PART II.

_A Letter from Seignior_ GIUSIPPE HANESIO, _High-German Doctor and Astrologer in_ Brandinopolis, _to his Friends at_ WILL_’s Coffee-House in_ Covent-Garden. _By Mr._ THO. BROWN.

_Gentlemen_,

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 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 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 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, 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 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 prodigies 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 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.

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, 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 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,

_A rare secret that takes away all warts,_ _From the face, hands, fingers, and privy-parts._

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 happen’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.

_It may be of use to keep this advertisement._

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 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----

_A true and faithful Catalogue of some remarkable Cures perform’d in the other_ World, _by the famous Signior_ GIUSIPPE HANESIO, _High-German_ Doctor _and_ Astrologer.

By PLUTO’s Authority.

_Hic est quam legis, ille quam requiris,_ _Totis notus in inferis_ JOSEPHUS.

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 regions, 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 _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 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 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 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, 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 salivated 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 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,

_Gentlemen, Your most obedient and most humble Servant_, GIUSIPPE HANESIO.

_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, 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.

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_.

At present the versifyers are much humbled, for the laurel-grove is their chiefest delight; ’tis their park, their playhouse, their assembly. I find all the vices of the mind are common here, as in your superiour regions: separating from the clay has only taken from us the means of whoring and drinking, but the mind retains still the wicked propensity. I considered not the pressing number of your affairs, and that I hazard your ill-will by detaining you so long from the publick: give me leave only to desire the favour of you, when your servant goes through _Chancery-lane_, to put up a cargo of the _spread-eagle_ pudding for our very good friend counsellor _Wallop_, for he is inconsolable: twenty of the best cooks, nay, Mr. _Lamb_ himself can’t make one to please him. Live in health, I know you cannot learn.

_Mr._ PRIOR_’s Answer_.

_Worthy Sir_,

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 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.

_Yours_, &c.

POMIGNY _of_ Auvergne, _to Mr._ ABEL _of_ London, _Singing-Master_.

_SIR_,

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 opinion 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 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 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_.

_SIR_,

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 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 doubtless 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 powerful 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 wonderfully 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 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 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 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.

_Sir_ JOHN NORRIS _Commander in Chief of Her Majesty Queen_ ELIZABETH’_s Land-Forces against the_ Spaniard, _to Sir_ HENRY BELLASIS _and Sir_ CHARLES HARA.

_Gentlemen_,

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 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 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.

_Don_ ALPHONSO PEREZ _de_ GUSMAN, _Duke of_ Medina Sidonia, _Admiral of the invincible_ Armada, _to Monsieur_ CHATEAU-RENAULT, _at_ Rodondello.

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 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 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 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_ Bartholomew_’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_ Julian _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 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.

_Charming_ Dilliana,

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 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 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 fury 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

_Corn. Gallus._

_From Bully_ DAWSON _to Bully_ W----

_Confound you for a monumental Sluggard_,

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, 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.

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 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, 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 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_. 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 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 five and twenty acts in’t; now pray observe me, and your self shall be judge.

_The gods on a day when their worships were idle,_ _Met all at the sign of the_ half-moon _and_ fiddle; _Old_ Bacchus _and_ Venus _did lovingly joyn,_ _And swore there was nothing like women and wine:_ _They drank till they all were as merry as grigs,_ _And wallowed about like a litter of pigs;_ _Till their heads and their tails were so little apart,_ _the breath of a belch, mix’d with that of a fart;_ _But as it fell out, poor unfortunate_ Mars, _Just nodded his nose into_ Venus’_s arse;_ _Why how now, says_ Mars, _ye old jade, d’y’ suppose,_ _Your arse was design’d as a case for my nose?_ _Then pulling his head from her bumb, fell a swearing,_ _Her honour smelt worse than a stinking red-herring_,

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? 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 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 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,

DAWSON.

_Mr._ HENRY W----’_s Answer to Bully_ DAWSON.

_Noble Captain and Commander in Chief of all the Cowards in Christendom._

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 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 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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

A Satire against _Fly-Blows_. By Mr. _W_----

_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,

_Your Humble Servant_,

W----

_From_ NELL GWIN _to_ PEG HUGHES.

_Sister Peg_,

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 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,

NELL GWIN.

PEG HUGHES’_s Answer to_ NELL GWIN.

_Madam_,

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 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 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,

_Farewel_.

_From_ HUGH PETERS _to_ DANIEL BURGESS _in_ Rogue-lane.

_Most Reverend Brother in iniquity_,

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 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 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 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 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; 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 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 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.

HUGH PETERS.

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.

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 women 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 worth my nibbling at, which I scorn to lose the benefit of for a piece of revenge: so farewel,

D. BURGESS.

LUDLOW _the_ Regicide _to the_ Calves-Head Club.

_Most diabolical Sons of Darkness_,

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 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 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.

_So farewel._

_An Answer by the_ Calves-Head Club, _to_ LUDLOW _the_ Regicide.

_Most Noble Colonel_,

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 atchievement. 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_ 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

_Humble Servants_,

J.T. S.B. J.S. _&c._

_From_ J. NAYLOR, _to his_ Friends _at the_ Bull _and_ Mouth.

_Friends and Brethren in the Spirit_,

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 running 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 reason 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 phœnix 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 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.

J. NAYLOR.

_The_ Quakers _Answer to_ JAMES NAYLOR.

_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 hugging 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 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, grilliado’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.

_My dear old bottle-friend and companion_,

_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 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 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 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_.

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.

LILLY.

COOLEY’_s Answer to_ LILLY.

_SIR_,

_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 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 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._

H. COOLEY.

_From_ TONY LEE _to_ CAVE UNDERHILL.

_Brother_ Cave,

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 deliberation 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-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 in good earnest, you may jest on as I did, till you die and be damn’d like your humble servant,

ANTHONY LEE.

CAVE UNDERHILL’_s Answer to_ TONY LEE.

_Honest Friend_ Tony,

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, 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.

_So farewel_,

CAVE UNDERHILL.

_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 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 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, 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 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.

_So farewel_,

BLACKWELL.

_The Answer to Alderman_ BLACKWELL.

_SIR_,

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 injustice 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 profitable 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 presbyterian 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_,

CHARLES DUNCOMBE.

_From_ HENRY PURCEL _to Dr._ BLOW.

_Dear Friend_,

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 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 bandylegs 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_,

_Your Humble Servant_,

HENRY PURCEL.

_Dr._ BLOW’_s Answer to_ HENRY PURCEL.

_Dear Friend_,

Your letter was one of the greatest surprises to me, I ever met with; for after giving credit to that fulsome 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 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 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:

_Till then I rest yours_,

BLOW.

_From worthy Mrs._ BEHN _the Poetress, to the famous Virgin Actress_.

_Madam_,

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 departure 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 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, _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, 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.

A. BEHN.

_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 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, 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 apprentices: 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._

_From Madam_ CRESWELL _of_ pious Memory, _to her Sister in Iniquity_ MOLL QUARLES _of_ Known Integrity.

_Dear Sister_,

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 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 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 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 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; 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,

_Your Defunct Friend_,

CRESWELL.

MOLL QUARLES_’s_ Answer to Mother CRESWELL of Famous Memory.

_Loving Sister_,

_Your compassionate letter, has so won my affections to your pious memory, that it shall be always my endeavour 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 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 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 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_,

_I rest_,

Your Loving Sister,

MOLL QUARLES.

LETTERS

FROM THE

DEAD _to the_ LIVING.