“Enough, enough of this,” cried the necromancer, “and tell me, how stand the people affected? What malcontents and mutineers?” “Mutiny,” said I, “is so universal a disease that every kingdom is (in effect) but a great hospital, or rather a Bedlam (for all men are mad) to entertain the disaffected.” “There’s no stirring for me then,” quoth the necromancer, “but pray’e commend me however to those busy fools, and tell them, that carry what face they will, there’s vanity and ambition in the pad. Kings and princes have their nature much of quick-silver. They are in perpetual agitation, and without any repose. Press them too hard (that is to say beyond the bounds of duty and reason) and they are lost. Ye may observe that your guilders and great dealers in quick-silver are generally troubled with the palsy; and so should all subjects tremble that have to do with majesty, and better to do it at first, out of respect, than afterward, upon force and necessity.
“But before I fall to pieces again, as you saw me e’en now (for better so than worse) I beseech ye, one word more, and it shall be my last. Who’s King of Spain now?” “You know,” said I, “that Philip the 3rd is dead.” “Right,” quoth he, “a prince of incomparable piety, and virtue (or my stars deceive me).” “After him,” said I, “came Philip the 4th.” “If it be so,” quoth he, “break, break my bottle immediately, and help me out; for I am resolved to try my fortune in the world once again, under the reign of that glorious prince.” And with that word, he dashed the glass to pieces against a rock, crept out of his case and away he ran. I had a good mind to have kept him company; but as I was just about to start, “Let him go, let him go,” cried one of the dead, and laid hold of my arm. “He has devilish heels, and you’ll never overtake him.”
So I stayed, and what should I see next but a wondrous old man, whose name might have been Bucephalus by his head; and the hair on his face might very well have stuffed a couple of cushions: take him together, and you’ll find his picture in the map, among the savages. I need not tell ye that I stared upon him sufficiently; and he taking notice of it, came to me, and told me: “Friend,” says he, “my spirit tells me that you are now in pain to know who I am; understand that my name is Nostradamus.” “Are you the author, then,” quoth I, “of that gallimaufry of prophecies that’s published in your name?” “Gallimaufry say’st thou? Impudent and barbarous rascal that thou art; to despise mysteries that are above thy reach, and to revile the secretary of the stars, and the interpreter of the destinies; who is so brutal as to doubt the meaning of these lines?
“From second causes, this I gather,
Nought shall befall us, good, or ill,
Either upon the land or water,
But what the Great Disposer will.
“Reprobated and besotted villains that ye are! what greater blessing could betide the world than the accomplishment of this prophecy? would it not establish justice and holiness, and suppress all the vile suggestions and motions of the devil? Men would not then any longer set their hearts upon avarice, cozening, and extortion; and make money their god, that vagabond money, that’s perpetually trotting up and down like a wandering whore, and takes up most commonly with the unworthy, leaving the philosophers and prophets, which are the very oracles of the heavens (such as Nostradamus) to go barefoot. But let’s go on with our prophecies, and see if they be so frivolous and dark, as the world reports them.
“When the married shall marry,
Then the jealous will be sorry;
And though fools will be talking,
To keep their tongues walking;
No man runs well I find,
But with’s elbows behind.”
This gave me such a fit of laughing that it made me cast my nose up into the air, like a stone-horse that hath got a mare in the wind: which put the astrologer out of all patience. “Buffoon, and dog-whelp, as ye are,” quoth he, “there’s a bone for you to pick; you must be snarling and snapping at everything. Will your teeth serve ye now to fetch out the marrow of this prophecy? Hear then in the devil’s name, and be mannerly. Hear, and learn I say, and let’s have no more of that grinning, unless ye have a mind to leave your beard behind ye. Do you imagine that all that are married marry? No, not the one half of them. When you are married, the priest has done his part; but after that, to marry, is to do the duty of a husband. Alack! how many married men live as if they were single; and how many bachelors on the other side, as if they were married! after the mode of the times. And wedlock to divers couples is no other than a more sociable state of virginity. Here’s one half of my prophecy expounded already, now for the rest. Let me see you run a little for experiment, and try if you carry your elbows before, or behind. You’ll tell me perhaps, that this is ridiculous, because everybody knows it. A pleasant shift: as if truth were the worse for being plain. The things indeed that you deliver for truths are for the most part mere fooleries and mistakes; and it were a hard matter to put truth in such a dress as would please ye. What have ye to say now, either against my prophecy or my argument? not a syllable I warrant ye, and yet somewhat there is to be said, for there’s no rule without an exception. Does not the physician carry his elbow before him, when he puts back his hand to take his patient’s money? And away he’s gone in a trice, so soon as he has made his purchase. But to proceed, here’s another of my prophecies for ye,
“Many women shall be mothers,
And their babbies,
Their n’own daddies.
“What say ye to this now? are there not many husbands do ye think (if the truth were known) that father more children than their own? Believe me, friend, a man had need have good security upon a woman’s belly, for children are commonly made in the dark, and ’tis no easy matter to know the workman, especially having nothing but the woman’s bare word for’t. This is meant of the court of assistance; and whoever interprets my prophecies to the prejudice of any person of honour, abuses me. You little think what a world of our gay folks in their coaches and six, with lackeys at their heels by the dozens, will be found at the last day, to be only the bastards of some pages, gentlemen-ushers, or valets de chambre of the family; nay perchance the physician may have had his hand in the wrong box, and in case of a necessity, good use has been made of a lusty coachman. Little do you think (I say) how many noble families upon that grand discovery, will be found extinct for want of issue.”
“I am now convinced,” said I to the mathematician, “of the excellency of your predictions; and I perceive (since you have been pleased to be your own interpreter) that they have more weight in them than we were aware of.” “Ye shall have one more,” quoth he, “and I have done.
“This year, if I’ve any skill i’ th’ weather,
Shall many a one take wing with a feather.
“I dare say that your wit will serve ye now to imagine, that I’m talking of rooks and jackdaws; but I say, No. I speak of lawyers, attorneys, clerks, scriveners, and their fellows, that with the dash of a pen can defeat their clients of their estates, and fly away with them when they have done.”
Upon these words Nostradamus vanished, and somebody plucking me behind, I turned my face upon the most meagre, melancholic wretch that ever was seen, and covered all in white. “For pity’s sake,” says he, “and as you are a good Christian, do but deliver me from the persecution of these impertinents and babblers that are now tormenting me, and I’ll be your slave for ever” (casting himself at my feet in the same moment; and crying like a child). “And what art thou,” quoth I, “for a miserable creature?” “I am,” says he, “an ancient, and an honest man, although defamed with a thousand reproaches and slanders: and in fine, some call me another, and others somebody, and doubtless ye cannot but have heard of me. As somebody says, cries one, that has nothing to say for himself; and yet till this instant, I never so much as opened my mouth. The Latins call me Quidam, and make good use of me to fill up lines, and stop gaps. When you go back again into the world, I pray’e do me the favour to own that you have seen me, and to justify me for one that never did, and never will either speak or write anything, whatever some tattling idiots may pretend. When they bring me into quarrels and brawls, I am called forsooth, a certain person; in their intrigues, I know not who; and in the pulpit, a certain author; and all this, to make a mystery of my name, and lay all their fooleries at my door. Wherefore I beseech ye help me;” which I promised to do. And so this vision withdrew to make place for another.
And that was the most frightful piece of antiquity that ever eye beheld in the shape of an old woman. She came nodding towards me, and in a hollow, rattling tone (for she spoke more with her chops than her tongue) “Pray’e,” says she, “is there not somebody come lately hither from the other world?” This apparition, thought I, is undoubtedly one of the devil’s scarecrows. Her eyes were so sunk in their sockets, that they looked like a pair of dice in the bottom of a couple of red boxes. Her cheeks and the soles of her feet were of the same complexion. Her mouth was pale, and open too; the better to receive the distillations of her nose. Her chin was covered with a kind of goose-down, as toothless as a lamprey; and the flaps of her cheeks were like an ape’s bags; her head danced, and her voice at every word kept time to’t. Her body was veiled, or rather wrapped up in a shroud of crape. She had a crutch in one hand, which served her for a supporter; and a rosary in t’other, of such a length, that as she stood stooping over it, a man would have thought she had been fishing for death’s heads. When I had done gaping upon this epitome of past ages, “Hola! grannum,” quoth I, good lustily in her ear, taking for granted that she was deaf, “what’s your pleasure with me?” With that she gave a grunt, and being much in wrath to be called grannum, clapped a fair pair of spectacles upon her nose, and pinking through them, “I am,” quoth she, “neither deaf, nor grannum; but may be called by my name as well as my neighbours,” (giving to understand, that women will take it ill to be called old, even in their very graves). As she spake, she came still nearer me, with her eyes dropping, and the smell about her perfectly of a dead body. I begged her pardon for what was past, and for the future her name, that I might be sure to keep myself within the bounds of respect. “I am called,” says she, “Doüegna, or Madam the Gouvernante.” “How’s that?” quoth I, in a great amazement. “Have ye any of those cattle in this country? Let the inhabitants pray heartily for peace then; and all little enough to keep them quiet. But to see my mistake now. I thought the women had died, when they came to be gouvernantes, and that for the punishment of a wicked world, the gouvernantes had been immortal. But I am now better informed, and very glad truly to meet with a person I have heard so much talk of. For with us, who but Madam the Gouvernante, at every turn? ‘Do ye see that mumping hag,’ cries one? ‘Come here ye damned jade,’ cries another. ‘That old bawd,’ says a third, ‘has forgotten, I warrant ye, that ever she was a whore, and now see if we do not remember ye.’” “You do so, and I’m in your debt for your remembrance, the great devil be your paymaster, ye son of a whore, you; are there no more gouvernantes than myself? Sure there are, and ye may have your choice, without affronting me.” “Well, well,” said I, “have a little patience, and at my return, I’ll try if I can put things in better order. But in the meantime, what business have you here?” Her reverence upon this was a little qualified, and told me that she had now been eight hundred years in hell, upon a design to erect an order of the gouvernantes; but the right worshipful the devil-commissioners are not as yet come to any resolution upon the point. For say they, if your gouvernantes should come once to settle here, there would need no other tormentors, and we should be but so many Jacks out of office. And besides, we should be perpetually at daggers-drawing about the brands and candle-ends which they would still be filching, and laying out of the way; and for us to have our fuel to seek, would be very inconvenient. “I have been in purgatory too,” she said, “upon the same project, but there so soon as ever they set eye on me, all the souls cried out unanimously, libera nos, etc. As for heaven, that’s no place for quarrels, slanders, disquiets, heart-burnings, and consequently none for me. The dead are none of my friends neither, for they grumble, and bid me let them alone as they do me; and be gone into the world again if I please, and there (they tell me) I may play the gouvernante in sæcula sæculorum. But truly I had rather be here at my ease than spend my life crumpling, and brooding over a carpet at a bed-side, like a thing of clouts, to secure the poultry of the family from strange cocks, which would now and then have a brush with a virgin pullet, but for the care of the gouvernantes. And yet ’tis she, good woman, bears all the blame, in case of any miscarriage: the gouvernante was presently of the plot, she had a feeling in the cause, a finger in the pie. And ’tis she in fine that must answer for all. Let but a sock, an old handkercher, the greasy lining of a masque, or any such frippery piece of business be missing, ask the gouvernante for this, or for that. And in short, they take us certainly for so many storks and ducks, to gather up all the filth about the house. The servants look upon us as spies and tell-tales: my cousin forsooth, and t’other’s aunt dares not come to the house, for fear of the gouvernante. And indeed I have made many of them cross themselves, that took me for a ghost. Our masters they curse us too for embroiling the family. So that I have rather chosen to take up here, betwixt the dead and the living, than to return again to my charge of a Doüegna, the very sound of the name being more terrible than a gibbet. As appears by one that was lately travelling from Madrid to Vailladolid, and asking where he might lodge that night. Answer was made at a small village called Doüegnas. ‘But is there no other place,’ quoth he, ‘within some reasonable distance, either short or beyond it?’ They told him no, unless it were at a gallows. ‘That shall be my quarter then,’ quoth he, ‘for a thousand gibbets are not so bad to me as one Doüegnas.’ Now ye see how we are abused,” quoth the gouvernante, “I hope you’ll do us some right, when it lies in your power.”
She would have talked me to death, if I had not given her the slip upon the removing of her spectacles; but I could not ’scape so neither, for looking about me for a guide to carry me home again, I was arrested by one of the dead; a good proper fellow, only he had a pair of rams’ horns on his head, and I was about to salute him for Aries in the Zodiac; but when I saw him plant himself, just before me, with his best leg forward, stretching out his arms, clutching his fists, and looking as sour as if he would have eaten me without mustard, “Doubtless,” said I, “the devil is dead and this is he.” “No, no,” cried a bystander, “this is a man:” “Why then,” said I, “he’s drunk, I perceive, and quarrelsome in his ale, for here’s nobody has touched him.” With that, as he was just ready to fall on, I stood to my guard, and we were armed at all points alike, only he had the odds of the headpiece. “Now, sirrah,” says he, “have at ye, slave that you are to make a trade of defaming persons of honour. By the death that commands here, I’ll ha’ my revenge, and turn your skin over your ears.” This insolent language stirred my choler I confess, and so I called to him “Come, come on, sirrah; a little nearer yet, and if ye have a mind to be twice killed, I’ll do your business; who the devil brought this cornuto hither to trouble me?” The word was no sooner out, but we were immediately at it, tooth and nail, and if his horns had not been flatted to his head, I might have had the worst on’t. But the whole ring presently came in to part us, and did me a singular kindness in’t, for my adversary had a fork, and I had none. As they were staving and tailing, “You might have had more manners,” cried one, “than to give such language to your betters, and to call Don Diego Moreno cuckold.” “And is this that Diego Moreno then?” said I. “Rascal that he is to charge me with abusing persons of honour. A scoundrel,” said I, “that ’tis a shame for death to be seen in’s company, and was never fit for anything in his whole life, but to furnish matter for a farce.” “And that’s my grievance, gentlemen,” quoth Don Diego, “for which with your leave he shall give me satisfaction. I do not stand upon the matter of being a cuckold, for there’s many a brave fellow lives in Cuckold’s-Row. But why does he not name others, as well as me? As if the horn grew upon nobody’s head but mine: I’m sure there are others that a thousand times better deserve it. I hope, he cannot say that ever I gored any of my superiors; or that my being cornuted has raised the price of post-horns, lanthorns, or pocket-ink-horns. Are not shoeing-horns and knife-handles as cheap now as ever? Why must I walk the stage then more than my neighbours? Beyond question there never lived a more peaceable wretch upon the face of the earth, all things considered, than myself. Never was man freer from jealousy, or more careful to step aside at the time of visit: for I was ever against the spoiling of sport, when I could make none myself. I confess I was not so charitable to the poor as I might have been; the truth of’t is, I watched them as a cat would do a mouse, for I did not love them. But then in requital, I could have out-snorted the Seven Sleepers, when any of the better sort came to have a word in private with my wife. The short on’t is, we agreed blessedly well together, she and I; for I did whatever she would have me; and she would say a thousand and a thousand times ‘Long live my poor Diego, the best conditioned, the most complaisant husband in the world; whatever I do is well done, and he never so much as opens his mouth good or bad.’ But by her leave that was little to my credit, and the jade when she said it was beside the cushion. For many and many a time have I said ‘This is well,’ and ‘That’s ill.’ When there came any poets to our house, fiddlers or morrice-dancers, I would say, ‘This is not well.’ But when the rich merchants came ‘Oh, very good,’ would I say, ‘this is as well as well can be.’ Sometimes we had the hap to be visited by some penniless courtier, or low-country officer perchance; then should I take her aside, and rattle her to some tune: ‘Sweetheart,’ would I say, ‘pray’e what ha’ we to do with these frippery fellows and damme boys. Shake them off, I’d advise ye, and take this for a warning.’ But when any came that had to do with the mint or exchequer, and spent freely (for lightly come, lightly go), ‘I marry, my dear,’ quoth I, ‘there’s nothing to be lost by keeping such company.’ And what hurt in all this now? Nay, on the contrary, my poor wife enjoyed herself happily under the protection of my shadow, and being a femme couverte, not an officer durst come near her. Why should then this buffoon of a poetaster make me still the ridiculous entertainment of all his interludes and farces, and the fool in the play?” “By your favour,” quoth I, “we are not yet upon even terms; and before we part, you shall know what ’tis to provoke a poet. If thou wert but now alive, I’d write thee to death, as Archilocus did Lycambes. And I’m resolved to put the history of thy life in a satire, as sharp as vinegar, and give it the name of The Life and Death of Don Diego Moreno.” “It shall go hard,” quoth he, “but I’ll prevent that,” and so we fell to’t again, hand and foot, till at length the very fancy of a scuffle waked me, and I found myself as weary, as if it had been a real combat. I began then to reflect upon the particulars of my dream, and to consider what advantage I might draw from it: for the dead are past fooling, and those are the soundest counsels which we receive from such as advise us without either passion or interest.
THE END OF THE SECOND VISION
THE THIRD VISION OF THE LAST JUDGMENT
Homer makes Jupiter the author or inspirer of dreams; especially the dreams of princes and governors; and if the matter of them be pious and important. And it is likewise the judgment of the learned Propertius that good dreams come from above, have their weight, and ought not to be slighted. And truly I am much of his mind, in the case of a dream I had the other night. As I was reading a discourse touching the end of the world, I fell asleep over the book, and dreamt of the last judgment. (A thing which in the house of a poet is scarce admitted so much as in a dream.) This fancy minded me of a passage in Claudian: that all creatures dream at night of what they have heard and seen in the day, as the hound dreams of hunting the hare.
Methought I saw a very handsome youth towering in the air, and sounding of a trumpet; but the forcing of his breath did indeed take off much of his beauty. The very marbles, I perceived, and the dead obeyed his call; for in the same moment, the earth began to open, and set the bones at liberty, to seek their fellows. The first that appeared were sword-men, as generals of armies, captains, lieutenants, common soldiers, who supposing that it had sounded a charge, came out of their graves, with the same briskness and resolution, as if they had been going to an assault or a combat. The misers put their heads out, all pale and trembling, for fear of a plunder. The cavaliers and good fellows believed they had been going to a horserace, or a hunting-match. And in fine, though they all heard the trumpet, there was not any creature knew the meaning of it (for I could read their thoughts by their looks and gestures). After this, there appeared a great many souls, whereof some came up to their bodies, though with much difficulty and horror; others stood wondering at a distance, not daring to come near so hideous and frightful a spectacle. This wanted an arm, that an eye, t’other a head. Upon the whole, though I could not but smile at the prospect of so strange a variety of figures, yet was it not without just matter of admiration at the all-powerful Providence, to see order drawn out of confusion, and every part restored to the right owner. I dreamt myself then in a churchyard; and there, methought, divers that were loth to appear were changing of heads; and an attorney would have demurred upon pretence that he had got a soul was none of his own, and that his body and soul were not fellows.
At length, when the whole congregation came to understand that this was the day of judgment, it was worth the while to observe what shifting and shuffling there was among the wicked. The epicure and whoremaster would not own his eyes, nor the slanderer his tongue, because they’d be sure to appear in evidence against them. The pickpockets ran away as hard as they could drive from their own fingers. There was one that had been embalmed in Egypt, and staying for his tripes, an old usurer asked him, if the bags were to rise with the bodies? I could have laughed at this question, but I was presently taken up with a crowd of cutpurses, running full speed from their own ears (that were offered them again) for fear of the sad stories they expected to hear. I saw all this from a convenient standing; and in the instant, there was an outcry at my feet, “Withdraw, withdraw.” The word was no sooner given, but down I came, and immediately a great many handsome ladies put forth their heads, and called me clown, for not paying them that respect and ceremony which belonged to their quality (now you must know that the women stand upon their pantofles, even in hell itself). They seemed at first very gay and frolic; and truly, well enough pleased to be seen naked, for they were clean-skinned and well made. But when they came to understand that this was the great day of accompt; their consciences took check, and all the jollity was dashed in a moment; whereupon they took to the valley, miserably listless and out of humour. There was one among the rest, that had had seven husbands, and promised every one of them never to marry again, for she could never love anything else she was sure: this lady was casting about for fetches, and excuses, and what answer she should make to that point. Another that had been as common as Ratcliff highway, would neither lead nor drive, and stood humming and hawing a good while, pretending she had forgot her night-gear, and such fooleries; but spite of her heart, she was brought at last within sight of the throne, where she found a world of her old acquaintance that she had carried part of their way to hell, who had no sooner set eye on her, but they fell a pointing and hooting, so that she took up her heels and herded herself in a troop of serjeants. After this, I saw a many people driving a physician along the bank of a river, and these were only such as he had unnecessarily dispatched before their time. They followed him with cries of, “Justice, justice,” and forced him on toward the judgment-seat, where they arrived in the end with much ado. While this passed, I heard, methought, upon my left hand a paddling in the water, as if one had been swimming: and what should this be, but a judge in the middle of a river washing and rinsing his hands, over and over. I asked him the meaning of it; and he told me, that in his lifetime he had been often daubed in the fist, to make the business slip the better, and he would willingly get out the grease before he came to hold up his hand at the bar. There followed next a multitude of vintners and tailors, under the guard of a legion of devils, armed with rods, whips, cudgels, and other instruments of correction: and these counterfeited themselves deaf, and were very loth to leave their graves, for fear of a worse lodging. As they were passing on, up started a little lawyer, and asked whither they were going; they made answer, that they were going to give an account of their works. With that the lawyer threw himself flat upon his belly in his hole again: “If I am to go downward at last,” says he, “I am thus much onward of my way.” The vintner sweat as he walked, till one drop followed another; “That’s well done,” cried a devil at’s elbow, “to purge out thy water, that we may have none in our wine.” There was a tailor wrapped up in sarcenets, crook-fingered and baker-legged, spake not one word all the way he went, but alas! alas! how can any man be a thief that dies for want of bread? But his companions gave him a rebuke for discrediting his trade. The next that appeared were a band of highwaymen, following upon the heels one of another, in great distrust and jealousy of thieves among themselves. These were fetched up by a party of devils in the turning of a hand and lodged with the tailors; “for,” said one of the company, “your highwayman is but a wild tailor.” They were a little quarrelsome at first, but in the conclusion, they went down into the valley, and kennelled quietly together. After these came Folly with her gang of poets, fiddlers, lovers, and fencers: the people of all the world, that dream the least of a day of reckoning; these were disposed of among the hangmen, Jews, scribes, and philosophers. There were also a great many solicitors wondering among themselves, that they should have so much conscience when they were dead, and none at all living. In fine, the word was given, Silence.
The throne being erected, and the great day come: a day of comfort to the good, and of terror to the wicked. The sun and the stars waited on the footstool; the wind was still; the water quiet; the earth in suspense and anguish for fear of her children: and in brief, the whole creation was in anxiety and disorder. The righteous they were employed in prayers and thanksgivings; and the ungodly in framing of shifts and evasions, to extenuate their pains. The guardian angels were at hand, on the one side to acquit themselves of their duties and commissions. And on the other side, were the devils hunting for more matters of aggravation and charge against offenders. The Ten Commandments had the guard of a narrow gate, which was so strait, that the most mortified body could not pass it, without leaving a good part of his skin behind him.
On one hand, there were in multitudes, disgraces, misfortunes, plagues, griefs, and troubles; all in a clamour against the physicians. The plague confessed, indeed, that she had struck many; but ’twas the doctor did their business. Melancholy and disgrace said the like; and misfortunes of all sorts made open protestation, that they never brought any man to his grave without the help and advice of a doctor. So that the gentlemen of the faculty were called to account for those they had killed. They took their places upon a scaffold, with pen, ink, and paper about them; and still as the dead were called, some or other of them answered to the name, and declared the year and day when such a patient passed through his hand.
They began the inquiry at Adam, who, methought, was severely handled about an apple. “Alas!” cried Judas that was by, “if that were such a fault, what will become of me that sold and betrayed my Lord and Master?” Next came the patriarchs, and then the apostles, who took their places by Saint Peter. It was worth the noting, that at this day there was no distinction between kings and beggars, before the judgment-seat. Herod and Pilate, so soon as they put out their heads, found it was like to go hard with them. “My judgment is just,” quoth Pilate. “Alack!” cried Herod, “what have I to trust to? Heaven is no place for me, and in Limbo I should fall among the innocents I have murdered; so that without more ado I must e’en take up my lodging in hell: the common receptacle of notorious malefactors.”
There came in immediately upon this a kind of a sour rough-hewn fellow. “Look ye,” says he, stretching out his arm, “here are my letters.” The company wondered at the humour, and asked the porter what he was; which he himself overhearing, “I am,” quoth he, “a master of the noble science of defence;” and, plucking out several sealed parchments, “These,” said he, “are the attestations of my exploits.” At which word, all his testimonials fell out of his hand, and a couple of devils would fain have whipped them up, to have brought them in evidence against him at his trial; but the fencer was too nimble for them, and took them up himself. At which time, an angel offered him his hand to help him in; but he, for fear of an attack, leaped a step backward, and with great agility, alonging withal, “Now,” says he, “if ye think fit, I’ll give ye a taste of my skill.” The company fell a laughing, and this sentence was passed upon him: that since by his rules of art he had occasioned so many duels and murders, he should himself go to the devil by a perpendicular line. He pleaded for himself, that he was no mathematician, and knew no such line; but while the word was in his mouth a devil came up to him, gave him a turn and a half, and down he tumbled.
After him, came the treasurers, and such a cry following them, for cheating and stealing, that some said the thieves were coming; others said no; and the company was divided upon’t. They were much troubled at the word, thieves, and desired the benefit of counsel to plead their cause. “And very good reason,” said one of the devils, “here’s a discarded apostle that has executed both offices, let them take him, where’s Judas?” When the treasurers heard that, they turned aside, and by chance, spied in a devil’s hand, a huge roll of accusations ready drawn into a formal charge against them. With that, one of the boldest among them: “Away, away,” cried he, “with these informations; we’ll rather come to a fine and compound, though it were for ten or twenty thousand years in purgatory.” “Ha! ha!” quoth the devil, a cunning snap that drew up the charge, “if ye are upon those terms ye are hard put to’t.” Whereupon the treasurers, being brought to a forced put, were e’en glad to make the best of a bad game, and follow the fencer.
These were no sooner gone, but in came an unlucky pastry-man; they asked him if he would be tried. “That’s e’en as’t hits,” said he. At that word, the devil that managed the cause against him, pressed his charge, and laid it home to him, that he had put off cats for hares; and filled his pies with bones instead of flesh; and not only so, but that he had sold horse-flesh, dogs, and foxes, for beef and mutton. Upon the issue, it was proved against him, that Noah never had so many animals in his ark as this poor fellow had put in his pies (for we read of no rats and mice there), so that he e’en gave up his cause, and went away to see if his oven were hot. Next, came the philosophers with their syllogisms, and it was no ill entertainment to hear them chop logic, and put all their expostulations, in mood and figure. But the pleasantest people in the world were the poets, who insisted upon it, that they were to be tried by Jupiter; and to the charge of worshiping false gods, their answer was that through them they worshipped the true one, and were rather mistaken in the name than in the worship. Virgil had much to say for himself, for his Sicelides Musæ; but Orpheus interrupted him, who being the father of the poets desired to be heard for them all. “What, he?” cried one of the devils, “yes; for teaching that boys were better bed-fellows than wenches; but the women had combed his coxcomb for him, if they could have catched him.” “Away with him to hell once again,” then they cried; “and let him get out now if he can.” So they all filed off, and Orpheus was their guide, because he had been there once before. So soon as the poets were gone, there knocked at the gate a rich penurious chuff; but ’twas told him that the Ten Commandments kept it, and that he had not kept them. “It is impossible,” quoth he, “under favour, to prove that ever I broke any one of them.” And so he went to justify himself from point to point: he had done this and that; and he had never done that, nor t’other; but in the end, he was delivered over to be rewarded according to his works. And then came on a company of house-breakers and robbers, so dexterous, some of them, that they saved themselves from the very ladder. The scriveners and attorneys observing that, ah! thought they; if we could but pass for thieves now! And yet they set a face good enough upon the business too; which made Judas and Mahomet hope well of themselves; “for,” said they, “if any of these fellows come off, there’s no fear of us.” Whereupon they advanced boldly, with a resolution to take their trial; which set the devils all a laughing. The guardian angels of the scriveners and attorneys moved that the evangelists might be of their counsel; which the devils opposed, “for,” said they, “we shall insist only upon the matter of fact, and leave them without any possibility of reply, or excuse. We might indeed content ourselves with the bare proof of what they are; for ’tis crime enough that they are scriveners and attorneys.” With that, the scriveners denied their trade, alleging that they were secretaries; and the attorneys called themselves solicitors. All was said, in effect, that the case would bear; but the best part of their plea was church-membership. And in fine, after several replications and rejoinders, they were all sent to Old Nick; save only two or three, that found mercy. “Well,” cried one of the scriveners, “this ’tis to keep lewd company!” The devils called out then, to clear the bar, and said they should have occasion for the scriveners themselves, to enter protestations in the quality of public notaries, against lawless and disorderly people; but the poor wretches, it seems, could not hear on that ear. To say the truth, the Christians were much more troublesome than the pagans, which the devils took exceeding ill; but they had this to say for themselves, that they were christened when they were children, so that ’twas none of their fault, and their parents must answer for’t. Judas and Mahomet took such courage, when they saw two or three of the scriveners and attorneys saved that they were just upon the point of challenging their clergy; but they were prevented by the doctor I told ye of, who was set first to the bar, in company with an apothecary and a barber, when a certain devil, with a great bundle of evidences in his hand, informed the court that the greatest part of the dead there present were sent thither by the doctor then at the bar, in confederacy with his apothecary and barber, to whom they were to acknowledge their obligation for that fair assembly. An angel then interposing for the defendant, recommended the apothecary for a charitable person and one that physicked the poor for nothing. “No matter for that,” cried the devil; “for I have him in my books, and am able to prove that he has killed more people with two little boxes than the King of Spain has done with two thousand barrels of powder, in the low-country wars. All his medicines are corrupted, and his compositions hold a perfect intelligence with the plague: he has utterly unpeopled a couple of his neighbour villages, in a matter of three weeks’ time.” The doctor he let fly upon the ’pothecary too, and said he would maintain, against the whole college, that his prescriptions were according to the dispensatory; and if an apothecary would play the knave, or the fool, and put in this for that, he could not help it. So that without any more words the ’pothecary was put to the sommersault, and the doctor and barber were brought off, at the intercession of St. Cosmus and St. Damian.
After these, came a dapper lawyer, with a tongue steeped in oil, and a great master of his words and actions; a most exquisite flatterer, and no man better skilled in the art of moving the passions than himself, or more ready at bolting a lucky president at a dead lift, or at making the best of a bad cause; for he had all the shifts and starting-holes in the law at his fingers’ ends. But all this would not serve, for the verdict went against him, and he was ordered to pay costs. In that instant, there was a discovery made of a fellow that hid himself in a corner, and looked like a spy. They asked him what he was. He made answer, “An empiric.” “What,” said a devil, “my old friend Pontæus: Alas! alas! thou hadst ten thousand times better be in Covent Garden now, or at Charing Cross; for upon my word thou’t have nothing to do here, unless, perhaps, for an ointment for a burn or so;” and so Pontæus went his way. The next that appeared were a company of vintners, who were accused for adulterating and mingling water with their wines. Their plea was that in compensation they had furnished the hospitals with communion-wine that was right, upon free cost; but this excuse signified as little as that of the tailors there present, who suggested that they had clothed so many friars, gratis; and so they were dispatched away together. After these, followed a number of bankers, that had turned bankrupt to cozen their creditors; who finding there several of their old correspondents, that they had reduced to a morsel of bread, began to treat of composition; but one of the devils presently cried out, “All the rest have had enough to do to answer for themselves; but these people are to reckon for other men’s scores as well as their own.” And hereupon, they were forthwith sent away to Pluto with letters of exchange; but, as it happened at that time, the devil was out of cash.
After this, entered a Spanish cavalier, as upright as Justice itself. He was a matter of a quarter of an hour in his legs and reverences to the company. We could see no head he had, for his prodigious starched ruff that stood staring up like a turkey-cock’s tail, and covered it. In fine, it was so fantastic a figure that the porter was gaping at it a good while, and asked if it were a man, or no? “It is a man,” quoth the Spaniard, “upon the honour of a cavalier, and his name is Don Pedro Rhodomontadoso,” etc. He was so long a telling his name and titles that one of the devils burst out a laughing in the middle of his pedigree, and demanded What he would be at. “Glory,” quoth he, which they taking in the worse sense, for pride, sent him away immediately to Lucifer. He was a little severe upon his guides, for disordering his mustachios, but they helped him presently to a pair of beard-irons, and all was well again.
In the next place, came a fellow, weeping and wailing. “But, my masters,” says he, “my cause is never the worse for my crying, for if I would stand upon my merits, I could tell ye that I have kept as good company, and had as much to do with the saints as another body.” “What have we here,” cried one, “Diocletian, or Nero?” For they had enough to do with the saints, though ’twere but to persecute them. But upon the upshot, what was this poor creature but a small officer, that swept the church and dusted the images and pictures. His charge was for stealing the oil out of the lamps and leaving all in the dark, pretending that the owls and jackdaws had drunk it up. He had a trick too of clothing himself out of the church habits, which he got new-dyed; and of cramming his porridge with consecrated bread, that he stole every Sunday. What he said for himself, I know not; but he had his mittimus, and took the left-hand way at parting.
With that, a voice was heard, “Make way there, clear the passage;” and this was for a bevy of handsome, buxom Bona Roba’s, in their caps and feathers that came dancing, laughing, and singing of ballads and lampoons, and as merry as the day was long. But they quickly changed their note, for so soon as ever they saw the hideous looks of the devils, they fell into violent fits of the mother; beating their breasts, and tearing their hair, with all the horror and fury imaginable. There was an angel offered in their favour that they had been great frequenters of Our Lady’s chapel. “Yes, yes,” cried a devil, “less of her chapel, and more of her virtue, would have done well.” There was a notable whipster, among the rest, that confessed the devil had reason. And then her trial came on, for making a cloak of a sacrament, and only marrying, that she might play the whore with privilege, and never want a father for her bastards. It was her fortune alone to be condemned; and going along, “Well!” she cried; “if I had thought ’twould have come to this, I should ne’er have troubled myself with so many masses.”
And now, after long waiting, came Judas and Mahomet upon the stage, and to them Jack of Leyden. Up comes an officer and asked which of the three was Judas. “I am he,” quoth Jack of Leyden. “Nay, but I am Judas,” cried Mahomet. “They’re a couple of lying rascals,” says Judas himself, “for I am the man: only the rogues make use of my name to save their credit. ’Tis true I sold my Master once, and the world has ever since been the better for’t; but these villains sell Him and themselves too every hour of the day, and there follows nothing but misery and confusion.” So they were all three packed away to their disciples.
The angel that kept the book found that the serjeants and remembrancers were to come on next; whereupon they were called, and appeared; but the court was not much troubled with them, for they confessed guilty at first word, and so were tied up without any more ado.
The next that appeared was an astrologer, loaden with almanacks, globes, astrolabes, etc., making proclamation as loud as he could bawl that there must needs be a gross mistake in the reckoning, for Saturn had not finished his course, and the world could not be yet at an end. One of the devils that saw how he came provided, and looked upon him as his own already: “A provident slave,” quoth he, “I warrant him, to bring his firing along with him. But this I must needs tell ye,” says he to the mathematician, “’tis a strange thing, ye should create so many heavens in your life, and go to the devil for want of one after your death.” “Nay, for going,” cried the astrologer, “ye shall excuse me; but if you’ll carry me, well and good.” And immediately order was given to carry him away and pay the porter.
Hereupon, methought, the court rose, the throne vanished; the shadows and darkness withdrew; the air sweetened; the earth was covered with flowers; the heavens clear: and then I waked, not a little satisfied to find that after all this, I was still in my bed, and among the living. The use I made of my dream was this: I betook myself presently to my prayers, with a firm resolution of changing my life, and putting my soul into such a frame of piety and obedience, that I might attend the coming of the great day with peace and comfort.