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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.