The CONTENTS

LETTERS

F R O M   T H E

Dead to the Living.

Part I.

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,

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.