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

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

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

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

Gentlemen, Your most obedient Servant,

Giusippe Hanesio.

Certamen Epistolare,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sir,

Your most humble tho’
unknown Servant,

W. H.

From my Chambers
in Clifford’s-Inn.

ANSWER I.

To Mr. W. H. Attorney at Law, at his Chambers in Clifford’s-Inn

Worthy Sir,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuus ab ovo usque ad mala,
Q. Z.

LETTER II.

SIR,

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

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

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

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

I am,
Yours, as you use me,
W.H.

ANSWER II.

SIR,

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

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

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

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

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

Your most humble servant, Q. Z.

ANSWER III.

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

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

Your humble Servant,
Q. Z.

LETTER III.

SIR,

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

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

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

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

Your Humble Servant, W. H.

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

ANSWER IV.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your most, &c. Q. Z.

ANSWER V.

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

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

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

Your defunct Friend and Servant,
Q. Z.

Feb. 5. From the
Elysian-Fields.

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

The End of the Letters from the Dead to the Living.

Dialogues of the Dead.

In Imitation of LUCIAN.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Omnes. O wives! wives!

[They are removed off, and others brought on.

Lucif. Proceed to the next band.

Say, what were you in the world, and what dear sin brought you to this place?

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

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

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

Lucif. Away with these, and drive ’em out of their snails pace.

[A tatter’d Ghost comes forward.

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

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

[They are carry’d off, and others brought on.

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

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

Lucif. You, the rest, speak.

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

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

[They are carry’d off, more brought on.

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

Lucif. Very well; you, the rest, speak.

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

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

[They are carry’d off, others brought on.

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

Lucif. Your country’s name then is contradiction. Is it not?

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

Lucif. You, the rest, speak.

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

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