kindness justly challenges another, I for my part was to write bills as tall as the monument, and charge them with the most costly medicines, tho’ they signify’d nothing at all to the patient’s recovery. In short, the bargain was immediately struck up between us; and those worthy gentlemen, I’ll say that for them, have not been{135} wanting to proclaim my extraordinary merits to all their acquaintance.

This was not all; but Mr. Nokes, who was resolv’d at any rate to introduce me into business, coming into one of the best frequented chocolate-houses near the court, (for Brandinopolis, you must know, is a perfect transcript of your wicked city) on a sudden pretends to be troubled with intolerable gripings of the guts; and acted his part so dextrously, that all the company pitied him, and thought he would expire upon the spot. Immediately two or three doctors were sent for; who, after a tedious consultation, at last pitch’d upon a never-failing remedy, as they were pleas’d to call it; which accordingly they apply’d, but without the desired effect. As his pains still continued upon him, What, says he, must I die here for want of help? And is there never another physician to be had for love nor money? With that a certain gentleman, that was posted there for that purpose, Sir, says he, there’s a German doctor lately come here, but for my part, I dare not recommend him to you, for he’s a perfect stranger to us, and no body knows him. Oh, send for him, send for him, cries Mr. Nokes, these German doctors are the finest fellows in the world; who can tell but he may give me present ease? Upon this, a messenger was hurried to me with all expedition: I told him I would come so soon as I had dispatch’d a patient or two; and in a quarter of an hour came thundering to the door in my chariot, and all the way pored upon a little book I carried in my hands; tho’ I must frankly own to you, that a coach is as uncomfortable a place to read, as to consummate in; but, gentlemen, ’tis with us here, as in your world, nothing is to be done without policy and trick: marching into the room with that gravity and solemn countenance, which we physicians know so well to put on upon these occasions, and brushing thro’ a numerous crowd of spectators, who stood there, expecting to see what would be the result of this affair, I found Mr. Nokes in such terrible agonies, that any man would have swore he could not out-live another minute. I felt his pulse, and told him, that by the irregularities of his systole, and unequal vibration of his diastole, I knew as well what ail’d him,{136} as if I had seen him taken to pieces like a watch; and plucking a small chrystal bottle out of my pocket, Sir, says I to him, take some half a score drops of this Anodyne Elixir, and I’ll engage all I am worth in the world, it will immediately relieve you. But, under favour, Sir, to give you some short account of it before you take it, you must understand, Sir, ’tis composed of two costly and sovereign ingredients, which no man, besides myself, dares pretend to. The first, Sir, is the celebrated balsam of Chili, (tho’ by the by, the devil a jot of balsam, comes from that Pagan place) and the second, Sir, that most excellent cephalick, which the mongrelian physicians call, the electrum of Samogitia, gather’d at certain seasons, Sir, upon the shore of the Deucalidonian ocean, by the Ciracassian fishermen. Mr. Nokes listned to this edifying discourse with wonderful attention, then followed my direction; and before you could count twenty, got upon his legs, took a few turns about the room, cut a caper a yard high, and kindly embracing me, doctor, says he, I am more obliged to you, than words are able to express; you have delivered me from the most intolerable pains that ever poor wretch groan’d under: and then presenting me with a purse of guineas, I hope you’ll be pleas’d to accept of this small trifle, till I am in a capacity of making you a better acknowledgment: However, to express in some measure my gratitude to yourself, as likewise to shew my regard for the publick welfare, I will take care to get the extraordinary cure advertised in the Gazette, and other publick papers. I told him he had more than paid me for so inconsiderable a a matter, adding, That I was at his service whenever he or any of his friends would do me the honour to send for me; and so took my leave of him.

This miraculous operation (for so they were pleased to christen it) occasion’d a great deal of talk in the town, very much to my advantage; but what happen’d three days after, perfectly confirm’d all sorts of people, that I was a Non-pareil in my profession, and out-went all that ever pretended to physick before me.

Tony Lee, who, as I told you in my last, keeps a conventicle in this infernal world, and was engag’d as well as my brother Nokes in the confederacy to serve me, took{137} occasion to be surpris’d with apoplectick fits in the beginning of his sermon; he had hardly split and divided his text, according to the usual forms, but his eyes rowl’d in his head, every muscle in his face was distorted; he foam’d at mouth, fumbled with the cushion, over-set the hour-glass, dropp’d his notes and bible upon the clerk’s head, and at last down he sunk as flat as a flounder to the bottom of the pulpit. ’Tis impossible to describe to you what a strange consternation the auditory were in at this calamitous disaster that had befallen their minister: the men stared at one another, as they had been all bewitch’d; and the women set up such a hideous screaming and roaring, that I question whether they would have done so much if a regiment of dragoons had broke into the room to ravish them. The duchess of Mazarine chafed his temples; Mother Stratford (of pious memory) lugg’d a brandy-bottle out of her pocket, and rubb’d his nostrils; but still poor Tony continu’d senseless, and without the least motion. When they found all these means ineffectual, at last the whole congregation unanimously resolv’d to send for me; who, according as it had been agreed before-hand between us, soon brought my holy Levite to his senses again, by applying a few drops of my aforesaid Elixir to his temples. Honest Tony was no sooner recover’d, but I had the thanks of the whole assembly; and a reverend elder in a venerable band, that reach’d from shoulder to shoulder, offer’d me a handsome gratuity for my pains; but I refus’d it, telling him, I look’d upon myself sufficiently rewarded, since I had been the happy (tho’ unworthy) instrument in the hand of providence (and then I turn’d up the whites of my eyes most religiously towards Heaven) to save the life of so precious and powerful a divine.

This pair of miraculous cures flew thro’ every street, alley, and corner of the town, like a train of gun-powder, with more expedition and improvements, than scandal used, in my time, to walk about Whitehall; and as it usually happens, in these cases, lost nothing in the relation. The godly party much magnify’d me for refusing the unrighteous mammon when it was offer’d me; my two trusty apothecaries talk’d of nothing but the prodi{138}gies of seignior Hanesio; but my surest cards, the midwives and nurses, when the sack-posset and brandy began to operate in their noddles, thought they could never say enough in my commendation.

Thus, gentlemen, I had abundantly secur’d to myself the reputation of a great physician; and nothing now remain’d, but to make the world believe I was personally acquainted with every star in the firmament, could extort what confessions I pleas’d out of the planets; and was no less skill’d in astrology than in medicine. My never failing friend Tony, was once more pleas’d to give me a lift upon this occasion. As the dissenting ministers (you know) have the privilege to go into the bed-chambers and closets of the ladies that resort to their meetings, without the least offence or scandal, Tony spy’d his opportunity, when the room was clear, rubb’d off with a gold watch, and some lockets of the duchess of Mazarine’s. The things were immediately missing, but who durst suspect a person of the pious Mr. Lee’s character and function? In short, every servant in the family was threatened with the rack; and the whole house, trunks, coffers, boxes, and all examin’d, from the garret down to the cellar. The poor duchess took the loss of her watch and lockets mightily to heart, kept her bed upon it for a fortnight; but at last was perswaded to make her application to my worship. I told her, sur le champ, that her things were safe, that the party who made bold with them, being troubled with compunctions of conscience, had not sold but hid them under such a tree, which I described to her in queen Proserpine’s park; and that if she went thither next morning by break of day, she would find my words true. Accordingly as I predicted, it happened to a tittle (for I had taken care to lodge them there the night before). And now who was the universal subject of people’s discourse, but the famous seignior Giusippe.

So that when the long expected day came, on which I was to make my publick appearance, the streets, windows and balconies, were so cramm’d with spectators of all sorts, that as often as I think on’t, I pity my poor lord-mayor and aldermen with all my heart, that their Cheapside-show shou’d fall so infinitely short of mine. Tom Shadwell, who{139} still keeps up his musical talent in these gloomy territories, began the entertainment with thrumming upon an old broken theorbo, and merry Sir John Falstaff sung to him, and afterwards both of them walk’d upon the slack rope, in a pair of jack-boots, to the admiration of all the beholders. After the mob had been diverted for some time with entertainments of this nature, and, particularly, by some legerdemain tricks of Appollonius Tyanæus, my conjurer, being attended by Dr. Connor, my toad-eater in ordinary, Mr. Lobb, the late presbyterian parson, my corn-cutter; Sir Patient Ward, my merry-andrew, and the famous Mithridates king of Pontus, my orator, I mounted the stage, and bowing on each side me, paid my respects to the noble company, in a most ceremonious manner. I was apparell’d in a black velvet coat, trimm’d with large gold loops of the newest fashion, and buttons as big as ostrich’s eggs; my muff was at least an ell long. I travers’d my stage some half a score times, then cocking my beaver, and holding up my cane close to my nose after the manner of us sons of Galen, I harangu’d them as follows: In the first place I told them, That it was not without the utmost regret, that I saw so many quacks and nauseous pretenders to the faculty, daily impose upon the publick. That neither ambition, self-interest, or the like sordid motive, had tempted me to expose myself thus upon the theatre of the world; and that nothing but a generous zeal to rescue medicine out of the hands of a pack of rascals, that were a dishonour to it, and the particular respect I bore to the inhabitants of the most renown’d city of Brandinopolis; who for their good breeding and civility to strangers, were not to be equall’d in any of Pluto’s dominions, had prevail’d over my natural modesty, and drawn me out of my beloved obscurity; that lastly, I requested a favourable construction upon this publick way of practice, which some impudent emperics (whom I scorn to mention) had render’d scandalous; and as I was a graduate in several universities, would have certainly declin’d, but that my regard for the salus populi superseded all those scruples; and made me rather hazard the loss of my reputation with some censorious persons, than lose any opportunity of exerting my utmost abilities for the benefit of mankind.{140}

When this harangue was over, I withdrew, and left the rest of the ceremony to be perform’d by my orator Mithridates, who descanted a long while upon my great experience and skill, my travels, and great adventures in foreign countries; the testimonials, certificates, medals, and the like favours, I had receiv’d from most of the crown’d heads and princes in the universe. And when this was over, order’d Matt. Gilliflower and Dick Bently, two of my footmen to disperse printed copies of my bill among the people, together with the catalogue of the cures by me formerly perform’d in your upper hemisphere; both which papers, because they contain something singular in them, and are written above the common strain, I have given my self the trouble to transcribe.

Thesaurum & talentum ne abscondas in agro.

Signior Guisippe Hanesio, High German Astrologer and Chymist; seventh son of a son, unborn doctor of above sixty years experience, educated at twelve universities, having travelled thro’ fifty two kingdoms, and been counsellor to counsellors of several monarchs.

Hoc juris publici in communem utilitatem publicum fecit.

WHO by the blessing of Æsculapius on his great pains, travels, and nocturnal lucubrations, has attain’d to a greater share of knowledge than any person before him was ever known to do.

Imprimis, Gentlemen, I present you with my universal solutive, or Cathartic Elixir, which corrects all the cacochymic and cachexical diseases of the intestines; cures all internal and external diseases, all vertiginous vapours, hydrocephalus, giddiness, or swimming of the head, epileptic fits, flowing of the gall, stoppage of urine, ulcers in the womb and bladder; with many other distempers, not hitherto distinguish’d by name.

Secondly, My friendly pill, call’d, the never failing Heliogenes, being the tincture of the sun, and deriving vigour, influence and dominion, from the same light; it causes all complexions to laugh or smile, even in the very time of taking it; which it effects, by dilating and expanding the gelastic muscles, first of all discover’d by my self. It dulcifies the whole mass of the blood, maintains its

circulation, reforms the digestion of the chylon, fortifies the opthalmic nerves, clears the officina intelligentiæ, corrects the exorbitancy of the spleen, mundifies the hypogastrium, comforts the sphincter, and is an excellent remedy against the prosopochlorosis, or green-sickness, sterility, and all obstructions whatever. They operate seven several ways in, order, as nature herself requires; for they scorn to be confin’d to any particular way of operation, viz. hypnotically; by throwing the party into a gentle slumber; hydrotically by their operitive faculty, in opening the interstitia pororum; carthartically, by cleansing the bowels of all crudities and tartarous mucilage, with which they abound; proppysmatically, by forcing the wind downward; hydragogically, by exciting urine; pneumatically, by exhilerating the spirits; and lastly, synecdochically, by corroborating the whole oeconomia animalis. They are twenty or more in every tin-box, sealed with my coat of arms, which are, Three clyster pipes erect gules, in a field argent; my crest, a bloody hand out of a mortar, emergent; and my supporters, a Chymist and an Apothecary. This Tinctura Solaris, or most noble off-spring of Hyperion’s golden influence, wipes off abstersively all those tenacious, conglomerated, sedimental sordes, that adhere to the œsophagus and viscera, extinguishes all supernatural ferments and ebullitions; and, in fine, annihilates all the nosotrophical or morbific ideas of the whole corporeal compages.

Thirdly, My Panagion Outacousticon, or auricular restorative: were it possible to show me a man so deaf, that if a demiculverin were to be let off under his ear, he could not hear the report, yet these infallible drops (first invented by the two famous physician-brothers, St. Cosmus, and St. Damian, call’d the Anargyri in the ancient Greek menologies; and some forty years ago, communicated to me by Anastasio Logotheti, a Greek collier at Adrianople, when I was invited into those parts to cure sultan Mahomet IV. of an elephantiasis in his diaphragm) would recover his auditive faculty, and make him hear as smartly as an old fumbling priest, when a young wench gives him account of her lost maiden-head at the confessional.

Fourthly, My Anodyne Spirit, excellent to ease pain, when taken inwardly, and applied outwardly, excellent for any lameness, shrinking or contraction of the nerves; for eyes,{142} deafness, pain and noise in the ears; and all odontalgic, as well as podagrical inflammations.

Fifthly, My Antidotus Antivenerealis; which effectually cures all gonorrheas, carnosities in the delinquent part, tumours, phymosis, paraphymosis, christalline priapisms, hemorrhoids, cantillamata, ragades, bubos, imposthumations, carbuncles, genicular nodes, and the like, without either baths or stoves; as also without mercury so often destructive to the poor patient, with that privacy, that the nearest relation shall not perceive it.

Sixthly, My Pectoral Lozenges, or Balsam of Balsams, which effectually carries off all windy and tedious coughs, spitting of blood, wheezing in the larynx and ptyalismus, let it be never so inveterate.

Seventhly, and lastly, My Pulvis Vermifugus, or Antivermatic Powder brings up the rear, so famous for killing and bringing away all sorts of worms incident to human bodies breaking their complicated knots in the duodenum, and dissolving the phlegmatick crudities that produce those anthropophagous vermin. It has brought away, by urine, worms as long as the may-pole in the Strand, when it flourish’d in its primitive prolixity, tho’, I confess, not altogether so thick. In short, ’tis a specifick catholicon for the cholick, expels winds by eructation, or otherwise; accelerates digestion, and creates an appetite to a miracle.

I dexterously couch the cataract or suffusion, extirpate wens of the greatest magnitude, close up hair-lips, whether treble or quadruple; cure the polipus upon the nose, and all scrophulous tumours, cancers in the breast, Noli me tangeri’s, St. Anthony’s fire, by my new invented unguentum Antipyreticum, excrescences, or superfluous flesh in the mouth of the bladder or womb; likewise I take the stone from women or maids without cutting.

I have steel trusses, and instruments of a new invention, together with never-failing medicines and methods to cure ruptures, and knit the peritonæum. And here I cannot forbear to communicate an useful piece of knowledge to the world, which is, that with the learned Villipandus, in his excellent treatise, de congrubilitate materiæ primæ cum confessione Augustana, I take a rupture to be a relaxation of the natural cavities, at the bottom of the cremaster muscles. But this, en passant, I forge all{143} my self; nay my very machines for safe and easy drawing teeth and obscure stumps. Mrs. Littlehand, midwife to the princess of Phlegethon, can sufficiently inform the women of my helps, and what I do for the disruption of the fundament and uterus, and other strange infirmities of the matrix, occasioned by the bearing of children, violent coughing, heavy work, &c. which I challenge any person in the Acherontic dominions to perform, but my self.

If any woman be unwilling to speak to me, they may have the conveniency of speaking to my wife, who is expert in all feminine distempers. She has an excellent cosmetick water to carry off freckles, sun-burn, or pimples; and a curious red pomatum to plump and colour the lips. She can make red hair as white as a lilly; she shapes the eyebrows to a miracle; makes low foreheads as high as you please, has a never failing remedy for offensive breaths, a famous essence to correct the ill scent of the arm-pits, a rich water that makes the hair curl, a most delicate paste to smooth and whiten the hands; also,

Those who are not able to come to me, let them send their urine, especially that made after midnight, and on sight of it, I will tell them what their distemper is, and whether curable or no. Nay, let a man be in never so perfect health of body, his constitution never so vigorous and athletical, if he shews me his water, I can as infallibly predict what distemper will first attack him, though perhaps it will be thirty or forty years hence, as an astronomer, by the rules of his science, can foretel solar or lunar eclipses the year before they happen. I have predicted miraculous things by the pulse, far above any philosopher: by it, I not only discover the circumstances of the body; but if the party be a woman, I can foretel how many husbands and children she shall have; if a tradesman whether his wife will fortify his forehead with horns; and so of the rest. This is not all, but I will engage to tell any serious persons what their business is on every radical figure, before they speak one word; what has already hap{144}pen’d to them from their very infancy down to the individual hour of their consulting me, what their present circumstances are, what will happen to them hereafter; in what part of the body they have moles; what colour and magnitude they are of; and lastly, how profited, that is, whether they calminate equinoctially or horizontally upon the Mesogastrium; from which place alone, and no other, as the profound Trismegistus has observ’d before me, in his elaborate treatise de erroribus Styli Gregoriani, all solid conjectures are to be formed.

I have likewise attained to the green, golden and black dragon, known to none but magicians and hermatic philosophers; I tell the meaning of all magical panticles, sigils, charms and lameness, and have a glass, and help to further marriage; and what is more, by my learning and great travels, I have obtained the true and perfect seed and blossom of the female fern; and infinitely improv’d that great traveller major John Coke’s famous necklaces for breeding of teeth. The spring being already advanc’d, which is the properest season for preventing new, and renewing old distempers, neglect not this opportunity——

My hours are from nine till twelve in the morning, and from two in the afternoon till nine at night, every day in the week, except on the real christian sabbath, called Saturday.

This, gentlemen, is an exact copy of my bill, which has been carefully distributed all over this populous city, pasted upon the chief gates and churches; and since dispersed by two running messengers, Theophrastus Paracelsus and Cornelius Agrippa, all over king Pluto’s dominions. I forgot to tell you, that finding it absolutely necessary to take me a wife, (the women in certain cases that shall be nameless, being unwilling to consult any but those of their own sex) I was advised by some friends to make my applications to the famous Cleopatra queen of Egypt, who being a person of great experience, and notably well skill’d in the Arcana’s of nature, would in all probability make me an admirable spouse. In short, after half a dozen meetings, rather for form sake than any{145} thing else, the bargain was struck, and a match concluded between her Alexandrian majesty and myself; cardinal Wolsey, who is now curate of a small village, to the tune of four marks per annum, and the magnificent perquisites of a bear and fiddle, perform’d the holy ceremony: Amphion of Thebes diverted us at dinner with his crowd, and all the while Molinos, the quietist, danced a Lancashire jigg. Sir Thomas Pilkington, who, as I told you in my last, is become a most furious rhime-tagger or versificator, composed the epithilamium; and Sardanapalus, Caligula, Nero, Heliogabalus, and pope Alexander VII. were pleas’d to throw the stocking. Her majesty, to do her a piece of common justice, proves a most dutiful and laborious wife, spreads all my plaisters, makes all my unguents, distills all my waters, and pleases my customers beyond expression.

Thus, gentlemen, you see my bill, by which you may guess whether I don’t infinitely surpass those empty pretending quacks of your world, who confine their narrow talent to one distemper, which they cure but by one remedy; whereas all diseases are alike to me, and I have a hundred several ways to extirpate them. I shall now trespass so far upon your patience, as to present you with the catalogue of my cures, which being somewhat singular, and out of the way, I have the vanity to believe will not be unwelcome to you——

BEcause I am so much a person of honour and integrity, that even in this lower world I would not forfeit my reputation, I desire my incredulous adversaries (of which number, being a stranger to this place, I presume I have but too many) to get if they can to the upper re{146}gions, and satisfy themselves of the truth of my admirable performances. To begin then with those of quality.

Pope Innocent the eleventh was so strangely over run with a complication of Jansenism, Quietism, and Lutheranism, that not only his nephew, Don Livio Odeschalchi, but the whole sacred consistory despaired of his recovery; I so mundify’d his intellectuals with my catholick essence of Hellebore, that he continued rectus in cerebro many years after; and if the French ambassador, by making such a hubbub about his quarters, occasion’d old infallibility to relapse, Loüis le Grand must answer for it, and not signior Giusippe.

I cured the late Sophy of Persia, Shaw Solyman by name, of a Febris Tumulenta, so that he could digest the exactions and blood of a whole province, hold his hand as steady as Harry Killegrew after a quart of surfeit water in a morning; and if he dy’d presently after, let his eunuchs and whores look to that, if one with their politicks, and the other with their tails, spoil’d the operation of my Elixir magnum stomachicum.

I cured Aureng-Zebe, the old mogul, of an epilepsia fanatica, with which he was afflicted to that degree, that patents were dispatch’d, and persons named to go ambassadors extraordinary to William Pen, George Whitehead, William Mede; the Philadelphians, Cameronians, Jesuits, and Jacobian Whiskerites, for a communication of diseases and remedies; but by my cephalick snuff and tincture, I made him as clear headed a rake as ever got drunk with classics at the university, or expounded Horace in Will’s coffee-house; and messengers were sent thro’ all his empire to get him Dutry, Bung, Satyrion, Cantharides, Whores, and Schyraz wine; and if he has since fallen down to his Alcoran and the flat effects of ninety seven years of age, blame his damn’d courtiers and not me, that instead of nicking the nice operation of the medicine, let in books and priests, to debauch his understanding.

I cured the Mahometan predestinarian Sultan of the great East India island Borneo, of want of blood, by counselling him to follow his inclinations and bathe in it, that he might restore himself by spight and percolation; but vexations from his Divan, the neighbour emperor of{147} China, a saucy young jackanapes, and a sorrel hair’d female gave him such jolts, that quite spoil’d the continuance of the noblest cure in the world.

Peter Alexowitz, present czar of Muscovy, fell ill of a Calenture in London, occasion’d by putting too great a quantity of gun-powder into his usquebaugh, and pepper into his brandy; all the topping doctors of the town were sent for, and apply’d their Cortex and Opium to no purpose. What should I do in this pinch, but order’d a hole to be made in the Thames for him, as they do for the ducks in St. James’s-Park, it being then an excessive frost, sous’d him over head and ears morning and night, and by this noble experiment not only recovered him, but likewise gave a hint to the setting up of a cold-bath near Sir John Oldcastle’s which has done such miracles since.

I cured a noble peer, aged sixty seven, of a perpetual priapism, so that now his pimping valets, and footmen, his bawds, spirit of Clary, and a maidenhead of fourteen can hardly raise him, who before was scarce to be trusted with his own family; nay, his own wife: and now he’s as continent and virtuous a statesman as ever lin’d his inward letchery with outward gravity.

A noble peeress, that lives not full a hundred miles from St. James’s square, in the sixty sixth year of her age, was seiz’d with a furor uterinus; by plying her ladyship with a few drops of my Antepyretical Essence, extracted from a certain vegetable gathered under the artic pole, and known to no body but myself, I perfectly allay’d this preternatural ferment; and now she lies at quiet, tho’ both her hands are unty’d as a new swaddled babe, and handles no rascals but Pam, and his gay fellows of the cards.

Honoraria Frail, eldest daughter to my old lady Frail of Red-Lyon-Square, by too prodigally distributing les dernieres feveurs to her mother’s sandy pated coachman and pages, had so strangely dilated the gates du citadel d’amour, that one might have marched a regiment of dragoons thro’ them. Her mother, who was in the greatest perplexities imaginable upon the score of this disaster, sent to consult me: With half a dozen drops of my Aqua Styptica, Hymenealis, I so contracted all the avenues of the aforesaid citadel, that the Yorkshire knight that marry’d her, spent above a hundred small-shot against the walls, and{148} bombarded the fortress a full fortnight before he cou’d enter it; and now they are the happiest couple within the bills of mortality.

I renewed the youth from the girdle downwards of madam de Maintenon, so that she afforded all the delights imaginable, to her old grand lover in imagination, and to the younger bigots and herself in reality: while her face still remain’d as great an object of mortification as her beads, death’s-head, and discipline; and this noble cure still remains to be view’d by all the world.

Harry Higden of the Temple, counsellor, was so miserably troubled with the long vacation disease, or the defectus crumenæ, that the sage benchers of the house threatned to padlock his chamber door for non-payment of rent. He asked my advice in this exigence: I, who knew the full strength of his furniture, which consisted of a rug, two blankets, a joint-stool, and a tin-candlestick, that served him for a piss-pot when revers’d, counselled him to take his door off the hinges, and lock it up in his study. He followed my advice, and by that means escaped the abovemention’d ostracism of the padlock.

Margaret Cheatly, bawd, match-maker, and mid-wife of Bloomsbury, by immoderate drinking of strong-waters, had got a nose so termagantly rubicund, that she out-blazed the comet: my cosmetic Florentine-unguent, absolutely reform’d this inflammation, and now she looks as soberly as a dissenting minister’s goggle-ey’d convenience.

Jerry Scandal, whale and ghost printer in White-Friers, had plagued the town above ten years with apparitions, murders, catechisms, and the like stuff; by showing him the phiz of terrible Robin in my green magic-glass, I so effectually frighted him, that he has since demolish’d all his letters, dismissed his hawkers, flung up his business, and instead of news, cries flounders and red-herrings about the streets.

Joachim Hazard, of Cripplegate parish in White-cross-street, almost at the farther end near Old-street, turning in at the sign of the White Crow in Goat-alley, strait forward, down three-steps at the sign of the Globe, was so be-devil’d with the spirit of lying, that he out-did two hard mouth’d evidences in their own profession, and could not open his mouth without romancing; I made him{149} snuff up some half a score drops of my Elixir Alethinum, and now he has left off fortune-telling and astrology, and is return’d to his primitive trade of weaving.

Farmer Frizzle-pate, of Bullington, near Andover, had been blind thirty five years and upwards; my Ophthalmick drops restor’d him to his sight in a minute, and now he can read a Geneva bible without spectacles. A certificate of this miraculous cure, I have under the hand of the parson of the parish, and his amen-curler.

I cured a Kentish parson of an Infirmitas Memoriæ, which he got by a jumble of his Glandula Pinealis, after a bowl of punch and a boxing-bout. He was reduc’d to that deplorable condition, as to turn over play-books instead of his concordance, quote Quæ Genus instead of St. Austin; nay, he forgot tythe-eggs, demanded Easter dues at Martinmas, bid Bartholomew-Fair instead of Ash-Wednesday; and frequently mistook the service of matrimony, for that of the dead: what is yet more surprising, he forgot even to drink over his left thumb; but now he has as staunch a memory, as a pawn-broker for the day of the month; a country attorney for mischief; or a popish clergyman for revenge.

I cured serjeant Dolthead, of a prodigious itch in the palms of his hands: A most wonderful cure! for now he refuses fees, as heartily as a young wench does an ugly fellow, when she has a handsome one in view; his attorney is run mad, his wife is turn’d bawd to take double fees; and his daughters mantua-makers and whores, to get by two trades.

An eminent coach-keeping physician was troubled with a Farrago Medicinarum, or a Tumor Prescriptionalis to that monstrous degree, that he writ bills by the ell, and prescribed medicines by the hogshead and wheelbarrow-full. To the amazement of all that knew him: I have effectually cured him on’t; for he now writes but three words, prescribes but two scruples, leaves people to a wholesome kitchen-diet, and nature has undone the sexton and funeral undertaker; and the overstock’d parish has petitioned the privy-council to send out a new coloney to the West-Indies.

I cured a certain head of a college, of a Hebetude Cerebri; so that he now jokes with the bachelors and junior{150} fry, goes to the dancing-school with the fellow-commoners; and next act will be able to make a whole terræ filius’s speech himself.

An apothecary in Cheapside, was so strangely over-run with an Inundatio Veneni, that the grass grew in the parish round him; but now, thanks to the cure I wrought upon him, he has reduc’d his shop to the compass of a raree-show, gets but ten pence in the shilling, let the neighbouring infants grow up to men; and is going to build an hospital for decay’d prize-fighters and dragoons.

I cured a vintner behind the Exchange, of a Mixtura Diabolica, so that now he hates apples as much as our forefather after his kick on the arse out of paradice; shuns a drugster’s shop, as much as a broken cit does a serjeant; swears he’ll clear but ten thousand pounds in five years, and then set up for psalm-singing, and sleeping under the pulpit.

I cured a Norfolk attorney of the Scabies Causidico Rabularies, another prodigious cure never perform’d before; so that now he’s as quiet as a cramb’d capon among barn door hens, he won’t so much as scratch for his food; his uncle the counseller has disinherited him; and since he has listed himself for a foot soldier.

I cured an Amsterdam burgomaster’s wife of barrenness, so that now she has two children at a birth; besides a brace of sooterkins every year, and even now in these low-countries (so effectual are my remedies) I am teaz’d with daily messages, for astringents and flood gates, to help the poor pains-taking mortal in his aquatic situation.

Pierre Babillard, French valet and pimp in ordinary to my lord Demure, was troubled with the Glosso-mania, or that epidemical disease of Normandy, the talking sickness. He not only prattled all night in his sleep, but his clack went incessantly all day long; the cook-maid and nurse were talk’d quite deaf by him; whereas his master labour’d under the contrary extreme, and by his good will wou’d not strike once in twenty four hours; by the most stupendous operation that ever was known, (for the transfusion of one animal’s blood into another, so much boasted of by the royal society, is not to be compared to it) I transfused some of the French valet’s loquacity into the noble peer,{151} and some of the noble peer’s taciturnity into the French valet; so that now, to the great consolation of the family, my lord sometimes talks, and Monsieur Babillard sometimes holds his tongue.

Sir Blunder Dullman, professor of rhetorick, and orator to the ancient city of Augusta Trinobantum, had been troubled, ever from his infancy with that epidemical magistrate’s distemper, the Bos in Lingua; so that whenever he made any speeches, the gentlemen were ready to split their sides, and the ladies to bepiss themselves with laughing at the singularities of his discourse. By my Pulvis Cephalicus, I so far recover’d him, that he cou’d draw up his tropes and metaphors in good order, and harangue you twenty lines upon the stretch, without making above the same number of blunders. If he has since relapsed, ’tis no fault of mine, but he may e’en thank his city conversation for it.

Dinah Fribble, eldest daughter to Jonathan Fribble of Thames-street, tallow-chandler, was so enormously given to the language of old Babylon, that she would talk bawdy before her mother, her grandmother, and godmother; nay, name the two beastly monosyllables before the doctor and lecturer of the parish. Her father, one of the worshipful elders of Salters-hall, wondered how a child so religiously educated, fed from her cradle with the crumbs of comfort, and lull’d daily asleep with Hopkins and Sternhold, should labour under so obscene a dispensation. In short, I was sent for, pour’d some twenty drops of my Anti-Asmodean essence into her nostrils, and the next morning a huge thundering Priapus eleven inches long, came out of her left ear; she’s now perfectly recover’d, talks as piously, and behaves herself as gravely as the demurest female in the neighbourhood.

Daniel Guzzle, Inn-keeper in Southwark, by perpetual tippling with his customers, was so inordinately swell’d with a dropsy, that Sir John Falstaff, in Harry the fourth, was a meer skeleton to him. I tapp’d his Heidelburg-Abdomen, and so vast an inundation issued from him, that if the stream had continued a quarter of an hour longer, it would have overflowed the whole borough, and made a second cataclysm. He is now perfectly cured, is as slender as a beau that has been twice sa{152}livated for a shape; runs up the monument some half a score times every morning for his diversion, jumps thro’ a hoop, makes nothing of leaping over a five-barr’d gate; and the famous Mr. Barnes of Rotherhith has enter’d him into his company.

Obadiah Hemming, Taylor, at the sign of the Red-Wastcoat and Blazing-Star, near Tower-Hill, was troubled with so unmerciful a Ptisick, that no body in the family could sleep for him: I ply’d him with my Antitussient Pillula Pulmonaris, but without effect. I wondered how the devil my never-failing remedy disappointed me! cries I to him, honest friend, what may your name be? Obadiah Hemming, says he. Very well; and what parish do you live in; All-hallows-Barking. Oh, ho! I have now found out the secret how my pills came to miscarry; why, friend, thou hast a damn’d ptisical name, and livest in a confounded ptisical parish: come call thyself Obadiah Bowman, and get thee to Hampstead, Highgate, or any place but All-hallows-Barking, and I’ll insure thy recovery. He did so; and is so strangely improv’d upon it, that he is since chosen into St. Paul’s choir, and begins to rival Mr. Goslin and Mr. Elford.

Rebbecca Twist, Ribbon-Weaver, in Drum-Alley, Spittle Fields, aged 75, by drinking anniseed-robin, geneva, and other ungodly liquors, and smoaking mundungus, had so utterly decayed her natural heat, that she had lain bed-rid thirty years, and on my conscience a calenture would no more have warm’d her, than a farthing candle would roast a sirloin of beef. I made so entire a renovation of her with my Arcanum Helmontio-Glaubero-Paracelsianum, that she’s become another creature, out-talks the parson and midwife at every gossiping, dances to a miracle, never fails to give her attendance at all merry meetings; and no sooner hears the noise of a fiddle, but she frisks and capers it about, like a young hoyden of fifteen.

Nehemiah Conniver, one of the city reformers, was so totally deform’d with the Lepra Hypocritica, that never a barber, victualler, or taylor in the neighbourhood could live in quiet for him. To the admiration of all that knew him, I have so effectually cured him of this acid humour, that he will out-swear ten dragoons, go to a bawdy-house{153} in the face of the sun; and out talk a score of midwives in natural philosophy.

Thus, gentlemen, you have my bill, and catalogue of cures, by which you’ll easily perceive that our internal world is only a counter-part of your’s, where hard words, impudence, and nonsense, delivered with a magisterial air, carry every thing before them. I should now according to the method proposed to myself, proceed to give you a short account of what memorable occurrences have lately happened in these Acherontic realms, but the vast crowds of visitants at my door are so obstreporous and troublesome, that I can conceal myself from them no longer. Be pleas’d, therefore, to accept of this imperfect relation in part of payment, and next month, when I shall have a better convenience of writing my thoughts at large, I will endeavour to give you full satisfaction. In the mean time, give me leave to assure you, that my highest ambition is to honour myself with the title of,

Sir Fleetwood Shepherd to Mr. Prior.

IT is some time since (you know) that I took my leave of you, and the sun, and I fear’d of all good company too. My curiosity to observe the nature of an affair, whereof every body talks, tho’ not one of them can understand, made me so long silent; that if it were possible I might give my friends some account or other that should be of moment to them, either for diversion or improvement. Your weighty affairs prevent the one, and your capacity the other; but that you may see friendship as well as virtue survives the grave, I address this to you, to assure you, we are not annihilated, as some philosophers opened, and that our felicity does not consist in an unactive indolence as others as vainly pretended. Virtue is its own reward,{154} and vice its own punishment. We are so refined here, that nothing can veil evil from the piercing eyes of every body, and the malice and envy of the most inveterate devils cannot over-cast the glories of the good. We impute a great many faults to the frailty of the flesh very unjustly. The soul hath its warpings as well as the clay, and some vices are so natural that we cannot extinguish them, tho’ we may in some measure prevent their flaming out and boiling over. These remain still, and employ all the utmost efforts of our prudence to triumph over; and if we accomplish that, we are perfect; but if the malignity of our tempers prevail, we sink to the lowest abyss of infamy, shame, and disgrace. This laid the foundation of that doctrine of Rome, called Purgatory; and their ignorance, joined to their insatiable avarice, improved it to what at present you find it. Here is one duke of Buckingham, perpetually conferring with the Spanish ministers; the other as busy in finding out the mighty secrets of impertinent curiosities; here’s Mazarine supplanting the liberty of Europe, and Cromwell that of England. Shaftsbury is pushing on Monmouth, and he is stiled king by one of his own footmen only; Dryden is every minute at Homer’s heels, or pulling Virgil by the sleeve, importuning Horace, or making friends to Ovid: but Cowley, with a serenity of mind that constitutes his felicity, quietly passes along the Elysian plains, disturbing no body, and undisturb’d of all, Milton his companion, and himself his happiness. The less considerable fry of wits are just as contentious here, as at Covent Garden; as noisy, and as ill-natur’d; every man in particular arrogating all to himself, and allowing nothing to others. The dispute rose so high, and the uproar continued so long, that Pluto commanded a squadron of his life-guard, with Juvenal at their head, to force them out of the laurel-grove, and lock it up till matters should be adjusted by Apollo, to whom he detach’d Lucan and Lee (as being the best skill’d in flying) with his complaints; they are returned with a proclamation, which for its novelty I will trouble you with; not but that I think it might not improperly have been made on the other side of Parnassus, unless matters are strangely mended since I left you.{155}

We Apollo, by the Grace of Jupiter, Emperor of Parnassus, King of Poetry, Sovereign Prince of Letters, Duke of the Muses, Marquis of Light, and Earl of the Four Seasons, &c. to all our Trusty and well Beloved Explorers of Nature, and Cherishers of Learning,
Greeting.

WHEREAS we are inform’d to our ineffable displeasure, grief, sorrow and concern, that many fewds, jars, quarrels, animosities, and heart-burns are ever and anon kindled, stirr’d up, and fomented among the elder brothers of Helicon, as well as the multitude of vain pretenders to bayes and immortality, in so much, that your bickerings, clamours, noise and disturbances, are of intolerable inconveniency to the good and just; and an unhappy suspension of the serenity of their minds, as well as so many perturbations and infractions of the peace of our uncle king Pluto’s dominions: wherefore it is our royal will and pleasure, that these notorious misdemeanours be forthwith remedied; promising upon our royal word, that justice shall be duly executed to every body; and all men of real merit and worth, lovers of wisdom and learning, of what nation or sort soever, shall in their respective classes of virtue and excellence, be registred in the glorious volumes of fame, to be kept eternally in the Delphic library: In pursuance whereof, we do hereby earnestly require and injoin our beloved sisters the Muses, to hold a court of claims in the principality of Delos, where we shall give our royal attendance so often as the fatigues of our laborious course will permit us, to examine all capacities, claims, titles, and pretensions whatever: and to avoid all lets, troubles, hinderances, molestations, and interruptions that possibly we can: we do farthermore hereby strictly prohibit and forbid, upon pain of our highest displeasure, and a hundred years interdiction from the laurel-grove, all sonneteers, songsters, satyrists, panegyrists, madrigallers, and such like impediments of Parnassus, to make any pretensions whatever to reputation and immortality; till such time as the more laborious and industrious investigators of nature are regulated and dispatch’d.

Given at our High Court of Helicon, this 47th Century,
from our Conquest of Python.
{156}

Mr. Prior’s Answer.

I WAS not wanting in my wishes to preserve that esteem you honoured me with, or to give you fresher instances of it; but since your stars summoned you on the other side of the black water, and I did not know whither to address myself exactly to you, I was obliged to suspend my writing till such time as I received your’s. I am heartily glad the two crowns are agreed to permit a pacquet to go between them; and as for our friend the counsellor, I never shall be dilatory in serving him to the utmost of my abilities, and never shall call to mind but with veneration and wonder, his most heroick conduct and magnanimity in pudding-fighting. He sequester’d himself from flesh and blood very opportunely, and with a prudence that always accompanied him in the minutest of his actions; for sugars and fruits are risen already, and, in all probability, will continue to bear a good price, since Portugal has deserted us; so I dare not pretend to be positive that the cargo I send will be as delicious as formerly, tho’ its novelty may make amends for some time, for small cheats in that profession. Honest John the faithful companion of your wanton hours, was very much rejoiced to hear from you, and would needs take a leap after you, maugre{157} all I could say to him: with this trusty servant I have sent you what you desired, and that I might be certain of its not miscarrying any where upon the road, I tuck’d friend John up with it, and so dispatch’d him presently. I was in hopes to have heard from more of our merry companions, or of them at least: how does Rochester behave himself with his old gang? is Sir George as facetious as ever? is my lady still that formal creature as when in our hemisphere? has she the benefit of cards and a tea-table? how did my lord Jefferies receive his son? and with what constancy did her grace hear Sir John Germain was married? I was in hopes you might have met with some of these in your peregrination, not that I suppose you can see those vast dominions of Pluto’s but in a proportionable time to the variety of subjects, as well as the mightiness of their extent.

We have nothing new here, because we are under the sun. Wise men keep company with one another; fools write and fools read; the booksellers have the advantage, provided they don’t trust; some pragmatical fellows set up for politicians; others think they have merit because they have money. Cheats prosper, drunkenness is a little rebuked in the pulpit, but as rife as ever in all other places; people marry that don’t love one the other, and your old mistress Melisinda goes to church constantly, prays devoutly, sings psalms gravely, hears sermons attentively, receives the sacrament monthly, lies with her footman nightly, and rails against lewdness and hypocrisy from morning till night.

The rest of particulars I leave for honest John to recount to you; my other affairs oblige me to take my leave of you; expecting some particulars about what I mentioned myself.

THE sons and daughters of harmony that crowd in daily upon these coasts surprise us equally with your capacities and misfortunes. We are generally of the opi{158}nion here, that the muses are as well receiv’d in England, as in any other climate whatever. Men are charm’d there at so small an expence of wit or performance, that, one of your endowments might well have hop’d to outrival my felicity, and be something more exalted than to the embraces of a queen. My parentage was as little remarkable in France, as yours in England; and though I had better luck, durst not pretend I had a better voice. From a singing-boy, I push’d my fortune so as to succeed my own sovereign. From the choir I rose to the chamber; from the chamber I was preferr’d to the closet; and from thence was advanc’d to be vice-roy over all the territories of love: I was lord high-chamberlain to Cupid, and comptroller of the houshold to Venus. Every delectation superseded my very wishes; nor cou’d I have ask’d for the thousandth part of the blandishments I enjoy’d. I was as absolute in my love as the grand seignior: ’twas for my dear sake the fond princess rais’d her maids of honour’s beds, that she might not hurt her back (as she had frequently done) in creeping under to fetch me out. ’Twas for my dear sake, that if they but nam’d my name when absent, in the raptures of her impatience, she run against the doors, threw down the screens; hurt her face against the mantle-trees and cabinets. She broke at times as much in looking-glasses, stands, and china, in the eager transports of her joy to meet me coming into the room, as by computation, wou’d have fitted out a fleet of fifty sail of capital ships. These were princely rewards for a man’s poor endeavours to please: who would not bring up their children in a choir? or who would not learn to sing? you have met, I must confess, Sir, with but small encouragement in the main, and made but a slender fortune in comparison of what might have been reasonably expected from your talents: the most civiliz’d quarter of the world has been your audience, and admirer; and you have left every where a name, that cannot die but with musick, and that will survive even nature; for in the numerous cracklings of the last conflagration, there will be, as it were, a noble symphony, that she may cease to be in proportion, and what is her apothesis, will draw the curtain to a new creation. But that enlargement of our knowledge, which is the necessity of our spiritualization, shows me there is a malevolency{159} in the influences of your stars, that will ever dash your rising hopes, and oppose your fortune. You cannot but have heard how Alexander the Great very generously distributed all the spoils to his soldiers, and contented himself with glory for his dividend. Thus your consolation must be, whenever the fickle goddess frowns upon you; that noble resolution of being above contempt, shows a magnanimity of mind equal to the greatest philosopher. But virtue is very often unfortunate, nay, sometimes oppress’d.

Here are some devilish, ignorant, censorious, lying people, that will maintain, you were so impertinent as to give a gentleman, the trouble of cudgelling you, and there are many here whose wicked tempers are improv’d by the conversation of the place, as rogues by being in Newgate, and those give credit to the aspersions; but the tribe of Helicon endeavour your justification, for he that cou’d charm the king of Poland’s bears with the warbling accents of his mellifluous tongue, might with the same harmony have mov’d the sturdy oak, and that is as heavy as a hundred canes. ’Twas the glory of Arion, that the stones danced after his lyre; and as long as there are poets it will be said, that Orpheus drew the tigers and the trees, to listen to his trembling lays. May you not justly expect a place in the volumes of immortality, since it may be all said literally true of you, that was but a fable of these darlings of our forefathers? no matter if some people put an ill construction on it, the best actions of our lives are subject to be traduc’d.—— Here was a dear joy of quality suffer’d the discipline of the place for stealing the diamond ring from you, that the king of France gave you at Fountainbleau: to mitigate the blackness of the fact, he alledg’d the necessitousness of his condition, and that it was pity so many gallant men should want for their loyalty, while a jackanapes cou’d get an estate for a song. At this, Rhadamanthus order’d him a hundred stripes more for his pride in affecting a character his own confession had so far derogated from. There are some considerable stars that rise in Bavaria, whose influences are inauspicious to you; for, among friends, ’twas no better than robbing him to run away with his money, and especially before you had done any thing for it. However, this may be your consolation, that the duke can’t say you cheated him to some{160} tune. Here is a consort of musick composing against the king of France makes his entrance: out of gratitude to his generosity, you ought to make one of ’em; I can get you a lodging near Cerberus’s apartment; ’twill be convenient for you to confer notes together for he is much the deepest base of any here.

If your leisure will permit, I should be glad of some news from the favourites of Parnassus: I am continually at the chocolate house in the Sulphurstreet. I shall look upon the obligation in Ala-mi-re in Alt.

Mr. Abel’s Answer.

IF the advice be seasonable, ’tis no great matter from whence it comes; though ’tis not what one wou’d readily expect from a person of your climate; but that too renders the obligation so much the more binding. I was not so well acquainted with the ancient intrigues of the French court as to call your name to remembrance, but by the delicious expression of your wanton delights, I presum’d you might have been a Mahometan eunuch, because you seem’d to describe their paradice in part; what cou’d I tell whether more of that felicity came to your share or not? I met Aben-Ezra the Jew, but he knew nothing of you; at last a French refugee set me right. When I consider your private history I am amaz’d at your raptures, and that you could be so void of common reason, more especially after you had been so long spiritualiz’d, which you tell me, enlarges the understanding, as to set a value upon your self for raking a kennel, only because it belonged to court. To have charm’d a person of an exalted extraction, as I did, and to bring her to be the loving wife of my bosom, was vanity without infamy. But your captive queen was a queen of sluts, equally the infamy of her own sex, as you were the contempt of ours. ’Twas very pathetically said of her by her brother, when he gave her in marriage to the king of Navarre, that he did not give his Peggy in marriage to the king of Navarre alone, but to all the Hugonots of his kingdom, and if he had said, all the Roman Catholicks too, it had hardly been{161} an hyperbole. For ever since she was nine years old, she never deny’d any thing that was a man; no, not so much as her own brother. She had so great an inclination to be obliging, that she would not refuse even old age, and did not condemn even the blackest scullion-boy of her kitchin: she was the refuse of a hundred thousand several men’s embraces before she took up with you. So that I see no such mighty ground for your vanity and ostentation: and if there were not other more beneficial expectations from the choir, I should advise but very few to follow it: not but that a fair friend in the Palace-yard, a kind friend in Charles-street, or a pretty intimate acquaintance near the Bowling-Alley, may help to pass away some leisure hours when the Abbey is lock’d up; however that is not sufficient to tempt a man to C-fa-ut it all ones life-time.

I ever found an inbred aversion to Ireland, and your news gives me more convincing reasons why I should not affect ’em: for to be stripp’d by some, and stripp’d by others, would of itself give a man an unfavourable Impression of such people. As for the freedom you take in diverting yourself at my expence, I easily pass it by: but your censoriousness scandalizes me, when so many very deserving persons of all ranks, sexes and qualities, as are my good friends and benefactors, are made the subject of your raillery. I do not want to be spiritualis’d to see thro’ your banter, when you make me even superior to Orpheus and Arion; I smell what you wou’d be at, by being follow’d by tigers, blocks and stones: but it is lucky enough for you, that you are out of their reach: as for the article of Bavaria, I can say but little to it more than I thought the time was come, when the Israelites should spoil the Egyptians. You have such continual couriers from these parts, that you cannot be long ignorant of the minutest springs by which all affairs are kept in motion. To me they seem everywhere to be at much the same rate, like a horse in a mill, ’tis no matter who drives him. I thank you for your kind offer, in providing me lodgings; but I have so many of my friends gone there of late, that I shall unwillingly be from them: however, I shall always study to improve your good opinion, and continue theirs. If any accident calls me to your parts about that time, I shall gladly assist at the king of France’s entry; for doubt{162}less it will be done with a most noble solemnity, and every way answerable to the character of such a monarch. But as time is more precious here than in your country, I must beg you to excuse me, for I am just sent for to the tavern. Adieu.

Seignior Nichola to Mr. Buckly, at the Swan Coffee-House near Bloomsbury.

IT is impossible to suffer it any longer! what, my diviner airs made the sordid entertainment of sordid footmen, scoundrel fellows, and I know not what for ragamuffins! must those seraphic lays, that have so often been the delight of muses, the joy of princes, the rapture of the fair sex, the treasures of the judicious, must these be thrumm’d over to blaspheming rascals, smoaking sots, noisy boobies, and such nefarious mechanicks! oh, prophane!—-- they shall have my sonatas, that they shall with a horse-pox to them. Can’t their Darby go down but with a tune, nor their tobacco smoak, without the harmony of a Cremona fiddle? if they can’t be merry without musick, provide them a good key, and a pair of wrought tongs. One of their own jigs is diverting enough for their heavy capacities; whence comes it that the sons of art, and the brothers of rosin and cat-gut, can demean themselves so poorly to play before them? since when have the daughters of Helicon frequented ale-houses? must the sacred streams of our Aganiope, pay homage to the Darwent, and wash tankards and glasses? sure you think Pegasus a jade, and are looking out for a chap for him: who can come up to his price there? his beauties are too sublime for the groom, and his master had rather have a strong horse for his coach: none of them alas can tilt the fiery courser. What a strange medley do you make! wit, musick, noise, nonsense, smoak, spawl, Darby-ale, and brandy: nay your rage and indiscretion goes farther yet; folly and madness seem to be contagious, and you jar among yourselves? the brothers of symphony quarrel, and turn the banquetting-house of the Thessalian ladies into a bear-garden, those active joints that so nicely touch’d my notes, are now barbarously levell’d at each other’s eyes; the pow{163}erful off-spring of my harmonious conceptions, is miserably torn to pieces betwixt them; and what would have charm’d all mankind, is dishonourably employ’d to the lighting of pipes and cleaning of tables. If you will set up for celebrating the orgies of the juicy god, let your instruments be all chosen accordingly, your airs correspondent to the audience; but make me no more the contempt and derision of your debauch’d meetings: for the commendation of fools is more wounding than the reprimands of the ingenious. At best, it is prostituting me to bring them into my company. If you put not some sudden order to these ignominious proceedings, I will dispatch an imp to sowre your ale, consume your cordials, spill your tobacco, break your glasses, and cut all your equipage of harmony into ten thousand millions of bits; nay I will prosecute my revenge so far, that even in the play-house your hand shall shake, your ear shall judge wrong, your strings crack, and every disappointment that may render you ridiculous, shall attend you in all publick meetings where-ever you pretend to play. So be wise and be warn’d: play to lovers and judges of musick, draw drink to sots and neighbours.

Ignatius Loyola to the Archbishop of Toledo.

YOUR eminency’s remissness in the late affairs of the Spanish territories, has made my scorpion’s stink deeper than heretofore, and superadded a new blackness to the horrors of my rage and despair. Those painful machinations, who took their birth from hell itself, and by my industry and application had so glorious a prospect of bridling all mankind, wherever the Romish doctrine triumph’d at least, are now by that long continued series of an unhappy supineness in your predecessors, or the powerful influences of French gold, reduc’d to almost nothing. The thunderbolts of the inquisition rattled more dreadfully than those of the Vatican; and after emperors had subjected themselves to the successors of St. Peter, we found out means to subject him to our censures, and by this made our selves superior to supreme. The mildness of your executions, and the rarity of ’em have substracted wonder{164}fully from their reputation, and from my designs. Your excellency can’t say but I lay down very sufficient groundworks for the rendering my orders as lasting as religion, if not as lasting as time. More than Europe has felt the efficacy of my instructions; and where-ever my disciples have been sent they have brought us home souls and bodies, credit and estates.

What society can vie with us for extent of temporal concerns? what provinces are not in a great measure ours? we have the guardianship of the consciences of most of the considerable crown’d heads, and few affairs of importance are transacted any where but with our privity. I have not met with any one person in these kingdoms that has been of note and quality, that came here with a pass-port from the holy inquisition; now and then a rascally Jew or so, comes here blaspheming your power and prudence; and is so angry that he will not show it at hell-gates; as if he apprehended a double damnation from our character.

Your excellency can’t but be sensible how great sufferers we have been by the substracting of the Gallican church from the lash of our authority; and it was no small amputation we suffered in the Spanish Netherlands, by the improvident proceeding of that rash commander the duke of Alva: If now you submit thus quietly to the administration of France, I cannot but apprehend an universal extention of that powerful and profitable institution. Next to my own society, I look upon it to be the basis of the Romish monarchy, and undoubtedly of your own, and of the Austrian greatness. How are your liberties trampled upon by a child, and all your dons led captives to Versailles? Where is the antient valour and obstinacy of the Moorish blood? Where are the poisons and the poniards so frequent in Madrid? Is Spain brought so low that she has not resolution enough for one feeble effort, to save herself from infamy and ruin? Your arms were always unsuccessful against the English nation; the greatness of your misery points out still the memorable, the very deplorable overthrow in eighty eight: There is a queen again upon that crown, willing and able to protect you as well as others, and it may be in rubricks of fate, that as one queen brought down the pride of the haughty Spaniards, so the other shall humble France as much, even{165} when it is in its most tow’ring glory. But whatever be the destiny of France, you ought to look after yourselves, and not by an untimely accession of your powers to that of so formidable a monarch, intangle yourselves in an inextricable ruin, by so much the more unpardonable as you might easily have prevented it. Shew the world then that a French lion can’t thrive in a Spanish soil, and dart forth the lightning of the inquisition against all that adhere to the Gallic interest and connive at the ruin of the Spanish grandeur. Exert yourself and swim hither in a sea of blood, and may your cruelties succeed.

Alderman Floyer to Sir Humphery Edwin.

I Ever had an infinite value for your friendship, and as every letter is a fresh mark of it, I have in every one new matter of satisfaction; yet I could not read your last without equal surprize and concern; and if I did not positively believe your integrity, as I am acquainted with your capacity, I should be at a loss what construction to put upon it: for all Europe has been deaf for I know not how many years, with more and more accounts how your kings grew upon their people, and we ever look’d upon the English as very jealous of their privileges. I need not tell you how odious your two last kings were to us of these parts; nay, and all Germany too, papist and protestant; for instead of holding the balance between France, Spain and the Empire, as the situation of your country, and its mighty power by sea made ’em capable of doing, and the character of guarantees for the peace of Nimeguen, and the truce for twenty years oblig’d ’em to it; their siding with France, notwithstanding all the endeavours of foreign ministers to the contrary, and their own real interest too, may be justly said to have laid the foundation of all those calamities that the arms and intrigues of France, have since that time brought upon Europe. But tho’ we had so many reasons to be dissatisfied with the proceedings of king Charles II. and king James too, yet we never diminish’d any thing of our good will we bore the English nation; because we cou’d not but believe they were as{166} far from approving those transactions as we were, and repin’d as much as we did at the growing grandeur of the French monarch. The clandestine measures both those kings took to enslave their subjects to the power of France, and the Romish religion, was as good a demonstration of a natural enmity between those two sorts of people. His present majesty’s descent was concerted with most of the princes of the empire after it was so earnestly propos’d to him, and almost press’d upon him by the very best of your nation. The friendship between the two crowns was no longer a secret, tho’ the English envoy at the Hague deny’d it positively when I was there: This was more than an umbrage to the discerning part of your kingdom, and what the very commonality could not think on without terrible apprehensions: and all of us here in like manner look’d upon this enterprize as a thing on which depended the safety or ruin of the whole protestant affairs of Europe.

I cannot comprehend what unlucky planet rules over you! that any one person should be dissatisfy’d, is prodigious to me. You are freed from all those oppressions, whose probability alone having made no small part of your misery. You were very uneasy under the administration of king James, and now you are deliver’d, you murmur! you know his royal highness was so unwilling to embark himself in this affair, tho’ his interest and his honour were very much concern’d at it, that he did not yield but to the iterated solicitations of your countrymen, join’d with full assurance that they would stand by him with their lives and fortunes. You must pardon the freedom of my expression, if I assure you, that this ungrateful false step lessens my value for the English nation: for after having made such terrible complaints of their miseries and injuries, and fill’d Europe with their tears and lamentations, implor’d a neighbouring prince to come to their rescue, at a season of the year that wou’d have quell’d the greatest courage that ever was, if it had not been supported with charity; and add to this, the unavoidable necessity of so vast an expence, as would have sunk some princes fortunes, now they are happily settled in their affairs at home, have glorious armies abroad, and that king at their head, who has so justly merited that title of Defender of{167} the Faith, whose prudence and vigilancy has corroborated their native force with so many powerful allies; that these people should be so little sensible of their own felicity, as to murmur and be discontented, is to me a paradox, but I am sure unpardonable. The knowledge I have of the English genius, makes me believe there are but a few malecontents, and tho’ they call themselves protestants, ’tis only to bring an odium upon those that really are, by such perverse measures. I hope ’tis only your fears for your country, which proceed from your love of it, that multiplies these disagreeable objects. You have a protestant prince, on a protestant throne, liberty of conscience, and even the Roman Catholicks, that were always plotting against the government, are permitted so much freedom under it, that they would be mad if they were out of it.

Look back to the desolations in France, and to the storm you are deliver’d from, and see if you can ever thank God enough for your deliverance.

WE had no sooner intelligence of your designs, but we gave the Spaniards over for lost: the path has been so gallantly beaten to your hands, and your enemies hardly recruited their former losses in our glorious times, if they cou’d have forgot from whose hands they sustain’d ’em. If I may remind you without vanity, as I do it without a lie, I took the lower town of the Groyn, I plunder’d all the villages round about it, and by the gallantry of the English cut the Spaniards to pieces for three miles together. But these were profess’d enemies that had attempted upon our state, and by their formidable preparations, threatned no less than our entire ruin. However, in all the licentiousness of a conquering sword, we ravish’d no nuns; and it had been justifiable if we had done{168} it. We took the city of St. Joseph, and tho’ there was not found one single piece of coin’d money in it (which is a very exasperating disappointment to soldiers you know) yet we forc’d no nunneries. Had you two, gentlemen, been there, I presume you wou’d have eaten the children alive for mere madness and vexation, after you had gratify’d your more unpardonable brutish lusts upon the monasteries. Distressed damsels were heretofore the general cause for which the heroes drew their swords: as their sex made them the objects of our desires, so when their weakness was forc’d upon, they became doubly the subjects of our quarrels, and by so just a claim, that nothing but the very reproach of mankind refus’d it ’em. Your case, as I take it (gentlemen) is far different from that, where positive orders give licence; nay, an insurrection itself, and to lay all waste before you; to ransack the churches, and ravish the women, to burn the houses, and brain the sucking children; these are political rigors, that by a present shedding of blood, saves the lives of many thousands afterwards: this putting all to the sword, intimidates small towns for making feeble efforts for an impossible defence; which by losing some time, and some few men’s lives only, enrages the conquerer at last, to use the same severity with them too, to punish their obstinacy. These are bloody maxims of war, but necessary sometimes, therefore lawful. But you (gentlemen) had not the least shadow of pretence for your lust or your avarice: if these are the insolent effects of your friendship, I fear no body will admit of your alliances, much less court them. Friendship betray’d, is the blackest crime that is, and what so far degrades a gentleman from the character of honour, that miracles of bravery in sieges afterwards wou’d never wear out the blot: but as if you had resolved to make yourselves odious, by making the fact more infamous, they must be nuns too, forsooth, that must be constrained to your libidinous authority. Your sacrilegious covetousness might have met with a shadow of excuse, if your intemperance had proceeded no farther: and indeed they must have a great deal of wit as well as goodness, that can invent any thing like a reason to mitigate the abomination of it. You, old commanders, you, old covetous lechers, the bane of an army, the reproach of{169} the best general, and of the most glorious princess. What laurels have your lust and rapines torn from O——’s brows? What honours from your English arms? And what vast advantages from your own sovereign? Had not your impious carriage made implacable enemies of those that were not quite resolved to continue long so at all, this summer had rais’d your princess to that pinnacle of renown and grandeur, that none ever surpass’d, and but few ever came up to besides our illustrious queen, of whom no man can say too much; therefore of you, gentlemen, none can say too ill. A design so deeply laid, so cautiously manag’d, so long conceal’d, so wisely concerted, cou’d not possibly miss of a happy event, if your impious indignities had not constrained heaven to blast the undertaking, to shew it was just; thus the army perished for David’s having numbred the people: you went to free ’em from a foreign dominion, to settle the right of government in the right person, to prevent innovations, and relieve the oppress’d; in a word, to do justice to every subject. Oh, the plausible pretext! the noble reasons for so chargeable an expedition! yet no sooner has the justice of the cause in general crown’d your attempts with success, but your particular outrages pull down vengeance, and raise yourselves enemies even out of the dust; the consciousness of your wickedness blunts the edge of your swords, and adds new life and vigour to those whom your courage and generosity had almost vanquish’d before. Sir Walter Rawleigh, my worthy companion of arms, refused two millions of ducats, and burnt the merchants ships at Port Royal, because that was his errand, and he was as just as he was brave. Had you two but commanded there (gentlemen) the Spanish merchants had not need have made so large an offer: half the money and ten young nuns a-piece, and you had betray’d your country. However, we question not but in a little time, or by the next packet at least, to hear that justice is executed upon you both to absolve the nation, and atone for so abominable and unpardonable, so nefarious and ungentlemen-like an action. You will find a place on the other side of our river, that will cool your courage, by way of antiperistasis, with wond’rous heat.{170}

WHY this mighty concern for what cannot be avoided? Why this chagrin? Why this mal au cœur? You might have fancied yourself invincible, you might have got a sanctified pass from his holiness, it would still have had the same catastrophe. The English are hereticks, man, they value none of these evangelical charms of a rush; their bullets have no consideration in the world for a relique, nor their small-shot for a chaplet. Besides, they are so well acquainted with our seas, their own channel is hardly more familiar to them. This is but the old grudge of 88, when queen Elizabeth thump’d us so about: considering all things, I think you are come off very well. What signifies a few paultry hulks? The plate we are sure you had prudently carried over the mountains in 1500 carts at least, an undertaking as little dream’d of, and as much surprizing, as prince Eugene’s passing the Alps; but with this plaguy unlucky disadvantage, that it may not be quite so true. Now and then in my more reserved speculations, I stumbled upon that same Drake, that burn’d about 100 of our ships at Cadiz; upon my honour I can’t forgive him, and yet can’t blame him neither. But those two galeons that were so richly laden, stick in my stomach most confoundedly. No wonder our affairs prosper no better, for those same hereticks have taken away several of our saints; that same Drake I mentioned just now, he run away with St. Philip. Besides this, these English water-dogs swam after us into Cadiz, and went to Pointal, and there firk’d us so about the pig-market, that we were even glad to save our bacon, and fire some of our ships, and run the others on ground; there too, after burning the admiral, these unsanctifyed ranters stole away, not sneakingly, but with an open hand, and main force, two most glorious saints more, St. Matthew and St. Andrew. There was another too of those English bully-rocks, Sir Walter Rawleigh, with a pox to{171} him, he serv’d us a slippery trick indeed, for he took away the mother of God, and God knows she was worth one hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling, not reckoning the other smaller craft that went with him only to bear her company. There is something in our destinies that gives them an ascendant over us; and a brave man scorns to buckle to fortune. You may live to be beaten again as I was, and poor Alphonso de Leva, nay, honest Recalde, he was cursedly maul’d too with his rear squadron; and to add to my misfortunes, I was a little while after drubb’d again by them, I thought they never would have done dancing round me for my part: but what consummated my disgrace, and still leaves the deepest impression on my spirits, is the burning my fleet at Calais; there I must own it sincerely to you, I was somewhat astonished: I thought Vesuvius had been floating upon the water, or mount Ætna had out of kindness come to light me thro’ the north passage home: but this was a hellish invention of those Englishmen to set my ships on fire, and destroy us all.

Now this similitude of our destinies having endeared you to me, I thought my comparing our notes together might mitigate part of your affliction. Nay, thus far we are again alike in the frowns of insulting fortune, that they will make new medals with the old inscription, dux fœmina facti. Indeed you must give me leave, Sir, to be a little free with you, that is, to tell you for ought I know, providence may have ordered it so, to shew that the wisdom of man is really but a chimera, and as Spain, when in the highest exaltation of its glory, with a vast fleet that was three years equipping, and consisted of no less than 130 sail of ships, enough to have forc’d her way thro’ the universe; yet with all this preparation, a single woman, embroil’d in her state at home, not only made head against us, but even quite destroy’d us; insomuch, that the kingdom of Spain was never fully able to recover the vast expence of this fleet, and the continued losses that attended its being beaten: in like manner, Sir, what know we but that the kingdom of France, being now even at the summit of glory, and by the accession of the Spanish interest, so entirely at his own devotion, may not see all his laurels torn from his brows by a queen, and to the dishonour of{172} the Salic law, make the greatest of all its monarchs truckle to a woman, whom they thought incapable of reigning. I don’t say this will be certainly so, but examining all occurrences hitherto, it looks but scurvily upon the Spanish and French side. For France was never so many times, and so considerably defeated since he sat upon the throne, and that too both by sea and land. Indeed the English in these parts grow very pragmatical upon it, and at every turn call for a son of a whore of a Spaniard to make snuff of. Cardinal Granvil, that was the ablest head-piece of his time, avers it so positively, that I dare not aim at a contradiction; and his opinion is, That the English, who are naturally good when they are yielded to, and only obstinate and angry when they are oppos’d, will ever be happily governed by a queen; and he assigns this for a reason, that the monarchy of England having a great alloy of a republick, they are more jealous of their warlike princes than of their weak ones, and least they should happen to give a daring prince an unhappy opportunity of treading upon their necks, if they should stoop any thing low, they will always in parliament keep him at some distance; but as a woman cannot pretend to guide the reins of empire by a strong hand, they must do it by a wise head; therefore not trusting so much to her own judgment, as hot-headed man does, she does nothing without the advice of her council; and that is a small parliament, as a parliament is a grand national council, and this method of government suits best with the English temper: from whence I conclude, that England never was in so fair a prospect of doing herself justice, and asserting her rights, since that miracle of a woman queen Elizabeth, as it is at this juncture. For so glorious and triumphant beginnings open all her subjects hearts, and their coffers with them, which cannot tend but to our ruin and shame. Make haste hither, and get out of the confusion that you cannot long defer.

Marcellinus to Mons. Boileau.

NAY, this is beyond the possibility of patience! and tho’ there is much due to the character of princes, yet there is more to ourselves and truth; and I cannot without{173} the highest injustice and ingratitude possible, but remind you of some of the actions of your idol monarch, which with so much reason dispute with each other, which was the most enormous and tyrannical. I only endeavour’d to make Julian the apostate, pass upon posterity for a hero, and you call me an insolent brazen-fac’d rascally flatterer. If I exceeded the exactness of an historian, it was because in that treatise I set up for a courtier, and sincerity in such people is of the most dangerous consequence imaginable. If the emperor Julian had been the first monster in nature, that met with a willing pen to set his actions in a less inglorious light than others expected, and naked truth required; yet I am sure he is not the greatest. Your master has trac’d all the footsteps of his cruelty and policy; for if he manag’d matters so swimmingly between the catholicks and Arrians, that he secur’d himself by their divisions, Loüis has all along done the same: if he countenanced the Jews, Loüis supported the Turks, if he destroyed the christians, Loüis had done it in a much more barbarous and perfidious manner. If he threw down the images of Christ at Cæsarea Philippi, Loüis has acted the same in the front of the jesuits[55] Church: now since you have dar’d to consecrate the reputation of your king, why so many bitter invectives against me a petty Pagan, for speaking in favour of my master? you modern wits, that value your selves so much upon the having refin’d our dross, have sunk as scandalously low in matters of flattery as any of us. We are continually pestered here with disputes; and every court rings with the different claims. The popes send legates hither for their saints, Pluto won’t let one of them go, because they are damned. Others will have it that their time is fulfilled in Purgatory, therefore would be discharged: but the Devil knows better things, Father Garnet too, that execrable engine of the Powder-Plot storms and raves, but the horned gentlemen with cloven feet laugh at him, and his canonization. Where was there ever so much innocent christian blood shed as on Bartholo{174}mew’s day at Paris? and yet even that unparalleled murder has been justified a thousand times by your church; as if the accurateness of a man’s pen could make that pass for a virtue which will be an everlasting and detestable blot. Pelisson is a man of prodigious parts, Boileau the smoothest pen and noblest genius of his time, because their prince is alive, and equally generous to reward their flattery, as greedy to have it: but poor I, because I have been dead one thousand four hundred years, and better, I am an idle rascally fellow. But even at this distance I am no stranger to the transactions of Versailles; and since you have spit out so much of your blackest venom against me and my hero, I shall take the freedom to call to mind some of those very remarkable particulars which give so glorious a lustre, as you call it, to your viro immortali. His life has been one continued series of rapines and murders, perjuries and desolations. For tho’ the first disorders in Hungary, were in some measure owing to the injustices count Teckeley received from the ministers of the empire, yet it is undeniably true, that France fomented the war, and sollicited the Turk to espouse Teckeley’s quarrels, and promised to assist him himself. The negotiations of the French ambassadors at the Port, the vast sums of money remitted to Teckeley, and the endeavours to disengage the king of Poland and the duke of Bavaria from the interest of the empire; these things, Mons. Boileau, were not managed with so much secrecy, but the more essential particulars are come to many peoples knowledge. His other underhand dealings with several princes and cities of Germany, shewed his formidable army in Alsatia was not to succour the empire, but to seize on it. But the raising the siege at Vienna broke all their measures at Versailles, and the king of France, confounded at his disappointment, vented his rage upon his own subjects, and that part of them too that set the crown upon his head, when the most considerable of the Roman Catholicks abandon’d his interest. The ravage he committed in the territories of the three ecclesiastical electors, and in the Palatinate at the same time, shewed him rather the scourge of mankind, than the eldest son of the church.

’Tis true, there never was any prince but had his flatterers: but you French have been guilty of the grossest to the present king of France, that ever were recorded. My Ju{175}lian would have blush’d, or rather trembled, at such blasphemous adulation. Loüis has been adored for his mercy, and yet exceeded our Nero in barbarity and bloodshed. Fire and sword were mild executioners of his cruelty; for his impetuous lust of mischief has been so fruitful in inventing torments, that he has made all those forms of death desirable to his subjects that were the reproach of tyrants: his ingenious malice has contrived exquisite pain, without destroying the persons that suffer it; and if he could compel man to be immortal, he would vie miseries with hell itself. He scorns all the humble paths of Domitian’s perfidiousness: such puny perjuries are too mean for Loüis le Grand: And since he could not possibly make them greater in their nature, he aggravated them by their number. The peace of the Pyreneans, that of Aix la Chapelle, that of Nimeguen, the truce for twenty years, the edict of Nants, the treaty at Reswick, are sufficient arguments, that he only promised that he might not perform; and vow’d to observe treaties that he might have the lechery of breaking them afterwards with a more execrable guilt. Your servile flattery stiles him the restorer and preserver of the peace of Christendom, yet he arm’d the Crescent against the Cross, and carried desolation through every corner of Europe. There is no prince but he has invaded, no neighbour that he has not oppress’d, no law that he has not violated, no religion that he has not trampled on, and shewed the successors of St. Peter, that he had one sword sharper than both theirs. His panegyrists have refined the impious wit of Commodus’s sycophants; and lest books should not transmit their blasphemies low enough to posterity, they have raised superb monuments of his arrogancy and their own shame. What statues, what pictures of him at Versailles, Fountainbleau, Marly, the Louvre, the Invalides, Paris gates, the Palace Royal, &c. Where have I, Mons. Boileau, arm’d my Julian with a [56] thunderbolt? have I any thing equal to your viro immortali, to your divo Ludivico? Why then am I such an{176} infamous flatterer, such a sneaking cringing rascal? I have nothing comparable to your fustian bombast, nor to the hyperboles of Pelisson, nor the impertinent titles of every Frenchman that sets pen to paper. I leave the world to judge, if my hero has not a juster claim to all the eulogies I have given him, ten thousand times preferable to Loüis le Grand, and yet you have said ten thousand times more of him.

POSTSCRIPT.

Just as I was dispatching this, a mail came in from Spain, that gave us an account of the king of France’s having extended his dominions over the plate-fleet; but whilst he was drinking Chateau-Renault’s health, some two or three merry English boys run away with it all; which has given Loüis and his grandson such a fit of the cholick, that they are not expected to live long under such terrible agonies: whereupon the Devil has order’d a thousand chaldron of fresh brimstone to air their apartments against they should come.

Cornelius Gallus to the Lady Dilliana at Bath.

I SHALL not blush to own I have been in love, since the wisest men that ever were yet, have found their philosophy too weak to prevent the tyranny of the blind boy. However, though they were sensible of the powers of beauty, yet they were all ignorant of its cause. The painter that first drew Cupid with a fillet over his eyes, did not mean that he was blind; but that it was impossible to express their various motions: sometimes eager desire adds new darts to their sparkling rages: sometimes chilling fear in a minute overcasts their glittering beams; joy drowns ’em in an unusual moisture, and irresolution gives ’em a gentle trembling despair, sinks ’em into their orbits: jealousy re-ascends the expiring flame: and one kind look from the person we adore, sweetly sooths ’em up again; and it is easy to remark from their sudden composedness the new calm and tranquillity of the mind. We may say as much of love as of beauty, we all knew there is such{177} a thing, but none of us can tell what it is; ’tis not youth alone that is expos’d to the fatal tempest of this raging passion: age itself has yielded to its attacks; and we have seen some look gaily in their love, tho’ they were stepping into their graves. It laughs at the most ambitious man, and makes a monarch turn vassal to his own subjects: it makes the miser lavish of his ador’d dust and the hoarded ore profusely scatter’d at his charmer’s feet: nay, the poets themselves did not feign Cupid so extravagant, as many philosophers felt him: however, love is the great springhead from whence all our felicities flow; and our condition would be worse than that of the very beasts, if it were exempted from this darling passion: yet it is as true too, that there is nothing upon the earth so enormous and detestable, but love has been the occasion of it at one time or other. That glorious emanation of divinity, the breath of life which gave us the similitude of our Creator, is often stifled by this raging passion, reason revolts, and joining partly with love, proves our ruin, by justifying a thousand absurdities: and there is no misery to which mankind may be said to be subject to, that is not caused by love. There would be no sorrow, no fear, no desire, no despair, no jealousy, no hatred, if there were no love. The soul becomes a restless sea whose tumultuous waves are continually foaming, every sense is an inlet to this violent passion: and there are but few objects which can affect the soul, that do not give it birth: as heat produces some things and destroys others, so love, not unlike it, is the origin of good and evil. It may be call’d the school of honour and virtue; and yet not improperly a theatre of horror and confusion too.

’Tis the powerful and pleasing band of human society; without it there would be no families, no kingdoms; and yet we read of an Alexander that sacrific’d a whole city to a smile of a mistress. Anthony disputed the world with Cæsar, yet chose rather to lose it than be absent from Cleopatra’s arms. David forgot the august character of a man after God’s own heart, and though so famous for prowess as well as piety, basely murther’d the injur’d Uriah, the more freely to enjoy the lovely adulteress. Charming Sempronia, the fire is pure in itself, ’tis the matter only that sends up all those offensive clouds of{178} smoak; and if nature were not depraved, love would not cause these disorders: ’twou’d not mix poyson with wine to destroy a rival, and thro’ a sea of blood and tears wade to its object. Love is the most formidable enemy a wise man can have, and is the only passion against which he has no defence. If anger surprise him, it lasts not long, and the same minute concludes it as commenc’d it: If by a slower fire his choler boils, he prevents its running over; but love steals so secretly, and so sweetly withal; into every corner of our hearts, into every faculty of the soul, that it is absolutely master before we can perceive it. When once we discover it, we are quite undone: at the same time he triumphs over our wisdom, and our reason too, and makes them both his vassals to maintain his tyranny: what else could mean those numerous follies of the adulterous gods descending in viler forms to commit their rapes?——

The first wound that beauty makes is almost insensible, and though the deadly poison spreads through every part; we hardly suspect we are in danger. At first indeed we are only pleas’d with seeing the person or talking of ’em, affecting an humble complaisance for all they say, or do, the very thinking on them is charming; and the desires we have as yet, are so far from impetuosity, that no philosopher could be so rigid as to condemn us.

Hitherto ’tis well, but ’tis hardly love, for that like a bee, forfeits its name if it has no sting. But alas! the lurking fire quickly bursts out, and that pleasing idea which represented itself so sweetly and so respectfully to the soul one moment before, now insolently obtrudes upon our most serious thoughts, and makes us impious even at the horns of the altar; she perfidiously betrays us in our very sleep itself, sometimes appearing haughty and scornfully, sometimes yielding and kind; and this too when there is no reason for either. The infant-passion is now become a cruel father of all other passions; cruel indeed, for he has no sooner given birth to one, but he stifles it to introduce another; whose short-liv’d fate is just the same, and destroy’d the next moment it is born.

Hope and despair, joy and sorrow, courage and fear, continually succeed each other; anger, jealousy, and revenge, distract the mind; and all these mingled, their fu{179}ry is like a storm blowing from every corner of the heavens: then the lover, like the ocean, agitated by such boisterous winds, he foams and roars, the swelling waves of his boiling appetite dash each other to pieces, the foggy clouds of melancholy and disappointment intercept the glittering rays of reason’s sun; the rattling thunder of jealous rage breaks thro’ his trembling sphere, when his understanding returns but for a moment, ’tis like darted lightning piercing thro’ the obscure of violent passions, and shews nature in every lover a confusion almost equal to her original chaos.

Whoever was really in love (charming Sempronia) will readily confess the allegory to be just. Tho’ nothing has surprised me more in affairs of this nature than that most men who have been sensible of this passion do not care to own it, when once their more indulgent fate has put a period to it; as if it were a calling their judgment in question to believe they thought a woman handsom. Your eyes justify our adoration, and will ever constitute the felicity of

From Bully Dawson to Bully W——

I HAVE been dead and damn’d these seven years, and left your talkative bulkiness behind me as the only fit person in the town to succeed me in blustring bravadoes and non-killing skirmishes; and you like a lazy hulk, whose stupendious magnitude is full big enough to load an elephant with lubberliness, to sot away your time in Mongo’s fumitory, among a parcel of old smoak-dry’d cadators, and not so much since my departure, as cut a link-boy over the pate, pink a hackney-coachman, or draw your sword upon a cripple, to fill the town with new rumours of your wonted bravery, and make the callow students of the wrangling society wag their unfledg’d chins over their pennyworths of Ninny Broth? adds fleshly-wounds, in what sheeps-head ordinary have you chew’d away the meridian altitude of your tygerantick stomach? and where squander’d away the tiresom minutes of your evening-leisure,{180} over seal’d Winchesters of three-penny guzzle: that in all this time you have never exerted your hectorian talent, but keep your reputation mustying upon an old foundation, which is ready to sink, for want of being repair’d by some new notable atchievements.

Do you think the obsolete renown of cutting off a knight’s thumb in a duel, and keeping on’t in your pocket three weeks for a tobacco-stopper; lying with the French king in your travels, and kicking him out of bed for farting in his sleep; answering the challenge of a life-guardman for tearing a hole in his stocking with the chape of your sword when his jack-boots were on; gone where honour calls, behind Southampton walls: return by five, if alive, Hen. W——n. disarming three highwaymen upon the road with two-pence half-penny in your pocket, and letting them go upon their parole of honour; wearing a wig for ten years together without losing the curl or combing out one hair; taking a tyger by the tooth; and the Grand seignior by his whiskers; bearing an ensign in a mimick fight upon your atlantick shoulders; knocking a shiting porter down, when you were drunk, backwards into his own sir-reverence; your duel with Johannes in nubibus, in behalf of a lady you never set eyes on; your eating five shillings-worth of meat at a nine-penny ordinary, and at last treated by the man of the house to have no more of your custom; do you think these, or a hundred like antiquated exploits are sufficient to maintain the character of a stanch bully without new enterprizes? no, an old reputation is like an old house, which if not repaired often, must quickly fall of necessity to decay and will at last, by little, for want of new application, be totally obliterated.

Therefore, if ever you intend to be my rival in glory, you must fright a bailiff once a day, stand kick and cuff once a week, challenge some coward or other once a month, bilk your lodging once a quarter, and cheat a taylor once a year, crow over every coxcomb you meet with, and be sure you kick every jilt you bully into an open-legg’d submission and a compliance of treating you; never till then will the fame of W——n ring like Dawson’s in every coffee-house, or be the merry subject of every tavern tittle-tattle.

To let you know I am not like a cock or a bull-dog to lose my courage when I change my climate, I shall proceed to give you a very modest account of some of my bold undertakings in these diabolical confines, these damn’d dusky unsavory grottos, where altho’ there are whole rivers of brimstone for the convenient dipping of card-matches, yet if a man would give one ounce of immortality for so much of a rush-candle, ’tis as hard to be purchas’d upon the faith of a christian, as if you were to buy honey of a bear, or a stallion of a lascivious duchess, that wants frication more than she does money; so that at my first entrance into this damn’d dark cavern, I stagger’d about by guess, like some drunken son of a whore tumbled into a Newcastle cole-pit; and finding myself in this ugly condition, I could not forbear breathing a few curses out upon the place, which, by the lord of the territories, were thrown away as much in vain, as if I had carried lice to Newgate, or wish’d the people mad in Bedlam: as I thus blunder’d about like a beetle in a hollow tree, I happen’d to break my shins against a confounded poker, upon which I made a damnable swearing for a light, that I might see whereabouts I was, but to no purpose; I found I might as well have call’d upon Jupiter to have lent me his hand to have dragg’d me out of Pluto’s dominions. This sort of stumbling entertainment so provok’d my patience, that tho’ I knew I was under the devil’s jurisdiction, yet I could not tell, but like a debtor in a prison, or bully in a bawdy-house, I might fare the better for mutinying, so that I discharg’d such a volley of new-coin’d oaths, and made such damn’d roaring and raving, that the devils began to fear I should put hell in an uproar; upon this a couple of tatterdemalion hobgobblings, that look’d like a brace of scare-crows just flown out of a pease-field, seiz’d me by the shoulders and run me into the bilboes; confound you, said I, for a couple of hell-cats, what’s this for? For, crys one of the grim potentates, as saucily as a reforming constable, for your tumultuous noisy behaviour, why sure, you don’t think you are got into a bear-garden. Wounds, quoth I, thou talk’st as if the devil kept a conventicle; why hell at this rate is worse than a parliament-house, if a man mayn’t have the liberty of speech, especially when ’tis to redress his grievances.{182}

Just as we were thus parlying, who should come by, but Bob Weden, jabbering to him self like a jack-daw in a cherry-tree that had lost his mate, I knew him by his hoarse voice, which sounded like the lowest note of a double courtel: who’s there, Bob, said I? Captain, says he, I am heartily glad to see you; yes, yes, I am that very drone of a bag-pipe, you may know me by my hum; I have got my quietus at last, and I thank my stars, by the help of rum and hot weather, have bilk’d all my English creditors. Why where the devil, said I, did you die then, that you give your creditors, the epithet of English? just over our head, says he, in that damn’d country Barbadoes, where my brains us’d to boil by the heat of the sun like a hasty-pudding in a sauce-pan; have been in a sweat ever since above seven months before I died; all the while I liv’d in that damn’d treacly colony, I fancied myself to be just like a live grig toss’d into a frying-pan; and now death, pox on him for a raw-head and bloody-bones, has toss’d me out of the frying-pan into the fire. Indeed, Bob, said I, I could wish myself in an ice-house heartily, for I have been in a kind of hectic fever ever since my admittance. Zounds, says he, ’tis so hot there’s no enduring on’t; its a country fit for nothing but a salamander to live in; if Abednego’s oven had been but half so hot, if any of them had come out without singing their garments, I’d have forsworn brandy to all eternity. Well but, prithee captain, how came your pedestals to be in this jeopardy? I told him the truth tho’ I was in a damn’d lying country, only for cursing and swearing a little. Oh! says he, you must have a great care of that for here are a parcel of whiggish devils lately climb’d into authority, who tho’ they were the forwardest of all the infernal host, in the rebellion against heaven, yet of late they pretend to such demurity as to form a society for the Regulation of Manners, tho’ themselves are a parcel of the wickedest spirits in all hell’s dominions; but however, have a little patience, I have a justice of peace hard by of my acquaintance, who tho’ he be one of their kidney as to matter of religion, yet I know he’ll be as drunk with burn’d brandy as a sow with hogwash; will bugger a Succubus when his lust’s predominant; and as for cursing and swearing, he’s more expert at it than a losing{183} gamester, and if I meet him in a merry humour, I don’t doubt but to prevail.

Thus Bob left me for a few moments, and indeed had we been in a brandy-shop where we had had any thing to have paid, I should have much question’d his return; but being in a strange country, where friends are always glad to meet one another, and being free from the predicament of a reckoning, I had some hopes of his being as good as his word, which in the other world all his acquaintance knew as well as my self, he was never over careful to preserve.

During his absence, I had little else to do but to curse the country, and scratch my ears for want of liberty, which were terrified with the buzzing of a parcel of fanatical souls, who swarm’d as thick as bees at a Hampshire-farmers, some damning of doctor B——ges, others confounding of Timothy Cr—soe, some raving against Me—d of Stepney, others cursing of Salters-Hall, &c. as if the ready road to hell was to travel through Presbytery.

By this time my friend Bob was as good as his word, which was the first time I ever knew him so. Well, says he, you may see I am as sure as a Robin, I have got your discharge; but the justice swears, had you been confin’d for any thing besides whoring, drinking, and swearing, you should have been shackled and been damn’d before he’d ever have releas’d you; but however here’s a little Scribere cum dasho will set you at liberty; upon which we call’d the constable of the ward, who, upon sight of the discharge, freed my supporters from confinement, which was no sooner done, but with a reciprocal joy for my happy deliverance, we began a ramble together thro’ all the neighbouring avenues, in hopes to meet with something that might give us a little diversion; we had not travelled above an hundred yards, but who should we meet but the old snarling rogue that us’d to cry poor Jack, with his wife after him; he no sooner espy’d us, but attack’d us open-mouth’d after the following manner, Two sharpers without one penny of money in their pockets; a couple of bullies, and both cowards, ha, ha. Now for a fool with a full pocket, a good dinner on free-cost, a whore and a tavern, a belly-full of wine without paying for’t, ha, ha, ha, a hackney-coach for a bilk, or a brass-shilling, a long sword,{184} never a shirt, White-Fryars i’th’ day time, a garret at night, ha, ha, ha, ha. Thus the old rascal run upon us as we pass’d by him, that we were both as glad when we were out of his reach, as a hen-peck’d cuckold that has shunn’d the hisses of that serpent he hugs every night in his bosom.

We had not gone twenty yards farther, scarce out of the reach of the noisy tongue of this railing peripatetick, but we met Bowman that kept the Dog-tavern in Drury-lane, whose first salutation was, Pox take you both for a couple of shammocking rascals, if it had not been for you and such others of your company, I had been a living man to this day, for you broke my tavern and that broke my heart. When I went off, besides book-debts never paid, but cross’d out and forgiven, I had as much chalk scored up in my bar, upon your account, as would have whitened the flesh of twenty calves at Rumford, or have cured half the town of the heart-burn, that never were satisfied to this day, and as certainly as you are both damn’d, I would arrest you here in the Devil’s name, but that ye know a foreign plea, or the statute of limitation are pleadable in defiance of me; and that whore my wife too, that used to open her sluice and let in an inundation of shabroons to gratify her concupiscence, she lent her helping buttock among ye to shove on my ruin; but if ever I catch the strumpet in these territories, I’ll sear up the bung-hole of her filthy firkin, but I’ll reward her for her bitching. Confound you, cries Bob, for a cuckoldy cydermonger; do not you know damnation pays every man’s scores, and tho’ we tick’d in the other world for subsistence, it was not with a design to cheat you or any body else, for we knew we should have the Devil to pay one time or other, and now you see, like honest men, we have pawned our souls for the whole reckoning, and so a fart for our creditors; you see we had rather be damn’d than not to make general satisfaction, and yet you are not satisfied. Why a man at this rate had better live in Newgate to eternity, than be thus plagued with creditors after his arse, to put him in mind of old scores wherever he travels; besides, ’tis against the law of humanity, for a man to be dunn’d for a domestick debt in a foreign country. Well, gentlemen, says he, I find you have not forgot your old principles; and so{185} good by to ye. And thus, as old Nic would have it, we got rid of our second plague.

As we went from thence, turning down into a steep narrow lane, irregularly pav’d with rugged flints, like the bottom of a mountain in North-Wales, a damn’d greasy great fellow, with his hair thrust under a dirty night-cap, in a dimity-wastcoat and buff-breeches, with a hugh bucks-horn-handle-knife hanging by a silver-chain at his apron-strings, came puffing and blowing up the hill against us, like a crampus before a storm, sweating as if he had been doing the drudgery of Sisyphus, and coming near us he makes a halt, and looking me full in my face, gives a mannerly bow, and cries, Your servant noble captain: Friend, said I, I don’t know thee. Ah! master, said he, time was, when you condescended to eat many a sop in the pan in my poor kitchin; I kept the sign of the gridiron in Waterlane for many years together, but have been damn’d, the lord help me, above these nine months, for only cozening my customers with slink veal. I told him I was sorry for his condition, and hop’d I did not owe him any thing: No, worthy master, says he, not a farthing, for you never had more at a meal than a half-penny rowl, and I always, because you were a gentleman, allow’d you the benefit of my dripping-pan, and every time you came, you paid me for my bread very honestly. I did not much approve of the rogue’s memory, so bid him farewel: but my friend Weden, like a bantering dog, did so terrify my ears about my half-penny ordinary, that I had rather for the time been flung naked into a tuft of nettles.

As he was thus teazing me, who should we stumble upon but captain Swinny the Irishman; you cannot but imagine a very joyful congratulation pass’d between us: who had been stanch friends, such old and intimate acquaintance. No sooner was our salutation over, but we began to enquire as we us’d to do upon earth, into one another’s circumstances: upon which, says Swinny, By my soul and shalvation, I have got my good old lord here, that I us’d to procure and pimp for in t’other world; and as he gave me money upon earth to indulge him in his sins, and provide him whores to cool his lechery, now he’s damn’d for’t, like a grateful master, he allows me every day a dish of snapdragons to fetch him water from Styx, to cool his entrails.{186} I think, says Bob, you were always very careful of your lord’s health, and never brought any thing to his embraces but unpenetrated maids, or very sound thorn-backs. By chriesh and shaint Patrick, ’tis very true, says he, for I always made my self his taster for fear he should be poison’d, and first took a sip of the cup to try whether the juice was good or no; and tho’ he was as great a wencher as any was in England, I’ll take my swear, excepting the gout, he’s come as sound a nobleman into hell, as has took leave of the other world these fifty years, and was so very bobborous two days ago, tho’ he’s near seventy, that he bid me look out for soft-handed she-devil to give him a little frication, and said nothing vex’d him but that he was damn’d among a parcel of spirits, with whom he could have no carnal copulation: well, gentlemen, I must loiter no longer, I am travelling in haste to Styx to fill my lord’s bottle, but all won’t cool his lechery, tho’ he be turn’d a perfect aquapote so, my dear joys, farewel.

We had not parted with him as many minutes a man may beget his likeness in, but who should we meet but Mumford the player, looking as pale as a ghost, falling forward as gently as a catterpillar cross a sicamore-leaf, gaping for a little air, like a sinner just come out of the powdering tub, crying out as he crept towards us, Oh my back! confound ’em for a pack of brimstones: Oh my back! how now, Sir Courtly, said I, what the devil makes thee in this pickle? Oh, gentlemen, says he, I am glad to see you, but I am troubled with such a weakness in my back, that it makes me bend like a superannuated fornicator: some strain, said I, got in the other world with overheaving your self. What’s matter how ’twas got, says he, can you tell me any thing that’s good for’t? yes, said I, get a good warm Girdle and tie round you, ’tis an excellent corroboratick to strengthen the loins; pox on you, says he, for a bantering dog how can a single girdle do me good, when a Brace was my destruction? I think, said I, you did die a martyr for a pair of penetrable whiskers, fell a bleeding sacrifice to a cloven tuft, that was glad, I believe, of your going out of the other world, as old Nic was of your coming into this, for I hear you kept the poor titmouse under such slavish subjection, that a peer of the realm, notwithstanding his honour, could not so much as come in to be{187} brother-starling with you. Nay, some say you put an Italian security upon’t, purposely to indict any body for felony and burglary that should break open the lock. Pox confound you, says he, for a lyar, how can that be, when half the pit knows they had egress and regress when they pleas’d without any manner of obstruction? but tattling here won’t do my business, I must seek out Needham, Lower, or some other famous physician that may give me ease; so gentlemen, adieu to ye.

We had not gone much farther, but at the corner of a dirty lane we found a wondrous throng of attentive scoundrels, serenaded by a couple of ballad-singers, who stood in the middle of the tatter’d audience, with their hands under their ears, singing, With a rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, in and out, in and out ho: who should come limping by just in the interim, but Mr. Dryden the poet: there’s a delicious song for you, gentlemen, says he, there are luscious words wrapt up in clean linen for you; tho’ there is a very bawdy mystery in them, yet they are so intelligibly express’d, that a girl of ten years old may understand the meaning of them; my lord Rochester’s songs are mine arse to it: well my dear Love for Love, thou deservest to be poet laureat, were it only for the composure of this seraphick ditty, ’tis enough to put musick into the tail of an old woman of fourscore, and make a girl of fourteen to be as knowing in her own thoughts, as her parents that got her; oh, ’tis a song of wonderful instruction, of incomparable modesty, considering its meaning. Who should come puffing into the crowd in abundance of haste, with a face as red as a new pantile, but Nat Lee? Hark you, Nat, says Dryden, did you ever here such a feeling ballad in your life before? egad, the words steal so cunningly into ones veins, that nature will scarce be pacified till she has dropt some loose corns into one’s breeches. Foh, you old lecherous beast, says Nat Lee, here’s a song indeed for a poet-bays of your gravity to admire! I have heard twenty better under White-Fryars gate-way. You’re a mad man, says Dryden, you never understood a song in your life, nor any thing else, but jumbling the gods about, as if they were so many tapsters in a lumber-house. I’ll sing you a song, says Lee, worth fifty on’t that I made when I was in Bedlam, to be sung in my play, that had{188} five and twenty acts in’t; now pray observe me, and your self shall be judge.

Well, says Mr. Lee, after he had ended his ditty, what think you now, Mr. Dryden? Think, says he, what should I think? I think there is more pretty tickling sort of wit in the very chorus of the other, than there is in all your piece of frantick trumpery. Thus we leave them squabbling together, which song should have the preference, and so stept forward.

We had not jogg’d on above a quarter of a mile further, but a parcel of spirits in the shape of screech-owls came hovering over our heads, crying out, Make room, make room, for the chief pastor of the flock will be here to night. Think we, here’s some great guest or other a coming; for my part I thought nothing less than an archbishop of C-n——y: my friend Bob was much of my opinion, and cry’d, there was some fat priest coming in to pay his garnish, but who should it prove at last but a dissenting doctor, trick’d up in a band and cloak, and all the factious ornaments becoming a squeamish conscience, attended with abundance of bald crowns and gray hairs, who came hobbling after him like the old men of the Charter-house, behind their chaplain to eleven a-clock prayers. My friend Bob and I having both a curiosity to know what Don Prattlebox it was, enquir’d of a devil who had a discerning countenance, if he knew who this new comer was?{189} He answer’d us ’twas doctor Ma—th—w T—y—r of Salters-hall, and those that attend him were some of his congregation, who were come in order to take up lodgings for the rest, who would not be long after: Adsheart, says Bob, they are the most faithful flock in the universe, for if their shepherd comes to the devil, I see they will be sure to follow him, whilst the churchmen are such a parcel of straying sheep, that tho’ their guides go to heaven themselves, they can perswade but very few of their congregation to bear them company.

The next person that we met with as we were rambling about, was Harry Care, the whiggish pamphleteer, who was stuff’d all over with papers as thick as a buttock of beef with parsley, and coming near us, he ask’d how long we had been in? Sir, said I, we are both but lately come from the other world: pray gentlemen, says he, can you tell me how my old friend Sir Roger l’Estrange does, and whether you hear any thing of his coming into these parts, for I am at a great loss for some body to exercise my talent with? I left him very well, said I, but when he takes leave of the upper world, whether he goes up hill or down hill to eternity I can’t inform you. Sir, says he, your humble servant; and away he troop’d and left us without further impertinence.

As we were passing by the door of a little brandy-shop, who should be sitting upon an old worm-eaten bench, but Sam Scott the Fiddle-seller, and Will. Elder the graver, each with a huge Dutch pipe of infernal mundungus in their mouths smoaking for two penny-worth of anniseed-water. Sam. Scott had one while got the start of him, which Will Elder perceiving, exercised his lungs so very strenuously, that he overtook him at the last whiff, which they discharg’d with such remarkable exactness, that none of the standers by could undertake to decide the wager: when their pipes were out, we saluted one another with abundance of friendship, and Sam. Scott having an ascendency over the house, invited us to take part of a bowl of punch, and just as we were stepping in, who should come by but O——n P——ce that dy’d drunk at the Dog-tavern in the company of my friend Weden: mighty joyful we were to meet thus fortunately together; and to crown the happy juncture with an hour’s mirth, we stept into the little{190} conveniency, every soul seating himself upon an empty rundlet like a godson of Bacchus, in order to receive the promis’d blessing: by that time we had every one ramm’d a full charge of sot-weed into our infernal guns, in order to fumify our immortalities, the scull of Goliah was brought in for a punch-bowl fill’d with such incomparable Heliconian juice, that six drops of it would make a man a better poet than either Shakespear or Ben. Johnson: by that time a cup or two were gone about to Pluto and my lady Proserpine, we began to fall into a merry inquisition about one another’s damnation: prithee Sam. Scott, said I, what the devil were you damn’d for? why, I’ll tell you, says Sam. I was found guilty of a couple of indictments, one was for consuming 975 papers of tobacco in six months, without any assistance, to the poisoning of many a ptisicky citizen about Temple-bar; and the other was smoaking my dog to death without any provocation. Come, Bob Weeden, said I ’tis your turn next, let us go round with it, prithee what charge did the hellish informers bring against you? To tell you the truth, says he, they prov’d me guilty of two great crimes too, one was for dealing by my friends very knavishly: and the other was for living by my wits very foolishly. Come, captain Dawson, says the company, what sort of conviction are you under? as for my part, gentlemen, said he, the chief thing that condemn’d me, was the sin of forgetfulness; ’twas only for bilking my lodging, and being so careless to leave my perriwig-come behind me. Well, neighbour P——ce, said I, what was it brought you into these territories? ’twas for living like a rake, says he, without money, and dying drunk in a tavern with twelve shillings in my pocket. Will. Elder being the last, we summ’d up our enquiry with his confession; truly says he, mine was a very great fault I must acknowledge, no less than the damnable sin of omission: you must know, gentlemen, the chief of my business was to grave the Lord’s-Prayer within the compass of a silver penny; but to tell you the truth, I never thought of it but when I was at work, since my eyes were open, and ’tis chiefly for that neglect I suffer this confinement.

Well, says Bob Weeden, for my part, now I have got a bowl of Punch before me, and such good company, I{191} would not give a nitt out of my shirt-collar to return back to my old quarters upon earth, for that was but a life full of extreams, and this can be no other; for there I was always very drunk or very drowsy, surfeited or very hungry, generally very poor and very pocky, afraid to walk the streets, and no money to keep me within doors; thought very witty by fools, and by wise men very wicked, was every body’s jester that wanted wit, and a blockhead to all those that had it; dunn’d every where, and trusted no where; car’d not for any body, and belov’d by no body: and what station on this side death can be worse than such a miserable life? What signifies a little hot weather, when a man’s assur’d it can’t endanger his health; nothing can be subject to sickness but what is liable to death, and that period, immortality is free from. Come then said I, if it be so, here’s a bumper in memory of the cellar at the Still, and honest Jack Ni——ls the harper, count C——ni——s, captain Wa-k-er, and all the jolly lads of our loving acquaintance, with a huzza. In this manner we spent the evening as merrily as so many tars under the tropicks, over their forfeitures, till at last we had the devil to pay with empty pockets: but Sam Scott, who was the undertaker of the treat, having made his coffin into a bass-viol, gave my landlady a lesson, two or three kisses, and a few fair words, and prevailed with her to trust him for the reckoning; so being all saluted with you’re welcome gentlemen, we all arose like a company of coopers from our tubs and our rundlets, and went away hooping for more liquor.

These are all the remarkable passages that at present I think worth transmitting to you: so, hoping you will requite me after the like manner with something that may be entertaining to a gentleman under my warm circumstances; if it be an essay upon ice, or a treatise of the sovereign efficacy of rock-water, it will be a very cooling satisfaction to your parboil’d friend,

Mr. Henry W——’s Answer to Bully Dawson.

IF being smoak’d-dry’d up a chimney, like a flitch of bacon, thro’ fear of bayliffs, being kick’d thro’ the whole town by every coxcomb, being pox’d by every whore, and dunn’d by every scoundrel, starving, lousing, begging, borrowing, bullying, and all the plagues of human life, would never mend your manners upon earth, I have little reason to believe the strict discipline of hell can make any reformation in so incorrigible a libertine; what reason have I ever given you to affront a poet? A gentleman of the law, a member of an inn of Chancery, an officer in the trained-bands, a man of invention, known courage, worth and integrity; a gentleman of my stature, figure, and parts, that am able to crush a thousand such nitts as thou art under my thumb-nail: ’tis well known to the world, I have fought many duels with success, writ many lampoons with applause, manag’d many causes to my clients satisfaction, told many a pleasant story to the benefit of coffee-houses, flirted out many a jest to the delight of my companions, march’d out often to the credit of St. Clement’s trained-bands, when I have been the only wonder of all the little boys that followed us, who, to the pleasure of my own ears, have cry’d aloud, there goes a tall ensign, there’s a swanking fellow for you between the two blunderbusses; there’s a Goliah, says the men; there’s a strong-back’d Sampson, says the women: And shall I, because I have been guilty of two or three little slips, which no man is exempt from, be put in mind of ’em, by such an arrogant crackfart as thou art: I tell thee, bully, if thou wer’t but to be found upon earth, I would grind thee in a paper-mill for thy insolence, till I had made bumfodder of thee: but however, since charity obliges every good christian to forgive a man when he is dead, I shall pass by your affront, and take no more notice of it for the future; but upon the word of a man of honour, had you been living, I would no more have forgiven you, than I would{193} have gone one day without a dinner if I had but one book in my library; therefore all things shall be forgotten, tho’ you have deserv’d the contrary. And since you have obliged me with a short journal of your transactions on the other side Styx, I think myself oblig’d in honour to make a return of your civility after the like manner, for the world knows me to be a man of a forgiving temper, and I scorn by bearing malice, or studying revenge, to forfeit my character.

I happen’d the other night in company with some men of honour, brave fellows, who were a little nice in their conversation, as well as their wine, that try’d every word that was spoke by the touch-stone of good manners, and one of them happening to say he was a lieutenant on board one of his majesty’s small frigats, when so violent a storm rose upon the coast of Ireland, that a monumental sea washing over the topmast head, by the very pressure of its weight sunk the vessel to the bottom of the ocean, which gave such a prodigious knock against the sand with her keel, that the very rebound, being a tight ship, sent her up again to the surface, without damage; and that by a watch of Tompion’s, which he had in his pocket, they were three quarters of an hour and some odd minutes in this dangerous expedition, that is, in going down and coming up again. Lord Sir, says I, how did you breathe all that while? Zoons, Sir, says he, ’tis an affront to ask a gentleman such a question, and I demand satisfaction? am I bound to tell every blockhead how many times I fetch my breath in three quarters of an hour? Nay, Sir, said I, if you are for that sport, have at you, I’m a man of honour, and dare wait upon you any where; with that he whisper’d me to go down stairs, which we both did accordingly, and drawing at the door, the first pass I made was a home thrust (for I never love to dally in such cases) and I run him thro’ the centre of the fifth jubilee button of his coat, and just scratch’d him in the breast, upon which he dropp’d his sword, believing I had kill’d him; but I taking up the fallen weapon, stepp’d to him and unbrac’d him, found he was more afraid than hurt; and that it was but a small prick that signified nothing: Now, pray Sir, said I, how did you breathe, I think I may make bold to ask you? I’ll tell you, Sir, said he, I took in the{194} water at my mouth, just as a fish does, but having no gills to give it vent, I let it out of my fundament. Upon which answer, I was well satisfy’d, gave him his sword, and we became as great friends as the devil and the earl of Kent.

Another duel I had since that, (for you must know challenges come thick and threefold upon me, like actions upon a breaking shop-keeper) which I hope for its singularity, will prove a little entertaining to you; I happened lately to be invited to a gentleman’s chamber in Grays-Inn, to drink part of a bowl of punch; accordingly I went, and was very plentifully entertained among some other gentlemen of my acquaintance, with a capacious vessel of this most noble Diapente, insomuch, that we were all elevated above the use of our legs, as well as our reason. The gentleman that gave us the entertainment, by the assistance of his man, made a shift to get to bed about twelve at night, but the rest lay up and down in the corners of the room, snoaring like so many gorg’d swine, and battening in their own snivel, which tobacco had drain’d from their moist entrails: I guarded the garrison of good liquor the very last man, and maintain’d my post at the table like a true English hero, till between Bacchus and Morpheus, like the rest of my companions, I was lull’d into a lethargy, and falling forward in my chair upon the table, my forehead happen’d to take the edge of the punch bowl, and turn’d it clear over my head, that it served me for a night-cap, my nose being drowned in the remains of the punch; every time I drew up my breath, up went a spoonful, so that in a little time my nostrils were syring’d as clean as a lady’s honour by noon, that has drank two quarts of Epsom waters for her mornings draught: but after some time being almost suffocated, nature finding itself oppress’d, gave me a jog, and wak’d me out of this drunken slumber. I had not scratch’d my ears, and rubb’d my eyes above three minutes, but awakes another; O lord! says he, that a man should lead this wicked life, to be married but a fortnight and play these tricks, my wife will think I am a whoring already, or plague herself with some damn’d whimsy or other. By this time a third awakes, starts up like a ghost out of a grave, crying, A little drink for the Lord’s sake, for I am

as drowsy as if I had been dry’d in an oven all night, and with that whips up the punch-bowl to his head, and drinks off the rincings of my nostrils as heartily as if it had been sherbet made on purpose for a cooler, and by the way, ever since that time has found such an alteration in his faculties, that from a very dull fellow he is become an absolute wit, to the admiration of all that knew him, tho’ I never durst tell him it was from the dripping of my brains that he deriv’d his ingenuity. But to be short in my story, when I was thoroughly awak’d, I began to have a wambling in my stomach, as if I had supp’d over night with a mountebank’s toad-eater, the chamber-pot being full, I was unwilling to defile the room, and before I was aware, let fly into my lignum-vitæ night-cap, and being then pretty well at ease, I open’d the chamber door, and stagger’d homewards; at the end of Turnstile I happen’d to make a trip at a drunkard’s enemy, a stump, and down I tumbled; who should come by before I could get up again, but the constable going his rounds, who quickly made me the centre of a circle of jack of lanthorns, and seeing me grovelling on the ground, did not know but some body had mischiev’d me, upon which they ask’d me if I was wounded? Yes said I, sadly cut. Where, where, Sir, cries the watchmen? I reply’d, about the head; they cry’d out, who did it, who did it! punch, punch, said I; one of the watchmen being a fat short fellow, they us’d to call him punch, by my soul, Sir, said he to the constable, I never saw the gentleman all the night before, and with that they haul’d me up, and perceiving their mistake, two of them, like honest fellows, handed me home to my chambers, without so much as stealing my hat, or picking my pockets, which was a wonder: I had not been many hours in bed, but comes the footman of the gentleman who entertain’d us, to my door with a challenge, for affronting him for his civility, by spewing into his punch-bowl. I sent him word I would not fail to meet him at the time and place appointed, God willing; so put on a clean shirt, and equipp’d myself for the adventure. But considering I had a man of fortitude to deal with, and one that would face any thing upon earth, except a cat, which he hated much more than he did the sight of the devil; I therefore{196} thought policy beyond strength against such an adversary, so resolv’d to set my wits to work to prevent bloodshed, and fortunately having a cat in my chamber that had not kitten’d above a week? I took the whole progeny out of the nest, which consisted of half a dozen, puts three into one coat-pocket, and three into t’other, and away I march’d behind Southampton-wall to meet my antagonist; where I waited but a few minutes e’er he approach’d the place in a great fury; I argued the matter reasonably with him, but found nothing would atone for the affront but downright fighting, so steping a few paces back, he gave me the word and draws. I instead of applying my hands to my sword, apply’d them to my safer ammunition the kittens, and fortifies each fist with a young Mrs. Evans; I grip’d ’em hard to make ’em mew, that the onset might be the more terrible; no sooner did he set his eyes upon his little squawling adversaries, but away he scower’d, as if a legion of devils had been in pursuit of him. I after him, tossing now and then one of my hand-granadoes at him, but took care to pick them up again, lest my ammunition should be spent. Who should follow me into the fields at a distance by the scent, but the old one, in quest of her young, who by this time came up with us, and seeing her hopeful issue thus terribly abus’d, she flew about like a fury; at first he only travers’d his ground at a little distance, but when he saw the mother of the family come cocking her tail, whetting her talons, and staring worse than a dead pig, he ran outright to Totnam-Court, as if vengeance had pursued him, took sanctuary at Inman’s, since which retreat I have not yet seen him; but for self-preservation, which you know is nature’s law, I have ever since walk’d arm’d with a brace of kittens in my pocket, for fear of farther danger.

These are late testimonials of my courage, to let you see I dare yet meet any body upon the old killing spot, tho’ he be a better man than myself, and what is wanting in courage, I can supply with policy at any time: therefore consider how much you wrong me when you accuse me of idleness, since my prowess is sufficiently shewn in every days adventure.{197}

So much for my courage, and now for a few certificates of my wit, for which the world, as well as yourself, knows I am equally famous: I happen’d the other day to be at Nando’s coffee-house in company with a person, who was exclaiming heavily against a weaver of whores hair for cheating him in a wig. Sir, said I, next time you have occasion for a new noddle-case, if you please, I’ll recommend you to the honestest perriwig maker in Christendom; I bought this wig on my head of him, it cost me but fifteen shillings, and I have wore it de die in diem these nine years and upwards, and you see it’s not yet dwindled into scandalous circumstances; and, Sir, if you please I’ll tell you for what reason he can afford better penny-worths than the rest of the trade; in the first place, you must know he dwells at Chelmsford in Essex, and the country you are sensible admits of cheap living; in the next place, he has nineteen daughters in his family, all bred up to his own trade, who being kept unmarried, that their radical moisture should by no means be exhausted, their own hair grows so prodigiously fast that it keeps them all employ’d from the first day of January, to the last of December, setting aside holy-days; once in four years he mows the family round, never failing of a very plentiful crop; much about this time I reckon his harvest is ripe, and all the neighbouring gentlemen are flocking in to bespeak their perriwigs; some are fair girls, some brown, some black, so that he can mix up a colour to suit any complexion. And is this true, Sir, says the young priest? true, Sir, said I, I hope you don’t think me so little of a christian to impose upon a scholar, a gentleman of your function: ’tis so true, Sir, that it brings a great trade to the town, and every body knows that Essex, for Chelmsford wigs, and Rumford calves, out-does all the counties in England. Say you so, says the Levite, I am come up to town about a little business that will require my attendance about a fortnight, and having a horse that has nothing else to do, I’ll e’en make a journey thither to morrow, and try if I can chaffer. Sir, said I, there is not such hair in the kingdom of England, as in his family, for they are all virtuous girls, and that makes their hair the stronger; besides, all the clergy round him are his customers, because he makes up his wigs without any mixture of whores hair; for as{198} contagious fumes we are sensible will corrupt the body, who knows but the effluvias emitted from the locks of a polluted woman, hanging so near the noftrils may be suck’d in, to the strengthning of loose inclinations, and may beget an appetite to fornication, too rebellious and powerful for reason to curb into an orderly subjection. Well, says the young doctor, I’ll have one of the wigs to carry into the country with me and please the pigs; at Chelmsford you say? yes, Sir, at Chelmsford said I, the least child in in the town knows him; ask but for the Barber and his nineteen daughters, and you cannot miss of him.

Having thus laid the scene, I took my leave, and adjourn’d about the business of the day, and coming from Montague’s shop three or four days afterwards, I stepp’d into the same coffee-house, where I happen’d to meet with the spiritual pastor just coming to town, who had been erring and straying like a lost sheep in quest of Tonsor in nubibus. As soon as ever he set eyes upon me, he attack’d me tooth and nail, with as much fury as if I had been brother to the Whore of Baylon, and told me I was some Papist, or otherwise a Fanatick, or else I would have had more religion in me, than to have made a fool of a man of his function, for that he had taken a journey on purpose to Chelmsford, and could find no such barber. Pray, Sir, said I, don’t be so angry, for since I never gave ear to your preaching, why should you listen to my prating? and since you make fools of a whole parish every sunday, how can you be so angry with a man to make a fool of you once in his life time? so turn’d my back, and left the whole company to laugh at him.

You must know I love dearly to put a jest upon a priest, because it was always my opinion, they put more jests upon the world than any people; besides, any body may put a trick upon a block-head, but that conduces but little to a man’s reputation. I love to put my jokes upon men of parts, that the world may see I can bite the biter; nothing carries the burthen of another man’s wit with a greater grace, than a sacerdotal dromedary; therefore to let you see the wonderful regard I bear to religion, I have one story, or piece of wit more to entertain you with, that I hope may further divert you.{199}

I chanc’d to be in company with a parcel of grave sermon-hunters, and among a long catalogue of reverend orators, whose name should bring up the rear of the eminent Black-List, but my honest neighbour the dean’s? I took not their flattery for my example, but gave my tongue the liberty to speak as I thought, and said, he was a learned blockhead; some of my good friends had the civility to report my saying to him. Upon which, he sent the reader of the parish to admonish me, who came one morning very solemnly to my chamber, and took upon him to tell me how dishonourably and unchristian-like I had done, in aspersing the doctor with the calumny of being a learned blockhead. Truly, Sir, said I, I am sorry I should be so unmannerly to express my sentiments so freely: but however, since it is done and can’t be help’d, I desire you will go back and tell him it’s more than I can say by you, for thou art a blockhead without any learning at all, and a fit man to be sent upon such errands. Upon this answer he lugg’d his hat over his eyes, and ran away as sullen and as silent as the devil pinch’d by the nose did from St. Dunstan, when the old gentleman had loosen’d his barnacles.

Now for a piece of my poetry to let you see my talent is universal, and then I believe I shall have quitted scores with you. In a hot sunshine day this summer, when the sun was climb’d to his meridian heighth, and the progeny of every cow-turd had taken wing, and were buzzing about streets in search of cooks shops, sugarbakers, and grocers, that a man cou’d not walk London-streets without having his nose persecuted by gnats, wasps or blue-bottles, my stomach, which is generally as forward without sustenance at that hour, as a hungry sucking child without the bubby, would not let me be at rest till I had purchased its pacification at the expence of nine-pence; in order to gratify the cormorant, I stepp’d into a cook’s shop where a six-penny slice of veal was brought me, so garnish’d with fly-blows, that there lay a whole covey of the little embroys upon every morsel, that I had more picking work than a surgeon has with a patient whose buttocks are pepper’d with small shot, which put me in such a poetick fury, by that time I had half swallowed up my noonings, that I pluck’d out my pen and ink, and whilst my fancy was warm writ a satire against Fly-Blows, wherein{200} perhaps you may find as much wit and ill nature mix’d artfully together as you may in that incomparable satire, The True-born Englishman; so pray read and judge favourably.

YE worst of vermin that our isle affords,
Spawn of curs’d flies, engender’d first in t—rds
Ye nitty off-spring of a winged plague,
That swarms in mutton from the rump to th’ craig:
Tormentors of our cooks, all England’s foes,
From rural gluttons, to our London beaus.
In ev’ry cloven joint thy mother’s blow,
Where if not crush’d, you will to maggots grow,
Raise your black heads, and crawl about our food,
And poison what was eatable and good;
Pollute that flesh which should our lives maintain,
To dogs condemn what was design’d for man.
Ye eggs of mischief that in clusters dwell,
Hateful to the eyes and nauseous to the smell,
Ill omens of a worse succeeding harm,
That makes good housewives blush, the husbands storm.
For thee the faultless cook-maid bears the blame,
More salt, you slattern, crys the angry dame,
And then the falchion-ladle goes to work:
I’ll teach you, jade, to salt the beef and pork.
May showers of brine each powdering-tub o’erflow,
Pepper and salt in every orchard grow;
Then may each hand to seas’ning be employ’d,
That thy curs’d race may be at once destroy’d.

I’ll assure you, Captain, these verses are highly in esteem among all dealers in flesh, I have had many a dinner for a copy of them, to be put into a gilt frame, and hung up in a cook’s shop to give people a concocting laugh after dinner, that their victuals mayn’t lie heavy upon their stomachs. By this time I believe I have pretty well tir’d your patience, so think it full time to conclude myself,

From Nell Gwin to Peg Hughes.

OF all the concubines in christendom, that ever were happy in so kind a keeper, none sure ever squandered away the fruits of her labour so indiscreetly as yourself; whoring and gaming I acknowledge are two very serviceable vices in a common-wealth, because they make money circulate; but for a woman that has enrich’d herself by the one, to impoverish herself by the other, is so great a fault, that a harlot deserves correction for. Some people may think copulation a very easy and delightful way of getting money, but they are much mistaken, for the pains, you know as well as myself, which we take to please our benefactors, destroy our own pleasure, and make it become a toil we are forc’d to sweat at. Then who, but you, that had acquired such plentiful possessions by the labour of her bum, and sweat of her brows, would have tossed away thousands in a night upon the chance of a card, or fate of a die, as if you believed your honour was an Indian mine, which would furnish you with gold to eternity for the trouble of digging: but now, Madam, you find yourself mistaken, for those crows-feet that have laid hold of the corners of your eyes, and wrinkly age, that in spight of art, supplies the places of your absent charms, fright away the amorous and the generous from your experienc’d embraces: besides, women, I hear, are so plentiful upon earth, that a lady of our quality, must be the true copy of an angel in appearance, whose favours shall be thought worth meat, drink, washing, lodging, and cloaths; so that a pretty woman now a-days may make a slave of her bumfiddle for thirty years together, and not get money enough to keep her out of an hospital, or an alms-house at the age of fifty. I, you see, thro’ the whole course of my life, maintain’d my post, and as I was mistress to a king, liv’d as great as a duchess to my last minute; and you, like an extravagant concubine, to game away an estate, in few years, large enough to have maintain’d a score of younger brothers listed into your ladyship’s service, who would have drudg’d to oblige you as{202} much as you did to delight the good old gentleman that gave it to you; fie upon’t, I am asham’d to think, that a woman who had wit enough to tickle a prince out of so fine an estate, should at last prove such a fool as to be bubbled of it by a little spotted ivory and painted paper; if that mouth could have spoke that had labour’d hard to earn the penny, and miser-like was always gaping for more riches, sure it would have scolded at your profuse hands, for flinging away that estate so fast which they had but a small share in getting of, but indeed it is not fit the silent beard should know how much it has been abus’d by the other parts of the body, for if it did, it would be enough to put it into a pouting condition, and make it open its sluice to the drowning of the low-countries in an inundation of salt-water. I would advise you, Madam, with the small remains of your squander’d fortune, to go into a nunnery, turn Roman Catholick, which is the best religion in the universe, (for ladies of your occupation, grow wonderful pious, and make a virtue of necessity) and there remain till death, as a living testimony of the truth of the old proverb, (viz) That what is got over the devil’s back, is spent under his belly: which is all the consolation you deserve from your sister in iniquity,

Peg Hughes’s Answer to Nell Gwin.

I AM sorry a mistress of a king should degenerate so much from that generosity which was always applauded as a virtue in us ladies, who, like the industrious beaver, do our business with our tails; for a woman of my quality to value money, looks mean and mercenary, and is becoming no body but an unmerciful miser, or a common strumpet; should I have plac’d an esteem upon the riches that was left me, the world might have suppos’d it was for the greediness of gain, that made me yield my favours; and what had I been better than Madam James, or Mrs. Knight of Drury-lane; had I expos’d my honour for the lucre of base coin, and sinned on for the sake only{203} of advantage. Beauty’s the reward of great actions, and I generously bestow’d mine upon a prince that deserv’d it, abstractly from the thoughts of interest, but rather to shew my gratitude, in return of his noble passion for me; and since he had made me the object of his affections, I resolved thro’ the true principle of love to surrender the ultimate of my charms to make him happy: my embraces was all he wanted, and the utmost I could give, and if a prince would submit to take up with a player, I think on my side there was honour enough, without interest, to induce me to a compliance. I know I am old and past recovering an impair’d fortune, after the same manner that I first got it; but then consider what a small matter is sufficient to keep a superanuated grannum, past the pleasures of this life; warm cloathing and a few sugar-sops, what else can an old woman want, that is fit for nothing but to mumble over her prayers, or sit nodding in a chimney-corner like an old cat, when her company becomes as nauseous to all that are younger than herself, as a sober divine is to a prophane libertine? What conversation need she have besides one maid to exercise her lungs upon, and keep life’s bellows open? I am so far from repenting the loss of my estate, that I look upon’t my glory, and the only piece of carelesness I ever committed worth my boasting. It’s a pleasure to me to behold the vicissitude of fortune, and see her snatch that out of my hand, which before she had dropped into my mouth; besides, without a taste of poverty there can be no true repentance, for I always observe, affliction goes a great way in making a good christian. I have said my prayers within these few months, as heartily as ever I neglected ’em, and am often-times pleas’d I am grown poor, because it makes me the more pious: every fifty guineas I now lose, makes me when I come home, read a chapter in Job, and take his patience for my own example. The gold that I thus fling away, puts me in mind how sinfully it was got, and to that cause I ascribe the badness of my fortune. To be rich and godly, I have found very difficult, but to be needy and religious, is the easiest thing in the world, which inclines me to believe poverty and piety, are as great companions as impudence and ignorance, or love and jealousy; so that when I have lost all, perhaps I may{204} take care to save myself, which will be much better, than like you to be damn’d with a full pocket. It often makes me laugh to see hungry quality, craving courtiers, as insatiate as the barren womb, how industrious they are to add to their own estates by the ruin of an old fornicatrix, who can part with her money as freely at one sport as she got it at another, and therefore desires you will rest but as quietly under your damnation, as she does under her losses, and she believes you will find yourself much easier: So,

From Hugh Peters to Daniel Burgess in Rogue-lane.

IF you don’t remember of your own knowledge, you can’t but have heard from some of our grisly historians, that in the late times of confusion, when the pious scoundrels of England arose with their arses uppermost, I was not a man inferior in my function to your learned and most eloquent self, or any other fanatick cackler of the holy law, by the corruption of which (thro’ the spirit of nonsense, and grace of blasphemy) our party has always supported the worst of causes in the best of times; and be it known to you, brother doctor, for so I presume to greet you, that I had not only the practical knack of moistning the eyes of my congregation with the dreadful doctrine of predestination, but could also dry up their tears with a spunge of comfort, and make ’em laugh as heartily whenever I pleas’d, as a city-audience at a Smithfield-comedy; in which most excellent and renown’d faculties, you are the only modern chatterist, that I hear has since succeeded me, for which reason, I am very desirous of corresponding with you after this manner, till fate shall give us your good company in these territories, to which (if our subterranean governor changes not his opinion) you need not doubt of being heartily welcome.

I am sensible news from another world to a man of curiosity, cannot but be acceptable: I shall therefore proceed to give you some account how our party (who are{205} very numerous) fare in these sultry dominions, towards which I hope in a little time, you will set forward on your journey.

My quondam master Oliver Cromwell, of ever famous memory, to whom upon earth, you must know, I was not only chaplain in ordinary, but as well jester to his excellency, an honour which I hear most noblemen confer upon the black robe, now good old house-keeping, and the party-colour’d coat are quite thrown out of fashion: My master, I say, who in honour to his exit, was fetch’d away out of the upper world in a whirlwind, and conducted into these parts with all the solemnities of an usurper, was establish’d in a notable post at his first admittance into Pluto’s court, in which eminent employment (that like a faithful servant follow’d him) I found him, to my great satisfaction. Alecto, one of the furies, having taken a surfeit with over-flogging Guido Vaux (which is a ceremony perform’d here in publick every fifth of November) for discovering the Gun-Powder-Treason-Plot, and defeating that notable design, which by the indefatigable industry of the most skilful politicians on this side Acheron, was so hopefully projected: and fearing some disorders should arise in our infernal common-wealth for want of strict discipline, my old master Oliver was pitch’d on to be deputy-firker to the sick beldam, and a scorpion-rod was accordingly presented him, with all the usual ceremonies of so grand an instalment. This news of his advancement was so terrible a conflict to the cavalier part, who dreading the severity of his correction, petition’d Pluto to remove him, but to no purpose; which insolence so inflam’d my cholerick master, that his nose swell’d as big at the end as an apple-dumpling, and look’d as fiery red (to the terror of those that came under his lash) as if his magnificent gigg had been a living salamander, so that wherever he met with a cavalier, he did so firk and jirk him, that Busby was never a greater terror to a blockhead, or the Bridewell flog-master to a night-walking strumpet, than he at this day to a high-flyer or a Jacobite. Great regard has been shewn by his infernal majesty, to all that in forty eight were members of the high court of justice; some are made master and wardens of the devil’s mint, for the coining of new sins; some commissioners of the{206} temptation-office; others, barons of the diabolical stinkports; and particularly sollicitor-general Cook is made lord-keeper of hell’s punishments; and Bradshaw and Ireton, two of his imperial smuttiness’s privy-counsellors: So that all the posts of honour and preferment in these lower regions are in the hands of our party, hoping those of the same kidney who live over our heads, enjoy the like advantages, as we have heard below by a certain courier from Amsterdam, you are all pretty firmly possess’d of.

There lately arriv’d in these parts a certain woolen-draper out of Covent-Garden parish, who being touch’d with a deep sense of ingratitude, could not rest quietly in his whigwam, till he had made a publick confession of a great indignity he had put upon Mrs. Meg’s chaplain, by which he gave us to understand you were the worthy gentleman he had most sordidly affronted; the manner of which he declared with as much sorrow and concern for the action, as ever was beheld in the face of a dying penitent, between the severity of a halter, and decency of a night-cap, the substance of his report being to this purpose; after he had fetch’d two or three deep sighs, as loud as the puffs of a smith’s bellows: alas! says he, to you I speak, good people, that are here about me, I was bless’d with a wife of such singular piety in the other world, who rather than not hear that reverend teacher of the gospel D. B. twice every Sunday, she would cackle for a whole week, far worse than an old hen that has drop’d a benefit to her owner; whilst I, like a true profligate suburbian, us’d to confound her zeal, stop the current of her devotion, and damn her hypocrisy; but the good woman was too strict a protestant to be thus seduc’d, and still persever’d in spight of all restriction in her accustomary righteousness, till at last I bethought myself the best way to reclaim her from this disagreeable purity (for so I thought it) and bring her over, like me her husband, to be a good sociable sinner, was to keep a close guard over my pocket, and another over my till, well considering, that if the flock could not live without spiritual consolation, the shepherd could not spend his lungs without temporal subsistence: After I had try’d this experiment for about a fortnight before the time of contribution, when the hearts{207} of the hearers are usually as open as their teacher’s conscience, I found my wife’s extraordinary zeal had stirr’d up a tumultuous spirit within her, so that nothing would pacify her stubborn disposition, but ten times the price of a fat pig, to gratify the great benefits she had often receiv’d from her soul-saving physician; but I, looking into the merits of the cause, and finding other mens wives us’d to be sav’d, (or at least made believe so) at a much cheaper rate, and therefore for good reasons best known to myself, would by no means comply with her religious generosity; upon which the good woman my wife, lest she should be thought an ungrateful reprobate by her deserving guide, convey’d a present to the worthy doctor of a whole piece of black cloth, without my knowledge, and like a true lover of peace and quietness, conjured my apprentice to keep it secret; but my man’s honesty being equal to my wife’s religion, in a little time after, he inform’d me of the matter, upon which (forgive me good people) I waited upon the doctor with a bill, and without any tenderness to his piety, or regard to his function, gave him such a tallyman’s dun, that he swore thro’ divinity, and deny’d the matter of fact as sturdily as if he had been bred a citizen; yet at last, upon positive proof thereof, paid the money like an honest gentleman, but huff’d away as if the passion of envy had overcome the patience of the priest. But since I find (most worthy gentlemen) that fate has doom’d me to these sulphurous mansions, where the devil rules the roast, and presbytery flourishes; I here, before the protector of this commonwealth, and all his infernal host, submit myself to the present government in hell establish’d, and heartily declare a penitential sorrow for the indignity offer’d upon earth to that famous and most spiritual kid-napper, who I cannot but acknowledge has contributed more toward the peopling of these dominions, than the states of Holland have ever done towards the peopling your neighbouring country the East-Indies.

But now, brother doctor, to make you sensible of the interest you have in these parts, the audience (notwithstanding the offender’s submission) were so highly inflam’d that so disgraceful an affront should be put upon so worthy a benefactor to the good old cause, that some cry’d out{208} with a true spirit of dissention, Flay, flay the rogue, flay him for a cavalier, what abuse the Doctor! Others, Scald him, scald him, he’s a Church Papist: Others, Geld him, geld him, he’s certainly a Priest: But the women were against the last sentence, and cry’d the devil had no law for that severity. So a great hurliburly arose about the manner of his punishment; but at last the crowd hurry’d him away as the rabble in your world do a pickpocket, to a pump, or a horse-pond, and what became of him afterwards I have not yet heard.

We have abundance of souls flock hither daily, that bring us in very comfortable tidings from Mincing-lane, Salters-hall, Bishopsgate-street, Jewen-street, Moorfields, Bartholomew-close, Fetter-lane, Stepney, Hackney, Bednal-green, &c. but more particularly from Covent-Garden; among whom, to your credit it be it spoken, I have always pick’d out the most agreeable conversation: for you must know, a little before I absented myself from the pleasures of the upper world, ’twas my fortune to be haul’d before a dozen of damn’d crabbed cavaliers, revengeful fellows, who look’d as if they would lose a dinner to hang an honest round-head at any time; and as three or four tun-belly’d lumps of gravity, in blushing formalities, lin’d with coney-skins, and those twelve unlucky disciples order’d the matter (to show they were all fire and tow) they told me a dreadful story of hanging and burning at Charing-Cross, in sight of that old palace we before had plunder’d. About which ugly sort of business, when I came to find they were in good earnest, I began to grow as, dizzy in my brains, as a hog troubled with the megrims, and could no more endure the thoughts on’t than I could of Popery; on my dying day, I strove all I could to make it easy, but I protest it was in vain, for it prov’d still as hateful to me, as castration to a priest, or barrenness to a young woman: in short, at last it made me think of nothing but rattling of chains, and picking of straws, insomuch that when they fagotted up my thumbs together, and tumbled me into a hell-cart well litter’d with straw, but the devil a wheel to’t, I did but just shut my eyes, and fancy’d myself to be in a dark room in Bedlam. In this manner they rumbled me thro’ a long lane of spectators, who star’d at me as if I had been a rhinoceros with a Bantam queen upon my back;{209} at last they dragg’d me into an ill-favour’d piece of timber, in the shape of a welch sign-post, where they tuck’d me up to a beam, and made me keck a little, as if something had gone the wrong way; upon which I fell into a kind of a hag-ridden slubber for a quarter of an hour, dreaming I sunk a thousand leagues into the bowels of the earth, and no sooner awak’d, but found myself, as I told you before, in company with my old master: my sleep prov’d much too short for the recovery of my senses, and tho’ I saw several of my old friends about me, the pain of my neck, and terror of my fall, made me rave worse than a narrow-scutted punk under the hands of a mad-midwife; till by the advice of a consult of physicians, who are here as numerous as crocodiles in the land of Egypt; a vesicatory of devil’s-dung was apply’d to my costern, which restor’d me to my wits in a few minutes, which in the time of adversity, like ungovernable rebels, had abdicated their master. But that which most troubled me when I found myself compos mentis, was the circular impression the hempen collar had left about my gullet, by which the fellow-subjects discover’d I swung into hell the back way, for which reason some prodigal jack-a-dandies refus’d to keep me company, despising me as much as a butcher does a bull-dog, that instead of running fair at the head, catches hold of the tail, and hangs at the arse of his enemy; for you must know, doctor, the most reputable way of entring into this sub-terrestial country, is to come in at the fore-door, thro’ which none are admitted but such as spend their full time in wickedness in the upper world without flinching: nay be as proud of a notorious sin, as a jockey is of his riding that has won a horse-race, and glory more in the invention of a new vice, than a coward does of a victory, till at last, by the effects of his debaucheries, pox, gout and rheumatism, he is lifted out of your world into ours, without one thought of repentance. These are highly rewarded here for the glorious examples they have left behind them; but he that comes hither like a dog, with the print of a collar about his neck, is no more respected than a prophet in his own country; the reason is, because they who pass gallows-way into these shades, generally at their exit, show a sorrow for their sins; so that if heaven did not take their contrition for a kind of death-bed repentance the{210} devil would be a great loser; besides, they soften the hearts of sinners by their sniveling and howling, and deter others from the like wickedness. These considerations occasion the tyburnians to be very much slighted by other company: but I, thro’ good fortune, by that time I had been here a fortnight, met with a good honest shoemaker, who had cut his throat in a garret in Russel-street, upon the point of Predestination, which he had heard you handling of for three hours together the very same afternoon, before he could find in his heart to perform the decent execution. Upon serious examination, I found the fellow talk’d very notably of religion; nay, much better than he did of a shoe-soal, or an upper-leather; he had such an assurance of his parts, as to challenge Bunyan the tinker to chop logick with him; and Naylor the quaker, who was of a principle between both, was thought the best qualify’d person in all hell for an impartial moderator; but your nimble chopp’d pupil was as much too cunning for the Pilgrim author, as a fox is for a badger, that at last the shoemaker got his ends, and left the poor tinker without one argument in his budget. By the assistance of this honest cordwainer, (who hearing I had been a minister of the gospel in the other world, was mighty respectful to me) I got acquainted with several others, who had been of your congregation; some old women, who had hang’d themselves in their garters, thro’ fear the lord had not elected them: others, who had waited for a call to heaven till their last dram of patience, as well as their patrimony, were quite exhausted, the first in religious exercises, and the last in holy offerings to you their teacher; and finding very little come of either, they resolv’d the king shou’d lose a poor subject, and yourself a pious communicant; and so by the judicious application of either knife or halter, convey’d themselves thro’ death to these infernal shades, which they always liv’d in dread of, but not finding the climate so terribly hot on this side Styx, as you have often represented it, they rest well satisfy’d in their conditions, and all heartily present their humble service to you, hoping with myself, you will always stick close to your old doctrine, and labour hard to support and infuse into your followers, the true enthusiastick principles of Fanaticism, and you need not question but to wallow in the pleasures{211} of human life whilst above board, and be doubly damn’d hereafter among us for the signal services you have done to the sable protector of these populous territories, which can never want recruits, whilst there is a Burgess in the upper world, and a Lucifer in the lower one.

Daniel Burgess’s Answer to Hugh Peters.

I Receiv’d your insolent epistle with no small dissatisfaction, and had you not inform’d me, I should have guess’d it came from hell, and that none but the devil, besides yourself, could have digitis’d a pen after so scurrillous a manner: how I came to be your brother, as you are pleas’d very sawcily to call me, I can’t tell, for thou wer’t no more than a meer pulpit merry-andrew, fit only to jest poor ignorant wenches out of their bodkins and thimbles, and I, Daniel Burgess am known thro’ all England to be a reverend teacher of the good word the gospel, and a saver of souls by the means of grace, and the help of mercy.

’Tis true, I cannot but acknowledge that you were a serviceable agent in the promotion of the good old cause; but when you came to die a martyr for it, the whimsical fear of damnation so disturb’d your fly-blown brains, that a dog hang’d by a cleanly housewife for dropping a sirreverence in a room new wash’d, or a cat condemn’d to the same punishment for licking up the childrens milk, were never certainly such a scandal to a halter, as thy frantick self. When like a true teacher of spiritual dissention, thou should’st have glory’d in all the past actions of thy life, that had the least tendency to the pulling down of that papistical government, that whore of Babylon, monarchy, and setting up in its stead, that wholesome and inseparable twins, presbytery and a commonwealth; you hasten’d on your own damnation by foolish fear and cowardly repentance, and shew’d fifty times more distraction than a horn-mad cuckold, that had catch’d his wife playing at flipflap with her tail like a live flownder in a frying-pan.{212}

As for that woolen jack-a-dandy, that fed his family by the product of a sheeps-back, that unrighteous tell-tail rogue, that us’d to curse his wife for being godly, if ever you will do me a piece of good service in your damnable country, I beg you to entreat Lucifer on my behalf, to freeze him once a day into a cake of ice, and then thaw him without mercy, in one of his hottest hell-kettles; or let him be flogg’d three times a day by your old master, worse than Titus Oates, or brother Johnson, for he’s as rank a cavalier as ever had the impudence to spit in a round-head’s face, or speak treason against the rump-parliament; and tell him, tho’ he made me pay for the cloth, given me as a just reward of my pastoral care of his wife’s immortality, yet she had the christian gratitude, to make me doubly amends before a fortnight was expir’d; but how the donor came by the benefit she bestow’d, I thought was a little ungrateful for the receiver to enquire into, and unbecoming a minister of the word, bearing my figure and character.

As for the sorry wretches you mention, who by the virtue and efficacy of my doctrine, took a by-path into the other world, that happen’d to lead ’em into your territories: I must tell you, they were such a parcel of scoundrels, whose diminutive souls I look’d upon to be meer trumpery, damag’d goods, not worthy their freight, fit for nothing but to be thrown over-board; poor tatter’d scraps of immortality crouded into skins, each of less value than a hog’s-pudding. Lucifer himself, I’m sure, should he wage new war with heaven, would not have given three-pence a-piece to have lifted them into his service, they would not have been fit for so much as powder-monkeys, to have handed fire and brimstone after the army; for my part, I wonder now you have got ’em, how you bestow ’em, or what use the devil can put ’em to; I protest when they were living upon earth, I found them such needy communicants, I thought them fitter to be confin’d within the narrow limits of some old alms-house for subsistance, there to read and practise Mr. Tryon’s water-gruel directory, and enjoy the charitable income of three-half-pence a day, settled by some old rogue who had cheated the world of thousands, and hopes to make an atonement by starving perhaps twenty old wo{213}men every year in his little row of charity pigeon-holes, endow’d with nine-pence per week, and a thimbleful of coals; as if providing a miserable life for one person, was a sufficient recompence for cheating another: I say, they were fitter to be made close tenants to some such bountiful nest of drawers, than to come like a parcel of thread-bare zealots into a meeting, like bullies into a tavern, without a penny of money in their pockets, and disturb people of good fashion and credit, zealous benefactors to their guide, in the height of their devotion, an intolerable grievance to a pious congregation, that pay well for the assurance of salvation: and if we did not sometimes by the frightful doctrine of non-election and damnation, make these ragamuffin reprobates take up the knife of dispair, and clear the garden of the righteous from those rascally poor weeds who are always sucking juice from the more valuable plants, in a little time the fruitful soil would be so over-run with docks and nettles, that there would be no living for the gardner, whose profits must arise from the products of those trees laden with rich fruit, which for yielding plentifully in due season, become more worthy of his care.

This is the case, and therefore who can blame me for my doctrine, if it should be a means of making two or three garetteers, and as many cellar-divers, by the help of twisted-hemp, or cold iron, forward their journies to the lord knows whither, the world has the less to provide for, and those that are gone have, according to the opinion of our fore-fathers, nothing to care for? So to tell you the truth on’t, I am never without a score of such communicants to spare, and if they were all to be with you before night, I should think it a very comfortable riddance.

I am sorry I have not so much time to abuse you as I could heartily wish I had, for you cannot but be sensible how much you have deserv’d it, and how well qualified I am for such an undertaking, if I had but leisure to exert my talent; and why we of the same function should treat one another scurvily, would be no wonder, because two of a trade can never agree; however I shall reserve my fury till another opportunity, being just now invited to a supper by a devout communicant, whose husband’s in the country, and I am sure she will have provided something{214} worth my nibbling at, which I scorn to lose the benefit of for a piece of revenge: so farewel,

Ludlow the Regicide to the Calves-Head Club.

OF all the villainies perpetrated upon earth, that the greatest rebel could be proud of, or Lucifer blush at, I myself hid so large a share in, that the devil for my hearty sincerity, and trusty management therein, gives me the right-hand, dignify’d and distinguish’d me with the superb title of his elder brother: no man ever gloried more in wickedness than myself, and that which now makes my punishment a pleasure, is to think how nobly I deserved it. Many I know are the treasonable plots and contrivances transacted in the upper world, but never was any magnificent piece of wickedness, or superlative deed of devilism, ever performed with more ostentation and alacrity, than that most impious and audacious act, in which I was so highly concerned, and that the very monarch of hell might have been proud to have had a hand in; to fire churches, commit sacrilege, ravish virgins, murder infants, or spit in the faces of our parents, are trifling sins that a man of my figure in iniquity would be asham’d to be caught in; but to murder the best of princes, and glory in the deed, is such an infernal evil that hell can’t blacken, or earth can’t parallel; a sacred piece of villany becoming only the treachery of a puritan to execute, and the pen and principles of a Tutchin to endeavour to justify.

Lucifer and all his kingdom of hob-gobblins, drink a health to your society every thirtieth of January, in burnt brandy, and are well assur’d the interest of these infernal territories can never sink, as long as there is a Calves-Head Club upon earth, to glory in the remembrance of the worst of villianies; and a whiggish society of reformation, for the better establishment of hypocrisy. We, who had the honour to be his majesty’s judges, or rather as some{215} call us, Regicides, are all mess’d together in an apartment by ourselves, and the murderers of Henry III. and Henry IV. of France are appointed to attend us at our table; and Felton that stabb’d the duke of Buckingham, is our lacquey to run of errands.

In all Lucifer’s extensive dominions, there is not one society so much respected as ourselves, and the greatest villains that ever were upon earth, are by the devil, when they come here, scarce thought wicked enough to wait upon us in the most servile station; the very jesuits themselves known by all the world to value royal blood no more than a Jew does a hog’s-pudding, are not suffer’d to walk within an hundred yards of us; nay, the very dissenting shepherds of that rebellious flock, who always follow’d me as their only bell-weather, are not here thought worthy of our conversation, only now and then a member of our sanctify’d society the Calves-Head Club, drops headlong in among us, and Old Nic indeed appoints them to grind mustard and scrape horse radish for us his well-beloved brethren the Regicides; for you must know ’tis the custom in this sweating climate, for people to deal much in very hot sauces, and that most delicate palate-scorching soop called pepper-pot, a kind of devil’s broth much eat in the West-Indies, is always the first dish brought to our table.

All hell applauds you mightily for your zeal and integrity for the good old cause, and your cordial approbation of the great effects thereof, which you annually show upon every thirtieth of January that derisionary festival, which you keep like the bold sons of confusion, that the true spirit of rebellion may never die, and the dreadful consequences of a damnable reformation may never be forgotten, in which most notable, audacious and courageous piece of insolence, you not only declare yourselves the brave defenders of all king-killing principles, but plainly discover your undaunted souls are ready upon all occasions of the like nature, to solemnly engage in the most startling mischief that hell’s most politick Divan are willing to contrive, or a body of the most resolute infidels in the universe able to perpetrate? this do I speak to your eternal reputation, that Lucifer and all his sable legions have publickly acknowledged their pride and malice, are much{216} out-done by your private assembly, and the expertest devils among all the infernal host, turn pale with envy, and degenerate from their blackness to see their impudence outbrazen’d by a club of mortal puritans? so that I would advise you as a friend, when death, by virtue of his uncontroulable Habeas Corpus, shall remove you to these dusky confines, you will put on a little modesty, tho’ you play the hypocrite, least if you behave yourselves here as you do in the upper world, you shall dash the devil out of countenance.

An Answer by the Calves-Head Club, to Ludlow the Regicide.

WE receiv’d your letter, wherein your hatred to kings is discernable in your stile; you scorn, like ourselves, the flattery of a courtier, and write to your friends in the rough language of a bold soldier, that did not only dare to uncrown, but to unhead a monarch, to advance the authority of the good people of England above sovereign domination, and free them from the bridle of the laws, which are no more in our opinion than a politick restraint upon their natural freedom, an act worthy of so indefatigable a patriot, who would leave no stone unturn’d, that the wrong side of every thing might be rais’d uppermost, and that those who had long against their wills been brought under a compulsive subjection, might once have an opportunity of trampling upon that ambition to which they were once slaves, and of raising up their groveling snouts above that aspiring head, which for many ages had oppress’d millions of mankind by the dint of power eclips’d their native liberty, and crushed them into a slavish obedience.

What ass in the universe would not kick at his master, if he was sure he could knock his head off, and shake off that burthen beneath which he groans, if he was not such a coward to be fearful of a greater? Rebellion is always sanctifyed if it succeeds well, and the end propos’d, obtain’d with safety, always gives glory to the atchieve{217}ment. Authority is only obey’d, because ’tis fear’d; and if once trodden under foot, nothing appears so despicable, as he that mounts a resty steed is counted a good horseman, if he tames the beast; but if the stubborn courser throws his rider, he falls a laughing stock to the glad spectators.

You seem to be truly sensible how much we glory in that act, which ought to be as much your pride, as it is our satisfaction: we reverence the valiant arm that did the deed, and daily signalize our gratitude to the pious memory of those illustrious heroes, who by their undaunted magnanimity brought their unparallell’d undertakings to a hopeful issue, and left behind them such a glorious example, which we shall never neglect to imitate when ourselves have opportunity. We have long hoped for the lucky minute, wherein we might shew the world the strength of our resolutions, and the constancy of our principles, and make those cowardly slaves know, who pretend an abhorrence to your past bravery, that we are the cocks, when we dare crow, that will make the lion tremble; we have at all times when we meet, an ax hung up in our club-room, in pia memoria of your sacred action: but had we the true weapon, as much as we hate popery, we should turn idolaters, and worship it much more than Roman Catholicks do their pictures. We have every thirtieth of January a calves-head feast, in contempt of that head which fell a glorious sacrifice to your justice, over which we drink to the pious memory of Oliver Cromwell; confusion to monarchy; to the downfal of episcopacy; a health to every noble regicide, and to the universal propagation of all king-killing principles; and if these are not meritorious formalities, and decent observances, we know not how to oblige our honest brethren, who are co-habitants with you at such a distance beneath us.

To be accounted rebels and bold villains, does not in any measure make us uneasy; for the believing ourselves otherwise, is a compleat satisfaction to ballance their envy that so think us; besides the pleasure we find in accounting them fools, slaves and cowards, is really more to us than a sufficient recompence: so that by our vilifying our opposites, we deny them opportunity ever to be even with us. The author of the dialogue between Vassal{218} and Freeman, is our secretary; you guess’d his name very right in your letter, and a notable fellow he is either in verse or prose, for the justification of our principles; and is such a desperate tongue-stabbing hero at pro and con, that he clears the house of all people wherever he comes, but those of his own kidney; he vindicates all the proceedings of the High Court of Justice, with such admirable obstinacy and impudence, that the best lawyer in Westminster-hall is not able to cope with him, and justifies the bringing of a king to a scaffold, when the people dislike his stewardship, with so much insolence and arrogance, and drags him to a block, as you would a bear to a stake, with so much decency, that had he liv’d in the happy days when you erected a High Court of Justice, he would have been the fittest man in the universe for two posts under you; First, To have been attorney-general, and then executioner, and would, I am confident, have so strenuously exerted himself in both offices, that he would have gained a double reputation with our godly party. First, For the discharge of the one with the utmost malignancy. And, Secondly, For the dispatch of the other without disguise; for I dare be confident, he has assurance enough to go through-stitch with any thing that the world calls villainy, if we but think it virtue without the fear of shame, or dread of punishment: indeed, had our growing principles at this day but such another champion to defend ’em, I do not question but in a few years we might bring matters to bear, and by downright dint of our own weapon, calumny, make way to play the old game over again, to a far better purpose than has been yet effected. With the great hopes of which we take leave at present, desiring your brother Lucifer upon all occasions to lend us his assistance. So we subscribe ourselves both his and your

From J. Naylor, to his Friends at the Bull and Mouth.

YOU who are the true transcript of the people originally call’d Quakers, may perhaps expect, that I James Naylor in the dark, should commend my hearty love to you my friends in the light, in such like manner as the spirit us’d to dictate to me upon earth, before I unhappily fell under this wonderful transfiguration, which I now am appointed to maintain thro’ the whole course of eternity.

I had no sooner set footing into this deep abyss of midnight, to which the sun, moon and stars are as great strangers, as frost and snow are to the country of Ethiopia, but a parcel of black spiritual janizaries saluted me as intimately as if I had been resident in these parts during the term of an apprenticeship; at last up comes a swindging lusty, over-grown, austre devil, arm’d with an ugly weapon like a country dung fork, looking as sharp about the eyes as a Woodstreet officer, and seem’d to deport himself after such a manner, that discovered he had an ascendency over the rest of the immortal negroes, and, as I imagin’d, so ’twas quickly evident; for as soon as he espied me leering between the diminutive slabbering-bib, and the extensive brims of my cony-wool umbrella, he chucks me under the chin with his ugly toad-colour’d paw, that stunk as bad of brimstone as a card-match new lighted, crying, How now, honest James, I am glad to see thee on this side the river Styx, prithee hold up thy beard, and don’t be asham’d, thou art not the first quaker by many thousands that has sworn allegiance to my government; besides, thou hast been one of my best benefactors upon earth, and now thou shalt see like a grateful devil, I’ll reward thee accordingly: I thank your excellency kindly, said I, pray what is it your infernal protectorship will be pleas’d to confer upon me? To which his mighty ugliness reply’d, friend Naylor, I know thou hast been very industrious to make many people fools in the upper world, which has highly conduc’d to my interest. Then turning to a pigmy aërial, who attended his commands as a run{220}ning footman; haste, Numps, says he, and fetch me the painted coat, which was no sooner brought, but, by Lucifer’s command, I was shov’d into it neck and shoulders, by half a dozen smutty valets de chambre, and in a minute’s time found my self trick’d up in a rainbow-colour’d coat, like a merry-andrew. Now, friend, says the ill-favour’d prince of all the hell-born scoundrels, for the many fools you have made above, I now ordain you mine below; so all the reward, truly, of my great services, was to be made Lucifer’s jester, or fool in ordinary to the devil: a pretty post, thought I, for a man of my principles, that from a quaker in the other world, I should be metamorphosed into a jack-adams in the lower one. I could not but think it a strange kind of mutation, and knew no more how to behave myself in my gaudy-colour’d robes, than if I had been damn’d, and cramm’d into a tortoise-shell, and must have walk’d about hell upon all fours with a house upon my back.

In a little time after this new dignity was conferr’d upon me, the devil happen’d to make a splendid entertainment for all the souls in his dominion, who in the upper world had been profess’d Quakers, where I, quoth the fool, was ordered to give my attendance for the diversion of the company, but found myself so strangely disappointed when I beheld the guests, that had I been messed in Noah’s ark among lyons, bears, and alligators, I could not have been more amaz’d than I was at the unexpected appearance and deportment of such a confus’d assembly: my master Lucifer, and Ramsey the jesuit at his right hand, sat at the upper end of the table, and the rest of the scrambling company were seated like so many hungry mechanicks at a corporation-feast; but instead of their conversation being Yea and Nay, there never was heard such swearing and cursing at a publick gaming-table, nor all the points of copulation more lewdly discuss’d at a bawdy-house; blasphemy was the modestest of their talk, and there I came in with ’em for a fool’s share, and exerted my talent to the approbation and applause of the whole society.

Observing such a wonderful change in these our infernal friends, from what they appeared to be in the upper world, made my curiosity itch mightily to know the rea{221}son of this surprising alteration; upon which, said I, prithee Lucifer, in plain words, (for we fools you must know may say any thing to our masters) what is the meaning that these people who were quondam quakers when upon terra firma, should turn such debauch’d libertines in these lower regions, and from the most religious and precise of all hypocritical heaven-servers, to become the most degenerate reprobates in all your damnable dominions? I’ll tell you, says Lucifer, the reason; always those that pretended to the greatest purity in the other world, put on the cloak of religion, not to save their souls but to hide their vices, as some women wear masks, not to preserve their beauty, but to hide their ugliness; and when that veil is taken away which obscur’d the sinfulness of their natures, or when opportunity gives them leave to be wicked without damage to their interest (as they may here) you see how loose and wanton the most zealous of both sexes will be, notwithstanding all the external promises of piety and vertue. These words, tho’ they came from the father of lies, yet their satirical force gave me such a stab in the conscience, that had my label of mortality been stung by a wasp or a hornet, it could not have griev’d the outward man more, than this diabolical saying did the inward; and knowing by experience it savour’d of a little truth, I thought I could do no more than communicate his answer to you my friends, who are lovers of verity, from whence you may discern with half an eye, that Satan understands you as well as he does the college of Jesuits, or a Dutch conventicle, and if you take not timely care, will certainly prove too cunning for you.

Perhaps you will think me a very imperfect intelligencer, to tell you of a feast, and give you no account of the provisions, or what sort food the devil in his sultry dominions entertains his friends withal; therefore in the next place I shall venture to give you a bill of fare, that you may know at present what you may expect hereafter, lest otherwise I should leave your curiosities unsatisfied, and keep you ignorant of those avernous dainties by which immortality is here subsisted.

The first course consisted of a huge platterful of scorpions spits-cock’d, a fricassee of young salamanders, a bailiff’s rump roasted, baisted with its own dung, and a cock phœ{222}nix scalded in his feathers, smother’d with melted soap and boil’d arsnick; these were gross, substantial meats, design’d chiefly for keen appetites. The second course contain’d six dozen of West-India gwanas roasted in their own shells, a dish of squab-hickaries poach’d, a brace of flying dragons stew’d in their own blood, and a dish of shovel-nos’d sharks fry’d with a leviathan in the middle, toss’d up with what’s as good for a sow as a pancake; these were dainties that could not but be acceptable to the most squeamish stomachs; but now for rarities that must please the gust of an emperor. The third and last course consisted of such spiritual nutriment, that the nicest palated soul on this side the adamantine gates, without a surfeit, might subsist on to all eternity, which was serv’d up to the table, in much greater order than any of the foregoing part of the entertainment. In the first place, a dish of metaphysical curds, swimming in the cream of eloquence, was brought to the upper end of the table, by a devil in a long gown, upon which piece of cookery Lucifer and the Jesuit fed very heartily. In the next place a dish of pickl’d enthusiasms well pepper’d with obstinancy, and cover’d with the vinegar of dissention, was handed to the board by a meagre-fac’d devil in a little band and long cloak, which by abundance of the company was highly approv’d on. The third dish was a mess of melancholy humdrums, mix’d with sobs and sighs, and garnish’d round with blasphemy and nonsense, serv’d up with a she devil in querpo-hood and green apron, which the whole assembly in general commended, and devour’d as greedily as a gang of Welsh drovers would do a mess of leek-porridge, or a dish of cows bubby. When every soul had fed plentifully, and refresh’d his immortality with a chearful dose of spirit of sulphur, I, quoth the fool, for the jest’s sake, was appointed to say grace after meat; and when I had discharg’d the office of a chaplain, as comical as I could, the guests stagger’d away like so many fluster’d long tails from a Kentish feast, and so the solemnity was ended.

I have little more news to communicate from these parts, only that within these few months, we have had five or six thousand diabolical spirits, return’d from their embassies in the upper world, who were many years since commanded thither by prince Lucifer, to the assistance and further{223} establishment of our party and opinion, and had every one of them possess’d themselves of good quarters, and lay snug in the bosoms of our sanctified friends, but reported when they came back, that an old trout-back apostate, who lately fell from quakerism to the church, arming himself cap-a-pee with the armour of truth, took up the sword of the gospel, and by downright dint of scripture and sound reason, made so large a conquest over Satan’s subjects, that the devils were forc’d to quit their possessions, and leave great numbers of our friends to the mercy of G——d and their ecclesiastical enemies; but fresh recruits are daily sent among you from these infernal territories, hoping in a little time to recover our lost interest.

I would have troubled you a little further, but that Lucifer being put in a merry mood by the pleasing news of your European Differences, has order’d all his jesters to be in waiting, and you know, all princes upon publick rejoycings at court, must have their fools as well as knaves, to attend ’em: so farewel.

The Quakers Answer to James Naylor.

THY friends are all very much afflicted to hear that Satan the father of the wicked, has laid violent hands upon thee, and has drawn thee out of the light into the land of utter darkness; if the dross of the world, that ungodly mammon, which tempts the unwary often into the sins of the flesh and many other iniquities, would redeem thee from thy woful prison, where nothing is to be heard but weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, we would lend thee our assistance with all our hearts; but the spirit within us has declar’d the truth, and told us, that thy unmerciful jaylor will take no bribe or bail, and that the debt thou art in for, the world cannot pay, and therefore we all fear thou art trapann’d into a loathsome gaol from whence there is no redemption. We thought the many persecutions thou underwent’st for the l—d’s sake in this world, (viz.) as peeping thro’ the yoak of infamy, and losing thy two members of attention. Secondly, for hug{224}ging the vagabonds land-mark against the will of the spirit, and undergoing the rod of correction. And, Thirdly, for suffering the clack of the spirit to be bored thro’ with a hot wimble, for warranting thyself to be the true son of thy father, would have been merits sufficient to have rais’d thee upon the pinnacle of mount Sion, and there to have fixed thee as a standing evidence of the truth to all eternity; but since the spirit within thee prov’d a lying spirit, that extinguished the light, and led thee like a blind guide into the dark ways of destruction; we that were the followers of thy false glimmerings, must forsake the errors, and seek the lord by a more perfect illumination, for the false fading jack-a-lanthorn which thou leftest among us, is burn’d into the socket, and now stinks in the nostrils of the righteous, far worse than the dying snuff of a cotton-candle; besides, what spiritual pilgrim in his progress to the land of the living, would follow a wicked Will-with-a-wisp, who has led a friend before into dark ways, and there left him to grope among the filthiness of sin and pricks of conscience to all eternity? no, if we follow thy ways, we shall err like stray’d sheep, and be pounded by Satan for wand’ring into the paths of the wicked.

That the father of lies, upon thy first entrance into his wicked habitation, should put thee into a fool’s jacket, we do not much wonder, for the painted marks of folly are Satan’s gay livery, with which he cloaths his wicked servants in this world as well as in his dominions; for didst thou ever behold on earth the sons of darkness, who follow the lust of the flesh, and delight in those pomps and vanities which the inward man forbids our frail natures to pursue, but they always were distinguish’d by some gaudy badge, which discovered their pride, or other infirmities? do not the high-priests of Baal wear lawn coversluts, and their head journeymen red pokes upon their backs? do not flatterers of princes wear badges on their breasts, and adorn their spindle-shanks with glittering gimcracks? do not their lazy slaves wear blue and yellow, that the world may know whose fools they are? do not the blessers of their food wear silken ornaments dangling from their proud necks to their ancles, that the publick may mistake them to be wiser than their neighbours? do not the captains of the host hoop their loins with golden sashes, and stick{225} feathers in their caps to fright their foes with their finery? do not judges wear gowns of a crimson die, and the great men of the law wear the skull-caps of knavery, with the edges tipp’d with innocence, to deceive the vulgar? do not physicians ride in coaches with the weapons of destruction ty’d dangling at their arses, as it they were hurrying on a full trot to kill and not recover their patients? do not haughty vintners hypocritically tye on their blue ensigns of humility, to cozen their customers into an opinion of their lowliness? do not whoremongers and adulterers thatch their empty noddles with whole thickets of whores-hair? and do not wanton women wear turrets on their heads, and cover their tails with the bowels of the silk-worms? do not drunkards wear red noses, knaves hawks eyes, and liars impudent faces? in short, friend Naylor, most people upon earth have some badge or other of Satan’s livery; even kings themselves wear purple, and the whores of Babylon scarlet; therefore our friends are all of one opinion, that since thou departed’st so far from the light, as to suffer wicked Satan to decoy thee into his trapsoul of eternal darkness, he has done thee but justice to put thee into a fool’s coat, that every time thou art thoughtful of thy miserable confinement, thou may’st look upon thy party-coloured livery, and cry with a pitiful voice, alas, what a fool am I! which is all the comfort thy friends who are sorrowful for thy condition, are able to administer unto thee at this immensurable distance.

We are very glad to here that Satan is no niggard in his family, but like a generous host, provides so plentiful a table for his numerous guests: we thy Friends upon earth, have taken his infernal food into our serious consideration, and have resolv’d, nemine contradicente, to lead a starving life upon earth, rather than enter his palace-gate to be beholden to him for a dinner. We shew’d thy bill of fare to our friend Roberts, at the White hart in Chancery-lane, approv’d by the wicked men of the law, who love to profane their stomachs with fine feeding, to be as nice a gratifier of luxurious palates as ever handled ladle; and he declareth for truth, by the motion of the spirit, that tho’ he has often roasted a cod’s-head larded with bacon without tying it upon the spit, boil’d a pound of butter stuff’d with anchovies without melting it, grillia{226}do’d jelly of harts-horn without dissolving it, fry’d a jackboot into incomparable tripe, stew’d pebble-stones till they have become as soft as stew’d prunes, and has made good savoury sauce with an addled egg and kitchin-stuff, yet he acknowledges himself wholly ignorant how to dress any one dish thou hast mentioned in the catalogue of thy dainties, and therefore desires thou wilt do him the friendly kindness to acquaint us in the next letter, what sort of cook Satan has got in his kitchin; and if he be a friend, whether thou think’st our friend Coquus’s wife mayn’t be admitted as his scullion, in case she would become a servant in thy master’s family, for she is grown so peevish, he is willing to part with her. So hoping thou wilt give us an account the next opportunity, we rest thy, Loving Friends.

From Lilly to Cooley the Almanack-maker in Baldwin’s-Gardens.

EVER since I took a trip into this lower world, and left you (by the help of Moon-groaping and Star-fumbling) to project almanacks, predict prodigies, and conjure up lost spoons, stoln good, and stray’d cattle, I have had no opportunity of paying my respects to you, till now, for ’tis so abominably up hill from our world to yours, that none but the devil himself is able to climb it, he being forced to creep upon all-four, like a squirrel up a nut-tree, all the way of his journey; and had I sent a letter by his cloven-footed worship, I was fearful you would not have thought him, at your years, a proper messenger. I hear, since I left you, you are grown as grey as a badger, and that you are approv’d by all cook-maids, porters-wives and basket-women, to be the most eminent bodkin and thimble-hunter of all the Ptolemeans in the town, and by the help of the twelve heavenly houses and their seven twinkling inhabitants, not only undertake, but make wonderful discoveries. Flat-caps and blue-aprons, I hear haunt your door every morning, as hawkers do a publisher’s, or journeymen-taylors a Smithfield cook’s at noon, some for a sixpenny, and some a twelvepenny slice of your Astrological judgment, of which, to show your honesty to the world, you give them such lumping pennyworths, that you{227} have made the noble science of Heaven-peeping as cheap to the publick, as boil’d tripe in Fee-lane, or bak’d sheeps-head in your own element Baldwin’s-gardens. I am joyful to hear you are grown so great a proficient in the celestial gimcracks; but indeed, when I first knew you a joyner at Oxford, that us’d to make cedar cases for close-stool pans, I thought you as ingenious a mechanick in your way, as he that invented a mouse-trap or a nut-cracker, but little thought then, you would have laid down the plane and the hand-saw, of which you were an absolute master, to take up Albumazar’s weapons, the celestial globe and compasses, to which you were a mere stranger: but however, Astrology being a kind of liberal science all men I know are free to dive into the mystery, from the whimsey headed scholar, to the strolling tinker; therefore your leather-apron and glue-pot are no disparagement to your pursuit of the seven wandring informers, any more than it is a scandal to a mountebank to be first a fool, and then a travelling physician. Gadbury we know was no more than a country botcher, before he was admitted as a tenant into the twelve houses; and Partridge was no more than a London cobler, before he was made running footman to the seven planets; yet both these students in Astrology have arriv’d, I hear, to as great an eminency in their heavenly profession, as ever was acquired by the famed Dr. Saffold, or his successor Case, by long study and experience, in the noble arts of Poetry and Physick. Therefore why may not that spurious issue of a Carpenter call’d a Joiner, make as legitimate an Astrologer, as profound a Conjurer, as infallible a Fortune-teller, as the best of them; nay better, if he knows but to use his tongue like a smoothing-plane, and can take down the roughness of some peoples incredulity, then may he work them as he does his deal-boards, till he has glu’d or nail’d them fast to his own interest. These are the talents for which I hear you are famous above other Astrologers, and that by downright dint of craft, pout and banter, you have wheedled more money in your time out of chamber-maids, cook-wenches, old bawds, midwives, nurses, and young strumpets, than ever was got by the rug and leather, luck in a bag, or that in most excellent juggle on the cards, call’d preaching the parson: nay if all the gains that you have made of these three profitable inventions were to be join’d together; besides a whole{228} mustard-pot full of broad-pieces, a drudging-box full of guineas, a meal-tub full of crowns and half crowns, and an old powdering-tub full of shillings and sixpences, which lie parcel’d up in your own house, I hear that you have several hundreds of pounds in the Stationers company, which, besides the interest of the money, entitles you every year to four good dinners in the hall, as many noddles full of rare claret, and four pockets full of venison-pasty for your female deputy, who is said to be a notable understrapper to you in the business of Astrology, and is of as much service to you as a second to a merry-andrew, for without the one, the other could do nothing.

I cannot but highly approve of the method I observe in your almanacks, for since you write every year four, i. e. three in other persons names, and one in your own, you have wisely projected a way to be infallibly right in your predictions of the weather, which are commonly varied under no more than four several denominations in any one of the four seasons; so that by making your prognostications in every almanack different, one must certainly tell right, and by keeping all four in your pocket, which I am inform’d you have cunning enough to take care of, by plucking out that which you know is agreeable and falls right, declaring yourself to be the author, you gain reputation, and by this juggle make some fools in your company believe that you have the stars at more command, than a Haberdasher of dead bodies has his linkmen at a funeral. This piece of cunning none of the celestial fraternity can justly blame you for, every artist well knowing a juggler and an astrologer are as inseperable companions as a bawd and a midwife, or a lawyer and a knave, for either without the other, like an adjective without a substantive, would be unable to stand by himself.

Of all the almanacks that are extant, none are so valuable in these subterranean regions as your own; few hawkers travel into these parts but they bring whole baskets full along with them, and the cry of Cooley’s almanack for two months in the year, is as universally bawl’d about hell’s metropolis, as mackrel among you when they come to be six a groat, or Chichester lobsters when they stink at midsummer. Of all the almanacks brought among us, prince Lucifer gives yours the preference and never goes without one in his pocket, to put him in mind of an Holy Rood day, that his devilship{229} may not lose his nutting time. Your last English merlin but one, wanted of the four cardinal points, for which piece of forgetfulness, the devil in a great rage cry’d he ow’d you a shame, and I was since inform’d, that one of our infernal plenipotentiaries upon earth discharg’d his master’s promise in a short time after, at the Darby alehouse in Fulwood’s rents; by the same token, the liquor had so eclips’d your distinguishing faculties, that instead of a tankard of warm ale, that stood by you, you took hold of the candlestick, and in a drinking posture convey’d the lighted candle to your mouth, the taste of which was so intolerable to your lips, that you flung it away in a great passion, believing ’twas the tankard of drink, and swore the bitch of a wench had made it so scalding hot there was no drinking it. This unhappy accident occasion’d some ill-natur’d people to reflect on you, and say, how should you know a star from a kite-lanthorn, that could not distinguish between a tankard of warm ale and a lighted candle?

I have no news from these parts that can be welcome to a man of your gravity and profession. As for astrologers, they are no more regarded in this kingdom, than an honest man in your world, or a modest woman in a theatre, for the best employment that most of them aspire to here, is to carry a closestool-pan upon their back after a quack-doctor, which savory receptacle being put in a square case, makes our fraternity look like so many raree-show men loaded with their boxes of dancing baubles.

I must confess, doctor Saffold, that famous student in physick, poetry and astrology, whose verse was as good an emetick, as his pills were a purge, being Lucifer’s peculiar favourite, was advanc’d to the dignity of being flea catcher to his royal consort; but the other day had like to have lost his place, by chasing one of his lady’s little enemies into her mount of Venus, and beating the bush to start the game, was so wonderfully pleas’d at the pastime, that the old fool could not forbear laughing, which ill manners so inflam’d the infernal duchess, that she vow’d, except he would down on his knees and kiss what he laugh’d at, she would never forgive him; upon which the poor doctor was forc’d to join beards, or else would have been turned out, to his eternal shame as well as misery.{230}

Albumazar and Ptolomy are set up like the two loggerheads at St. Dunstan’s church, and once in an hundred years they strike upon an huge bell the number of the centuries from the fall of Lucifer, that the devils and the damn’d may know how eternity passes; for you must imagine, as a quarter of an hour is to the time of your world, so is an hundred years to the eternity of ours, every watch goes here at least ten thousand years with but one winding up, for their movements, like our form and substance, are all spiritual, and the worst artist we have among us, your Fleetstreet Tompion is but a mere blacksmith to; as for my own part, I trudg’d for the first six months after Dr. Ponteus, with a steeple-crown’d conveniency, as I mentioned before, but having always such a stink of devil’s-dung in my nostrils, I petitioned for a remove, and was admitted to be a yeoman of the bason to Lucifer’s cloven-hoofs, to pick, wash, and refresh them after his return from earth, which he visits very often for the preservation of his interest in the upper world; and the worst inconveniency I find is, that his worship’s feet smell worse after much walking than a sweating negro’s.

But, however, my old friend, let not this discourse discourage you from venturing to come among us, or frighten you into a repentance of your frauds and subtilties, that may carry you another way; for a man of your merits, learn’d in Astrology from the very nose of the great bear, to the extreme point of the dragon’s tail, and skilful in the Mathematicks, from the mensuration of a surface to the most profound nicety in solid Geometry, need not question, but that your old acquaintance and assistant Satan, who has faithfully stood by you upon all occasions, will bestow some reputable post upon you, answerable to the gravity and skill of so understanding a wiseacre, to whom I subscribe my self a loving friend and brother Philomat.

Cooley’s Answer to Lilly.

I WOULD have you to know, I am not so far in my dotage, but I have reason enough left plainly to discern I am very much affronted in your ironical letter: as for my part, Mr. mean it as you please, I take it in good earnest, for it is not{231} consistent with my temper and gravity at these years, to like such unmannerly jesting. Time was, I was a young fellow, that would have scolded with a butter-whore, box’d a carman, or have scribled scurrilously with any Lilly in the universe; but, alas! when a man has liv’d in this world to the age of near seventy, and has had familiar conversation with all the foolish women in the town, puzzled his brains with more angles, circles, squares, pentagons, hexagons, heptagons, and parallellopipedons, &c. than ever has been yet found in that most famous introduction to the mathematicks, call’d Euclid’s Gimcracks, pour’d as much Derby ale thro’ his guts every year as would have fill’d the great fatt at Heidelburg, and metamorphosed as much tobacco into smoak every month, as would have put a whole county into a mist; I think ’tis high time for a man to have done with discord, and begin to compose himself into a little harmony; therefore I take it ill you should attack me in my old age, especially when you have Hell on your side, and the devil and all to help you.

What, tho’ I was a joiner at Oxford, and once to shew myself a good workman, made a cedar close-stool case for the dean of Christ-Church, I question not but one time or other for the excellency of its work, it will be carried into the library, and be there preserv’d as a monument of its maker’s glory to all succeeding ages, when you will have no remains to put the world in mind of you, but your old conjuring countenance, painted upon a sign, and hung up over Black-friers gateway, subscribed with a little paultry poetry, fit for no body’s reading but a parcel of country hobbies, who have left the plow and the flayl, to come up to London to be cozen’d out of the fruits of their labour. It is well known, I was born and educated in a learned air, and tho’ a man be bred a cobler in that climate, he cannot help being a scholar, if he but furnish’d with as much brains as will fill a cockleshell. I confess, I have not had the honour to be entered of a college, yet by my own chamber-study, without a tutor, having a good natural genius, I could tell you how many parts of speech there were, by that time I was eighteen years of age; and I will appeal to the world, who may judge by my conversation, whether I have not made a wonderful advancement within these 50 years, insomuch that you may see I dare write Philomath, in the very title page of my almanack; and{232} therefore, Mr. am not to be banter’d at these years. You have the confidence, in several parts of your letter to call me conjurer, tho’ I must tell you, Mr. by the way, you are the first person that ever thought me so. ’Tis true, I do sometimes when I am well paid for it, erect a scheme in search of lost goods, or stray’d cattle, and do presume secundum artem, to send the querent east, west, north, or south, a mile or two distance from the loser’s house, to search within six doors of the sign of the four-footed beast, and if they cannot find the thief one way, I can send them as far another for a new fee; and all this I can justify by the rules of Astrology as well as any man; but must an artist for this be called a conjurer, and by a person too who has been a professor of the same science? Indeed, old acquaintance, I take it very unkindly, because you yourself must needs know we are honest men that deserve no such character. As for my mistaking the lighted candle for a tankard of hot ale, I remember nothing of the matter; but Bacchus tho’ he be no planet, yet all men know he has a great ascendency over us mortals, and what he might influence me to do, when the light of reason, by which we see to distinguish, was eclipsed, I know not; but I am morally sure, when my senses are about me I am not easily to be so deceived; for I presume to know a pig from a dog, or the difference between a Thing and cartwheel, as well as Ptolomy himself were he now living.

You say, to my reputation, that my almanacks sell beyond any body’s in your subterranean country, and that Lucifer himself is never without one in his pocket: I am very glad to hear he is so much my friend, as to give mine the preference, and for his civility intend to send him one next year well gilt on the back, and bound up in calves-leather, by the hand of some friend or other, that shall swim in Derby ale to the very gates of his palace; such a wet soul that shall be as welcome as a shower of rain to your drowthy dominions. The pleasing news you have sent me is, that my works are so vendible in your parts, for I assure you, upon your intelligence, I shall raise the price of my copy the next year; for if my almanacks sell as well in hell as they do upon earth, I am sure the company of Stationers must get the devil and all by them. So I rest yours between enmity and friendship.

From Tony Lee to Cave Underhill.

COnsidering how often you have jested in the grave to please Betterton prince of Denmark, I wonder the grave by this day has not been in earnest with you, that in process of time, when the churchyard vermin have feasted themselves upon your cadaver, your own scull may become a jest to some other grave-digger. I must confess when I left you, you were a sociable sort of a drunkard, and pretty little peddling sort of a whoremaster, but I hear since, you have droop’d within a few years into such a dispirited condition, that ’tis as much as a plentiful dose of the best canary can do to remove the hyppocon for a few minutes, that you may entertain your friends with a little of your comick humour, grac’d with that agreeable smile that has always rendered what you say delightful, and that it is not in the subtile power of intoxicating Nantz to add new life to that decay’d member, which has in a manner taken leave of this world before the rest of your body; you have so often been used to a grave in your life-time, that I think you never wanted a memento mori to put you in mind of mortality: death sure can be no surprize to a merry mortal, who has so often jested with him upon the stage, and and I long to hear when the grinning skeleton shall shake you by the hand, and say, Come, old duke Trinculo, thy last sands are running, thy ultimate moment is at hand, and the worms are gaping for thee. What a jocular answer you will make to the thin-jaw’d executioner, for every comedian ought to die with a jest in his mouth to preserve his memory, for if he makes not the audience laugh as he goes off the stage, he forfeits his character, and his fame dies with his body; therefore I would advise you to set your wits on work to prepare yourself, that as you have always liv’d by repeating other peoples wit, you may not make your exit like a fool, but show you have some remains of your own juvenile sparklings to oblige the world with at your last minute.

I hear the effects of your debaucheries are tumbled into your pedestals, and make you walk with as much delibera{234}tion as Mr. Cant preaches; when a man is once so founder’d by the iniquity of his life, that his full speed is no faster than a snail’s gallop, and that his memory and his members both equally fail him, it is full time that he was travell’d to his journey’s end; for with what comfort can a man live in the world when it is grown weary of him? young men I know look upon you as superannuated, and had rather see a death’s-head and an hour-glass in their company, than see you make wry faces at your rheumatick twitches, or hear you banter upon your old gouty pains, and the past causes thereof between jest and earnest. When a man once comes to answer a bawdy question over the bottle silently, that is, with a feign’d simper and a shake of the head, no body cares a fart for him, he is good for nothing at those years, but, like Solomon’s proverbs, to let young men foresee that worldly pleasures, when they come to be old, are but vanity and vexation of spirit; and to stir up young women to despise the impotency of old age, which their fumbling fathers in vain admonish them to reverence. A young comedian is apt to make every body his jest; but when arriv’d at your years, himself becomes a jest to every body. Youth gives an air to wit that renders it delightful, but for an old man to pretend to talk wisely, is like a musician’s endeavouring to fumble out a fine sonata upon a wind-broach, tho’ the time be good, the instrument is imperfect, and the organs want that sound which should give a grace to the harmony. Some men at sixty, are apt to flatter themselves in publick under the imbecilities of nature, and will boastingly say, they can do every thing as well as they could at thirty; but experienced women, who are the best judges of human decay, are too sensible of their error, and, if modesty would give ’em leave, could easily demonstrate the difference. I thank my stars, I knew not by experience the winter of old age, but made my exit in the beginning of my autumn; but yet I found what nature at midsummer esteem’d a pleasure, was even then become a drudgery; and what used to be a refreshment to life, was found but a slavish exercise to the body; therefore I heartily pity your impotent condition, who has near twenty years surviv’d your grand climateric, till thou art forc’d to crawl about the world with a load of diseas’d flesh upon thy back, and art no less than a sumpter{235}-horse to thy own infirmities. Methinks I see thee creeping upon the surface of the earth, upon a feeble pair of gouty supporters, thy loins swath’d up in flannel, leaning upon a crutch-head cane, and bending towards thy mother earth, who catches thee at every stumble, sometimes reflecting on the past pleasures of human life, and sometimes looking forward with imperfect eyes, towards the doubtful state of immortality, grinning as you walk at the gaiety of youth, and snarling in thy thoughts at those delights the weakness of thy age has put thee past enjoying; pursuing only that pleasure, which tho’ thy youth made vicious, is in age become thy support; that is, the bottle, which in thy younger days was oft made nauseous by excess; but wise experience now has taught thee sure to make the darling comfortable by a seasonable moderation: methinks I see thee use it now with caution, as if you hop’d by every glass you drank, to strengthen nature’s union, and keep your soul and body still from separation.

The ghost of a comedian in these shades is but an useless piece of immortality, for all the entertainments upon the stages of our infernal theatres are very tragical, no smile, no merry looks, or monky gestures us’d by your merry-andrews upon earth to provoke your listning audience to a laughter, are fashionable in these parts. If you intend to come among us, you must learn to howl, to grin, and gnash your teeth, unless you can make yourself so compleat a philosopher as to laugh at your own misery. Horror, darkness, and despair o’erspread the whole dominion, and our tyrannical prince is never better pleas’d than when he sees his subjects the most miserable. As for my part, as merry a representative of some foolish plebeian as I was in the upper world, I cannot in these melancholy grottos for the heart of me, frame so much as one chearful conceit to mitigate those torments, which by virtue of our diabolical laws are perpetually inflicted upon me: therefore those who betake themselves to these regions ought to arm themselves with abundance of resolution; for whoever flinches beneath their pains, do but encrease their punishment, for which reason I advise you to consider what you have to trust to, if your journey be downwards; and if you find it in your power, to divert your coming hither with prayers and tears to heaven, or else I must tell you{236} in good earnest, you may jest on as I did, till you die and be damn’d like your humble servant,

Cave Underhill’s Answer to Tony Lee.

WHen I first read your letter, as merry as the world thinks me, I was struck with such a terrible tremulation, that it was as much as three gulps of my brandy-bottle could do to put my chill’d blood into its regular motion; I had no sooner recover’d myself, but thinking of death and the devil, which I had scarce done in sixty years before, I fell into such an extravagant fit of praying, that if any body had heard me, they would sooner have guess’d me, by the length of my devotion, to have been a Presbyterian parson than duke Trinculo the comedian; it was the first time that ever I found myself in earnest in my life, and I was suddenly sensible of so vast a difference betwixt that and jesting, that I believe for a whole hour together I was chang’d from an old comical merry-andrew, into a new sorrowful penitent and was I to con over your letter but once in a day, I believe it would go near to fright me into abundance of religion, which we players, you are sensible, seldom or never think on, except we are put in mind on’t by some extraordinary accident; and the main reason I believe why we are not over-burthen’d with zeal, is our drolling upon the clergy, by representing Mr. Spintext the preacher, or Mr. Lovelady the chaplain, after a ridiculous manner for the loose audience to laugh at; which we repeat so often, till at last we are apt to fancy religion as well as the teachers of it, to be really no more than what we make them, that is, a meer jest, and worthy only to be smil’d at and not to be listen’d to.

Certainly you have a very good intelligence in your world, of the circumstances of us who dwell above you, or else you are the devil of a guesser, for you seem in your letter, to have as true a sense of my condition as if you were an eye-witness of it; for to tell you the truth on it, I find all the members of my body in such a fumbling condition, that I begin to think of a leap in the dark,{237} and to wonder what in a little time will become of me; the people are still pleas’d to see me crawl upon the stage; indeed the shuffling pace that age and decay hath brought me to, makes the audience as merry as if it were a counterfeit gesture to provoke laughter; but, i’faith, brother Tony, that which makes them glad makes me sad, insomuch, that my heart has aked every time these five years, when I have play’d the sexton in Hamlet, for fear when I am once got into the grave, the grim tyrant should give me a turn over the perch, and keep me there for jesting with mortality.

Nature, which finds herself declining in me, is so greedy of new breath, that I gape as I crawl for the benefit of the fresh air, as if I was jaw-fallen, and those humming insects that are a pestiferous calamity this hot weather to all cooks-shops and sugar-bakers, are so unmannerly, that they fly over those few palisadoes of my breathing-hole that are left, and dung t’other side the pails, as if they took my mouth for a house of office; nay, sometimes in creeping along the length of a street, I have had my tongue so fly-blown, that had I not gone into a tavern and wash’d them off with a pint of canary, I don’t know, but my whole head might have been as full of maggots in a little time, as a sheep’s arse at Midsummer.

I find the greatest curse of my old age is, my desire surviving my capacity, for I protest, my inclinations are as youthful as ever, tho’ my ability is quite superannuated.

I am just now entring into a fit of the gout, which so terrifies me, that I pray one half minute, and curse the other, like a true bred seaman in a storm, therefore am forc’d to break off, blood and wounds, abruptly.

From Alderman Blackwell to Sir Charles Duncombe.

HEaring what a noisy reputation you have acquir’d within the walls of England’s metropolis, and what{238} a popular rumble your politick generosity makes over the heads of us, out of whose ruins you have, true citizen like, erected your own welfare, I could no longer forbear putting you in mind of some of your former managements, left some rakehelly rhime-tagger or other, should flatter you to believe you have honesty and integrity enough to qualify you for a bishop; I took you a meer bumkin, and taught you your trade for a basket of turky-eggs, and therefore it highly concerns your prudence to consider the obligation you lie under of carrying yourself to the world with all humility, tho’ aspir’d to the very pinnacle of prosperity, since the first cause of your advancement dropp’d out of the fundament of a turkey: the eggs, as an argument of their being new laid, I remember were besmeared with excrementitious tokens of good luck, which make me fancy, when I received them, they were beshitten omens of your future fortune, in whose behalf they were presented me.

Birds have often shew’d their tenderness and compassion to mankind: eagles have preserv’d infants in their nests, who have afterwards become singularly prosperous in the ages they have liv’d in. Sappho rais’d himself to the reputation of a God among the Persians by parrots, and yourself to the grandeur of an alderman by your mother’s hen turkies: for in all wonderful effects the leading cause ought to be reverenc’d and respected.

Nothing conduces more to the rise and riches of a citizen, than these three qualifications; nor can a man be a compleat trader without them: First, To be a hypocrite undiscernably: Secondly, A knave, and not mistrusted: And Thirdly, To be diligent in all matters that concern his own interest. These profitable talents I must needs confess you are absolute master of, and managed them with that admirable cunning, that I always conceiv’d a different opinion of you, till I had given it irrevocably into your power to feather your own nest, by compleating of my ruin; and like a true politician (I thank you) you made an excellent use of the lucky opportunity: for when the vicissitude of fortune had put my affairs in a little disorder, and I thought it best for the safety of my person to take foreign sanctuary, what friendly protections did you make, from the teeth outwards, of the faithful service{239} you would do me in my absence, in order to compose and settle matters after such a manner, that all the difficulties should be remov’d and made easy, that had lessen’d my credit, and occasion’d me to withdraw? Upon which, I being too forward to believe a person, I had rais’d from sheep-skin breeches, and leathern shoe-ties, to the substance and reputation of a topping citizen, could never forget the obligation he lay under to do me justice, as to prove treacherous to his master, trusted you alone with my whole effects, and the sole power of managing my affairs according to your own discretion: but you, like a faithful steward, when my back was turn’d, instead of endeavouring to support my declining reputation, lessen’d my circumstances to my creditors far beneath their real estimate, till you had bought up my notes to the sum of a hundred thousand pounds, for an eighth part of their value, on your own behalf, with the ready specie I had left you to compound my matters; and like an honest man return’d them upon me at their full contents, cheating my creditors of seven parts in eight of their due, sinking the money to yourself, and leaving, like an ungrateful wretch, the kindest of all masters to die a beggar; in this, I say, you shew’d yourself a compleat citizen: First, A hypocrite in dissembling friendship to me: Secondly, A knave, in cheating me and my creditors; And Thirdly, An industrious man, in diligently converting so fair an opportunity so foully to your own interest.

Upon this basis (when downright knavery, according to the city phrase was term’d outwitting) you rais’d a popular esteem to yourself for being a wealthy man, and a cunning one, and as I have since heard, daily improv’d your riches as honestly as you got it; and by changing broad money into less, made your sums the larger: a pretty sort of a paradox, that a man by diminution should raise an increase: but the deed was darker than the saying, yet both very intelligible to money’d citizens in the age you live in. It is no great wonder, if rightly consider’d, that a man of your dealing should acquire such vast riches, since you were so well belov’d by your under agents, that scarce a sessions pass for seven years together, but one or other was hanged for the propagation of your interest, whilst yourself stood secure behind a bulwark of full bags,{240} that skreen’d your person from the law, and your reputation from the danger of common slander.

Another fortunate opportunity you had of heaping more muck upon your fertile possessions, and manuring those mighty sums you had before collected, was the misfortunes of your prince, which largely contributed (as you honestly order’d the matter) to your further prosperity. Fourscore thousand pounds more added to your preceeding stock, was, indeed, enough to make a reasonable man contented; but as nothing less than the conquest of the whole world could satisfy the ambition of Alexander; so nothing, I am apt to think, but the riches of the universe, can quench the unbounded avarice of so aspiring a Crœsus. But oh the disappointments that attend the proud and wealthy! what signifies three hundred thousand pounds to an ambitious alderman, if he cannot take a peaceable nod in his elbow-chair of state, and be registered in the city-annals, lord-mayor of London, that posterity may read Duncombe and his turkies were as much renowned in the age they liv’d in, as Whittington and his cat? I am heartily sorry (since fortune’s favours, and your own indefatigable knavery, have so happily concurr’d to make you rich) that the electors of the city would not also agree to make you honourable; and that your oracle of time, that publick monument of your generosity, with your promise of a mansion-house for the city-magistrate, and the twelve apostles to be elevated at the east-end of St. Paul’s, will not all prevail upon the livery-men of London to chuse you into the trust and dignity, which would very highly become a person of your worth, honour, and integrity. But, as I well remember, one of the eggs was rotten, which I have since reflected on, and think it reasonable to judge, if there be any divination by eggs, that it predicted your hopes would be addled in this very affair; and do therefore advise you for the future, to decline all thoughts of the mayoralty. I am very well pleas’d that you deal barefac’d to the world in one particular, which is, that tho’ you keep a chaplain in your house to feed your ears with a few minc’d instructions, yet you entertain two mistresses publickly in your family, to reduce the rebellious flesh into an orderly subjection; from whence your neighbours may see, in matters of religion{241} you are no hypocrite, but openly do that which more secret sinners would be asham’d to be caught in, who perhaps are full as wicked, tho’ they hide their vices with a sanctify’d coverslut, whilst you professing not much religion, scorn to make so ill a use as a cloak, of that little you are bless’d with.

I fear you are grown too bulky in estate to be long-liv’d in prosperity, you are a well-fed fish to be caught nibbling at the bait, and abundance of great men are angling for you; if you are once hamper’d by the hook, you will not shake yourself off easily: and methinks it’s pity a man that, I have some reason to say, has got an estate knavishly, should ever run the hazard of losing it foolishly; but preserve it according to the custom of the city, to build an alms-house after your decease, that may maintain about the thousandth part of as many people when he is dead, as he has cheated when he was living.

The Answer to Alderman Blackwell.

WHO would ever be a servant, if it were not for the hopes of being at one time or other as good a man as his master? It’s the thoughts of bettering our own conditions without danger, that makes a man submit with patience to a servile subjection: but he that can govern his master, will never truly obey him; and he that finds he can outwit him, will be no longer his fool. Nature made us freemen alike, and gave us the whole world to seek our fortunes in; and he that by either wit, strength or industry, can straddle over the back of another, has the riding him for his pains. If one man that is poor, worms a rich man out of his estate, it is but changing condition with one another, and the world in general is not a jot the worse for it: besides, in most mens opinions, he best deserves an estate that has cunning enough to get one, and wit enough to keep it when he has got it. I know no inju{242}stice but what is punishable by the laws of the land; and if I can acquire an estate, tho’ fifty men starve for it, that the laws will protect me in, I think myself as rightfully possess’d as any man in the kingdom: he that is bubbled out of an estate will certainly fall under the character of a fool; and he that gets one will be as surely suspected for a knave; no man enjoys the reputation of an honest man, but he who bribes the world by courtesies into that opinion of him; and he who, like myself, scorns to be at the charge of purchasing on’t, shall be sure never to enjoy the character. Honesty and courage may be said to stand upon one bottom, for all men would derogate from both, and be knaves and cowards if they durst; for its the fear of being piss’d upon by every body, that makes men fight soberly; and the fear of punishment that makes men live honestly; yet a politick coward often passes for a brave man for want of being try’d; and an arrant knave, for want of opportunity for a very honest fellow.

You blame me for building my own welfare out of your ruin, and charge me with knavery for taking the advantage of your folly; I am of that old opinion, that all mankind are either fools or knaves; and it is a maxim in my politicks, that he who will not be a knave, the world will make a fool of him. One man’s oversight is always another’s gain. How then can you condemn me for laying hold of that opportunity, which your weakness gave me as a tryal of my wit? and had I neglected making a true use of it to my own advantage, I had made myself a greater fool than he who trusted a single man’s honesty with so large a temptation. Could you have kept your estate in your own power, how great was your indiscretion to deliver it into mine? and since I found, when I had it in my custody, I could secure it to myself, beyond the power of the law to recover it, how foolish shou’d I have been to have omitted the opportunity? in short, I am very well satisfyed at the usage I gave you, no check of conscience do I yet find that inclines me to repentance; but am heartily resolv’d, thro’ the course of my life, never to let slip so luscious an advantage.

As for my sorting of broad-money for the royal snippers, it was grown so universal a practice among all dealers, that it ceas’d from being thought criminal, and became a pro{243}fitable trade; and I never was so lazy in my life, as to suffer any project to be on foot, wherein money was to be got, but I always had a hand in’t. The Hollanders clipp’d it openly in their shops, and pass’d it afterwards among us. And shall we suffer a foreign nation to ingross that advantage to themselves, which was doubtless rather the property of a true-born Englishman to enjoy? no I am a true lover of my country, and do assert, it’s better to be rogues among our selves, and cozen one another, than it is to be cheated in our own way by a pack of knavish neighbours.

As for my master king James, I dealt honestly by him as long as he continued my customer; but truly when his credit was sunk, and he was forc’d to take sanctuary in a foreign country, my conscience told me ’twas the safest way, even to serve my prince as I had done you my master; for indeed, I could not reasonably think; providence flung so many lucky hits in a man’s way for him to make no use of; besides, what signifies cozening a king of a trifling sum of fourscore thousand pound, when he was going into a country where every body knew he would be well provided for? I consider’d it would do me more kindness by half; and tho’ some of his friends blam’d me, yet I thought myself an honester man by much, than those who stripp’d him of his sovereignty; for if it was a sin to cheat him at all, then those who cheated him most were doubtless the most wicked; and to deal with you like an old friend, without dissimulation, as long as I can imagine there’s a man upon earth more sinful than myself I have a conscience that can fling nothing in my face, but what I can withstand boldly without blushing.

You seem to highly reflect upon me for keeping two domestick conveniences publickly in my family, as if a man of my grandeur should abridge himself of those pleasures which every apprentice-boy has the enjoyment of between the mistress and the maid, without stirring over the threshold; and sure an Alderman in the city, a grave magistrate, a man worth three hundred thousand pounds, need not be either afraid or asham’d of being suspected guilty of that little sniveling sin practis’d daily in every citizen’s house, from the very beds in the garret, down to the stools in the kitchen. Why, at that rate you would muzzle ones appetite, a man had better by half be a pres{244}byterian parson, and have two or three pair of holy sisters to smuggle over every week, than to be an alderman of the city of London, and have his carnal inclinations priest-ridden with a curb-bridle.

As for the fair promises I made to the city in order to have coaks’d them to have chose me mayor, I design’d them only as alluring baits to tempt the godly party over to my interest, and in the common hall it took very good effect; but had I once got into the chair, I should have shew’d them a trick like Sir Timber Temple, and have reduc’d my mountain-promise into a mole-hill performance; which our cunning fraternity mistrusting (for always set a knave to catch a knave) by a piece of unpracticable subtilty they threw me out, when I thought myself as cock-sure of the honour as a man is of a morsel he has got in his mouth: but the city is so corrupted, that an honest church-man can put no confidence in a parcel of knavish fanaticks, but he is sure to be deceiv’d. Had the church party been strong enough to have brought me in, I had then caught what I gap’d for, as sure as there’s a cuckhold in Guild-Hall in the time of election: but knowing our court of wiseakers was at that time under the ascendency of a whiggish planet, I was fearful I should lose it; but they had better have chose me, for I assure them, I would sooner go into Barbary and feed ostriches with my money, than I would lay out one groat towards so much as the repairing of one of their old gates, or in adding any thing to the city’s magnificence, tho’ ’twas no more than a weather-cock: nay I have now so little charity for that ingrateful Sodom, that I would not be at the expence of giving them an engine, tho I was sure ’twould save them a second conflagration.

I fear, Sir, by this time I have quite tired your patience, and shall therefore conclude with this acknowledgment, that I liv’d under one of the best princes in the world, and one of the best masters in the kingdom, and that under both, I thank my stars, I have patch’d up a pretty good fortune, and I profess, as I am a christian of the true church by law establish’d, I would turn subject to the Grand Seignior, and servant to alderman Lucifer, to enjoy again two such precious opportunities. So I rest, with a quiet Conscience, your thankful Servant,

From Henry Purcel to Dr. Blow.

TO tell you the truth, I send you this letter on purpose to undeceive you; I know that the upper world has a notion, that these infernal shades are destitute of all harmony, and delight in nothing but jarring, discord, and confusion; upon the word of a musician, you are all mistaken, for I never came into a merrier country, since I knew a whimsy from a fiddle-stick; every body here sings as naturally as a nightingale, and at least as sweet. Lovers sit perch’d upon bows by pairs, like murmuring turtles in a rural grove, and in amorous ditties sing forth their passionate affections; all people on this side the adamantine gates have their organs perfect, and I burn, I burn, I burn, which some persons thought a critical song upon earth, is here sung by every scoundrel: the whole infernal territory is infested with such innumerable crowds of poets and musicians, that a man can’t stir twice his length, but he shall tread upon a new ballad; and as for musick, ’tis so plenty amongst us, that a fellow shall be scraping upon a fiddle at every garret-window, and another tinkling a spinet, or a virginal, in every chimney-corner; flutes, hautboys and trumpets are so perpetually tooting, that all the year round the whole dominion is like a Bartholomew-Fair; and as for drums, you have a set of them under every devil’s window, rattling and thumping like a consort of his majesty’s rat-tat-too’s at an English wedding: we have such a glut of all sorts of performers, that our very ears are surfeited; and any body may hire a consort for a day, large enough to surround Westminster-Abbey, for the price of an hundred of chesnuts; yet every minstrel performs to admiration. Every cobler here that dispatches a voluntary whilst he’s waxing his thread, shall out-sing Mr. Abel, and a carpenter shall make better musick upon an empty cupboard strung with five brass-wires, than Baptist can upon the harpsichord; every trumpet that attends a botkin lottery, sounds better than Shore; and not a porter here plies at the corner of a street, but with his stubbed fingers, can make a smooth{246} table out grunt the harmony of a double curtel. We have catches too in admirable perfection: Fish-women sit and sing them at market, instead of scolding as they do at Billingsgate; hymns and anthems are as frequent among us as among you of the upper world; for to every church God Almighty has on earth, here the devil has a chapel.

You are sensible I was a great lover of musick before I departed my temporal life, but now I am so surfeited with incessant sound, that I would rather chuse to be as deaf as an adder, than be plagu’d with the best ayre that ever Corelli made, or the finest sola or sonata that ever was compos’d in Italy: for you must know the laws of this country are such, that every man, for sins in the other world, shall here be punish’d with excess of that which he there esteem’d most pleasant and delightful. Lovers, that in your region would hang, or drown, or run thro’ fire like a couple of salamanders for one another’s company, are here coupled together like the twins Castor and Pollux, pursuant to their own wishes upon earth, and have all the liberty they can desire with one another, but must never be separated whilst eternity endures. This sort of confinement, tho’ ’tis what they once coveted, makes them so sick of one another in a little time, that they cry out, O damnable slavery! O diabolical matrimony! and are always drawing two several ways with all imaginable hatred, endeavouring, to break their fetters, and pursue variety; thus every one is wedded to what they like best, and yet every person’s desires teminate in their own misery, which sufficiently shews there is no other justice to punish us for our follies, than the objects of our own loose appetites and inclinations; for that which we are apt to covet most when we are in the upper world, generally, if obtain’d, proves our greatest unhappiness; therefore, since experience would not teach us to bridle our inclinations on the other side the grave, the pleasures we pursued when we were living, are, after death, appointed to be our punishments.

Dr. Stag——s, is greatly improved since he arrived in these parts, and has more crotches flow thro’ his brains in one minute, than he can digest into musick in a whole week; he had not been here a month, but his bandy{247}legs stepp’d into a very good place, and his business is to compose Scotch tunes for Lucifer’s bag-piper. Honest Tom Farmer has taken such an antipathy against musick, upon hearing a French barber play Banister’s ground in Bmi, upon a jews-trump, that he swears that the hooping of a tub, and filing of a saw, makes the sweetest harmony in christendom; Robin Smith, is still as love-mad as ever he was; hangs half a dozen fiddles at his girdle, as the fellow does coney-skins, and scours up and down hell, crying a Reevs, a Reevs, as is the devil was in him. Poor Val Redding too, is quite tired with his lyre-way-fiddle, and has betaken himself to be a merry-andrew to a Dutch mountebank; and the reason he gave for it was this, That he was got into a country where he found fools were more respected than fiddlers. Dancing-masters are also as numerous in every street, as posts in Cheapside, there is no walking but we must stumble upon them; they are held here but in very slight esteem, for the gentry call them leg-livers, and the mob from their mighty number, and their nimbleness, call them the devil’s grass-hoppers. Players run up and down muttering of old speeches, like so many madmen in their own soliloquies; and if any beau wants a bridge to bear him over a dirty channel, a player lies down instead of a plank, for him to walk over upon; the reason why they were doom’d to that piece of scandalous servitude, was, because they were as proud upon the stage as the very princes they represented; and as humble in a brandy-shop, as a scold in a ducking-stool; therefore were fit for nothing when they had done playing, but to be trampled upon. I have nothing further at present to impart to you, so begging you to excuse this trouble, I rest,

Dr. Blow’s Answer to Henry Purcel.

YOUR letter was one of the greatest surprises to me, I ever met with; for after giving credit to that ful{248}some piece of flattery, stuck up by some of your friends upon a pillar behind the organ, which you once were master of, I remain’d satisfi’d you were gone to that happy place, where your own harmony could only be exceeded, and had left order with some of your friends to put up that epitaph only as a direction where your acquaintance upon occasion might be sure to meet with you; but since you have favour’d me with a letter from your own hand, wherein you assure me ’twas your fortune to travel a quite contrary road, I will always be of opinion for the future, that when a man takes a step in the dark, those that he leaves behind him can no more guess where he is gone, than I can tell what’s become of the saddle which Balaam rid upon when his ass spoke; for I find just as people please or displease us in this world, we accordingly assign them a place of happiness or unhappiness in the next, virtue shall be rewarded, and vice punished hereafter, ’tis true, but when or how, I believe every man knows as well as the pope; therefore, many people have blam’d the inscription of your marble, and think it a presumption in the pen-man to be so very positive in matters, which the wisest of mankind, without death, can come to no true knowledge of. The fanaticks especially are very highly offended at it, and say, It looks as if a man could toot himself to heaven upon the whore of Babylon’s bag-pipes, and that religion consists only in the true setting of a catch, or composing of a madrigal. I have had many a bitter squabble with them in defence of your epitaph, upon which they scoffingly advis’d me to get Monsieur d’Urfey to tag it with rhime, then myself to garnish it with a tune, and so make it a catch in imitation of Under this stone lies Gabriel John, &c. which unlucky saying, so dum-founded me, that I was forc’d silently to submit, because you had serv’d another person’s epitaph after the same manner.

I have no novelties to entertain you with relating to either the Abbey or St. Paul’s, for both the choirs continue just as wicked as they were when you left them; some of them daily come reeking hot out of the bawdy-house into the church; and others stagger out of a tavern to afternoon prayers, and hick up over a little of the Litany, and so back again. Old Claret-face beats time still upon{249} his cushion stoutly, and sits growling under his purple canopy, a hearty old-fashion’d base that deafens all about him. Beau Bushy-whig preserves his voice to a miracle, charmes all the ladies over against him with his handsome face; and all over head with his singing. Parson Punch make a very good shift still, and lyricks over his part in an anthem very handsomly. So much for the church, and now for the play-houses, which are grown so abominably wicked since the pious society have undertook to reform them, that not a member of the fraternity will sit down to his dinner, till he has repeated over a catalogue of curses upon the crew of sin-sucking hypocrites, as long as a presbyterian grace, then falls to with a good appetite, and damns them as heartily after dinner; nor will they bring a play upon the stage, unless larded with half a dozen of luscious bawdy songs in contempt of the reforming authority, some writ by Mr. C—— and set by your friend Dr. B——; others writ by Mr. D——, and set by your friend Mr. E——: you know men of our profession hang between the church and the play-house, as Mahomet’s tomb does between the two load-stones, and must equally incline to both, because by both we are equally supported.

Religion is grown a stalking-horse to every bodies interest, and every man chuses to be of that faith which he finds to be most profitable. Our parochial-churches this hot weather are but indifferently fill’d, but our cathedrals are still crowded as they us’d to be, because to one that comes thither truly to serve God, fifty come purely to hear the musick; the blessing of peace has again quite forsaken us, and the people tired with being happy, have drawn the curse of war upon their own heads; and the clergy, like true christians, confound their enemies heartily. Money begins already to be as scarce as truth, honour and honesty; and a man may walk from Ludgate to Aldgate, near high change-time, and not meet a citizen with a full bag under his arm, or jot of plain-dealing in his conscience. The ready specie lies all in the Bank and Exchequer, and most traders estates lie in their pocket-books and their comb-cases: paper goes current instead of cash, and pen and ink does us more service than the mines in the Indies. I am very much in arrears upon the{250} account of my business, as well as the brethren of my quality; but whether we shall be paid in this world or the next, we are none of us yet certain. You made a timely step out of a troublesome world, could I imagine you were got into a worse, I could easily pin my faith upon impossibilities; but fare as you will, it cannot be long e’er I shall give you my company, and discover the truth of that which our priests talk so much of, and know so little:

From worthy Mrs. Behn the Poetress, to the famous Virgin Actress.

I Vow to Gad, lady, of all the fair sex that ever occupied their faculties upon the publick stage, I think your pretty self the only miracle! for a woman to cloak the frailties of nature with such admirable cunning as you have done hitherto, merits, in my opinion, the wonder and applause of the whole kingdom! how many chaste Diana’s in your station have lost their reputation before they have done any thing to deserve it! but for a woman of your quality first to surrender her honour, and afterwards preserve her character, shows a discreet management beyond the policy of a statesman: your appearance upon the stage puts the court-ladies to the blush, when they reflect that a mercenary player should be more renown’d for her virtue, than all the glorious train of fair spectators; who, like true women, hear your praises whisper’d with regret, and behold your person with insupportable envy. The Roman empress Messalina was never half so famous for her lust, as you are for your chastity; nor the most christian king’s favourite, madam Maintenon, more eminent for her parts, than you are for your cunning; for nothing is a greater manifestation of a woman’s conduct, than for her to be vicious without mistrust, and to gratify her looser inclinations without discovery; at which sort of managements you are an absolute artist, as since my de{251}parture I have made evident to myself, by residing in those shades where the secrets of all are open; for peeping by chance into the breast of your old acquaintance, where his sins were as plainly scor’d as tavern-reckonings upon a bare-board; there did I behold, among his numberless transgressions, your name register’d so often in the black list, that fornication with madam B—— came so often into the score, that it seem’d to me like a chorus at the end of every stanza in an old ballad: besides had I wanted so manifest a proof, as by chance I met with, experience has taught me to judge of my own sex to a perfection, and I know the difference there is between being really virtuous and only accounted so: I am sensible ’tis as hard a matter for a pretty woman to keep herself honest in a theatre, as ’tis for an apothecary to keep his treacle from the flies in hot weather; for every libertine in the audience will be buzzing about her honey-pot, and her virtue must defend itself by abundance of fly-flaps, or those flesh-loving insects will soon blow upon her honour, and when once she has had a maggot in her tail, all the pepper and salt in the kingdom will scare keep her reputation from stinking; therefore that which makes me admire your good housewifery, above all your sex, is, that notwithstanding your powdering-tub, has been so often polluted, yet you have kept your flesh in such credit and good order that the nicest appetite in the town would be glad to make a meal of it.

You must excuse me, Madam, that I am thus free with you, for you know ’tis the custom of our sex to take all manner of liberty with one another, and to talk smuttily, and act waggishly when we are by ourselves, tho’ we scarce dare listen to a merry tale in man’s company for fear of being thought impudent. You know the bob-tail’d monster is a censorious creature, and if we should not be cunning enough to cast a mist before the eyes of their understanding sometimes there would be no living among them; and therefore I cannot but highly commend you for your prudence in covering all your vicious inclinations by an hypocritical deportment: for how often have we heard men say, tho’ a woman be a whore, yet they love she should carry herself modestly? that is as much as to say, they love to be cheated, and you know, Madam, we can hit{252} their humours in that particular to a hairs-breadth, and convey one man away from under our petticoats to make room for another, with as much dexterity as the German artist does his balls, that the keenest eye in Christendom shall not discern the juggle, for a woman ought to be made up of all chinks and crannies, that when a man searches for any thing he should not find, she may shuffle about her secrets so, that the devil can’t discover them, or else she’s fit only to make a sempstress on, and can never be rightly qualified for intriguing. I have just now the rememberance of a few female stratagems crept into my head, which were practised by a pretty lady of my acquaintance, perhaps, Madam, if they are not stale to you, you may make them of some service hereafter; therefore in hopes of obliging you, I shall acquaint you with the particulars.

I happen’d long since in the time of my youth, when powerful nature prompted me to delight in amorous adventures, to contract a friendship with a fair lady, who for her wit and beauty, was often times solicited by the male sex to help make up that beast of pleasure with two backs, and hating to submit herself to the tyrannical government of a single person, never wanted a whole parliament of nipples to give her suck, tho’ she flatter’d one man that kept her, to believe he was sole monarch of the Low-Countries; but one time he unfortunately happen’d to catch her, with a new relation, of whom he was a little jealous, believing for some reasons he had an underhand design of liquoring his boots for him, to prevent which he impos’d an oath of abjuration upon his mistress, and made her swear for the future to renounce the sight of him, which to oblige her keeper, she very readily consented to, but no sooner was his back turn’d, but she had invented a salve for her conscience, as well as her concupiscence, and dispatching a letter to her new lover, told him what had pass’d, but withal, encourag’d him to renew his visits at such opportunities as she informed him were convenient; at the time appointed her spark came, she received him with a blind compliment, and told him, she would open any thing but her eyes to oblige him; but those she must keep shut for her oath’s sake, having sworn never to see him if she could help it. The gentleman was very well satisfied he had so conscientious a lady to deal with: love,{253} Madam, says he, is always blind, and for my part, I shall be content to enjoy the darkest of your favours; upon which he began vigorously to attack love’s fortress, which you know, Madam, has no mere eyes than a beetle; as she told me the story, he was beat off three times, and at last was forc’d to draw off his forces, so march’d off to raise recruits against the next opportunity. The next day came the governour of the garrison, as he foolishly thought himself, and made a strict enquiry whether she had any correspondence with the enemy? lord, Sir, says she, what do you take me to be? a devil; as I hope to be sav’d, I never set eyes of him since you engag’d me to the contrary: so all things past off as well as if no evil had been acted.

The next fresh acquaintance she contracted, she would never suffer to wait upon her at her lodgings, other ways dress’d than in female apparel; so when a new fit of jealousy put her spark upon purging her conscience upon oath, as I have a soul to be sav’d, says she, no creature in breeches but yourself has been near me since you had knowledge of it; therefore why, my dear, should you harbour such ill thoughts of a woman that loves you as dearly as I do my beads and crucifix? thus, tho’ she deceiv’d him as often as she had opportunity, yet her discretion kept all things in such admirable decorum, that I never knew any of the fair sex, except yourself, like her.

If it were not for these witty contrivances, subtle shifts and evasions, which we are forc’d to use to keep the male sex easy, a pretty or an ingenious woman, to make one happy must make twenty miserable; or wit and beauty are never without abundance of admirers; and if such a woman were to sacrifice all her charms to the miserly temper of one single lover, the rest must run distracted, and at this rate the whole world in a short time would become one great Bedlam; besides, since there is enough to make all happy, if prudently dispens’d, I know no reason why one man should engross more than he is able to deal with, and other men want that, which by using there can be no miss of; therefore I commend you for the liberty you take to oblige your chosen friends, and the prudence you use to conceal it from the envious number you think unworthy of your smiles; so with this advice I shall conclude,{254} if you have twenty gallants that taste your favours in their turns, let no man know he has a rival-sharer in the happiness, but swear to every one a-part, none enjoys you but himself; and by this means you will oblige the whole herd, and make yourself easy in their numerous embraces.

The Virgin’s Answer to Mrs. Behn.

IT is no great wonder to me you should prove so witty, since so many sons of Parnassus, instead of climbing the Heliconian hill, should stoop so low, as to make your mount of Venus the barren object of their poetick fancies: I have heard some physicians say, the sweet fornication draws mightily from the brain; for which reason, it is more affected with the pleasure than any other part of the body; if so, how could the spirit of poesy be otherwise than infus’d into you, since you always gain’d by what the fraternity of the Muses lost in your embraces? you were the young poets Venus; to you they paid their devotion as a Goddess, and their first adventure, when they adjourn’d from the university to the town, was to solicite your favours; and this advantage you enjoy’d above the rest of your sex, that if a young student was but once infected with a rhiming itch, you by a butter’d bun could make him an establish’d poet at any time; for the contagion, like that of a worse distemper, will run a great way, and be often strangely contracted. I have heard a gentleman say, that when he was bedded with a poetess, or rival’d a poet in his mistress, that he has dreamt of nothing but plays, ballads and lampoons for six months after; and has been forc’d to cuckold a critick, before he could get cur’d of the distemper. From hence it appears, that a man in his sober senses runs a greater hazard of his brains in having familiar contract with a daughter of the Muses, than a drunken man does of his nobler parts, in paving the common-shore of a town prostitute.

You upbraid me with a great discovery you chanc’d to make, by peeping into the breast of an old friend of mine; if you give yourself but the trouble of examining an old{255} poet’s conscience, who went lately off the stage, and now takes up his lodgings in your territories, and I don’t question, but you’ll there find, Mrs. Behn writ as often in black characters, and stands as thick in some places, as the names of the generation of Adam in the first of Genesis. But oh! that I had but one glance into your own accounts; there I am sure, should I find a compleat register of all the poets of your standing, from the Laureat, down to the White-Fryars ballad-monger: at this rate, well might you be esteem’d a female wit, since the least return your versifying admirers could make you for your favours, was, first to lend you their assistance, and then oblige you with their applause: besides, how could you do otherwise than produce some wit to the world, since you were so often plough’d and sow’d by the kind husbandmen of Apollo? but give me leave, Madam, to tell you, after all your amorous intrigues to please the taglines of the age, and all the fatigue of your brains to oblige a fickle audience, I never could yet hear that your reputation ever soar’d above the character of a bawdy poetess; and these were the two knacks you were chiefly happy in, one was to make libertines laugh, and the other to make modest women blush; and had you happen’d to have liv’d in a reforming age, under the lash of Mr. C——r, he would have so firk’d you about the pig-market, that you must have learn’d to have writ more modestly, or he would have been apt to have said, you certainly thinn’d your ink with your own water, or you could never have writ so bawdily.

You seem almost to think it an indispensible difficulty for a woman in my quality to preserve her reputation, especially if she has done any thing to deserve the loss of it; I say, a prudent woman may do it with all the facility imaginable, by keeping up to a few maxims in female policy, which few woman are strangers to. First, Were I to give myself liberty (as whether I do or no is no matter to any body) I would always bestow my favours upon those above me, and those beneath me, and never be concern’d with any man upon an equal footing; and these are my reasons: Suppose the vitious eyes of a great man are fix’d upon me, and my charms should kindle a love-passion in the cockles of his heart; he writes, chatters, swears and prays, according to custom in such cases,{256} I still defend the premisses, by a flat verbal denial; but at the same instant incourage him in my looks, and am always free to oblige him with my company; till by this sort of usage I make him sensible downright courtship will never prevail; and that the cittadel he besieges is not to be surrender’d without bribing the governess: then he begins to mix his fine words with fine presents; he gives, I receive, returning a side glance for a diamond ring, two smiles for a gold watch, a kiss for a pearle necklace, and at last for a round sum the ultimate of my favours; of which, in one months time, he is as much tir’d, as a child is of a Bartholomew knick-knack, and so we seperate again, both fully satisfied: in this case, I say, a woman’s reputation is pretty safe; for if he has any brains, he will be afraid to discover I have been his bedfellow, lest I should tell the world he has been my bubble; for he can’t help believing, if he had never been my fool, I had never been his mistress.

In the next place, why I would rather submit to make a friend of an inferior, than an equal; I think these reasons are sufficient; if I oblige a man beneath me, he looks upon my condescention to be his greatest honour; and ’tis but now and then furnishing his pockets with a little spending money, and he’ll drudge like a stone-horse to give me a competent refreshment; not only that, but he’ll lie for me, swear for me, fight for me, and be always speaking in praise of my virtues upon every occasion; my mixing his pleasure with profit, makes it so much the sweeter, and engages him to give my favours a more diligent attendance. I can govern, comand, expect, and make him more my slave than a woman is to her keeper; and he takes it to be his only happiness to be so. And for my part, think there is more satisfaction in having a man that one likes, in this sort of subjection, than there is in being courtezan to any gouty peer in Christendom; for I have always had the same ambition to be mistress over some of the male sex, as some of them have had to make me their humble servant. These are the reasons why some ladies submit themselves to the lash of the long whip, and love to be jerk’d by their coach-man; and why lawyers wives join issue with their husbands clerks; and shop-keepers help-mates court the benevolence of their appren{257}tices: for a woman’s business is seldom done by a man that’s her master; and I must frankly confess, were I to be a slave to the best man’s lust in the kingdom, tho’ kept never so well for’t, if I had not a man beneath me in the same classis. I should think my life but in a miserable confinement; for there is no other pleasure in money got over the devil’s back, but in spending it under his belly; besides, if a woman’s reputation be safe in any man’s power, it must certainly be secure in the custody of an inferior so oblig’d; for interest is the best padlock in the world to confine a tongue to silence: but if you make an equal your familiar, and no interest binding on either side, upon every little disgust it shall be, confound you for a wh—re, what made you disappoint me? d—mn you for a jilt, what spark were you engag’d with? and this sort of usage, in a little time, a woman must expect to be treated with; and ten to one, but at last expos’d; and this is all the gratitude the poor loving fool shall meet with for her kindness.

Pray, Madam, tho’ I have been so free with you, as to deliver you my sentiments, don’t you take me to be a person that ever put them into practice; I only tell you, according to my present judgment, what I believe I should do, was I under the same predicament with many ladies, whom I see daily in the boxes; but I thank my stars, I had always more modesty than to be lewd; and more generosity, than to be mercenary; and have hitherto took care to preserve a virtuous reputation, notwithstanding I know what I know; therefore I defy your conscience peeping; besides, that was in another world; and when all comes to all, I believe ’tis only a piece of your own romantick wit, and as such I take it. So farewel.

IT is no little grief to me on this side the grave, to hear what a low ebb the good old trade of basket-making is reduc’d to in the age you live in; for I hear it is as much as{258} a woman of tolerable beauty, and reasonable share of experience can well do, to keep clean smocks to her back, and pay her surgeon; when in my time, praised be the l—rd for it, I kept my family as neat and sweet, poor girls, as any alderman’s daughters in the city of London. I don’t know what scandal our profession may be dwindled into since my departure from the upper world; but I am sure thro’ the course of my life, I was look’d upon by the whole city to be as honest an old gentlewoman, as ever hazarded her soul for the service of her country; and always took care to deal in as good commodities, as any shopkeeper in London could desire to have the handling of, true, wholesom country-ware; whole waggon-loads have I had come up at a time, have dress’d them at my own expence, made them fit for man’s use, and put them into a saleable condition. The clergy, I am sure, were much beholden to me, for many a poor parson’s daughter have I taken care on, bought her shifts to her back, put a trade into her belly, taught her a pleasant livelihood, that she might support herself like a woman, without being beholden to any body; who otherwise must have turn’d drudge, waited upon some proud minx or other, or else have depended upon relations; yet these unmannerly priests had the sinful ingratitude before I dy’d, to refuse praying for me in their churches; tho’ I dealt by all people with a conscience, and was so well beloved in the parish I liv’d in, that the churchwardens themselves became my daily customers.

My home was always a sanctuary for distressed ladies; I never refus’d meat, drink, washing, lodging, and cloaths, to any that had the least spark of wit, youth, beauty, or gentility, to recommend them to my charity; ladies women, chambermaids, cookmaids of any sort, when out of service, were at all times welcome to my table, ’till they could better provide for themselves; and I am sure, tho’ I say it that should not, I kept as hospitable a house for all comers and goers, as any woman in England; for the best of flesh was never wanting to delight the appetites of both sexes; the toppingest shopkeepers in the city us’d now and then to visit me for a good supper; and I never fail’d of having a tid-bit ready for them; dainties that were hot and hot, never over-done, but always with the gravy in{259} them, which pleas’d them so wonderfully, that they us’d to cry their own victuals at home was meer carrion to it; nay, their very wives, sometimes, contrary to their own husbands knowledge, have tripp’d in, in an evening, complain’d they have been as hungry as hawks, and desired me to provide a morsel for them that might satisfy their bellies; for you must know, both sexes were wonderful lovers of my cookery, and would feed very heartily upon such nice dainties that I toss’d up for them, when no other sort of flesh would by any means go down with them. Many hopeful babes have been beholden to my mansion-house for their generation; who tho’ they were never wise enough to know their own father, yet some of them, for ought I know, may at this day be aldermen; for I have had as good merchants ladies, as ever liv’d in Mincing-lane, apply themselves to my fertile habitation for change of diet; and have come twice or thrice a week to refresh nature with my standing dishes; for I always kept an open house to feast lovers; and, Jove be thanked, never wanted variety to gratify the appetites of mankind. Thirty pair of haunches, both bucks and does, have been wagging their scuts at one another within the compass of one evening; and many noblemen, notwithstanding they had deer of their own, us’d to come to my park for a bit of choice venison, for I never wanted what was fat and good, tho’ within my pale it was all the year rutting-time.

It is well known, I kept as good orders in my house as ever was observed in a nunnery; I had a church-bible always lay open upon my hall-table, and had every room in my house furnish’d with the Practice of Piety, and other good books for the edification of my family; that for every minute they sinn’d, they might repent an hour at their leisure intervals. I kept a chaplain in my house, and had prayers read twice a day, as constantly as the sun rises in a morning, and sets in an evening; and tho’ I say it, I had a parcel of as honest religious girls about me, as ever pious matron had under her tuition at a Hackney boarding-school; nor would they ever dare to humble the proud flesh of a sinner without my leave or approbation; and, like good christians, as often as they had sinn’d, came to auricular confession. I always did every thing in the fear of the lord, and was, I thank my Creator, so happy in my memory, that I{260} had as many texts of scripture at command, as a presbyterian parson. For my zeal to religion, and the services I daily did to the publick community, I bless my stars, I never wanted a city magistrate to stand my friend in the times of persecution, or any other adversity; but could have half the court of aldermen appear on my behalf at an hour’s warning. I kept a painter in my house perpetually employ’d upon fresh faces, and had a good as collection of pictures, to the life, as ever were to be seen in Lilly’s showing-room; beauties of all complexions, from the cole-black cling-fast, to the golden-lock’d insatiate, from the sleepye’d slug, to the brisk-ey’d wanton; from the reserv’d hypocrite, to the lew’d fricatrix; so that every man might choose by the shadow, what kind of beauteous substance would give his fancy the greatest titillation. Every room in my house was adorn’d with the picture of some grave bishop, that my customers might see what a great veneration I had for the clergy; all my lodgings were as well furnish’d, as the splendid apartments of a prince’s palace; that every citizen, whose wife had been kiss’d at court, might fancy in revenge, by the richness of his bed, he was making a cuckold of a nobleman. I never was without Viper-wine for a fumbler, to give a spur to old age and assist impotency. I also had right French Claret, and the flower of Canary, to wash away the dregs of the last Sunday’s sermon, that the bugbears of conscience might not fright a good churchman from the pleasures of fornication. I had orders in every room, against cathedral exercise, or beastical back-slidings, and made it ten shillings forfeiture for any that were caught in such actions; because I would not be bilk’d of my bed-money. These were the measures I took in my occupation to procure an honest livelihood; and Heaven be prais’d, I thriv’d as well in my profession, as if my calling had been licensable. How times are alter’d since, I know not, but I hear, to my great sorrow, that bawding, of late years, which us’d to be a trade of itself, is now grown scandalous, and very much declin’d by reason that midwives, like a parcel of incroaching husseys, have engross’d the whole business to themselves, to the starving of you experienc’d old ladies, who have spent their days, and worn out their beauty in the service of the publick; and ought in all equity to be{261} the only persons, thought qualifi’d for so judicious an undertaking, to support them in their old age, when father time has stripp’d them of their charms, and their noble faculties fail them; besides, I hear noblemen employ their own valets, ladies their own waiting women, citizens wives one another, and all to save charges, to the ruin of our poor sister-hood.

Alack a-day! what a pernicious age do you live in? that traders should trust one another to buy their commodities, and all to save the expence of brokerage. I fear, there are some instruments among yourselves, that have been the main occasion of your being thus neglected. I shall further proceed, to give you a little advice, which, if but duly observ’d, may, I hope, in a little time, recover the antient state of bawdery into a flourishing condition, and make it once more as reputable a calling, as it was when clergymens widows, and decay’d ladies at court, did not disdain to follow it.

Never neglect publick prayers twice a day, hear two sermons every Sunday, receive the sacrament once a month, but let this be done at a church where you are unknown; and be sure read the scriptures often, and be sure fortify your tongue with abundance of godly sayings, let them drop from you in strange company, as thick as ripe fruit from the tree in a high wind; and whenever you have a design upon the daughter, be sure of the mother’s faith, and ply her closely with religion, and she will trust her beloved abroad with you in hopes she may edify; for you must consider, there is no being a perfect bawd without being a true hypocrite.

Always have a lodging separate from your house, in a place of credit; where, upon an occasion, you may entertain the parents without being suspected, and corrupt the minds of their children before they know your employment: you must first pour the poison in at their ears, infect their thoughts, and when their fancies begin to itch, they will have their tails rubb’d in spite of the devil.

Whenever you have a maiden-head, be sure make a penny of the first fruits, and at the second-hand let the next justice of peace have the residue on free cost, tho’ you must give her her lesson, and present her as a pure virgin;{262} by this sort of bribery, you may win all the magistrates in Middlesex; make Hicks’s-hall your sanctuary, and gain an useful ascendency over the whole bench of justices.

Never admit common faces into your domestick seraglio, ’tis a scandal to your family, a dishonour to your function, and will certainly spoil your trade; but ply close at inns upon the coming in of waggons, and gee-ho-coaches, and there you may hire fresh country wenches, sound, plump, and juicy, and truly qualified for your business.

Whatever you do, never trust any of your tits into an inn of court, or inn of chancery, for if you do they will certainly harass her about from chamber to chamber, till they have rid her off her legs; elevate her by degrees, from the ground-floor to their garrets, and make her drudge like a landress, thro’ a whole stair-case; and after a good weeks work, send her home with foul linnen, torn heed-geer, rumbled scarf, apparel spew’d upon, without fan, with but one glove, no money, and perhaps a hot tail into the bargain.

This advice for the present, if put in practice, I hope will prove of use to you; I must tell you, there is nothing to be done in the world you live in, without cunning; religion itself, without policy, is too simple to be safe; therefore, if you do but take care for the future and deal by the world, as a woman of your station ought to do, and play your cards like a gamestress, I don’t at all question, but the mystery of bawding, by your good management, may be rais’d again, in spite of reformation, to its pristine eminency; which are the hearty wishes of,

Moll Quarles’s Answer to Mother Creswell of Famous Memory.

YOUR compassionate letter, has so won my affections to your pious memory, that it shall be always my endea{263}vour to pursue your kind instructions, and to make myself the happy imitatrix of your glorious example, having often, with great satisfaction, heard of your fame; which as long as there is a young libertine, or an honest old whoremaster living upon earth, can never be obliterated. Were I to give you an account of the severe usage, and many persecutions I have been under of late days, since the mercenary reformation of ill-manners has been put on foot, it would soften the most obdurate wretches within your infernal precincts, and make them squeeze me out a tear of pity, tho’ your unextinguishable fire had so dry’d their souls, that their immortalities were crusted into perfect cinder.

Of all the unmerciful impositions that ever were laid upon bumb-labour, none ever so highly afflicted, or so insupportably oppress us, the retailers of copulation, as this intolerable society, who have brib’d those who were our pimps to forsake our interest; and have made those scoundrels who were our meanest servants, our implacable masters; who come in clusters like cowardly bailiffs to arrest a bully; distrain our commodities for want of money to pacify their greedy avarice; fright away our customers, and make us pawn our cloaths to redeem little more than our nakedness from a cat of nine-tails, and the filthy confines of a stinking prison: At least five hundred of these reformed vultures are daily plundering our pockets, and ransacking our houses, leaving me sometimes not one pair of tractable buttocks in my vaulting-school to provide for my family, or earn me so much as a pudding for my next Sunday’s dinner: nay, sometimes I have been forc’d to wag my own hand to get a penny for want of a journey-woman in my house to dispatch business. To shun their jury, I once got sanctuary in the Rolls-liberty, where I thought myself as safe as a fox in a badgers hole, and had bid defiance to the rogues even to this day, for only sacrificing now and then an elemosynary maiden-head to the fumbling of old impotency; but some ill-natur’d observators beginning to reflect, occasion’d my good friend to look a little a-skew upon me, when he found his gravity and reputation began to be smear’d a little; so that I was soon toss’d out by his untimely fear, whose lust before had kindly given me protection: and now again, as true as I am a sinner, the rogues plunder’d me{264} of at least eight pence out of every shilling for forbearance-money, and I believe will grow so unreasonable in a little time, that they will not be content with less gain than an apothecary. The officers of the parish, where-ever I liv’d, had the scouring of their old rusty hangers for a word speaking, without so much as gratifying the wench for making the bed, or being ever at the expence of presenting one of my poor girls with a paper-fan, or a pair of taffeta shoestrings. One honest churchwarden, I must confess, when I liv’d in St. Andrew’s parish, after I had serv’d him and his son with the choicest goods in my warehouse for above two years together, till they had got a wife between them, had the gratitude, like an honest man, to present me with a looking-glass; which I took so kindly at his hands, that I declare it, should he come to my house to morrow, I would oblige him with as good a commodity in my way, as a worthy old fornicator or adulterer would desire to lay his hand upon.

Thus plaguing and pillaging of all our known houses of delight, has been a great discouragement to young ladies from tendring their service at such places, or rendevouzing in numbers upon the lawful occasions that concern their livelihood, for fear of trouble or molestation, and make them rather choose to deel singly, as interlopers, than incorporate themselves with the company of town-traders, for fear of being scratch’d out of their burrows by those reforming ferrets, who make worse havock with the poor sculking creatures, than so many weasles or pole-cats would do with coneys in a warren; they sleep in fear, walk in dread, converse in danger, do their business, poor wretches, insteed of pleasure, with an aking heart. Oh, sister! what a miserable age is this we live in after you, that one part of mankind cannot obey the great law of nature, but the other part shall make a law to punish them for doing it! Which sport, if totally neglected, would soon make lions, and tygers princes of the earth, and turn the world into a solitary wilderness.

I cannot but reflect, with great concern, upon the unreasonableness of some men in authority, who loving the old trade of basket-making so well themselves, are so inveterate against the same practice in others, that I cannot but believe, they think the sweet sin of copulation ought to be enjoy’d by none under the dignity of a justice of peace, or{265} at least the authority of a high constable: nay, and are so inveterate when they grow old, against other creatures who they know use it, that a grave city magistrate, one of the reformed-society, seeing a young game cock of his own, refresh his feather’d mistress three times in about half an hour, he grew so wonderful angry with the lascivious chaunticleer, that he order’d him forthwith to be depriv’d of his progenitors, for committing so foul an act with such indecent immoderation; looking upon the intemperance to be a shameful example, sufficient to stir up inordinate desires in mankind, and to put the female part of his own family upon unreasonable expectancies; but the good lady of the house enquired into the reason, why the noble little creature was so severely dealt by, and being inform’d by her chamber-maid, she compassionately declar’d, that she would rather have given five pound than so barbarous an action had been done in her family, for that the bird committed no offence, and therefore deserv’d no punishment. Observe but in this particular the cruelty of sordid man, and the tenderness of the female sex! and how can those poor girls, who have nothing to depend on but the drudgery of flipflap, expect any other than severe usage from so morose a creature? For certain, whilst publick magistrates are in their authority so stiff, and private women in their own houses so pliable, the ladies of the town must starve, and be firk’d about from one Bridewell to another; for the favours of a kind mistress, which were once thought the most valuable blessings beneath the clouds, are now become, thro’ the universal corruption of the female sex, such unregarded drugs, that the scene is quite revers’d, and as women us’d to take money formerly as but just recompence for their soft embraces, they are forc’d to give money now, or else they will have a hard matter to procure a gallant that is worth whistling after. How therefore at this rate, are the poor whores like to be fed, when the rich ones buy up all for their cats, and the middling whores in private lie and pick up the crumbs? For what won’t down with the quality, are snapp’d up by citizens-wives, sempstresses and head-dressers; insomuch, that I have several pretty nymphs under my own jurisdiction, that some weeks I may modestly say, don’t earn money enough to pay their three-penny admittances into Pancras-wells, but are often-times forc’d to tick half a{266} sice a piece for their watering; and were it not for the credit I always preserve in those places, the poor wenches might be dash’d out of countenance by being refus’d entrance; but money or no money, if they are my puppets, and name but who they belong to, they are as kindly receiv’d as so many butchers at the Bear-Garden; for without them there would be no sport. You may from thence observe what an honest reputation I maintain abroad for a lady of my calling, that the word of the homeliest courtezan protected under my roof, will pass for three-pence any where that she’s known, without the least exception, when many a poor house-keeper has not credit for a two-penny loaf.

We have nothing to hope for, but that the national senate, thro’ their wonted wisdom, will find out, without shamming on’t, some real expedient to restrain the looseness of the age, and promote the practice of morality and strict observance of religion; for thro’ all the experience I have had in the mystery of intriguing, I have ever found the lady’s students in the school of Venus, attended with the most prosperity when the people are most pious; whether it is that a good conscience teaches gentlemen to be more grateful to their mistresses, or that as the priests grow fat, the petticoat flourishes, I will leave you to determine: so thanking you for the kind advice you gave me in your letter, which shall always be esteem’d a guide to my future practice,

LETTERS

FROM THE

Dead to the Living.

Part III.

I Was forc’d to break off my last abruptly, by reason of the vast crowds of people, which press’d upon me then for advice, so that I could not present you with a full catalogue of my cures, which you will find at the conclusion of this, or acquaint you with what transactions of moment have lately happen’d in our gloomy regions. But having by miracle a vacant hour or two at present upon my hands, which, by the by, is a blessing I am seldom troubled with, I was resolv’d not to neglect so fair a opportunity of paying my respects to you, and therefore without any more preface or formality, will continue the thread of my narration.

I had no sooner publish’d my bill and catalogue of cures, but my house has been crouded ever since with prodigious shoals of patients, that I can hardly afford myself an hour to pass with my friends: they flock from all corners of this gigantic city, so that sometimes not only my court-yard{268} which is very large and spacious, but even my chamber, my anti-chamber, and if you’ll allow me, gentlemen, to coin a new word, my pro-anti-chamber, or my hall, is full of them: I will only tell you the names of a few customers of quality that resorted to me for advice yesterday morning: to give you an idea of my business, and how considerable ’tis like to prove.

About a month after my setting up, who should rap at my door, but the famous Semiramis? I remembered her royal phiz perfectly well, ever since my friend Nokes carried me to her coffee-house, and treated me there with a glass of Geneva; however, for certain reasons of state I did not think it proper to let her Babylonian majesty know, that I was acquainted either with her name or quality; come good woman, said I to her, what is your business? Oh! replies she, you see the most unfortunate, unhappy creature in the world. Why what calamity has befallen you? Only, says she, too big for words to express; with that she wrung her hands, stamp’d upon the floor, cursing the left-handed planet she was born under, and pouring down such a deluge of tears, that one would have thought it had been the second edition of the Ephesian matron, lamenting the loss of one spouse in order to wheedle on a second. When her grief had pretty well exhausted itself at the sluices of her eyes, she thus continu’d her tragical historietto. Were I minded, doctor, to trouble you with my genealogy, I could perhaps, make it easily appear, that few people are descended of better parents than myself, but let that pass; the scene is alter’d with me at present, and rather than take up with ill courses, or to be troublesom to my relations, I am content to keep a coffee-house. Now as I was sitting in my bar this morning, and footing a pair of stockings for Alexander the great, in came two rascally grenadiers, and ask’d for some juniper; but alas! while I was gone down into the cellar to fetch it, these lubberly rogues plunder’d me of a silver spoon and nutmeg-grater, and made their escape. Come mistress, says I, this loss is not so great but a little diligence may retrieve it. Oh never, says she again, unless you help me by your art, I am utterly undone to all intents and purposes. Finding her so much mortify’d for the loss of her two utensils, I resolv’d to exert the fortune-teller to her, and banter her in the laudable terms of astro{269}logy; so putting on a very compos’d countenance, I seem’d very seriously to consult a celestial globe that stood before me; then enquiring the precise time when this horrid theft was committed, I drew several odd figures and strokes upon a piece of paper, and at last the oracle thus open’d: Mistress, it appears I find by the Heliocentric position of the planets, that Jupiter, you understand me, is become stationary to retrogradation in Cancer, and consequently, you observe me, mistress, equivocal to him; but how and why in Trine to Mercury in Scorpio, both posited in watry signs, and at the same time Mars being ascendant of the second house, as you may perceive, ’tis as plain that the culminating aspect of Saturn’s Satellites, do ye mind me, centres full in the foresaid configuration. So then mistress, the hoary question thus resolves itself, viz. That your goods were carry’d away South-East by East of your house, under the sign of a four-footed creature, and if you’ll leave open your parlour windows a-nights, I dare pawn my life and honour, that both your silver spoon and nutmeg-grater will be flung into the house one of the nights. Semiramis was wonderfully pleas’d to hear such news, dropt me a fee, and went about her business.

She was hardly gone, but in came queen Dido, who the last time I saw her call’d Virgil so many rogues and rascals in my hearing, for raising such a malicious story of her and and the pious Æneas; it was a long time before I could get her to tell me what errand she came about: at last, after abundance of blushing, and covering half her face with her hood, Seignior Hanesio, says she, I doubt not but a person of your experience has observ’d in his time but too many instances of female infirmity. To be plain with you, I am one, and tho’ I made as great a splutter about my virtue as the soundest of my sex, yet I was a damn’d recreant all that while. In short, I find by several indications which I have not nam’d to you, doctor, that I am with child,—and being very tender of my reputation,—which, doctor, is all we poor women have to depend upon,—— and loth to have my good name expos’d in ballads and lampoons.—— I beg the favour of you, dear doctor,—— and you shall find I will gratify you nobly for your pains, to help me to something that shall make me,—— but you know my meaning, doctor.—— To miscarry is it not, Madam? You are in the{270} right on’t, dear Sir, reply’d she. Why then, Madam, I must tell you, are come to the wrong house; for whether you know it or no, I carry a tender conscience about me, mind me what I say, I carry a tender conscience about me, and would not be guilty of such a wicked thing as you mention for the world. But there is an Italian son of a whore at the corner of the street, that will poison you and the child in your belly, and half the women in the city for half a crown. You may make your application to him, if you think fit, but for my part, Madam, I’ll be perjur’d for no body; for as I told you before, my conscience is tender: Upon this our famous coquette immediately withdrew in a great deal of confusion, and curs’d me plentifully in her gizzard, I don’t question.

My next visitant was Lucretia, who brought some of her water in an urinal, and desir’d me to give her my judgment on’t. Finding her ladyship look a little blueish, and so forth, under the eyes; what was more, having been privately inform’d of the correspondence she kept with Æsop the fabulist; Madam, says I bluntly to her, the party to whom this urine belongs, is under none of the most healthful circumstances, but troubled with certain prickings and pains. I’ll swear, doctor, says she, you are a man of skill, for to my certain knowledge the party is troubled with those concerns you were talking of. You need not forestal me, Madam, says I to her, but especially when she makes water; I knew it as soon as ever I cast my eyes upon the urinal: and pray, Sir, what may be the occasion of it? for the party is at a horrid loss, what is the matter with her. Why, Madam, says I, the matter is plain enough, the party has been committing acts of privity with somebody, and has disoblig’d love’s mansion by it: or to express myself in the familiar language of a modern versificator and quack;

How doctor, says she, have you the impudence to say the party is clapt? verily, Madam, and yet I am no more impudent than some of my neighbours. Why you saucy fellow you, continues she, I’d have you to know that I am the party to whome the urine belongs, and my name is Lucretia, that celebrated matron in Roman history, who scorn{271}ing to out-live her honour, perferr’d a voluntary death to an ignominious life. Yes, Madam, says I, I know your history well enough, and whatever opinion I may have of your chastity, I have yet a greater of your discretion; for, between friends be it said, Madam, before you left the insignificant world, you were resolv’d to taste the sweetness of young Tarquin’s person; and finding what a vast difference there was between vigorous love and phlegmatick duty, you thought it not worth your while to be troubled any longer with the dull embraces of an impotent husband. Oh most abominable scandal, cries our matron, but Heaven be prais’d Livy tells another story of my chastity; and to let thee see how scrupulous and careful I am to preserve my reputation spotless, know, I keep company with none but moralists and philosophers. Lord, Madam, says I, your intrigues are no mysteries to me: I am no stranger to that laudable commerce you keep with that crook-back’d moralist and fable-monger of Phrygia, they call him my lord; Æsop (at which unwelcome words she look’d paler than I have the charity to believe she did when the impetuous Tarquin leapt into bed to her) and as for those sage recommenders of virtue, the philosophers, take my word for it, a clap may be got as soon among them, as any other sort of men whatsoever. Since my coming into these parts, Madam, I am able to give you a true account of the present state of most of these Philosophers’ bodies. Thales, who held that Water was the beginning of all things, is now satisfy’d that Fire is the conclusion of love. Pythagoras that run thro’ so many changes in the other world, has undergone a greater transmutation here in a sweating tub. The divine Plato, and his disciple Aristotle, are at this present writing very lovingly salivating in my garret. Socrates had his shin-bones scrap’d t’other morning by my toad-eater Dr. Connor, by the same token the Hibernian thrash’d him for swearing so inordinately at his dæmon that led him into this mischance. Aristotle told me last night, that nothing in philosophy troubled him so much as pissing of needles. Diogenes has a phiz so merrily collyflower’d, that he protests against planting of men, since these are the effects of it; and the virtuous Seneca has lost all his Roman patience with his nose. But alas, these solemn splaymouth’d gentlemen, Madam, says I, only do it to improve in natural philosophy, with no wicked intentions,{272} I can assure you, no carnal titillation to urge them on, or the like. Well, says she, since ’tis in vain to play the hypocrite any longer, I own myself a downright frail woman, therefore resolve me what is best to be done for my recovery? Look you, Madam, says I, you must take physick, and live sober for a fortnight or so, and I’ll engage to make you as primitively sound as when you first came squaling into the world. Here’s a dose of pills the devil of any Mercury’s in them; take four of them every morning, and to make them operate the better, drink me a quart of honest Phlegethon a little warm’d over the fire, and mix some grated nutmeg with it to correct the crudity. She promis’d to observe my directions, presented me with half a score broad pieces, and as she was going out of the room, Worthy doctor, says she, I conjure you to have a care of my dear dear reputation: And, Madam, answers I, pray have you likewise a care of your dear dear brandy bottle, and your beloved Dr. Steven’s water with the gold in it; and so we parted.

I was thinking with myself, surely it rains nothing but female visitants this morning, when a brace of two handed strapping jades bolted into my closet, and upon a due examination of their faces, I found one of them to be Thalestris the Amazonian, who, as I hinted to you in my last, is become an haberdasheress of small wares; and the other that termagant motly composition of half man half woman, Christiana the late queen of Sweden. So my two chopping Bona Roba’s, says I to ’em and what business has brought you hither? Why you must know, cries Thalestris, that both of us are furiously in love and want a little of your assistance.

The ladies may be always sure of commanding that, answers I, but pray explain yourselves more particularly. For my part, says Thalestris, having formerly been happy in the embraces of Alexander the great, I could never fancy anything but a soldier ever since. Why our military men, says I, have been always famous for attacking and carrying all places before them, but pray tell me the happy person’s name, whom you have singled from the rest of his sex to honour with your affection? With the malicious world, continues she, he passes for a bully, but I call him my lovely charming Capt. Dawson; ’tis true, I am not altogether disagreeable to this cruel insensible; he likes the majesty of my person,{273} my humour and wit well enough; but t’other morning he told me, over a porringer of burnt brandy, when people are apt to unbosom themselves, that he had an unconquerable aversion to red hair, and so I am come to see whether you have any relief for this misfortune, as you promise in your bills. This is no business of mine, says I to her, but my wife’s who’ll soon redress your grievances, and furnish you with a leaden comb and my Anti-Erythræan unguent, which after two or three applications will make you as fair or as brown as you desire. And having said so, address’d myself to her companion, and enquir’d of her what she came for? I am up to the ears in love, says Christiana, with a jolly smock-fac’d duchess’s chaplain lately arriv’d in these parts; I have already signify’d my passion to him, both after the antient and modern way, persecuted him with Latin and French billet-deux, for which I was always famous: but this stubborn Theologue tells me my face is too masculine for him, and particularly quarrels with the irregularity of my forehead and eyebrows. Those will easily be recftify’d by my wife, says I: and now, Madam, will you give me leave to ask you a civil question or two? a hundred, my dear seignior, answers she very obligingly. To be short then, says I, a certain French author, who has writ the memoirs of your life, has been pleas’d positively to assert, that your majesty went thro’ at least one half of the college of cardinals, and that two or three popes were suspected of being familiar with you. I wanted, answers she, no sort of consolation from those noble personages, while I liv’d at Rome; and to convince you how well I am satisfied in their abilities, by my good will, I would have to do with none but ecclesiasticks; for besides that they eat and drink plentifully, and by consequence want no vigour, they possess another no less commendable quality, and that is taciturnity. I applaud your judgment, replies I, for your churchmen are true feeders and thundering performers. No body knows that better than myself, says Christiana, and take my word for it, one robust well-chined priest is worth a hundred of your lean half starv’d captains. I’ll never hear the soldiery blasphem’d, says Thalestris, in a mighty passion, I tell thee, thou insignificant north country trollop, thou foolish affected grammarian-ridden she-pedant, that one soldier is better than a thousand of your stiff-rump’d parsons; and immediately saluted{274} her with a discourteous reprimand a cross the mazzard. The blood of Gustavus Adolphus began to be rous’d in Christiana, and my glasses, globes, and crocodile and all, were infallibly going to rack between these two furious heroines, when my wife luckily stept in to put an end to the fray. In short the matter was amicable made up, and so they follow’d my spouse into her closet, where I’ll leave them.

Thus, gentlemen, you may perceive what sort of customers resort to me, I could tell you a hundred more stories to the same purpose, but why should I pretend to entertain persons of your worth with so mean and unworthy a subject as my self? therefore to diversify the scene, I will endeavour to divert you with some occurences of a more publick importance, which have happen’d in our Acherontic dominions since I writ to you last.

But before I proceed any farther I am to inform you, that we have a spacious noble room in the middle of Brandinopolis, where the virtuosos of former ages as well as of the present, use to resort and entertain one another with learned or facetious conversation, according as it happens. Of late we have had the same controversy debated among us, which so long employ’d monsieur Perault and the famous wits of France, I mean, whether the antients are preferable to the moderns in the learned arts and sciences. The question had been discuss’d one afternoon with a great deal of heat on both sides, when an honest merry gentleman and a new comer among us, whose name I have unluckily forgot, interpos’d in the dispute, and express’d himself to this effect. Gentlemen, says he, I think you may e’en drop this controversy, for I can make it appear, that little England alone affords a set of men at present, that much out-do any of the antients in whatever they pretend to. There’s honest Mr. Edmund Whiteaker, late of the admiralty office, that in the mystery of making up accounts out-does Archimedes; and my lord Puzzlechalk, who told his master’s money over a gridiron, understands numbers better than Archytas or Euclid. Mr. Burgess of Covent-Garden, and indeed most of the dissenting parsons, go infinitely beyond Tully and Demosthenes in point of eloquence; for those old fashion’d orators could only raise joy and sadness successively, whereas the latter so manage{275} matters, that they can make their congregations laugh and weep both at once. The antients were forc’d to drudge and take pains to make themselves masters of any tongue before they pretended to write in it; but here’s your old friend Dr. Case by Ludgate, writ a system of anatomy in Latin, and does not understand a syllable of the language. As for musick you may talk till your heart akes of your Amphions and your Orpheus’s, that drew trees and stones after them by the irresistible force of their harmony; this is so far from being a miracle among us, that the vilest thrummers in England and Wales do it every wake and fair they go to: then as for the various perturbations of mind caus’d by the antient musick, we saw something more wonderful happen upon our own theatre since the late revolution, than antiquity can boast of; for when Harry Purcel’s famous winter song at the Opera of king Arthur, was sung at the play-house, half the gentlemen and ladies in the side boxes and pit got an ague by it, tho’ it was sung in the midst of the dog-days. Lastly, to conclude, for I am afraid I have trespass’d too much upon your patience, we infinitely exceed the antients in quickening of parts: Virgil, one of the topping wits of antiquity, was forc’d to retire out of the noise and hurry of Rome to his country Villa, and bestow’d some ten or twelve years in composing his Æneis: whereas Sir Richard Blackmore, who passes but for a sixth rate versifier among us, was able to write both his Arthurs in two or three years time, and that in the tumult and smoak of Coffee-houses, or in his coach as he was jolting it from one patient to another, amidst the vast multiplicity of his business too, which as the city bard frankly confesses, was never greater than then.

The gentleman delivered his ironies with so good a grace that he set all the company a laughing, and for that time put an end to the dispute. And now since I am upon the chapter of Sir Richard, you must know, that the young wits, inhabiting upon the banks of Phlegethon, have lately pelted his Arthurs with distichs; but I can only call to mind at present three of them. The two first reflect upon the poem’s genealogy, which was partly begot in a coffee-house, and partly in a coach.{276}

I do not wonder now at prince Arthur’s wonderful loquacity, says another, (for as I remember, when he and king Hoel met upon the road, he welcomes him with a simile of forty lines perpendicular) since he was born at a coffee house; nor at the rumbling of the verse, since one half of the book was written in a leathern vehicle; for we find, continues he, that what is bred in the bone, will never out of the flesh; and thus, ’tis no wonder, that according to the observation of a modern virtuoso, the Severn is so mischievous and cholerick a river, and so often ruins the country with sudden inundations, since it rises in Wales, and consequently participates sometimes of the nature of that hasty, iracund people among whom ’tis born. However, cries surly Ben, I must needs commend Sir Richard’s sagacity and politicks in taking care that his muse should be so openly deliver’d; for Epic poems, like the children of sovereign princes, ought to be born in publick.

The other day, as I was taking a solitary turn by myself, ’twas my fortune to meet with a leash of old-fashion’d thread-bare mortals, with very dejected looks, and in the best equipage of those worthy gentlemen, whom you may see every day between the hours of twelve and one, walking in the Middle-Temple and Grays-Inn walks, to get ’em a stomach to their no-dinners. At first I took them for a parcel of fiddlers, when the oldest of them undeceiv’d me, by addressing himself to me as follows. Sir, says he, my name is J. Hopkins, my two companions are the fam’d Sternhold and Wisdom, and understanding that you are lately arrived from England, I have presum’d to ask you a question: we have been inform’d some time ago, that two Hibernian bards, finding fault with our version and language, have endeavour’d to depose myself and my two bre{277}thren here out of all parish-churches, where we have reign’d most melodiously so long, and to substitute their own translation in the room of it; I must confess it vexes me to the heart to think that I must be ejected after an hundred years quiet possession and better, which, by the Common as well as Civil law, gives a man a just title, and resign my ecclesiastical dominions to two new fangled usurpers, whom I never injur’d in my days. Now, Sir, pray tell me how my affairs go in your world, and whether I have reputation enough still left me with the people, to make head against those unrighteous innovators? Why truly, Mr. Hopkins, says I to him, when these adversaries first appeared in the world, I was in some pain about you, the conspiracy against your crown and dignity being so speciously laid, that nothing less than an universal defection seem’d to threaten you. ’Tis true indeed, some few churches in and about London, where the people you know are govern’d by a spirit of novelty, have thrown you out, but by what advices I can receive, excepting some few revolters, the generality of the people seem to be heartily engaged in your interests, and as it always happens to other monarchs when they are able to surmount an insurrection form’d against them, I look upon your throne, since you have so happily broke the neck of this rebellion, to be settled upon a surer basis than ever. The Parish-clerks, sextons, and old women, all over the kingdom are in a particular manner devoted to your service, preserving a most entire and unshaken allegiance to you, and on my conscience would sooner part with all magna charta than one syllable of yours. You wonderfully revive my spirits, replies old Hopkins, to tell me such comfortable news, but pray, Sir, one word more with you; This new translation that has made such a noise in the world, is it so much superior to mine, as my enemies here would make me believe? Mr. Hopkins, says I, I flatter no man, ’tis not my way, therefore you must not take amiss what I am going to say to you. For my part I am of opinion, that king David is not oblig’d to any of you, but ought to cudgel you all round; for I can find no other difference between the Jewish monarch in his ancient collar of ekes and ayes, which you and your brethren there have bestow’d upon him, and in his new-fashion’d Irish dress, than there is{278} between an old man of threescore with a long beard hanging down to his waste, and the same individual old man newly come out of a barber’s shop nicely shav’d and powder’d. ’Tis true, he looks somewhat gayer and youth-fuller, but has not a jot more vigour and ability.

I know you gentlemen of Will’s coffee-house, will be glad to hear some news of Mr. Dryden, I must tell you then, that we had the devil all of combustions and quarrels here in hell since that famous bard’s arrival among us. The Grecians, the Romans, the Italians, the Spaniards, the French, but especially the Dutch authors, have been upon his back; Homer was the first that attack’d him for justifying Almanzor’s idle rants and monstrous actions by the precedent of Achilles. The two poets, after a little squabbling, were without much difficulty perswaded to let their two heroes fight out the quarrel for them, but the nimble-heel’d Græcian soon got the whip-hand of the furious Almanzor, and made him beg pardon. Horace too grumbled a little in his gizzard at him for affirming Juvenal to be a better satirist than himself; but upon second thoughts thought it not worth his while to contest the point with him. Once it happen’d, that Mr. Bays came into our room when Petronius Arbiter was diverting us with a very fine nouvelle. Mons. Fontaine, Sir Philip Sidney, Mr. Waller, my late lord Rochester, with Sir Charles Sidley, compos’d part of this illustrious audience; when Mr. Dryden unluckily spoil’d all by asking the latter, what the facetious gentleman’s name was, that talk’d so agreeably? How, says Sir Charles Sidley, hadst thou the impudence, in the preface before thy English Juvenal, to say, that so soon as the pretended Belgrade supplement of Petronius’s fragments came into England, thou couldst tell upon reading but two lines of that edition, whether it was genuine or no; and here hast thou heard the noble author himself talk above an hour by the clock, and could not find him out? Upon this the old bard retired in some disorder; but what happened to him a day or two after was more mortifying.

Chaucer meets him in one of our coffee-houses, and after the usual ceremonies were over between two strangers of their wit and learning, thus accosts him. Sir, cries Chaucer, you have done me a wonderful honour to furbish up some of my old musty tales, and bestow modern garni{279}ture upon them, and I look upon myself much obliged to you for so undeserved a favour; however, Sir, I must take the freedom to tell you, that you over-strain’d matters a little, when you liken’d me to Ovid, as to our wit and manner of versification. Why, Sir, says Mr. Dryden, I maintain it, and who then dares be so saucy as to oppose me? But under favour, Sir, cries the other, I think I should know Ovid pretty well, having now convers’d with him almost three hundred years, and the devil’s in it if I don’t know my own talent, and therefore tho’ you pass a mighty compliment upon me in drawing this parallel between us, yet I tell you there is no more resemblance between us, as to our manner of writing, than there is between a jolly well-complexion’d Englishman and a black-hair’d thin-gutted Italian. Lord, Sir, says Dryden to him, I tell you that you’re mistaken, and your two styles are as like one another as two Exchequer tallies. But I, who should know it better, says Chaucer, tell you the contrary. And I, say Mr. Bays, who know these things better than you, and all the men in the world, will stand by what I have affirm’d, and upon that gave him the lye. Rhadamanthus, who is one of Pluto’s oldest judges and a severe regulator of good manners and conversation, immediately sent for our friend John to appear in court; and after he had severely reprimanded him for using such insufferable language upon no provocation; for your punishment, says he, I command you to get Sir Richard Blackmore’s translation of Job by heart, and to repeat ten pages of it to our friend the author of the Rehearsal every morning. Poor Bays desired his lordship to mitigate so rash a sentence, and by way of commutation frankly offer’d to drink so many quarts of liquid sulphur every morning. No, says my lord judge, tho’ they commute penances in Doctors-Commons, yet we are not such rogues to commute them in hell, and so I expect to be obey’d.

Thus Gentlemen, you see we observe a severe justice among us, and indeed to deliver my thoughts impartially, I must needs say, that equity is administer’d after a fairer and more compendious manner in these dominions, than either in your Westminster-Hall, or your palace at Paris, where Astræa pretends to carry all before her, yet has as little to do in either of those two places, as a farrier at{280} Venice. A signal instance of this we have had in a late famous tryal. A foot-soldier of the first regiment of guards, and a Drury-lane whore, were summon’d to appear before judge Minos, who after he had, with a great deal of patience, heard the crimes that were alledg’d against them, asked them what they had to offer in favour of themselves, why sentence of damnation should not pass? the young harlot, either replying upon the merits of her face, which she foolishly imagin’d would bring her off here, as it had often done in your world, or else being naturally furnish’d with a greater stock of impudence than the soldier, broke thro’ the crowd, and thus address’d herself to the court: I hope your lordship, says she, will take no advantage of a poor woman’s ignorance, who ought to have learned counsel to plead for her; however, I depend so much upon the justice of my cause, that I will undertake it my self. The chief argument I insist upon, my lord, is this: I think it highly unreasonable that I should suffer a-new for my crimes in this world, having done sufficient penance for them in the other. By my aunt’s consent and privity, I was sold to an old libidinous lord, and debauch’d by him before I was fourteen; the noble peer kept me some four months; then took occasion to pick a quarrel with me, and set me a drift in the wide world, to steer my course as fortune should direct me. In this exigence I was forc’d to apply my self to a venerable old matron, who finding me young and handsome, took me into her service, shamm’d me upon her customers for a baronet’s daughter of the North, and much I was made of, and courted like a little queen; but, my lord, our profession is directly opposite to all others, for too much custom breaks us. In short, an officer in the army, whom Pluto rewarded for his pains, taught me what Fortune de la guerre meant, so that I was very fairly salivated before fifteen. Having got a little knowledge of the world under this old matron’s directions, who went more than halves with me in every bargain, I thought it high time to trade for my self, and told her one morning, that I was resolved to expose myself no longer in her house. What you please as for that, replies this antient gentlewoman, but first, my dear child, let us come to a fair account to see how the land lies between us. Then stepping into the next room{281} she shew’d me a deal-board all be-scrawl’d with round o’s and cart-wheels in ungodly chalk; then clapping on her spectacles, let me see, cries she, for lodging, diet, washing, cloaths, linen, physick, &c. you owe me ten pounds, (which came up within a few transitory shillings of what I had earned in her house) and this you must pay, sweetheart, before you talk of parting. ’Twas in vain to complain of her extortion, for besides that she pleaded perscription for it, her arithmetick was infallible, and she judg’d for her self en dernier ressort. Thus I was turn’d out of doors, but having in the interim, while I stay’d here, contracted a small acquaintance with a sister of the quill that lodg’d in Covent-Garden, I repaired to her quarters, and continu’d with her. Between us, my lord, we acted the story of Castor and Pollux, that is, we were never visible together, but when she appeared above the horizon, ’twas bed-time with me; and when she kept her bed, ’twas my time to shine at the play-house. When either of us went abroad, we made a fine show enough, but then we gratify’d our backs at the expence of our bellies; cow-heel, tripe, a few eggs, or sprats, were our constant regale at home, and upon holidays a chop of mutton roasted upon a packthread in the chimney; and many a time when my sister and I wore silver-lac’d shoes our stockings wanted feet. I should trespass too much upon your lordship’s patience, to tell you how I have been forc’d to shift my name as well as my quarters, to submit to the nauseous embraces of every drunken tobacco-taking sot, that had half a crown in his pocket to purchase me; and when I have been arrested for a milk-score not exceeding the terrible sum of four shillings, to let an ill-look’d dog of a Moabite enjoy me upon a founder’d chair in a spunging-house to procure my liberty. To this I should add, what unmerciful contributions I was forc’d out of my small revenue to pay to the conniving justices clerks, the constable, the beadle, the tallyman, but especially to those rascals the Reformers, whose business is not to convert, but only lay a heavier tax upon poor sinners, and make iniquity shift its habitation oftener than otherwise it would, I should never have done. In short, our condition, my lord is like a frontier people that live between two mighty monarchies, oppress’d, squeez’d, and plun{282}der’d on all sides. By that time I was one and twenty, I could number more diseases than years, smoak and swear like a grenadier; and last Bartholomew fair, having made a debauch in stumm’d claret and Dr. Stevens’s water, with an attorney’s clerk, a fever seiz’d me next morning, and tript up my heels in three days. How I was buried, that is to say, whether by the contributions of the sister-hood or at the charge of the parish, I cannot tell; but this, my lord, is a short and faithful account of my life, and now I submit myself to the justice of this honourable court. I will not pretend to vindicate my profession, but this I may venture to affirm, that the world cannot live without us, and that a whore in the business of love, is like farthings in the business of trade, which (tho’ they are not the legal coin of the nation) ought to be allow’d and tolerated, if it were only for the conveniency of ready change. Well, says my lord, since ’tis so, and your calling expos’d you to so much suffering, I hope you made your gallants pay for it? That you may be sure I did, answers our damsel, I sold my maidenhead to fifteen several customers, by the same token seven of them were Jews, and it pleases me to think how I cheated those loggerheads in their own Mosaical indications. I never parted with any of my favours, nay, not so much as a clap gratis, except a lieutenant and ensign whom once I admitted upon trust, by the same token they built a sconce, and left me in the lurch. I always took care to secure my money first; tho’ those ungracious vipers of the army would rifle me now and then in spite of all my precaution: for my lord, we whores are like the sea, what we gain in one place we lose in another. Take her away, says my lord Minos, take her away, see her fairly dipt every morning for this twelvemonth over head and ears in good wholesome brimstone: to be both merchant and merchandize, to sell her self for money and yet expect pleasure for it, is worse exaction than was ever practised in Lombard-street or Cornhil.

Our Drury-lane nymph was no sooner carried off, but the soldier advanced forward, and thus told his tale: My lord, you are not to expect a fine speech from me, I am a soldier, and we soldiers are men of action, and not of words. I was a barber’s prentice in the strand, liv’d with{283} him five years, got his maid with child, beat his wife for pretending to reprove me, had run on score at all the painted lattices in the neighbour-hood, and my circumstances being such, was easily persuaded to turn gentleman-soldier. My captain promis’d to make me a serjeant the very moment after I was listed, but he serv’d me just as he did his creditors, whom, to my certain knowledge, he left in the lurch. Well, my lord, I follow’d him to Flanders, where I stood buff to death and damnation four campaigns, sometimes for a groat, sometimes for nothing a-day. Had I more sins to answer for than either the colonel or agent of our regiment, I have bustled thro’ misery enough to wipe out all my scores, curtail’d of my pay to keep a double-chinn’d chaplain, who never preach’d among us, and maintain an hospital, where I could never expect to be admitted without bribery; forc’d for want of subsistence to steal offal, which an hungry dog would piss upon, and if discover’d sure to be rewarded with the wooden-horse, and lest the unweildy beast shou’d throw me, secur’d by a brace of musquets dangling on my heels; to lie up to the chin in water for preventing of rheumatisms, and smoak wholesome dock-leaves to prevent being dunn’d by my stomach; drubb’d and can’d without any provocation, by a smooth-fac’d prig, who t’other day was a pimp, or something worse to a nobleman; never sure of one hour’s rest in the night, never certain of a meal’s meat in the day; harass’d with perpetual marches and counter marches; roasted all the summer, and frozen all the winter; cheated by my officer, cuckolded by my comrades. These, my lord, were the blessings of my life, and if ever I could muster up pence enough to purchase a single pint of Geneva, I thought myself in my kingdom. Last summer I was one of the noble adventurers that went in the expedition to Cadiz, and having secur’d a little linen to myself at Fort St. Mary’s in order to make me a few shirts when I came home, and rubb’d off with two insignificant silver puppets (I think they call them saints) out of a church, the superior commander seiz’d upon them for his own private use, in her majesty’s name, and legally plunder’d me of what I had as legally stolen from the enemy. This and a thousand other disappointments, together with change of climates and other inconveniences,{284} threw such a damp upon my spirits, that within three days after I landed at Portsmouth, I fell ill, and was glad to part with a wretched life, which had given me so much vexation and so little satisfaction. Thus my lord, I have honestly laid all before you, so let the court sentence me as they please. Why really, says the judge, thy case is hard enough, and I must needs say thou dost not want any new weight to be laid upon thee; and so immediately acquitted him, ordering him to be set at liberty without paying of fees.

Finding justice impartially administered in Hell, you may perhaps have the curiosity, gentlemen, to enquire what sort of reception my lord Double of Turn-about-hall found among us upon his arrival into these dominions. I must tell you then, that to the universal admiration of our infernal world, my lord is become Pluto’s great favourite, so that nothing almost is transacted here without his advice and direction. Every body indeed expected, that his lordship who changed his religion on purpose to delude the unhappy prince, whose prime confident he was, and at the same time kept a private correspondence with his enemy in Holland, would have found an entertainment suitable to his deserts, been loaded with chains, and regaled with liquid sulphur; but hitherto he has either had the good luck, or management, to avoid it. A sudden gust of wind had blown away the fan from the top of Pluto’s kitchin, that very afternoon he came here. Our monarch was first in the mind to clap his lordship’s breech upon the iron-spike, and make a weathercock of him (the only thing he was fit for) that with every whiff of brimstone he might tell where damnation sate. Soon after he was of opinion to make a light-match of him to use upon occasion, whenever he had any empire or kingdom to blow up. But at last carefully considering his face, and the majesty of his gate, he made him his taylor, and to say the truth, nobody knows the dimensions of his Luciferian majesty better than his lordship: and as it often happens in your world for noblemen to be govern’d by their taylors or peruke-makers, so my lord in his present capacity of taylor orders every thing at court, puts in and displaces whom he pleases, and possesses Pluto’s ear to that degree, that happening to be in company last week with Aaron{285} Smith, Col. Wildman, Slingsby Bethel, C—rn—sh, and others of the same kidney, who heartily wish the prosperity of old Hell, they gravely shook their heads, and said they were afraid their master Pluto’s government would not long continue, since he had got a viper in his bosom, and a traytor in his cabinet, who would not fail to conjure up some neighbouring prince against him to dispossess him of his antient throne. Indeed ’tis prodigious to consider how this dissembler has wriggled himself into the good opinion not only of our sovereign, but even of queen Proserpine. About a month ago he had interest enough to get my late lord Sh—ft—ry, released out of the dungeon, where he has been confined ever since his coming here, and made him administrator of the Clyster-Pipe to Pluto, for this merry reason, because he had always a good hand at striking at fundamentals. That old libidinous civilian of the Commons, Dr. Littleton, he has made judge admiral of the Stygian lake, and the famous Mr. Alsop, who wished in his address to king James, that the dissenters had casements to their breasts, he has got to be the devil’s glazier; nay, what will more surprize you, he has procur’d the reversion of master of Pluto’s rough game, when it falls, for Dr. Oates; and obtain’d a promise of candle-snuffer-general to all the gaming-houses in these quarters, for honest George Porter the evidence.

The Remainder of my Catalogue of Cures.

TImothy Addlepate, of Cheapside, Milliner, was so wonderfully afflicted with the Zelotypia Italica, that he constantly lock’d up his simpering red-hair’d spouse, when business call’d him abroad, and would hardly trust her with her aunt or grandmother. By rectifying his constitution with my true Covent-Garden Elixir, he is so intirely cured of the Icterus Martialis, or his old yellow distemper that now of his own accord he carries her to the play-house, sends her to all the balls, masquerades, and merry meetings in town; nay, trusts her alone at Epsom-Wells and Richmond, and will let her sit a whole afternoon with a gay smooth-fac’d officer of the guards at the tavern, and is never disturbed at it.{286}

Jethro Lumm, at the sign of the Blue-ball and Spotted-horse, between a Cheesemonger’s and Perfumer’s shops in Ratcliff-high-way, by taking a few doses of my Pulvis Vermifugus, or my Antiverminous Powder, voided above 30000 worms of all sorts, as your Ascarides, Teretes, Hirudines, and so forth, in the space of 12 hours, one of which, by modest computation, was supposed long enough to reach from St. Leonard’s Shoreditch, to Tottenham high cross. I confess my medicine is a little bitter; but what says the learned Arabian philosopher Hamet Ben Hamet Ben Haddu Albumazar, A diadem will not cure the Apoplexy, nor a velvet slipper the Gout: And are not all the Antients as well as Neotorics agreed, that raro corpus sine vermibus. Therefore, my good friends, be advis’d in time.

Ezekiel Driver of Puddle-dock, Carman, having disordered his Pia mater with too plentiful a morning’s draught of three-threads and old Pharaoh, had the misfortune to have his car run over him. The whole street concluded him as good as dead, and the over-forward clerk of the parish had already set him down in the weekly-bills. Two applications of my Unguentum Traumaticum set him immediately to rights, and now he is coachman in ordinary to a Tallyman’s fat widow in Soho. Witness his hand E. D.

Elnathan Ogle, Anabaptist-teacher in Morefields over-against the Grasshopper and Greyhound, for want of being carefully rubb’d down by the pious females after his sudorifick exercise, had got the grease in his heels, and was so violently troubled with rheumatical pains, that he was no longer able to lay out himself for the benefit of his congregation. My Emplastrum Anodynum so effectually reliev’d him by twice using of it, that he has since shifted his profession, teaches the youth of Finsbury-fields to play at back-sword and quarter-staff, and has turn’d his conventicle in-for a fencing-school.

Marmaduke Thummington, at the Red-cow and 3 Travellers in Barbican, was possess’d with an obstreperous ill condition’d devil of a wife, whose everlasting clack incessantly thundering in his ears, had made him as deaf as a drum. His case was so lamentable, that a demiculverin shot over his head affected him no more than it would a man 20 miles off; he was insensible to all the betting and swearing of the loudest cock-match, that ever was fought by two conten{287}ding counties; nay, at one of Mr. Bays’s fighting plays, would sit you as unconcern’d, as if he had been at a Quakers silent meeting. After all your Elmys, and other pretenders had despair’d of him, I undertook his cure, and with a few of my Otacoustical drops have so intirely recover’d him, that the society of Reformers have made him their chief director, and his hearing is so strangely improved, that at an eaves-dropping at a window, he can hear oaths that were never sworn, and bawdy that was never spoke.

Richard Bentlesworth, superintendent of a small grammar-elaboratory, in the out-skirts of the town, was so monstrously over-run with the Scorbuticum Pedanticum, that he used to dumfound his milk-woman with strange stories of gerunds and participles; would decline you domus in a cellar in the Strand before a parcel of chimney-sweepers, and confute Schioppius and Alvarez to the old wall-ey’d matron, that sold him grey pease. Tho’ this strange distemper, when once it has got full possession of a man, is as hard to be cured as an hereditary-pox, yet I have absolutely recovered him; so that now he troubles the publick no more with any of his Dutch-Latin dissertations; but is as quiet an author as ever was neglected by all the town, or buried in Little-Britain.

Timothy Gimcrack, doctor of the noble cockle-shell-fraternity, whose philosophy and learning lay so much under ground, that he had nothing of either to show above it, used to be troubled with strange unaccountable fits, and during the paroxism, would contrive new worlds, as boys build houses of cards, find a thousand faults with old Moses, make a hasty pudding of the universe, and drown it in a Menstruum of his own inventing, and leave the best patient in the city, for a new gay-coated butterfly. I took out his brains, washed them in my Aqua Intellectualis, and if has since relaps’d, who may he thank, but his cursed East-India correspondent, who addled his understanding a-new, with sending him the furniture of a Chinese barber’s-shop.

Nehemiah Drowsy, grocer and deputy of his ward, was so prodigiously afflicted with a lethargy, that his whole life was little better than a dream. He would sleep even while he was giving the account of his own pedigree,{288} how from leathern breeches and nothing in them, he came to the vast fortune he now possesses. Nay, over the pious spouse of his bosom he has been often found asleep in an exercise which keeps all other mortals awake. By following my sage directions he’s so wonderfully alter’d for the better, that after a full dinner of roast-beef and pudding he can listen to a dull sermon at Salters-Hall, without so much as one yawn; nay, can hear his apprentice read two entire pages of Wesley’s heroic poem, and never makes a nod all the while.

But to come to affairs of a more publick concern, we are in a strange ferment here about the divided interests of the houses of Austria and Bourbon. Our master following herein the policy of the Jesuits, or rather they following him, for we ought to give the devil his due, seems to incline most to the latter: however, if the Spaniards and French set up their horses no better in your world than they do with us, ’tis easy to predict that the unnatural conjuction of the two kingdoms will be soon shatter’d to pieces. Whenever they meet, there’s such roaring and swearing, and calling of names between them, that we expect every minute when they will go to loggerheads. ’Tis true some few of the dons that are lately arriv’d here, call’d Lewis-le-Grand their protector, and are Frenchify’d to a strange degree; but the rest of their countrymen call them a parcel of degenerate rascals, and are so violently bent against them, that unless Pluto lock’d them up a nights in distinct apartments, we should have the devil and all to do with them.

Next to the affairs of France and Spain, are we concerned about the fate of the occasional bill; a few old fashion’d virtuosos among us hope it will pass, but the generality of our politicians, and particularly those belonging to Pluto’s cabinet, who are stiled the congregation de inferno ampliando, are resolv’d at any rate to hinder its taking effect. As hypocrisy sends greater numbers to hell, than any other sins whatever, you are not to wonder if the ministry here do all they can to oppose the passing of a bill, which will prove so destructive to the infernal interest by destroying hypocrisy. For which reason Pluto has lately dispatch’d several trusty emissaries to your parts, who are{289} to bribe your observators and other mercenary pamphleteers, to raise a hedious outcry about persecution, and represent this design in such odious colours to the people, that, if posible, it may miscarry. A little time will show us the success of this refin’d conduct.

One short story, gentlemen, and then I have done. A Spaniard last week was commending the authors of his own country, and particularly enlarg’d upon the merits of the voluminous long-winded Tostatus, who, he said, had writ above a cart-load of books in his time. But why should I talk of a cart-load, continues he, when he has writ more than ’tis possible for any one single man to read over in his life? judge then of the worth of this indefatigable Tostatus; judge how many tedious nights and days he must have spent in study. Under favour, cries an English gentleman lately arrived here, we have a writer that much exceeds your famous Tostatus, even in that respect. His name is Bentivoglio, and tho’ at present he falls somewhat short of your author, as to the number of books of his own composing, yet he has writ one octavo, which I’ll defy any man in the universe to read over, tho’ he has the patience of Job, the constitution of Sampson, and the long age of Methuselah.

But hold—I forget who I am writing to all this while; gentlemen that have either more business or pleasure upon their hands, than to go thro’ the tedious persecution of so unmerciful a letter. However, I hope you’ll pardon me this fault, if you consider the great difficulty of transmitting the nouvelles of our subterranean world to your parts; for which reason I was resolv’d rather to trespass upon your patience, than lose this opportunity of giving you an account of all our memorable transactions. If in requital of this small trouble I have given myself, you will be so kind as to order any one of your society, to inform me how affairs go at present in Covent-Garden, at St. James’s &c. what news the dramatick world affords in Drury-lane, Lincolns-Inn-Fields, and Smithfield, as ’twill be the most sensible obligation you can lay upon me, so it shall be remember’d with the utmost gratitude by,

Certamen Epistolare,

Between an Attorney of Cliffords-Inn and a dead Parson. By Mr. T. Brown.

LETTER I.

INgatum fi dixere omnia dixeris, was the saying of one of the greatest sages of antiquity; to whose name and merits I presume you can be no stranger. Perit quod facias ingrato, was likewise the saying of another Græcian philosopher, as you will find in Erasmus’s adagies. Save a thief from the gallows and he’ll cut your throat, is a proverb of our own growth; and we have a thousand in{291}stances in antient and modern history to confirm the truth of it.

Indeed ingratitude is so monstrous and execrable a vice, that, according to the Roman orator’s observation (I need not tell you, that when I say the Roman orator, I always mean Tully) the very earth itself, the bruta tellus, as Horace deservedly calls it, is a standing testimony against all ungrateful men, and rises up in judgment against them. For does not this earth, the vilest of the four elements, make grateful returns to the husbandman for the little cost and pains he bestows upon her? Does she not sometimes give thirty, sometimes twenty, and at least ten measures of corn for the one he entrusted her with? Whereas an ungrateful wretch is so far from doubling or trebling a kindness done to him, that ’tis next door to a miracle, if he can be brought to give back the principal.

And now, Sir, you’ll ask me, I suppose, what I mean by declaming thus againgst ingratitude, any more than simony or sacrilege, or any other sin whatever; and particularly how this comes to affect you? Why, Sir, don’t be so hasty, I beseech you, and you’ll soon be satisfied.

You must understand me then, that one Mrs. Rebecca Blackman, widow, who lives at the sign of the Griffin in Shoe-lane, (I suppose, Sir, somebody’s conscience begins to fly in his face by this time) told me, that a certain gentleman of Cambridge, who very much resembles you in name, face, and person, (and now Sir, I humbly conceive that somebody that shall be nameless blushes) borrow’d of her upon the first of April, 1698, in the tenth year of his majesty king William’s reign, the sum of five pounds, (well Sir, let him blush on, for blushing is a sign of grace) which he promis’d to repay her in verbo sacerdotis, within a month after, (good Lord! to see how canonically some people can break their words) upon the word of a gentleman, as he was a christian, and all that. But mind what follows, Sir. This worthy gentleman, I told you of, altho’ he was bound to the performance of his promise by all that was good and sacred; and if good and sacred would not bind him, by a note under his own hand, wherein he promis’d to pay to Mrs. Rebecca Blackman, widow, or order, the aforesaid sum of five pounds upon demand; nevertheless, and notwithstanding all this, he{292} has not had the manners so much as to send her a letter to excuse himself for this delay, and takes no more notice of her, than if he had never seen any such person as Mrs. Rebecca Blackman in all his life.

She being therefore my antient acquaintance and friend, and one for whom I profess to have a very great value, desir’d me to write a few lines to you, which accordingly I have done, and by her order I request you, as being a person of great civility and candour, to tell the aforesaid gentleman, (whom as I am informed you may see every morning in the year, if you have a looking-glass in your room, which I will in charity suppose) that she expects to have the five pounds supradict within a fortnight at farthest, and then all will be well: otherwise she must be forc’d, in her own defence, to employ the secular arm, anglicè, a baliff or catchpole, and put the abovemention’d person into lobb’s pound.

Now, Sir, having a great regard to mother university, (of which I might have been an unworthy member, had not my uncle——) and likwise being desirous to prevent farther effusion of christian money, I make it my humble request to you to speak to the aforesaid gentleman, that he would send me the sum of five pounds with all expedition; and in so doing you will in a most particular manner oblige,

ANSWER I.

YEsterday morning, about eight of the clock precisely, the sun being newly entred into Sagittarius, and the wind standing at south-east by east; which corner, as the learned abbot Joachimus Trithemius, in his elaborate{293} treatise, intitled, Eurus Enucleatus, tells us, is a certain prognostick of droughts and hot weather; I was smoaking a pipe of tobacco, and reading Erasmus’s Moriæ Encomium of the Basil edition, printed by Frobenius, who, you know, Sir, married Christopber Plantin’s cook-maid, when to my great surprize, the post-boy brought me a letter from one W. H. who pretends to date it from his chambers in Clifford’s-Inn; tho’ as far as I can judge of the beast by his stile and way of writing, he ought to have a room no where but in the brick-house in Moorfields.

For, Sir, the author of it, and I desire you to tell him so much from me, seems to rave, and in his raving fit disgorges old buckram Apophthegms and ends of Latin stolen out of Lycosthenes; and in short, at the expence of other folks, throws his thread-bare quotations about him like a madman, as you will soon perceive, if you’ll give yourself the trouble to read what follows.

I. This retainer to the law, Sir, begins his letter with Ingratum si dixere omnia dixere; and has the impudence to tell me, that it was a saying of one of the greatest sages of antiquity, as if a man were a jot the wiser for his calling him so; and, like a presuming coxcomb as he is, presumes I am no stranger to his name and merits. Pray, Sir, tell him from me, that he has falsify’d his quotation; for which crime, by an old statute of king Ina, as you will find in Gothofred and Panormitanus, he ought to do penance in a certain wooden machine, call’d in Latin, Collistrigium, and in English a Pillory; and that in all the antient manuscripts both in the Vatican and Bodleian libraries, not to mention those of the duke of Courland, and the prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, ’tis written, Attornatum si dixeris, omnia dixeris; which is as much as to say, Sir, that if you call a man an attorney, you call him all the rogues and rascals in the world.

II. Before I proceed any farther, I must beg the favour of you to inform him, that we are much surpriz’d here to find an attorney guilty of so much nonsense, as to send down Latin to the university, where we have more than we know well what to do with. ’Tis as bad as sending Derby-ale from Fullwood’s-rents to the town of Derby, or sturgeon to Huntingdon. In fine, as he has{294} manag’d matters, ’tis downright murderium (he knows the meaning of that word) for which he must never expect the benefit of the clergy.

To pass over his next idle quotation, and an old batter’d English proverb; the next person he falls upon, is the Roman orator; and with his usual discretion, he gives me to understand that he means Tully by him. ’Tis well he tells us whom he means; for of all the men in the world, I thought an attorney had as little to do with an orator, as a bawd with an eunuch. But why should a fellow that never meant any thing in his life, pretend to meaning? Or how came Tully and such a blockhead to be acquainted? Well, but Tully, he says, observes that the earth itself, which, I hope by the bye, will one of these days stop his pettifegging mouth, for calling it the vilest of the four elements, is a standing testimony against ingratitude; and why forsooth, because it returns the husbandman two for one. I can’t imagine how it should come into this wretch’s head to rail at ingratitude, who is the most ungrateful devil that ever liv’d; and ’tis ten to one but I prove it before I have done with him. He is ungrateful in the first place to his schoolmaster, for making no better use of the Latin he wipp’d into him. He is ungrateful to the Common Law, for polluting it which wicked sentences purloin’d out of Pagan authors: and lastly, he is ungrateful to the Inn he lives in, for dreaming seven whole years there to no purpose, and continuing as great a blockhead as when he first come to town.

Towards the conclusion of his letter, you must understand, says he, that one—This he said to show his civility and good manners; You must understand? Why suppose I won’t understand, how will he help himself? Or what man alive can understand a fellow that murders his thoughts between two languages? but I find I must understand him right or wrong. After this compliment, he tells me an idle foolish story of a widow in Shoe-lane, and raves about five pounds, that I know nothing of; and is so full of it that a few lines below he calls it the sum supradict. I shall take another opportunity to knock this impertinent tale on the head, and shall only desire you at present to acquaint this W. H. from me, that when he has answer’d this letter, I design to give him satisfaction in his other points.{295} In the mean time, unknown Sir, I am as the Roman orator has it,

LETTER II.

I Don’t know what plenty of Latin you may have in the University; tho’, by the bye, I can hardly believe you are so overstock’d with it as you pretend; but I dare swear that good manners are very scarce things among you, and your letter sufficiently demonstrates it.

You are angry with me, it seems, for quoting a few Latin sentences; I am afraid ’tis the meaning of them, and not the language that disgusts you; for some people can’t endure to hear the truth told them in any tongue whatever: but, under favour, Sir, what mighty virtue should there be in the air of Oxford and Cambridge, that Latin should only flourish there? Or why should not Tully take up his quarters in the Inns of Chancery, as well as one of your Colleges? I am sure we can give him better meat and drink, and perhaps have cleaner and larger rooms to entertain him.

The meaning of these two verses are, (for why should not I interpret my Latin to you, as well as you have taken the freedom to explain your’s to me?) that London is not so barbarous and unpolish’d a place, but that Apollo, and the nine Muses may find as hospitable a reception there, as with you in the university.

But, Sir, I have no time to lose, tho’ you have. The widow is pressing for her money, the Term draws on apace, and I must know your answer one way or other. Therefore let me desire you in your next, not to ramble from the point in hand, but to keep to the text. Once in your life take Martial’s advice, Dic aliquid de tribus capellis; here’s Latin for you again; but the advice is good and seasonable. Once more leave off flourishing and{296} come immediately to business, that I may know what measures to take.

ANSWER II.

YOU charge me with want of manners in the University. Now to convince you that your accusation is groundless, frivolous and vexatious, I will take no notice of the scurrilous reflections in your letter, but, as you desire me, fall immediately to business.

To sum them up in a few lines what you have bestow’d so many upon, you tell me that a certain gentleman of my acquaintance, meaning myself, I suppose, whom in your excess of charity, you believe to have a looking-glass in his chamber, and a great deal of the like stuff, borrow’d five pounds last April of one Rebecca Blackman, widow, and spinster, living at the sign of the Griffin and Red-lion in Shoe-lane, and has not paid her as he promis’d. Now, Sir, if I make it appear to you that there is no such a thing as a widow in rerum natura, or a Griffin, or a Red-lion; that Shoe-lane is an equivocal word; and that ’tis impossible for a man that lives under the evangelical dispensation to owe any such heathenish sum as five pounds; I hope you’ll be brought to knock under the table, and own that you have given me and yourself a great deal of unnecessary trouble.

First of all, I affirm, assert and maintain, that there is no such thing as a widow in the universe; and thus I prove it. A widow is one that laments and grieves for the loss of her husband; but how can you or any man in London know that a woman really grieves? for shedding of tears, and wearing of crape, are not sure signs of grief; consequently then how can you be sure there is any such thing as a widow? And if so, are not you an insufferable coxcomb to palm a widow upon a stranger, that never did you any harm? Well, but suppose it were possible for a man to know that a woman really grieves for the loss of her husband, which proposition, let me tell you, Heroboord Burgersdicius, and the whole stream of the Dutch{297} commentators and Peleponnesian divines positively deny; how shall we be able to find out this monster, and tell where the place of her abode is? Why, say you, she lives at the sign of the Griffin and Red Lion in Shoe-lane? Bless us! what a sad thing it is to be troubled with a distemper’d brain! Imprimis, a Griffin is a new ens rationis, only devis’d by the imagination, and is no where to be found, no not in the deserts of Arabia, or the vast forests of Afric; altho’ Afric, Sir, ever since the time of Eratosthenes and Strabo, has been said continually to produce some new monster: and as for a Red Lion, I defy you and all the attornies in the kingdom to shew me one. Theophrastus, Ælian, Dionysius, Harmogistus de miraculis, Perogunius de brutis, Philopemen junior de robusta natura, and a hundred more of worth and credit, whom I have read, and you never heard nam’d, either in Westminster-hall, or Westminster-abbey. But since these are pagan authors, it may be you will pretend they ought to have no weight with a christian, and I know you will be damn’d before you will allow of any thing against your own mammon; therefore I shall proceed to give you more modern accounts of what has been remark’d in the most natural places for to expect monsters in, and yet the devil of a Red Lion do they mention. Don Gonsales gives us a particular of all the wonders, miracles and strange things in the habitable part of the moon; Mandevil’s Travels, Piuto’s and de la Val’s, the most fabulous of the poets, the most lying pilgrims and extravagant historians, never dar’d to have the impudence to impose so much upon mankind as to assert the being of a Red Lion.

Now if human reason, experience in so many places, and no proof any where can have place, as it ought to do with a lawyer, I hope here are enough to convince you of your error; but if nothing under ocular demonstration will satisfy you, and you are not at leisure to turn over so many volumes, let me request you, worthy Sir, to take a step to the tower, and if you don’t find what I say to be true, I promise you here under my hand to give you a hundred pounds, bonæ & legalis monetæ Angliæ, the next time I meet you.

However, for peace sake, let us once admit, that Griffins and Red Lions, are real things, and no fictions of the brain,{298} as Smeglesius hath evidently prov’d it, in what street or square, or lane, or alley, is the abovemention’d Mrs. Rebecca Blackman to be found? Oh, cry you in Shoe-lane. Come Sir, Shoe-lane is a fallacy which you must not pretend to put upon a man that has taken his own degrees, and writes himself A. M. don’t you know, that dolus latet in universalibus? Whatever lane people walk in they must certaintly wear out shoe-leather; and in whatever lane they wear out shoe-leather, that lane, in propriety of speech, deserves and may challenge the name of Shoe-lane; consequently then, every lane, not only in London, but in all his majesty’s dominions, where the subjects of England walk, and wear out shoe-leather, may properly be call’d Shoe-lane. Judge then whether ever I shall be able to find out the true place where this widow lives by the equivocal description you have given of it. As for my Major, I defy you or any of your brethren in wicked parchment, to find out the least hole in it. My Minor is as plain as the sun at noon-day; and you may as well run your head against a brick-wall, as pretend to attack it; and then the consequence must be good of course. I would take this opportunity to shew the falshood and vanity of the remaining part of your letter; but the bell-rings for supper: however, I shall take care to do it next post; at which time you may certainly expect to hear farther from

ANSWER III.

I Fully demonstrated to you in my last, that there was no such thing as a Widow; or suppose there was, that it was morally impossible for a man to know it. After this, I proceeded to show, that your Griffin was romantick, your Red Lyon fabulous; and that Shoe-lane by being every lane, was consequently no lane at all. Now, Sir, I come to consider the following part of your letter, where with your usual ingenuity and good manners, you tell me I am indebted the sum of five pounds to the widow abovemention’d; and I doubt not to lay open the vanity of this allegation, as well as of those that preceded it. Sir, give me leave to tell you, that ’tis impossible that—should owe{299} any such sum as five pounds. Is it to be imagin’d that a—should trespass against a plain positive express text of scripture? This is what the worst of our adversaries, either papists or other sectaries, of what title or denomination soever, would not have the impudence to charge us with. Does not St. Paul positively say, Owe no man any thing but love? How then can I owe this chimerical widow of your own making that heathenish sum called five pounds? Indeed if there is any such person, I owe her a great deal of love, as the text commands me; but as for five pounds, I owe it her not: and for this, as I have already observ’d to you, I can produce a plain positive text of scripture, which I hope you will not be so wicked as to deny.

In short, Sir, I am afraid that the law has discompos’d your brain, and this I conclude from your incoherent citations of Latin, your raving of Griffins and Red Lions, of Widows and five pounds. Therefore, tho’ I am wholly a stranger to you, yet, as you are a native of this kingdom, I heartily wish your cure, and shall do whatever lies in my power to effect it, for which reason I desire you to take notice of the following advice. It being now spring time, at which season according to the observation of the learned Zarabella and Ciacconius, the humours begin to ferment and float in all human bodies, I would advise you to correct the saline particles, with which I perceive your blood is overcharg’d, with good wholsome nettle-broth and watergruel every morning alternately; but take care to put no currants or sugar into your watergruel, because, as the judicious Frenelius, in has Diatriba de usu, affirms, currants excite choler, and sugar has an ill effect upon the diaphragm, glandula pinealis. Then, Sir, thrice a week at least, refrigerate your intestines with good salutary clysters, and take some eighteen ounces of blood away about two hours before the clyster is administred to you. Above all let me conjure you to forbear stuff’d beef, salt fish, pepper and hot spices, and what is full as pernicious as pepper and hot spices, the reading of any Latin authors, for fear they should raise a new rebellion in the humours: sage and butter, with a glass or two of clarify’d whey moderately taken in a morning, may be of singular use. Go to bed early, and rise betimes. If you live up to these directions, I do not{300} doubt but you’ll be your own man again in a little time. Having no farther interest in all this than only effecting your cure, I persuade my self you will be so much your own friend as to follow the advice of

LETTER III.

SINCE you were so wonderfully kind in your last letter, as out of your great liberality to honour me with some of your own directions, I am resolv’d not to be behind-hand with you in point of courtesy, and therefore recommend the following rules to your consideration.

In the first place, I crave leave to inform you, that syllogisms and sophistry pay no debts; That as old birds are not to be caught with chaff, so a lawyer is not to be imposed upon by thin frothy arguments; and that Aristotle, let him make never so great a figure in the schools, has no manner of authority in Westminster-hall, where I can assure you they won’t take his ipse dixit for a groat.

Secondly, I would advise you not to have so great an opinion of your own parts, as to despise the rest of the world, and think to palm any of your little banters upon them. ’Tis enough in all conscience, I think, that you take the liberty to dumfound us with your Fathers and Councils in the pulpit, which we of the laity are forced to take upon content; and therefore you may spare them elsewhere.

Thirdly, and lastly, When you run in any one’s debt, ’tis my counsel, and I give it you for nothing, that you would take care to see the party satisfy’d in good current money, for fear a wicked Moabite should compel you to it, which, between friends, will not be much for your reputation. As this is the last letter you are like to receive from me, I make it once more my request to you to observe the contents of it: for I am not at leisure to trifle any longer with you: otherwise a stone-doublet is the word, and wars must ensue, which every good christian ought to prevent, if it lies in his power. I am, unless you give me further provocation,

P. S. Your old friend the widow, is sorry to hear you have made so familiar with her, as to call her being in question; as likewise that of her Griffin and Red Lion. As for your love, having no occasion for it at present, she desires you to bestow it elsewhere; but is resolv’d, notwithstanding all your learned quirks and quiddities, to get her five pounds again; and when she has it in her pocket, for your sake she’ll never trust it with a logician, that would ergo her out of what is her own.

ANSWER IV.

I Received your last, for which I return you my hearty thanks, and am entirely of your opinion, that old birds are not to be caught with chaff; I find, Sir, you are a great admirer of old proverbs, and I commend you for it, for a great deal of morality and wholsome knowledge is to be pick’d out of them: besides, Sir, they are like the Common law of England, and derive their authority from usage and custom. Now I am talking of proverbs, there is one comes into my head at present, which I desire you to ruminate or chew the cud upon. In short, ’tis Birds of a feather flock together, which is effectually and literally fulfill’d when an attorney and a pickpocket are in the same company.

I am likewise of opinion, worthy Sir, that what you say of Aristotle’s making none of the best figures in Westminster-hall, may be true; for how can that plodding animal call’d a philosopher, expect civil quarter from the sons of noise and clamour? But by the by, Sir, I must take the freedom to tell you, that some of his friends here take it very ill, that you the black guard of Westminster-hall will not take his word for a groat. Sir, that diminutive contemptible piece of money a groat, Sir, three of which go to the making up of that important sum, denominated by the vulgar a shilling. Is it not very barbarous and inhuman, that Aristotle, formerly tutor to the greatest monarch in the universe, (when I say the greatest monarch in the universe, I neither mean Bajazet, nor Tamerlane, nor Scanderberg, nor Pipin, nor yet the French king, but Alexander the great) whose ipse dixit would have formerly gone more current than our present Exchequer notes, or Malt tickets, in any tavern, inn, or victualling-house,{302} between the Hellespont and the Ganges, for a thousand pounds upon occasion: is it not barbarous and inhuman, I say, that this same Aristotle should not be trusted for a groat in Westminster-hall? That language one would hardly have expected either from Goth, Vandal, or Hun, but much less from a person of your civility and learning.

But alas! Sir, Ætas parentum pejor avis; we live in the fag-end of a most degenerate ungrateful age, that has no regard to Greek or Latin. Oh tempora & mores! was the complaint of a great virtuoso two thousand years ago, which we have but too much reason to renew now. Oh, Aristotle, Aristotle! that I should ever live to see thy venerable name in so much contempt, that any one belonging to Westminster-hall, should have the impudence to say, he will not trust thee for a groat! Ultra Sauromatas fugere hinc libet. I dare swear, that even in Muscovy and Poland, none of the most hospitable countries in the world, thou mayst at any time take a good dinner and a gallon of brandy upon thy Entilechia and Actus perspecui, and yet in Westminster-Hall, the most enlighten’d hall of the most enlighten’d city of Christendom, thy ipse dixit in so much vogue formerly with the Thomists and Scotists, the Nominalists and Realists, should not pass for a groat! So much, Sir, by way of answer, to Aristotle and Westminster-Hall, ipse dixit, and a groat.

What you say in a following paragraph concerning the wicked Moabite and the Stone Doublet, is very picquant and ingenious: for, Sir, reading Mr. Hobbs’s chapter about Concatenation of Thought, I find there is a great connection between the Moabite and Stone doublet; and some of the modern itineraries inform us, that stone doublets are in mighty request with the people of those countries to this very day; and the physical reason they assign for it, is, because stone doublets are very refrigerating and alexpharmick, which undoubtedly is a great refreshment in so hot a climate, as that where the wicked Moabite lived.

But, Sir, in lieu of the advice, which, out of your great bounty and liberality, you were pleas’d to give me for nothing, be pleas’d to accept of the following character, which I give myself the trouble to transcribe out of an ancient MS. in the Cotton-Library, suppos’d to be written by the famous Junius, who for his great skill in the ori{303}ental languages, acquir’d the sirname of Patricius; and this character, unless I am mistaken in my mathematicks, will give you a lively idea of a certain beast you may perhaps be acquainted with.

An attorney is one that lives by the undoing of his neighbours, as surgeons do by broken heads and claps, and like judges that always bring rain with them to the assizes, is sure to bring mischief with him wherever he comes. He’s an animal bred up by the corruption of the law, nurs’d up in discord and contention, and has a particular cant to himself, by which he terrifies the poor country people who worship him as the Indians do the devil, for fear he should mischief ’em. He is a constant resorter to fairs and markets, and has a knack to improve the least quarrel into a law-suit. He talks as familiarly of my lord chief justice as if he had known him from his cradle, and threatens all that incur his displeasure with leading them a jaunt to Westminster-hall. If his advice be ask’d upon the most insignificant trifle, he nods his head, twirls his pen in his ear, and cries ’twill bear a noble action; and when he has empty’d the poor wretch’s pocket, advises him to make up the matter, drink a merry cup with his adversary, and be friends. He affects to be thought a man of business, and quotes statutes as fiercely, as if he had read over Keble and got him by heart. The catchpole is his constant companion, by the same token they are as necessary to one another, as a midwife to a bawd, or an apothecary to a grave physician. While he lives, he is a perpetual persecutor of all the country about him; but fattens by being cursed, as they say camomile grows by being trod upon. At last, the devil serves an execution upon his person, hurries him to his own quarters, in whose clutches I leave him.

If this character may be of any service to you, I shall heartily rejoice, it being my highest ambition to approve my self,

ANSWER V.

NAY, Sir, since you are so peremptory and all that, I have sent you my last conclusive answer, and am resolv’d to be plagu’d with you no longer. Hoping therefore that your worship is in good health, as your humble servant is at this present writing, this comes to let you know (nay don’t startle, I beseech you) that I am fairly{304} and honestly dead (oh! fy, Sir, why should you be discompos’d at so small a matter as that is) in short, dead to all intents and purposes as a door-nail; or if that won’t serve your turn, as dead as Methusalah, or any of the patriarchs before the flood. And because, Sir, I am in a very good humour at present, and somewhat dispos’d to be merry (which you’ll say is somewhat odd in a dead man) and besides having a mighty respect for a person of your worth and gravity, I will let you know what distemper I dy’d of, and give you the whole history of my illness from Dan to Beersheba. Upon the 20th of July last, old stile, I was invited to a christning in a certain village in Lincolnshire, where I had the honour of being vicar; and by a strange fatality was over-persuaded to eat some custard, which is the most pernicious aliment in the world, but especially in the dog-days. Since I have been in the Elysian Fields, meeting with Galen and Dioscorides the other day, I told them my case, and both of ’em told me that custard had done my business. Galen whisper’d me in the ear, and told me that whatever sham stories the historians had palm’d upon the world Trajan got his death by nothing but eating of custard at Antioch, and mention’d two or three other eminent persons that had their heels tript up by that pernicious food. Dioscorides added farther, that custard was destructive of the intellect, and conjur’d me that the next time I writ to any of my acquaintance in London, I would desire them to present his most humble service to my Lord Mayor and court of Aldermen, and advise ’em as from him to refrain from custard, because it obnubilated the understanding, and was detrimental to the memory. So much by way of digression, but now, Sir, to proceed in the history of my illness: this eating of custard first of all gave me a cachexy, and ’twas my misfortune that there was no brandy to be had in the house, for in all probability a cogue of true orthodox Nantz, would have corrected the crudity of the custard. This cachexy in twelve hours turn’d to a Dolor alvi, that to a Peripneumonia in the Diaphragm, and that to an Epyema in the Glandula Pinealis. Upon this a hundred other distempers came pouring upon me like thunder and lightning, for you know when a man is once going, down with him is the word; that very fairly dispatch’d me in four days, and so I{305} dy’d without a doctor to help to dispatch me, or an attorney to make my will. A little before I troop’d off, I desir’d my parishoners to bury me under the great church-spout which accordingly they did, I thank ’em for’t, and upon every shower of rain I find a refreshment by it; for you must know that when I was living, I was very thirsty in my nature, and abounded in adust cholerick humours.

I believe, Sir, you might have writ to a thousand and a thousand dead men, who would never have given themselves the trouble to answer your letters, or have been so communicative of their secrets as you have found me; but, Sir, I scorn to act under-board. And if this don’t satisfy all your doubts, I can only wish I had you here with me, to give you farther conviction.

And now Sir, let me desire you to put your hand to your heart, and consider calmly and sedately with yourself, whether it be not illegal as well as barbarous, to disturb the repose of the dead, and persecute them in their very graves? You that are so full of your Cases and your Precedents, tell me what Case or Precedent you can alledge to justify so unrighteous a Procedure? Is it not a known maxim in law, that death puts a stop to all Processes whatsoever, and that when a man has once paid the great debt of nature, he has compounded for all the rest? How then can you make me amends for the injuries you have done me, and the great charges you have put me to? For upon the faith and honour of a dead man, the very passage of your letters to this subterranean world, has cost me above five pounds, the pretended sum you charge me with. However, if Heaven will forgive you, for my part I do; and to show you, that after so many horrid provocations I am still in charity with you, I remain,

P. S. All the news that I can send you from this part of the world, is, that we are troubled with none of your pofession here, which is no small part of our happiness, I assure you; and, upon a strict enquiry, I find, that not one Attorney for these 1500 years, has been so impudent, as to give St. Peter the trouble of using his keys.

Dialogues of the Dead.

In Imitation of LUCIAN.

Lucifer. HOLD! porter, shut the gates of this our angust court, that we may not be thus throng’d. Let no more come in, ’till we have clear’d the bench of these numbers we have before us already.

Lucif. Now, my noble lords, set we ourselves to search and examine what of late years brings daily such gluts and spring-tides of souls to our infernal mansions, ’specially at this time, when neither war, famine, nor plague, are abroad in the upper world, or at least in that part of it from whence I observe most of this gang arrive; Europe I mean: if there were war, ’twould be no wonder so many were damn’d; the liberties of the sword surprize enough in their sins to throng our courts of justice: nor is the plague without advantages for us that way; the few that have spiritual relief, in such contagious and quickly-destroying distempers, encrease our crop: and the general cruelty of mankind is such, that in famine, those that have will keep for themselves and their dogs, and let the rest of their own species perish, without so much as a pitying look: and this makes many atheists in their wants, and does that, without our instigation, which we could not perswade Job to do, that is, Curse God, and die.

But, my lords, when none of these, our loyal vassals, are abroad, ’tis not strange that I am to seek in the cause of this great concourse at our tribunal; and, therefore,{307} that virtue, for want of reward and due praise, may not slacken, we will examine to what industrious friend we owe this unexpected success; wherefore, you minor devils and under-officers of our court, bring them in order to the bar, and let no devil of honour, that has past that inferior office of touching the uncleanness of humanity, defile himself with too near an approach to any of them.

Speak, criminal, whence thou art? Of what nation, quality, or condition in the world? And what’s the happy cause of thy coming hither?

Ghost. First, Signor, adjust some points in dispute, which highly concern the honour of our country, and the decorum of good breeding, and I shall, for all this noble train that follow me, answer to your devilship’s queries. Coming to the confines of your flourishing empire, we were met by some of the officers of this honourable assembly, who gave us safe conduct to your royal presence: but just now, entring into these lifts, confronted us a company of paltry scoundrels, and press’d for precedence, swearing, That they were Englishmen, and ought to take place of all that were damn’d for cuckolds. We urg’d our title in heraldry, that we ought to take place of all nations, being the successors of the once masters of the universe; but they were deaf to reason here, as well as in the world, and one swore d—me, bl—d and z—ns, another, oaths all round the compass; and in this volly of mouth-grenadoes, one very demure gentleman press’d, by Yea and Nay, that we were in the wrong; and had it not been for this honourable devil here, that’s a friend to our nation, we had been worm’d out of our birth-right by the arse and refuse of the world: Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos, as our noble country-man has it, Dogs shut out of doors from all the rest of mankind. I therefore appeal to this thrice excellent senate, and you the right and most reverend doge, to redress this affront.{308}

Lucif. Hey-day? What, has not hell yet brought you to your senses, that you can think we devils are such sots to trouble our heads about the ridiculous whims of ceremonious mankind? But since they were so obstreperous to make a disturbance in hell, they shall be the last heard: Therefore proceed to the question.

Ghost. An’t please your thrice puissant devilship, noble signor, I was coming to that point: Therefore, to be brief, (for I hate prolixity) I am, Sir, an Italian by nation, and a noble-man by quality. My own vanity, and ill chance, give me a pretty wife, and my honour made me chuse her of an illustrious house; but she prov’d lewd and prodigal, the natural issue of beauty and high birth; my dotage on her charms hath bred in me such a fond, blind, uxorious vice (which my countrymen are seldom guilty of) that I was almost ruin’d before I found I was betray’d: but travelling towards Genoa, I met the spark, my pretended friend, on the road to my dwelling; I seemingly pass’d on my way, but in the night return’d, unexpected, and surpriz’d ’em all, and, therefore, as my honour bid me, I murder’d him, and bak’d him in a pye, and (ingeniously in my revenge) swore she should eat no other food but her lover: the crust she a while did eat, but one day, having prepar’d a stelleto, at supper she dispatch’d me thus to your thrice noble and illustrious devilship.

Lucif. Very well! and worthy thou art of such a punishment, that could’st not forgive beauty a gentle slip of that nature thou thyself hadst so often transgress’d. Speak the next.

2 Ghost. I am also an Italian; and observing a gentleman often ogling my wife, which she did not a little encourage, I sent a bravo to dispatch him; (for we Italians do not love to look revenge in the face ourselves) but the rogue of a bravo, won by my wife, and by a great sum of money of my adversary’s, comes back to me, and cuts my throat. And this, most noble signor, is most of our cases; our wives have given us the casting throw for damnation.

Lucif. You, the rest of the malignant train, is this true, that your wives have sent you hither?{309}

Omnes. Yes, yes; we have all had wives.—— All the plagues of Egypt let us undergo, but no wives, we most humbly beseech your most noble devilship.

Lucif. Prayers are in vain; transgressions are to be punish’d by the same way they are committed; nor must you be your own carvers here in hell, gentlemen. Away with ’em, down into cuckolds-cave, ten thousand fathom deeper than the whore-masters, and next the keeping-cullies, and let each have two wives to torment him.

Spanish Ghost. Great prince of darkness, and lord of the greatest part of mankind, may it please your catholick majesty, I was, by my worldly state and condition, a Spanish grandee, of the first magnitude, rich as fortune and an indulgent prince well could make me, (for your devilship must know, our king is but a sheep for us to fleece when we please, which we do in all places, letting his soldiers and inferior servants starve) happy, ’till too much success was my undoing; for by that I gain’d the lady I lov’d, and so in one unhappy word was married. ’Tis tedious to repeat the injuries I receiv’d from the ungrateful fair, who, after all, to make room for another, sent me away (like an Italian as she was) in all my sins, with a poisonous draught.

Lucif. Is the same your fate, you, the rest of this besotted crew, that have met with just punishment from one part of yourselves, for preferring your private grandeur before the service of your king and honour of your country?

Omnes. Yes, yes; thirst of honour and wealth made us cheat the king; and drew down the judgment of wedlock; and that brought us to this long home and fiend of matrimony.

Ghost. Just may be their punishment, most noble devil; but why should I be condemn’d to wincing, who was so far from cheating the king, that I could never get my due{310} of him, and being a gentleman born, never did any thing below my extraction, and have gone without a meal, many a time, rather than degrade myself to get one? And tho’ I could arrive to it no other ways, yet kept up my part still in stately walk, and my wallet, tho’ I had no bread for either, or a shirt to my back.

Lucif. Since thy own folly made thee marry, ’tis now too late to prate, you must away with the rest.

Bring the next to the bar: declare the cause of your deserv’d damnation. My life on’t these dapper sparks are in for cakes and ale too; the very air of their faces speaks them cuckolds.

French Ghost. Sire, may it please your most victorious majesty, Vostre Esclaro is a Frenchman by birth, and a leader of the most christian king’s most magnanimous forces; and whilst I, with my commilitones, was reaping lawrels in the field of renown, and engaging the enemy abroad, my lady wife (as most of our French wives will, for having once tasted the sweets of love, they’ll ne’er have done ’till they have undone us one way or other) my lady wife, I say, was engaging with a friend at home, who very genteely gave her the pox, which I, at my return, like a gay cavalier of a husband, receiv’d of her as genteely without rebuke, it being no matter of scandal with us. But madamoiselle’s pox proving a very virago, gave me damn’d thrust in quarto, and sent me hither in decimo sexto, monseigneur.

Omnes. We are all Frenchmen, and therefore you need not doubt the cause, the pox and our wives, ma foy.

Lucif. Away with them: they’ll make a fire by themselves, or will serve instead of small-coal to kindle others; for they are half burnt out already. Place ’em next the Spaniards. The next there speak.

German Ghost. I am, by nation, a German, and, by damnation, a husband, a cuckold, or what you please; for I hate to mince the matter with a long preamble, when a word to the wise is enough.

Omnes. Ev’n so, an’t please your imperial devilship;{311} whilst we drank and fought against the Turks, our wives whor’d with the Christians. O wives! wives!

Lucif. Away with these into the hottest, for their carcasses are so soak’d with liquor, that they’ll put out an ordinary fire. You, the next, speak.

Dutch Ghost. Gads sacrament, I am a member, or rather two members, of the Hogen-Mogen common-wealth of Europe. Two members, I say; for I am a member governed, and a member governing; for the people with us, and in all such common-wealths, are both subjects and masters, govern laws, and govern’d by the same.

Ghost. Contradiction to monarchy, tho’ set up by some monarchs to spite others. But to your question, old tarpaulin: Whilst I was getting money and drinking punch and brandy, to hearten me for the noble combats of snick or snee, or some illustrious sea-fight, or some generous undertaking at the island of Formosa, (for a true Dutchman never fights without his head full of brandy) my wife made it fly like sooterkins at home; at last she made me turn bankrupt, and cheat my creditors, and so dying, I came with a full sail and brisk gale into your port.

Omnes. For our wives, O Sooterkin Hagan, our wives, whose broad-built bulk the boisterous billows bear.

Lucif. Away with them into the den of anarchy and confusion, below the founders of Babel.

Lucif. Numerous crew! answer me; What has brought you into this kingdom; and what were you in the world?

1 Beau’s Gh. D—— me, Jack, didst ever hear so silly and impertinent a question? As if marriage was not the only cause of damnation.

2 Beau’s Gh. R——t me, Ned, as thou say’st, I never heard a country justice ask more mal à propos; but the devil’s an ass, and so let him pass.

I am an Englishman, who, after I had been a notorious{312} cuckold, was perswaded by my wife to fight the man that made me so, and was fairly kill’d for satisfaction, as all this band that follows me were; and we are damn’d for fools as well as cuckolds.

Lucif. Away with them into fools paradise, below the keeping-cullies, as the more unpardonable monsters.

1 Be. Gh. D—— me, Ned, didst ever know such fools as they, that could not be satisfy’d to live cuckolds, but must die so too, with a witness,

2 Be. Gh. R——t me, Jack, if ever I was of that fighting humour; nor did I ever fight but once, and then forc’d to it; but my stays sav’d my life, and I wore my glove that was cut in the encounter as long as ’twould hang on my hand: therefore, tho’ I knew Sir Roger Allfight kiss’d my wife, yet as long as I could sup at the Rose, and break the drawer’s head if he made not haste, or brought bad wines, or so, ’gad I let him kiss her and welcome.

1 Be. Gh. S——k me, Ned, I was always of thy mind, as long as I could flutter abroad in my glass coach, have my diamond snuff-box full of Orangeree or Roderigo, &c. D—— me if I car’d a rush who rode in my saddle. But mark that formal coxcomb now going to speak: lord! how fine a thing it is to be a man of wit, and what a singular figure he makes! but hark, old grey-beard begins.

Ghost. I was a man of quality, of the same country; but my fortune being, in my youth, run out, in France for breeding, and in England by keeping, I thought in my riper years to retrieve all by marrying a city heiress; but she had by nature, so much of the mother in her, that by intriguing and equipage she soon brought me into a worse condition than before: so that, as my last refuge, I was forc’d to turn Plotter, and being discover’d, was lopp’d shorter by the head, as all this honourable tribe that follows me were.

Lucif. Away with ’em. [They are carry’d off, and, as the next are bringing to the bar, the beaux discourse again.{313}

2 Beau. Gh. R—t me, Jack, vous avez raison: for I always lov’d to keep myself out of the jeopardy of action: Jack, I’d talk treason, or so; sort myself with the disaffected, and blow up the coals of their discontent, or so: but for engagements, covenants, conditions, and unlawful assemblies, ’gad they must pardon me.

1 Beau. Gh. Z—ns, Ned, thou and I were always one man; I could rail at the magistrates, pen a lampoon, or, at least, convey it to Julian, give penny pies to the mob to make a noise, ridicule the transactions of the government, and give squinting reflections on the king, that was my ne plus ultra; for all that I can see, we are in the best case still, Ned. But now our band advances, let us press forward, or our cause may fail.

2 Beau. Gh. Hell and damnation, all’s lost; for look yonder, that conceited coxcomb, my lord Flippant, presuming on his quality, has taken upon him to be our chief, and spokes-man.

1 Beau. Gh. S—nk me, Ned, so say I: I never knew a conceited man, but he was a fool; but let’s hear, we may put in an appeal, or a writ of error afterward, or award judgment, if our cause be ill handled.

L. Flippant’s Ghost. D—me, Sir, I have been a man of the town, or rather a man of wit, and have been confess’d a beau, and admitted into the family of the rakehellonians: and, d—me, Sir, I think I am much under that dilemma at present.—— I was learn’d in the ingenious art of dumfounding; a wit I said, dear devil, I was, and it lay as a gentleman’s shou’d, most in lewdness and atheism. I married in jest, or a frolick, which you please; but as I thought a fortune, (got by cullies) I was made a cuckold in earnest; tho’ that was no grievance to me, since it only made me in the mode: nor cou’d I expect any better, since I knew she was a whore before I had her; but ’twas with my betters, and so I was contented her money should pass currant with me, where her reputation would not: but sharping was her best quality, and gaming her greatest{314} patrimony; and she set up a basset table, and whilst I was at the groom-porter’s throwing a-main, she would be sure to set me, at home, a pair of horns. I seldom coming to my apartment, but I met some cully nobleman or other; but that which was worst, she still had a knave in her mouth, or an alpue in her tail, that carry’d away all the gain: whilst I was at Will’s coffee-house, fast’ned in controversy or poetick rhapsodies, though I had neither religion nor learning, she was sure of me ’till play-time and then too; for at five, come, Dick, says I (to a brother of the orange and cravat string) d—me, let’s us to the play: r—t me, says he, ’tis a dull one: d—me, says I, I value not the play, my province lies in the boxes, ogling my half-crown away, or running from side-box to side-box, to the inviting incognito’s in black faces, or else wittily to cry out aloud in the pit, &c. Bough, or Boyta, and then be prettily answer’d by the rest of the wits in the same note, like musical instruments tuned to the same pitch. And whilst I was thus generously employ’d, my consort had her retreat of quality, to be provided of what I fail’d in. From the play to the Rose, where we drank ’till four, or break of day; from thence to bed, where we lay ’till four or five again, so in infinitum.

1 Beau. Gh. D—me, Jack, did’st ever hear a sot spoil a good tale in the telling so?

2 Beau. Gh. Z—ns, Ned, we’re undone thro’ this scoundrel’s ignorance and nonsense: shall I speak?

1 Beau. Gh. R—t me, if thou wilt, thou may’st: but I am sure I could make more of it: for tho’ thou art a man of wit, and a good judge of poetry, and all that, r—t me, Jack, oratory is thy blind side.

2 Beau. Gh. D—me, Sir, don’t put upon your friends; for have I been bred at the university, and think myself as good a judge as you or any man alive: and, Sir, were we out of the court, I believe you would not thus have abus’d me.

1 Beau. Gh. Nay, D—me, Ned, now thou art unjust to thy friend: r—t me, to quarrel for’t, I acknowledg’d thee a man of parts, Ned, and all that.

Luc. Away with the gay sots, and because I have no plagues in hell equal to their deserts, let them be a torment to one another. Away with them.

1 Beau. Gh. Well, Ned, shall I speak before it is too late: you may depend on my excellence in oratory, ’tis my talent; I never writ billet-deux in my life, but it prevail’d with the cruel nymph: and do you think I can’t with the devil? I’ll perswade him out of his seven senses, man? d—me, I’ll make it appear to him that he is a god, and all that, man: r—t me, Ned, be not obstinate.

2 Beau. Gh. Z—ns, Sir, no more of that strain. Sir, you’re a coxcomb. What doubt my universal parts?

Cit. Ghost. An’t please your infernal majesty, I was a right worshipful citizen of London, that famous Metropolis of England, and I have born all the honourable employments of the same, ev’n to sheriff and lord-mayor: I was long of the court of aldermen, and one of the chief spokesmen of the common-council: I made speeches, and penn’d most of the addresses. But ’tis not for being a cuckold alone, or that I was feign to cheat so many to maintain my wife’s pride and luxury, that I am damn’d with this right worshipful crew here; for those are crimes common to the rest of our brother-citizens, as well as us; but we were so mad to marry second wives, and for their sakes turn our children out of doors, (after we had bred them up in all the ease and luxury of the age) to seek their fortunes in the wide world, and left our estates to our wives at our death, who will be sure to bestow them on some silly hectoring spendthrift bully of Alsatia or other, and let the children, begot of our own bodies, starve.

Luc. Away with that rank gang of fools, as well as knaves, who cou’d so much forget nature and its necessary and known laws, as to cast off their own off-spring, to give away their substance to those that will not only misuse it, but contemn the memory of them that were their benefactors, with so great an injury to nature.

2 Cit. May it please your most noble devilship to hear me, before you give judgment upon us, and I don’t doubt, but I shall seriously, offer such reasons of our behaviour in that matter, as shall sufficiently move that ignominy your devilship was pleas’d to cast upon us. First, then, tho’ it be true, that upon my marriage, I agreed with my second spouse to turn all my children out of doors, yet I{316} did it not ’till she or I had found some cause so to do; for some of them were undutiful, and others put tricks upon me, (as my good wife said) and others were lewd and extravagant, and some self-will’d; so that I deserted none of ’em without some fault. If they were undutiful, was I to blame to punish ’em for it? Or was it my duty to keep and maintain them, after they were of sufficient bigness to prog for themselves? The birds and beasts take care of their young no longer, than ’till they are able to care for themselves; and why should man be confin’d to more severe laws in that point than his vassal creatures? I must profess, on the word of a citizen, that I can see no reason why a man that gets his estate himself, may not give it away to whom he pleases; and none so and near deserving, as the wife of one’s bosom. What tho’ she may have slips, the witcheries and temptations of love are great to their soft sex; and if we have been so employ’d in getting, that we could not mind that other business, why should we blame them for easing us by other supplies, where we wanted power to give them.

Luc. Thou hast spoken as much to the purpose, as when in the world thou used harangue at the choice of a sheriff; and therefore I shall proceed to a singular punishment for you. Your argument of punishing your children for their undutifulness, turns here on your own head; for when they are little, you encourage their impudence: and that is a witty child with you, that can prate saucily and lewdly before he can read, and swear and catch the maid by it before seven years old; and then when you have given them their head without controul, during their childhood and minority, you punish them for the fruit of that tree which yourselves have planted, which is in itself the height of injustice; but on the contrary, you are condemn’d for breaking the laws of your maker, which you were bred in fear of, and taught to obey; and you that could punish your own flesh and blood so for nothing, without relenting, have a just judgment for being punish’d here without mercy. And as for their being lewd and extravagant, that is no plea for you, since that is the lesson you have taught ’em both by example and precept, from the time of their birth, ’till their coming to years of understanding; for you let a taylor’s daughter, with you, go in the garb of the children{317} of a duke in the country, and even miss ketch be call’d away from the mob: your sons must keep their horses, and their whores too, before they know the use of either; and then you punish them for persevering when they are better skill’d. And as for the birds and beasts, (examples I think unworthy to be follow’d by a nobler being, or quoted as a precedent) they are so far excelling you in that point, that they educate their young in the simple course of nature, not elevating them above what’s necessary, nor leaving them, ’till they have sufficiently inur’d them to provide for themselves all that nature requires. But just contrary to the example you quote, you, all the infancy of your children, keep them from hardship and knowing how to live and provide for themselves, and then on the sudden cast them out of their nest unfledg’d, without teaching them to fly. Nor is your proud supposition, that you may dispose of your own gettings, more pious or justifiable, unless you will make your selves gods, and claim the propriety of that which you cannot carry out of the world with you, no more than you brought it in. ’Twas heaven that gave success to your endeavours, to provide for those other blessings it bestow’d upon you, of fine hopeful children; and you were, in right, but their tenant for life, to improve your substance for their good. Nor can you in reason imagine any one deserves it better; for justice and reason both will have it, that you that begot them into the world without their seeking or desires, to satisfy your own pleasures, ought to provide all you can for them that you brought thus involuntarily into the maze of fortune and the treachery of mankind. And of all in the world, you have the least reason to leave it to a wife, that not only betrays the rights of your bed, prostituting herself and your honour to rascals; but shew’d at first so little respect and love for you, as to desire so unreasonable a thing, that you should cast off all the bonds of nature, and forsake your own children, which she could not but love, if she lov’d you: for you know the proverb, love me, love my dog. Having thus therefore shewn the villainy of your crimes, ’tis fit I proceed to your just punishment, for which you are sent hither. You that have thus more than monstrously prevaricated against nature, shall want all the benefits of nature; fire you shall have, but not to give you gentle{318} warmth from the cold of the season, (as when you liv’d and hugg’d yourself in all epicurism, whilst your children starv’d) but to scorch your wretched consciences; and continual fears of burning your goods, houses, and writings, shall attend you; to which shall be added the piercing fire of jealousy, that shall prey upon every part of you; nor shall you be without the knowledge of your wives transactions on earth and see how they mourn in sack and claret, and how they marry and whore before you are cold; how they spend that profusely, which you scrap’d together to give them, with so much injustice to your poor orphans, whose injuries shall never let you rest, but with all the fury of hell for ever torment you worse than Onan or the Sodomites: away with them, whose villainies raises a horror, even in the prince of hell and great source of wickedness.

1 Quaker’s Ghost. Ah! um!—Josiah! verily, who would have thought that Rebecca would have fallen with the ungodly so, or that your Tabitha would have let the spirit move her to play with the calves of Bethel, the wicked of Sidon, or the profane children of Moloch?

2 Ghost. By yea and by nay, Abadoniah, as thou say’st, it was more verily than could enter into the heart of man to believe. Why, there was my neighbour Sad-face, and my cousin Goggle, Nahu, Sneakphir, and [The lord said unto Moses, praise God.] was his fore-name; had they not holy sisters, as to the appearance of the flesh, for their spouses? Yet behold with them, and within the tabernacles of their mansions, instead of raising up seed to the lord among the chosen and godly, they did sacrifice to Baal with the giants of Moab. Oh Abadoniah! what a falling off was there! what a backsliding!

1 Ghost. Oh, Josiah! As thou say’st, verily, and by yea and by nay, that the spirit should move us to come to the devil for our necessaries, without a convenience. But our lord will remember our captivity in Babylon.

Lawyer’s Ghost. Sure, my lord, if the Decorum of any place ought to be kept, that of a court of judgment ought, and not to let a paultry cit speak before a man of the robe. But in these popish times, all law is neglected, and all its honourable professors contemn’d and postpon’d. However,{319} my most honourable lord and patron of all that were black, I shall humbly move this honourable court, that I may at length be heard, since my cause is of so great import and concern, and in which the wisdom of this court will be highly interessed, if it should be brought in Billa vera; and it wou’d too much reflect on the impartiality of this court of judicature, to be slack in indagating into a cause of this weight and moment. My lord, before I open, I shall only premise, that I take this to be the high court of equity. Which granted, I shall begin to open.

I will confess, that the statutes in Banco Regis may prevail, and custom in the common-pleas; but humbly presume, with submission to your lordships, that this being a court of equity, it will give the [57] devil his due. But, my lord, where a precedent of the like nature may happen in a case decided by the great council of the nation, I hope it will not be foreign, if I alledge it here where it has nothing to do. The case is parallel, as I may say, my lord, considering the circumstances; that is, in short, Consideratis Considerandis, in primo Henrici primi, according to my lord Coke upon Littleton; and if your lordship will let us read, you shall find so many gross errors in the bill, and the material objections so fully answer’d, and costs, if not charges and damages. But, my lord, I do humbly suppose, that part of this bill ought rather to have been put into an indictment, and so falls not under the cognizance of this court; and that is, my lord, that we are made Felo’s de se, the causes of our own damnation, by an instrument call’d a wife, value two-pence. Therefore, my lord, if you please, let us try it upon a jury in any county your lordship shall think fit. Tho’, I think, in our case, your lordship may decide it without farther trouble; for thus I prove the [58] negative, (hoping your lordship will let me bring in a writ of error). To deny, my lord, that we are damn’d, wou’d be perfect nonsense, and against all form of law; yet that we are damn’d for our wives, I presume, does not follow. And I will prove, that it does not, so undeniably, to all that have any profound insight into the law, that I question not but your lordship will ac{320}quiesce Nemine Contradicente; for tho’ it be,

[Aloud] For tho’ I say it be true, that our wives spend a great deal of money on our clerks, Et cætera, quæ nunc perscribere longum est, and cuckolded us as often as they pleas’d, in spite of our teeth; and though I will not deny that they were as profuse as Heliogabalus, or Caligula, and as proud as Lucifer, (with submission to your lordship) yet (now comes the paradox) yet, I say, (pray mind this) we did not get money to maintain their luxury, but they maintain’d their luxury out of the money that we got: which, I humbly conceive, falls not under the same predicament, but brings us within the act of Habeas Corpus, that we may not be carry’d away into the den of ordinary cuckolds. For, to give your lordship yet a more lively representation of this matter in question, be pleas’d to reflect on another very pertinent precedent in my lord Coke, where John-a-Noakes is tenant only for life, and John-a Stiles tenant in tail——

Luc. Heyday! what, is it Midsummer-moon with mankind? what have we got here! a cuckold hornmad, prating nonsense, and salving his knavery and folly with a quirk in law, a turn of a sentence? those shams won’t take here, where there needs no fee for counsel, nor bribe for judgment. Away with him and his villainous tribe.

Lawyer’s Ghost. Nay, but, my lord, I humbly move your honour, that we may not be condemn’d, Causa indicta, that is not right or equitable: wherefore I beseech your lordship to have some regard to me, as I am a barrister of thirty years standing, and a serjeant of ten, that you wou’d be pleas’d to reflect, that tho’ I cheated the ignorant, and squeez’d and impos’d on the necessitous.—

Luc. Has not hell yet brought thee to thy senses? Away with this impertinent fellow, and all this black gang, among the rest of the most deprav’d cuckolds, but in the most deepest cavern, for whom they shall plead, in Forma Pauperis, till their lungs crack, without fees; let the

writings of their ill got estates be for their food. Scoundrels, that had no more sense, than after they had cheated so many wise and honest men, to suffer themselves to be abus’d by women! away with them, away with them.

Lawyer. As to that, my lord, I always fetch’d my dear home in her coach from her gallant, who had pawn’d her in a tavern.——

A Parson’s Ghost. I was in the world above, most mighty king, of the reverend crew, and having a handsom wife, as most of us love, who was proud, as they generally are, my benefice (tho’ good) was too small to maintain the grandeur she affected; but I being of a good comely port, with a pair of broad shoulders, and sufficient abilities, and the man of God too boot, (which made an easy and open way for all the rest) I ventur’d to crack a commandment with some of my wealthy parishioners wives, that they being so oblig’d, (according to my text) might prevail with their husbands to be the more generous to me in supererrogatory offerings, which flow’d all into the bottomless bag of my spouse’s pride and lust; for that too, must be supply’d.

Luc. You, the rest of this mad foolish crew, what are you? And what the cause of your damnation?

Luc. What ragged regiment are you that lag behind your fellows? what are you the black-guard of the cuckolds?

Poet. No, royal Pluto, no, (altho’, indeed, we are the poorest cuckolds that come hither, I believe) we are of the learned rout.

Luc. Hold, hold I know your tribe of old; if you once get to repeating your works, or into the jingle of your rhimes, you’ll never have done. Away with them to old Sternhold and Hopkins, and the rest of the crambo-sparks: ye senseless scoundrels, that make wives of your mules when single, and whores of your wives when marry’d.

Luc. Clear the court, and let no more come in: the fatigue of this sitting has been enough: for my part, the follies of mankind are such, that the very hearing of them has quite turn’d my stomach for this month at least.

Porter. Great Sir, here is a throng of wild Irish, that will take no denial, but thrust in whether we will or no.

Irish. Nay, nay, my deer joy, chreest bless the sweet majestees faash indeed; poor Teague is St. Patrick’s own country-man, be chreest, and poor Teague will come into St. Patrick’s purgatory; and if there be no vacancee, indeed thee must make a vacancee.

Porter. Nay, but this is hell, and not St. Patrick’s purgatory: therefore keep back.

Irish. Boo! boo, boo, boo, boo, hoo, hoo! hell indeed! say’st thou mee deer joy! be mee shoul, and bee chreest and St. Patrick, ee was think that hee that was in the highway to hell, cou’d not miss St. Patrick’s purgatory, since there is but a wall betwixt them.

Porter. Ouns, stand back, or I’ll send you back to the Boyne, ye impudent pultroons you.

Irish. Boo, hoo, ooo: bless the sweet faash of thee indeed, poor Teague will have patience ’till his good grace will let him in indeed.

Porter. Here is a troop of Scots that swear and stare to get in, and beg they may but skulk into some cold corner of hell, (which they wou’d not know from their own country above) with their Ganymedes, from the fury of their wives, whom they hear are just following them at their heels. And then here is some thousands more from Asia, Africa, and America, push’d on with the same fear: but I’ll keep them here in the Lobby, ’till your infernal majesty is more at leisure.

Lucif. Do so,—for the horrid nauseousness of these sots have almost put me into a fit of vomiting and looseness. And now, my lords and gentlemen, that have given your attendance at this court, you may depart ’till farther orders; but tendering my health, both for your sakes and my own, I shall confer the office of my deputy on our right reverend and well-belov’d cousin Belzebub, prince of the Flies; for I am unable to undergo this fatigue any more.

Belzebub. I humbly beg your majesty wou’d excuse my age, and give me my quietus. Here is prince Satan, an able and active devil, and worthy your choice.

Satan. Good prince Belzebub, you might have spar’d your good word; for I shall beg to be excus’d, if my former services may be respected; for I had enough of mankind when I tempted Eve, she foil’d me so at my own weapon; therefore I hope your majesty will confer that troublesome employment on some devil of less quality than myself.

Lucif. So be it then, and let the mob of hell make choice of one, for I am resolv’d to trouble myself no more about them. But before we rise, let proclamation be made of a general play-day and jubilee for all the lesser and laborious rank of devils, who have been thus long continually employ’d in damning mankind; let them take their ease as long as matrimony prevails above; for now our business is much better done by woman to our hands: Or if any are so zealously inclin’d to be still busy for the good of their country, let them employ their time and talents to better purpose than formerly, in perswading the easy world against cœlibacy, by stigmatizing all that affect it with the name of whores, rogues, and hypocrites; and if that prevails, we gain our point, and widow’d Heaven may bid{324} good-night to mankind. For if we get them into our noose, we may be sure of our purchase. Let none therefore loyter away his time in tempting the marry’d; for one woman will out-do a legion of you.

The Belgic Hero Unmask’d;

IN A

DIALOGUE

B E T W E E N

Sir Walter Rawleigh and Aaron Smith.

SIR Walter. HOLD thy impertinent tongue, I say, thou everlasting babbler, or——

Smith. Come, come, we lawyers are not so easily silenc’d as you think. Liberty of speech is one of the eldest branches of magna charta; therefore I will once more maintain it, before all the world, that the reign of my late Batavian master, was in every respect equal to that of the famous Elizabeth.

Sir Walter. Not that is’t worth my while to enter the list with such a petty-fogging dog as thou art, or the cause in debate admits any manner of parallel: but since thou hast the impudence to defend so monstrous a paradox before all this company, inform us what noble things this hero has perform’d, to deserve all that nauseous idle flattery, which hardly none but Sectarists, Deists, Republicans, and particularly the rascals of thy kidney, when he was alive, conspir’d to give him.

Smith. Why, in the first place, he deliver’d England, then just upon the brink of being devour’d by arbitrary power and popery. He won the noble battle of the Boyne, reduc’d Ireland, appeas’d the disorders of Scotland, reap’d a new harvest of glory every campaign in Flanders, and at last, after an obstinate expensive war, forc’d a haughty tyrant, who had insulted and bully’d the whole christian world for almost forty years, to clap up a peace with him{326} upon his own terms at Ryswick, by which he was oblig’d to vomit up numberless provinces and towns, which he had dishonourably stollen from their true proprietors.

Smith. Whether you behold him at home or abroad, in the cabinet or the field; in fine, whether you consider him as a king, a general, a statesman, a husband, or a master, you’ll find his character uniformly bright in all these relative stations: affectionate to his queen, merciful to his subjects, liberal to his servants, careful of his soldiers, and providing, by his great wisdom, against all future contingencies that might hereafter disturb the tranquillity of Europe. But as for his munificence to his servants and favourities, I may venture to say, that few princes in history ever went so far as he.

Sir Walter. This last clause is not so great a commendation to him as you imagine.—Well, and is this all, for I wou’d not willingly interrupt you, ’till you have gone the full length of your panegyrick?

Smith. ’Tis all I think needful to say upon the occasion, and enough, in my opinion, to establish his reputation to to all succeeding ages.

Sir Walter. Let us carefully examine the several particulars; and when we have so done, we shall be able to determine on what side the truth lies—Imprimis, you tell me he deliver’d England from tyranny and popish superstition: but was there no other way of accomplishing his deliverance, but by sending a certain relation to grass, and wounding the monarchy in so tender a part, which had suffer’d so terribly in the late unnatural rebellion of 41? If what one of the ancient fathers says, be true, that the whole world is not worth the saving, at the expence of a single lye, surely Great Britain, which makes so small a part of the universe, hardly deserv’d to be deliver’d from an imaginary ruin with so much perjury, infidelity, and ingratitude. Besides, he solemnly protested in his declaration, that he had no intention to make himself king, yet he excercis’d the regal power the very moment he landed: so that unless there had been a crown in the case, I am afraid he would hardly have cross’d the water to rescue the church of England.{327}

Smith. This is indeed what his enemies and some envious people have objected to him.

Sir Walter. Nothing of that can be laid to my charge, who was never known to your hero either Beneficio or Injuria; but as I still preserve an invincible affection for my native country, my zeal for the welfare of that, makes me assume this freedom. To be plain with you then, I can hardly believe he had any extraordinary concern for the prosperity of England, upon whom he threw the greatest burden of the war; whose troops he suffer’d to fight without their pay, in Flanders, at the same time when a parcel of unworthy foreigners had store of gold and silver in their pockets. Neither can any man perswade me he had the least affection for the royal family, from which he was descended, who suffer’d such numberless invectives and libels to be publish’d against his royal grandfather, both his uncles, and, in short, the whole family of the Stuarts, yet never call’d any of the authors or printers to an account for’t during the whole course of his reign.

Smith. Aye, but a hero, you know, has other business to mind, than the bagatelles of the press.

Sir Walter. And yet this hero could condescend to mind these bagatelles, as you call them, with a witness, whenever they were levell’d against himself or his favourites. But to proceed,—can any one in his senses believe, that this deliverer ever set the monarchy and true constitution of England to heart, under whose reign all the democratical treatises, both of this and the last age, were not only publish’d with impunity, but the abettors of such villainous doctrine, thought the only persons that were in the true interest of the nation, and deserving to be preferr’d? Was England so utterly destitute of able generals, that a regicide, proscrib’d by act of parliament, must be sent for over to head our forces in Ireland?

Sir Walter. And lastly, have we not very violent reasons to suspect, that he never had any true hearty concern for the protestant interest, whatever he pretended to the contrary, who so notoriously sacrific’d it at the treaty of Ryswick; who, to enable him to carry on the late revolution against his uncle and father-in-law, enter’d into a league; one of the first articles of which, was, to oblige{328} the king of France to do justice to the usurpations of the Roman see? And lastly, who, if he had no aversion, had certainly no affection for the church of England, the support, as well as ornament of the whole reformation, which evidently appear’d by his bestowing its best preferments upon illos quos pingere nola, a sett of moderate lukewarm gentlemen, that were willing (good men) to throw up the constitution, whenever their enemies should ask them the question. What shall I say of others, that were advanc’d for no other merit, but because they had been justly punish’d in former reigns for their seditious practices, or descended from Oliverian parents; or lastly, because they held antimonarchical and antihierarchical doctrine, both in pulpit and press, which they honestly call’d free-thinking?

Smith. Nay, this is mere calumny; for can any thing but the blackest envy presume: to attack him upon the score of religion?

Sir Walter. For once I’ll spare his religion, yet ’tis certain his ministers had not the least tincture of it. To the eternal honour of his reign, be it observ’d, all the Socinian treatises that stole into the world in the late accursed times of licentiousness and disorder, were fairly reprinted, and these, together with the modern improvements of Deism, fold in the face of the sun, without the least check or discountenance from any at the helm: ’twas come to that pitch at last, that a man might better call the divinity of our Saviour into question, than the legality of that revolution; and safer insult the ashes of king James the 1st, Charles the martyr, and the whole royal line, than attack such a lew’d, perjur’d, infamous scoundrel as Oates. ’Tis a general maxim, that the court always steers its course ad Exemplum Cæsaris; and that a shrewd guess may be made of a prince’s morals, by those of his ministers. If this observation holds good, a man would find himself strangely tempted to say some rash things of your monarch, which good manners and decency oblige me to pass over in silence.

Sir Walter. Far be it from me to do detract in the least from any man’s actions: But this, I think, I may affirm, without the least suspicion of malice, that the exploit of the Boyne, every thing consider’d, is not al{329}together so miraculous as his flattering divines and courtiers would represent it; for, after all, where was the wonder, that a well-disciplin’d regular army should defeat an unfortunate dispirited monarch, with none but a few raw, unpractis’d, naked troops about him? and then his giving the forfeited estates there to his minions, in open contradiction to what he had promised the parliament, does not seem to argue so great a concern for keeping his word. As for Scotland, the subversion of episcopacy, and murder of the Glencow-men, (not to mention the perpetuating of the convention, during his whole reign, and by that means depriving the country of electing proper members) will, I believe, look so frightful in future story, that few of your heroe’s flatterers will mention the administration of that kingdom to his credit.

Sir Walter. I thank you for reminding me of it. I am of opinion then, that, bating Namure, he might have put all the glorious harvests he yearly reap’d there, into his eye, and not have prejudic’d his royal sight in the least. However, as I know full well what a mighty advantage one powerful prince, that commands by his own single authority, has over a many-headed confederacy, where all are commanders I scorn to insist upon this point. For this reason I will not enumerate, nor enlarge upon the constant ill success that everlastingly attended him in Flanders, but come to the peace of Ryswick, which was his own proper act and deed. And here ’tis worth our observing, that by his leaving the poor emperor in the lurch, the city of Strasburg unluckily continu’d in the French hands; and that either out of want of politicks or a zeal for their religion, he made no stipulations for the German Protestants, nor took the least care to have them restor’d to those churches, of which they had been unjustly dispossess’d in the war.

Smith. Well, but necessity, you know, may make a man sometimes act contrary to his inclination.

Sir Walter. Why then did his parasites give out, That he was the controller of the peace, and forc’d the French king to accept of it upon his own terms.—But not to mention a thousand other things that might be said upon this occasion, for I begin to grow weary of the subject, to stop{330} my mouth for good and all, and convince thee how far superior in all the arts of governing the immortal Elizabeth was to thy taciturn Hero, I’ll first give thee a short sketch of her golden reign, and afterwards honestly and impartially shew thee a prospect of the other:

Sir Walter. As my mistress had a true English heart, and made the prosperity of her people the only business of her life, she suffer’d none of her ministers to crave to themselves extravagant fortunes out of the publick purse. Tho’ foreigners flock’d into her dominions as a certain asylum, yet she never encourag’d them to the detriment of her native subjects, nor imploy’d them in foreign embassies, nor admitted them into her councils: her affairs being manag’d with equal prudence and integrity, and encouragements properly distributed, no wonder she was so fortunate in all her attempts. Thus we find she supported the protestants in France against the oppression of the Guises, and so well assisted the Dutch in the infancy of their republick, that Philip II of Spain, with all his forces, was not able to reduce them. She was so far from bellowing her royal favours upon the sectaries, that she suppress’d their growing insolence with wholesome laws, and was as careful to see them put in Execution. She could display all her father’s magnificence, when there was a proper occasion to exert it; at other times, she observ’d a strict parsimony, equally advantageous to her own subjects, and easy to herself. The establish’d church flourish’d so well under her auspicious administration, that England never saw so glorious a constellation of reverend bishops and learned divines, as in her reign. She retrieved the honour of the Exchequer, and manag’d her payments so wisely, that her people thought their money as safe in her coffers as in their own.—— Now, your deliverer’s reign was the exact reverse of this happy scene. Schism and faction advanc’d, hypocrisy and dulness, under the disguise of reformation, promoted to the highest honours, deism propagated, the true genuine sons of the church discourag’d, foreigners admitted into our private councils, trade neglected, our narrow seas daily insulted, the publick impoverish’d, the treasury exhausted and pillag’d by{331} insatiable cormorants, the reputation of our arms decay’d and sunk, the sea-man starv’d, the soldiers paid with paper; in short, nothing but ill management and poverty at home, and infamy abroad.—— And this I think is sufficient to shew you, that you were mightily mistaken, when you compar’d you know who to the immortal Elizabeth.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Kings of Spain.

[2] Author of St. Bartholomew’s.

[3] Madam Maintenon.

[4] Scarron.

[5] Maintenon.

[6] Madam Maintenon.

[7] Madam Maintenon.

[8] Father la Chaise.

[9] The murderer of Henry IV.

[10] Grandvil hang’d in Flanders, for attempting to kill King William.

[11] King William.

[12] Lewis XIV.

[13] A place out of the reach of cannon.

[14] Scarron.

[15] Great houses near Paris.

[16] Hermitage near Paris.

[17] Queen Catharine of Spain.

[18] Father Pahours, Father le Mene, Jesuits.

[19] Charles V.

[20] Madam Maintenon.

[21] Scarron.

[22] Madam Maintenon was born in Martineco.

[23] Don Carlos.

[24] Elizabeth of France.

[25] Don John of Austria.

[26] The two Royal Houses of France and Spain.

[27] Credo pudicitiam Saturno rege moratam.

[28] Monks.

[29] Two ancient poets.

[30] Two modern poets.

[31] Madam Maintenon.

[32] A French poet, whom Boileau makes free with in his first satire, and elsewhere.

[33] Madam la Valiere.

[34] Madam de Fontagne.

[35] Madam de Montespan.

[36] The nuns of St. Cyril.

[37] West-Indies.

[38] The Nunnery of St. Cyril.

[39] Madam Maintenon.

[40] The voluminous author of Cleopatra.

[41] He means the late King James.

[42] A French Proverb for no conscience.

[43] England.

[44] Dr. B——re.

[45] Stanzas of Nostradamus.

[46] Madam Maintenon.

[47] Madam Maintenon.

[48] Madam Montespan.

[49] A proverb in French for a fat large monk or abbot. Cochon is French for a hog.

[50] Pulpit.

[51] The quire.

[52] Kitchen.

[53] Bawdy-house.

[54] More commonly call’d with us Boileau.

[55] The taking down the image of our Saviour, and setting up the French king’s in the room of it, occasioned this distich,

Abstulit hinc Iesum, posuitque insignia regis
Impia gens; alium non habet illa Deum.

[56] Over the door of the great hall of the Invalides, he is drawn guiding the chariot of the sun, with beams of glory round his head, and a thunderbolt in his hand, the four quarters of the world kneeling before him in a very humble posture, and the motto is, Je plais a tous.

[57] The devil laughs every now and then.

[58] The devils all laugh at his negative proof.

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
have his his fortune told=> have his fortune told {pg 3} love’s little tabernacle’s=> love’s little tabernacles {pg 5} which antient historians tells us=> which antient historians tell us {pg 5} was going to say to say something=> was going to say something {pg 10} be pimp to noblemens=> be pimp to noblemen’s {pg 16} should be excedingly beholden=> should be exceedingly beholden {pg 17} whenevever my circumstances=> whenever my circumstances {pg 34} continually tormented with with=> continually tormented with {pg 36} that abominable dedegree=> that abominable degree {pg 43} poor under-tradesmens families=> poor under-tradesmen’s families {pg 46} that set set him to work=> that set him to work {pg 55} in so dubious and enterprize?=> in so dubious an enterprize? {pg 56} If I am not now dispossessed=> if I am not now dispossessed {pg 58} mens consciences=> men’s consciences {pg 61} your your fame is infinite=> your fame is infinite {pg 61} I re-entred=> I re-entered {pg 86} charm’d with with the conversation=> charm’d with the conversation {pg 89} licentiousuess reign’d=> licentiousness reign’d {pg 90} knowing my inlinations=> knowing my inclinations {pg 100} as it is as present> as it is at present {pg 103} more especiolly=> more especially {pg 106} the lusciour morsels=> the luscious morsels {pg 106} his farher, had quite another=> his father, had quite another {pg 117} two bunchis a penny=> two bunches a penny {pg 122} from flesh and dbloo=> from flesh and blood {pg 124} you may them judge=> you may then judge {pg 125} where it possible=> were it possible {pg 141} of the famale fern=> of the female fern {pg 144} courtiers and and not me=> courtiers and not me {pg 146} by the hogshhead=> by the hogshead {pg 149} and pentensions=> and pretensions {pg 155} their cheifest delight=> their chiefest delight {pg 156} listen to this trembling lays=> listen to his trembling lays {pg 159} thar the king=> that the king {pg 159} Isarelites=> Israelites {pg 161} all affairs are keep in motion=> all affairs are kept in motion {pg 161} spill your tobacco, break your gasses=> spill your tobacco, break your glasses {pg 163} character of gurantees=> character of guarantees {pg 165} sheding of blood=> shedding of blood {pg 168} sieges aftewards=> sieges afterwards {pg 168} covetuous lechers=> covetous lechers {pg 168} of a a republick=> of a republick {pg 172} even that unparalled=> even that unparalleled {pg 174} ambassador’s at the Port=> ambassadors at the Port {pg 174} confounded at his disapment=> confounded at his disappointment {pg 174} at such blaspemous=> at such blasphemous {pg 175} indeed we we are=> indeed we are {pg 178} Think we, we here’s=> Think we, here’s {pg 188} preceiving, exercised=> perceiving, exercised {pg 189} wits every foolishly=> wits very foolishly {pg 190} enquiry with with his=> enquiry with his {pg 190} if I had deen=> if I had been {pg 195} set my set my wits=> set my wits {pg 196} lie heave=> lie heavy {pg 200} so to tell you the truth=> So to tell you the truth {pg 213} crushed them them into=> crushed them into {pg 216} some women were masks=> some women wear masks {pg 221} and and leave=> and leave {pg 223} loathsome goal=> loathsome gaol {pg 223} were lawn coversluts=> wear lawn coversluts {pg 224} were blue and yellow=> wear blue and yellow {pg 224} food were silken ornaments=> food wear silken ornaments {pg 224} women were turrets=> women wear turrets {pg 225} and and I long=> and I long {pg 233} if any dody had=> if any body had {pg 236} your are sensible=> you are sensible {pg 236} make yor rich=> make you rich {pg 240} am heartly resolv’d=> am heartily resolv’d {pg 242} in in the time=> in the time {pg 244} empty cupboad=> empty cupboard {pg 245} run up and dow muttering=> run up and down muttering {pg 247} reputation fron stinking=> reputation from stinking {pg 251} few maxims in famale=> few maxims in female {pg 255} Itailan=> Italian {pg 270} Philosophers bodies=> Philosophers’ bodies {pg 271} but espcially the=> but especially the {pg 278} Charles Sidly=> Charles Sidley {pg 278} Chancer=> Chaucer {pg 279} scur’d by a brace=> secur’d by a brace {pg 283} it order to make me a=> in order to make me a {pg 283} meaning of that world=> meaning of that word {pg 294} aversus equss TYRIA=> aversus equoss TYRIA {pg 295} glass or or two=> glass or two {pg 299} and when he has it in her pocket=> and when she has it in her pocket {pg 301} speaks to a another=> speaks to another {pg 311} mam of wit=> man of wit {pg 312} I do humby suppose=> I do humbly suppose {pg 319} great deal of mony=> great deal of money {pg 320} Partick’s purgatory=> Patrick’s purgatory {pg 322}

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A Letter of News from Mr. Joseph Haines, of Merry Memory, to his Friends at Will’s Coffee-House in Covent-Garden	Page 1
The Answer	18
Scarron to Lewis XIV.	21
Hannibal to P. Eugene	33
Pindar to Tom Durfey	34
James II. to Lewis XIV.	35
The Answer	38
Julian to Will. Pierre	41
The Answer	44
Antiochus to Lewis XIV.	48
The Answer	50
Catherine de Medicis to the Duchess of Orleans	52
The Answer	54
Cardinal Mazarine to the Marquis de Barbisieux	55
The Answer	57
Mary I. to the Pope	58
The Answer	60
Harlequin to le Chaise	61
The Answer	63
Duke of Alva to the Clergy of France	64
The Answer	66
Philip of Austria to the Dauphin	67
The Answer	69
Juvenal to Boileau	70
The Answer	72
Diana of Poictiers to Madam Maintenon	74
The Answer	76
Hugh Spencer junr. to all Favourites, &c.	77
The Answer	79
Julia to the Princess of Conti	80
The Answer	83
Dionysius junr. to all Favourites, &c.	85
The Answer	87
Christiana Queen of Sweden, to the Ladies	88
The Answer	91
Dr. Francis Rabelais to the Physicians	93
The Answer	96
Duchess of Fontagne to the Cumean Sybil	97
The Answer	99
The Mitred Hog	101
Beau Norton to the Beaux	118
Perkin Warbeck to the pretended Prince of Wales	123
Dryden to the Lord —	124
Cowley to the Covent Garden Society	125
Charon to Jack Catch	126
Sir Bartholomew Shower to Serjeant S—	127
Jo. Haines’s 2d Letter	132
Sir Fleetwood Shepherd to Mr. Prior	153
The Answer	156
Pomigny of Auvergne to Mr. Abel the singing Master	157
The Answer	160
Signor Nichola to Mr. Buckly at the Swan Coffee-House in Bloomsbury	162
Ignatius Loyola to the Archbishop of Toledo	163
Alderman Floyer to Sir Humphry Edwin	165
Sir John Norris, Q. Elizabeth’s General, to Sir Henry Bellasis and Sir Charles Hara	167
Duke of Medina Sidonia to Mons. Chateau Renault	170
Marcellinus to Mons. Boileau	172
Cornelius Gallus to the Lady Dilliana	176
Bully Dawson to Bully Watson	179
The Answer	192
Nell Gwinn to Peg Hughes	201
The Answer	202
Hugh Peters to Daniel Burgess	204
The Answer	211
Ludlow to the Calves-Head Club	214
The Answer	216
Naylor to the Quakers	219
The Answer	223
Lilly to Cooley	226
The Answer	230
Tony Lee to Cave Underhill	233
The Answer	236
Alderman Blackwell to Sir C. Duncombe	237
The Answer	241
Henry Purcell to Dr. Blow	245
The Answer	247
Mrs. Behn to the Virgin Actress	250
The Answer	254
Madam Creswell to Moll Quarles	257
The Answer	262
Jo. Haines’s third Letter	267
Certamen Epistolare between an Attorney of Clifford’s-Inn and a dead Parson from Page 290 to Page	305
Dialogues of the Dead from	Page 306 to the end.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The works of Mr. Thomas Brown, serious and comical : in prose and verse, with his remains in four volumes compleat; vol. II

THE S e c o n d V o l u m e OF THE WORKS OF Mr. Thomas Brown.

T H E WORKS O F Mr. Thomas Brown.

The CONTENTS

LETTERS F R O M T H E Dead to the Living.

Part I.

Scarron to Lewis le Grand. By Mr. Brown.

Hannibal to the Victorious Prince Eugene of Savoy. By Mr. Brown.

Pindar of Thebes to Tom. Durfey. By Mr. Brown.

King James II. to Lewis XVI. By Mr. Boyer.

Lewis XIV’s. Answer to K. James II. By the same Hand.

Will. Pierre’s Answer. By the same Hand.

Antiochus to Lewis XIV. By Mr. Henry Baker.

Lewis the XIVth’s Answer.

Catharine de Medicis, to the Duchess of Orleans.

The Answer of the Duchess of Orleans to Catharine de Medicis.

Cardinal Mazarine, to the Marquis de Barbasiux.

The Answer of Monsieur le Marquis de Barbasieux, to Cardinal Mazarine.

Mary I. of England to the Pope.

The Pope’s Answer to Queen Mary I.

Harlequin to Father la Chaise.

Father la Chaise’s Answer to Harlequin.

The Duke of Alva to the Clergy of France.

The Answer of the Clergy of France to the Duke of Alva.

Philip of Austria to the Dauphine.

The Dauphine’s Answer To Philip of Austria.

Juvenal to Boileau.

Boileau’s Answer to Juvenal.

Diana of Poictiers, Mistress to Hen. II. of France, to Madam Maintenon.

Madam Maintenon’s Answer to Diana of Poictiers.

The Answer of the Chief Ministers of the King of Iveter to Hugh Spencer.

Julia to the Princess of Conti.

The Princess of Conti’s Answer to Julia.

Dionysius the Younger, to the Flatterers of what Degree or Country soever.

The Answer of the News-Mongers to Young Dionysius.

Christiana, Queen of Sweden, to the Ladies.

The Answer of a young Vestal to the Queen.

Francis Rablais, to the Physicians of Paris.

The Duchess of Fontagne to the Cumean Sibyl.

The Cumean Sybil’s Answer to the Duchess of Fontagne.

The MITRED HOG: A Dialogue between Abbot Furetiere and Scarron.

Perkin Warbeck to the pretended Prince of Wales. By Capt. Ayloff.

Mr. Dryden, to the Lord—— By Capt. Ayloff.

Charon to the most Illustrious and High-born Jack Catch, Esq; by Capt. Ayloff.

From Sir Bartholomew—— to the Worshipful Serjeant S——. By the same Hand.

LETTERS F R O M T H E Dead to the Living.

Part II.

Sir Fleetwood Shepherd to Mr. Prior.

Mr. Prior’s Answer.

Mr. Abel’s Answer.

Seignior Nichola to Mr. Buckly, at the Swan Coffee-House near Bloomsbury.

Ignatius Loyola to the Archbishop of Toledo.

Alderman Floyer to Sir Humphery Edwin.

Marcellinus to Mons. Boileau.

POSTSCRIPT.

Cornelius Gallus to the Lady Dilliana at Bath.

From Bully Dawson to Bully W——

Mr. Henry W——’s Answer to Bully Dawson.

From Nell Gwin to Peg Hughes.

Peg Hughes’s Answer to Nell Gwin.

From Hugh Peters to Daniel Burgess in Rogue-lane.

Daniel Burgess’s Answer to Hugh Peters.

Ludlow the Regicide to the Calves-Head Club.

An Answer by the Calves-Head Club, to Ludlow the Regicide.

From J. Naylor, to his Friends at the Bull and Mouth.

The Quakers Answer to James Naylor.

From Lilly to Cooley the Almanack-maker in Baldwin’s-Gardens.

Cooley’s Answer to Lilly.

From Tony Lee to Cave Underhill.

Cave Underhill’s Answer to Tony Lee.

From Alderman Blackwell to Sir Charles Duncombe.

The Answer to Alderman Blackwell.

From Henry Purcel to Dr. Blow.

Dr. Blow’s Answer to Henry Purcel.

From worthy Mrs. Behn the Poetress, to the famous Virgin Actress.

The Virgin’s Answer to Mrs. Behn.

Moll Quarles’s Answer to Mother Creswell of Famous Memory.

LETTERS FROM THE Dead to the Living.

Part III.

The Remainder of my Catalogue of Cures.

THE
S e c o n d V o l u m e
OF THE
WORKS
OF
Mr. Thomas Brown.

T H E
WORKS
O F
Mr. Thomas Brown.

LETTERS

F R O M T H E

Dead to the Living.

LETTERS

F R O M T H E

Dead to the Living.

LETTERS

FROM THE

Dead to the Living.

Certamen Epistolare,

Between an Attorney of Cliffords-Inn and a dead Parson. By Mr. T. Brown.

Dialogues of the Dead.

In Imitation of LUCIAN.

The Belgic Hero Unmask’d;

IN A

DIALOGUE

B E T W E E N

Sir Walter Rawleigh and Aaron Smith.