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

Containing
LETTERS
FROM THE
Dead to the Living,
And from the
Living to the Dead.
Together with
Dialogues of the D E A D,
After the Manner of Lucian.

The Seventh Edition carefully Corrected.

LONDON:
Printed by and for Edward Midwinter, at the
Looking-Glass on London-Bridge. 1730.

T H E
WORKS
O F
Mr. Thomas Brown.

VOLUME the Second.

LONDON: Printed in the Year, 1727.

The CONTENTS

Of the Second Volume.

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

Part I.

A Letter of News from Mr. Joseph Haines, of Merry Memory, to his Friends at Will’s Coffee-House in Covent-Garden. By Mr. Tho. Brown.

Gentlemen,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, ye happy happy groves,
Witness of our tender loves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ille nihil, nec me quærentem vana moratur;
Sed graviter gemitus imo de pectore ducens.

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

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

Your most obliged,
and most obedient Servant,

Jo. Haines.

Dec. 21.
1701.

An Answer to Mr. Joseph Haines, High-German Astrologer, at the sign of the Urinal and Cassiopea’s Chair, in Brandinopolis, upon Phlegethon. By Mr. Brown.

Worthy Sir,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your most humble Servants,

Sebastian Freeman,
Registrarius, Nomine Societatis.

From Will’s in
Covent-Garden,
Jan. 10. 1701.

Scarron to Lewis le Grand. By Mr. Brown.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Majesty’s
most obedient, and most obliged
Subject and Servant,

Scarron.

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

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

Farewel.

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

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

Farewel.

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

Dear Royal Brother and Cousin,

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

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

Dear Royal Brother and Cousin,
Your most obliged Friend,

James Rex.

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

Most beloved Royal Brother and Cousin,

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

Dear Royal Brother and Cousin,
Your affectionate Friend,

Lewis Rex.

From Julian, late Secretary to the Muses, to Will. Pierre of Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields Play-house. By another Hand.

Pandæmonium the 8th of the month of Belzebub.

Worthy and Right Well-beloved,

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

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

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

Your very Humble and
Infernal Servant,

Julian.

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

Behind the Scenes, Lincolns-Inn-Fields,
Nov. 5. 1701.

Worthy Sir, of venerable Memory.

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

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

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

Sir,
Your obliged humble Servant,

Will. Pierre.

Antiochus to Lewis XIV. By Mr. Henry Baker.

Dear Brother,

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

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

I am Yours, &c.

Lewis the XIVth’s Answer.

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

Versailles, July 14.

Lewis R.

Catharine de Medicis, to the Duchess of Orleans.

Madam,

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

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

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

Cardinal Mazarine, to the Marquis de Barbasiux.

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

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

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

Mary I. of England to the Pope.

Most Holy Father,

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

The Pope’s Answer to Queen Mary I.

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

Harlequin to Father la Chaise.

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

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

Father la Chaise’s Answer to Harlequin.

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

His most zealous,
and very humble Servant,

la Chaise.

The Duke of Alva to the Clergy of France.

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

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

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

Philip of Austria to the Dauphine.

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

The Dauphine’s Answer To Philip of Austria.

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

Juvenal to Boileau.

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

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

Boileau’s Answer to Juvenal.

Illustrious Ghost,

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

Semper ego auditor tantum nunquamne reponam?
Vexatus toties rauci Therseide Codri?

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

Let Codrus that nauseous pretender to wit,
Condemn all my works before courtier and cit;
I bear all with patience, whatever he says,
And value as little his scandal as praise.
Vain-glory no longer my genius does fire,
’Tis interest alone tunes the strings of my lyre.
Integrity’s nought but a plausible sham,
For money I praise, and for money I damn.
Old politic bards, for fame have no itching,
The Apollo I court, is the steam of a kitchin.

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

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

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

I dare not, (were’t to save my ransom)
Affirm your ladyship is handsome;
Nor, without telling monstrous lyes,
Defend the lightning of your eyes;
For, Madam, to declare the truth,
You’ve neither face, nor shape, nor youth.

Howe’er, all flattery apart,
You’ve plaid your cards with wond’rous art.
When young, no lover saw your charms.
Or press’d you in his eager arms:
But triumphs your old age attend,
And you begin where others end.

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

Madam Maintenon’s Answer to Diana of Poictiers.

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

Hugh Spencer the younger, Minion of Edward II. to all the Favourites and Ministers whom it may concern.

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

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

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

Julia to the Princess of Conti.

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

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

A mighty monarch you begot,
Who’s pious as the devil;
Your mother too, by all is thought,
To be extreamly civil.

Descending from so bright a pair,
You both their gifts inherit;
All your great father’s virtue share,
And all your mother’s merit.

When I was young and gay like you,
I lov’d my recreation;
Mamma’s dear steps I did pursue,
And balk’d no inclination.

And, madam, when your charms are gone,
Your lovers will forsake you;
They’ll cry your sporting days are done,
And bid old Pluto take you.

Thus I have given all trading o’er.
And wisely left off sporting;
Resolv’d to practise it no more,
After my reign of courting.

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

The Princess of Conti’s Answer to Julia.

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

Your tender girls, when first their hands,
Are join’d in Hymen’s magick bands.
Fondly believe they shall maintain
A long, uninterrupted reign:
But to their cost, too soon they prove,
That marriage is the bane of love.
That phantom, duty, damps its fire.
And clips the wings of fierce desire.

But lovers in a different strain
Express, as well as ease their pain:
Ever smiling, ever fair,
To please us is their only care,
And as their flame finds no decay,
They only covet we should pay
In the same coin, and that you know,
Is always in our pow’r to do.

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

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

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

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

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

The Answer of the News-Mongers to Young Dionysius.

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

Christiana, Queen of Sweden, to the Ladies.

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

Fate justly reached the prattling fool,
For telling stories out of school.
Was’t not enough I stoop’d so low,
On him m’affection to bestow?
To clasp him in my circling arms,
And feast him with love’s choicest charms;
But must the babbling fool proclaim,
His queen’s infirmity and shame?

Of all the sins on this side hell,
The blackest sure’s to kiss and tell.
’Tis silence best becomes delight,
And hides the revels of the night.
If then my spark has met his due,
For bringing sacred mysteries to view.
E’en let him take it for his pains,
And curse his want of gratitude and brains.

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

The Answer of a young Vestal to the Queen.

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

Madam, I much rejoice to hear,
You’ll take a stone up in your ear;
For I’m a frail transgressor too,
And I we the sport as well as you,
But then I chuse to do the work.
Within the pale of holy kirk:
For absolution cures the scars }
Contracted in venereal wars, }
And saves our sex a world of prayers. }
Had you this ghostly counsel taken,
You might till now have sav’d your bacon.
’Tis safe intriguing with a flamen }
Who sanctifies their work with Amen, }
Then who would trust ungodly laymen?}
Do, Madam, as you please, but I }
None but with priesthood will employ, }
With them I’ll live, with them I’ll die. }
Who like the Pelion spear are sure,
With the same ease they wound to cure.

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

Francis Rablais, to the Physicians of Paris.

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

The Answer of Mr. Fagon, first Physician to Lewis XIV. to Francis Rablais.

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

The Duchess of Fontagne to the Cumean Sibyl.

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

Oh! wou’d it not provoke a maid,
By softest vows and oaths betray’d,
Her virgin treasures to resign,
And give up honour’s dearest shrine?
Then when her charms have been enjoy’d,
To be next moment laid aside.

But why do I lament in vain,
And of my destiny complain?
Had I been wife as those before me,
I should have made the world adore me;
Not to one lover’s arms confin’d,
But search’d and try’d all human kind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thou nauseous everlasting sow,
With phiz of bear, and shape of cow,
With eyes that in their sockets twinkle,
And forehead plow’d with many a wrinkle.
With nose that runs like common-shore,
And breath that murders at twelvescore:
What! thou’rt resolv’d to give me war,
And trounce me at the noisy bar,
Though it reduces thee to eat,
Thy smock for want of cleanlier meat:
Agreed, old beldam! keep thy word,
’Twill soon reduce thee to eat a t——d.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hora libellorum decima est, Eupheme, meorum,
Temporat ambrosias cum tua cura dapes,
Est bonus æthereo laxatur nectare Cæsare.

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

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

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

Scar. Very well! there’s nothing so commendable as good method in whoring.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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