circulation, reforms the digestion of the chylon, fortifies the opthalmic nerves, clears the officina intelligentiæ, corrects the exorbitancy of the spleen, mundifies the hypogastrium, comforts the sphincter, and is an excellent remedy against the prosopochlorosis, or green-sickness, sterility, and all obstructions whatever. They operate seven several ways in, order, as nature herself requires; for they scorn to be confin’d to any particular way of operation, viz. hypnotically; by throwing the party into a gentle slumber; hydrotically by their operitive faculty, in opening the interstitia pororum; carthartically, by cleansing the bowels of all crudities and tartarous mucilage, with which they abound; proppysmatically, by forcing the wind downward; hydragogically, by exciting urine; pneumatically, by exhilerating the spirits; and lastly, synecdochically, by corroborating the whole oeconomia animalis. They are twenty or more in every tin-box, sealed with my coat of arms, which are, Three clyster pipes erect gules, in a field argent; my crest, a bloody hand out of a mortar, emergent; and my supporters, a Chymist and an Apothecary. This Tinctura Solaris, or most noble off-spring of Hyperion’s golden influence, wipes off abstersively all those tenacious, conglomerated, sedimental sordes, that adhere to the œsophagus and viscera, extinguishes all supernatural ferments and ebullitions; and, in fine, annihilates all the nosotrophical or morbific ideas of the whole corporeal compages.

Thirdly, My Panagion Outacousticon, or auricular restorative: were it possible to show me a man so deaf, that if a demiculverin were to be let off under his ear, he could not hear the report, yet these infallible drops (first invented by the two famous physician-brothers, St. Cosmus, and St. Damian, call’d the Anargyri in the ancient Greek menologies; and some forty years ago, communicated to me by Anastasio Logotheti, a Greek collier at Adrianople, when I was invited into those parts to cure sultan Mahomet IV. of an elephantiasis in his diaphragm) would recover his auditive faculty, and make him hear as smartly as an old fumbling priest, when a young wench gives him account of her lost maiden-head at the confessional.

Fourthly, My Anodyne Spirit, excellent to ease pain, when taken inwardly, and applied outwardly, excellent for any lameness, shrinking or contraction of the nerves; for eyes, deafness, pain and noise in the ears; and all odontalgic, as well as podagrical inflammations.

Fifthly, My Antidotus Antivenerealis; which effectually cures all gonorrheas, carnosities in the delinquent part, tumours, phymosis, paraphymosis, christalline priapisms, hemorrhoids, cantillamata, ragades, bubos, imposthumations, carbuncles, genicular nodes, and the like, without either baths or stoves; as also without mercury so often destructive to the poor patient, with that privacy, that the nearest relation shall not perceive it.

Sixthly, My Pectoral Lozenges, or Balsam of Balsams, which effectually carries off all windy and tedious coughs, spitting of blood, wheezing in the larynx and ptyalismus, let it be never so inveterate.

Seventhly, and lastly, My Pulvis Vermifugus, or Antivermatic Powder brings up the rear, so famous for killing and bringing away all sorts of worms incident to human bodies breaking their complicated knots in the duodenum, and dissolving the phlegmatick crudities that produce those anthropophagous vermin. It has brought away, by urine, worms as long as the may-pole in the Strand, when it flourish’d in its primitive prolixity, tho’, I confess, not altogether so thick. In short, ’tis a specifick catholicon for the cholick, expels winds by eructation, or otherwise; accelerates digestion, and creates an appetite to a miracle.

I dexterously couch the cataract or suffusion, extirpate wens of the greatest magnitude, close up hair-lips, whether treble or quadruple; cure the polipus upon the nose, and all scrophulous tumours, cancers in the breast, Noli me tangeri’s, St. Anthony’s fire, by my new invented unguentum Antipyreticum, excrescences, or superfluous flesh in the mouth of the bladder or womb; likewise I take the stone from women or maids without cutting.

I have steel trusses, and instruments of a new invention, together with never-failing medicines and methods to cure ruptures, and knit the peritonæum. And here I cannot forbear to communicate an useful piece of knowledge to the world, which is, that with the learned Villipandus, in his excellent treatise, de congrubilitate materiæ primæ cum confessione Augustana, I take a rupture to be a relaxation of the natural cavities, at the bottom of the cremaster muscles. But this, en passant, I forge all my self; nay my very machines for safe and easy drawing teeth and obscure stumps. Mrs. Littlehand, midwife to the princess of Phlegethon, can sufficiently inform the women of my helps, and what I do for the disruption of the fundament and uterus, and other strange infirmities of the matrix, occasioned by the bearing of children, violent coughing, heavy work, &c. which I challenge any person in the Acherontic dominions to perform, but my self.

If any woman be unwilling to speak to me, they may have the conveniency of speaking to my wife, who is expert in all feminine distempers. She has an excellent cosmetick water to carry off freckles, sun-burn, or pimples; and a curious red pomatum to plump and colour the lips. She can make red hair as white as a lilly; she shapes the eyebrows to a miracle; makes low foreheads as high as you please, has a never failing remedy for offensive breaths, a famous essence to correct the ill scent of the arm-pits, a rich water that makes the hair curl, a most delicate paste to smooth and whiten the hands; also,

Those who are not able to come to me, let them send their urine, especially that made after midnight, and on sight of it, I will tell them what their distemper is, and whether curable or no. Nay, let a man be in never so perfect health of body, his constitution never so vigorous and athletical, if he shews me his water, I can as infallibly predict what distemper will first attack him, though perhaps it will be thirty or forty years hence, as an astronomer, by the rules of his science, can foretel solar or lunar eclipses the year before they happen. I have predicted miraculous things by the pulse, far above any philosopher: by it, I not only discover the circumstances of the body; but if the party be a woman, I can foretel how many husbands and children she shall have; if a tradesman whether his wife will fortify his forehead with horns; and so of the rest. This is not all, but I will engage to tell any serious persons what their business is on every radical figure, before they speak one word; what has already happen’d to them from their very infancy down to the individual hour of their consulting me, what their present circumstances are, what will happen to them hereafter; in what part of the body they have moles; what colour and magnitude they are of; and lastly, how profited, that is, whether they calminate equinoctially or horizontally upon the Mesogastrium; from which place alone, and no other, as the profound Trismegistus has observ’d before me, in his elaborate treatise de erroribus Styli Gregoriani, all solid conjectures are to be formed.

I have likewise attained to the green, golden and black dragon, known to none but magicians and hermatic philosophers; I tell the meaning of all magical panticles, sigils, charms and lameness, and have a glass, and help to further marriage; and what is more, by my learning and great travels, I have obtained the true and perfect seed and blossom of the female fern; and infinitely improv’d that great traveller major John Coke’s famous necklaces for breeding of teeth. The spring being already advanc’d, which is the properest season for preventing new, and renewing old distempers, neglect not this opportunity——

My hours are from nine till twelve in the morning, and from two in the afternoon till nine at night, every day in the week, except on the real christian sabbath, called Saturday.

It may be of use to keep this advertisement.

This, gentlemen, is an exact copy of my bill, which has been carefully distributed all over this populous city, pasted upon the chief gates and churches; and since dispersed by two running messengers, Theophrastus Paracelsus and Cornelius Agrippa, all over king Pluto’s dominions. I forgot to tell you, that finding it absolutely necessary to take me a wife, (the women in certain cases that shall be nameless, being unwilling to consult any but those of their own sex) I was advised by some friends to make my applications to the famous Cleopatra queen of Egypt, who being a person of great experience, and notably well skill’d in the Arcana’s of nature, would in all probability make me an admirable spouse. In short, after half a dozen meetings, rather for form sake than any thing else, the bargain was struck, and a match concluded between her Alexandrian majesty and myself; cardinal Wolsey, who is now curate of a small village, to the tune of four marks per annum, and the magnificent perquisites of a bear and fiddle, perform’d the holy ceremony: Amphion of Thebes diverted us at dinner with his crowd, and all the while Molinos, the quietist, danced a Lancashire jigg. Sir Thomas Pilkington, who, as I told you in my last, is become a most furious rhime-tagger or versificator, composed the epithilamium; and Sardanapalus, Caligula, Nero, Heliogabalus, and pope Alexander VII. were pleas’d to throw the stocking. Her majesty, to do her a piece of common justice, proves a most dutiful and laborious wife, spreads all my plaisters, makes all my unguents, distills all my waters, and pleases my customers beyond expression.

Thus, gentlemen, you see my bill, by which you may guess whether I don’t infinitely surpass those empty pretending quacks of your world, who confine their narrow talent to one distemper, which they cure but by one remedy; whereas all diseases are alike to me, and I have a hundred several ways to extirpate them. I shall now trespass so far upon your patience, as to present you with the catalogue of my cures, which being somewhat singular, and out of the way, I have the vanity to believe will not be unwelcome to you——

By Pluto’s Authority.

BEcause I am so much a person of honour and integrity, that even in this lower world I would not forfeit my reputation, I desire my incredulous adversaries (of which number, being a stranger to this place, I presume I have but too many) to get if they can to the upper regions, and satisfy themselves of the truth of my admirable performances. To begin then with those of quality.

Pope Innocent the eleventh was so strangely over run with a complication of Jansenism, Quietism, and Lutheranism, that not only his nephew, Don Livio Odeschalchi, but the whole sacred consistory despaired of his recovery; I so mundify’d his intellectuals with my catholick essence of Hellebore, that he continued rectus in cerebro many years after; and if the French ambassador, by making such a hubbub about his quarters, occasion’d old infallibility to relapse, Loüis le Grand must answer for it, and not signior Giusippe.

I cured the late Sophy of Persia, Shaw Solyman by name, of a Febris Tumulenta, so that he could digest the exactions and blood of a whole province, hold his hand as steady as Harry Killegrew after a quart of surfeit water in a morning; and if he dy’d presently after, let his eunuchs and whores look to that, if one with their politicks, and the other with their tails, spoil’d the operation of my Elixir magnum stomachicum.

I cured Aureng-Zebe, the old mogul, of an epilepsia fanatica, with which he was afflicted to that degree, that patents were dispatch’d, and persons named to go ambassadors extraordinary to William Pen, George Whitehead, William Mede; the Philadelphians, Cameronians, Jesuits, and Jacobian Whiskerites, for a communication of diseases and remedies; but by my cephalick snuff and tincture, I made him as clear headed a rake as ever got drunk with classics at the university, or expounded Horace in Will’s coffee-house; and messengers were sent thro’ all his empire to get him Dutry, Bung, Satyrion, Cantharides, Whores, and Schyraz wine; and if he has since fallen down to his Alcoran and the flat effects of ninety seven years of age, blame his damn’d courtiers and not me, that instead of nicking the nice operation of the medicine, let in books and priests, to debauch his understanding.

I cured the Mahometan predestinarian Sultan of the great East India island Borneo, of want of blood, by counselling him to follow his inclinations and bathe in it, that he might restore himself by spight and percolation; but vexations from his Divan, the neighbour emperor of China, a saucy young jackanapes, and a sorrel hair’d female gave him such jolts, that quite spoil’d the continuance of the noblest cure in the world.

Peter Alexowitz, present czar of Muscovy, fell ill of a Calenture in London, occasion’d by putting too great a quantity of gun-powder into his usquebaugh, and pepper into his brandy; all the topping doctors of the town were sent for, and apply’d their Cortex and Opium to no purpose. What should I do in this pinch, but order’d a hole to be made in the Thames for him, as they do for the ducks in St. James’s-Park, it being then an excessive frost, sous’d him over head and ears morning and night, and by this noble experiment not only recovered him, but likewise gave a hint to the setting up of a cold-bath near Sir John Oldcastle’s which has done such miracles since.

I cured a noble peer, aged sixty seven, of a perpetual priapism, so that now his pimping valets, and footmen, his bawds, spirit of Clary, and a maidenhead of fourteen can hardly raise him, who before was scarce to be trusted with his own family; nay, his own wife: and now he’s as continent and virtuous a statesman as ever lin’d his inward letchery with outward gravity.

A noble peeress, that lives not full a hundred miles from St. James’s square, in the sixty sixth year of her age, was seiz’d with a furor uterinus; by plying her ladyship with a few drops of my Antepyretical Essence, extracted from a certain vegetable gathered under the artic pole, and known to no body but myself, I perfectly allay’d this preternatural ferment; and now she lies at quiet, tho’ both her hands are unty’d as a new swaddled babe, and handles no rascals but Pam, and his gay fellows of the cards.

Honoraria Frail, eldest daughter to my old lady Frail of Red-Lyon-Square, by too prodigally distributing les dernieres feveurs to her mother’s sandy pated coachman and pages, had so strangely dilated the gates du citadel d’amour, that one might have marched a regiment of dragoons thro’ them. Her mother, who was in the greatest perplexities imaginable upon the score of this disaster, sent to consult me: With half a dozen drops of my Aqua Styptica, Hymenealis, I so contracted all the avenues of the aforesaid citadel, that the Yorkshire knight that marry’d her, spent above a hundred small-shot against the walls, and bombarded the fortress a full fortnight before he cou’d enter it; and now they are the happiest couple within the bills of mortality.

I renewed the youth from the girdle downwards of madam de Maintenon, so that she afforded all the delights imaginable, to her old grand lover in imagination, and to the younger bigots and herself in reality: while her face still remain’d as great an object of mortification as her beads, death’s-head, and discipline; and this noble cure still remains to be view’d by all the world.

Harry Higden of the Temple, counsellor, was so miserably troubled with the long vacation disease, or the defectus crumenæ, that the sage benchers of the house threatned to padlock his chamber door for non-payment of rent. He asked my advice in this exigence: I, who knew the full strength of his furniture, which consisted of a rug, two blankets, a joint-stool, and a tin-candlestick, that served him for a piss-pot when revers’d, counselled him to take his door off the hinges, and lock it up in his study. He followed my advice, and by that means escaped the abovemention’d ostracism of the padlock.

Margaret Cheatly, bawd, match-maker, and mid-wife of Bloomsbury, by immoderate drinking of strong-waters, had got a nose so termagantly rubicund, that she out-blazed the comet: my cosmetic Florentine-unguent, absolutely reform’d this inflammation, and now she looks as soberly as a dissenting minister’s goggle-ey’d convenience.

Jerry Scandal, whale and ghost printer in White-Friers, had plagued the town above ten years with apparitions, murders, catechisms, and the like stuff; by showing him the phiz of terrible Robin in my green magic-glass, I so effectually frighted him, that he has since demolish’d all his letters, dismissed his hawkers, flung up his business, and instead of news, cries flounders and red-herrings about the streets.

Joachim Hazard, of Cripplegate parish in White-cross-street, almost at the farther end near Old-street, turning in at the sign of the White Crow in Goat-alley, strait forward, down three-steps at the sign of the Globe, was so be-devil’d with the spirit of lying, that he out-did two hard mouth’d evidences in their own profession, and could not open his mouth without romancing; I made him snuff up some half a score drops of my Elixir Alethinum, and now he has left off fortune-telling and astrology, and is return’d to his primitive trade of weaving.

Farmer Frizzle-pate, of Bullington, near Andover, had been blind thirty five years and upwards; my Ophthalmick drops restor’d him to his sight in a minute, and now he can read a Geneva bible without spectacles. A certificate of this miraculous cure, I have under the hand of the parson of the parish, and his amen-curler.

I cured a Kentish parson of an Infirmitas Memoriæ, which he got by a jumble of his Glandula Pinealis, after a bowl of punch and a boxing-bout. He was reduc’d to that deplorable condition, as to turn over play-books instead of his concordance, quote Quæ Genus instead of St. Austin; nay, he forgot tythe-eggs, demanded Easter dues at Martinmas, bid Bartholomew-Fair instead of Ash-Wednesday; and frequently mistook the service of matrimony, for that of the dead: what is yet more surprising, he forgot even to drink over his left thumb; but now he has as staunch a memory, as a pawn-broker for the day of the month; a country attorney for mischief; or a popish clergyman for revenge.

I cured serjeant Dolthead, of a prodigious itch in the palms of his hands: A most wonderful cure! for now he refuses fees, as heartily as a young wench does an ugly fellow, when she has a handsome one in view; his attorney is run mad, his wife is turn’d bawd to take double fees; and his daughters mantua-makers and whores, to get by two trades.

An eminent coach-keeping physician was troubled with a Farrago Medicinarum, or a Tumor Prescriptionalis to that monstrous degree, that he writ bills by the ell, and prescribed medicines by the hogshead and wheelbarrow-full. To the amazement of all that knew him: I have effectually cured him on’t; for he now writes but three words, prescribes but two scruples, leaves people to a wholesome kitchen-diet, and nature has undone the sexton and funeral undertaker; and the overstock’d parish has petitioned the privy-council to send out a new coloney to the West-Indies.

I cured a certain head of a college, of a Hebetude Cerebri; so that he now jokes with the bachelors and junior fry, goes to the dancing-school with the fellow-commoners; and next act will be able to make a whole terræ filius’s speech himself.

An apothecary in Cheapside, was so strangely over-run with an Inundatio Veneni, that the grass grew in the parish round him; but now, thanks to the cure I wrought upon him, he has reduc’d his shop to the compass of a raree-show, gets but ten pence in the shilling, let the neighbouring infants grow up to men; and is going to build an hospital for decay’d prize-fighters and dragoons.

I cured a vintner behind the Exchange, of a Mixtura Diabolica, so that now he hates apples as much as our forefather after his kick on the arse out of paradice; shuns a drugster’s shop, as much as a broken cit does a serjeant; swears he’ll clear but ten thousand pounds in five years, and then set up for psalm-singing, and sleeping under the pulpit.

I cured a Norfolk attorney of the Scabies Causidico Rabularies, another prodigious cure never perform’d before; so that now he’s as quiet as a cramb’d capon among barn door hens, he won’t so much as scratch for his food; his uncle the counseller has disinherited him; and since he has listed himself for a foot soldier.

I cured an Amsterdam burgomaster’s wife of barrenness, so that now she has two children at a birth; besides a brace of sooterkins every year, and even now in these low-countries (so effectual are my remedies) I am teaz’d with daily messages, for astringents and flood gates, to help the poor pains-taking mortal in his aquatic situation.

Pierre Babillard, French valet and pimp in ordinary to my lord Demure, was troubled with the Glosso-mania, or that epidemical disease of Normandy, the talking sickness. He not only prattled all night in his sleep, but his clack went incessantly all day long; the cook-maid and nurse were talk’d quite deaf by him; whereas his master labour’d under the contrary extreme, and by his good will wou’d not strike once in twenty four hours; by the most stupendous operation that ever was known, (for the transfusion of one animal’s blood into another, so much boasted of by the royal society, is not to be compared to it) I transfused some of the French valet’s loquacity into the noble peer, and some of the noble peer’s taciturnity into the French valet; so that now, to the great consolation of the family, my lord sometimes talks, and Monsieur Babillard sometimes holds his tongue.

Sir Blunder Dullman, professor of rhetorick, and orator to the ancient city of Augusta Trinobantum, had been troubled, ever from his infancy with that epidemical magistrate’s distemper, the Bos in Lingua; so that whenever he made any speeches, the gentlemen were ready to split their sides, and the ladies to bepiss themselves with laughing at the singularities of his discourse. By my Pulvis Cephalicus, I so far recover’d him, that he cou’d draw up his tropes and metaphors in good order, and harangue you twenty lines upon the stretch, without making above the same number of blunders. If he has since relapsed, ’tis no fault of mine, but he may e’en thank his city conversation for it.

Dinah Fribble, eldest daughter to Jonathan Fribble of Thames-street, tallow-chandler, was so enormously given to the language of old Babylon, that she would talk bawdy before her mother, her grandmother, and godmother; nay, name the two beastly monosyllables before the doctor and lecturer of the parish. Her father, one of the worshipful elders of Salters-hall, wondered how a child so religiously educated, fed from her cradle with the crumbs of comfort, and lull’d daily asleep with Hopkins and Sternhold, should labour under so obscene a dispensation. In short, I was sent for, pour’d some twenty drops of my Anti-Asmodean essence into her nostrils, and the next morning a huge thundering Priapus eleven inches long, came out of her left ear; she’s now perfectly recover’d, talks as piously, and behaves herself as gravely as the demurest female in the neighbourhood.

Daniel Guzzle, Inn-keeper in Southwark, by perpetual tippling with his customers, was so inordinately swell’d with a dropsy, that Sir John Falstaff, in Harry the fourth, was a meer skeleton to him. I tapp’d his Heidelburg-Abdomen, and so vast an inundation issued from him, that if the stream had continued a quarter of an hour longer, it would have overflowed the whole borough, and made a second cataclysm. He is now perfectly cured, is as slender as a beau that has been twice salivated for a shape; runs up the monument some half a score times every morning for his diversion, jumps thro’ a hoop, makes nothing of leaping over a five-barr’d gate; and the famous Mr. Barnes of Rotherhith has enter’d him into his company.

Obadiah Hemming, Taylor, at the sign of the Red-Wastcoat and Blazing-Star, near Tower-Hill, was troubled with so unmerciful a Ptisick, that no body in the family could sleep for him: I ply’d him with my Antitussient Pillula Pulmonaris, but without effect. I wondered how the devil my never-failing remedy disappointed me! cries I to him, honest friend, what may your name be? Obadiah Hemming, says he. Very well; and what parish do you live in; All-hallows-Barking. Oh, ho! I have now found out the secret how my pills came to miscarry; why, friend, thou hast a damn’d ptisical name, and livest in a confounded ptisical parish: come call thyself Obadiah Bowman, and get thee to Hampstead, Highgate, or any place but All-hallows-Barking, and I’ll insure thy recovery. He did so; and is so strangely improv’d upon it, that he is since chosen into St. Paul’s choir, and begins to rival Mr. Goslin and Mr. Elford.

Rebbecca Twist, Ribbon-Weaver, in Drum-Alley, Spittle Fields, aged 75, by drinking anniseed-robin, geneva, and other ungodly liquors, and smoaking mundungus, had so utterly decayed her natural heat, that she had lain bed-rid thirty years, and on my conscience a calenture would no more have warm’d her, than a farthing candle would roast a sirloin of beef. I made so entire a renovation of her with my Arcanum Helmontio-Glaubero-Paracelsianum, that she’s become another creature, out-talks the parson and midwife at every gossiping, dances to a miracle, never fails to give her attendance at all merry meetings; and no sooner hears the noise of a fiddle, but she frisks and capers it about, like a young hoyden of fifteen.

Nehemiah Conniver, one of the city reformers, was so totally deform’d with the Lepra Hypocritica, that never a barber, victualler, or taylor in the neighbourhood could live in quiet for him. To the admiration of all that knew him, I have so effectually cured him of this acid humour, that he will out-swear ten dragoons, go to a bawdy-house in the face of the sun; and out talk a score of midwives in natural philosophy.

Thus, gentlemen, you have my bill, and catalogue of cures, by which you’ll easily perceive that our internal world is only a counter-part of your’s, where hard words, impudence, and nonsense, delivered with a magisterial air, carry every thing before them. I should now according to the method proposed to myself, proceed to give you a short account of what memorable occurrences have lately happened in these Acherontic realms, but the vast crowds of visitants at my door are so obstreporous and troublesome, that I can conceal myself from them no longer. Be pleas’d, therefore, to accept of this imperfect relation in part of payment, and next month, when I shall have a better convenience of writing my thoughts at large, I will endeavour to give you full satisfaction. In the mean time, give me leave to assure you, that my highest ambition is to honour myself with the title of,

Gentlemen,

Your most obedient and

most humble Servant,

Giusippe Hanesio.

Sir Fleetwood Shepherd to Mr. Prior.

IT is some time since (you know) that I took my leave of you, and the sun, and I fear’d of all good company too. My curiosity to observe the nature of an affair, whereof every body talks, tho’ not one of them can understand, made me so long silent; that if it were possible I might give my friends some account or other that should be of moment to them, either for diversion or improvement. Your weighty affairs prevent the one, and your capacity the other; but that you may see friendship as well as virtue survives the grave, I address this to you, to assure you, we are not annihilated, as some philosophers opened, and that our felicity does not consist in an unactive indolence as others as vainly pretended. Virtue is its own reward, and vice its own punishment. We are so refined here, that nothing can veil evil from the piercing eyes of every body, and the malice and envy of the most inveterate devils cannot over-cast the glories of the good. We impute a great many faults to the frailty of the flesh very unjustly. The soul hath its warpings as well as the clay, and some vices are so natural that we cannot extinguish them, tho’ we may in some measure prevent their flaming out and boiling over. These remain still, and employ all the utmost efforts of our prudence to triumph over; and if we accomplish that, we are perfect; but if the malignity of our tempers prevail, we sink to the lowest abyss of infamy, shame, and disgrace. This laid the foundation of that doctrine of Rome, called Purgatory; and their ignorance, joined to their insatiable avarice, improved it to what at present you find it. Here is one duke of Buckingham, perpetually conferring with the Spanish ministers; the other as busy in finding out the mighty secrets of impertinent curiosities; here’s Mazarine supplanting the liberty of Europe, and Cromwell that of England. Shaftsbury is pushing on Monmouth, and he is stiled king by one of his own footmen only; Dryden is every minute at Homer’s heels, or pulling Virgil by the sleeve, importuning Horace, or making friends to Ovid: but Cowley, with a serenity of mind that constitutes his felicity, quietly passes along the Elysian plains, disturbing no body, and undisturb’d of all, Milton his companion, and himself his happiness. The less considerable fry of wits are just as contentious here, as at Covent Garden; as noisy, and as ill-natur’d; every man in particular arrogating all to himself, and allowing nothing to others. The dispute rose so high, and the uproar continued so long, that Pluto commanded a squadron of his life-guard, with Juvenal at their head, to force them out of the laurel-grove, and lock it up till matters should be adjusted by Apollo, to whom he detach’d Lucan and Lee (as being the best skill’d in flying) with his complaints; they are returned with a proclamation, which for its novelty I will trouble you with; not but that I think it might not improperly have been made on the other side of Parnassus, unless matters are strangely mended since I left you.

Mr. Prior’s Answer.

Worthy Sir,

I WAS not wanting in my wishes to preserve that esteem you honoured me with, or to give you fresher instances of it; but since your stars summoned you on the other side of the black water, and I did not know whither to address myself exactly to you, I was obliged to suspend my writing till such time as I received your’s. I am heartily glad the two crowns are agreed to permit a pacquet to go between them; and as for our friend the counsellor, I never shall be dilatory in serving him to the utmost of my abilities, and never shall call to mind but with veneration and wonder, his most heroick conduct and magnanimity in pudding-fighting. He sequester’d himself from flesh and blood very opportunely, and with a prudence that always accompanied him in the minutest of his actions; for sugars and fruits are risen already, and, in all probability, will continue to bear a good price, since Portugal has deserted us; so I dare not pretend to be positive that the cargo I send will be as delicious as formerly, tho’ its novelty may make amends for some time, for small cheats in that profession. Honest John the faithful companion of your wanton hours, was very much rejoiced to hear from you, and would needs take a leap after you, maugre all I could say to him: with this trusty servant I have sent you what you desired, and that I might be certain of its not miscarrying any where upon the road, I tuck’d friend John up with it, and so dispatch’d him presently. I was in hopes to have heard from more of our merry companions, or of them at least: how does Rochester behave himself with his old gang? is Sir George as facetious as ever? is my lady still that formal creature as when in our hemisphere? has she the benefit of cards and a tea-table? how did my lord Jefferies receive his son? and with what constancy did her grace hear Sir John Germain was married? I was in hopes you might have met with some of these in your peregrination, not that I suppose you can see those vast dominions of Pluto’s but in a proportionable time to the variety of subjects, as well as the mightiness of their extent.

We have nothing new here, because we are under the sun. Wise men keep company with one another; fools write and fools read; the booksellers have the advantage, provided they don’t trust; some pragmatical fellows set up for politicians; others think they have merit because they have money. Cheats prosper, drunkenness is a little rebuked in the pulpit, but as rife as ever in all other places; people marry that don’t love one the other, and your old mistress Melisinda goes to church constantly, prays devoutly, sings psalms gravely, hears sermons attentively, receives the sacrament monthly, lies with her footman nightly, and rails against lewdness and hypocrisy from morning till night.

The rest of particulars I leave for honest John to recount to you; my other affairs oblige me to take my leave of you; expecting some particulars about what I mentioned myself.

Yours, &c.

Pomigny of Auvergne, to Mr. Abel of London, Singing-Master.

SIR,

THE sons and daughters of harmony that crowd in daily upon these coasts surprise us equally with your capacities and misfortunes. We are generally of the opinion here, that the muses are as well receiv’d in England, as in any other climate whatever. Men are charm’d there at so small an expence of wit or performance, that, one of your endowments might well have hop’d to outrival my felicity, and be something more exalted than to the embraces of a queen. My parentage was as little remarkable in France, as yours in England; and though I had better luck, durst not pretend I had a better voice. From a singing-boy, I push’d my fortune so as to succeed my own sovereign. From the choir I rose to the chamber; from the chamber I was preferr’d to the closet; and from thence was advanc’d to be vice-roy over all the territories of love: I was lord high-chamberlain to Cupid, and comptroller of the houshold to Venus. Every delectation superseded my very wishes; nor cou’d I have ask’d for the thousandth part of the blandishments I enjoy’d. I was as absolute in my love as the grand seignior: ’twas for my dear sake the fond princess rais’d her maids of honour’s beds, that she might not hurt her back (as she had frequently done) in creeping under to fetch me out. ’Twas for my dear sake, that if they but nam’d my name when absent, in the raptures of her impatience, she run against the doors, threw down the screens; hurt her face against the mantle-trees and cabinets. She broke at times as much in looking-glasses, stands, and china, in the eager transports of her joy to meet me coming into the room, as by computation, wou’d have fitted out a fleet of fifty sail of capital ships. These were princely rewards for a man’s poor endeavours to please: who would not bring up their children in a choir? or who would not learn to sing? you have met, I must confess, Sir, with but small encouragement in the main, and made but a slender fortune in comparison of what might have been reasonably expected from your talents: the most civiliz’d quarter of the world has been your audience, and admirer; and you have left every where a name, that cannot die but with musick, and that will survive even nature; for in the numerous cracklings of the last conflagration, there will be, as it were, a noble symphony, that she may cease to be in proportion, and what is her apothesis, will draw the curtain to a new creation. But that enlargement of our knowledge, which is the necessity of our spiritualization, shows me there is a malevolency in the influences of your stars, that will ever dash your rising hopes, and oppose your fortune. You cannot but have heard how Alexander the Great very generously distributed all the spoils to his soldiers, and contented himself with glory for his dividend. Thus your consolation must be, whenever the fickle goddess frowns upon you; that noble resolution of being above contempt, shows a magnanimity of mind equal to the greatest philosopher. But virtue is very often unfortunate, nay, sometimes oppress’d.

Here are some devilish, ignorant, censorious, lying people, that will maintain, you were so impertinent as to give a gentleman, the trouble of cudgelling you, and there are many here whose wicked tempers are improv’d by the conversation of the place, as rogues by being in Newgate, and those give credit to the aspersions; but the tribe of Helicon endeavour your justification, for he that cou’d charm the king of Poland’s bears with the warbling accents of his mellifluous tongue, might with the same harmony have mov’d the sturdy oak, and that is as heavy as a hundred canes. ’Twas the glory of Arion, that the stones danced after his lyre; and as long as there are poets it will be said, that Orpheus drew the tigers and the trees, to listen to his trembling lays. May you not justly expect a place in the volumes of immortality, since it may be all said literally true of you, that was but a fable of these darlings of our forefathers? no matter if some people put an ill construction on it, the best actions of our lives are subject to be traduc’d.—— Here was a dear joy of quality suffer’d the discipline of the place for stealing the diamond ring from you, that the king of France gave you at Fountainbleau: to mitigate the blackness of the fact, he alledg’d the necessitousness of his condition, and that it was pity so many gallant men should want for their loyalty, while a jackanapes cou’d get an estate for a song. At this, Rhadamanthus order’d him a hundred stripes more for his pride in affecting a character his own confession had so far derogated from. There are some considerable stars that rise in Bavaria, whose influences are inauspicious to you; for, among friends, ’twas no better than robbing him to run away with his money, and especially before you had done any thing for it. However, this may be your consolation, that the duke can’t say you cheated him to some tune. Here is a consort of musick composing against the king of France makes his entrance: out of gratitude to his generosity, you ought to make one of ’em; I can get you a lodging near Cerberus’s apartment; ’twill be convenient for you to confer notes together for he is much the deepest base of any here.

If your leisure will permit, I should be glad of some news from the favourites of Parnassus: I am continually at the chocolate house in the Sulphurstreet. I shall look upon the obligation in Ala-mi-re in Alt.

Mr. Abel’s Answer.

IF the advice be seasonable, ’tis no great matter from whence it comes; though ’tis not what one wou’d readily expect from a person of your climate; but that too renders the obligation so much the more binding. I was not so well acquainted with the ancient intrigues of the French court as to call your name to remembrance, but by the delicious expression of your wanton delights, I presum’d you might have been a Mahometan eunuch, because you seem’d to describe their paradice in part; what cou’d I tell whether more of that felicity came to your share or not? I met Aben-Ezra the Jew, but he knew nothing of you; at last a French refugee set me right. When I consider your private history I am amaz’d at your raptures, and that you could be so void of common reason, more especially after you had been so long spiritualiz’d, which you tell me, enlarges the understanding, as to set a value upon your self for raking a kennel, only because it belonged to court. To have charm’d a person of an exalted extraction, as I did, and to bring her to be the loving wife of my bosom, was vanity without infamy. But your captive queen was a queen of sluts, equally the infamy of her own sex, as you were the contempt of ours. ’Twas very pathetically said of her by her brother, when he gave her in marriage to the king of Navarre, that he did not give his Peggy in marriage to the king of Navarre alone, but to all the Hugonots of his kingdom, and if he had said, all the Roman Catholicks too, it had hardly been an hyperbole. For ever since she was nine years old, she never deny’d any thing that was a man; no, not so much as her own brother. She had so great an inclination to be obliging, that she would not refuse even old age, and did not condemn even the blackest scullion-boy of her kitchin: she was the refuse of a hundred thousand several men’s embraces before she took up with you. So that I see no such mighty ground for your vanity and ostentation: and if there were not other more beneficial expectations from the choir, I should advise but very few to follow it: not but that a fair friend in the Palace-yard, a kind friend in Charles-street, or a pretty intimate acquaintance near the Bowling-Alley, may help to pass away some leisure hours when the Abbey is lock’d up; however that is not sufficient to tempt a man to C-fa-ut it all ones life-time.

I ever found an inbred aversion to Ireland, and your news gives me more convincing reasons why I should not affect ’em: for to be stripp’d by some, and stripp’d by others, would of itself give a man an unfavourable Impression of such people. As for the freedom you take in diverting yourself at my expence, I easily pass it by: but your censoriousness scandalizes me, when so many very deserving persons of all ranks, sexes and qualities, as are my good friends and benefactors, are made the subject of your raillery. I do not want to be spiritualis’d to see thro’ your banter, when you make me even superior to Orpheus and Arion; I smell what you wou’d be at, by being follow’d by tigers, blocks and stones: but it is lucky enough for you, that you are out of their reach: as for the article of Bavaria, I can say but little to it more than I thought the time was come, when the Israelites should spoil the Egyptians. You have such continual couriers from these parts, that you cannot be long ignorant of the minutest springs by which all affairs are kept in motion. To me they seem everywhere to be at much the same rate, like a horse in a mill, ’tis no matter who drives him. I thank you for your kind offer, in providing me lodgings; but I have so many of my friends gone there of late, that I shall unwillingly be from them: however, I shall always study to improve your good opinion, and continue theirs. If any accident calls me to your parts about that time, I shall gladly assist at the king of France’s entry; for doubtless it will be done with a most noble solemnity, and every way answerable to the character of such a monarch. But as time is more precious here than in your country, I must beg you to excuse me, for I am just sent for to the tavern. Adieu.

Seignior Nichola to Mr. Buckly, at the Swan Coffee-House near Bloomsbury.

IT is impossible to suffer it any longer! what, my diviner airs made the sordid entertainment of sordid footmen, scoundrel fellows, and I know not what for ragamuffins! must those seraphic lays, that have so often been the delight of muses, the joy of princes, the rapture of the fair sex, the treasures of the judicious, must these be thrumm’d over to blaspheming rascals, smoaking sots, noisy boobies, and such nefarious mechanicks! oh, prophane!—-- they shall have my sonatas, that they shall with a horse-pox to them. Can’t their Darby go down but with a tune, nor their tobacco smoak, without the harmony of a Cremona fiddle? if they can’t be merry without musick, provide them a good key, and a pair of wrought tongs. One of their own jigs is diverting enough for their heavy capacities; whence comes it that the sons of art, and the brothers of rosin and cat-gut, can demean themselves so poorly to play before them? since when have the daughters of Helicon frequented ale-houses? must the sacred streams of our Aganiope, pay homage to the Darwent, and wash tankards and glasses? sure you think Pegasus a jade, and are looking out for a chap for him: who can come up to his price there? his beauties are too sublime for the groom, and his master had rather have a strong horse for his coach: none of them alas can tilt the fiery courser. What a strange medley do you make! wit, musick, noise, nonsense, smoak, spawl, Darby-ale, and brandy: nay your rage and indiscretion goes farther yet; folly and madness seem to be contagious, and you jar among yourselves? the brothers of symphony quarrel, and turn the banquetting-house of the Thessalian ladies into a bear-garden, those active joints that so nicely touch’d my notes, are now barbarously levell’d at each other’s eyes; the powerful off-spring of my harmonious conceptions, is miserably torn to pieces betwixt them; and what would have charm’d all mankind, is dishonourably employ’d to the lighting of pipes and cleaning of tables. If you will set up for celebrating the orgies of the juicy god, let your instruments be all chosen accordingly, your airs correspondent to the audience; but make me no more the contempt and derision of your debauch’d meetings: for the commendation of fools is more wounding than the reprimands of the ingenious. At best, it is prostituting me to bring them into my company. If you put not some sudden order to these ignominious proceedings, I will dispatch an imp to sowre your ale, consume your cordials, spill your tobacco, break your glasses, and cut all your equipage of harmony into ten thousand millions of bits; nay I will prosecute my revenge so far, that even in the play-house your hand shall shake, your ear shall judge wrong, your strings crack, and every disappointment that may render you ridiculous, shall attend you in all publick meetings where-ever you pretend to play. So be wise and be warn’d: play to lovers and judges of musick, draw drink to sots and neighbours.

Ignatius Loyola to the Archbishop of Toledo.

YOUR eminency’s remissness in the late affairs of the Spanish territories, has made my scorpion’s stink deeper than heretofore, and superadded a new blackness to the horrors of my rage and despair. Those painful machinations, who took their birth from hell itself, and by my industry and application had so glorious a prospect of bridling all mankind, wherever the Romish doctrine triumph’d at least, are now by that long continued series of an unhappy supineness in your predecessors, or the powerful influences of French gold, reduc’d to almost nothing. The thunderbolts of the inquisition rattled more dreadfully than those of the Vatican; and after emperors had subjected themselves to the successors of St. Peter, we found out means to subject him to our censures, and by this made our selves superior to supreme. The mildness of your executions, and the rarity of ’em have substracted wonderfully from their reputation, and from my designs. Your excellency can’t say but I lay down very sufficient groundworks for the rendering my orders as lasting as religion, if not as lasting as time. More than Europe has felt the efficacy of my instructions; and where-ever my disciples have been sent they have brought us home souls and bodies, credit and estates.

What society can vie with us for extent of temporal concerns? what provinces are not in a great measure ours? we have the guardianship of the consciences of most of the considerable crown’d heads, and few affairs of importance are transacted any where but with our privity. I have not met with any one person in these kingdoms that has been of note and quality, that came here with a pass-port from the holy inquisition; now and then a rascally Jew or so, comes here blaspheming your power and prudence; and is so angry that he will not show it at hell-gates; as if he apprehended a double damnation from our character.

Your excellency can’t but be sensible how great sufferers we have been by the substracting of the Gallican church from the lash of our authority; and it was no small amputation we suffered in the Spanish Netherlands, by the improvident proceeding of that rash commander the duke of Alva: If now you submit thus quietly to the administration of France, I cannot but apprehend an universal extention of that powerful and profitable institution. Next to my own society, I look upon it to be the basis of the Romish monarchy, and undoubtedly of your own, and of the Austrian greatness. How are your liberties trampled upon by a child, and all your dons led captives to Versailles? Where is the antient valour and obstinacy of the Moorish blood? Where are the poisons and the poniards so frequent in Madrid? Is Spain brought so low that she has not resolution enough for one feeble effort, to save herself from infamy and ruin? Your arms were always unsuccessful against the English nation; the greatness of your misery points out still the memorable, the very deplorable overthrow in eighty eight: There is a queen again upon that crown, willing and able to protect you as well as others, and it may be in rubricks of fate, that as one queen brought down the pride of the haughty Spaniards, so the other shall humble France as much, even when it is in its most tow’ring glory. But whatever be the destiny of France, you ought to look after yourselves, and not by an untimely accession of your powers to that of so formidable a monarch, intangle yourselves in an inextricable ruin, by so much the more unpardonable as you might easily have prevented it. Shew the world then that a French lion can’t thrive in a Spanish soil, and dart forth the lightning of the inquisition against all that adhere to the Gallic interest and connive at the ruin of the Spanish grandeur. Exert yourself and swim hither in a sea of blood, and may your cruelties succeed.

Alderman Floyer to Sir Humphery Edwin.

I Ever had an infinite value for your friendship, and as every letter is a fresh mark of it, I have in every one new matter of satisfaction; yet I could not read your last without equal surprize and concern; and if I did not positively believe your integrity, as I am acquainted with your capacity, I should be at a loss what construction to put upon it: for all Europe has been deaf for I know not how many years, with more and more accounts how your kings grew upon their people, and we ever look’d upon the English as very jealous of their privileges. I need not tell you how odious your two last kings were to us of these parts; nay, and all Germany too, papist and protestant; for instead of holding the balance between France, Spain and the Empire, as the situation of your country, and its mighty power by sea made ’em capable of doing, and the character of guarantees for the peace of Nimeguen, and the truce for twenty years oblig’d ’em to it; their siding with France, notwithstanding all the endeavours of foreign ministers to the contrary, and their own real interest too, may be justly said to have laid the foundation of all those calamities that the arms and intrigues of France, have since that time brought upon Europe. But tho’ we had so many reasons to be dissatisfied with the proceedings of king Charles II. and king James too, yet we never diminish’d any thing of our good will we bore the English nation; because we cou’d not but believe they were as far from approving those transactions as we were, and repin’d as much as we did at the growing grandeur of the French monarch. The clandestine measures both those kings took to enslave their subjects to the power of France, and the Romish religion, was as good a demonstration of a natural enmity between those two sorts of people. His present majesty’s descent was concerted with most of the princes of the empire after it was so earnestly propos’d to him, and almost press’d upon him by the very best of your nation. The friendship between the two crowns was no longer a secret, tho’ the English envoy at the Hague deny’d it positively when I was there: This was more than an umbrage to the discerning part of your kingdom, and what the very commonality could not think on without terrible apprehensions: and all of us here in like manner look’d upon this enterprize as a thing on which depended the safety or ruin of the whole protestant affairs of Europe.

I cannot comprehend what unlucky planet rules over you! that any one person should be dissatisfy’d, is prodigious to me. You are freed from all those oppressions, whose probability alone having made no small part of your misery. You were very uneasy under the administration of king James, and now you are deliver’d, you murmur! you know his royal highness was so unwilling to embark himself in this affair, tho’ his interest and his honour were very much concern’d at it, that he did not yield but to the iterated solicitations of your countrymen, join’d with full assurance that they would stand by him with their lives and fortunes. You must pardon the freedom of my expression, if I assure you, that this ungrateful false step lessens my value for the English nation: for after having made such terrible complaints of their miseries and injuries, and fill’d Europe with their tears and lamentations, implor’d a neighbouring prince to come to their rescue, at a season of the year that wou’d have quell’d the greatest courage that ever was, if it had not been supported with charity; and add to this, the unavoidable necessity of so vast an expence, as would have sunk some princes fortunes, now they are happily settled in their affairs at home, have glorious armies abroad, and that king at their head, who has so justly merited that title of Defender of the Faith, whose prudence and vigilancy has corroborated their native force with so many powerful allies; that these people should be so little sensible of their own felicity, as to murmur and be discontented, is to me a paradox, but I am sure unpardonable. The knowledge I have of the English genius, makes me believe there are but a few malecontents, and tho’ they call themselves protestants, ’tis only to bring an odium upon those that really are, by such perverse measures. I hope ’tis only your fears for your country, which proceed from your love of it, that multiplies these disagreeable objects. You have a protestant prince, on a protestant throne, liberty of conscience, and even the Roman Catholicks, that were always plotting against the government, are permitted so much freedom under it, that they would be mad if they were out of it.

Look back to the desolations in France, and to the storm you are deliver’d from, and see if you can ever thank God enough for your deliverance.