initial commit of ebook 20634HEADmain

1 files changed, 3887 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/20634.txt b/20634.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d2b5b48
--- /dev/null
+++ b/20634.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3887 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Sleeping Bard, by Ellis Wynne, Translated
+by George Borrow
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Sleeping Bard
+       or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell
+
+
+Author: Ellis Wynne
+
+
+
+Release Date: February 20, 2007  [eBook #20634]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SLEEPING BARD***
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1860 John Murray edition by David Price, email
+ccx074@pglaf.org.  Many thanks to Birmingham Library, England, for the
+generous provision of the material from which this transcription was
+made.  http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/libraries.bcc.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SLEEPING BARD;
+OR
+Visions of the World, Death, and Hell,
+BY
+ELIS WYN.
+
+
+TRANSLATED FROM THE CAMBRIAN BRITISH
+BY
+GEORGE BORROW,
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"THE BIBLE IN SPAIN," "THE GYPSIES OF SPAIN," ETC.
+
+LONDON:
+JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
+1860.
+
+
+
+
+Preface.
+
+
+The Sleeping Bard was originally written in the Welsh language, and was
+published about the year 1720.  The author of it, Elis Wyn, was a
+clergyman of the Cambro Anglican Church, and a native of Denbighshire, in
+which county he passed the greater part of his life, at a place called Y
+las Ynys.  Besides the Sleeping Bard, he wrote and published a book in
+Welsh, consisting of advice to Christian Professors.  The above scanty
+details comprise all that is known of Elis Wyn.  Both his works have
+enjoyed, and still enjoy, considerable popularity in Wales.
+
+The Sleeping Bard, though a highly remarkable, is not exactly entitled to
+the appellation of an original work.  There are in the Spanish language
+certain pieces by Francisco Quevedo, called "Visions or Discourses;" the
+principal ones being "The Vision of the Carcases, the Sties of Pluto, and
+the Inside of the World Disclosed; The Visit of the Gayeties, and the
+Intermeddler, the Duenna and the Informer."  With all these the Visions
+of Elis Wyn have more or less connection.  The idea of the Vision of the
+World, was clearly taken from the Interior of the World Disclosed; the
+idea of the Vision of Death, from the Vision of the Carcases; that of the
+Vision of Hell, from the Sties of Pluto; whilst many characters and
+scenes in the three parts, into which the work of Elis Wyn is divided,
+are taken either from the Visit of the Gayeties, the Intermeddler, or
+others of Quevedo's Visions; for example Rhywun, or Somebody, who in the
+Vision of Death makes the humorous complaint, that so much of the
+villainy and scandal of the world is attributed to him, is neither more
+nor less than Quevedo's Juan de la Encina, or Jack o' the Oak, who in the
+Visit of the Gayeties, is made to speak somewhat after the following
+fashion:--
+
+   "O ye living people, spawn of Satan that ye are! what is the reason
+   that ye cannot let me be at rest now that I am dead, and all is over
+   with me?  What have I done to you?  What have I done to cause you to
+   defame me in every thing, who have a hand in nothing, and to blame me
+   for that of which I am entirely ignorant?"  "Who are you?" said I with
+   a timorous bow, "for I really do not understand you."  "I am," said
+   he, "the unfortunate Juan de la Encina, whom, notwithstanding I have
+   been here many years, ye mix up with all the follies which ye do and
+   say during your lives; for all your lives long, whenever you hear of
+   an absurdity, or commit one, you are in the habit of saying, 'Juan de
+   la Encina could not have acted more like a fool;' or, 'that is one of
+   the follies of Juan de la Encina.'  I would have you know that all you
+   men, when you say or do foolish things, are Juan de la Encina; for
+   this appellation of Encina, seems wide enough to cover all the
+   absurdities of the world."
+
+Nevertheless, though there is a considerable amount of what is Quevedo's
+in the Visions of Elis Wyn, there is a vast deal in them which strictly
+belongs to the Welshman.  Upon the whole, the Cambrian work is superior
+to the Spanish.  There is more unity of purpose in it, and it is far less
+encumbered with useless matter.  In reading Quevedo's Visions, it is
+frequently difficult to guess what the writer is aiming at; not so whilst
+perusing those of Elis Wyn.  It is always clear enough, that the Welshman
+is either lashing the follies or vices of the world, showing the
+certainty of death, or endeavouring to keep people from Hell, by
+conveying to them an idea of the torments to which the guilty are
+subjected in a future state.
+
+Whether Elis Wyn had ever read the Visions of Quevedo in their original
+language, it is impossible to say; the probability however is, that he
+was acquainted with them through the medium of an English translation,
+which was published in London about the beginning of the eighteenth
+century; of the merits of that translation the present writer can say
+nothing, as it has never come to his hand: he cannot however help
+observing, that a person who would translate the Visions of Quevedo, and
+certain other writings of his, should be something more than a fair
+Spanish scholar, and a good master of the language into which he would
+render them, as they abound not only with idiomatic phrases, but terms of
+cant or Germania, which are as unintelligible as Greek or Arabic to the
+greater part of the Spaniards themselves.
+
+The following translation of the Sleeping Bard has long existed in
+manuscript.  It was made by the writer of these lines in the year 1830,
+at the request of a little Welsh bookseller of his acquaintance, who
+resided in the rather unfashionable neighbourhood of Smithfield, and who
+entertained an opinion that a translation of the work of Elis Wyn, would
+enjoy a great sale both in England and Wales.  On the eve of committing
+it to the press however, the Cambrian Briton felt his small heart give
+way within him: "Were I to print it," said he, "I should be ruined; the
+terrible descriptions of vice and torment, would frighten the genteel
+part of the English public out of its wits, and I should to a certainty
+be prosecuted by Sir James Scarlett.  I am much obliged to you, for the
+trouble you have given yourself on my account--but Myn Diawl!  I had no
+idea till I had read him in English, that Elis Wyn had been such a
+terrible fellow."
+
+Yet there is no harm in the book.  It is true that the Author is any
+thing but mincing in his expressions and descriptions, but there is
+nothing in the Sleeping Bard which can give offence to any but the over
+fastidious.  There is a great deal of squeamish nonsense in the world;
+let us hope however that there is not so much as there was.  Indeed can
+we doubt that such folly is on the decline, when we find Albemarle Street
+in '60, willing to publish a harmless but plain speaking book which
+Smithfield shrank from in '30?
+
+
+
+
+The Vision of the Course of the World.
+
+
+One fine evening of warm sunny summer, I took a stroll to the top of one
+of the mountains of Wales, carrying with me a telescope to assist my
+feeble sight by bringing distant objects near, and magnifying small ones.
+Through the thin, clear air, and the calm and luminous heat, I saw many
+delightful prospects afar across the Irish sea.  At length, after
+feasting my eyes on all the pleasant objects around me, until the sun had
+reached his goal in the west, I lay down upon the green grass,
+reflecting, how fair and enchanting, from my own country, the countries
+appeared whose plains my eyes had glanced over, how delightful it would
+be to obtain a full view of them, and how happy those were who saw the
+course of the world in comparison with me: weariness was the result of
+all this toiling with my eyes and my imagination, and in the shadow of
+Weariness, _Mr. Sleep_ came stealthily to enthrall me, who with his keys
+of lead, locked the windows of my eyes, and all my other senses securely.
+But it was in vain for him to endeavour to lock up the soul, which can
+live and toil independently of the body, for my spirit escaped out of the
+locked body upon the wings of Fancy, and the first thing which I saw by
+the side of me was a dancing ring, and a kind of rabble in green
+petticoats and red caps dancing away with the most furious eagerness.  I
+stood for a time in perplexity whether I should go to them or not,
+because in my flurry I feared they were a gang of hungry gipsies, and
+that they would do nothing less than slaughter me for their supper, and
+swallow me without salt: but after gazing upon them for some time, I
+could see that they were better and handsomer than the swarthy, lying
+Egyptian race.  So I ventured to approach them, but very softly, like a
+hen treading upon hot embers, that I might learn who they were; and at
+length I took the liberty of addressing them in this guise, with my head
+and back lowered horizontally: "Fair assembly, as I perceive that you are
+gentry from distant parts, will you deign to take a Bard along with you,
+who is desirous of travelling?"  At these words the hurly-burly was
+hushed, and all fixed their eyes upon me: "_Bard_," squeaked
+one--"_travel_," said another--"_along with us_," said the third.  By
+this time I saw some looking particularly fierce upon me; then they began
+to whisper in each others ears certain secret words, and to look at me;
+at length the whispering ceased, and each laying his gripe upon me they
+raised me upon their shoulders, as we do a knight of the shire, and then
+away with me they flew like the wind, over houses and fields, cities and
+kingdoms, seas and mountains; and so quickly did they fly that I could
+fasten my sight upon nothing, and what was worse, I began to suspect that
+my companions, by their frowning and knitting their brows at me, wanted
+me to sing blasphemy against my King and Maker.
+
+"Well," said I to myself, "I may now bid farewell to life, these cursed
+witches will convey me to the pantry or cellar of some nobleman, and
+there leave me, to pay with my neck for their robberies; or they will
+abandon me stark naked, to freeze to death upon the sea-brink of old
+Shire Caer, {3} or some other cold, distant place;" but on reflecting
+that all the old hags whom I had once known had long been dead and
+buried, and perceiving that these people took pleasure in holding or
+waving me over hollow ravines, I conjectured that they were not witches
+but beings who are called fairies.  We made no stop until I found myself
+by the side of a huge castle, the most beautiful I had ever seen, with a
+large pool or moat surrounding it: then they began to consult what they
+should do with me; "shall we go direct to the castle with him?" said one.
+"No, let us hang him or cast him into the lake, he is not worth being
+shown to our great prince," said another.  "Did he say his prayers before
+he went to sleep?" said a third.  At the mention of prayers, I uttered a
+confused groan to heaven for pardon and assistance; and as soon as I
+recollected myself, I saw a light at a vast distance bursting forth, Oh,
+how glorious!  As it drew nigh, my companions were darkening and
+vanishing, and quickly there came floating towards us a form of light
+over the castle, whereupon the fairies abandoned their hold of me, but as
+they departed they turned upon me a hellish scowl, and unless the angel
+had supported me, I should have been dashed into pieces small enough for
+a pasty, by the time I reached the ground.
+
+"What is your business here?" said the angel.  "In verity my lord," I
+replied, "I do not know what place _here_ is, nor what is my business,
+nor what I am myself, nor what has become of my other part; I had four
+limbs and a head, and whether I have left them at home, or whether the
+fairies, who have certainly not acted fairly with me, have cast me into
+some abyss, (for I remember to have passed over several horrid ravines,)
+I cannot tell, sir, though you should cause me to be hung."  "Fairly
+indeed," said he, "they would have acted with you, if I had not come just
+in time to save you from the clutches of these children of hell."
+
+"Since you have such a particular desire to see the course of the _little
+world_," said he, "I have received commands to give you a sight of it, in
+order that you may see your error in being discontented with your
+station, and your own country.  Come with me," he added, "for a
+peregrination," and at the word he snatched me up, just as the dawn was
+beginning to break, far above the topmost tower of the castle; we rested
+in the firmament upon the ledge of a light cloud to gaze upon the rising
+sun; but my heavenly companion, was far more luminous than the sun, but
+all his splendour was upward, by reason of a veil which was betwixt him
+and the nether regions.  When the light of the sun became stronger, I
+could see, between the two luminaries, the vast air-encircled world, like
+a little round bullet, very far beneath us.  "Look now," said the angel,
+giving me a different telescope from that which I had on the mountain.
+When I peeped through this I saw things in a manner altogether different
+from that in which I had seen them before, and in a much clearer one.  I
+saw a city of monstrous size, and thousands of cities and kingdoms within
+it; and the great ocean, like a moat, around it, and other seas, like
+rivers, intersecting it.
+
+By dint of long gazing I could see that it was divided into three
+exceedingly large streets; each street with a large, magnificent gate at
+the bottom, and each gate with a fair tower over it.  Upon each tower
+there was a damsel of wonderful beauty, standing in the sight of the
+whole street; and the three towers appeared to reach up behind the walls
+to the skirts of the castle afore-mentioned.  Crossing these three huge
+streets I could see another; it was but little and mean in comparison
+with them, but it was clean and neat, and on a higher foundation than the
+other streets, proceeding upward towards the east, whilst the three
+others ran downward towards the north to the great gates.  I now ventured
+to enquire of my companion whether I might be permitted to speak.
+"Certainly," said the angel, "speak out! but listen attentively to my
+answers, so that I may not have to say the same thing to you more than
+once."  "I will, my lord," said I.  "Now pray, what place is the castle
+yonder in the north?"  "The castle above in the air," said he, "belongs
+to Belial, prince of the power of the air, and governor of all the great
+city below: it is called Delusive Castle, for Belial is a great deluder,
+and by his wiles he keeps under his banner all you see, with the
+exception of the little street yonder.  He is a great prince, with
+thousands of princes under him--what were Caesar or Alexander the Great
+compared with him?  What are the Turk and old Lewis of France, but his
+servants?  Great, yea, exceeding great, are the power, subtlety, and
+diligence of the prince Belial; and his armies in the country below are
+innumerable."  "For what purpose," said I, "are the damsels standing
+yonder, and who are they?"  "Softly," said the angel, "one question at
+once: they are there to be loved and to be adored."  "And no wonder
+indeed," said I, "since they are so amiable; if I possessed feet and
+hands as formerly, I would go and offer love and adoration to them
+myself."  "Hush, hush," said he, "if you would do so with your members,
+it is well that you are without them; know, thou foolish spirit, that
+these three princesses are only three destructive deluders, daughters of
+the prince Belial, and all their beauty and affability, which are
+irradiating the streets, are only masks over deformity and cruelty; the
+three within are like their father, replete with deadly poison."  "Woe's
+me; is it possible," said I, quite sad, and smitten with love of them!
+"It is but too true, alas," said he.  "Thou admirest the radiance with
+which they shine upon their adorers; but know that there is in that
+radiance a very wondrous charm; it blinds men from looking back, it
+deafens them lest they should hear their danger, and it burns them with
+ceaseless longing for more of it; which longing, is itself a deadly
+poison, breeding, within those who feel it, diseases not to be got rid
+of, which no physician can cure, not even death, nor anything, unless the
+heavenly medicine, which is called repentance, is procured, to cast out
+the evil in time, before it is imbibed too far, by excessive looking upon
+them."  "But how is it," said I, "that Belial does not wish to have these
+adorers himself?"  "He has them," said the angel; "the old fox is adored
+in his daughters, because, whilst a man sticks to these, or to one of the
+three, he is securely under the mark of Belial, and wears his livery."
+
+"What are the names," said I, "of those three deceivers?"  "The farthest,
+yonder," said he, "is called _Pride_, the eldest daughter of Belial; the
+second is _Pleasure_; and _Lucre_ is the next to us: these three are the
+trinity which the world adores."  "Pray, has this great, distracted
+city," said I, "any better name than _Bedlam the Great_?"  "It has," he
+replied, "it is called _The City of Perdition_."  "Woe is me," said I,
+"are all that are contained therein people of perdition?"  "The whole,"
+said he, "except some who may escape out to the most high city above,
+ruled by the king Emmanuel."  "Woe's me and mine," said I, "how shall
+they escape, ever gazing, as they are, upon the thing which blinds them
+more and more, and which plunders them in their blindness?"  "It would be
+quite impossible," said he, "for one man to escape from thence, did not
+Emmanuel send his messengers, early and late, from above, to persuade
+them to turn to him, their lawful King, from the service of the rebel,
+and also transmit to some, the present of a precious ointment, called
+_faith_, to anoint their eyes with; and whosoever obtains this _true_
+ointment, (for there is a counterfeit of it, as there is of every thing
+else, in the city of Perdition,) and anoints himself with it, will see
+his wounds, and his madness, and will not tarry a minute longer here,
+though Belial should give him his three daughters, yea, or the fourth,
+which is the greatest of all, to do so."
+
+"What are those great streets called?" said I.  "Each is called," he
+replied, "by the name of the princess who governs it: the first is the
+street of _Pride_, the middle one the street of _Pleasure_, and the
+nearest, the street of _Lucre_."  "Pray tell me," said I, "who are
+dwelling in these streets?  What is the language which they speak?  What
+are the tenets which they hold; and to what nation do they belong?"
+"Many," said he, "of every language, faith, and nation under the Sun, are
+living in each of those vast streets below; and there are many living in
+each of the three streets alternately, and every one as near as possible
+to the gate; and they frequently remove, unable to tarry long in the one,
+from the great love they bear to the princess of some other street; and
+the old fox looks slyly on, permitting every one to love his choice, or
+all three if he pleases, for then he is most sure of him."
+
+"Come nearer to them," said the angel, and hurried with me downwards,
+shrouded in his impenetrable veil, through much noxious vapour which was
+rising from the city; presently we descended in the street of Pride, upon
+a spacious mansion open at the top, whose windows had been dashed out by
+dogs and crows, and whose owners had departed to England or France, to
+seek there for what they could have obtained much easier at home; thus,
+instead of the good, old, charitable, domestic family of yore, there were
+none at present but owls, crows, or chequered magpies, whose hooting,
+cawing and chattering were excellent comments on the practices of the
+present owners.  There were in that street, myriads of such abandoned
+palaces, which might have been, had it not been for Pride, the resorts of
+the best, as of yore, places of refuge for the weak, schools of peace and
+of every kind of goodness; and blessings to thousands of small houses
+around.
+
+From the summit of this ruin, we had scope and leisure enough to observe
+the whole street on either side.  There were fair houses of wondrous
+height and magnificence--and no wonder, as there were emperors, kings,
+and hundreds of princes there, and thousands of nobles and gentry, and
+very many women of every degree.  I saw a vain high-topt creature, like a
+ship at full sail, walking as if in a frame, carrying about her full the
+amount of a pedlar's pack, and having at her ears, the worth of a good
+farm, in pearls; and there were not a few of her kind--some were singing,
+in order that their voices might be praised; some were dancing, to show
+their figures; others were painting to improve their complexions; others
+had been trimming themselves before the glass, for three hours, learning
+to smile, moving pins and making gestures and putting themselves in
+attitudes.  There was many a vain creature there, who did not know how to
+open her lips to speak, or to eat, nor, from sheer pride, to look under
+her feet; and many a ragged shrew, who would insist that she was as good
+a gentlewoman as the best in the street; and many an ambling fop, who
+could winnow beans with the mere wind of his train.
+
+Whilst I was looking, from afar upon these, and a hundred such, behold!
+there passed by towards us, a bouncing, variegated lady with a lofty
+look, and with a hundred folks gazing after her; some bent themselves as
+if to adore her; some few thrust something into her hand.  Being unable
+to imagine who she was, I enquired.  "Oh," replied my friend, "she is one
+who has all her portion in sight, yet you see how many foolish people are
+seeking her, and the meanest of them in possession of all the attainments
+she can boast of.  _She will not have what she can gain_, _and will never
+gain what she desires_, and she will speak to no one but her betters, on
+account of her mother's telling her, 'that a young woman cannot do a
+worse thing, than be humble in her love.'"  Thereupon came out from
+beneath us a pillar of a man, who had been an alderman, and in many
+official situations; he came spreading his wings as if to fly, though he
+could scarcely draw one knee after the other, on account of the gout, and
+various other genteel disorders: notwithstanding which, you could not
+obtain from him, but through a very great favour, a glance or a nod,
+though you should call him by his titles and his offices.
+
+From this being I turned my eyes to the other side of the street, where I
+beheld a lusty young nobleman, with a number of people behind him; he had
+a sweet smile and a condescending air to every one who met him.  "It is
+strange," said I, "that this young man and yonder personage should belong
+to the same street."  "Oh, the same princess Pride rules them both,"
+answered the angel,--"this young man is only speaking fair on account of
+the errand he comes upon; he is seeking popularity at present, with the
+intent to raise himself thereby to the highest office in the kingdom--it
+is easy for him to lament to the people how much they are wronged by the
+oppression of bad masters; but his own exaltment, and not the weal of the
+kingdom, is the heart of the matter."  After gazing for a long time, I
+perceived at the gate of Pride, a fair city upon seven hills, and on the
+top of its lofty palace there was a triple crown, with swords and keys
+crossed.  "Lo! there is Rome," said I, "and therein dwells the Pope."
+"Yes, most usually," said the angel; "but he has a palace in each of the
+other streets."  Over against Rome, I could see a city with an
+exceedingly fair palace, and upon it was mounted on high, a half-moon on
+a banner of gold, and by that I knew that the Turk was there.  Next to
+the gate after those, was the palace of Lewis XIV., of France, as I
+understood by his arms, three fleurs-de-lis upon a silver banner hanging
+aloft.  Whilst looking on the height and majesty of these palaces, I
+perceived that there was much passing and repassing from the one to the
+other, and I asked what was the cause thereof?  "Oh, there is many a dark
+cause," said the angel, "why those three crafty, powerful heads should
+communicate; but though they account themselves fully adapted to espouse
+the three princesses above, their power and subtlety are nothing when
+compared with these; yes, Belial the Great does not esteem the whole
+city, (though so numerous be its kings), as equivalent to his daughters.
+Notwithstanding that he offers them in marriage to everybody, he has
+still never given one entirely to anybody yet.  There has been a rivalry
+between these three concerning them:--the Turk, who calls himself _God
+upon earth_, wished for the eldest, Pride, in marriage.  'No,' said the
+king of France, 'she belongs to me, as I keep all my subjects in her
+street, and likewise bring many to her from England and other countries.'
+Spain would have the princess Lucre, in despite of Holland and all the
+Jews.  England would have the princess Pleasure, in despite of the
+Pagans.  But the Pope would have the whole three, and with better reason
+than all the rest together, therefore Belial has stationed him next to
+them in the three streets."  "And is it on this account that there is
+this intercourse at present," said I.  "No;" he replied, "Belial has
+arranged the matter between them for some time; but at present he has
+caused them to lay their heads together, how they may best destroy the
+cross street yonder, which is the city of Emmanuel, and particularly one
+great palace which is there, out of sheer venom at perceiving that it is
+a fairer edifice than exists in all the city of Perdition.  Belial
+moreover has promised to those who shall accomplish its destruction, the
+half of his kingdom during his life, and the whole when he is dead.  But,
+notwithstanding the greatness of his power and the depth of his wiles;
+notwithstanding the multitude of crafty emperors, kings, and rulers, who
+are beneath his banner in the vast city of Perdition; and notwithstanding
+the bravery of his countless legions on the outer side of the gates in
+the world below; notwithstanding all this," said the angel, "he shall see
+that it is a task above his power to perform.  Yes; however great Belial
+may be, he shall find that there is One greater than he, in the little
+street yonder."
+
+I was unable to hear his angelic reasons completely, from the tumbling
+there was along this slippery street every hour, and I could see some
+people with ladders scaling the tower, and having reached the highest
+step fall headlong to the bottom.  "To what place are those fools seeking
+to get?" said I.  "To a place high enough," said he; "they are seeking to
+break into the treasury of the princess."  "I will warrant it is full
+enough," said I.  "It is," he replied; "and with every thing which
+belongs to this street, for the purpose of being distributed amongst the
+inhabitants.  There you will find every species of warlike arms to subdue
+and to over-run countries; every species of arms of gentility, banners,
+escutcheons, books of pedigree, stanzas and poems relating to ancestry,
+with every species of brave garments; admirable stories, lying portraits;
+all kinds of tints and waters to embellish the countenance; all sorts of
+high offices and titles; and, to be brief, there is every thing there
+that is adapted to cause a man to think better of himself, and worse of
+others than he ought.  The chief officers of this treasury are masters of
+ceremonies, vagabonds, genealogists, bards, orators, flatterers, dancers,
+tailors, mantua-makers, and the like."  From this great street we
+proceeded to the next, where the princess Lucre reigns; it was a full and
+prodigiously wealthy street, yet not half so splendid and clean as the
+street of Pride, nor its people half so bold and lofty looking; for they
+were skulking mean-looking fellows, for the most part.
+
+There were in this street thousands of Spaniards, Hollanders, Venetians,
+and Jews, and a great many aged, decrepit people were also there.  "Pray,
+sir," said I, "what kind of men are these?"  "They have all gain in
+view," said he.  "At the lowest extremity, on one side, you will still
+see the Pope; also subduers of kingdoms and their soldiers, oppressors,
+foresters, shutters up of the common foot-paths, justices and their
+bribers, and the whole race of lawyers down to the catchpole.  On the
+other side," said he, "there are physicians, apothecaries, doctors,
+misers, merchants, extortioners, usurers, refusers to pay tithes, wages,
+rents, or alms which were left to schools and charity houses; purveyors
+and chapmen who keep and raise the market to their own price; shopkeepers
+(or sharpers) who make money out of the necessity or ignorance of the
+buyer; stewards of every degree, sturdy beggars, taverners who plunder
+the families of careless men of their property, and the country of its
+barley for the bread of the poor.  All these are thieves of the first
+water," said he; "and the rest are petty thieves, for the most part, and
+keep at the upper end of the street; they consist of highway robbers,
+tailors, weavers, millers, measurers of wet and dry, and the like."  In
+the midst of this discourse, I heard a prodigious tumult at the lower end
+of the street, where there was a huge crowd of people thronging towards
+the gate, with such pushing and disputing as caused me to imagine that
+there was a general fray on foot, until I demanded of my friend what was
+the matter.  "There is an exceeding great treasure in that tower," said
+the angel, "and all that concourse is for the purpose of choosing a
+treasurer to the princess, in lieu of the Pope, who has been turned out
+of that office."  So we went to see the election.
+
+The men who were competing for the office were the _Stewards_, the
+_Usurers_, the _Lawyers_, and the _Merchants_, and the richest of the
+whole was to obtain it, because the more you have the more you shall
+crave, is the epidemic curse of the street.  The Stewards were rejected
+at the first offer, lest they should impoverish the whole street, and, as
+they had raised their palaces on the ruins of their masters, lest they
+should in the end turn the princess out of her possession; then the
+dispute arose between the three others; the Merchants had the most silks,
+the Lawyers most mortgages on lands, and the Usurers the greatest number
+of full bags, and bills and bonds.  "Ha! they will not agree to night,"
+said the angel, "so come away; the Lawyers are richer than the Merchants,
+the Usurers are richer than the Lawyers, and the Stewards than the
+Usurers, and Belial than the whole, for he owns them all, and their
+property too."
+
+"For what reason is the princess keeping these thieves about her?" I
+demanded.  "What can be more proper," said he, "when she herself is the
+arrantest of thieves."  I was astonished to hear him call the princess
+thus, and the greatest potentates thieves of the first water.  "Pray, my
+lord," said I, "how can you call those illustrious people greater thieves
+than robbers on the highway?"  "You are but a dupe," said he; "is not the
+villain who goes over the world with his sword in his hand and his
+plunderers behind him, burning and slaying, wresting kingdoms from their
+right owners, and looking forward to be adored as a conqueror, worse than
+the rogue who takes a purse upon the highway?  What is the tailor who
+cabbages a piece of cloth, to the great man who takes a piece out of the
+parish common?  Ought not the latter to be called a thief of the first
+water, or ten times more a rogue than the other?--the tailor merely takes
+snips of cloth from his customer, whilst the other takes from the poor
+man the sustenance of his beast, and by so doing the sustenance of
+himself and his little ones--what is taking a handful of flour at the
+mill, to keeping a hundred sacksfull to putrify, in order to obtain
+afterwards a four-fold price?--what is the half-naked soldier who takes
+your garment away with his sword, to the lawyer, who takes your whole
+estate from you with a goose's quill, without any claim or bond upon
+it?--and what is the pickpocket who takes five pounds, to the cogger of
+dice who will cheat you of a hundred in the third part of a night?--and
+what is the jockey who tricks you in some old unsound horse, to the
+apothecary who chouses you of your money, and your life also with some
+old unwholesome physic?--and yet what are all these thieves to the
+mistress-thief there, who takes away from the whole all these things, and
+their hearts and their souls at the end of the fair?"  From this dirty,
+disorderly street we proceeded to the street of the princess Pleasure, in
+which I beheld a number of Britons, French, Italians, Pagans, &c.  She
+was a princess exceedingly beautiful to the eye, with a cup of drugged
+wine in the one hand, and a crown and a harp in the other.  In her
+treasury there were numberless pleasures and pretty things to obtain the
+custom of every body, and to keep them in the service of her father.  Yea!
+there were many who escaped to this charming street, to cast off the
+melancholy arising from their losses and debts in the other streets.  It
+was a street prodigiously crowded, especially with young people; and the
+princess was careful to please every body, and to keep an arrow adapted
+to every mark.  If you are thirsty, you can have here your choice of
+drink; if you love dancing and singing, you can get here your fill.  If
+her comeliness entice you to lust for the body of a female, she has only
+to lift up her finger to one of the officers of her father, (who surround
+her at all times, though invisibly), and they will fetch you a lass in a
+minute, or the _body_ of a harlot newly buried, and will go into her in
+lieu of a _soul_, rather than you should abandon so good a design.
+
+Here there are handsome houses with very pleasant gardens, teeming
+orchards, and shadowy groves, adapted to all kinds of secret meetings, in
+which one can hunt birds and a certain fair coney; here there are
+delightful rivers for fishing, and wide fields hedged around, in which it
+is pleasant to hunt the hare and fox.  All along the street you could see
+farces being acted, juggling going on, and all kinds of tricks of
+legerdemain; there was plenty of licentious music, vocal and
+instrumental, ballad singing, and every species of merriment; there was
+no lack of male and female beauty, singing and dancing; and there were
+here many from the street of Pride, who came to receive praise and
+adoration.  In the interior of the houses I could see people on beds of
+silk and down, wallowing in voluptuousness; some were engaged at billiard-
+playing, and were occasionally swearing or cursing the table keeper;
+others were rattling the dice or shuffling the cards.  My guide pointed
+out to me some from the street of Lucre, who had chambers in this street;
+they had run hither to reckon their money, but they did not tarry long
+lest some of the innumerable tempting things to be met with here should
+induce them to part with their pelf, without usury.  I could see throngs
+of individuals feasting, with something of every creature before them;
+oh, how every one did gorge, swallowing mess after mess of dainties,
+sufficient to have feasted a moderate man for three weeks, and when they
+could eat no more, they belched out a thanks for what they had received,
+and then gave the health of the king and every jolly companion; after
+which, they drowned the savour of the food, and their cares besides, in
+an ocean of wine; then they called for tobacco, and began telling stories
+of their neighbours--and, I observed, that all the stories were well
+received, whether true or false, provided they were amusing and of late
+date, above all if they contained plenty of scandal: there they sat, each
+with his clay pistol puffing forth fire and smoke, and slander to his
+neighbour.  At length I was fain to request my guide to permit me to move
+on; the floor was impure with saliva and spilt drink, and I was
+apprehensive that certain heavy hiccups which I heard, might be merely
+the prelude to something more disagreeable.
+
+From thence we went to a place where we heard a terrible noise, a medley
+of striking, jabbering, crying and laughing, shouting and singing.
+"Here's Bedlam, doubtless," said I.  By the time we entered the den the
+brawling had ceased.  Of the company, one was on the ground insensible;
+another was in a yet more deplorable condition; another was nodding over
+a hearthful of battered pots, pieces of pipes, and oozings of ale.  And
+what was all this, upon enquiry, but a carousal of seven thirsty
+neighbours--a goldsmith, a pilot, a smith, a miner, a chimney-sweeper, a
+poet, and a parson who had come to preach sobriety, and to exhibit in
+himself what a disgusting thing drunkenness is.  The origin of the last
+squabble was a dispute which had arisen among them, about which of the
+seven loved a pipe and flagon best.  The poet had carried the day over
+all the rest, with the exception of the parson, who, out of respect for
+his cloth, had the most votes, being placed at the head of the jolly
+companions--the poet singing:--
+
+   "Oh, where are there seven beneath the sky,
+   Who with these seven for thirst can vie?
+   But the best for good ale, these seven among,
+   Are the jolly divine, and the son of song."
+
+Disgusted with these drunken swine, we went nearer to the gate, to take a
+peep at the follies of the palace of _Love_, the purblind king; it is a
+place easy to enter and difficult to escape from, and in it there is a
+prodigious number of chambers.  In the hall opposite to the door was
+insane Cupid, with his two arrows upon his bow, shooting tormenting
+poison, which is called _bliss_.  Upon the floor I could see many fair
+damsels, finely dressed, walking about, and behind them a parcel of
+miserable youths gazing upon their beauty, and each eager to obtain a
+glance from his mistress, fearing her frown far worse than death.  One
+was bending to the ground and placing a letter in the hands of his
+goddess; another a piece of music, all in fearful expectation, like
+school-boys showing their tasks to their master; and the damsels would
+glance back upon them a smile, to keep up the fervour of their adorers,
+but nothing more, lest they should lose their desire, become cured of
+their wound and depart.  On going forward to the parlour, I beheld
+females learning to dance and to sing, and to play on instruments, for
+the purpose of making their lovers seven times more foolish than they
+were already: on going to the buttery, I found them taking lessons in
+delicacy and propriety of eating: on going to the cellar, I saw them
+making up potent love drinks, from nail-parings and the like: on going to
+the chambers, we beheld a fellow in a secret apartment, putting himself
+into all kinds of attitudes, to teach his beloved elegant manners;
+another learning in a glass to laugh in a becoming manner, without
+showing to his love too much of his teeth; another we found embellishing
+his tale before going to her, and repeating the same lesson a hundred
+times.  Tired of this insiped folly, I went to another chamber, where
+there was a nobleman, who had sent for a bard from the street of Pride,
+to compose a eulogistic strain on his angel, and a laudatory ode on
+himself; the bard was haranguing upon his talent--"I can," said he,
+"compare her to all the red and white under the sun, and say that her
+hair is a hundredfold more yellow than gold; and as for your ode, I can
+carry your genealogy through the bowels of an infinity of knights and
+princes, and through the waters of the deluge, even as high up as Adam."
+"Lo!" said I, "here is a bard who is a better inventor than myself."
+"Come away, come away," said the angel, "these people are thinking to
+bamboozle the woman, but when they go to her, they will be sure to obtain
+from her as good as they bring."
+
+On leaving these people, we caught a glimpse of some cells, where more
+obscene practices were going on than modesty will suffer me to mention,
+which caused my companion to snatch me away in wrath, from this palace of
+whimsicality and wantonness, to the treasury of the princess, (because we
+went where we pleased, in spite of doors and locks.)  There we beheld a
+multitude of beautiful damsels, all sorts of drink, fruit, and dainties;
+all kinds of instruments and books of music, harps, pipes, poems, carols,
+&c.; all kinds of games of chance, draught-boards, dice-boxes, dice,
+cards, &c.; all kinds of models of banquets and mansions, figures of men,
+contrivances and amusements; all kinds of waters, perfumes, colors and
+salves to make the ugly handsome, and the old look young, and to make the
+harlot and her putrid bones sweet for a time.
+
+To be brief, there were here all kinds of _shadows_ of pleasure, all
+kinds of _seeming_ delight; and to tell the truth, I believe this place
+would have ensnared me, had not my friend, without ceremony, snatched me
+far away from the three deceitful towers, to the upper end of the street,
+and set me down by a castellated palace of prodigious size, and very
+agreeable at first sight, but vile and terribly revolting on the farthest
+side, though it was only seen with great difficulty on the side of its
+deformity; it had a multitude of doors, and all the doors were splendid
+on the outside, but filthy within.  "Pray, my lord," said I, "if it
+please you, what is this wonderful place?"  "This," said he, "is the
+palace of another daughter of Belial, who is called _Hypocrisy_; she here
+keeps her school; there is not a youth or damsel within the whole city,
+that has not been her scholar, and the people in general, have so well
+imbibed what she has taught, that her lessons have become a second
+nature, and intertwined with all their thoughts, words and actions,
+almost since the time of their childhood."  After I had inspected for a
+time the falsehood of every corner of the edifice, a procession passed by
+with a deal of weeping and groaning, and many men and horses dight in
+habits of deep mourning.  Presently came a wretched widow, closely
+muffled, in order that she might look no more on this vile world; she was
+feebly crying, and groaning slowly in the intervals of fainting
+fits--verily, I could not help weeping myself, out of pity.  "Pooh,
+pooh," said the angel, "keep your tears for something more worthy; these
+faintings are only a lesson of Hypocrisy, and in her great school these
+black garments were fashioned.  There is not one of these people weeping
+seriously; the widow, before the body left the house, had wedded another
+man, in her heart; and if she could get rid of the expense attending the
+body, she would not care a rush if the soul of her husband were at the
+bottom of hell; nor would her relations, more than herself; because when
+his disease was hardest upon him, instead of giving him salutary counsel
+and praying fervently, for the Lord to have mercy upon him, they only
+talked to him about his effects, and about his testament, or his
+pedigree, or what a handsome vigorous man he had been, and the like; so
+all this lamenting is mere sham--some are mourning in obedience to custom
+and habit, others for company's sake, and others for hire."
+
+Scarcely had this procession passed by, when, lo, another crowd came in
+sight.  A certain nobleman, prodigiously magnificient, and his lady at
+his side, were going along in state; many respectable men were capping
+them, and there were a thousand also behind them, shewing them every kind
+of submission and reverence, and by the _favours_, I perceived that it
+was a wedding: "He must be a very exalted nobleman," said I, "who merits
+so much respect from all these people."  "If you should consider the
+whole, you would say something quite different," said my guide; "that
+nobleman is one from the street of Pleasure; and the female, is a damsel
+from the street of Pride, and the old man yonder, who is speaking with
+him, is one from the street of Lucre, who has lent money upon nearly all
+the land of the nobleman, and is to-day come to settle accounts."  We
+drew nigh to hear the conversation.
+
+"Verily, sir," says the usurer, "I would not for all I possess, that you
+should want any thing that I can offer, in order that you may appear to-
+day like yourself, especially since you have met with a lady so amiable
+and illustrious as this."  (The subtle old dog knowing perfectly well
+what she was all the time.)  "By the Lord above," said the nobleman, "the
+next greatest pleasure, to looking at her beauty, is to listen to your
+obliging discourse; I would rather pay you usury than obtain money gratis
+from any one else."  "Of a surety, my lord," said one of his principal
+associates, who was called flatterer, "my uncle shows you no respect but
+what is fully your right; but with your permission, I will assert, that
+he has not bestowed half the commendation on her ladyship which she
+deserves.  I cannot myself produce, and I will defy any man to produce
+one lovelier than herself, in the whole street of Pride; nor one more
+gallant than you, my lord, in the whole street of Pleasure; nor one more
+courteous than you, dear uncle, in the whole street of Lucre."  "Oh, that
+is only your good opinion," replied the lord, "but I certainly believe
+that two never came together with more mutual love than we."  As they
+proceeded, the crowd increased, and every one had a fair smile and a low
+bow for the other, and forward they ran to meet each other with their
+noses to the ground, like two cocks going to engage.  "Know now," said
+the angel, "that you have not yet seen a _bow_ here, nor heard a _word_,
+that did not belong to the lessons of Hypocrisy.  There is not here one,
+after all this courtesy, that has a farthing's worth of love for the
+other; indeed they are for the most part enemies to one another.  The
+nobleman here is only a butt amongst them, and every one has his hit at
+him.  The lady has her mind fixed upon his _grandeur_ and his _nobility_,
+whereby she hopes to obtain precedence over many of her acquaintances.
+The miser has his eye upon his _land_, for his own son; and the others,
+to a man, on the money, which he is to receive as her portion, because
+they are all his subjects, that is, his merchants, his tailors, his
+shoemakers, or his other tradesmen, who have arrayed him and maintained
+him in all this great splendour, without yet obtaining one farthing, nor
+any thing but fair words, and now and then, threats perhaps.  Now observe
+how many masks, how many twists, Hypocrisy has given to the face of the
+truth?  He is promising grandeur to his love, having already disposed of
+his land; and she is promising portion and purity, whereas she has no
+purity, but purity of dress, and as for her portion it will not be long
+in existence, there being an inveterate cancer in it, even as there is in
+her own body."
+
+"Well, here is a proof," said I, "that one never ought to judge by
+appearances."  "Yes," said he, "but come away, and I will show you
+something more."  Whereupon he transported me up to where stood the
+churches of the city of Perdition, for every body in it had an appearance
+of faith, even in the age of Disbelief.  First we went to the temple of
+Heathenism, where I could see some adoring the form of a man, others that
+of the sun, others that of the moon, and an innumerable quantity of
+similar other gods, even down to leek and garlick, and a great goddess
+termed _Delusion_, obtaining general adoration, although you might see
+something of the remnants of the Christian faith amongst some of these
+people.  Thence we went to a meeting of Dummies, where there was nothing
+but groaning, and shivering, and beating the breast.  "Though there is
+here," said the angel, "an appearance of repentance and great submission,
+there is nothing in reality, but opinionativeness and obstinacy, and
+pride, and thick, thick darkness.  Notwithstanding they talk so much
+about their _internal light_, they have not even the spectacle-glasses of
+nature which the heathens have, whom you lately saw."  From these dumb
+dogs we chanced to turn to a large church open at the top, with a
+prodigious number of sandals {23} at the gate, by which I knew that it
+was the temple of the Turks; these people had only a dim and motley
+colored spectacle glass, which they called the Koran, yet through this
+they were always gazing up to the top of the church for their prophet,
+who, according to the promise which he gave them, ought to have returned
+to them long ago, but has not yet made his appearance.  From there we
+went to the church of the Jews, people who had failed to find the way of
+escape from the city of Perdition, although they possessed a pure, clear
+spectacle glass, on account of a film having come over their eyes from
+long gazing, for want of having anointed them with the precious ointment,
+_faith_.  We next went to that of the Papists.  "Behold," said the angel,
+"the church which _deceiveth the nations_!  Hypocrisy has built this
+church at her own expense; for the Papists permit, yea enjoin the
+breaking of any oath made to a heretic, although it were taken upon the
+sacrament."  From the chancel we passed through key-holes to the upper
+end of a cell which stood apart, full of burning candles at mid-day,
+where we perceived a priest with his crown shaven, walking about as if he
+were in expectation of visitors; presently there came a rotund figure of
+a woman, and a very pretty girl behind her, and they went upon their
+knees before him to confess their sins.  "My spiritual father," said the
+good woman, "I labour under a burden too heavy to be borne, unless you in
+your mercy will lighten it; I married a member of the church of England,
+and"--"What," said the shaven crown, "married a heretic! married an
+enemy! there is no pardon for you, now or ever."  At this word she
+fainted, and he vociferated curses at her.  "Oh, and what is worse," said
+she when she revived.  "I have killed him!"  "O, ho! you have killed him,
+well that is something towards obtaining reconciliation with the church;
+but I assure you, that unless you had killed him, you would never have
+got absolution, nor purgatory, but would have gone plump to the devil.
+But where is your offering to the cloister?" said he, snarling.  "Here,"
+she replied, and handed him a pretty big purse of money.  "Well," said
+he, "I will now make your peace, and your penance is to remain a widow as
+long as you live, lest you should make another bad bargain."  As soon as
+she had departed, the damsel came forward to make her confession.  "Your
+pardon, my father confessor," said she, "I have borne a child and
+murdered it."  "Very fair, in troth," said the confessor, "and who was
+the father?"  "Verily," said she, "it was one of your monastery"--"Hush,
+hush," said he, "no scandal against the men of the church: but where is
+your atonement to the church?"  "There," said she, handing him a gold
+coin.  "You must repent, and your penance is to watch to night by my
+bedside," said he, smiling archly upon her.
+
+At this moment appeared four other bald-pates, hauling in a lad to the
+confessor, the poor fellow looking as pleased as if he were going to the
+gallows.  "We have brought you a cub," said one of the four, "that you
+may award him a proper punishment for revealing the secrets of the
+catholic church."  "What secrets?" said the confessor, looking towards a
+murky cell which was nigh at hand.  "But confess villain, what did you
+say?"  "In truth," said the wretch, "one of my acquaintances asked me, if
+I had seen the _souls_ shrieking beneath the altar, _on the day of the
+festival of the dead_?  And I said, that I had heard the voice, but that
+I had seen nothing."  "Ah, sir, say the whole," said one of the others.
+"But I added," said he, "that I had heard that you were only deceiving us
+ignorant people, and that instead of souls shrieking, there were only sea-
+crabs crackling beneath the carpet,"--"O son of the fiend! blasphemous
+monster!" said the confessor; "but proceed caitiff."--"and that it was a
+wire which turned the image of saint Peter," said the fellow, "and that
+it was by the wire that the Holy Ghost descended from the gallery of the
+cross upon the priest."  "O heritage of hell!" said the confessor.  "So
+ho here! take him torturers, and cast him into the smoky chimney yonder
+for telling tales."  "Here you see," said the angel, "the church which
+Hypocrisy desires should be called the Catholic Church, and the members
+of which she would fain have the world consider, as the only people
+destined to be saved; it must be owned, indeed, that they had the true
+spectacle-glass, but they spoiled it by cutting upon the glass numerous
+images; and they had true faith, but they mingled that precious ointment
+with their own novel inventions, so that at present they see no more than
+the heathen."  Thence we went to a barn, where stood a pert, conceited
+fellow preaching with great glibness, frequently repeating the same thing
+three times.  "This man and his hearers," said the angel, "possess the
+true spectacle-glass, to see the things which pertain to their peace, but
+they lack now in their old age, a very essential matter which is called
+perfect love.  Various are the causes which drive folks hither; some come
+out of respect to their forefathers, some out of ignorance, and many for
+worldly advantage.  They will make you believe with their faces that they
+are being strangled, but they can swallow a toad if necessary; and thus
+the princess Hypocrisy does not disdain to teach some in barns."  "Pray,"
+said I, "where now is the _Church of England_?"  "O," said he, "in the
+city high above, it constitutes a great part of the _Catholic Church_,
+and in the city here below, there are some probationary churches
+belonging to it, where the English and Welsh are under probation for a
+time, in order to become qualified to have their names written in the
+book of the Catholic Church, and they who become so, _blessed are they
+for ever_.  But alas, there are but very few who are adapting themselves
+to obtain honour above; because, instead of looking thitherward, too many
+suffer themselves to be blinded by the three princesses below, and
+Hypocrisy keeps many with one eye upon the city above, and the other on
+that below; yea, Hypocrisy has succeeded in enticing many from their
+path, after they have overcome the three other deceivers.  Come in here,"
+said he, "and you will see something more;" whereupon he carried me to
+the gallery of one of the churches in Wales, the people being in the
+midst of the service.  And lo! some were whispering, talking and
+laughing; some looking upon the pretty women; others were examining the
+dress of their neighbours from top to toe; some were pushing themselves
+forward and snarling at one another about rank; some were dozing; others
+were busily engaged in their devotions, but many of these were playing a
+hypocritical part.  "You have not seen yet," said the angel, "no, not
+amongst the infidels, shamelessness as open and barefaced as this: but
+thus, alas, we see _that the corruption of the best thing is the
+corruption worst of all_."  The congregation then proceeded to take the
+sacrament, and every one displayed reverential feelings at the altar.
+
+However, (through the glass of my companion,) I could see one receiving
+the bread into his belly, under the figure of a _mastiff_, another under
+that of a _swine_, another like a _mole_, another like a _winged
+serpent_, and a few, O how very few, receiving a ray of celestial light
+with the bread and the wine.  "Yonder," said he, "is a roundhead who is
+about to become sheriff, and because the law enjoins, that every one
+shall receive the communion in the church before he obtains the office,
+he has come hither rather than lose it; but though there are many here
+who rejoice at seeing him, there has been no joy amongst us for his
+conversion, for he has only turned for the time; and thus you see how
+bold Hypocrisy must be to present herself at the altar before Emmanuel,
+who is not to be deceived.  But however great she be in the city of
+Perdition, she can effect nothing in the city of Emmanuel, above the wall
+yonder."
+
+Thereupon we turned our faces from the great city of Perdition, and went
+up to the other little city.  In going along I could see at the upper end
+of the streets, many turning half-way from the temptations of the _gates
+of Perdition_, and seeking for the _gate of Life_; but whether it was
+that they failed to find it, or grew tired upon the way, I could not see
+that any went through, except one sorrowful faced man, who ran forward
+resolutely, while thousands on each side of him were calling him fool,
+some scoffing him, others threatening, him and his friends laying hold
+upon him, and entreating him not to take a step by which he would lose
+the whole world at once.  "I only lose," said he, "a very small portion
+of it, and if I should lose the whole, pray what loss is it?  For what is
+there in the world so desirable, unless a man should desire deceit, and
+violence, and misery, and wretchedness, giddiness and distraction.
+_Contentment and tranquillity_," said he, "constitute the happiness of
+man; but in your city there are no such things to be found.  Because who
+is there here content with his station?  _Higher_, _higher_, is what
+every one endeavours to be in the street of _Pride_; give, give us a
+little more, says every one in the street of _Lucre_; sweet, sweet, pray
+give me some more of it, is the cry of every one in the street of
+_Pleasure_.  And as for tranquillity, where is it? and who obtains it?  If
+you be a great man, flattery and envy are killing you; if you be poor,
+every one is trampling upon and despising you; after having become an
+inventor, if you exalt your head and seek for praise, you will be called
+a boaster and a coxcomb; if you lead a godly life and resort to the
+church and the altar, you will be called a hypocrite; if you do not, then
+you are an infidel or a heretic; if you be merry, you will be called a
+buffoon; if you are silent, you will be called a morose wretch; if you
+follow honesty, you are nothing but a simple fool; if you go neat, you
+are proud, if not, a swine; if you are smooth speaking, then you are
+false, or a trifler without meaning; if you are rough, you are an
+arrogant, disagreeable devil.  Behold the world that you magnify," said
+he, "pray take my share of it."  Whereupon he shook himself loose from
+them all, and away he went undauntedly to the narrow gate, and in spite
+of every obstacle he pushed his way through, we following him; while many
+men dressed in black upon the walls, on both sides of the gate, kept
+inviting the man and praising him.  "Who," said I, "are the men above
+dressed in black?"  "The watchmen of the king Emmanuel," replied the
+angel, "who, in the name of their master, are inviting people and
+assisting them through this gate."
+
+By this time we were by the gate; it was very low and narrow, and mean in
+comparison with the lower gates.  On the two sides of the door were the
+_ten commandments_; upon the first slab on the right side was written,
+"_love the Lord with thy whole heart_, _&c._," and upon the second slab
+on the other side, "love thy neighbour as thyself;" and above the whole,
+"_love not the world nor the things which are therein_."  I had not
+looked long before the watchmen began to cry out to the men of Perdition,
+"Flee! flee, for your lives!"  Only a very few turned towards them once,
+some of whom asked, "flee from what?"  "From the prince of this world,
+who reigns in the children of disobedience," said the watchman; "flee
+from the pollutions which are in the world through the lusts of the
+flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the vanities of life; flee from the
+wrath which is coming to overwhelm you!"  "What," exclaimed the other
+watchman, "is your beloved city but a vast glowing roof cast over Hell,
+and if you were here, you might see the fire on the farther side of your
+walls kindling, to burn you down into Hell."  Some mocked them, others
+threatened to stone them unless they ceased their unmannerly prate; but
+some few asked, "whither shall we fly?"  "Hither," said the watchman,
+"fly hither to your lawful king, who yet offers you pardon through us, if
+you return to your obedience, and abandon the rebel Belial and his
+deceitful daughters.  Though their appearance is so splendid, it is only
+deception; Belial at home is but a very poor prince, he has only you for
+fuel, and only you as roast and boiled to gnaw, and you are never
+sufficient, and there will never be an end to his hunger and your
+torments.  And who would serve such a malicious butcher, in a temporary
+delirium here, and in eternal torments hereafter, who could obtain a life
+of happiness under a king merciful and charitable to his subjects, who is
+ever doing towards them the good offices of a shepherd, and endeavouring
+to keep them from Belial, in order finally to give to each of them the
+kingdom in the country of Light?  O fools! will ye take the horrible
+enemy whose throat is burning with thirst for your blood, instead of the
+compassionate prince who has given his own blood to assist you?"  But it
+did not appear that these reasonings, which were sufficient to soften a
+rock, proved of much advantage to them, and the principal cause of their
+being so unsuccessful was, that not many had leisure to hear, the greater
+part being employed in looking at the gates; and of those who did hear,
+there were not many who heeded, and of those there were not many who long
+remembered; some would not believe that it was Belial whom they were
+serving, others could not conceive that yonder little, untrodden passage
+was the gate of Life, and would not believe that the three other
+glittering gates were delusion, the castle preventing them from seeing
+their destruction till they rushed upon it.
+
+At this moment there came a troop of people from the street of Pride, and
+knocked at the gate with great confidence but they were all so
+stiffnecked, that they could never go into a place so low, without
+soiling their perriwigs and their plumes, so they walked back in great
+ill humour.  At the tail of these came a party from the street of Lucre.
+Said one, "is this the gate of Life?"  "Yea," replied the watchmen who
+were above.  "What is to be done," said he, "in order to pass through?"
+"Read on each side of the door, and you will learn."  The miser read the
+ten commandments.  "Who," he cried, "will say, that I have broken one of
+these?"  But on looking aloft and seeing, "_love not the world_, _nor the
+things that are therein_," he started, and could not swallow that
+difficult sentence.  There was among them an envious pig-tail who turned
+back on reading, "_love thy neighbour as thyself_;" and a perjurer, and a
+slanderer turned abruptly back on reading, "_bear not false witness_;"
+some physicians on reading, "_thou shalt commit no murder_," exclaimed
+"this is no place for us."  To be brief, every one saw there something
+which troubled him, so they all went back to chew the cud.  I may add,
+that there was not one of these people, but had so many bags and writings
+stuck about him, that he could never have gone through a place so narrow,
+even if he had made the attempt.
+
+Presently there came a drove from the street of Pleasure walking towards
+the gate.  "Please to inform us," said one to the watchman, "to what
+place this road is leading?"  "This is the road," said the watchman,
+"which leads to eternal joy and happiness;" whereupon they all strove to
+get through, but they failed, for some had too much belly for a place so
+narrow; others were too weak to push, having been enfeebled by women, who
+impeded them moreover with their foolish whims.  "O," said the watchman
+who was looking upon them, "it is of no use for you to attempt to go
+through with your vain toys; you must leave your pots, and your dishes,
+and your harlots, and all your other ware behind you, and then make
+haste."  "How should we live then?" said the fiddler, who would have been
+through long ago, but for fear of breaking his instrument.  "O," said the
+watchman, "you must take the word of the king, for sending you whatsover
+things may be for your advantage."  "Hey, hey," said one, "_a bird in the
+hand is worth two in the bush_;" and thereupon they all unanimously
+turned back.
+
+"Come through now," said the angel, and he drew me in, and the first
+thing I saw in the porch was a large baptismal font, and by the side of
+it a spring of saline water.  "Why is this here at the entrance of the
+road?" said I.  "It is here," said the angel, "because every one must
+wash himself therein, previous to obtaining honour in the palace of
+Emmanuel; it is termed the _fountain of repentance_."  Above I could see
+written, "_this is the gate of the Lord_, &c."  The porch and also the
+street expanded, and became less difficult as one went forward.  When we
+had gone a little way up the street I could hear a soft voice behind me
+saying, "_this is the road_, _walk in it_."  The street was up-hill but
+was very clean and straight, and though the houses were lower here than
+in the city of _Perdition_, yet they were more pleasant.  If there is
+here less wealth, there is also less strife and care; if there are fewer
+dishes, there are fewer diseases; if there is less noise, there is also
+less sadness, and more pure joy.  I was surprised at the calmness and the
+delightful tranquillity that reigned here, so little resembling what I
+had found below.  Instead of swearing and cursing, buffoonery,
+debauchery, and drunkenness; instead of pride and vanity, torpor in the
+one corner, and riot in the other; instead of all the loud broiling, and
+the boasting and bustling, and chattering, which were incessantly
+stupifying a man yonder; and instead of the numberless constant evils to
+be found below, you here saw sobriety, affability and cheerfulness, peace
+and thankfulness, clemency, innocence, and content upon the face of every
+body.  No weeping here, except for the pollutions pervading the city of
+the enemy; no hatred or anger, except against sin; and that same hatred
+and anger against sin, always accompanied with a certainty of being able
+to subdue it; no fear but of incensing the King, who was ever more ready
+to forgive than be angry with his subjects; and here there was no sound
+but of psalms of praise to the heavenly guardian.
+
+By this time we had come in sight of a building superlatively beautiful.
+O, how glorious it was!  No one in the city of Perdition--neither the
+Turk nor the Mogul, nor any of the others, possessed any thing equal to
+it.  "Behold the _Catholic Church_!" said the angel.  "Is it here that
+Emmanuel keeps his court?" said I.  "Yes," he replied, "this is his only
+terrestrial palace."  "Has he any crowned heads under him?" said I.  "A
+few," was the answer.  "There are your good queen Anne, and some princes
+of Denmark and Germany, and a few of the other small princes."  "What are
+they," said I, "compared with those who are under Belial the Great?  He
+has emperors and kings without number."  "Notwithstanding all this;" said
+the angel, "not one of them can move a finger without the permission of
+Emmanuel, nor Belial himself either, because Emmanuel is his lawful king;
+Belial rebelled, and for his rebellion was made a captive, with
+permission however to visit for a little time the city of Perdition, and
+delude any one he could into his own rebellion and a share of his
+punishment.  So great is his malice, that he is continually using this
+permission, though aware that by so doing he will only add to his own
+misery; and so great is his love of wickedness, that he takes advantage
+of his half liberty, to seek to destroy this city and this edifice,
+though he has long known that their guardian is invincible."
+
+"Pray, my lord," said I, "may we approach and take a more minute view of
+this magnificent palace?" for my heart had warmed towards the place at
+the first sight.  "Certainly you may," said the angel, "because there I
+have my place, charge, and employment."  The nearer we went to it, the
+more I wondered, seeing how lofty, strong, beautiful, pure, and lovely
+every part of it was; how accurate was the workmanship, and how fair were
+its materials.  A rock wrought with immense labour, and of prodigious
+strength was the foundation stone; living stones were placed upon this
+rock, and were cemented in so admirable a manner, that it was impossible
+for one stone to be so beautiful in another place, as it was in its own.
+I could see one part of the _church_ which cast out a very fair and
+remarkable cross, and the angel perceiving me gazing upon it asked me "if
+I knew that part."  I did not know what to answer.  "That is the _Church
+of England_," said he.  These words made me observe it with more
+attention than before, and on looking up I could perceive queen Anne, on
+the pinnacle of the building, with a sword in each hand.  With the one in
+her left, which is called Justice, she preserves her subjects from the
+men of the city of Perdition; and with the other in her right, which is
+the sword of the Spirit, or the word of God, she preserves them from
+Belial and his spiritual evils.  Under the left sword were the _Laws of
+England_; under the other was a large _Bible_.  The sword of the Spirit
+was fiery and of prodigious length, it would kill at a distance to which
+the other sword could not reach.  I observed the other princes with the
+same arms, defending their portions of the church; but I could see that
+the portion of my queen was the fairest, and that her arms were the most
+bright.  By her right hand, I could see a multitude of people in
+black--archbishops, bishops, and teachers, assisting her in sustaining
+the sword of the Spirit; and some of the soldiers and civil officers, and
+a few, very few of the lawyers, supporting, along with her, the other
+sword.  I obtained permission to rest a little by one of the magnificent
+doors, whither people were coming to obtain the dignity of the _universal
+church_; a tall angel was keeping the door, and the church within side
+was so vividly light, that it was useless for _Hypocrisy_ to show her
+visage there--she sometimes appeared at the door, but never went in.
+After I had been gazing about a quarter of an hour, there came a
+_papist_, who imagined that the Pope possessed the catholic church, and
+he claimed his share of dignity.  "What proof of your dignity have you?"
+said the porter.  "I have plenty," said he, "of _traditions of the
+fathers_, and _acts of the congresses of the church_; but what further
+assurance do I need, than the word of the Pope, who sits upon the
+infallible chair?"  Then the porter proceeded to open an exceedingly
+large Bible.  "Behold," said he, "the only Statute Book which we use
+here, prove your claim out of that, or depart;" whereupon he departed.
+
+At this moment there came a drove of Quakers, who wanted to go in with
+their hats upon their heads, but they were turned back for their
+unmannerly behaviour.  After that, some of the children of the barn, who
+had been there for some time, began to speak.  "We have," said they, "no
+other statute than you, therefore show us our dignity."  "Stay," said the
+glittering porter, looking them fixedly in the face, "and I will show you
+something.  Do you see yonder," said he, "the rent which you made in the
+church, that you might go out of it, without the slightest cause or
+reason? and now, what do you want here?  Go back to the narrow gate, wash
+yourselves well in the fountain of repentance, in order to free
+yourselves from some of the kingly blood, in which you steeped yourselves
+formerly; bring some of that water to moisten the clay, to close up the
+rent yonder, and then, and then only, you shall be welcome."  But before
+we had proceeded a rood farther towards the west, we heard a buzz amongst
+the princes above, and every one, great and small, seized his arms, and
+proceeded to harness himself as if for battle; and before we had time to
+espy a place to flee to, the whole air became dark, and the city was more
+deeply over-shadowed than during an eclipse; the thunder began to roar,
+and the lightnings to dart forkedly, and a ceaseless shower of mortal
+arrows, was directed from the gates below, against the catholic church;
+and unless every one had had a shield in his hand to receive the fiery
+darts, and unless the foundation stone had been too strong for any thing
+to make an impression upon it, you would have seen the whole in
+conflagration.  But alas! this was but the prologue, or a foretaste of
+what was to follow; for the darkness speedily became seven times blacker,
+and _Belial_ himself appeared upon the densest cloud, and around him were
+his choicest warriors, both terrestrial and infernal, to receive and
+execute his will, on their particular sides.  He had enjoined the Pope,
+and the king of France, his other son, to destroy the church of England
+and its queen; and the Turk and the Muscovite, to break to pieces the
+other parts of the Church, and to slay the people; the queen and the
+other princes, were by no means to be spared; and the Bible was to be
+burned in spite of every thing.  The first thing which the queen and the
+other saints did, was to fall upon their knees, and complain of their
+wrongs to the King of kings, in these words:--"_The spreading of his
+wings covereth the extent of thy land_, _O Emmanuel_!" Isaiah 8. iii.
+This complaint was answered by a voice, which said, "_resist the devil
+and he will flee from you_;" and then ensued the hardest and most
+stubborn engagement, which had ever been upon the earth.  When the _sword
+of the Spirit_ began to be waved, Belial and his infernal legions began
+to retreat, and the Pope to falter.  The king of France, it is true, held
+out; yet even he nearly lost heart, for he saw the queen and her subjects
+united and prosperous, whilst his own ships were sunk, his soldiers
+slaughtered, and thousands of his subjects rebelling.  The very Turk was
+becoming as gentle as a lamb; but just at that moment my heavenly
+associate quitted me, darting up towards the firmament, to myriads of
+other shining powers, and my dream was at an end.  Yes, just as the Pope
+and the other terrestrial powers, were beginning to sneak away, and to
+faint, and the potentates of hell to fall by tens of thousands, each
+making, to my imagination's ear, as much noise as if a huge mountain had
+been precipitated into the depths of the sea, my companion quitted me,
+and there was an end of my dream; for what with the noise made by the
+fiends, and the agitation which I felt at losing my companion, I awoke
+from my sleep, and returned with the utmost reluctance to my sluggish
+clod, thinking how noble and delightful it was to be a _free_ spirit, to
+wander about in angelic company, quite secure, though seemingly in the
+midst of peril.  I had now nothing to console me, save the Muse, and she
+being half angry, would do nothing more than bleat to me the following
+strains.
+
+
+
+The Perishing World.
+
+
+O man, upon this building gaze,
+The mansion of the human race,
+The world terrestrial see!
+Its architect's the King on high,
+Who ne'er was born and ne'er will die--
+The blest Divinity.
+The world, its wall, its starlights all,
+Its stores, where'er they lie,
+Its wondrous brute variety,
+Its reptiles, fish, and birds that fly,
+
+And cannot number'd be,
+The God above, to show his love,
+Did give, O man, to thee.
+For man, for man, whom he did plan,
+God caus'd arise
+This edifice,
+Equal to heaven in all but size,
+Beneath the sun so fair;
+Then it he view'd, and that 'twas good
+For man, he was aware.
+
+Man only sought to know at first
+Evil, and of the thing accursed
+Obtain a sample small.
+The sample grew a giantess,
+'Tis easy from her size to guess
+The whole her prey will fall.
+Cellar and turret high,
+Through hell's dark treachery,
+Now reeling, rocking terribly,
+In swooning pangs appear;
+The orchards round, are only found
+Vile sedge and weeds to bear;
+The roof gives way, more, more each day,
+The walls too, spite
+Of all their might,
+Have frightful cracks, down all their height,
+Which coming ruin show;
+The dragons tell, that danger fell,
+Now lurks the house below.
+
+O man! this building fair and proud,
+From its foundation to the cloud,
+Is all in dangerous plight;
+Beneath thee quakes and shakes the ground;
+'Tis all, e'en down to hell's profound,
+A bog that scares the sight.
+The sin man wrought, the deluge brought,
+And without fail
+A fiery gale,
+Before which every thing shall quail,
+His deeds shall waken now;
+Worse evermore, till all is o'er,
+Thy case, O world, shall grow.
+There's one place free, yet, man for thee,
+Where mercies reign,
+A place to which thou may'st attain,
+Seek there a residence to gain
+Lest thou in caverns howl;
+For save thou there shalt quick repair,
+Woe to thy wretched soul!
+
+Towards yon building turn your face!
+Too strong by far is yonder place
+To lose the victory.
+'Tis better than the reeling world;
+For all the ills by hell uphurl'd
+It has a remedy.
+Sublime it braves the wildest waves;
+It is a refuge place
+Impregnable to Belial's race,
+With stones, emitting vivid rays,
+Above its stately porch;
+Itself, and those therein, compose
+The universal church.
+Though slaves of sin we long have been,
+With faith sincere
+We shall win pardon there;
+Then in let's press, O, brethren dear,
+And claim our dignity!
+By doing so, we saints below
+And saints on high shall be.
+
+
+
+
+A Vision of Death in his Palace Below.
+
+
+In one of the long, black, chilly nights of winter, when it was much
+warmer in a kitchen of Glyn-cywarch, than on the summit of Cadair Idris,
+and much more pleasant to be in a snug chamber, with a warm bed-fellow,
+than in a shroud in the church yard, I was mussing upon some discourses
+which had passed between me and a neighbour, upon _the shortness of human
+life_, and how certain every one is of dying, and how uncertain as to the
+time.  Whilst thus engaged, having but newly laid my head down upon the
+pillow, and being about half awake, I felt a great weight coming
+stealthily upon me, from the crown of my head to my heel, so that I could
+not stir a finger, nor any thing except my tongue, and beheld a lad upon
+my breast, and a lass mounted upon his back.  On looking sharply, I
+guessed, from the warm smell which came from him, his clammy locks, and
+his gummy eyes, that the lad must be _master Sleep_.  "Pray, sir," said
+I, squealing, "what have I done to you, that you bring that witch here to
+suffocate me?"  "Hush," said he, "it is only my sister _Nightmare_; we
+are both going to visit our brother _Death_, and have need of a third,
+and lest you should resist, we have come upon you without warning, as he
+himself will sometime; therefore you must come, whether you will or not."
+"Alas!" said I, "must I die?"  "O no," said _Nightmare_; "we will spare
+you this time."  "But with your favour," said I, "your brother Death
+never spared any one yet who was brought within reach of his dart; the
+fellow even ventured to fling a fall with the Lord of Life himself,
+though it is true he gained very little by his daring."  At these words
+_Nightmare_ arose full of wrath and departed.  "Hey," said _Sleep_, "come
+away, and you shall have no cause to repent of your journey."  "Well,"
+said I, "may there never be night to _saint Sleep_, and may _Nightmare_
+never obtain any other place to crouch upon than the top of an awl,
+unless you return me to where you found me."  Then away he went with me,
+over woods and precipices, over oceans and valleys, over castles and
+towers, rivers and crags; and where did we descend, but by one of the
+gates of the daughters of Belial, on the posterior side of the _city of
+Perdition_, and I could there perceive, that the three gates of Perdition
+contracted into one on the hinder side, and opened into the same place--a
+place foggy, cold, and pestilential, replete with an unwholesome vapour,
+and clouds, lowering and terrible.  "Pray, sir," said I, "what dungeon of
+a place is this?"  "_The chambers of Death_," said _Sleep_.  I had
+scarcely time to enquire, before I heard some people crying, some
+screaming, some groaning, some talking deliriously, some uttering
+blasphemies in a feeble tone: others in great agony, as if about to give
+up the ghost.  Here and there one, after a mighty shout would become
+silent, and then forthwith I could hear a key revolving in a lock; I
+turned at the sound to look for the door, and by dint of long gazing, I
+could see tens of thousands of doors, apparently far off though close by
+my side notwithstanding.  "Please to inform me, master Sleep," said I,
+"to what place these doors open?"  "They open," he replied, "into the
+_land of Oblivion_, a vast country under the rule of my brother Death;
+and the great wall here, is the limit of the immense eternity."  As I
+looked I could see a little death at each door, all with different arms,
+and different names, though evidently they were all subjects of the same
+king.  Notwithstanding which, there was much contention between them
+concerning the sick; for the one wished to snatch the sick through his
+door, and the other would fain have him through his own.  On drawing
+near, we could see above every door, the name of the death written, who
+kept it; and likewise by every door, hundreds of various things left
+scattered about, denoting the haste of those who went through.  Over one
+door I could see _Famine_, though purses and full bags were lying on the
+ground beside it, and boxes nailed up, standing near.  "That," said he,
+"is the gate of the _misers_."  "To whom," said I, "do these rags
+belong?"  "Principally to misers," he replied; "but there are some there
+belonging to lazy idlers, and to ballad singers, and to others, poor in
+every thing, but spirit, who preferred starvation to begging."  In the
+next door was the death of the _Ruling Passion_, and parallel with it I
+could hear many voices, as of men in the extremity of cold.  By this door
+were many books, some pots and flaggons, here and there a staff and a
+walking stick, some compasses and charts, and shipping tackle.  "This is
+the road by which scholars go," said I.  "Some scholars go by it," said
+he, "solitary, helpless wretches, whose relations have stripped them of
+their last article of raiment; but people of various other descriptions
+go by it also.  Those," said he, (speaking of the pots,) "are the relics
+of jolly companions, whose feet are freezing under benches, whilst their
+heads are boiling with drink and uproar; and the things yonder belong to
+travellers of snowy mountains, and to traffickers in the North sea."
+
+Next at hand was a meagre skeleton of a figure, called the _death of
+Fear_.  Through his exterior you might see that he did not possess any
+heart; and by his door there were bags, and chests also, and locks and
+castles.  By this gate went usurers, bad governors and tyrants, and some
+of the murderers, but the plurality of the latter were driven past to the
+next gate, where there was a death called _Gallows_, with his cord ready
+for their necks.
+
+Next was to be seen the _death of Love_, and by his feet were hundreds of
+instruments, and books of music, and verses, and love letters, and also
+ointments and colors to beautify the countenance, and a thousand other
+embellishing wares, and also some swords.  "With some of those swords,"
+said my companion, "bandits have been slain whilst fighting for women,
+and with others, love-lorn creatures have stabbed themselves."  I could
+perceive that this death was purblind.
+
+At the next door, was a death who had the most repulsive figure of all:
+his entire liver was consumed.  He was called the _death of Envy_.  "This
+one," said Sleep, "assaults losing gamesters, slanderers, and many a
+female rider, who repineth at the law which rendered the wife subject to
+her husband."  "Pray, sir," said I, "what is the meaning of female
+rider?"  "Female rider," said he, "is the term used here, for the woman
+who would ride her husband, her neighbours, and her country too, if
+possible, and the end of her long riding will be, that she will ride the
+Devil, from that door, down to hell."
+
+Next stood the door of the _death of Ambition_, and of those who lift
+their nostrils on high, and break their shins for want of looking beneath
+their feet.  Beside this door were crowns, sceptres, banners, all sorts
+of patents and commissions, and all kinds of heraldric and warlike arms.
+
+But before I could look on any more of these countless doors, I heard a
+voice commanding me by my name to prepare.  At this word, I could feel
+myself beginning to melt, like a snow ball in the heat of the sun;
+whereupon my master gave me some soporific drink, so that I fell asleep,
+but by the time I awoke, he had conveyed me to a considerable distance,
+on the other side of the wall.  I found myself in a valley of pitchy
+darkness, and as it seemed to me, limitless.  At the end of a little
+time, I could see by a dim light, like that of a dying candle,
+innumerable human shades--some on foot, and some on horseback, running
+through one another like the wind, silently and with wonderful solemnity.
+
+It was a desert, bare, and blasted country, without grass, or vegetation,
+or woods, and without animals, with the exception of deadly monsters, and
+venomous reptiles of every kind; serpents, snakes, lice, toads,
+maw-worms, locusts, ear-wigs, and the like, which all exist on human
+corruption.  Through myriads of shades, and creeping things, graves,
+sepulchres, and cemeteries, we proceeded, without interruption, to
+observe the country.  At last I perceived some of the shades turning and
+looking upon me; and suddenly, notwithstanding the great silence that had
+prevailed before, there was a whispering from one to the other that there
+was a _living man_ at hand.  "A living man," said one; "a living man,"
+said the other; and they came thronging about me like caterpillars from
+every corner.  "How did you come hither, sirrah?" said a little morkin of
+a death who was there.  "Truly sir," said I, "I know no more than
+yourself."  "What do they call you?" he demanded.  "Call me what you
+please, here in your own country," I replied, "but at home I am called
+_the Sleeping Bard_."
+
+At that word I beheld a crooked old man, with a double head like to a
+rough-barked thorn tree, raising himself erect, and looking upon me worse
+than the black devil himself; and lo! without saying a word, he hurled a
+large human skull at my head--many thanks to a tombstone which shielded
+me.  "Pray be quiet, sir," said I.  "I am but a stranger, who was never
+here before, and you may be sure I will never return, if I can once reach
+home again."  "I will give you cause to remember having been here," said
+he; and attacked me with a thigh-bone, like a very devil, whilst I
+avoided his blows as well as I could.  "By heavens," said I, "this is a
+most inhospitable country to strangers.  Is there a justice of the peace
+here?"  "Peace!" said he, "what peace do you deserve, who will not let
+people rest in their graves?"  "Pray, sir," said I, "may I be allowed to
+know your name, because I am not aware of ever having disturbed any one
+in this country."  "Sirrah," said he, "know that not you are the Sleeping
+Bard, but that I am that person; and I have been allowed to rest here for
+nine hundred years, by every one but yourself."  And he attacked me
+again.
+
+"Forbear, my brother," said Merddyn, who was near at hand, "be not too
+hot; rather be thankful to him for keeping an honorable remembrance of
+your name upon earth."  "Great honor forsooth," said he, "I shall receive
+from such a blockhead as this.  Sirrah! can you sing in the
+four-and-twenty measures?  Can you carry the pedigree of Gog and Magog,
+and the genealogy of Brutus ap Sylfius, up to a millenium previous to the
+fall of Troy?  Can you narrate when, and what will be the end of the
+combats betwixt the lion and the eagle, and betwixt the dragon and the
+red deer?"  "Hey, hey! let me ask him a question," said another, who was
+seated beside a large cauldron which was boiling, and going, bubble,
+bubble, over a fire.  "Come nearer," said he, "what is the meaning of
+this?"
+
+   "I till the judgment day
+   Upon the earth shall stray;
+   None knows for certainty
+   Whether fish or flesh I be."
+
+"I will request the favor of your name, sir," said I, "that I may answer
+you in a suitable manner."  "I," said he, "am Taliesin, {49} the prince
+of the Bards of the West, and that is a piece of my composition."  "I
+know not," said I, "what could be your meaning, unless it was, that the
+yellow plague {50} which destroyed Maelgwn of Gwynedd, put an end to you
+on the sea-shore, and that your body was divided amongst the crows and
+the fishes."  "Peace, fool!" said he, "I was alluding to my two callings,
+of man of the law and poet.  Please to tell me, has a lawyer more
+similitude to a raven, than a poet to a whale?  How many a one doth a
+single lawyer divest of his flesh, to swell out his own craw; and with
+what indifference does he extract the blood, and leave a man half alive!
+And as for the poet, where is the fish which is able to swallow like him?
+he is drinking oceans of liquor at all times, but the briny sea itself
+would not slack his thirst.  And provided a man be a poet and a lawyer,
+how is it possible to know whether he be fish or flesh, especially if he
+be a courtier to boot, as I was, and obliged to vary his taste to every
+ones palate.  But tell me," said he, "whether there are at present, any
+of those fellows upon the earth?"  "There's plenty of them," said I; "if
+one can patch together any nonsensical derry, he is styled a graduate
+bard.  But as for the others; there is such a plague of lawyers, petty
+attornies, and scribes, that the locusts of Egypt bore light upon the
+country, in comparison with them.  In your time, sir, there were but
+bargains of tofts and crofts, and a hand's breadth of writing for a farm
+of a hundred pounds, and a raising of cairns and crosses, as memorials of
+the purchase and boundaries.  There is no longer any such security, but
+there is far more craft and deceit, and a tombstone's breadth of written
+parchment to secure the bargain; and for all that, it is a wonder if a
+flaw be not in it, or said to be at least."  "Well then," said Taliesin,
+"I should not be worth a straw in the world at present.  I am better
+where I am.  Truth will never be had where there are many poets, nor fair
+dealing where there are many lawyers; no, nor health where there are many
+physicians."  At this moment, a little grey-headed hobgoblin, who had
+heard that a living man was arrived, flung himself at my feet, weeping
+abundantly.  "Dear me," said I, "what are you?"  "One who is grievously
+wronged every day in the world," said he.  "May God move your soul to
+procure justice for me."  "What is your name?" said I.  "I am called
+_Somebody_," he replied, "and there is scarcely a piece of pimping, or a
+calumny, or a lie, or tale, to set people at loggerheads, but must be
+laid upon me.  'Verily,' says one, 'she is a prodigious fine girl, and
+she was praising you before somebody, notwithstanding that some very
+great person is paying his suit to her.'  'I heard somebody,' says
+another, 'reckoning that this estate was mortgaged nine hundred pounds
+deep.'  'I saw some one yesterday,' says the beggar, 'with a chequered
+slop, like a sailor, who had come with a large ship load of corn, to the
+neighbouring port.'  And thus every ragged dog mangles me for his own
+wicked purposes.  Some call me Friend--'I was informed by a friend,' says
+one, 'that so and so has no intention of leaving a farthing to his wife,
+and that there is no affection between them.'  Some others vilify me yet
+more, and call me Bird--'A bird whistled in my ear, that there are bad
+practices going on there,' say they.  It is true, some call me by the
+more respectable name of Old Person; yet, not half the omens, prophecies,
+and counsels, which are attributed to the Old Person, belong to me.  I
+have never bidden people to follow the old road, provided the new one be
+better, nor a hundred similar things.  But Somebody is my common name,"
+he continued, "him you will most frequently hear, to have been concerned
+in every atrocious matter.  Because, ask a person wherever a vile,
+slanderous falsehood has been uttered, who it was who said it, and he
+will reply, 'Truly I don't know who, but somebody in the company said
+it;' question then every one in the company concerning the fable, and
+every one will say he heard it from somebody, but no one knows from whom.
+Is not this a shameful injury?" he demanded.  "Be so good as to inform
+every one whom you may hear naming me, that I have never said any one of
+these things, nor have ever invented nor uttered a lie to slander any
+one, nor a story to set relations by the ears; that I do not go near
+them; that I know nothing of their history, nor of their affairs, nor of
+their accursed secrets; and that they ought not to fling their wickedness
+upon me, but on their own corrupt brains."
+
+At this moment there came a little death, one of the secretaries of the
+king, desiring to know my name, and commanding master Sleep, to carry me
+instantly before the king.  I was compelled to go, though utterly against
+my will, by the power, which, like a whirlwind carried me away, betwixt
+high and low, thousands of miles back to the left hand, until we came
+again in sight of the boundary wall, and reached a narrow corner.  Here
+we perceived an immense, frowning, ruinous palace, open at the top,
+reaching to the wall where were the innumerable doors, all of which led
+to this huge, terrific court.  The walls were constructed with the sculls
+of men, which grinned horribly with their teeth.  The clay was black, and
+was prepared with tears and sweat; and the mortar on the outside was
+variegated with phlegm and pus, and on the inside with black-red blood.
+On the top of each turret, you might see a little death, with a smoking
+heart stuck on the point of his dart.
+
+Around the palace was a wood, consisting of a few poisonous yews and
+deadly cypresses, and in these, owls, blood crows, vultures and the like
+were nestling; and croaking continually for flesh, though the whole place
+was nothing but a stinking shamble.  We entered the gate.  All the
+pillars of the hall were made of human thigh bones; the pillars of the
+parlour were of shank bones; and the floors were one continued layer of
+every species of offal.  It was not long before I came in sight of a vast
+and frightful altar, where I beheld the king of Terrors swallowing human
+flesh and blood, and a thousand petty deaths, from every hole, feeding
+him with fresh, warm flesh.  "Behold," said the death who brought me
+there, addressing himself to the king, "a spark, whom I found in the
+midst of the land of Oblivion; he came so light footed, that your majesty
+never tasted a morsel of him."  "How can that be?" said the king, and
+opened his jaws as wide as an earthquake to swallow me.  Whereupon I
+turned all trembling to Sleep.  "It was I," said Sleep, "who brought him
+here."  "Well," said the meagre, grizly king, turning to me, "for my
+brother Sleep's sake, you shall be permitted to return this time, but
+beware of me the next."  After having employed himself for a considerable
+time in casting carcasses into his insatiable paunch, he caused his
+subjects to be called together, and moved from the altar to a terrific
+throne of exceeding height, to pronounce judgment on the prisoners newly
+arrived.  In an instant came innumerable multitudes of the dead, making
+their obeisance to their king, and taking their stations in remarkable
+order.  And lo! king Death was in his regal vest of flaming scarlet,
+covered all over with figures of women and children weeping, and men
+uttering groans; about his head was a black-red three-cornered cap (which
+his friend Lucifer had sent as a present to him,) and upon its corners
+were written _misery_, _wailing_, and _woe_.  Above his head were
+thousands of representations of battles on sea and land, towns burning,
+the earth opening, and the great water of the deluge; and beneath his
+feet nothing was to be seen but the crowns and sceptres of the kings whom
+he had overcome from the beginning.  On his right hand Fate was sitting,
+seemingly engaged in reading, with a murky look, a huge volume which was
+before him; and on his left was an old man called _Time_, licking
+innumerable threads of gold, and silver, and copper, and very many of
+iron.  Some few of the threads were growing better towards their end, and
+thousands growing worse.  Along the threads were hours, days, and years;
+and Fate, according as his volume directed him, was continually breaking
+the threads of life, and opening the doors of the boundary wall, betwixt
+the two worlds.
+
+We had not looked around us long, before we heard four fiddlers, newly
+dead, summoned to the bar.  "How comes it," said the king of Terrors,
+"that loving merriment as ye do, ye kept not on the other side of the
+gulf, for there has never been any merriment on this side."  "We have
+never done," said one of the musicians, "harm to any body, but have
+rendered people joyous, and have taken quietly what they gave us for our
+pains."  Said Death, "did you never keep any one from his work, and cause
+him to lose his time; or did you never keep people from church? ha!"  "O
+no!" said another, "perhaps now and then on a Sunday, after service, we
+may have kept some in the public house till the next morning, or during
+summer tide, may have kept them dancing in the ring on the green all
+night; for sure enough, we were more liked, and more lucky in obtaining a
+congregation than the parson."  "Away, away with these fellows to the
+country of Despair!" said the terrific king, "bind the four back to back
+and cast them to their customers, to dance bare-footed on floors of
+glowing heat, and to amble to all eternity without either praise or
+music."
+
+The next that came to the bar was a certain king, who had lived very near
+to Rome.  "Hold up your hand, prisoner," said one of the officers.  "I
+hope," said he, "that you have some better manners and favour to show to
+a king."  "Sirrah," said Death, "why did you not keep on the other side
+of the gulf where all are kings?  On this side there is none but myself,
+and another down below, and you will soon see, that neither he nor I will
+rate you according to the degree of your majesty, but according to the
+degree of your wickedness, in order to adapt your punishment to your
+crimes, therefore answer to the interrogation."  "Sir," he replied, "I
+would have you know, that you have no authority to detain me, nor to
+interrogate me, as I have a pardon for all my sins under the Pope's own
+hand.  On account of my faithful services, he has given me a warrant to
+go straight to Paradise, without tarrying one moment in Purgatory."  At
+these words the king and all the haggard train gave a ghastly grin, to
+escape from laughing outright; but the other full of wrath at their
+ridicule, commanded them aloud to show him the way.  "Peace, thou lost
+fool!" cried Death, "Purgatory lies behind you, on the other side of the
+wall, for you ought to purify yourself during your life; and on the right
+hand, on the other side of that gulf is Paradise.  But there is no road
+by which it is possible for you to escape, either through the gulf to
+Paradise, or through the boundary wall back to the world; and if you were
+to give your kingdom, (supposing you could give it,) you would not obtain
+permission from the keepers of those doors, to take one peep through the
+key hole.  It is called the irrepassable wall, for when once you have
+come through you may abandon all hope of returning.  But since you stand
+so high on the books of the Pope, you shall go and prepare his bed,
+beside that of the Pope who was before him, and there you shall kiss his
+toe for ever, and he the toe of Lucifer."
+
+Immediately thereupon, four little deaths raised the poor king up, who
+was by this time shivering like the leaf of an aspen, and snatched him
+out of sight like lightning.  Next after him came a young fellow and
+woman.  He had been a jolly companion and she a lady of pleasure, or one
+free of her person; but they were called here by their naked names,
+drunkard and harlot.  "I hope," said the drunkard, "I shall find some
+favour with you; I have sent to you many a bloated booty in a torrent of
+good ale; and when I failed to kill others, I came myself, willingly, to
+feed you."  "With the permission of the court," said the harlot, "you
+have not sent half as much as I, and my offerings were burning
+sacrifices, rich roast meat ready for the board."  "Hey, hey!" said
+Death, "all this was done for your own accursed passions' sake and not to
+feed me.  Bind the two face to face, as they are old acquaintances, and
+cast them into the land of Darkness, and let each be a torment to the
+other, until the day of judgment."  They were then snatched away, with
+their heads downwards.
+
+Next to these there came seven recorders.  Having been commanded to raise
+their hands to the bar, they would by no means obey, as the rails were
+greasy.  One began to wrangle boisterously; "we ought to obtain a fair
+citation to prepare our answer;" said he, "instead of being rushed upon
+unawares."
+
+"But are we bound to give you that same specific citation," answered
+Death, "since you obtain in every place, and at every period of your
+life, warning of my coming.  How many sermons have you not heard upon the
+mortality of man?  How many books have you not seen?  How many graves,
+how many sculls, how many diseases, how many messages and signs have you
+not had?  What is your Sleep, but my own brother?  What are sculls, but
+my visage?  What does your daily food consist of but dead creatures?  Seek
+not to cast your neglect upon me.  Speak not of summons, when you have
+obtained it a hundred times."  "Pray," said one red recorder, "what have
+you to advance against us?"  "What?" said Death.  "Drinking the sweat and
+blood of the poor, and levying double your wages."  "Here is an honest
+man," replied the recorder, pointing to a pettifogger behind him, "who
+knows that we have never done any thing but what was fair; and it is not
+fair of you to detain us here, without a specific crime to prove against
+us."  "Hey, hey!" said Death, "you shall prove against yourselves.  Place
+these people," said he, "on the verge of the _precipice_ before the
+tribunal of _Justice_, they shall obtain equity there though they never
+practiced it."
+
+There were still seven other prisoners remaining, and these kept up a
+prodigious bustle and noise.  Some were flattering, others quarrelling,
+some blustering, some counselling, &c.  Scarcely had they been called to
+the bar, when lo! the entire palace became seven times more horribly dark
+than before, and there was a shivering and a great agitation about the
+throne, and Death became paler than ever.  Upon enquiring what was the
+matter, one of the messengers of Lucifer stepped forward with a letter
+for Death, concerning these seven prisoners, and Fate presently caused
+the letter to be read publicly, and these were the words, as far as I can
+remember.
+
+   "_Lucifer_, _King of the kings of the world_, _prince of Hell_, _and
+   ruler of the Deep_, _to our natural son_, _the most mighty and
+   terrible king Death_, _greeting_, _pre-eminence_, _and eternal spoil_.
+
+   "For as much as we have been informed by some of our nimble
+   messengers, who are constantly abroad to obtain information, that
+   seven prisoners, of the seven most villainous and dangerous species in
+   the world, have arrived lately at your royal palace, and that it is
+   your intention to hurl them over the cliff into my kingdom.  I hereby
+   counsel you to try every possible means, to let them loose back again
+   upon the world; they will do you there more service in sending you
+   food, and sending me better company, for I would rather want than have
+   them; we have had but too much plague with their companions for a long
+   time, and my dominion is still disturbed by them.  Therefore turn them
+   back, or keep them with you.  For, by the infernal crown, if you send
+   them here, I will undermine the foundations of your kingdom, until it
+   falls down into my own immense dominion.
+
+   "_From the burning hall of assembly_, _at our royal palace in the pit
+   of Hell_, _in the year of our reign_, 5425."
+
+King Death, hereupon, stood for some time with his visage green and pale,
+in great perplexity of mind.  But whilst he was meditating, behold
+_Fate_, turned upon him such an iron-black scowl, as made him tremble.
+"Sirrah," said he, "look to what you do.  It is not in my power to send
+any one back, through the boundary of eternity, the irrepassable wall,
+nor in yours to harbour them here; therefore forward them to their
+destruction, in spite of the Arch Fiend.  He has been able hitherto, in a
+minute to allot his proper place to every individual, in a drove of a
+thousand, nay, even of ten thousand captured souls; and what difficulty
+can he have with seven, however dangerous they may be.  But though these
+seven should turn the infernal government topsy-turvy, do you drive them
+thither instantly, for fear I should receive commands to annihilate you
+before your time.  As for _his_ threats, they are only lies; for although
+thy end, and that of the old man yonder, (looking at Time,) are nigh at
+hand, being written only a few pages further on, in my unerring volume,
+yet you have no cause to be afraid of sinking to Lucifer; though every
+one in the abyss would be glad to obtain thee, yet they never, never
+shall.  For the rocks of steel and eternal adamant, which form the roof
+of Hell, are too strong for anything to crumble them."  Whereupon, Death,
+considerably startled, called to one of his train, to write for him the
+following answer.
+
+   "_Death_, _the king of Terror and Conqueror of conquerors_, _to his
+   revered friend and neighbour Lucifer_, _king of Eternal Night_,
+   _sovereign of the Bottomless Pool_, _sends greeting_.
+
+   "After due reflection on your regal desire, it has appeared to us more
+   advantageous, not only to our own dominion, but likewise to your own
+   extensive kingdom, to send these prisoners, as far as possible from
+   the doors of the irrepassable wall, lest their putrid odour should
+   terrify the whole city of Destruction, so that no man should come to
+   all eternity, to my side of the gate; and neither I obtain any thing
+   to cool my sting, nor you a concourse of customers from earth to hell.
+   Therefore I will leave to you to judge them, and to hurl them into
+   such cells, as you may deem the most proper and secure for them.
+
+   "_From my nether palace in the great gate of Perdition_, _over
+   Destruction_.  _In the year_, _from the renewal of my kingdom_, 1670."
+
+At hearing all this, I felt a great curiosity to know who these seven
+people could be, whom the devils themselves held in so much dread.  But
+ere a minute had elapsed, the clerk of the crown called their names, as
+follows:--Master Meddler, alias _Finger in Every Dish_; but he was so
+vehement and busy in advising the others, that he could not get a
+moment's time to answer for himself, until Death threatened to transfix
+him with his dart.
+
+Then _master Slanderer_ was called, alias _Enemy of Fair Fame_; but there
+was no answer.  "He is too modest to hear his titles," said the third,
+"and he never can bear his nicknames."  "Do you suppose," said the
+_Slanderer_, "that you yourself have no _titles_.  Call for," said he,
+"_master Coxcomb_, alias _Smooth Gullet_, alias _Poison Smile_."  "Ready,"
+said a woman who was there, pointing to the Coxcomb.  "O," said he,
+"_madam Bouncer_!  Your humble servant, I am overjoyed at seeing you
+well.  I have never seen a woman look handsomer in breeches.  But, oh! to
+think how miserable the country must be behind you, for want of its
+admirable she-governor; yet your delightful company will make hell itself
+something better."  "O son of the arch fiend!" said she.  "With you there
+is no need of another hell, you are yourself enough."  Then the cryer
+called _Bouncer_, or _mistress Breeches_.  "Ready," said another.  But
+she said not a word, for want of being called madam.  Next was called
+_Contriver of Contrivances_, alias _Jack of all Trades_; but he returned
+no answer either, for he was busied in devising a way to escape.  "Ready,
+ready," said one behind, "here he is, looking out for an opportunity to
+break through your palace, and unless you take care, he will have some
+notable contrivance to baulk you."  Said the Contriver, "call him, I
+beseech you, _master Impeacher of his Brother_, alias _Searcher of
+Faults_, alias _Framer of Complaints_."  "Ready, ready, this is he," said
+a litigious pettifogger, for every one knew the name of the other, but
+would not acknowledge his own.  "You shall be called," said the
+Impeacher, "_master Litigious Pettifogger_, alias _the Courts
+Comprised_."  "Bear witness, I pray you all," said the Pettifogger, "as
+to what the knave called me."  "Ho, ho!" said Death, "not by the
+baptismal font, but by his sins, is every one called in this country;
+and, with your permission, master Pettifogger, the names of your sins are
+those which shall stick to you henceforth for ever."  "Hey," said the
+Pettifogger, "I swear by the Devil that I will make you smart for this.
+Though you are empowered to kill me, you have no authority to bestow
+nicknames upon me.  I will file a complaint against you for defamation,
+and another for false imprisonment, against you and your friend Lucifer,
+in the court of Justice."
+
+By this time, I beheld the legions of Death, formed in order and armed,
+with their eyes fixed upon the king, awaiting the word.  "There," said
+the king, standing erect upon his regal throne, "my terrible and
+invincible hosts, spare neither care nor diligence in removing these
+prisoners from out of my boundaries, lest they prove the ruin of my
+country; cast them bound, over the precipice of Despair, with their heads
+downward.  But for the seventh, this Courts Comprised, who threatens me,
+leave him free over the chasm, beneath the court of _Justice_, and let
+him try whether he can make his complaint good against me."  Then Death
+reseated himself.  And lo! all the deadly legions, after surrounding the
+prisoners and binding them, led them away to their couch.  I also went
+out, and peeped after them.  "Come away," said Sleep, and snatched me up
+to the top of the highest turret of the palace.  Thence I could see the
+prisoners proceeding to their eternal perdition.  Presently a whirlwind
+arose, and dispersed the pitch-black cloud, which was spread universally
+over the face of the land of Oblivion, and by the light of a thousand
+candles, which were burning with a blue flame, at a particular place, I
+obtained a far distant view of the verge of the _Bottomless Gulf_, a
+sight exceedingly horrible; and also of a spectacle above, still more
+appalling, namely _Justice_ upon his _supreme seat_, holding the keys of
+Hell, at a separate and distinct tribunal over the chasm, to pronounce
+judgment upon the damned as they came.  I could see the prisoners cast
+headlong down the gulf, and Pettifogger rushing to fling himself over the
+terrific brink, rather than look once on the court of _Justice_.  For oh!
+there was there a spectacle too severe for a guilty countenance.  I
+merely gazed from _afar_, but I beheld more terrific horror, than I can
+at present relate, or I could at that time support, for my spirit
+struggled and fluttered at the awful sight, and wrestled so strenuously,
+that it burst all the bands of Sleep, and my soul returned to its
+accustomed functions.  And exceedingly overjoyed I was to see myself
+still amongst the living.  I instantly determined upon reforming myself,
+as a hundred years of affliction in the paths of righteousness, would be
+less harrowing to me, than another glance on the horrors of this night.
+
+
+
+Death the Great.
+
+
+Leave land and house we must some day,
+For human sway not long doth bide;
+Leave pleasures and festivities,
+And pedigrees, our boast and pride.
+
+Leave strength and loveliness of mien,
+Wit sharp and keen, experience dear;
+Leave learning deep, and much lov'd friends,
+And all that tends our life to cheer.
+
+From Death then is there no relief?
+That ruthless thief and murderer fell,
+Who to his shambles beareth down
+All, all we own, and us as well.
+
+Ye monied men, ye who would fain
+Your wealth retain eternally,
+How brave 'twould be a sum to raise,
+And the good grace of Death to buy!
+
+How brave! ye who with beauty beam,
+On rank supreme who fix your mind,
+Should ye your captivations muster,
+And with their lustre king Death blind.
+
+O ye who are at foot most light,
+Who are in the height now of your spring,
+Fly, fly, and ye will make us gape,
+If ye can scape Death's cruel fling.
+
+The song and dance afford, I ween,
+Relief from spleen, and sorrows grave;
+How very strange there is no dance,
+Nor tune of France, from Death can save!
+
+Ye travellers of sea and land,
+Who know each strand below the sky;
+Declare if ye have seen a place,
+Where Adam's race can Death defy!
+
+Ye scholars, and ye lawyer crowds,
+Who are as gods reputed wise;
+Can ye from all the lore ye know,
+'Gainst Death bestow some good advice?
+
+The world, the flesh, and Devil, compose
+The direst foes of mortals poor;
+But take good heed of Death the Great,
+From the Lost Gate, Destruction o'er.
+
+'Tis not worth while of Death to prate,
+Of his Lost Gate and courts so wide;
+But O reflect! it much imports,
+Of the two courts in which ye're tried.
+
+It here can little signify
+If the street high we cross, or low;
+Each lofty thought doth rise, be sure,
+The soul to lure to deepest woe.
+
+But by the wall that's ne'er re-pass'd,
+To gripe thee fast when Death prepares,
+Heed, heed thy steps, for thou mayst mourn
+The slightest turn for endless years.
+
+When opes the door, and swiftly hence
+To its residence eternal flies
+The soul, it matters much, which side
+Of the gulf wide its journey lies.
+
+Deep penitence, amended life,
+A bosom rife of zeal and faith,
+Can help to man alone impart,
+Against the smart and sting of Death.
+
+These things to thee seem worthless now,
+But not so low will they appear
+When thou art come, O thoughtless friend!
+Just to the end of thy career.
+
+Thou'lt deem, when thou hast done with earth,
+These things of worth unspeakable,
+Beside the gulf so black and drear,
+The gulf of Fear, 'twixt Heaven and Hell.
+
+
+
+
+A Vision of Hell.
+
+
+One fair morning of genial April, when the earth was green and pregnant,
+and Britain, like a paradise, was wearing splendid liveries, tokens of
+the smile of the summer sun, I was walking upon the bank of the Severn,
+in the midst of the sweet notes of the little songsters of the wood, who
+appeared to be striving to break through all the measures of music,
+whilst pouring forth praise to the Creator.  I too occasionally raised my
+voice, and warbled with the feathered choir, though in a manner somewhat
+more restrained than that in which they sang; and occasionally read a
+portion of the book of the Practice of Godliness.  Nevertheless, my
+former visions would not depart from my remembrance, but continually
+troubled me by coming across all other thoughts.  And they persisted in
+doing so, until, by arguing the matter minutely with myself, I reflected
+that there is no vision but what comes from above, to warn one to be upon
+one's guard, and that consequently it was my duty to write mine down,
+that they might serve as a warning to others also.  I therefore returned
+to my home, and whilst overwhelmed with melancholy, I was endeavouring to
+collect some of my frightful reminiscences, I happened to give a yawn
+over my paper, and this gave master Sleep an opportunity to glide upon
+the top of me.  Scarcely had Sleep closed my senses, when, behold! a
+glorious apparition came towards me, in the shape of a young man, tall
+and exceedingly beautiful; his garments were seven times more white than
+snow, his countenance was so lustrous that it rendered the very sun
+obscure, and his curling locks of gold parted in two lovely wreaths upon
+his head, in the form of a crown.  "Come with me, mortal man," said he on
+coming up.  "Who art thou, my lord?" said I.  "I am," he replied, "the
+angel of the countries of the North, the guardian of Britain and its
+queen.  I am one of the princes who are stationed beneath the throne of
+the Lamb, who receive commands for the protection of the gospel, against
+all its enemies in Hell and in Rome, in France and Constantinople, in
+Africa and in India, and wheresoever else they are devising artifices for
+its destruction.  I am the angel who conducted thee below to castle
+Belial, and who showed thee the vanity and madness of the whole world,
+the city of Destruction, and the excellence of the city of Emmanuel, and
+I am come once more by his command, to show thee other things, because
+thou art seeking to turn to account what thou hast seen already."  "How,
+my lord," said I, "will your illustrious majesty, which superintends
+kings and kingdoms, condescend to associate with such a poor worm as
+myself?"  "O," said he, "we respect more the virtue of a beggar than the
+grandeur of a sovereign.  What if I be greater than the kings of the
+earth, and higher than many of the countless potentates of heaven?  As my
+wonderful master deigned to humble himself so inexpressibly as to wear
+one of your bodies, and to live among you, and to die for your salvation,
+how should I presume to be dissatisfied with my duty in serving you, and
+the vilest of the human race, since ye are so high in favour with my
+master?  Come out, spirit, and free thyself from thy clay," said he, with
+his eyes directed upwards.  And with that word, I could feel myself
+becoming extricated from every part of my body.  No sooner was I free,
+than he snatched me up to the firmament of heaven, through the region of
+lightning and thunder, and all the glowing armories of the sky,
+innumerable degrees higher than I had been with him before, whence I
+could scarcely descry the earth, which looked no wider than a croft.
+After permitting me to rest a short space, he again lifted me up a
+million of miles, until I could see the sun far below us; we rushed
+through the milky way and past the Pleiades, and many other exceedingly
+large stars, till we caught a distant view of other worlds.  At length,
+by dint of journeying, we reached the confines of the awful eternity, and
+were in sight of the two palaces of the mighty king Death, which stand
+one on the right hand and the other on the left, and are at a great
+distance from each other, as there is an immense void between them.  I
+enquired whether we should go to see the right hand palace, because it
+did not appear to me to resemble the other which I had seen before.  "You
+will probably see," he replied, "sometime, still more of the difference
+which is between the one palace and the other; but at present it is
+necessary for us to sail another course."  Whereupon we turned away from
+the little world, and having arrived over the intervening gap, we let
+ourselves down to the country of Eternity, between the two palaces, into
+the horrible void; an enormous country it was, exceedingly deep and
+dark--without order and without inhabitants--now hot, now cold--sometimes
+silent, sometimes noisy, with the sound caused by cataracts of water
+tumbling upon the flames and extinguishing them; which cataracts,
+however, did not long continue, for presently might be seen a puff of
+fire bursting out and consuming the water.  There was here no course, nor
+whole, nothing living, nothing shapely; but a giddy discord and an
+amazing darkness which would have blinded me for ever, if my companion
+had not again displayed his heavenly garment of splendour.  By the light
+which it cast I could see the country of Oblivion, and the edges of the
+wilds of Destruction in front, on the left hand; and on the right the
+lowest skirts apparently of the walls of Glory.  "Behold the great gulf
+between Abraham and Dives," said my guide, "which is termed the place of
+Chaos.  It is the region of the elements which God created first; it is
+the place wherein are the seeds of every living thing, from which the
+Almighty word made your world and all that therein is--water, fire, air,
+earth, animals, fishes and creeping things, winged birds, and human
+bodies, but not your souls, for they are of an origin and generation
+higher and more exalted."  Through the vast, frightful place of Chaos we
+at length broke out to the left hand, and before travelling any distance
+there, where every thing was ever becoming more frightful, I could feel
+my heart at the top of my throat, and my hair standing like the prickles
+of the hedge-hog, even before seeing any thing; but when I _did_ see--oh!
+spectacle too much for tongue to relate, or for the spirit of man to
+behold.  I fainted.  Oh, the amazing and monstrous abyss, opening in a
+horrible manner into the other world!  Oh, the continual crackling of the
+terrible flames, darting over the sides of the accursed precipice, and
+the flashes of linked lightning rending the black, thick smoke, which the
+unsightly orifice was casting up!  My dear companion, having brought me
+to myself again, gave me some spiritual water to drink; O how excellent
+it was in its taste and color!  After drinking of the heavenly water, I
+could feel a wonderful strength diffusing itself through me, bringing
+with it sense, heart, faith, and various other heavenly virtues.  By this
+time I had approached with him unterrified to the edge of the steep,
+enveloped in the veil, the flames parting on both sides and avoiding us,
+not daring to come in contact with the inhabitants of the supreme abodes.
+Then from the summit of the terrific precipice we darted down, like two
+stars falling from the firmament of heaven, a thousand million of miles,
+over many a brimstone crag, and many a furious, ugly cataract and glowing
+precipice, every thing that we passed looking always frowningly downward;
+yet every thing noxious avoided us, except once, when having thrust my
+nose out of the veil, I was struck by such a suffocating, strangling
+exhalation as would have put an end to me, if my guide had not instantly
+assisted me with the water of life.  By the time that I had recovered, I
+perceived that we had arrived at a kind of standing place; for in all
+this loathsome chasm it was impossible to obtain any rest before, owing
+to the steepness and slipperiness of its sides.  There my guide permitted
+me to take some further rest; and during this respite, it happened that
+the thunders and the hoarse whirlwinds became silent for a little while,
+and in spite of the din of the raging cataracts, I heard from afar a
+sound louder than the whole--a sound of horrible harsh voices, of
+shouting, bellowing, and strong groans, swearing, cursing, and
+blaspheming, till I would have consented to part with mine ears, that I
+might not hear.  Ere we moved a foot farther, we could hear a terrible
+tumbling sound, and if we had not suddenly slipped aside, hundreds of
+unfortunate men would have fallen upon us, who were coming headlong, in
+excessive hurry, to take possession of their bad purchase, with a host of
+devils driving them.  "O, sir," said one devil, "take it easy, lest you
+should ruffle your curling locks.  Madam, do you wish for an easy
+cushion?  I am afraid that you will be out of all order by the time you
+come to your couch," said he to another.
+
+The strangers were exceedingly averse to going forward, insisting that
+they were out of their road; but notwithstanding all they could say, go
+they did, and we behind them, to a black flood of great magnitude, and
+through it they went, and we across it, my companion holding the
+celestial water continually to my nostrils, to strengthen me against the
+stench of the river, and against the time when I should see some of the
+inhabitants of the place, for hitherto I had not beheld so much as one
+devil, though I had heard the voices of many.  "Pray, my lord," said I,
+"what is the name of this putrid river?"  "The river of the Fiend," said
+he, "in which all his subjects are bathed, in order that they may be
+rendered fit for the country.  For this accursed water changes their
+countenance, and washes away from them every relic of goodness, every
+semblance of hope and of comfort."  And, indeed, on gazing upon the host
+after it had come through, I could distinguish no difference in deformity
+between the devils and the damned.  Some of the latter would fain have
+sculked at the bottom of the river, and have lain there to all eternity,
+in a state of strangulation, lest they should get a worse bed father on;
+but here the proverb was verified, that "he must needs run whom the Devil
+drives," for with the devils behind, the damned were compelled to go
+forward unto the beach, to their eternal damnation; where I at the first
+glance saw more pains and torments than the heart of man can imagine or
+the tongue relate; a single one of which was sufficient to make the hair
+stand erect, the blood to freeze, the flesh to melt, the bones to drop
+from their places--yea, the spirit to faint.  What is empaling or sawing
+men alive, tearing off the flesh piecemeal with iron pincers, or broiling
+the flesh with candles, collop fashion, or squeezing heads flat in a
+vice, and all the most shocking devices which ever were upon earth,
+compared with one of these?  Mere pastime!  Here were a hundred thousand
+shoutings, hoarse sighs, and strong groans; yonder a boisterous wailing
+and horrible outcry answering them, and the howling of a dog is sweet,
+delicious music, when compared with these sounds.  When we had proceeded
+a little way onward from the accursed beach, towards the wild place of
+Damnation, I perceived, by their own light, innumerable men and women
+here and there; and devils without number and without rest, incessantly
+employing their strength in tormenting.  Yes, there they were, devils and
+damned, the devils roaring with their own torments, and making the damned
+roar, by means of the torments which they inflicted upon them.  I paid
+particular observation to the corner which was nearest me.  There I
+beheld the devils with pitch-forks, tossing the damned up into the air,
+that they might fall headlong on poisoned hatchels or barbed pikes, there
+to wriggle their bowels out.  After a time the wretches would crawl in
+multitudes, one upon another, to the top of one of the burning crags,
+there to be broiled like mutton; from there they would be snatched afar,
+to the top of one of the mountains of eternal frost and snow, where they
+would be allowed to shiver for a time; thence they would be precipitated
+into a loathsome pool of boiling brimstone, to wallow there in
+conflagration, smoke, and the suffocation of horrible stench; from the
+pool they would be driven to the marsh of Hell that they might embrace
+and be embraced by its reptiles many times worse than serpents and
+vipers; after allowing them half an hour's dalliance with these
+creatures, the devils would seize a bundle of rods of steel, fiery hot
+from the furnace, and would scourge them till their howlings, caused by
+the horrible inexpressible pain which they endured, would fill the vast
+abode of darkness, and when the fiends deemed that they had scourged them
+enough, they would take hot irons and sear their bloody wounds.
+
+There was here no fainting, nor swooning to evade a moment of suffering,
+but a continual strength to suffer and to feel, though you would have
+imagined after one horrible cry, that it would be utterly impossible
+there should be strength remaining to give another cry so frightfully
+loud; the damned never lowered their key, and the devils kept replying,
+"behold your welcome for ever and ever."  And it almost seemed that the
+sauciness and bitterness of the devils, in jeering and mocking their
+victims, were worse to bear than the pain itself.  What was worst of all,
+their conscience was at present utterly aroused, and was tearing them
+worse than a thousand of the infernal lions.  We proceeded farther and
+farther downward, and the farther we proceeded, the more horrible was the
+work which was going on; the first place we came to in our progress was a
+frightful prison, in which were many human beings under the scourge of
+the devils, shrieking most shockingly.  "What place is this?" said I.
+"That," said the angel, "is the couch of those who cry 'woe is me that I
+did not--!'  Hark to them for a moment!"  "Woe is me that I did not
+purify myself in time from every kind of sin!" says one.  "Woe is me that
+I did not believe and repent before coming here!" says the other.
+
+Next to the cell of too late repentance, and of debate after judgment had
+been passed, was the prison of the procrastinators, who would be every
+time promising amendment, without ever fulfilling their promise.  "When
+this business is over," says one, "I will turn over another leaf."  "When
+this obstacle is removed, I will become a new man yet," says the other.
+But when the obstacle is removed, they are not a bit the nearer to
+reformation, for some other obstacle is always found to prevent them from
+moving towards the gate of Righteousness, and if they do sometimes move a
+little, they are sure to turn back.  Next to this was the prison of vain
+confidence, full of those who, on being commanded to abstain from their
+luxuriousness, drunkenness, or avarice, would say, "God is merciful, and
+better than his word, and will not damn his creature for ever for so
+small a matter."  But here they were yelping forth blasphemy, and asking
+where is that mercy, which was boasted to be immeasurable.  "Peace, hell-
+dogs," at length said a great lobster of a devil who was hearing them,
+"peace! would you have mercy without doing any thing to obtain it?  Would
+you have the Truth render his word false, for the sake of obtaining the
+company of such filthy dross as you?  Too much mercy has been shown to
+you already.  You were given a Saviour, a comforter, and the apostles,
+with books, sermons, and good examples, and will you never cease to
+deafen us with bawling about mercy, where mercy has never been?"  On
+going out from this fiery gulf, I could hear one puffing and shouting
+terribly, "I knew no better, nothing was ever expended in teaching me my
+duty, and I could never find time to read or pray, because I was obliged
+to earn bread for myself and my poor family."  "Aye," said a little
+crooked devil who stood by, "and did you never find time to tell pleasant
+stories?--no leisure for self vaunting during long winter evenings when I
+was in the chimney corner?  Now, why did you not devote some of that time
+to learning to read and pray?  Who on Sundays used to come with me to the
+tavern, instead of going with the parson to church?  Who devoted many a
+Sunday afternoon to vain prating about worldly things, or to sleep,
+instead of meditation and prayer?  And have ye merely acted according to
+your knowledge and your opportunities?  Peace, sirrah, with your lying
+nonsense!"  "O thou blood of a mad dog!" said the lost man, "it is not
+long since you were whispering something very different into my ear, if
+you had said that the other day, I should scarcely have come here."  "O,"
+said the devil, "we do not mind telling you the bitter truth here, since
+we need not fear that you will go back to tell tales."
+
+Below this cell I saw a kind of vast pit, and in it what looked like an
+infinite quantity of loathsome ordure, burning with a green flame, and on
+drawing near, I was aware, from the horrid howling that proceeded from
+it, that it was composed of men piled one upon another, the horrible
+flames crackling meanwhile through them.  "This hollow," said the angel,
+"is the couch of those who say after committing some great sin, 'pooh!  I
+am not the first, I have plenty of companions;' and thus you see, they
+_do_ get plenty of companions, to verify their words and to increase
+their agony."  Opposite to this horrible place was a large cellar, where
+I could see men twisted, as tow is twisted, or hemp is spun.  "Pray,"
+said I "who are these?"  "Panegyrists," said he, "and out of sheer
+mockery to them, the devils are trying whether it is possible to twist
+them as flexibly as they twisted their own discourse."  A little way
+below that cell, I could but just descry a sort of prison-pool, very
+dark, and in it things which had been men, having faces like the heads of
+wolf-dogs, and up to their jaws in bog, barking blasphemy and lies most
+furiously, as long as they could get their sting above the mud.  At this
+moment a troop of devils happening to pass by, some of these creatures
+contrived to bite in the heels, ten or twelve of the devils who had
+brought them thither.  "Woe and destruction to you hell-dogs!" said one
+of the devils who had been bit, "you shall pay for this;" and forthwith
+commenced beating the bog, till the wretches were drowned in the stinking
+abysses.  "Who," he then added, "have deserved hell better than you, who
+have been hunting up and devising gossip, and buzzing lies about from
+house to house, in order that you might laugh, after having set a whole
+country at loggerheads.  What more could one of ourselves have done?"
+"That," said the angel, "is the bed of the tale-bearers, the slanderers,
+and the whisperers, and of all other envious curs, who are continually
+wounding people behind their backs with their hands or their tongues."
+
+From here we passed to a vast dungeon, by far the filthiest that I had
+seen yet, and the most replete with toads, adders, and stench.  "This,"
+said my guide, "is the place of the men who expect to get to heaven
+because they have no ill intentions, that is, for being neither good nor
+bad."  Next to this pool of ill savour, I beheld a place where a vast
+crowd were sitting, and without any thing visible to torment them,
+groaning more piteously than any that I had hitherto heard in Hell.
+"Mercy upon us," said I, "what causes these people to complain more than
+the rest, when they have neither torture nor devil near them?"  "O," said
+the angel, "the less torment they have without, the more they have
+within.  These are refractory heretics, atheists, antichristians, worldly-
+wise ones, abjurers of the faith, persecutors of the church, and an
+infinity of such like wretches, who are abandoned entirely to the
+punishment of conscience, more tormenting than flame or devil, which
+domineers over them ceaselessly and without restraint.  'I will never
+permit myself any more,' says she, 'to be drowned in ale, nor to be
+blinded by bribes, nor deafened by music and company, nor lulled nor
+confounded by careless listlessness; for now I _will_ be listened to, and
+never shall the clack of the hated truth cease in your ears.'  Longing is
+ever raging within the wretch for the happiness which he has lost; memory
+is ever reproaching him by saying how easy it was to be obtained, and the
+understanding showing him the magnitude of his loss, and the certainty
+that nothing is now to be obtained, but indescribable gnawing for ever
+and ever.  So with these three instruments--namely longing, memory, and
+understanding--conscience is tearing the lost one, in a manner far worse
+than all the devils in Hell could tear him with their claws."
+
+On coming out of this wonderful nook I heard a confused talking, and
+after every word such a ghastly laughter, as if five hundred devils were
+casting their horns with laughing.  On approaching to see the cause of
+such a rarity as laughter in Hell, I discovered that it was only got up
+to incense two honorable gentlemen, newly arrived, who were insisting on
+being shown respect suitable to their gentility.  One of them was a round
+bodied squire, having with him a big roll of parchment--namely his map of
+pedigree--out of which he recited from which of the fifty tribes of North
+Wales he was sprung, and how many justices of the peace, and how many
+sheriffs his house had produced.  "Come, come," said one of the devils,
+"we know the merits of the greater part of your ancestry.  If you had
+been like your father or your great grandfather, we should not have
+ventured to come in contact with you; but you are only the heir of the
+pit of darkness, you dirty hell-dog!  You are scarcely worthy of a
+night's lodging," added he, "and yet we'll grant you some nook, wherein
+to await the dawn;" and with that word the goblin with his pitchfork,
+gave him more than thirty tosses in the fiery air, until he at length
+cast him into an abyss out of sight.  "That may do," said the other, "for
+a squire of half blood, but I hope you will behave better to a knight,
+who has had the honor of serving the king in person, and can name twelve
+earls and fifty baronets belonging to his ancient house."  "If your
+ancestors and your ancient house be all that you can bring in your
+defence, you may go the same road as he," said one of the devils,
+"because we can scarcely remember one ancient house, of which some
+oppressor, murderer, or strong thief did not lay the foundation, and
+which he did not transmit to people as froward as himself, or to lazy
+drones, or drunken swine, to maintain whose extravagant magnificence, the
+vassals and the tenantry must be squeezed to death, whilst every handsome
+colt or pretty cow in the neighbourhood must be parted with for the
+pleasure of the mistress, and every lass or married woman, may consider
+herself fortunate, if she escape the pleasure of the master; the
+freeholders, meanwhile, being either obliged to follow him like fawning
+hounds, rob themselves for his benefit, and sell their patrimonies at his
+pleasure, or be subject to frowns and hatred, and be dragged into every
+disagreeable and vexatious employment during their lives.
+
+"O these little great country folks," continued the devil, "how genteely
+they swear in order to obtain credit with their mistresses, or with the
+shop-keepers; and when they have decked themselves out, O how insolently
+they look upon many of the middling officers of the church and state, and
+how much worse on the common people! as if they were a species of
+reptiles in comparison with themselves.  Woe is me! is not all blood of
+the same color?  Did you not come all into the world by the same way?"
+"But, nevertheless, with your permission," said the knight, "there are
+some who are of much purer birth than others."  "Destruction take you!"
+said the goblin, "there is not one carcass of you all better than the
+rest; you are all polluted with radical sin from Adam.  But, sir," said
+he, "if your blood be better than other blood, less scum will exude from
+you when boiling; however, in order to be sure of its quality, it will be
+as well to search you with fire as well as water."  Thereupon a devil in
+the shape of a chariot of fire received him, and the other in mockery
+lifted him into it, and away he was hurried like lightning.  After a
+short time the angel caused me to look, and I could see the wretched
+knight suffering a terrible steeping in a frightful boiling furnace, in
+company with Cain, Nimrod, Esau, Tarquin, Nero, Caligula, and the others
+who were the founders of genealogies, and were the first to set up arms
+of nobility.
+
+A little farther on, my guide caused me to look through the hollow of a
+rock, and there I beheld a number of coquettes briskly at work, doing and
+repeating all their former follies upon earth.  Some were twisting their
+mouths, some were pulling their front locks with irons, some were
+painting themselves, some patching their faces with sooty ointments, to
+make the yellow look more fair; some quite mad at seeing their visages,
+after all their pains in coloring and variegating, more hideous than
+those of the very devils, were endeavouring to break the mirrors, or were
+tearing off with their nails and their teeth the whole artificial
+blush--the ointments, skin, and flesh coming off all together.  The cries
+which they uttered occasionally were most dismal.  "The curse of curses,"
+would one say, "on my father, for making me marry when a girl, an old
+sapless stump, whose work in raising desires which he could not gratify
+has driven me hither."  "A thousand curses on my parents," would another
+say, "for sending me to a cloister to learn chastity; they would not have
+done worse in sending me to a roundhead to learn generosity, or to a
+quaker to learn manners, than to a papist to learn honor."  "Destruction,"
+said another, "seize my mother for her avaricious pride in preventing my
+obtaining a husband when I wanted one, and thus obliging me to purloin
+the thing I might have honorably come by."  "Hell, and double Hell to the
+lustful wretch of a gentleman, who first began tempting me," would the
+third say; "if he had not, betwixt fair and foul, broken the hedge, I had
+not become a cell open to every body, nor had I come to this cell of
+devils!"  And then they fell to tearing themselves again.
+
+I was glad to quit such a pack of female dogs.  But before I had passed
+on many steps, I was surprised to see another shoal of imprisoned
+wenches, twice more detestable than they.  Some had been changed into
+toads, some into dragons, some into serpents who were swimming and
+hissing, glavering and butting in a fetid, stagnant pool, much larger
+than Llyn Tegid. {84}  "In the name of wonder," said I, "what sort of
+creatures may these be?"  "There are here," said he, "four sorts of
+wenches, all notoriously bad.  First, there are procuresses, with some of
+the principal lasses of their respective bevies about them.  Second,
+gossiping ladies with a swarm of their news-bearing hags.  Third,
+bouncing madams, and a pack of sneaking curs on both sides of them, for
+no man, but for downright fear of them, would ever go nigh them.  Fourth,
+scolds, become a hundred times more horrible than vipers, with their
+poisonous stings going creak, creak to all eternity."
+
+"I had imagined that Lucifer had been a king of too much courtesy, to put
+a gentlewoman of my rank with such little petty she-devils as these,"
+said one, something like a winged serpent, only that she was much more
+fierce.  "O that he would send here, seven hundred of the worst devils in
+Hell in exchange for thee, thou poisonous hell-spawn!" said another ugly
+viper.  "O! many thanks to you," said a gigantic devil who overheard
+them, "we set too much value on our place and merits, to condescend to
+become mates of yours; and though we are willing to admit that you are
+fully as competent to torment people as the best of us, we would,
+nevertheless, not yield up our duties to you."  "And yet," said the angel
+softly, "Lucifer has another reason for keeping such a particular watch
+over these; he knows well, that if they should break out, they would turn
+all Hell topsy-turvy."  From here we went, still going downward, to a
+place where I beheld a frightful den, in which was a horrible clamour,
+the like of which I had never heard, for swearing, cursing, blaspheming,
+snarling, groaning, and crying.  "Who is here?" said I.  "This," said he,
+"is the den of the thieves.  Here is a swarm of game-keepers, lawyers,
+stewards, and the old Judas in the midst of them; they have been
+excessively annoyed at seeing the tailors and weavers above them, in a
+more comfortable chamber."  Almost before I could turn myself, there came
+a horse of a devil, bearing a physician and an apothecary, whom he cast
+down amongst the pedlars and the duffers, for selling bad, rotten ware;
+but they beginning to fume at being placed in such low company, one of
+the devils said, "stay, stay! you _do_ deserve a different place," and
+cast them down amongst the conquerors and the murderers.  There was a
+multitude shut up here, for playing with false dice and concealing cards;
+but before I could observe much, I heard, close by the door, a terrible
+rush and rustle, with a hie! hie! get on! ho! yo! hip!  I turned to see
+what it was; but perceiving nothing but horned goblins, I enquired of my
+guide whether there were cuckolds amongst the devils?  "No," said he,
+"they are in a particular cell.  These are drovers who would fain escape
+to the place of the Sabbath-breakers, and are driven hither against their
+will."  At that word, I looked, and perceived their polls full of the
+horns of sheep and cattle, and those who drove them, casting them down
+beneath the feet of the bloodiest robbers.  "Crouch there," said one;
+"though you feared so much of old the thieves on London road, you were
+yourselves the very worst species of highwaymen, living upon the road and
+plundering, yes, and murdering poor families.  O how many poor creatures
+did you not keep, with their hungry mouths open, in vain expectation of
+the money for the sale of the beasts, which they had intrusted to you;
+and you in the mean time in Ireland, or in the King's Bench laughing at
+them, or upon the road in the midst of your wine and harlots."
+
+On quitting this den of furious heat, I got a sight of a lair, exceeding
+all the rest I had seen in Hell, but one, in frightful stinking
+filthiness, where was a herd of accursed drunken swine, disgorging and
+swallowing, swallowing and disgorging, continually and without rest, the
+most loathsome snivel.  The next pit was the couch of gluttony, where
+Dives and his companions were upon their bellies, eating dirt and fire
+alternately, without any liquid ever.  A cave or two lower there was an
+exceedingly spacious kitchen, in which some were in a state of roasting
+and boiling, others frying and burning in an oven half heated.  "Behold
+the place of the merciless and the unfeeling," said the angel.  I then
+turned a little to the left hand, where there was a cell more light than
+any one which I had yet seen in Hell, and enquired what place it was?
+"The abode of the infernal dragons," replied the angel, "who are hissing
+and snarling, rushing and preying upon one another every minute."  I
+approached; and oh! the look which cannot be described was upon them, the
+whole light was but the living fire in their eyes.  "These are the seed
+of Adam," said my guide, "morose wretches, and furious savage men; but,
+yonder," said he, "are some of the old seed of the great dragon Lucifer;"
+and verily, I could perceive not a whit more amiability in the one sort
+than in the other.  In the next cellar were the misers, in a state of
+horrible agony with their hearts cleaving to coffers of burning treasure,
+the rust whereof was ceaselessly cankering them, because those hearts had
+been ceaselessly bent upon getting money--O the consuming torment, worse
+than frenzy, that was now going on within them, with care and repentance.
+Below this there was a hanging ledge, where there were some apothecaries
+ground to dust, and stuffed into earthen pots amongst album grecum, dung
+of geese and swine, and many an old stinking ointment.
+
+We were now journeying forward, continually descending, along the
+wilderness of Destruction, through innumerable torments, eternal and not
+to be described--from cell to cell, from cellar to cellar, and the last
+always surpassing the others in horror and ghastliness; at last we
+arrived at a vast porch, more cheerless than any thing we had seen
+before.  It was a very spacious porch, and the pathway through it, which
+was frightfully steep, led to a kind of dusky nook of incredible ugliness
+and horror, and there the palace was.  At the upper end of the accursed
+court, among thousands of horrible objects, I could, by means of the
+radiance of my heavenly companion, perceive amidst the dreary darkness
+two feet of enormous magnitude, reaching to the roof of the whole
+infernal firmament.  I enquired of my conductor what this horrible thing
+might be?  "Patience," said he, "you shall obtain a more ample view of
+this monster as you return; but move forward now to see the royal
+palace."
+
+Whilst we were proceeding down the porch of Horror, we heard a noise
+behind us, as of an immense number of people.  Having turned aside to let
+them pass forward, we beheld four distinct bands, and soon discovered
+that the four princesses of the city of Destruction, were bringing their
+subjects as presents to their father.  I recognised the princess Pride,
+not only by her being before the others, but also by her habit of
+stumbling every moment, for want of looking beneath her feet.  She had
+with her a vast many kings, potentates, courtiers, gentlemen, and pompous
+people, many quakers, innumerable females of every rank and degree.
+
+The princess Lucre was next, with her silly, mean figure, bringing along
+with her very many of the money loving race--such as usurers, lawyers,
+extortioners, overseers, game-keepers, harlots, and some ecclesiastics
+also.  Next to these was the amiable princess Pleasure and her daughter
+Folly, conducting their subjects--consisting of players at dice, cards,
+draughts, games of legerdemain, and of poets, musicians, tellers of old
+stories, drunkards, ladies of pleasure, debauches, pretty fellows, with a
+thousand million of all kinds of baubles, to serve now as instruments of
+punishment for the lost fools.  After these three had gone with their
+prisoners to the palace, to receive their judgment--behold Hypocrisy, the
+last of all, conducting a more numerous rout than any of the others, of
+all nations and ages, of town and country, gentle and simple, males and
+females.  At the tail of the two-faced multitudes we advanced till we
+came in sight of the palace, through many dragons and horned sprites, and
+warriors of Hell, the black wardens of the gloomy pandemonium, I all the
+time crouching very carefully within my veil.  We entered the frightful
+and awful edifice, every corner of which abounded with horror.  The walls
+were immense rocks of glowing adamant, the pavement of an insufferably
+sharp flint, the roof of burning steel, meeting like an arch of greenish-
+blue and dusky-red flames, and in its size and its heat, resembling an
+immense vaulted baking oven.
+
+Opposite to the door, on a flaming throne, the Arch-Fiend was seated, his
+principal lost angels on both sides of him, on thrones of fire terrible
+to behold--sitting according to their former rank in the regions of
+light, when they were amiable messengers.  It would only be in vain to
+endeavour to relate how obscene and horrible they were; and the longer I
+looked at any one of them, seven times more hideous he appeared.  In the
+midst, above the head of Lucifer, was a vast fist, holding a very
+frightful bolt.  The princesses, after making their obeisance, returned
+to the world to their charges, without making any stay.  As soon as they
+had departed, a gigantic, wide-mouthed devil, by command of the king,
+uttered a shout louder than a hundred discharges of artillery, as loud if
+possible as the last trumpet, for the purpose of summoning the infernal
+parliament.  And lo! the rabble of Hell instantly filled the palace and
+the porch in every shape, after the image and similitude of the principal
+sin, which each delighted to thrust upon mankind.  After commanding
+silence, Lucifer, with his look directed to the potentates nearest to
+him, began to speak, very graciously, in the following manner:--
+
+"Ye potentates of Hell! princes of the black abodes of Despair!  Though
+by our confederacy we have lost possession of those thrones, from which
+we once shone resplendent through the higher regions; our confederacy
+was, nevertheless, a glorious one, as we aimed at nothing less than the
+whole.  And we have not lost the whole either; for lo! the extensive and
+profound regions, to the extremest wilds of vast Destruction, are yet
+beneath our sway.  It is true we reign in horrible agony; but spirits of
+our eminence prefer ruling in torment to serving in ease.  And besides
+this, we are on the eve of obtaining another world, more than three parts
+of the earth having been beneath my banner for a long time.
+
+"And although the Almighty Enemy, sent his own son to die for the beings
+of that world; yet I, by my baubles, obtain ten souls, for every one
+which he obtains by his crucified son.  And although I have not been able
+to reach him, who sits in the high places and discharges the invincible
+thunderbolts, yet revenge of some kind is sweet.  Let us complete the
+destruction of the remnant of human beings, still in the favour of our
+destroyer.  I remember the time, when you caused them to be burnt by
+multitudes and cities, and even the whole race of the earth, by means of
+the flood, to be swept down to us in the fire.  But at present, though
+your strength and your natural cruelty are not a whit diminished, yet you
+are become in some degree inactive; if that had not been the case, we
+might long since have destroyed the few who are godly, and have caused
+the earth to be united with this our vast empire.  But know, ye black
+ministers of my displeasure, that unless ye be more resolute and more
+diligent, and make the most of the short time which yet remains to you
+for doing evil, ye shall experience the weight of my anger, in torments
+new and strange to the oldest of you.  This I swear by the deepest Hell,
+and the vast, eternal pit of Darkness."  And, thereupon, he frowned, till
+the palace became seven times more gloomy than before.
+
+Moloch now arose, one of the infernal potentates, and after making his
+obeisance to the king, he said, "O emperor of the Air! mighty ruler of
+Darkness! no one ever doubted my propensity to malice and cruelty; the
+sufferings of others have been, and still are, my supreme delight.  It is
+as capital sport to me, to hear the shrieks of infants perishing in the
+fire as of old, when thousands of sucklings were sacrificed to me outside
+of Jerusalem.  When was I ever slack at my work?  Since the return of the
+crucified Enemy to the supreme abodes, I have employed myself in slaying
+and burning his subjects.  I did all I could, to destroy the Christians
+from the face of the earth, during the reigns of ten emperors; and many
+an awful butchery I have made of them in modern times, both in Paris and
+England, to say nothing of other places: but what are we the nearer to
+our object for all this?  The One above has caused the tree to grow,
+after its branches have been severed; and all our efforts, are nothing
+better than showing one's teeth, without the power of biting."  "Pshaw!"
+said Lucifer, "a fig for such heartless legions as ye.  I will no longer
+rely upon you!  I will do the work myself, and the glory thereof I will
+share with no one.  I will go to the earth in my own kingly person, and
+will swallow up the whole; not one man, henceforth, shall be found on the
+earth to adore the Almighty."  Thereupon he gave a furious bound,
+attempting to set off, in a firmament of living fire; but, behold! the
+fist above his head shook the terrific bolt till he trembled in the midst
+of his frenzy, and before he could move far, an invisible hand lugged the
+old fox back by his chain, in spite of his teeth.  Whereupon he became
+seven times more frantic; his eyes were more terrible than lightnings,
+black thick smoke burst from his nostrils, and dark green flames from his
+mouth and entrails: he gnawed his chain in his agony, and hissed forth
+direful blasphemy, and the most frightful curses.
+
+But perceiving how vain it was to seek to break loose, or to struggle
+with the Almighty, he returned to his place and proceeded with his
+discourse somewhat more calmly, but with ten times more malice.  "The
+Omnipotent Thunderer has vanquished me, and he alone could have done so.
+To him I submit.  Against him all my fury is in vain; I will, therefore,
+direct it against nearer and lower objects, and pour it in showers upon
+those who are yet under my banner, and within the reach of my chain.
+Arise, ye ministers of Destruction! rulers of the unquenchable fire! and
+as my wrath and my venom flow forth and my malice boileth out, do ye
+assiduously spread the whole tide amongst the damned, particularly the
+Christians.  Urge the instruments of torture to the utmost--devise as
+many more as you can--double the fire and the boiling, until the very
+cauldrons be overturned; and when they are in the most extreme,
+inexpressible torture, mock, deride, and upbraid them; and when your
+whole stock of ironry and bitterness is expended, hasten to me, and you
+shall obtain more."
+
+There had been for some time a comparative silence in Hell, and the more
+cruel tortures had been suspended; but now the stillness which Lucifer
+had caused was broken, when the ghastly butchers rushed like wild hungry
+bears upon their prisoners.  O then there arose an oh! oh! oh! a wail,
+and universal howling, more loud than the sound of cataracts, or the
+tumult of an earthquake, so that Hell became seven times more frightful.
+I should have swooned if my dear companion had not rendered me
+assistance.  "Take now," said he, "plenty of the water, that you may
+obtain strength to see things yet more horrible than these."  But
+scarcely had these words proceeded from his mouth, when, lo! the
+celestial Justice, who sits above the precipice keeping the gate of Hell,
+came scourging three men with a rod of fiery scorpions.  "Ha! ha!" said
+Lucifer, "here are three right reverend gentlemen, whom Justice himself
+has deigned to conduct to my kingdom."  "Oh! woe is me," said one of the
+three, "who asked him to trouble himself?"  "Be it known," said Justice,
+with a glance which made the devils tremble till they knocked one against
+another, "that it is the will of the Great Creator, that I should myself
+bring these three accursed murderers to their home.  Sirrah," said he to
+one of the devils, "unbolt for me the prison of the murderers, where are
+Cain and Nero, Bonner, Bradshaw, Ignatius, and innumerable others of a
+similar description."  "Alas, alas! we never killed any body," said one
+of the prisoners.  "No, because you did not get time and because you were
+prevented," said Justice.  When the den was opened, there came out such a
+horrible puff of bloody flame, and such a yell as if a thousand dragons
+were giving their last gasp in their death agony.  Into this den Justice
+hurled his prisoners; {93} and on his way back he breathed obliquely,
+such a tempest of fiery whirlwinds upon the Arch-Fiend and all his
+potentates, as he passed by them, that Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan, Moloch,
+Abaddon, Asmodeus, Dagon, Apollyon, Belphegor, Mephistophiles, and all
+the other principal demons were whisked away, and tumbled headlong into a
+kind of gulf, which was opening and closing in the midst of the palace,
+and whose aspect was more horrible, and whose steam was more frightful
+than the aspect and vapour of any gulf which I had previously seen.
+Before I could enquire of the angel as to what it was, he said, "that is
+a hole which leads to another vast world."  "Pray," said I, "what is the
+name of that world?"  "It is called," said he, "Unknown, or extremest
+Hell, the habitation of the devils, and the place to which they are at
+present gone.  The vast wilderness, over part of which you have come, is
+called the country of Despair, a place intended for the lost until the
+Day of Judgment, when it will fall into extremest, bottomless Hell, and
+the two will become one.  When that has happened one of ourselves will
+come and close the gate of the whole region of horror upon the devils and
+the damned, which gate shall never, to all eternity, be opened for them.
+In the meantime, however, permission is given to the devils to come to
+these cooler regions, in order to torment the lost souls.  Yea, they
+often obtain permission to go even into the air, and about the earth, to
+tempt men to the destructive paths, which lead to this dismal prison,
+from which there is no escape."  In the midst of this history, and whilst
+I was in great surprise at seeing the mouth of Unknown, so much
+surpassing in horror the jaws of upper Hell, I could hear a prodigious
+noise of arms, and loud discharges from one side, answered by what seemed
+to be hoarse thunders from the other; the rocks of Death, meanwhile,
+rebellowing the tumult.
+
+"That is the sound of war," said I.  "Is there war then in Hell?"  "There
+is," said the angel; "and it is impossible that there should not be here
+continual war."  Whilst we were moving out, to see what was the matter, I
+beheld the mouth of Unknown opening, and casting up thousands of candles,
+burning with a frightful green flame.  These were Lucifer and his
+potentates, who had contrived to subdue the tempest.  But when the Arch
+Fiend heard the noise of war, he became more pale than Death, and began
+to call and gather together bands of his old experienced soldiers to
+quell the tumult.  At this moment he stumbled against a little puppy of
+an imp, who had escaped between the feet of the combatants.  "What is the
+matter?" said the king.  "Such a matter as will endanger your crown,
+unless you look to yourself," said the imp.  Close behind him came
+another fiendish courier, bawling hoarsely, "you are plotting disquiet
+for others, look now to your own repose.  Yonder are the Turks, the
+Papists, and the bloody-handed Roundheads, in three bands, filling all
+the plains of the dark abodes, committing terrible outrages, and turning
+every thing topsy-turvy."  "How came they out?" said the Arch Fiend,
+looking worse than Demigorgon.  "The Papists," said the messenger, "broke
+out of their Purgatory, I do not know how; and then on account of an old
+grudge, they went to attack the back gate of the Paradise of Mahomet, and
+let all the Turks out of their prison; and afterwards, in the hubbub, the
+seed of Cromwell found some means to break out of their cells."  Then
+Lucifer turned about and looked under his throne, where were all the lost
+kings, and caused Cromwell to be kept close in his kennel; and likewise
+all the emperors of the Turks, under watch and ward.  He then hastened
+with his legions along the black wilds of Darkness, each obtaining light
+from the fire which was incessantly tormenting his body.  Guided by the
+horrid uproar, the fiends advanced courageously towards the combatants;
+then silence was enjoined in the name of the king, and Lucifer enquired,
+"what is the cause of this disturbance in my kingdom?"  "Please, your
+infernal majesty," said Mahomet, "a dispute arose between me and pope
+Leo, as to whether my Koran or the creed of Rome, had rendered you most
+service; and whilst we were at it, a pack of Roundheads broke their
+prison and put in their oar; asserting that their league and covenant,
+deserved more respect at your hands than either.  Thus from disputing we
+have come to blows, and from words to arms.  But at present, as your
+majesty has returned from Unknown, I will refer the matter to yourself."
+"Stay, we shall not let you escape thus!" said pope Julius; and to it
+again they went, tooth and nail, in the most furious manner, till the
+strokes were like an earthquake.  O you should have seen the three armies
+of the damned, tearing one another to pieces over the expanse of the
+burning plains; and each individual body that was rent to pieces,
+becoming joined again serpent fashion.  At last Lucifer caused his old
+soldiers, the champions of Hell, to pull them from each other, and it was
+no easy matter to do so.
+
+When the tumult was hushed, pope Clement began to speak.  "O emperor of
+Horrors! as no throne has ever performed more faithful and universal
+service to the infernal crown, over a great part of the world, for eleven
+hundred years, than the papal chair, I hope you will not suffer any one
+to contend with us for your favour."  "Well," said a Scott of Cromwell's
+army, "though the Koran has done great service for eight hundred years,
+and the superstition of the Pope for a much longer period, yet has the
+covenant done more since it came out, than the other two have ever done.
+Moreover it is notorious that, whilst the votaries of those two are every
+day rapidly diminishing, the followers of the covenant are increasing in
+numbers, over the whole face of the world, and particularly in the island
+of your enemies Britain, whose capital, London, the most noble city under
+the sun, abounds with them."  "Pshaw, pshaw!" said Lucifer, "if I am
+rightly informed, the covenant itself is under a cloud, and you are no
+longer what you were.  And now I have one thing to tell the whole of
+you--which is, that, whatever ye may do in other kingdoms, I will not
+permit you to trouble mine.  Therefore rest peaceably, under penalty of
+worse torments corporeal and spiritual."  At those words many of the
+devils dropped their tails between their hoofs, and all the damned
+sneaked away to their holes, for fear of a change for the worse.
+
+After causing the whole of them to be locked up in their prisons, and the
+careless wardens to be deprived of their office, for having permitted
+them to break out, Lucifer and his counsellors returned to the palace,
+and sat down again, according to their rank, upon their fiery thrones.
+After silence had been called and the place cleared, a huge,
+wry-shouldered devil, placed a back-load of fresh prisoners before the
+bar.  "Is this the road to Paradise," said one, (for they all pretended
+not to know where they were.)  "Or if this be Purgatory," said another,
+"we have with us an authority, under the hand of the Pope, to go straight
+to Paradise without tarrying any where a minute.  Therefore show us the
+way, or, by the Pope's toe, we will cause him to punish you."  Ha! ha!
+ha!--ho! ho! ho! said eight hundred devils; and Lucifer himself, parted
+his jaws half a yard in a kind of bitter laugh.  The others were
+confounded at this; but one said, "well, if we have lost our way in the
+darkness, we would pay any one who would guide us."  "Ha! ha!" said
+Lucifer, "you will pay the last farthing before ye go."  Thereupon each
+fell to searching for his money, but found, to his sorrow, that he had
+left his breeches behind him.  Quoth the Arch Fiend, "you left Paradise
+on the left hand, above the lofty mountains; and, notwithstanding, it was
+so easy to come down here, it is next to impossible to go back, owing to
+the nature of the country, through which the road back lies.  For it is a
+country abounding with mountains of burning iron, immense dismal crags,
+sheets of eternal ice, and roaring, headlong cataracts; a country, in
+short, far too difficult for you to travel, unless indeed you have talons
+of the true devilish length.  Come, come," said he to his myrmidons,
+"take these blockheads to our paradise, to their companions."  At this
+moment I could hear the voice of some people who were coming, swearing
+and cursing in a frightful manner.  "O the Devil! the blood of the Devil!
+a hundred thousand devils! a thousand million devils take me if I will go
+farther!" but, nevertheless, they were cast slap down before the judge.
+"Here you have," said the carrier, "a load of as good fire wood as the
+best in Hell."  "What are they?" said Lucifer.  "Masters of the genteel
+art of cursing and swearing," replied the devil; "men who understand the
+language of Hell quite as well as ourselves."  "You lie in your mouth, by
+the Devil!" said one of them.  "Sirrah! do you take my name in vain?"
+said the Arch Fiend.  "Quick! and hang them by their tongues to the
+burning precipice yonder, and if they call for the Devil, be ready to
+serve them; yea, if they call for a thousand, let them be satisfied."
+When these were gone, lo! a giant of a devil vociferated to have the bar
+cleared, and flung down a man whom he bore.  "What have you brought
+there?" said Lucifer.  "A tavern-keeper," replied the other.  "What,"
+said the king, "_one_ tavern-keeper!  Why they are in the habit of coming
+to the tune of five or six thousand.  Have you not been out, sirrah, for
+ten years, and yet you bring us but one? and he one who has done us much
+more service in the world than yourself, you lazy, stinking dog!"  "You
+are too ready to condemn me, before listening to me," he replied.  "This
+fellow only was given to my charge, and, behold! I am clear of him.  But
+still I have sent to you from his house, many a worthless chap, after
+guzzling down the maintenance of his family; many a dicer and
+card-player; many a genteel swearer; many a pleasant, good kind of belly
+god; and many a careless servant."  "Well," said the Arch Fiend, "though
+the tavern-keeper has merited to be amongst the flatterers below us, take
+him at present to his brethren, in the cell of the liquid murderers; to
+the thousands of apothecaries and poisoners, who are there for making
+drink to kill their customers--boil him well for not having brewed better
+ale."  "With your permission," said the tavern-keeper shivering, "I have
+deserved no such treatment.  Must not every trade live?"  "And could you
+not live," said the Fiend, "without encouraging dissipation and gaming,
+uncleanness, drunkenness, oaths, quarrels, slander and lies? and would
+you, hell-hound, live at present better than ourselves!  Pray what evil
+have we here that you had not at home, the punishment solely excepted?
+And having told you this bitter truth, I will add, that the infernal heat
+and cold were not unknown to you either.
+
+"Did you not see sparks of our fire in the tongues of the swearers and of
+the scolds, when seeking to get their husbands home?  Was there not
+plenty of the unquenchable fire in the mouth of the drunkard, and in the
+eyes of the brawler?  And could you not perceive something of the
+infernal cold in the lovingness of the spendthrift, and in your own
+civility to your customers, whilst any thing remained with them--in the
+drollery of the buffoons, in the praise of the envious and the backbiter,
+in the promises of the wanton, or in the shanks of the good companions
+freezing beneath your tables?  Art thou unacquainted with Hell, when the
+house thou didst keep was Hell?  Go, hell-dog, to thy punishment."
+
+At this moment appeared ten devils with their burdens, which they cast
+upon the fiery floor, puffing terribly.  "What have you there?" said
+Lucifer.  "We have brought," said one of the fiendish carriers, "five
+things which were called kings the day before yesterday."  (I looked
+attentively and beheld in one of them old Louis of France.)  "Fling them
+here," said the king; whereupon they were flung to the other crowned
+heads, under the feet of Lucifer.
+
+It was not long before I heard the sound of a brazen trumpet, and a
+crying of room! room! room!  After waiting a little time, what should be
+coming but a drove of sessions folk, the devils carrying six lumps of
+justices and a thousand of their fry--consisting of lawyers, attornies,
+clerks, recorders, bailiffs, catchpoles, and pettifoggers of the courts.
+I was surprised that none of them attempted to cross-question; but they
+perceived that the matter was gone against them too far, and so, not one
+of these learned disputers opened his mouth; only a pettifogger of the
+courts said, that he would lay a plaint of false imprisonment against
+Lucifer.  "You shall now have cause enough to complain," said the Fiend,
+"and yet never have an opportunity of seeing a court with your eyes."
+Then, putting on his red cap, Lucifer, with an arrogant, insufferable
+look, said, "take the justices to the dungeon of Pontius Pilate and Mr.
+Bradshaw, who condemned king Charles.  Parch the lawyers in company with
+the murderers of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, {100} and their double-tongued
+brethren, who dispute with one another, for no other purpose than to be
+the ruin of any one who comes betwixt them.  Let them greet that
+provident lawyer--for they will find him here--who offered on his death
+bed a thousand pounds for a clear conscience.  Let them greet him, and
+ask, whether he is now willing to give any thing more.  Roast them with
+their own parchment and papers; hang the pettifoggers above them, with
+their nostrils downwards, in the roasting chimneys, to receive the smoke,
+and to see whether they can get their belly-full of law.  As for the
+recorders, let them be cast among the forestallers, who detain the corn
+or buy it up and mix it, and then sell the unsound for double the price
+of the pure corn; just as the former demand double the fees for _wrong_,
+which were formerly given for _right_.  As for the catchpoles, leave them
+at liberty to hunt vermin; or send them to the world, among the dingles
+and brakes, to seize the debtors of the infernal crown--for what devil
+among you will do the work better than they?"  At this moment twenty
+devils with packs on their shoulders, like Scotchmen, mounted before the
+throne of Despair, and what had they got, on enquiry, but gipsies.  "Ho!"
+said Lucifer, "how did ye know the fortunes of others so well, without
+knowing that your own fortune was leading ye to this prison."  But the
+gipsies said not a word in reply, being confounded at beholding faces
+here more ugly than their own.  "Hurl them into our deepest dungeon,"
+said Lucifer, to the fiends, "and don't starve them; we have here neither
+cats nor rush-lights to give them, but let them have a toad between them,
+every ten thousand years, provided they are quiet, and do not deafen us
+with their gibberish and clibberty clabber."  Next to these there came, I
+should imagine, about thirty husbandmen.  Every one was surprised to see
+so many of them, people of their honest calling seldom coming to Hell;
+but they were not from the same neighbourhood, nor for the same offences.
+Some were for raising the markets; many for refusing to pay tithes, and
+cheating the minister of his rights; others for leaving their work, to
+follow gentry a hunting, and breaking their legs in endeavouring to leap
+with them; some for working on Sundays; some for carrying their sheep and
+cattle, in their heads to church, instead of musing on the Word; others
+for roguish bargains.  When Lucifer began to question them, oh! they were
+all as pure as gold; none was aware of having committed any thing which
+deserved such a lot.  You will not believe what a crafty excuse every one
+had to conceal his fault, notwithstanding he was in Hell on account of
+it, and this was only done out of malice, to thwart Lucifer and to
+endeavour to make the righteous Judge, who had damned them appear unjust.
+But you would have been yet more surprised at the dexterity with which
+the Arch Fiend laid bare their crimes, and answered their vain excuses
+home.  But when these were receiving the last infernal sentence, there
+came forty scholars before the court, mounted on capering devils, more
+ugly, if possible, than Lucifer himself.  And when the scholars heard the
+husbandmen arguing, they began to excuse themselves the more confidently.
+But, oh! how ready the old Serpent was at answering them too,
+notwithstanding their craft, and their learning.
+
+But as it was my fortune to hear similar disputations at another
+tribunal, I will there give the history of the whole, in one mass; and
+will at present relate to you what I next saw.  Scarcely had Lucifer
+uttered judgment upon these people, and sent them, for the cool
+impertinence of their reasons, to the vast sheet, in the country of the
+eternal ice, the teeth of the wretches beginning to chatter before they
+saw their prison, when Hell began once more, to resound awfully with
+terrible blows, harsh blustering thunders, and every sound of war.  I
+could see Lucifer turn black, and become like a statue; at this moment,
+in rushed a little crooked, horned devil, panting and shivering.  "What
+is the matter?" said Lucifer.  "The most perilous to you of all matters
+since Hell has been Hell," said the imp; "all the extremes of the kingdom
+of Darkness, have broken out against you, and against one another;
+particularly those who had any old field in common.  They are now at it,
+tooth and nail, so that it is impossible to tear them from each other.
+
+"The soldiers are at loggerheads with the physicians, for carrying on
+their trade of slaughter; there is a swarm of usurers at loggerheads with
+the lawyers, for seeking to spoil their trade; the jurymen and the
+duffers are pummelling the gentlemen, for swearing and cursing without
+necessity; whereas, swearing and cursing formed part of their trade; the
+harlots, and their associates, and millions of other old friends and
+acquaintances, have fallen out, and are all in shatters.
+
+"But worse than all, is the contest between the old misers and their own
+children, for dissipating their wealth and their money.  'Our property,'
+say the pigtails, 'cost us much pain, whilst we were upon the earth, and
+is causing us immense suffering _here_ for ever, yet ye have flung it all
+away at ducks and drakes.'  And the children, on the other hand, are
+cursing and tearing the old skin-flints, most furiously, charging their
+fathers with being the authors of their misery, by leaving them twenty
+times _too much_, to distract them with pride and dissipation; whereas, a
+_little_, with a blessing, might have made them happy in both their
+states of existence."  "Well," said Lucifer, "enough! enough! we have
+more need of arms than words.  Sirrah, this hubbub is owing to some great
+neglect; go back, and pry into every watch, and discover who has been
+neglectful; and what dangerous characters have been permitted to escape,
+for there are some evils abroad, that are not known."  Away he went, at
+the word, and in the meanwhile, Lucifer and his potentates arose in
+terror, and exceeding consternation, and caused the boldest bands of the
+black angels to be assembled.  When these were marshalled, he put himself
+at the head of his own peculiar band, and marched forth to quell the
+insurrection, whilst the potentates went other ways with their legions.
+
+Before the royal troop had gone any great distance, gleaming like the
+lightning of the black abodes, (and we behind them,) behold the hubbub
+advanced to meet them.  "Silence, in the name of the king," said a
+fiendish herald.  There was no hearing; it was easier to tear the old
+crocodile from his prey than one of these.
+
+But when the old tried soldiers of Lucifer broke into the midst of them,
+the buzzing, the butting, and the blows began to slacken.  "Silence, in
+the name of Lucifer," said the hoarse cryer again.  "What is the matter?"
+said the king; "and who are these?"  "There is nothing particularly the
+matter," was the answer; "but the drovers, happening in the general
+commotion to come in contact with the cuckolds, they went mutually to
+butting, to try whose horns were hardest; and this butting might have
+gone on for ever, if your horned champions had not interfered."  "Well,"
+said Lucifer, "since you are all so ready with your arms, turn along with
+me to quell other rioters."  But when it was buzzed about among the other
+rebels, that Lucifer was coming with three horned legions against them,
+each slunk away to his lair.
+
+Thus Lucifer advanced without opposition, along the wildernesses of
+Destruction, endeavouring to ascertain what was the commencement of the
+disturbance, but could obtain no information.  After a little time,
+however, one of the spies of the king returned, quite out of breath.  "O
+most noble Lucifer!" said he, "prince Moloch has quieted part of the
+North and has scattered thousands over the sheets of ice; but three or
+four terrible evils are still out on the wind."  "Who are they?" said
+Lucifer.  "_Slanderer_, and _Meddler_, and _Litigious Pettifogger_," said
+he, "have broken their prisons and are at liberty."  "Then it would be no
+wonder," said the Arch Fiend, "if there should be yet more disturbance."
+
+At this moment there came another, who had been on the look-out towards
+the South, with the information that the evil had begun to break out
+there; but that three had been taken, who had previously turned every
+thing topsy-turvy in the West, and these three were _Madam Bouncer_,
+_Contriver_, and_ Coxcomb_.  "Well," said Satan, who was standing next
+but one to Lucifer, "since I tempted Adam from his garden, I have never
+yet seen from his seed, so many evils out upon one piece of business.
+
+"Bouncer, Coxcomb, and Contriver on the one side," he added, "and on the
+other Slanderer, Pettifogger, and Meddler are a compound, enough to make
+a thousand devils sweat their bowels out."  "It is no wonder," said
+Lucifer, "that they are so detested by every body on earth, when they are
+able to cause us so much trouble here."  A little farther on, a great
+bouncing lady struck against the king, as she was moving backwards.  "Ho!
+my aunt of the breeches," said a hoarse devil, "good night to you."  "Yes,
+your aunt, indeed! on what side pray?" said she, very wrathful, because
+she was not called madam.
+
+"A pretty king are you, sir Lucifer," said she, "to keep such unmannerly
+blockheads; it is a sin that so large a kingdom should be under one so
+incompetent to govern them.  O that I were made deputy over it!"  At this
+moment behold the _Coxcomb_, nodding his head in the dark, "Your servant,
+sir," he would say to one over his shoulder.--"I hope you are quite
+well," said he to another.--"Is there any service which I can render
+you," to a third, smiling conceitedly.--"Your beauty ravishes my heart,"
+said he to the bouncing wench.  "Oh! oh! away with this hell-dog," said
+she; whilst every one cried, "away with this new tormentor!  Hell upon
+Hell is he!"  "Bind him and her head to tail," said Lucifer.
+
+After a little time, behold _Courts Comprised_ held betwixt two devils.
+"O ho! angel of patience," said Lucifer, "are you come?  Hold him fast on
+your peril," said he to the satellites.  Before we had advanced far,
+there came the _Contriver_ and the _Slanderer_ bound betwixt forty
+devils, and whispering in each others ears.  "O most mighty Lucifer!"
+said the _Contriver_, "I am exceedingly grieved to see so much
+disturbance in your dominions, but I will teach you a way to prevent such
+in future, if you will but grant me a hearing.  You only need, under
+pretence of a general parliament, to summon all the damned to the glowing
+pandemonium, and then cause the devils to cast them headlong into the
+throat of _Unknown_, and the gulf to be closed over them, and then, I
+warrant you, they will give you no more trouble."  "See," said Lucifer,
+frowning very horribly on the _Contriver_, "the universal Meddler is
+still behind."  On returning again to the porch of the infernal palace,
+who should come with the fairest face imaginable to meet the king but the
+_Meddler_.  "O my liege," said he, "I have a word for you."  "Perhaps I
+have one or two for you," said the Fiend.  "I have been," continued the
+Meddler, "over half _Destruction_, to observe how your affairs are
+standing.  You have many officers in the East doing nothing at all; but
+sitting still instead of looking to the torments of their prisoners, or
+keeping guard over them, and this has been the cause of all this great
+disturbance.  Besides," said he, "many of your devils, and your damned
+too, whom you dispatched to the world to tempt folks, are not returned,
+though their time is out; and others have arrived in a sculking manner,
+and not given an account of their errands."
+
+Then Lucifer caused the herald to proclaim another parliament; and lo!
+before you could turn your hand, all the potentates and satellites were
+met together, to hold the infernal sessions again.  The first thing which
+was done was to change the officers, and to cause a place to be made
+about the throat of Unknown, for the reception of the Coxcomb, the
+bouncing lady, and the rest; the two first were tied nose to nose, and
+the other rioters tail to tail.  Then a law was promulgated, that whoever
+should henceforth neglect his duty, whether imp or lost man, should be
+cast there among them until the day of judgment.  At these words you
+might see all the goblins--yea, Lucifer himself--tremble and look
+agitated.  The next thing was to call some devils and some damned to
+reckoning, who had been sent to the world to hunt up recruits: the devils
+gave a very good account of themselves; but some of the damned were lame
+in their reckoning, and were sent to the hot school, where they were
+scourged with twisted fiery serpents, for not learning their lesson
+better.
+
+"Hear my complaint," said a little informing devil.  "Here is a pretty
+woman when trimmed out, who was sent up to the world, to hunt subjects
+for you by means of their hearts; and to whom did she offer herself, but
+to a hard-working labourer coming home late from his occupation, who
+instead of enjoying himself with her, went upon his knees to pray against
+the Devil and his angels: at another time, she went to a sick man."  "Ha!"
+said Lucifer, "cast her to that lost useless wench, who loved of yore
+Einion ab Gwalehmai, {108} of Anglesey."  "Stay," said the fair one,
+"this is but the first offence.  It is not yet above a year, since the
+day when I breathed my last, and was damned to your accursed government."
+"She speaks true, O king of Torments!  It is not yet a year by three
+weeks," said the devil who had brought her there.  "Therefore," said she,
+"how would you have me so well versed as the damned, who have been here
+for three hundred, or out abroad depredating for five hundred years.  If
+you desire from me better service, let me go into the world another time
+or two unchastised; and if I do not bring you twenty harlot-mongers, for
+every year that I am out, inflict upon me whatever punishment you
+please."  But the verdict went against her, and she was condemned to
+punishment for a hundred long years, that she might remember better the
+second time.
+
+At this moment, behold another devil pushing a fellow forward.  "Here you
+have," said he, "a pretty dog of a messenger.  As he was prowling about
+his old neighbourhood, above stairs, the other night, he saw a thief
+going to steal a stallion, and could not so much as help him to catch the
+horse without showing himself, frightening the thief so by his horrible
+appearance, that he took warning and became an honest man from that
+time."  "With the permission of the court," said the fellow, "if the
+thief had got the gift from _above_ to see me, could I help it?  But at
+worst this is a single peccadillo," said he; "it is not above a hundred
+years since the day which terminated my mortal career, yet how many of my
+friends and neighbours have I not tempted hither after me, during that
+time?  May I be in the deepest pit, if I have not as much inclination for
+the trade as the best of you; but now and then the craftiest will err."
+"Here," said Lucifer, "cast him to the school of the fairies, who are yet
+under the rod for their mischievous conduct of old, in strangling some
+people and threatening others; startling by such behaviour their
+neighbours from their heedlessness, upon whom the terror which they
+caused, had probably more effect than twenty sermons would have had."
+
+Next appeared four catchpoles, an informer, and fifteen damned, hauling
+two _devils_ forward.  "See," said the informer, "lest you should lay the
+blame of all that is mismanaged on the seed of Adam, we bring you two of
+your old angels, who have spent their time above, quite as badly as the
+two preceding.  Here is a fellow who has been making as great a fool of
+himself, as the Devil did at Shrewsbury the other day; who, in the midst
+of the interlude of Doctor Faustus, whilst some, according to the custom
+on such occasions, were committing adultery with their eyes, some with
+their hands, others making assignations for the same purpose, and doing
+various other things profitable to your kingdom, made his appearance to
+play his own part; by which blunder, he drove every one from taking his
+pleasure to praying.  In like manner did this numskull act; for, whilst
+journeying over the world, on hearing two wenches talking of walking
+round the church at night, in order to see their sweethearts, he must
+needs show himself in the figure he wears at home, to the two fools, who
+on recovering their senses, which at first they lost from fright,
+solemnly abjured all frivolity for ever.  There's a ninny-hammer for you!
+Instead of appearing like a devil, he ought to have divided himself and
+assumed the forms of two dirty, unlicked boors; for the girls would have
+imagined themselves bound to accept them, and then the filthy goblin
+might have lived as husband with the two female parties, without
+troubling a clergyman to perform the marriage.
+
+"And here is another," said he, "who went the last dark night, to visit
+two young maidens in Wales, who were _turning the shift_; and instead of
+enticing the girls to wantonness in the figure of a handsome youth, he
+must needs go to one with a _hearse_ to sober her; and to the other with
+the _sound of war_ in an infernal whirlwind, to drive her farther from
+her senses than she was before, and there was no need for that.  But this
+is not the whole, for after going into the last girl, he cast her down
+and tormented her furiously, so that her parents in horror, sent for some
+of our enemies the clergy, to pray over her and cast him out, which they
+did.  Now, if he had been wise, instead of kicking up such a hubbub, he
+would have tempted her quietly to despair, and to make away with herself.
+On another time, wishing to gain some of the conventiclers, he went to
+preach to them, and revealed the secrets of your kingdom; thus, instead
+of hindering, assisting their salvation."  At the word _salvation_, I
+could see some emitting living fire for madness.  "Capital stories both,
+I won't deny," said the goblin; "but I hope that Lucifer will not permit
+one of Adam's race of dirt, to put himself on an equality with me who am
+an angel, of a species and descent far superior."  "Ha!" said Lucifer,
+"he may be sure of his punishment.  But, sirrah, answer to these
+accusations speedily and clearly, or by hopeless Destruction I will--"  "I
+have brought hither," said the goblin, "many a soul since Satan was in
+the garden of Eden, and ought to know my trade better than this novice of
+an informer."  "Blood of an infernal fire-brand!" said Lucifer, "did I
+not command you to answer speedily and clearly."  "Do but hear me," said
+the sprite.  "As to preaching, by your own command I have been a hundred
+times _preaching_, and have forbidden people to follow several of the
+roads which lead to your territories, and yet silently, in the same
+breath, have led them hither safe enough, by some other vain paths; as I
+have done by preaching lately in Germany, and in one of the Faroe isles,
+and various other places.
+
+"Thus through my preaching," he continued, "have come many of the
+_superstitions_ of the papists, and the _old fables_ first to the world,
+and the whole under the shape of some goodness.  For who ever swallows
+the hook without some bait? who ever would believe a story if there were
+not some measure of _truth_ mingled with the falsehood; or some semblance
+of _good_ to shade the _evil_?  Thus if I find an opportunity in
+preaching, to push in amongst a hundred correct and salutary counsels,
+one of my own, with this one I will do you, either through
+_contentiousness_ or _superstition_, more advantage than all the rest of
+my counsels will do you harm."  "Well," said Lucifer, "since you are of
+such utility in your pulpit, I order you for seven years, to take up your
+abode in the mouth of one of the barn-preachers, who will be sure to
+utter the first thing which comes to his tongue's end.  Then you will
+find an opportunity to put in a word now and then, to your own purpose."
+
+There were still many more devils and damned who were twisting through
+one another like lightning, around the throne of Terrors, to give an
+account of what they had done, and again to receive commissions.  But
+suddenly and unexpectedly, an order was given to all the messengers and
+the prisoners, to go out of the palace, every one to his hole, and to
+leave the king and his chief counsellors there alone.  "Had we not best
+depart," said I to my companion, "lest they should find us?"  "You need
+not fear," said the angel "no unclean spirit will ever see through this
+veil."  Thus we continued there invisible, to see what was the matter.
+Then Lucifer began to speak graciously to his counsellors, in this
+manner:--"O ye, the chief spiritual evils!--ye, who for subtlety are
+unequalled in Unknown, I request you in my need, to exert to the
+uttermost your malicious wiles.  No one here is unaware, that Britain and
+the surrounding isles, constitute the kingdom most dangerous to my
+authority, and most abounding with my enemies; and what is a hundred
+times worse, there is at present there a queen, who does not offer to
+turn once hitherward, either by the road of Rome on the one hand, or the
+road of Geneva on the other.  Notwithstanding, all the service which the
+Pope has rendered us there for a long time, and Oliver for some years
+past, how far are we from our object? what shall we do now?  I am afraid
+that we shall lose there our ancient possession, and our market entirely,
+if we do not pave immediately some new way for its inhabitants to walk
+in, for they know all the old roads which lead hither too well.  And,
+since yonder invincible fist shortens my chain, and prevents me from
+going myself to the earth, counsel me, I pray you, as to whom I shall
+make my deputy, to oppose yonder detestable queen, who is the deputy of
+our enemy."  "O mighty emperor of Darkness!" said Cerberus, the devil of
+Tobacco, "make a deputy of me, from whom the crown of Britain derives the
+third part of its revenue.  I will go and will send to you a hundred
+thousand of the souls of your enemies, through the hollow of a pipe."
+"Well, well," said Lucifer, "you have done me excellent service, by
+causing the proprietors of tobacco in India to be slaughtered, and those
+who take it to die of diseases, and sending many to vend it idly from
+house to house, and making others to steal in order to obtain it, and
+thousands to love it so far, that they cannot be a day without it in
+their right senses.
+
+"Therefore go and do thy best; but, I tell thee, that thou art little
+better than nothing in the present exigency."  Thereupon Cerberus sat
+down, and uprose Mammon, devil of Money, and with a morose sinister look
+said:--"I showed men the first mine from which they got money, and
+therefore, I am always extolled and worshipped more than God; men undergo
+for me trouble and danger, and place their whole mind, their delight, and
+their trust upon me: there is no one easy, because he has not obtained
+somewhat more of my favour, and the more they obtain the farther are they
+ever from rest, until at length by seeking _easy circumstances_, they
+arrive at the country of Eternal Torments.  How many a crafty old miser
+have I not deluded hither, along paths more difficult than those which
+lead to the kingdom of Happiness?  At fair or market, sessions or
+elections, or any other assemblage of people, who has more subjects? who
+has more power and authority than I?  Cursing, swearing, fighting,
+litigating, plotting, deceiving, striking, hoarding, murdering and
+robbing, sabbath breaking and uncharitableness, all proceed from me: and
+there is no other black mark, which stamps men as belonging to the fold
+of Lucifer, which I have not a hand in giving, on which account I am
+called 'the root of all evil.'  Therefore if it seem good to your
+majesty, I will go."  And having said that he sat down.
+
+Then arose Apollyon.  "I do not know," said he, "any thing that will
+bring the Britons hither, more certainly than what brought
+yourselves--that is _Pride_: if she ever plant her pole within them and
+inflate them, there is no reason to fear that they will stoop to lift the
+cross, or go through the narrow gate.  I will go," said he, "with my
+daughter Pride, and will cause the Welsh, by gazing on the magnificence
+of the English, and the English, by imitating the frivolities of the
+French, to tumble into this place before they know where they are."
+
+Next arose Asmodeus, devil of Wantonness.  "You cannot but be aware,"
+said he, "O most mighty sovereign of the Abyss! and you, ye princes of
+the country of Despair! how I have crammed the nooks of Hell through
+debauchery and lasciviousness.  What need have I to speak of the time,
+when I kindled such a flame of lust in the whole world, that it was
+necessary to send the flood, to clear the earth of its inhabitants, and
+to sweep them to us in the unquenchable fire; or of Sodom and Gomorrah,
+fair and pleasant cities, whose people I burnt with wantonness, till
+their infernal lusts brought down a fiery shower, which drove them hither
+alive to burn to all eternity; or of the vast army of the Assyrians,
+which was slain all in one night on account of me?  Sarah I disappointed
+of seven husbands; Solomon, the wisest of men, and many thousand other
+kings I blinded by means of women.  Therefore," said he, "suffer me to go
+with my _sweet sin_, and I will kindle in Britain the sparks of Hell so
+universally, that it shall become one with this place of unextinguishable
+flame; for there is not much chance, that any one will return from
+following me, to lay hold of the paths of Life."  And thereupon he sat
+down.
+
+Then arose Belphegor, prince of _Sloth and Idleness_.  "I am," said he,
+"the great prince of Listlessness and Laziness; great is my power on
+myriads of men of all ages and degrees.  I am the still pool, where 'the
+root of all evil' is generated; where coagulate the dregs of all
+destructive corruption and filthiness.  What would you be worth,
+Asmodeus; or you, ye other master spirits of evil, without me who keep
+the window open for you, without any watch, so that you may go into man
+by his eyes, by his ears, by his mouth, and by every other orifice which
+he has, whensoever you please.  I will go, and will roll to you all the
+inhabitants of Britain over the precipice in their sleep."
+
+Then arose Satan, the devil of _Deceit_, who sat next to Lucifer on his
+left hand, and after turning a frightful visage on the king,--"It is
+unnecessary for me," he said, "to declare my deeds to you, O lost
+archangel! or to you, black princes of Destruction! because it was I who
+struck the first blow which man ever received; and a mighty blow it was,
+causing him to remain _mortal_, from the beginning of the world to its
+end.  Do you imagine that I, who despoiled the whole world, cannot at
+present give counsel which will serve for a paltry islet?  And cannot I,
+who cheated _Eve_ in _Paradise_, vanquish _Anne_ in _Britain_?  If no
+natural craft will avail, and continued experience for more than five
+thousand years, my counsel to you is, to dress up your daughter
+_Hypocrisy_, to deceive Britain and its queen; you have not a daughter in
+the world, so useful to you as she; she has more extensive authority and
+more numerous subjects, than all your other daughters.  Was it not
+through _her_ that I cheated the first woman?  It was: and ever from that
+time she has remained and increased exceedingly upon the earth.  At
+present indeed, the whole vast world is but one _Hypocrisy_; and if it
+were not for the skill of Hypocrisy, how should any one of us do business
+in any corner of the world?  Because if people were to see _sin_ in its
+own _color_, and under its own _name_, who would ever come in contact
+with it?  The world would no more do so, than it would embrace the Devil
+in his infernal shape and garb.  If Hypocrisy were not able to disguise
+her _name_, and the _nature_ of every _evil_, under the similitude of
+some _good_, and were not able to give some evil nickname to all
+_goodness_, no one would approach, and no one would covet evil at all.
+Traverse the whole city of Destruction, and you will see her in every
+corner.  Go to the street of _Pride_, and enquire for an _arrogant man_,
+or for a pennyworth of _coquetry_, mixed up by Pride; 'woe's me,' says
+Hypocrisy, 'there is no such thing here; nothing at all I assure you in
+the whole street but grandeur.'  Or go to the street of _Lucre_, and
+enquire for the house of the _Miser_; fie, there is no such person in it:
+or for the house of the _murderer_ amongst the physicians: or the house
+of the _arrant thief_ amongst the drovers, and see how you would fare;
+you would sooner get into prison for enquiring, than get any body to
+confess his name.  Yes, Hypocrisy creeps between man and his own heart,
+and conceals every _iniquity_ so craftily, under the name and similitude
+of some virtue, that she has made every body almost unable to recognise
+himself.  _Avarice_ she will call _economy_.  In her language
+_dissipation_ is _innocent diversion_; _pride_ is _gentility_; a
+_perverse_ _man _is a _fine manly fellow_; _drunkenness_ is _good
+fellowship_, and _adultery_ is only the _heat of youth_.  On the other
+hand, if _she_ and her disciples are to be believed, the _devout man_ is
+only a _hypocrite_ or a _blockhead_; the _gentle_ but a _sneaking dog_;
+the _sober_ a mere _hunks_, and so on.  Send her, therefore," he
+continued, "thither, in her full array, I will warrant that she will
+deceive every body, and that she will blind the counsellors and the
+warriors, and all the officers, secular and ecclesiastical, and will draw
+them hither in multitudes presently, by means of her _mask of changeable
+hue_."  And thereupon he sat down.
+
+Then Beelzebub arose, the devil of _Inconsiderateness_, and with a rough,
+bellowing voice,--"I am," said he, "the mighty prince of _Bewilderment_;
+to me it pertains to prevent man from reflecting upon and considering his
+condition.  I am the principal of those wicked, infernal _flies_ which
+craze mankind, by keeping them ever in a kind of continual buzz, about
+their possessions or their pleasures, without ever leaving them with my
+consent, a moment's respite, to think about their courses or their end.
+It ill becomes one of you, to attempt to put himself on an equality with
+me, for feats useful to the kingdom of Darkness.  For what is Tobacco but
+one of my meanest instruments, to carry bewilderment into the brain?  And
+what is the kingdom of _Mammon_, but a branch of my vast domain?  Yea, if
+I were to recite the ties which I have on the subjects of _Mammon_ and
+_Pride_--yea, and on the subjects of _Asmodeus_, _Belphegor_, and
+_Hypocrisy_--no man would tarry a minute longer under the rule of one of
+them.  Therefore," said he, "I am the one to do the work, and let none of
+you boast again about his merits."  Then Lucifer the Great arose himself
+from his burning throne, and with a would-be complaisant but nevertheless
+frightful look on both sides,--"Ye master-spirits of eternal Night! ye
+supreme possessors of the cunning of Despair!" he said, "though the vast
+black gulf and the wilds of Destruction, are indebted to no one for
+inhabitants, more than to my own royal majesty since I of yore, failing
+to drag the Omnipotent from his possession, drew millions of you, my
+swarthy angels to this place of horrors, and have since drawn millions of
+men to you; nevertheless, it cannot be denied, that ye too have all done
+your part, to sustain this vast infernal empire."
+
+Then Lucifer began to answer them one by one.  "For one of late origin, I
+will not deny, O _Cerberus_, that thou hast brought to us many a booty
+from the island of our enemies, by means of tobacco, a weed the cause of
+much deceit; for how much deceit is practiced in carrying it about, in
+mixing it, and in weighing it: a weed which entices some people to bib
+ale; others to curse, swear, and to flatter in order to obtain it, and
+others to tell lies in denying that they use it: a weed productive of
+maladies in various bodies, the excess of which is injurious to every
+man's body, without speaking of his _soul_: a weed, moreover, by which we
+get multitudes of the poor, whom we should never get, did they not set
+their love on tobacco, and allow it to master them, and pull the bread
+from the mouths of their children.
+
+"And as for you, my brother _Mammon_, your power is so universal, and
+likewise so manifest upon the earth, that it has become a proverb that
+'_any thing can be got for money_.'  And undoubtedly," said he, turning
+to Apollyon, "my beloved daughter _Pride_ is of great utility to us; for
+what is more capable of injuring a man in his condition, his body, and
+his soul, than that _proud_, _haughty idea_, which will make him squander
+a _hundred pounds_ for display, rather than stoop to give a _crown_ for
+peace.  _She_ keeps people so stiff-necked, with their sight so intent on
+lofty things, that it is a pleasure to see them, by staring and reaching
+into the air, falling plump into the abysses of Hell.  As for you,
+_Asmodeus_, we all remember your great services of yore; no one keeps his
+prisoners more firmly under the lock, and no one meets with less rebuke
+than yourself--the whole rebuke, indeed, consisting in a little laughing,
+at what is called wanton tricks.  Yes, Asmodeus, I admit that your power
+is very great; though I cannot help reminding you," he added, with a
+jocular though truly infernal grin, "that you were all but starved, above
+there, during the last dear years.  As for you, my son _Belphegor_, lousy
+prince of Sloth, nobody has afforded us more pleasure than yourself, so
+very great is your authority amongst gentle and simple, even down to the
+beggar.  Nevertheless, if it were not for the skill of my daughter
+_Hypocrisy_, in coloring and disguising, who would ever swallow one of
+your hooks?  And after all, if it were not for the diligent firmness of
+my brother _Beelzebub_, in keeping men in _inconsiderate bewilderment_, I
+question whether all of you united would be worth a straw.  Now," said
+he, "let us review the whole.
+
+"What would you be worth, Cerberus, with your excessive sucking, if it
+were not for the assistance of Mammon?  What merchant would ever fetch
+your leaves from India, through so many perils, if it were not for the
+sake of Mammon?  And if it were not for _his_ sake, what king would
+receive it, in Britain especially?  And who, but for the sake of Mammon,
+would carry it to every corner of the kingdom?  But, notwithstanding
+this, what wouldst thou be worth, Mammon, without Pride to squander thee
+upon fine houses, magnificent garments, needless litigations, music,
+horses and costly appurtenances, various dishes, beer and ale in a flood,
+far above the _means_ and _rank_ of the possessor; for if money were used
+within the limits of _necessity_ and _propriety_, of what advantage would
+Mammon be to us?  Thus you would be worth nothing without _Pride_; and
+little would _Pride_ be worth without _Wantonness_, because bastards are
+the most numerous and the fiercest subjects, which my daughter _Pride_
+possesses in the world.
+
+"You too, Asmodeus, prince of _Wantonness_, what would you be worth, if
+it were not for _Sloth and Idleness_; where but for them would you get a
+night's lodging?  You could hardly expect it from a labourer or toiling
+student.  And you, Belphegor of Idleness, who would welcome you a minute,
+attended as you would be with shame and reproach, if it were not for
+Hypocrisy, who conceals your ugliness under the name of _internal
+sickness_, or of a _well meaning person_, or under the shape of
+_despising riches_ and the like.
+
+"And she too, my dear daughter _Hypocrisy_, what is she worth, or what
+would she ever be worth, skilful and resolute sempstress as she is, if it
+were not for your help, my eldest brother _Beelzebub_, mighty prince of
+_Inconsiderateness_.  If he would leave people leisure and respite, to
+seriously consider the nature of things and their difference, how often
+would they spy holes in the folds of the gold-cloth robe of _Hypocrisy_,
+and perceive the hooks through the bait?  What man, did not
+Inconsiderateness deprive him of his senses, would chase baubles and
+pleasures--evanescent, surfeiting, foolish and disgraceful--and prefer
+them to _peace of conscience_, and glorious _everlasting happiness_?  And
+who would hesitate to suffer martyrdom for his faith, for an hour or a
+day, or to endure affliction for forty or sixty years, if he would
+reflect that his neighbours here are suffering in an hour, more than he
+can ever suffer upon the earth?
+
+"_Tobacco_ then is nothing without _money_, nor money without _Pride_;
+and Pride is but feeble without Wantonness, and Wantonness is nothing
+without _Idleness_; Idleness without _Hypocrisy_, and Hypocrisy without
+_Inconsiderateness_.  But," said Lucifer, (and he raised his fiendish
+hoofs on the fore claws,) "to speak my own opinion, however excellent all
+these may be, I have a _friend_ to send against the she-enemy of Britain,
+better than the whole."
+
+Then I could see all the chief devils, with their ghastly mouths opened
+towards Lucifer, in anxious expectation of learning what this friend
+might be, whilst I was as impatient to hear as they.  "The one I allude
+to," said Lucifer, "is called _Ease_; she is one whose merits I have too
+long disregarded, and whose merit, Satan, you yourself disregarded of
+yore, when in tempting Job you turned the unpleasant side of life towards
+him.  She is my darling, and her I now constitute deputy, immediately
+next to myself, in all matters relating to my earthly government; Ease is
+her name, and _she_ has damned more men than all ye together, and very
+few would ye catch without _her_.  For in _war_, _or danger_, _or
+hunger_, _or sickness_, who would value _tobacco_, _or money_, or the
+pomposity of Pride, or would entertain a thought of welcoming either
+_Wantonness or Sloth_?  Or who in such straits, would permit themselves
+to be distracted either by _Hypocrisy or Inconsiderateness_?  No, no!
+they are too awake then, and not one of the infernal _flies of
+Bewilderment_, which shows its beak, will buzz, during one of these
+storms.  But _Ease_, smooth Ease, is the nurse of you all: in her calm
+shadow, and in her teeming bosom ye are all bred, and also every other
+infernal worm of the conscience, which will come to gnaw its possessor
+_here_ for ever, without intermission.
+
+"As long as _Ease_ lasts, there is no talk but of some species of
+diversion, of banquets, bargains, pedigrees, stories, news, and the like.
+There is no mention of _God_, except in idle swearing and cursing;
+whereas the _poor_ and the _sick_, who know nothing of ease, have God in
+their mouths and their hearts every minute.
+
+"But go ye also in the rear of her, and keep every body in his sleep and
+his rest, in prosperity and comfort, abundance and carelessness; and then
+you will see the poor honest man, as soon as he shall drink of the
+alluring cup of Ease, become a perverse, proud, untractable churl--the
+industrious labourer change into a careless, waggish rattler--and every
+other person become just what you would desire him.  Because pleasant
+_Ease_ is what every one seeks and loves; she hears not counsel, fears
+not punishment--if good, she will not recognise it--if bad, she will
+foster it of her own accord.  _She_ is the prime-temptation; the man who
+is proof against _her_ tender charms, ye may fling your caps to--for we
+must bid farewell for ever to his company.  _Ease_, then, is my
+terrestrial _deputy_, follow her to Britain, and be as obedient to her as
+to our own royal majesty."
+
+At this moment the huge bolt was shaken, and Lucifer and his chief
+counsellors were struck to the vortex of _extremest Hell_; and oh, how
+horrible it was to see the throat of Unknown opening to receive them!
+"Well," said the angel "we will now return; but you have not yet seen any
+thing in comparison with the _whole_, which is within the bounds of
+_Destruction_, and if you had seen the whole, it is nothing to the
+inexpressible misery which exists in _Unknown_, for it is not possible to
+form an idea of the World in extremest Hell."  And at that word the
+celestial messenger snatched me up to the firmament of the accursed
+kingdom of Darkness, by a way I had not seen, whence I obtained, from the
+palace along all the firmament of the black and hot _Destruction_, and
+the whole _land of Forgetfulness_, even to the walls of the _city of
+Destruction_, a full view of the accursed monster of a _giantess_, whose
+feet I had seen before--I do not possess words to describe her figure.
+But I can tell you that she was a _triple-faced giantess_, having one
+very atrocious countenance turned towards the heavens, barking, snorting
+and vomiting accursed abomination against the celestial king; another
+countenance very fair towards the _earth_, to entice men to tarry in her
+shadow; and another, the most frightful countenance of all, turned
+towards _Hell_, to torment it to all eternity.  She is larger than the
+entire earth, and is yet daily increasing, and a hundred times more
+frightful than the whole of Hell.  She caused Hell to be made, and it is
+she who fills it with inhabitants.  If _she_ were removed from Hell, Hell
+would become Paradise; and if she were removed from the earth, the little
+world would become Heaven; and if she were to go to Heaven, she would
+change the regions of bliss into utter Hell.  There is nothing in all the
+universe, (except herself,) that God did not create.  She is the mother
+of the four female deceivers of the city of Destruction; she is the
+mother of _Death_; she is the mother of every _evil_ and _misery_; and
+she has a fearful hold on every living man--her name is SIN.  "_He who
+escapes from her hook_, _for ever blessed is he_!" said the angel.
+Thereupon he departed, and I could hear his voice saying, "_write down
+what thou hast seen_, _and he who shall read it carefully shall never
+have reason to repent_."
+
+
+
+The Heavy Heart.
+
+
+Heavy's the heart with wandering below,
+And with seeing the things in the country of woe;
+Seeing lost men and the fiendish race,
+In their very horrible prison place;
+Seeing that the end of the crooked track
+   Is a flaming lake,
+   Where dragon and snake
+   With rage are swelling.
+I'd not, o'er a thousand worlds to reign,
+   Behold again,
+   Though safe from pain,
+   The infernal dwelling.
+
+Heavy's my heart, whilst so vividly
+The place is yet in my memory;
+To see so many, to me well known,
+Thither unwittingly sinking down.
+To-day a hell-dog is yesterday's man,
+   And he has no plan,
+   But others to trepan
+   To Hell's dismal revels.
+When he reach'd the pit he a fiend became,
+   In face and in frame,
+   And in mind the same
+   As the very devils.
+
+Heavy's the heart with viewing the bed,
+Where sin has the meed it has merited;
+What frightful taunts from forked tongue,
+On gentle and simple there are flung.
+The ghastliness of the damned things to state.
+   Or the pains to relate
+   Which will ne'er abate
+   But increase for ever,
+No power have I, nor others I wot:
+   Words cannot be got;
+   The shapes and the spot
+   Can be pictured never.
+
+Heavy's the heart, as none will deny,
+At losing one's friend or the maid of one's eye;
+At losing one's freedom, one's land or wealth;
+At losing one's fame, or alas! one's health;
+At losing leisure; at losing ease;
+   At losing peace
+   And all things that please
+   The heaven under.
+At losing memory, beauty and grace,
+   Heart-heaviness
+   For a little space
+   Can cause no wonder.
+
+Heavy's the heart of man when first
+He awakes from his worldly dream accursed,
+Fain would be freed from his awful load
+Of sin, and be reconciled with his God;
+When he feels for pleasures and luxuries
+   Disgust arise,
+   From the agonies
+   Of the ferment unruly,
+Through which he becomes regenerate,
+   Of Christ the mate,
+   From his sinful state
+   Springing blithe and holy.
+
+Heavy's the heart of the best of mankind,
+Upon the bed of death reclined;
+In mind and body ill at ease,
+Betwixt remorse and the disease,
+Vext by sharp pangs and dreading more.
+   O mortal poor!
+   O dreadful hour!
+   Horrors surround him!
+To the end of the vain world he has won;
+   And dark and dun
+   The eternal one
+   Beholds beyond him.
+
+Heavy's the heart, the pressure below,
+Of all the griefs I have mentioned now;
+But were they together all met in a mass,
+There's one grief still would all surpass;
+Hope frees from each woe, while we this side
+   Of the wall abide--
+   At every tide
+   'Tis an outlet cranny.
+But there's a grief beyond the bier;
+   Hope will ne'er
+   Its victims cheer,
+   That cheers so many.
+
+Heavy's the heart therewith that's fraught;
+How heavy is mine at merely the thought!
+Our worldly woes, however hard,
+Are trifles when with that compared:
+That woe--which is known not here--that woe
+   The lost ones know,
+   And undergo
+   In the nether regions;
+How wretched the man who exil'd to Hell,
+   In Hell must dwell,
+   And curse and yell
+   With the Hellish legions!
+
+At nought, that may ever betide thee, fret
+If at Hell thou art not arrived yet;
+But thither, I rede thee, in mind repair
+Full oft, and observantly wander there;
+Musing intense, after reading me,
+   Of the flaming sea,
+   Will speedily thee
+   Convert by appalling.
+Frequent remembrance of the black deep
+   Thy soul will keep,
+   Thou erring sheep,
+   From thither falling.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+
+{3}  Probably Cheshire; the North Welsh commonly call Chester Caer.
+
+{23}  It is the custom of Mahometans, to lay aside their sandals, before
+entering the Mosque.
+
+{49}  Taliesin lived in the sixth century; he was a foundling, discovered
+in his infancy lying in a coracle, on a salmon-weir, in the domain of
+Elphin, a prince of North Wales, who became his patron.  During his life
+he arrogated to himself a supernatural descent and understanding, and for
+at least a thousand years after his death he was regarded by the
+descendants of the Ancient Britons, as a prophet or something more.  The
+poems which he produced procured for him the title of "Bardic King;" they
+display much that is vigorous and original, but are disfigured by
+mysticism and extravagant metaphor.  The four lines which he is made to
+quote above are from his Hanes, or History, one of the most spirited of
+his pieces.  When Elis Wynn represents him as sitting by a cauldron in
+Hades, he alludes to a wild legend concerning him, to the effect, that he
+imbibed awen or poetical genius whilst employed in watching "the seething
+pot" of the sorceress Cridwen, which legend has much in common with one
+of the Irish legends about Fin Macoul, which is itself nearly identical
+with one in the Edda, describing the manner in which Sigurd Fafnisbane
+became possessed of supernatural wisdom.
+
+{50}  A dreadful pestilence, which ravaged Gwynedd or North Wales in 560.
+Amongst its victims was the king of the country, the celebrated Maelgwn,
+son of Caswallon Law Hir.
+
+{84}  Llyn Tegid, or the lake of Beauty, in the neighbourhood of Bala.
+
+{93}  The reader is left to guess what description of people these
+prisoners were.  They were probably violent fifth monarchy preachers.
+
+{100}  An active London Magistrate, treacherously murdered by a gang of
+papist conspirators in the reign of Charles the Second.
+
+{108} A celebrated Welsh poet, who flourished in the thirteenth century.
+A short account of him will be found in Owen's Cambrian Biography.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SLEEPING BARD***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 20634.txt or 20634.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/6/3/20634
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+