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Title: The Visions of the Sleeping Bard
Author: Wynne, Ellis
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Visions of the Sleeping Bard" ***
Transcribed from the 1897 Welsh National Press Company edition by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Book cover]
[Picture: Glasynys, The Birthplace of Ellis Wynne]
THE VISIONS
OF THE
SLEEPING BARD
BEING
ELLIS WYNNE’S
“_Gweledigaetheu y Bardd Cwsc_”
TRANSLATED BY
ROBERT GWYNEDDON DAVIES
* * * * *
LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARHSALL & CO., LIMITED.
CARNARVON: THE WELSH NATIONAL PRESS COMPANY, LIMITED
* * * * *
MDCCCXCVII
* * * * *
TO
PROFESSOR JOHN RHŶS, M.A., LL.D.
PRINCIPAL OF JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD
AND
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
OF NORTH WALES,
IN TOKEN OF
HIS DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARSHIP AND UNRIVALLED
SERVICES
TO
CELTIC LITERATURE
THIS TRANSLATION
IS
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
PREFACE
AT the National Eisteddfod of 1893, a prize was offered by Mr. Lascelles
Carr, of the _Western Mail_, for the best translation of Ellis Wynne’s
_Vision of Hell_. The Adjudicators (Dean Howell and the Rev. G. Hartwell
Jones, M.A.), awarded the prize for the translation which is comprised in
the present volume. The remaining Visions were subsequently rendered
into English, and the complete work is now published in the hope that it
may prove useful to those readers, who, being unacquainted with the Welsh
language, yet desire to obtain some knowledge of its literature.
My best thanks are due to the Rev. J. W. Wynne Jones, M.A., Vicar of
Carnarvon, for much help and valuable criticism; to the Rev. R Jones,
MA., Rector of Llanfair-juxta-Harlech, through whose courtesy I am
enabled to produce (from a photograph by Owen, Barmouth) a page of the
register of that parish, containing entries in Ellis Wynne’s handwriting;
and to Mr. Isaac Foulkes, Liverpool, for the frontispiece, which appeared
in his last edition of the _Bardd Cwsc_.
R. GWYNEDDON DAVIES.
_Caernarvon_,
_1st July_, _1897_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Frontispiece
Genealogical Tables xii
Introduction:—
I. The Author’s Life xv
II. The Text xx
III. The Summary xxiv
Facsimile of Ellis Wynne’s Handwriting
Vision of the World 3
Vision of Death 43
Vision of Hell 67
Notes 123
GENEALOGICAL TABLES. {0}
ELLIS WYNNE’S PEDIGREE.
*** (_I am indebted to E. H. Owen_, _Esqr._, _F.S.A._, _Tycoch_,
_Carnarvon_, _for most of the information compiled in the following
tables_.)
[Picture: Ellis Wynne’s Pedigree]
THE RELATION BETWEEN ELLIS WYNNE & BISHOP HUMPHREYS.
[Picture: The Relation between Ellis Wynne & Bishop Humphreys]
INTRODUCTION.
I.—THE AUTHOR’S LIFE.
ELLIS WYNNE was born in 1671 at Glasynys, near Harlech; his father,
Edward Wynne, came of the family of Glyn Cywarch (mentioned in the second
Vision), his mother, whose name is not known, was heiress of Glasynys.
It will be seen from the accompanying table that he was descended from
some of the best families in his native county, and through _Osborn
Wyddel_, from the Desmonds of Ireland. His birth-place, which still
stands, and is shown in the frontispiece hereto, is situate about a mile
and a half from the town of Harlech, in the beautiful Vale of Ardudwy.
The natural scenery amidst which he was brought up, cannot have failed to
leave a deep impression upon his mind; and in the Visions we come across
unmistakeable descriptions of scenes and places around his home.
Mountain and sea furnished him with many a graphic picture; the
precipitous heights and dark ravines of Hell, its caverns and its cliffs,
are all evidently drawn from nature. The neighbourhood is also rich in
romantic lore and historic associations; Harlech Castle, some twenty-five
years before his birth, had been the scene of many a fray between
Roundheads and Cavaliers, and of the last stand made by the Welsh for
King Charles. These events were fresh in the memory of his elders, whom
he had, no doubt, often heard speaking of those stirring times; members
of his own family had, perhaps, fought in the ranks of the rival parties;
his father’s grand-uncle, Col. John Jones, was one of those “who
erstwhile drank of royal blood.”
It is not known where he received his early education, and it has been
generally stated by his biographers that he was not known to have entered
either of the Universities; but, as the following notice proves, he at
least matriculated at Oxford:—
WYNNE, ELLIS, s. Edw. of Lasypeys, co. Merioneth, pleb. Jesus Coll.
matric. 1st March 1691–2, aged 21; rector of Llandanwg, 1705, & of
Llanfair-juxta-Harlech (both) co. Merioneth, 1711. (_Vide_ Foster’s
_Index Eccles_.)
Probably his stay at the University was brief, and that he left without
taking his degree, for I have been unable to find anything further
recorded of his academic career. {0a} The Rev. Edmund Prys, Vicar of
Clynnog-Fawr, in a prefatory _englyn_ to Ellis Wynne’s translation of the
“_Holy Living_” says that “in order to enrich his own, he had ventured
upon the study of three other tongues.” This fact, together with much
that appears in the Visions, justifies the conclusion that his scholarly
attainments were of no mean order. But how and where he spent the first
thirty years of his life, with the possible exception of a period at
Oxford, is quite unknown, the most probable surmise being that they were
spent in the enjoyment of a simple rural life, and in the pursuit of his
studies, of whatever nature they may have been.
According to Rowlands’s _Cambrian Bibliography_ his first venture into
the fields of literature was a small volume entitled, _Help i ddarllen yr
Yscrythur Gyssegr-Lân_ (“Aids to reading Holy Writ”), being a translation
of the _Whole Duty of Man_ “by E. W., a clergyman of the Church of
England,” published at Shrewsbury in 1700. But as Ellis Wynne was not
ordained until 1704, this work must be ascribed to some other author who,
both as to name and calling, answered to the description on the
title-page quoted above. But in 1701 an accredited work of his appeared,
namely, a translation into Welsh of Jeremy Taylor’s _Rules and Exercises
of Holy Living_, a 12mo. volume published in London. It was dedicated to
the Rev. Humphrey Humphreys, D.D., Bishop of Bangor, who was a native of
the same district of Merionethshire as Ellis Wynne, and, as is shown in
the genealogical table hereto, was connected by marriage with his family.
In 1702 {0b} he was married to Lowri Llwyd—_anglicè_, Laura Lloyd—of
Hafod-lwyfog, Beddgelert, and had issue by her, two daughters and three
sons; one of the daughters, Catherine, died young, and the second son,
Ellis, predeceased his father by two years. {0c} His eldest son, Gwilym,
became rector of Llanaber, near Barmouth, and inherited his ancestral
home; his youngest son, Edward, also entered the Church and became rector
of Dolbenmaen and Penmorfa, Carnarvonshire. Edward Wynne’s son was the
rector of Llanferres, Denbighshire, and his son again was the Rev. John
Wynne, of Llandrillo in Edeyrnion, who died only a few years ago.
The following year (1703), he published the present work—his _magnum
opus_—which has secured him a place among the greatest names in Welsh
Literature. It will be noticed that on the title-page to the first
edition the words “_Y Rhann Gyntaf_” (“The First Part”) appear; the
explanation given of this is that Ellis Wynne did actually write a second
part, entitled, _The Vision of Heaven_, but that on hearing that he was
charged with plagiarism in respect of his other Visions, he threw the
manuscript into the fire, and so destroyed what, judging from the title,
might have proved a greater success than the first part, as affording
scope for lighter and more pleasing flights of the imagination.
It is said by his biographers that he was induced to abandon the pursuit
of the law, to which he was educated, and to take holy orders, by Bishop
Humphreys, who had recognised in his translation of the _Holy Living_
marked ability and piety, and that he was ordained deacon and priest the
same day by the Bishop, at Bangor, in 1701, and presented on the
following day to the living of Llanfair-juxta-Harlech and subsequently to
Llandanwg.
All these statements appear to be incorrect. To deal with them
categorically: I find no record at the Diocesan Registry of his having
been ordained at Bangor at all; the following entry in the parish
register of Llanfair shows that he was not in holy orders in July, 1704:
“_Gulielmus filius Elizaei Wynne generosi de Lâs ynys et uxoris suis
baptizatus fuit quindecimo die Julii_, _1704_.—_W. Wynne Rr._, _O.
Edwards_, _Rector_.” His first living was Llandanwg, and not Llanfair,
to which he was collated on January 1st, 1705. Moreover, the above-named
Owen Edwards was the rector of Llanfair until his death which took place
in 1711. {0d} From that date on to 1734, the entries in the register at
Llanfair church are all in Ellis Wynne’s handwriting; these facts prove
conclusively that it was in 1711 he became rector of the latter parish.
In 1710 he edited a new and revised edition of the Book of Common Prayer,
at the request of his patron, the Bishop of Hereford (Dr. Humphreys) and
the four Welsh bishops,—a clear proof of the confidence reposed in him by
the dignitaries of his church as a man of learning and undoubted piety.
He himself published nothing more, but _A Short Commentary on the
Catechism_ and a few hymns and carols were written by him and published
posthumously by his son, Edward, being included in a volume of his own,
entitled _Prif Addysc y Cristion_, issued in 1755.
The latter part of his life is as completely obscure as the earlier; he
lapsed again into the silence from which he had only just emerged with
such signal success, and confined his efforts as a Christian worker
within the narrow limits of his own native parts, exercising,
doubtlessly, an influence for good upon his immediate neighbourhood
through force of character and noble personality, as upon his
fellow-countrymen at large by means of his published works. His wife
died in 1720, and his son, Ellis, in 1732; two years later he himself
died and was buried under the communion table in Llanfair church, on the
17th day of July, 1734. {0e} There is no marble or “perennial brass” to
mark the last resting-place of the Bard, nor was there, until recent
years, any memorial of him in either of his parish churches, when the
late Rev. John Wynne set up a fine stained-glass window at Llanfair
church in memory of his illustrious ancestor.
Ellis Wynne appeared at a time when his country had sore need of him,
when the appointed teachers of the nation were steeped in apathy and
corruption, when ignorance and immorality overspread the land—the darkest
hour before the dawn. He was one of the early precursors of the
Methodist revival in Wales, a voice crying in the wilderness, calling
upon his countrymen to repent. He neither feared nor favored any man or
class, but delivered his message in unfaltering tone, and performed his
alloted task honestly and faithfully. How deeply our country is indebted
to him who did her such eminent service in the days of adversity and
gloom will never be known. And now, in the time of prosperity, Wales
still remembers her benefactor, and will always keep honored the name of
Ellis Wynne, the SLEEPING BARD.
II.—THE TEXT.
The _Bardd Cwsc_ was first published in London in 1703, a small 24mo.
volume of some 150 pages, with the following title-page
“GWELEDIGAETHEU Y BARDD CWSC. Y Rhann Gyntaf. Argraphwyd yn
Llundain gan E. Powell i’r Awdwr, 1703.” {0f}
A second edition was not called for until about 1742, when it was issued
at Shrewsbury; but in the thirty years following, as many as five
editions were published, and in the present century, at least twelve
editions (including two or three by the Rev. Canon Silvan Evans) have
appeared. The text followed in this volume is that of Mr. Isaac Foulkes’
edition, but recourse has also been had to the original edition for the
purpose of comparison. The only translation into English hitherto has
been that of George Borrow, published in London in 1860, and written in
that charming and racy style which characterises his other and better
known works. He has, however, fallen into many errors, which were only
natural, seeing that the Visions abound in colloquial words and phrases,
and in idiomatic forms of expression which it would be most difficult for
one foreign to our tongue to render correctly.
The author’s name is not given in the original nor in any subsequent
edition previous to the one published at Merthyr Tydfil in 1806, where
the _Gweledigaetheu_ are said to be by “Ellis Wynne.” But it was well
known, even before his death, that he was the author; the fact being
probably deduced from the similarity in style between the Visions and an
acknowledged work, namely, his translation of the _Holy Living_. The
most likely reason for his preferring anonymity is not far to seek; his
scathing denunciation of the sins of certain classes and, possibly, even
of certain individuals, would be almost sure to draw upon the author
their most bitter attacks. Many of the characters he depicts would be
identified, rightly or wrongly, with certain of his contemporaries, and
many more, whom he never had in his mind at all, would imagine themselves
the objects of his satire; he had nothing to gain by imperilling himself
at the hands of such persons, or by coming into open conflict with them;
he had his message to deliver to his fellow-countrymen, his Visions a
purpose to fulfil, the successful issue of which could not but be
frustrated by the introduction of personal hatred and ill-will. Ellis
Wynne was only too ready to forego the honor of being the acknowledged
author of the Visions if thereby he could the better serve his country.
* * * * *
The _Bardd Cwsc_ is not only the most popular of Welsh prose works, but
it has also retained its place among the best of our classics. No better
model exists of the pure idiomatic Welsh of the last century, before
writers became influenced by English style and method. Vigorous, fluent,
crisp, and clear, it shows how well our language is adapted to
description and narration. It is written for the people, and in the
picturesque and poetic strain which is always certain to fascinate the
Celtic mind. The introduction to each Vision is evidently written with
elaborate care, and exquisitely polished—“_ne quid possit per leve
morari_,” and scene follows scene, painted in words which present them
most vividly before one’s eyes, whilst the force and liveliness of his
diction sustain unflagging interest throughout. The reader is carried
onward as much by the rhythmic flow of language and the perfect balance
of sentences, as by the vivacity of the narrative and by the reality with
which Ellis Wynne invests his adventures and the characters he depicts.
The terrible situations in which we find the Bard, as the drama unfolds,
betoken not only a powerful imagination, but also an intensity of feeling
which enabled him to realise the conceptions of such imagination. We
follow the Bard and his heavenly guide through all their perils with
breathless attention; the demons and the damned he so clothes with flesh
and blood that our hatred or our sympathy is instantly stirred; his World
is palpitating with life, his Hell, with its gloom and glare, is an
awful, haunting dream. But besides being the possessor of a vivid
imagination, Ellis Wynne was endowed with a capacity for transmitting his
own experience in a picturesque and life-like manner. The various
descriptions of scenes, such as Shrewsbury fair, the parson’s revelry and
the deserted mansions; of natural scenery, as in the beginning of the
first and last Visions; of personages, such as the portly alderman, and
the young lord and his retinue, all are evidently drawn from the Author’s
own experience. He was also gifted with a lively sense of humor, which
here and there relieves the pervading gloom so naturally associated with
the subject of his Visions. The humorous and the severe, the grotesque
and the sublime, the tender and the terrible, are alike portrayed by a
master hand.
The leading feature of the Visions, namely the personal element which the
Author infuses into the recital of his distant travels, brings the reader
into a closer contact with the tale and gives continuity to the whole
work, some parts of which would otherwise appear disconnected. This
telling of the tale _in propria persona_ with a guide of shadowy or
celestial nature who points out what the Bard is to see, and explains to
him the mystery of the things around him, is a method frequently adopted
by poets of all times. Dante is the best known instance, perhaps; but we
find the method employed in Welsh, as in “The Dream of Paul, the
Apostle,” where Paul is led by Michael to view the punishments of Hell
_(vide_ Iolo MSS.). Ellis Wynne was probably acquainted with Vergil and
Dante, and adopted the idea of supernatural guidance from them; in fact,
apart from this, we meet with several passages which are eminently
reminiscent of both these great poets.
But now, casting aside mere speculation, we come face to face with the
indisputable fact that Ellis Wynne is to a considerable degree indebted
to the _Dreams_ of Gomez de Quevedo y Villegas, a voluminous Spanish
author who flourished in the early part of the 17th century. In 1668,
Sir Roger L’Estrange published his translation into English of the
_Dreams_, which immediately became very popular. Quevedo has his Visions
of the World, of Death and her (_sic_) Empire, and of Hell; the same
characters are delineated in both, the same classes satirized, the same
punishments meted out. We read in both works of the catchpoles and
wranglers, the pompous knights and lying knaves—in fine, we cannot
possibly come to any other conclusion than that Ellis Wynne has “read,
marked and inwardly digested” L’Estrange’s translation of Quevedo’s
_Dreams_. But admitting so much, the _Bardd Cwsc_ still remains a purely
Welsh classic; whatever in name and incident Ellis Wynne has borrowed
from the Spaniard he has dressed up in Welsh home-spun, leaving little or
nothing indicative of foreign influence. The sins he preached against,
the sinners he condemned, were, he knew too well, indigenous to Welsh and
Spanish soil. George Borrow sums up his comments upon the two authors in
the following words: “Upon the whole, the Cymric work is superior to the
Spanish; there is more unity of purpose in it, and it is far less
encumbered with useless matter.”
The implication contained in the foregoing remarks of Borrow—that the
_Bardd Cwsc_ is encumbered to a certain degree with useless matter, is no
doubt well founded. There is a tendency to dwell inordinately upon the
horrible, more particularly in the Vision of Hell; a tiring sameness in
the descriptive passages, an occasional lapse from the tragic to the
ludicrous, and an intrusion of the common-place in the midst of a speech
or a scene, marring the dignity of the one and the beauty of the other.
The most patent blemish, however, is the unwarranted coarseness of
expression to which the Author sometimes stoops. It is true that he must
be judged according to the times he lived in; his chief object was to
reach the ignorant masses of his countrymen, and to attain this object it
was necessary for him to adopt their blunt and unveneered speech. For
all that, one cannot help feeling that he has, in several instances,
descended to a lower level than was demanded of him, with the inevitable
result that both the literary merit and the good influence of his work in
some measure suffer. Many passages which might be considered coarse and
indecorous according to modern canons of taste, have been omitted from
this translation.
From the literary point of view THE VISIONS OF THE SLEEPING BARD has from
the first been regarded as a masterpiece, but from the religious, two
very different opinions have been held concerning it. One, probably the
earlier, was, that it was a book with a good purpose, and fit to stand
side by side with Vicar Pritchard’s _Canwyll y Cymry_ and _Llyfr yr
Homiliau_; the other, that it was a pernicious book, “_llyfr codi
cythreuliaid_”—a devil-raising book. A work which in any shape or form
bore even a distant relationship to fiction, instantly fell under the ban
of the Puritanism of former days. To-day neither opinion is held, the
_Bardd Cwsc_ is simply a classic and nothing more.
The Visions derive considerable value from the light they throw upon the
moral and social condition of our country two centuries ago. Wales, at
the time Ellis Wynne wrote was in a state of transition: its old-world
romance was passing away, and ceasing to be the potent influence which,
in times gone by, had aroused our nation to chivalrous enthusiasm, and
led it to ennobling aspirations. Its place and power, it is true, were
shortly to be taken by religion, simple, puritanic, and intensely
spiritual; but so far, the country was in a condition of utter disorder,
morally and socially. Its national life was at its lowest ebb, its
religious life was as yet undeveloped and gave little promise of the
great things to come. The nation as a whole—people, patrician, and
priest—had sunk to depths of moral degradation; the people, through
ignorance and superstition; the patrician, through contact with the
corruptions of the England of the Restoration; while the priesthood were
“Blind mouths, that scarce themselves knew how to hold
A sheep-hook, or had learnt aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs.”
All the sterner and darker aspects of the period are chronicled with a
grim fidelity in the Visions, the wrongs and vices of the age are exposed
with scathing earnestness. Ellis Wynne set himself the task of
endeavouring to arouse his fellow-countrymen and bring them to realize
the sad condition into which the nation had fallen. He entered upon the
work endowed with keen powers of perception, a wide knowledge of life,
and a strong sense of justice. He was no respecter of person; all orders
of society, types of every rank and class, in turn, came under
castigation; no sin, whether in high places or among those of low degree,
escaped the lash of his biting satire. On the other hand, it must be
said that he lacked sympathy with erring nature, and failed to recognize
in his administration of justice that “to err is human, to forgive,
divine.” His denunciation of wrong and wrong-doer is equally stern and
pitiless; mercy and love are rarely, if ever, brought on the stage. In
this mood, as in the gloomy pessimism which pervades the whole work, he
reflects the religious doctrines and beliefs of his times. In fine, when
all has been said, favourably and adversely, the Visions, it will readily
be admitted, present a very faithful picture of Welsh life, manners, and
ways of thought, in the 17th century, and are, in every sense, a true
product of the country and the age in which they were written.
III.—A BRIEF SUMMARY.
I. VISION OF THE WORLD.
One summer’s day, the Bard ascends one of the mountains of Wales, and
gazing a long while at the beautiful scene, falls asleep. He dreams and
finds himself among the fairies, whom he approaches and requests
permission to join. They snatch him up forthwith and fly off with him
over cities and realms, lands and seas, until he begins to fear for his
life. They come to a huge castle—Castle Delusive, where an Angel of
light appears and rescues him from their hands. The Angel, after
questioning him as to himself, who he was and where he came from, bids
him go with him, and resting in the empyrean, he beholds the earth far
away beneath them. He sees an immense City made up of three streets; at
the end of which are three gates and upon each gate a tower and in each
tower a fair woman. This is the City of Destruction and its streets are
named after the daughters of Belial—Pride, Lucre and Pleasure. The Angel
tells him of the might and craftiness of Belial and the alluring witchery
of his daughters, and also of another city on higher ground—the City of
Emmanuel—whereto all may fly from Destruction. They descend and alight
in the Street of Pride amidst the ruined and desolate mansions of
absentee landlords. They see there kings, princes, and noblemen,
coquettes and fops; there is a city, too, on seven hills, and another
opposite, with a crescent on a golden banner above it, and near the gate
stands the Court of Lewis XIV. Much traffic is going on between these
courts, for the Pope, the Sultan and the King of France are rivals for
the Princesses’ hands.
They next come to the Street of Lucre, full of Spaniards, Dutchmen and
Jews, and here too, are conquerors and their soldiers, justices and their
bribers, doctors, misers, merchants and userers, shopmen, clippers,
taverners, drovers, and the like. An election of Treasurer to the
Princess is going on—stewards, money-lenders, lawyers and merchants being
candidates, and whoso was proved the richest should obtain the post. The
Bard then comes to the Street of Pleasure, where all manner of seductive
joys abound. He passes through scenes of debauchery and drunken riot,
and comes to a veritable Bedlam, where seven good fellows—a tinker, a
dyer, a smith and a miner, a chimney-sweep, a bard and a parson—are
enjoying a carousal. He beholds the Court of Belial’s second daughter,
Hypocrisy, and sees a funeral go by where all the mourners are false. A
noble lord appears, with his lady at his side, and has a talk with old
Money-bags who has lent him money on his lands—all three being apt pupils
of Hypocrisy.
The Angel then takes him to the churches of the City; and first they come
to a pagan temple where the human form, the sun and moon, and various
other objects are worshipped. Thence they come to a barn where
Dissenters imitate preaching, and to an English church where many
practise all manner of hypocrisy. The Bard then leaves the City of
Destruction and makes for the celestial City. He beholds one man part
from his friends and, refusing to be persuaded by them, hasten towards
Emmanuel’s City. The gateway is narrow and mean, while on the walls are
watchmen urging on those that are fleeing from Destruction. Groups from
the various streets arrive and claim admittance, but, being unable to
leave their sins, have to return. The Bard and his Guide enter, and
passing by the Well of Repentance come in view of the Catholic Church,
the transept of which is the Church of England, with Queen Anne enthroned
above, holding the Sword of Justice in the left hand, and the Sword of
the Spirit in the right. Suddenly there is a call to arms, the sky
darkens, and Belial himself advances against the Church, with his earthly
princes and their armies. The Pope and Lewis of France, the Turks and
Muscovites fall upon England and her German allies, but, the angels
assisting, they are vanquished; the infernal hosts, too, give way and are
hurled headlong from the sky; whereupon the Bard awakes.
II. THE VISION OF DEATH.
It is a cold, winter’s night and the Bard lies abed meditating upon the
brevity of life, when Sleep and his sister Nightmare pay him a visit, and
after a long parley, constrain him to accompany them to the Court of
their brother Death. Hieing away through forests and dales, and over
rivers and rocks, they alight at one of the rear portals of the City of
Destruction which opens upon a murky region—the chambers of Death. On
all hands are myriads of doors leading into the Land of Oblivion, each
guarded by the particular death-imp, whose name was inscribed above it.
The Bard passes by the portals of Hunger, where misers, idlers and
gossips enter, of Cold, where scholars and travellers go through, of
Fear, Love, Envy and Ambition.
Suddenly he finds himself transported into a bleak and barren land where
the shades flit to and fro. He is straightway surrounded by them, and,
on giving his name as the “Sleeping Bard,” a shadowy claimant to that
name sets upon him and belabours him most unmercifully until Merlin bid
him desist. Taliesin then interviews him, and an ancient manikin,
“Someone” by name, tells him his tale of woe. After that he is taken
into the presence of the King of Terrors himself, who, seated on a throne
with Fate and Time on either hand, deals out their doom to the prisoners
as they come before him. Four fiddlers, a King from the neighbourhood of
Rome with a papal dispensation to pass right through to Paradise, a
drunkard and a harlot, and lastly seven corrupt recorders, are condemned
to the land of Despair.
Another group of seven prisoners have just been brought to the bar, when
a letter comes from Lucifer concerning them; he requests that Death
should let these seven return to the world or else keep them within his
own realm—they were far too dangerous to be allowed to enter Hell. Death
hesitates, but, urged by Fate, he indites his answer, refusing to comply
with Lucifer’s request. The seven are then called and Death bids his
hosts hasten to convey them beyond his limits. The Bard sees them hurled
over the verge beneath the Court of Justice and his spirit so strives
within him at the sight that the bonds of Sleep are sundered and his soul
returns to its wonted functions.
III. THE VISION OF HELL.
The Bard is sauntering, one April morning, on the banks of the Severn,
when his previous visions recur to his mind and he resolves to write them
as a warning to others, and while at this work he falls asleep, and the
Angel once more appears and bears him aloft into space. They reach the
confines of Eternity and descend through Chaos for myriads of miles. A
troop of lost beings are swept past them towards the shores of a
death-like river—the river of the Evil One. After passing through its
waters, the Bard witnesses the tortures the damned suffer at the hands of
the devils, and visits their various prisons and cells. Here is the
prison of Woe-that-I-had-not, of Too-late-a-repentance and of the
Procrastinators. There the Slanderers, Backbiters, and other envious
cowards are tormented in a deep and dark dungeon. He hears much laughter
among the devils and turning round finds that the cause of their
merriment are two noblemen who have just arrived and are claiming the
respect due to their rank. Further on is a crowd of harlots calling down
imprecations upon those that ruined them; and in a huge cavern are
lawyers, doctors, stewards and other such rogues. The Princesses of the
City of Destruction bring batches of their subjects as gifts to their
sire.
A parliament is summoned and Lucifer addresses his princes, calling upon
them to do their utmost to destroy the rest of mankind. Moloch makes his
reply, reciting all that he has done, when Lucifer in rage starts off to
do the work himself, but is drawn back by an invisible hand. He speaks
again, exhorting them to greater activity and cruelty. Justice brings
three prisoners to Hell and returning causes such a rush of fiery
whirlwinds that all the infernal lords are swept away into the Uttermost
Hell.
The Bard hears the din of arms and news comes that the Turks, Papists,
and Roundheads are advancing in three armies. Lucifer and his hosts
immediately set out to meet them and after a stubborn contest succeed in
quelling the rebellion. More prisoners are brought before the
King—Catholics, who had missed the way to Paradise, an innkeeper, five
kings, assize-men and lawyers, gipsies, laborers and scholars. Scarcely
is judgment passed on these than war again breaks out—soldiers and
doctors, lawyers and userers, misers and their own offspring, are
fighting each other. The leaders of this revolt having been taken,
another parliament is called and more prisoners yet brought to trial.
Lucifer asks the advice of his peers as to whom he should appoint his
viceroy in Britain. Cerberus, first of all, offers the service of
Tobacco; then Mammon speaks in praise of Gold and Apolyon tells what
Pride can do; Asmodai, the demon of Lust, Belphegor, the demon of Sloth,
and Satan, devil of Delusion, each pleads for his own pet sin; and after
Beelzebub has spoken in favour of Thoughtlessness, Lucifer sums up,
weighs their arguments, and finally announces that it is another he has
chosen as his vicegerent in Britain. This other is Prosperity, and her
he bids them follow and obey. Then the lost Archangel and his
counsellors are hurled into the Bottomless Pit, and the Angel takes the
Bard up to the vault of Hell where he has full view of a three-faced
ogress, Sin, who would make of heaven, a hell, and thence departing, a
heaven of hell. The Angel then leaves him, bidding him, as he went, to
write down what he had seen for the benefit of others.
[Picture: Facsimile of Ellis Wynne’s Handwriting]
TO THE READER.
Let whoso reads, consider;
Considering, remember,
And from remembering, do,
And doing, so continue.
Whoso abides in Virtue’s paths,
And ever strives until the end
From sinful bondage to be free,
Ne’er shall possess wherewith to feed
The direful flame, nor weight of sin
To sink him in th’ infernal mire;
Nor will he come to that dread realm
Where Wrong and Retribution meet.
But, woe to that poor, worthless wight
Who lives a bitter, stagnant life,
Who follows after every ill
And knows not either Faith or Love,
(For Faith in deeds alone doth live).
Eternal woe shall be his doom—
More torments he shall then behold
Yea, in the twinkling of an eye
Than any age can e’er conceive.
_The_
_VISIONS OF THE SLEEPING BARD_
I.—VISION OF THE WORLD.
On {1a} the fine evening of a warm and mellow summer I betook me up one
of the mountains of Wales, {1b} spy-glass in hand, to enable my feeble
sight to see the distant near, and to make the little to loom large.
Through the clear, tenuous air and the calm, shimmering heat, I beheld
far, far away over the Irish Sea many a fair scene. At last, when mine
eyes had taken their fill of all the beauty around me, and the sun well
nigh had reached his western ramparts, I lay down on the sward, musing
how fair and lovely compared with mine own land were the distant lands of
whose delightful plains I had just obtained a glimpse; how fine it would
be to have full view thereof, and how happy withal are they, besides me
and my sort, who have seen the world’s course. So, from the long
journeying of mine eye, and afterwards of my mind, came weariness, and
beneath the cloak of weariness came my good Master Sleep {1c} stealthily
to bind me, and with his leaden keys safe and sound he locked the windows
of mine eyes and all mine other senses. But it was in vain he tried to
lock up the soul which can exist and travel without the body; for upon
the wings of fancy my spirit soared free from out the straitened corpse,
and the first thing I perceived close by was a dancing-knoll and such a
fantastic rout {4a} in blue petticoats and red caps, briskly footing a
sprightly dance. I stood awhile hesitating whether I should approach
them or not, for in my confusion I feared they were a pack of hungry
gipsies and that the least they would do, would be to kill me for their
supper, and devour me saltless. But gazing steadfastly upon them I
perceived that they were of better and fairer complexion than that lying,
tawny crew; so I plucked up courage and drew near them, slowly, like a
hen treading on hot coals, in order to find out what they might be; and
at last I addressed them over my shoulder, thus, “Pray you, good friends,
I understand that ye come from afar, would ye take into your midst a bard
who wishes to travel?” Whereupon the din instantly ceased, every eye was
turned upon me, and in shrill tones “a bard” quoth one, “to travel,” said
another, “into our midst,” a third exclaimed. By then I had recognised
those who were looking at me most fiercely, and they commenced whispering
one to another some secret charms, still keeping their gaze upon me; the
hubbub then broke out again and everyone laying hands upon me, lifted me
shoulder-high, like a knight of the shire, and off like the wind we go,
over houses and lands, cities and realms, seas and mountains, unable to
notice aught so swiftly were they flying. And to make matters worse, I
began to have doubts of my companions from the way they frowned and
scowled when I refused to lampoon my king {4b} at their bidding.
“Well, now,” said I to myself, “farewell to life; these accursed, arrant
sorcerers will bear me to some nobleman’s larder or cellar and leave me
there to pay penalty by my neck for their robbery, or peradventure they
will leave me stark-naked and benumbed on Chester Marsh or some other
bleak and remote place.” But on considering that those whose faces I
knew had long been buried, and that some were thrusting me forward, and
others upholding me above every ravine, it dawned upon me that they were
not witches but what are called the Fairies. Without delay I found
myself close to a huge castle, the finest I had ever seen, with a deep
moat surrounding it, and here they began discussing my doom. “Let us
take him as a gift to the castle,” suggested one. “Nay, let us throw the
obstinate gallows-bird into the moat, he is not worth showing to our
great prince,” said another. “Will he say his prayers before sleeping,”
asked a third. At the mention of prayer, I breathed a groaning sigh
heavenwards asking pardon and aid; and no sooner had I thought the prayer
than I saw a light, Oh! so beautiful, breaking forth in the distance. As
this light approached, my companions grew dark and vanished, and in a
trice the Shining One made for us straight over the castle: whereupon
they let go their hold of me and departing, turned upon me a hellish
scowl, and had not the Angel supported me I should have been ground fine
enough to make a pie long before reaching the earth.
“What is thy errand here?” asked the Angel. “In sooth, my lord,” cried
I, “I wot not what place here is, nor what mine errand, nor what I myself
am, nor what has made off with mine other part; I had a head and limbs
and body, but whether I left ’em at home or whether the Fairies, if fair
their deed, have cast me into some deep pit (for I mind my passing over
many a rugged gorge) an’ I be hanged, Sir, I know not.” “Fairly,
indeed,” said he, “they would have dealt with thee, had I not come in
time to save thee from the toasting-forks of the brood of hell. Since
thou hast such a great desire to see the course of this little world, I
am commanded to give thee the opportunity to realize thy wish, so that
thou mayest see the folly of thy discontent with thine own lot and
country. Come now!” he bade, and at the word, with the dawn just
breaking, he snatched me up far away above the castle; and upon a white
cloudledge we rested in the empyrean to see the sun rising, and to look
at my heavenly companion, who was far brighter than the sun, save that
his radiance only shone upwards, being hidden from all beneath by a veil.
When the sun waxed strong, I beheld in the refulgence of the two our
great, encircled earth as a tiny ball in the distance below. “Look
again,” said the Angel, and he gave me a better spy-glass than the one I
had on the mountain-side. When I looked through this I saw things in a
different light and clearer than ever before.
I could see one city of enormous magnitude, with thousands of cities and
kingdoms within it, the wide ocean like a whirlpool around it, and other
seas, like rivers, dividing it into parts. After gazing a longwhile, I
observed that it was made up of three tremendously long streets, with a
large and splendid gateway at the lower end of each street; on each
gateway, a magnificent tower, and on each tower, in sight of all the
street, a woman of exceeding beauty; and the three towers at the back of
the ramparts reached to the foot of that great castle. Of the same
length as these immense streets, but running in a contrary direction, I
saw another street which was but narrow and mean compared with them,
though it was clean and upon higher ground than they, and leading upwards
to the east, whilst the other three led downwards northerly to the great
towers. I could no longer withhold from asking my friend’s permission to
speak. “What then,” said the Angel, “if thou wilt speak, listen
carefully, so that there be no need of telling thee a thing twice.” “I
will, my lord, and prithee,” asked I, “what castle is that, away yonder
to the north?” “That castle aloft in the sky,” said he, “belongs to
Belial, prince of the power of the air, and ruler of all that vast city
below; it is called Castle Delusive: for an arch-deluder is Belial, and
it is through delusion that he is able to keep under his sway all that
thou see’st with the exception of that little bye-street yonder. He is a
powerful prince, with thousands of princes under him. What was Cæsar or
Alexander the Great compared with him? What are the Turk and old Lewis
of France {7} but his servants? Great, aye, exceedingly great is the
might, craftiness and diligence of Prince Belial and of the countless
hosts he hath in the lower region.” “Why do those women stand there?” I
asked, “and who are they?” “Slowly,” cried the Angel, “one question at a
time; they stand there in order to be loved and worshipped.” “No wonder,
in sooth,” said I, “so lovely are they that were I the possessor of hands
and feet as once I was, I too would go and love or worship them.” “Hush!
hush!” cried he, “if that is what thou wouldst do with thy members ’tis
well thou’rt wanting them: know, foolish spirit, that these three
princesses are no other than three destroying enchantresses, daughters of
Prince Belial; and that all the beauty and gentleness which dazzles the
streets, is nought else but a gloss over ugliness and cruelty; the three
within are like their sire, full of deadly venom.” “Woe’s me, is’t
possible,” cried I sorrowfully, “that their love wounds?” “’Tis true,
the more the pity,” said he, “thou art delighted with the way the three
beam on their adorers: well, there is in that ray of light many a
wondrous charm, it blindens them so that they cannot see the hook; it
stupifies them so that they pay no heed to their danger, and consumes
them with an insatiate lust for more, even though it be a deadly poison,
breeding diseases which no physician, yea, not death itself can ever
heal, nor aught at all unless a heavenly medicine called Repentance be
had to purge the evil in good time ere it become too deeply rooted,
through gazing upon them too long.” “Wherefore will not Belial have this
adoration to himself?” asked I. “It is the same thing,” said he, “for so
long as a man adheres to these or to one of them, that man is sure to
bear the mark of Belial and wear his livery.”
“By what names are these three enchantresses called?” “The furthest away
is called Pride, the eldest daughter of Belial; the second is Pleasure,
and the nearest to us is Lucre; these three are the trinity the world
adores.” “I would fain know the name of this vast, madding city,” said
I, “hath it a better name than great Bedlam?” “Yea, ’tis called the City
of Destruction.” “Alas!” I cried, “are all that dwell therein ruined and
lost?” “All,” said he, “save a few that flee from it into yon upper city
which is King Emmanuel’s.” “Woe is me and mine! how shall they escape
while ever staring at what makes them more and more blind, and preys upon
them in their blindness?” “It would be utterly impossible for any man to
escape hence were it not that Emmanuel sends his ministers from on high,
night and morn, to persuade them to leave the rebels and turn to Him,
their true Sovereign, and sends to some a gift of precious ointment
called Faith to anoint their eyes, and whoso obtains that genuine
ointment (for there is an imitation of this as of everything else in the
City of Destruction) and anoints himself therewith, at once becomes aware
of his own wounds and madness, and will not tarry here a moment longer,
even though Belial gave him his three daughters, yea, or his fourth who
is greatest of all, for staying.”
“What are the names of these immense streets?” I enquired. “They are
called, each according to the name of the princess who rules therein;
furthest is the Street of Pride, the middle, the Street of Pleasure, and
next, the Street of Lucre.” “Who, prithee, dwell in these streets? What
tongue is spoken there? Wherefrom and of what nations are their
inhabitants?” “Many people,” answered he, “of every language, religion,
and nation under the sun dwell there; many a one lives in each of the
three streets at different seasons, and everyone as near the gateway as
he can; and very often do they change about, being unable to stay long in
the one because they so greatly love the princess of the other street.
And the old renard, slyly looking on, lets everyone love whichever he
prefers, or the three if he will—all the more certain is he of him.”
“Come nearer to them,” said the Angel, snatching me downwards in the veil
through the noxious vapours rising from the city. We alighted in the
Street of Pride, on the top of a great, roofless mansion with its eyes
picked out by the dogs and crows, and its owners gone to England or
France, there to seek what might be gotten with far less trouble at home;
thus in place of the good old country-family of days gone by, so full of
charity and benevolence, none keep possession now but the stupid owl, the
greedy crows, or the proud-pied magpies or the like, to proclaim the
deeds of the present owners. There were thousands of such deserted
palaces, which but for pride might still be the resort of noblemen, a
refuge for the weak, a school of peace and all goodness, and a blessing
to the thousands of cottages surrounding them. From the top of these
ruins we had plenty of room and quietness to see the whole street on both
sides. The houses were very fine, and of wonderful height and grandeur,
and good reason why, for emperors and kings lived there, princes in
hundreds, noblemen and gentlemen in thousands, and a great many women of
all grades. I could see many a horned coquette, like a full-rigged ship,
strutting as if set in a frame with a fair store of pedlery about her,
and pearls in her ears to the value of a good-sized farm: some were
singing so as to be praised for their voices, some dancing, to show their
figures; others coloring, to improve their complexion, others having been
a good three hours before a mirror trimming themselves, learning to
smile, pinning and unpinning, making grimaces and striking attitudes.
Many a coy wench was there who knew not how to open her lips to speak,
much less to eat, or from very ceremony, how to look under foot; and many
a ragged shrew who would contend that she was equal to the best lady in
the street, and many an ambling fop who might winnow beans by the wind of
his train.
Whilst I was looking from afar at these and a hundred similar things, lo!
there came by us a gaudy, strapping quean of arrogant mien, and after
whom a hundred eyes were turned; some made obeisance, as if in worship of
her, a few put something in her hand. I could not make out what she was,
and so I enquired. “Oh,” said my friend, “she is one whose entire dowry
is on show, and yet thou see’st how many fools there are who seek her,
and the meanest is received notwithstanding all the demand there is for
her; whom she will, she cannot have, and whom she can, she will not; she
will only speak to her betters because her mother told her that a young
woman can make no greater mistake than to be humble in courtship.”
Thereupon a burly Falstaff, who had been alderman and in many offices,
came out from beneath us, spreading out his wings as if to fly, when he
could scarcely limp along like a pack-horse, on account of his huge
paunch, and the gout, and many other gentlemanly complaints; but for all
that you could not get a single glance from him except as a great favour,
remembering the while to address him by all his title and offices. From
him I turned my eyes to the other side of the street, and saw a bluff
young nobleman with a numerous following, smiling graciously and bowing
low to everyone he met. “It is strange,” said I, “that these two should
belong to the same street.” “It is the same princess—Pride, who governs
them both,” answered he, “this one’s errand is but to speak fair; he is
now making a bid for fame with the intent thereby to attain the highest
office in the State; he is most ready to weep with the people, and tell
them how greatly they are wronged through the oppression of wicked
ministers; yet it is his own exaltation, and not the common weal that is
the main object of his pursuit.”
After looking for a longwhile I saw close by the Porch of Pride a fair
city on seven hills, and over its magnificent court the triple crown, the
swords and cross-keys. “Well, here is Rome,” quoth I, “here lives the
Pope, is it not?” “Yes, most often,” said the Angel, “but he hath a
court in each of the other streets.” Over against Rome I could see a
city with a very fine court, whereon was raised on high a crescent on a
golden banner, by which I knew the Turk was there. After these came the
court of Lewis XIV. of France, as I perceived by his arms—the three
fleur-de-lys on a silver banner reared high. Whilst admiring the
loftiness and magnificence of these palaces, I observed that there was
much traversing from one court to another, and asked the reason. “Oh,
there is many a dark reason,” said the Angel, “existing between these
three potent and crafty monarchs, but though they deem themselves fitting
peers to the three princesses up yonder, their power and guile is nought
compared with theirs. Yea more, great Belial deems the whole city,
notwithstanding the number of its kings, unsuitable for his daughters.
Although he offers them in marriage to everybody, he has never actually
given them to anyone. Keen rivalry has existed between these three for
their hands; the Turk, who calls himself the god of earth, would have the
eldest, Pride, to wife. “Nay,” said the king of France, “she is mine,
for I keep all my subjects in her street, and bring her many from England
and many other realms.” Spain would have the Princess of Lucre, spite of
Holland and all the Jews, and England, the Princess of Pleasure in spite
of the Pagans. But the Pope claimed the three, and for better reasons
than all the others; and Belial admits him next to them in each street.”
“Is that the cause of this commerce?” said I. “No,” said he, “Belial has
made peace between them upon that matter long ago. But now he has bid
the three put their heads together to consider how they can the soonest
destroy yon bye-street; that is the City of Emmanuel, and especially one
great mansion therein, out of mere jealousy, perceiving it to be a finer
edifice than any in all the City of Destruction. And Belial promises
half his kingdom during his life, and the whole on his decease, to him
who succeeds in doing so. But notwithstanding the magnitude of his
power, the depth of his wiles, and the number of emperors, kings and
crafty rulers that are beneath his sceptre in that huge City of
Destruction, notwithstanding the courage of his countless hosts beyond
the gates in the lower region, that task will prove too difficult for
them; however great, powerful and untiring his majesty may be, in yon
small street is a greater than he.”
I was not able to give very close attention to his angelic reasons, being
occupied in watching the frequent falls people were having on the
slippery street. Some I could see with ladders scaling the tower, and
having reached the highest rung, falling headlong to the bottom. “Where
do those fools try to get to?” I asked. “To a place that is high
enough—they are endeavouring to break into the treasury of the princess.”
“I warrant it be full,” quoth I. “Yes,” answered he, “of everything that
belongs to this street, to be distributed among its denizens: all kinds
of weapons for invading and extending territories; all kinds of
coats-of-arms, banners, escutcheons, books of genealogy, sayings of the
ancients, and poems, all sorts of gorgeous raiments, boastful tales and
flattering mirrors; every pigment and lotion to beautify the face; every
high office and title—in short, everything is there which makes a man
think better of himself and worse of others than he ought. The chief
officers of this treasury are masters of the ceremonies, roysters,
heralds, bards, orators, flatterers, dancers, tailors, gamblers,
seamstresses and the like.”
From this street we went to the next where the Princess of Lucre rules
supreme; this street was crowded and enormously wealthy; yet not half so
magnificent and clean as the Street of Pride, nor its people so foolishly
haughty, for here they were for the most part skulking and sly.
Thousands of Spaniards, Dutchmen, Venetians, and Jews were here, and also
a great many aged people. “Prithee, sir,” said I, “what manner of men
might these be?” “They are pinchfists one and all. In the lower end
thou shalt see the Pope once more together with conquerors of kingdoms
and their soldiery, oppressors, foresters, obstructors of public paths,
justices and their bribers, and all their progeny from the barrister to
the constable; on the other side, physicians, apothecaries, leeches,
misers, merchants, extortioners, money lenders, withholders of tithes,
wages, rents or doles left to schools, almhouses and the like; drovers,
dealers who regulate the market for their own benefit; shopmen (or
rather, sharpers) who profit on the need or ignorance of their customers;
stewards of all grades; clippers {14} and innkeepers who despoil the
idlers’ family of their goods and the country of its barley, which would
otherwise be made into bread for the poor. All these are arrant robbers,
the others in the upper end of the street are mostly small fry, such as
highwaymen, tailors, weavers, millers, grocers and so on.”
In the midst of this I could hear a terrible commotion towards the far
end of the street, and a great crowd of people thronging the gate, and
such pushing and quarelling as made me think that there was a general
riot afoot, until I asked my friend what was the matter. “There is very
valuable treasure in that tower,” said the Angel, “and the reason for
this tumult is that they are about to choose a treasurer for the
Princess, instead of the Pope, who has been driven from office.” So we
went to see the election.
The candidates for the post were the stewards, the money-lenders, the
lawyers, and the merchants, and it was the wealthiest of these that was
to have it (for the more thou hast, the more wilt thou have and seek
for—an insatiate complaint pertaining to this street). The stewards were
rejected at the outset, lest they might impoverish the whole street and,
just as they had erected their mansions upon their masters’ ruins, in the
end dispossess the princess herself. The contest then lay between the
other three. The merchants had more silk, the lawyers more mortgages on
land, and the money-lenders more bills and bonds and fuller purses. “Ho,
they won’t agree this night,” said the Angel, “come away; the lawyers are
richer than the merchants, the money-lenders than the lawyers, the
stewards than the money-lenders, and Belial richer than all; for they and
all that belongs to them are his.” “Why does the princess keep these
robbers about her?” “What more befitting, seeing that she herself is
arch-robber?” I was amazed to hear him call the princess by such name,
and the proudest gentry in the land arrant robbers. “Why, pray my lord,”
said I, “do you consider these great noblemen worse thieves than
highwaymen?” “Thou art a simpleton—think on that knave who roves the
wide world over, sword in hand, and with his ravagers at his back,
slaying and burning, and depriving the true possessors of their states,
and afterwards expecting to be worshipped as conqueror; is he not worse
than the petty thief who takes a purse on the highway? What is a tailor
who filches a piece of cloth compared to a squire who steals from the
mountain-side half a parish? Ought the latter not be called a worse
robber than the former, who only takes a shred from him, while he
deprives the poor of pasture for his beast, and consequently of the means
of livelihood for himself, and those depending upon him? What is the
stealing a handful of flour in the mill compared with the storing up of a
hundred bushels to rot, in order to obtain later on for one bushel the
price of four? What is a threadbare soldier who robs thee of thy clothes
at the swords’ point when compared with the lawyer who despoils thee of
thy whole estate with the stroke of a quill, and against whom thou canst
claim no recompense or remedy? What is a pickpocket who steals a
five-pound in comparison to a dice-sharper who robs thee of a hundred
pounds in the third part of a night? And what the swindler that deceives
thee in a worthless old hack compared with the apothecary who swindles
thee of thy money and life too, for some effete, medicinal stuff? And
moreover, what are all these robbers compared with that great arch-robber
who deprives them all of everything, yea, of their hearts and souls after
the fair is over?”
From this foul and disorderly street we proceeded to the street of the
Princess of Pleasure wherein I saw many English, French, Italians and
Paynims. The Princess is very fair to behold, with mixed wine in one
hand, and a fiddle and a harp in the other; and in her treasury,
innumerable pleasures and toys to gain the custom of everybody, and
retain them in her father’s service. Yea, many were wont to escape to
this pleasant street to drown their grief for losses and debts they had
incurred in the others. It was exceedingly crowded, especially with
young people; whilst the Princess is careful to please everyone, and to
have an arrow ready for every mark. If thou art thirsty, here thou will
find thy favorite beverage; if thou lovest song and dance, here thou
shalt have thy fill. If the beauty of the Princess has kindled thy lust,
thou need’st but beckon one of her sire’s officers (who, although
invisible, always surround her) and they will immediately attend thy
behest. There are here fair mansions, fine gardens, full orchards, shady
groves fit for every secret intrigue, or to trap birds or a white rabbit
or twain; clear streams, most pleasant to fish in; rich, boundless
plains, whereon to hunt the hare and fox. Along the street we could see
them playing interludes, juggling and conjuring, singing lewd songs to
the sound of the harp and ballads, and all manner of jesting. Men and
women of handsome appearance danced and sang, and many came hither from
the Street of Pride in order to be praised and worshipped. Within the
houses we perceived some on silken beds wallowing in debauchery; some at
the gaming-table, cursing and swearing, others tossing dice and shuffling
cards. Some from the Street of Lucre, having a room here, ran hither to
count their money, but stayed not long lest aught of the countless
geegaws that are here should entice them to part with their money without
interest. Others I saw at tables feasting with somewhat of every created
thing before them; and when everyone, mess after mess, had guzzled as
much of the dainties as would afford a moderate man a feast for a whole
week, grace followed in the form of blasphemous howling; then the king’s
health was called for, and that of every boon companion, and so on to
quench the taste of the viands, and drown their cares. Then came
tobacco, and then each one began to talk scandal of his neighbour—whether
true or false it mattered not as long as it was humorous or fresh, or,
best of all, degrading. At last, what with a round of blasphemy, and the
whole crowd with clay pistols belching smoke and fire and slander of
their neighbours, and the floor already befouled with dregs and spittle,
I feared lest viler deeds should happen, and craved to depart.
Thence we went where we heard a loud noise, beating and clamouring,
crying and laughing, shouting and singing. “Well, here’s Bedlam and no
mistake,” quoth I. By the time we got in, the turmoil had ceased; one
man lay like a log on the ground, another was vomiting, another nodding
his head over a hearth full of battered flagons, and broken pipes and
mugs. On enquiring, what should it be but a carousal of seven thirsty
neighbours—a tinker, a dyer, a blacksmith, a miner, a chimney-sweep, a
bard, and a parson who had come to preach sobriety, and to show in his
own person how repulsive drunkenness is; and the beginning of the recent
altercation was a discussion and dispute they had as to which of the
seven callings loved best the pot and pipe; the bard had beaten all but
the parson and, due regard being observed for the cloth, he was adjudged
victor and worthy to be leader of his good comrades, and so the bard
wound up the discussion thus:
“Where can ye find such thirsty seven,
Search every clime and land?
And quaffing off the ruddy ale,
Bard and parson lead the band.”
Thoroughly tired of these drunken swine, we drew nearer the gate in order
to spy out the blemishes in the magnificent court of Love, the purblind
king, wherein it is easy to enter, but difficult to get out again, and
where are chambers innumerable. In the hall opposite the door stood
giddy Cupid, with two arrows in his bow, darting a languishing venom
called lust. Along the floor I saw many fair and comely women walking
with measured steps, and following them, wretched youths gazing upon
their beauty, and each one begging a glance from his mistress, fearing a
frown even more than death; now and then one, bowing to the ground, would
place a letter in his goddess’ hand, and another a sonnet, the while in
fear expectant, like schoolboys showing their task to the master. They
in return would favour their adorers with a simpering smile or two, just
to keep their desires on edge, but granting nought more lest their lust
be sated and they depart healed of the disease. Going on into the
parlour I saw them having lessons in dancing and singing, with voice and
hand, in order to make their lovers sevenfold madder than before; on
again into the dining hall where they were taught coy smartness in
eating; into the cellar, where potent love philtres were being mixed of
nail parings and the like; in the upper rooms we could see one in a
secret chamber twisting himself into all shapes, practising gentlemanly
behaviour when in his mistress’ presence; another before a mirror
learning how to smile correctly without showing his teeth too prominently
to his ladylove; another preparing his tale to tell her, repeating the
same thing an hundred times. Wearied with this insipid babbling we came
to another cell: here a nobleman had sent for a poet from the Street of
Pride to indite him a sonnet of praise to his angel, and an eulogy of
himself; the bard was discoursing of his art: “I can,” said he, “liken
her to everything red and everything white under the sun, and her tresses
to an hundred things more yellow than gold, and as for your poem, I can
trace your lineage through many knights and princes, and through the
water of the deluge right up to Adam.” “Well, here’s a poet,” quoth I,
“who is a better genealogist than I.” “Come, come,” said the Angel,
“their intention is to deceive the woman, but, once in her presence, you
may be sure they will have to meet trick with trick.”
Upon leaving these we had a glimpse of cells where fouler deeds were
being done than modesty permits to mention, and which caused my companion
to snatch me away in anger from this fatuous court into the princess’
treasury (for we went where we list notwithstanding doors and locks).
There we saw myriads of fair women, all kinds of beverages, fruits and
dainties, stringed instruments and books of songs,—harps, pipes, odes and
carols, all sorts of games,—backgammon, dice {20} and cards; pictures of
various lands, towns and persons, inventions and amusing tricks; all
kinds of waters, perfumes, pigments and spots to make the ugly fair, and
the old look young, and the leman’s malodorous bones smell sweet for the
nonce. In short, the shadow of pleasure and the guise of happiness in
every conceivable form was to be found there; and sooth to say, I almost
think I too had been enticed by the place had not my friend instantly
hurried me away far from the three alluring towers to the top end of the
streets, and set me down near an immense palatial castle, the front view
of which seemed fair, but the further side was mean and terribly ugly,
though it was scarcely to be seen at all. It had a myriad portals—all
splendid without but rotten within. “An’t please you, my lord,” asked I,
“what is this wondrous place?” “This is the court of Belials’ second
daughter whose name is Hypocrisy; here she keeps her school, and there is
no man or woman throughout the whole city who has not been a pupil of
hers, and most of them have imbibed their learning remarkably well; so
that her lessons are discernible as a second nature intertwined with all
their thoughts, words, and deeds from very childhood almost.” I had been
looking awhile on the falsity of every part of the edifice when a funeral
came by with many weeping and sighing, and many men and horses in
mourning trappings; and shortly the poor widow, veiled so as not to see
this cruel world any more, came along with piping voice and weary sighs,
and fainting fits at intervals. In truth, I could not help but weep a
little out of pity for her. “Nay, nay,” said the Angel, “keep thy tears
for a more worthy occasion; these voices are only what Hypocrisy has
taught, and these mourning weeds were fashioned in her great school. Not
one of these weep sincerely; the widow, even before the body had left the
house, let in another husband to her heart; were she rid of the expenses
connected with the corpse she would not care a straw if his soul were at
the bottom of hell; nor do his own kindred care any more than she: for
when it went hardest with him, instead of giving him good counsel and
earnestly praying for mercy upon him, they were talking of his property,
his will or his pedigree; or what a handsome robust man he was, and such
talk; and now this wailing {21} on the part of some is for mere ceremony
and custom, on the part of others for company’s sake or for pay.”
Scarcely had these gone by than another throng came in sight: a most
gallant lord with his lady at his side, slowly advancing in state, to
whom many men of position doffed, and many were on tiptoe with eagerness
to show him obeisance and reverence. “Here is a noble lord,” said I,
“who is worthy such respect from all these!” “Wert thou to take
everything to consideration thou wouldst speak differently. This lord
comes from the Street of Pleasure, she is of the Street of Pride, and yon
old man who is conversing with him comes from the Street of Lucre, and
has a mortgage on almost every acre of my lord’s, and is come to-day to
complete the loan.” We drew nigh to hear the conversation. “In sooth,
sir,” Old Money-bags was saying, “I would not for all that I possess that
you should lack anything which lies in my power to enable you to appear
your own true self this day, especially seeing that you have met so
beautiful and lovely a lady as madam here” (the wily dog knowing full
well what she was). “By the — by the —,” said the lord, “next to gazing
at her beauty, my greatest pleasure was to hearken to your fair reasons;
I had liefer pay you interest than get money elsewhere free.” “Indeed,
my lord,” said one of his chief friends called Flatterer, “nuncle pays
you not a whit less respect than is due to you, but an it please you, he
has bestowed upon her ladyship scarce the half her mead of praise. I
defy any man,” quoth he, “to show a lovelier woman in all the Street of
Pride, or a nobler than you in all the Street of Pleasure, or a kinder
than you, good mine uncle, in all the Street of Lucre.” “Ah, that is
your good opinion,” said my lord, “but I cannot believe that any couple
were ever more united in the bonds of love than we twain.” As they went
on the crowd increased, and everyone had a pleasant smile and low bow for
the other, and hastened to salute each other with their noses to the
ground, like a pair of gamecocks on the point of striking. “Know then,”
said the Angel, “that thou hast seen naught of civility nor heard one
word which Hypocrisy has not taught. There is no one here, after all
this gentleness, who has a hap’orth of love one to another, yea, many of
them are sworn foes. This lord is the butt {23} of everybody, and all
have their dig at him. The lady looks only to his greatness and high
degree, so that she may thereby ascend a step above many of her
neighbours. Old Money-bags has his eye on my lord’s lands for his own
son, and all the others on the money he received as dowry; for they are
all his dependants, his merchants, tailors, cobblers and other craftsmen,
who have decked him out and maintained him in this splendor, and have
never had a brass farthing for it, nor are likely to get aught save
smooth words and sometimes threats perhaps. How many layers, how many
folds had Hypocrisy laid over the face of Truth! He, promising greatness
to his love, while his lands were on the point of being sold; she,
promising him dower and beauty, while her beauty is but artificial, and
cancer is consuming both her dowry and her body.” “Well, this teaches
us,” said I, “never to judge by appearances.” “Yes verily,” said he,
“but come on and I will show thee more.”
At the word he transported me up to where the churches of the City of
Destruction were; for everyone therein, even the unbelieving, has a
semblance of religion. And it was to the temple of the unbelievers that
we first came, and there I saw some worshipping a human form, others the
sun, the moon and a countless other like gods down to onions and garlic;
and a great goddess called Deceit was universally worshipped. However,
there were some traces of the influence of Christianity to be found in
most of these religions. Thence we came to a congregation of mutes, {24}
where there was nothing but sighing and quaking and beating the breast.
“Here,” said the Angel, “is the appearance of great repentance and
humility, but which in reality is perversity, stubbornness, pride and
utter darkness; although they talk much about the light within, they have
not even the spectacles of nature which the heathen thou erstwhile saw,
possess.”
From these dumb dogs we chanced to turn into an immense, roofless church,
with thousands of shoes lying at the porch, whereby I learnt it was a
Turkish mosque. These had but very dark and misty spectacles called the
Koran; yet through these they gazed intently from the summit of their
church for their prophet, who falsely promised to return and visit them
long ago, but has left his promise unfulfilled.
From thence we entered the Jewish synagogue—these too were unable to flee
from the City of Destruction, although they had grey-tinted spectacles,
for when they look a film comes over their eyes from want of anointing
them with that precious ointment—faith.
Next we came to the Papists. “Here is the church that beguiles the
nations,” exclaimed the Angel, “it was Hypocrisy that built this church
at her own cost. For the Papists encourage, yea, command men to break an
oath with a heretic even though sworn on the sacraments.” From the
chancel we went through the keyholes, up to the top of a certain cell
which was full of candles, though it was broad daylight, and where we
could see a tonsured priest walking about as if expecting someone to come
to him; and ere long there comes a buxom matron, with a fair maid in her
wake, bending their knees before him to confess their sins. “My
spiritual father,” said the good wife, “I have a burthen too heavy to
bear unless I obtain your mercy to lighten it: I married a member of the
Church of England!” “What!” cried the shorn-pate, “married a heretic!
wedded to an enemy? forgiveness can never be obtained!” At these words
she fainted, while he kept calling down imprecations upon her head.
“Woe’s me, and what is worse,” cried she when come to herself, “I killed
him!” “Oh ho! thou hast killed him? Well, that’s something towards
gaining the reconciliation of the Church; I tell thee now, hadst thou not
slain him, thou wouldst never have obtained absolution nor purgatory, but
a straight gate and a leaden weight to the devil. But where’s your
offering, you jade?” he demanded with a snarl. “Here,” said she, handing
him a considerable bag of money. “Well,” said he, “now I’ll make your
reconciliation: your penance is to remain always a widow lest you should
make another bad bargain.” When she was gone, the maiden also came
forward to make her confession. “Your pardon, father confessor,” cried
she, “I conceived a child and slew it.” “A fair deed, i’faith,” said the
confessor, “and who might the father be?” “Indeed ’twas one of your
monks.” “Hush, hush,” he cried, “speak no ill of churchmen. {25} What
satisfaction have you for the Church?” “Here it is,” said she and handed
him a gold trinket. “You must repent, and your penance will be to watch
at my bedside to-night,” he said with a leer. Hereupon four other
shavelings entered, dragging before the confessor a poor wretch, who came
about as willingly as he would to the gallows. “Here’s for you a rogue,”
cried one of the four, “who must do penance for disclosing the secrets of
the Catholic Church.” “What!” exclaimed the confessor, looking towards a
dark cell near at hand: “but come, villain, confess what thou hast said?”
“Indeed,” began the poor fellow, “a neighbour asked me whether I had seen
the souls that were groaning underneath the altar on All-souls’ day; and
I said I had heard the voice, but had seen nothing.” “So, sirrah, come
now, tell everything.” “I said moreover,” he continued, “that I had
heard that you were playing tricks on us unlettered hinds, that, instead
of souls, there was nothing but crabs making a row under the carpet.”
“Oh, thou hell-hound! cursed knave!” cried the confessor, “but, proceed,
mastiff.” “And that it was a wire that turned the image of St. Peter,
and that it was along a wire the Holy Ghost descended from the roodloft
upon the priest.” “Thou heir of hell!” cried the shriver, “Ho there,
torturers, take him and cast him into that smoky chimney for
tale-bearing.” “Well, this is the church Hypocrisy insists upon calling
the Catholic Church, and she avers that these only are saved,” said the
Angel; “they once had the proper spectacles, but they cut the glass into
a thousand forms; they once had true faith, but they mixed that salve
with substances of their own, so that they see no better than the
unbelieving.”
Leaving the cell we came to a barn {26} where someone was delivering a
mock sermon extempore, sometimes repeating the same thing thrice in
succession. “These,” said the Angel, “have the right sort of spectacles
to see ‘the things which belong unto their peace,’ but there is wanting
in their ointment one of the most necessary ingredients, namely, perfect
love. People come hither for various reasons; some out of respect to
their elders, some from ignorance, and many for worldly gain. One would
think, looking at their faces, that they are on the point of choking, but
they will swallow frogs sooner than starve; for so does Princess
Hypocrisy teach those meeting in barns.
“Pray tell,” said I, “where may the Church of England be?” “Oh, it is
yonder in the upper city, forming a large part of the Catholic Church,
but there are in this city a few probationary churches belonging to the
Church of England, where the Welsh and English stay for a time on
probation, so that they may become fit to have their names enrolled as
members of the Catholic Church, and ever blessed be he who shall have his
name so enrolled. Yet, more’s the pity, there are but few who befit
themselves for its citizenship. For too many, instead of looking
thitherwards, allow themselves to be blinded by the three princesses down
below; Hypocrisy too, keeps many with one eye on the upper city and the
other on the lower; yea, Hypocrisy is clever enough to beguile many who
have withstood the other enchantresses. Enter here, and thou shalt see
more,” he said, and snatched me up into the roodloft in one of the Welsh
churches, when the people were at service; there we saw some busily
whispering, some laughing, some staring at pretty women, others prying
their neighbour’s dress from top to toe; others, in eagerness for the
position due to their rank, keep shoving forward and showing their teeth
at one another, others dozing, others assiduous at their devotions, and
many of these too, dissimulating. “Thou hast not yet seen, nay, not even
among infidels shamelessness so barefaced and public as this,” said the
Angel, “but so it is, I am sorry to say, there is no worse corruption
than the corruption of the best.” {28a} Then they went to communion, and
everybody appeared fairly reverent before the altar; yet through my
friend’s glass I could see one taking unto himself with the bread the
form of a mastiff, another, that of a mole, another, that of an eagle, a
pig or a winged serpent, and a few, ah, how few, received a ray of bright
light with the bread and wine. “There,” he pointed out, “is a Roundhead,
who is going to be sheriff, and because the law calls upon a man to
receive the sacrament in the Church before taking office he has come here
rather than lose it, and although there are some here who rejoice on
seeing him, we have felt no joy at his conversion, because he has only
become converted for the occasion. Thus thou perceivest that Hypocrisy,
with exceeding boldness, approaches the altar in the presence of the God
that cannot be deceived. But though she wields great power in the City
of Destruction, she is of no avail in the City of Emmanuel beyond those
ramparts.”
Upon that we turned our faces from the great City of Destruction and
ascended towards the other city, which was considerably less; and on our
way we met several at the upper end of the streets who had made a move as
of turning away from the temptations of the gates of Destruction, and
making for the gate of life. But they either failed to find it or grew
weary on the way; very few went through—one man of rueful countenance,
ran in earnest while crowds on all sides derided him, some mocking, {28b}
some threatening him, and his kindred clinging to him, begging him not to
condemn himself to lose the whole world at one stroke. “I lose but a
small portion of it, and were I to lose all, what loss, I pray you, would
it be? For what is there in the world to be desired, unless it be
deceit, oppression and squalor, wickedness, folly and madness?
Contentment and rest is man’s supreme happiness—this is not to be found
in your city. For who of you is content? {29} ‘Higher, higher,’ is the
aim of all in the Street of Pride, ‘More, more’ cry all that dwell in the
Street of Lucre, ‘Sweet, sweet, yet more’ is the voice of everybody in
the Street of Pleasure. And as for rest, where is it, and who hath
obtained it? If a man is of high degree, adulation and envy almost kill
him; if poor, everybody is ready to trample and despise him. If one
would prosper, he must set his mind upon being an intriguer; if one would
gain respect, let him be a boaster or braggart; if one would be godly,
and attend church and approach the altar, he is dubbed a hypocrite, if he
abstain from doing so, he becomes at once an antichrist or a heretic; if
he is light-hearted, he is called a scoffer, if silent, a morose cur; if
he practises honesty, he is but a good-for-nothing fool; if well dressed,
he is proud, if not, he is a pig; if gentle of speech, he is double-faced
and a rogue, whom none can fathom; if rough, he is an arrogant and
froward devil. This is the world you make so much of, and pray you take
my share of it and welcome,” and at the word he shook himself free of
them all, and away he sped boldly to the narrow gate, and spite of all,
pushing onwards he entered, and we too at his heels. Upon the
battlements on either side of the gate were many men dressed in black,
encouraging the man and applauding him. “Who are those in black up
yonder?” I asked. “They are the watchmen of King Emmanuel,” answered he,
“who in their sovereign’s name invite men hither and help them through
the gate.”
By this we were at the gate: it was very low and narrow, and mean,
compared with the lower gates; around the door the Ten Commandments were
graven—the first table on the right hand and above it, “Thou shalt love
God with all thy heart,” and above the other table on the left, “Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” and above the whole “Love not the
world neither the things that are in the world.” I had not been looking
on long before the watchmen began calling in a loud voice upon the
condemned men: “Flee, flee for your lives!” But it was few that gave any
heed at all to them, though some enquired, “What are we to flee from?”
“From the prince of this world, who ruleth in the children of
disobedience; from the corruption that is in the world through the lust
of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; from the
wrath that is coming upon you.” “What is your beloved city?” cried a
watchman, “but a huge charred roof over the mouth of hell, and were ye
here ye should see the conflagration beyond your walls ready to burst in
and consume you even unto the bottomless pit.” Some mocked, others,
menacing, bade them have done with their wicked nonsense; yet one here
and there would ask, “Whither shall we flee?” “Hither,” answered the
watchmen, “flee hither to your rightful king, who through us still offers
you reconciliation, if ye return to your allegiance, and leave that rebel
Belial and his bewitching daughters. However fair they appear, it is all
sham; Belial is but a very poor prince at home; he has nought but you as
faggots for the fire and for food, both roast and boiled, and never will
ye suffice him; never will his hunger be appeased or your pain cease.
Who would ever in a moment of madness enter the service of such a
malignant slaughterer, and suffer eternal torments, when he might live
well under a king who is merciful and kind to his subjects, and who hath
never done them aught but good on all sides, and kept them from Belial,
so that in the end he might give to each one a kingdom in the realm of
light. Oh, ye fools, will ye have that terrible foe, whose lips are
parched with thirst for your blood, and reject the compassionate prince
who hath given his own blood to save you?” Yet these reasons which would
melt the rock seemed to have no good effect upon them, and chiefly
because few had the time to listen to them, the others were too intently
gazing at the gates; and of those listening, very few reflected thereon,
and of these again, many soon forgot them; some would not believe they
served Belial, others would not have it that this untrodden little hole
was the gate of Life, and that the other bright portals, and this castle,
were a delusion to prevent them seeing their doom before coming face to
face with it.
Just then, behold a troop of people from the Street of Pride, knocking
boldly enough at the gate; but they were all so stiff-necked that they
could never enter a place so low without soiling their periwigs and
horns, so they sulkily retraced their steps. In their wake there came up
a group from the Street of Lucre: “And is this the Gate of Life?” asked
one; “Yea,” said the watchman overhead. “What must be done to enter?” he
enquired. “Read what is inscribed above the doorway and ye shall know.”
The miser read the Ten Commandments through: “Who will say that I have
broken one of these?” he exclaimed. But when he looked up, and saw the
words, “Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world,” he was
amazed, and could not swallow that hard saying. There was one,
green-eyed and envious, who turned back when he read: “Thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself.” There was a gossip and a slanderer who became
dazed on reading: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” When he read,
“Thou shalt not kill,” “This is not the place for me” quoth the
physician. In short, everybody saw something which troubled him, and so
they all returned together to consider the matter. I saw no one yet come
back who had conned his lesson; they had so many bags and scripts tightly
bound to them, that they could never have got through such a narrow
needle’s eye, even if they had tried to. After that a drove from the
Street of Pleasure walked up to the gate. “Where, pray, does this road
lead to?” asked one of the watchmen. “This,” answered he, “is the way
that leads to eternal joy and happiness.” Whereupon all strove to enter,
but failed, for some were too stout to pass through such a strait
opening; others too weak to struggle, being enfeebled through debauchery.
“Oh, ye must not attempt to take your baubles with you,” said the
watchman, observing them; “ye must leave behind your pots and dishes,
your minions, and all other things, and then hasten on.” “How shall we
live?” asked the fiddler, who would have been through long since but that
he feared to smash his fiddle. “Ye must trust the king’s promise to send
after you as many of these things as will do you good,” said the
watchman. This made them all prick their ears, “Oh, oh!” said one, “a
bird in hand is worth two in the bush,” and at that they with one accord
turned back.
“Let us enter then,” said the Angel, and drew me in; and there in the
porch I first of all perceived a large baptismal font, and hard by, a
well of salt water. “What is this doing in the middle of the road?” I
asked. “Because everybody must wash therein before obtaining citizenship
in the Court of Emmanuel; it is called the well of repentance.” Overhead
I could see inscribed “This is the gate of the Lord.” The gateway, and
street also, widened and became less steep as we went on, and after
proceeding a short distance I heard a voice behind me slowly saying,
“That is the way, walk ye in it.” The street trended upwards, but was
very clean and straight, and though the houses there were not so lofty as
those in the City of Destruction, they were fairer to behold; if there
was less wealth, there was also less dissension and care; if the choice
dishes were fewer, pain was more rare; if there was less turmoil, there
was less grief and more undoubtedly of true joy. I wondered at the
silence and sweet tranquility there, when thinking of what was going on
below. Instead of the cursing and swearing, the scoffing, debauchery and
drunkenness, instead of the pride and vanity, the torpitude of one
quarter and the violence of another, yea, for all the bustle and the
pomp, the hurly-burly and the brawl which there unceasingly bewildered
men, and for the innumerable and unvarying sins, there was nothing to be
seen here but sobriety, kindness and cheerfulness, peace and
thankfulness, compassion, innocence and contentment stamped upon the face
of every man, except where one or two silently wept, grieving that they
had tarried so long in the enemy’s city. There was no hatred or anger,
except towards sin, and this was certain to be overcome; no fear, but of
displeasing their king, who was more ready to be reconciled than to be
angry with his subjects; no sound, but that of psalms of praise to their
Saviour. By this we had come in sight of an exceedingly fine building,
oh, so magnificent! No one in the City of Destruction, neither the Turk
nor the Mogul nor any one else, has anything equal to it. “This is the
Catholic Church,” said the Angel. “Is it here Emmanuel holds his court?”
asked I. “Yes, this is the only royal court he has on earth.” “Are
there many crowned heads beneath his sway?” “A few—thy queen, some of
the princes of Scandinavia and Germany, and a few other petty princes.”
“What is that compared with those over whom great Belial rules—emperors
and kings without number?” “For all that,” said the Angel, “not one of
them can move a finger without Emmanuel’s permission—no, not even Belial
himself. For Emmanuel is his rightful liege too, only that he rebelled,
and was in consequence bound in chains to all eternity; although he is
still allowed for a short period to visit the City of Destruction where
he entices all he can into like rebellion, and to bear a share of his
punishment; and though he well knows that by so doing he increases his
own penalty, {34} yet malice and envy urge him on whenever he has a
pretext, and so much does he love evil that he seeks to destroy this city
and this edifice, although he knows of yore that its Saviour is
invincible.”
“Prithee, my lord,” said I, “may we approach so as to obtain a better
view of this magnificent royal court” (for my heart waxed warm towards
the place since first I had beheld it). “Oh yes, easily,” answered the
Angel, “for therein is my place, my duty and my work.” The nearer I came
thereto the more I wondered at the height, strength, splendour, grandeur,
and beauty of its every part, how skilful the work was, and how apt the
materials. Its base was an enormous rock wondrously fashioned, and of
strength impregnable; upon it were living stones, laid and joined in such
perfect order that no stone could possibly appear finer elsewhere than in
its own place. One part of the church projected in the form of a
wonderfully handsome cross, and the Angel saw me looking at it, and said,
“Dost thou recognise that part?” I knew not what to answer. “That is
the Church of England,” he said. I was somewhat startled, and looking up
beheld Queen Anne on the church-top enthroned, with a sword in each
hand—the one in the left called “Justice,” to defend her subjects against
the inhabitants of the City of Destruction, the one in the right, to
preserve them from Belial and his spiritual evils, and this was called
“the sword of the Spirit,” or the Word of God. Beneath the left sword
lay the statute book of England, and beneath the other, a big Bible. The
sword of the Spirit was fiery, and of immense length, and would kill
further away than the other would touch. I could see the other princes
with like arms defending their part of the church, but I deemed mine own
queen fairest of all, and her arms the brightest. At her right hand I
observed throngs clad in black—archbishops, bishops, and learned men
upholding with her the sword of the Spirit, while soldiers and officials,
with a few lawyers, supported the other sword. I was allowed to rest
awhile, by one of the magnificent doors where people came in to obtain
membership in the Universal Church, and whereat a tall angel was
doorkeeper. The interior of the church was lit up so brilliantly that
Hypocrisy dared not show her face therein, and though sometimes she
appeared at the threshold she never entered. Just as I saw, in the space
of a quarter of an hour, a Papist, who thought that the Catholic Church
belonged to the Pope, came and claimed its freedom. “What have you to
prove your right?” demanded the porter. “I have plenty of the traditions
of the fathers, and of councils of the church,” he answered, “but what
need I more certain than the word of the Pope, who sits in the infallible
chair?” Then the doorkeeper opened a huge Bible—a load in itself;
“This,” said he, “is our only statute book—prove your right from this or
go.” And he straightway departed.
Then came a flock of Quakers, who wished to enter with their hats on, but
were turned away for being so ill-mannered. After them some of the
barn-folk, who had been there only a short while, began to speak: “We
have the same statute book as ye have,” they averred, “and therefore show
us our privileged place.” “Stay,” said the bright porter, steadfastly
gazing on their foreheads, “I will show you something: see yon mark of
the rent ye made in the church when leaving it without cause or reason?
And would ye now have a place therein? Get ye back to the narrow gate,
and wash thoroughly in the well of repentance, to see if ye will reach
some of the royal blood ye erstwhile drank {36} and bring some of the
water of that well to moisten the clay, so as to make up yonder rent and
then ye are welcome.”
Before we had gone a rood westward I heard a noise coming from above,
from among the princes, and everybody, great and small, was taking up
arms and donning his armour as if for war, and ere I had time to cast
about me for a refuge, the whole sky became black, and the city darker
than when an eclipse befalls; the thunder roared, the lightning flashed
to and fro, and ceaseless showers of deadly shafts were directed from the
lower gates against the Catholic Church, and had there not been in each
man’s hand a shield to receive the fiery darts, and had the foundation
rock not been so strong that nothing could ever harm it, we all would
have become one burning mass. But alack, this was but a prologue or
foretaste of what was to follow; for suddenly the darkness became
sevenfold more intense, and Belial himself advanced in the densest cloud,
and around him his chief officers both earthly and infernal, ready to
receive and accomplish his behest at their several posts. He had
entrusted the Pope and his other son of France {37} with the destruction
of the Church of England and its queen; the Turks and Muscovites were to
strike at the other sections of the Church, and slay the people, and
especially the queen and the other princes, and above all to burn the
Bible. The first thing the queen and the other saints did was to bend
the knee and tell of their wrongs to the King of Kings in these words:
“The stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, oh
Emmanuel.” And immediately a voice replied: “Resist the devil and he
will flee from you.” And then commenced the greatest and most terrible
conflict that ever took place on earth. When the sword of the Spirit
began to be whirled round, Belial and his infernal hosts began to
retreat; then the Pope began to waver, while the King of France still
held out, though he too was almost giving up heart, seeing the queen and
her subjects so united, while he himself was losing ships and men on the
one hand, and on the other many of his subjects were in open revolt; and
the onslaught of the Turk also was becoming less fierce. Just then,
woe’s me, I saw my beloved companion shooting away from me into the
welkin to join a myriad other bright princes. Thereupon the Pope and the
other earthly commanders began to slink off and become prostrate through
fear, and the infernal princes to fall by the thousands. The noise of
each one falling seemed to me as if a great mountain fell into the depths
of the sea, and between this noise and the agitation on losing my friend,
I awoke from sleep, and returned to this oppressive sod, most
unwillingly, so pleasant and enjoyable it was to be a free spirit, and
above all to be in such company, notwithstanding the great danger I was
in. Now I had no one to comfort me save the Muse, and she was rather
moody—scarcely could I get her to bray out these lines that follow:—
Behold this wondrous edifice,
Both heaven and earth comprising,
The universe and all that is
At God’s command arising—
This world, with ramparts wide from pole to pole,
Down from its starry, brilliant dome,
E’en to the depths where angry billows roll,
And beasts that through the forest roam—
All things that sea and sky afford,
Thy faithful subjects eke to be;
A lesser heaven, a home for thee
Oh! man, creation’s lord.
But once that thou desired to know
The ways of sin, seductive,
The hellish tempter, to our woe,
Became a power destructive;
He cursed our earth and ruin brought on all,
Yea, very nature felt the bane—
Its blighted walls now totter to their fall,
And soon disorder rules again.
This earthly palace then at last,
Unroofed, dismantled and decayed,
A hideous, barren waste is laid
By desolation’s blast.
Behold oh, man! this glorious place
In the empyrean hovering
While all is but a treach’rous face
Foul swamps and quagmires covering.
Thy sin, that whelmed this earth in days of yore,
Shall draw upon it quenchless fire
With flaming torrents wildly rushing o’er—
A prey to conflagration dire;
If thou wouldst ’scape this dreadful fate,
I pray thee counsel take from me,
To Mercy’s city straightway flee
For life within its gate.
Behold that city’s peerless might
Withstanding all oppression—
Then flee thereto in thy sad plight,
Be free from sin’s possession.
Behold thy refuge in this dreary land
Where all may find true, peaceful rest,
A rock, impregnable on every hand,
Where perfect love reigns ever blest;
We sinful men, the way must search,
And there in faith for pardon pray,
And live a blissful, tranquil day
Within the Holy Church.
II.—THE VISION OF DEATH IN HIS NETHERMOST COURT.
One long, cold, and dark winter’s night, when one-eye’d Phœbus well nigh
had reached his utmost limit in the south and, from afar, lowered upon
Great Britain and all the Northern land, and when it was much warmer in
the kitchen of Glyn Cywarch {43a} than at the top of Cader Idris, and
better in a cosy room with a warm bedfellow than in a shroud in the
lychgate, I was meditating upon a talk I had had by the fireside with a
neighbour concerning the brevity of human life, and how certain it was
that death would come to all, and yet how uncertain its coming. Thus
engaged, I had just lain down, and was half-asleep, when I felt a heavy
weight stealthily creeping over me, from head to heel, so that I could
not move a finger—my tongue only was unbound. I perceived, methought, a
man upon my chest, and above him, a woman. After eyeing him carefully I
recognised by his strong odours, dewy locks and blear eyes, that the man
was no other than my good Master Sleep. “I pray you, sir,” cried I,
squeaking, “what have I done to you that you bring that witch here to
torment me?” “Hush,” said he, “it is only my sister Nightmare; we twain
are going to pay our brother Death {43b} a visit, and want a third to
accompany us, and lest thou shouldst resist we came upon thee, just as he
does, unawares. Consequently come thou must, willy-nilly.” “Alas,” I
cried, “must I die?” “Nay,” said Nightmare, “we will spare thee this
time.” “But an’t please you,” said I, “your brother Death has never
spared anyone yet who came beneath his stroke—he who wrestled with the
Lord of Life himself, though it was little he gained by that contest.”
Nightmare, at that word, rose up angrily and departed. “Come along,”
cried Sleep, “thou wilt never repent of thy journey.” “Well,” said I,
“may there never be night in Sleepton, and may Nightmare never have rest
save on an awl’s point if ye bring me not back where ye found me.”
Then away we went over hills and through forests, across seas and
valleys, over castles and towers, rivers and rocks, and where should we
alight but at one of the gates of the daughters of Belial, at the rear of
the City of Destruction, where I noticed that the three gateways of
Destruction contracted into one at the back, and opened upon the same
place—a murky, vaporous, pestilent place, full of noisome mists, and
terrible lowering clouds. “Prithee, good sir,” asked I, “what place be
this?” “The chambers of Death,” replied Sleep. And no sooner had I
asked than I could hear some wailing, groaning, and sighing; some
deliriously muttering to themselves or feebly moaning, others in great
travail, and with all the signs of man’s departure from life; and, now
and then, would one give a long-drawn gasp, and lapse into silence. At
that moment, I heard a key being turned in a lock, and at the noise I
looked around for the door, and gazing steadfastly, perceived thousands
upon thousands of doors, seemingly afar off but really close at hand.
“Please, Master Sleep, where do these doors open upon?” asked I. “Upon
the land of Oblivion,” was the answer, “an extensive domain {44} under
the sceptre of my brother Death, and this great rampart is the boundary
of vast Eternity.” By this I could see that there was a little death-imp
at every door, each one bearing arms, and a name different from that of
his fellows; though it was evident that they, one and all, were the
ministers of the same king. Nevertheless they were continually
quarrelling about the sick; one would snatch the patient to take him as a
gift through his own door, while another strove to take him through his.
On our approach, I observed that over each door the name of the Death who
kept it was written, and also that at each door were an hundred various
things left all of a heap, showing plainly that those who went through
were in haste. Over one door I saw “Hunger,” and yet on the floor close
by were full purses, and bags, and brass-nailed trunks. “This is the
Porch of Misers,” said Sleep. “Whom do those rags belong to?” “To the
misers, mostly,” he replied, “but there are some which belong to idlers,
gossipmongers and others, who, poor in everything except in spirit,
preferred to die of hunger rather than ask for help.” Next door was
Death-by-Cold, and when I came opposite him I could hear much shuddering
and shivering, and at his door, were many books, pots and flagons, a few
sticks and bludgeons, compasses, cords and ship’s tackle. “Scholars have
gone this way,” said I. “Yea, lonely and helpless, far from the succour
of those who loved them, their very garments stolen from them. Those,”
he continued, pointing to the pots, “are relics of the boon companions,
whose feet were benumbed under the benches, while their heads were
seething in drink and noise; those things over there belonged to those
who journeyed amid snow-clad mountains, and to North Sea traders.” The
next was a lanky skeleton called Fear-Death—so transparent you could see
he had no heart; at his door, too, there were bags and chests, bars and
strongholds. Through this one went userers and traitors, oppressors and
murderers, though many of these last called at the next door, at which
was a Death named Gallows, with a rope ready round his neck. Next to him
was Love-Death, and at his feet thousands of musical instruments and
song-books, love-letters, spots and pigments to beautify the face, and
hundreds of tinselled toys for the same purpose, together with a few
swords: “With these rivals have fought duels for their mistresses, and
some have killed themselves,” said Sleep. I could see that this Death
was sandblind. At the next door was a Death whose colour was worst of
all, and whose liver was entirely gone—his name was Envy. “This is the
Death,” said Sleep, “which brings hither those who have lost money,
slanderers, and a rideress or two, who are jealous of the law which
demands that a wife should submit herself unto her husband.” “Pray, sir,
what is a rideress?” “A rideress is a woman who will over-ride her
husband, her neighbourhood, and the whole country if she can, and by dint
of long riding, at last, rides a devil from that door down to the
bottomless pit.” Next was the door of Ambition-Death for those who hold
their heads high, and break their necks, for want of looking on the
ground they tread on; at this door lay crowns, sceptres, standards,
petitions for offices, and all manner of arms of heraldry and war.
But before I had time to notice any more of these innumerable doors, I
heard a voice bidding me by name to be dissolved, and at the word I felt
myself beginning to melt like a snowball in the heat of the sun; then my
master gave me a sleeping draught, so that I slumbered; and when I awoke,
he had taken me by some road or other far away on the other side of the
castle. I perceived myself in a pitch-dark vale of infinite radius,
methought, and shortly, I saw by a few bluish lights, like the flickering
flame of a candle, countless, ah! countless shades of men, some afoot and
some on horseback, rushing back and fro like the wind, in awful silence
and solemnity; the land was barren, bleak and blasted, without either
grass or hay, trees or animals, save deadly beasts and poisonous vermin
of every kind—serpents, snakes, lice, frogs, worms, locusts, gids and all
such that exist on man’s corruption. Through a myriad shades and
reptiles, graves, churchyards and tombs, we made our way to view the land
unmolested, until I happened to see some turning round and looking at me;
in an instant, notwithstanding the prevailing silence, a whisper passed
from one to another that there was a man from earth there. “A man from
earth!” cried one, “a man from earth,” exclaimed another, while they
crowded round me, like caterpillars, from every quarter. “Which way came
you, sirrah?” asked a morkin of a death-imp. “Indeed, sir,” said I, “I
know not any more than you do.” “What is your name?” he asked. “Call me
here in your own country what ye will, but at home I am called the
Sleeping Bard.”
At that word I could see an ancient mannikin, bent double, head to feet,
like a bramble, straightening himself, and looking at me more malignantly
than the red devil, and without a word he hurled a big skull at my head,
but, thanks to a sheltering tombstone, missed me. “Truce, sir, I pray
you,” cried I, “to a stranger who was never here before, and will never
come again, could I but once find the way home.” “I’ll make you remember
you’ve been here,” quoth he, and, again setting upon me with a thighbone,
he beat me most unmercifully, while I dodged about as best as I could.
“Ho ho!” I cried, “this country is very unmannerly towards strangers; is
there no justice of the peace here?” “Peace, indeed,” said he, “thou,
surely, hast no right to sue for peace, who disturbest the dead in their
graves.” “Pray, sir, might I know your name, for I wot not that I have
ever molested anyone from this country?” “Sirrah!” cried he, “know then
that I, and not you, am the Sleeping Bard, and have been left in peace
these nine centuries by all but you,” and again he set upon me.
“Withhold, brother,” said Merlin {48a} who stood near, “be not too hasty;
thank him rather for that he hath kept your name in respected memory on
earth.” “In great respect, forsooth,” quoth he, “by such a blockhead as
this. Are you, sirrah, versed in the four and twenty metres? Can you
trace the line of Gog and Magog and of Brutus son of Silvius {48b} down
to a century before the destruction of Troy? Can you prophesy when, and
how the wars between the lion and the eagle, and between the stag and the
red deer will end? Can you?” “Ho there! let me ask him a question,”
said another who stood by a huge seething cauldron, {48c} “draw near, and
tell me the meaning of this:—
“Upon the face of earth I’ll be
Until the judgment day,
And whether I be fish or flesh
No man can ever say.” {48d}
“I would know your name, sir,” said I, “so that I might the more
befittingly give answer.” “I am Taliesin, Chief of the Western Bards,
{48e} and those are lines from my mystery-song.” “I know not what your
meaning may be, if it be not the yellow plague which destroyed Maelgwn
Gwynedd, {49a} slew you upon the sea, and divided you between the ravens
and fishes.” “Tush, you fool,” cried he, “I was foretelling of my two
callings—as lawyer and poet—and which sayest thou now bears greatest
resemblance, whether a lawyer to a raven, or a poet to a whale? How many
will a single lawyer lay bare of flesh to swell his own paunch, and oh!
so callously doth he shed blood and leave the man half dead! The poet,
too, what fish can gulp as much as he? And though he hath always a sea
round him, not all the ocean can quench his thirst. And when a man is
both a poet and a lawyer, who can tell whether he is fish or flesh, and
especially if he be a courtier as well, as I was, and had to change his
taste with every mouth. But tell me, are there many of these folk now on
earth?” “Yes, plenty,” answered I, “if a man can patch together any sort
of metre, straightway he becomes a chaired bard. And of the others,
there is such a plague of barristers, petty lawyers, and clerks that the
locusts of Egypt preyed less heavily on the country than they. In your
time, sir, there were only roadside bargains and a hands-breadth of
writing on the purchase of a hundred pound farm, and a cairn or an
Arthur’s quoit {49b} raised as a memorial of the purchase and boundaries.
People have not the courage to do so nowadays, but more cunning, knavery,
and written parchment, wide as a cromlech, is necessary to bind the
bargain, and for all that it would be strange if no flaw existed or were
contrived therein.” “Well, well,” said Taliesin, “I would not be worth a
straw there, I may as well be here; truth will never be found where there
are many bards, nor justice where many lawyers, until health be found
where there be many doctors.”
Upon this a grey-haired, writhled shrimp, who had heard of the presence
of an earthly man, came and fell at my feet, weeping profusely. “Alack,
poor fellow,” cried I, “what art thou?” “One who suffers too much wrong
on earth day by day,” he replied, “and your soul must obtain me justice.”
“What is thy name?” I enquired. “I am called Someone,” was the answer,
“and there is no love-message, slander, lie, or tale to breed quarrels,
but that I am blamed for most of them. ‘In sooth,’ said one, ‘she is an
excellent wench, and has spoken highly of you to Someone, although
someone great was seeking her.’ ‘I heard Someone,’ said another,
‘reckoning a debt of nine hundred pounds on such and such an estate.’ ‘I
saw Someone yesterday,’ said the beggar, ‘with a mottled neckerchief,
like a sailor, who had come with a grain vessel to the next port;’ and so
every rag and tag mauls me to suit his own evil purpose. Some call me
‘Friend.’ ‘A friend told me,’ saith one, ‘that so and so does not intend
leaving a single farthing to his wife, and that there is no love lost
between them.’ Others further disgrace me and call me a crow: ‘a crow
tell me there is some trickery going on,’ they say. Yea, some call me by
a more honoured name—Old Man, and yet not a half of the omens,
prophecies, and cures attributed to me are really mine. I never
counselled walking the old way if the new were better, and I never
intended forbidding men to church by saying: ‘Frequent not the place
where thou art most welcome,’ and a hundred such. But Someone is the
name generally given me, and most often heard of when anything uncommonly
bad happens; for if you ask one where that scandalous lie was told and
who told it. ‘Indeed,’ he will say, ‘I know not, but Someone in the
company said it,’ and if you enquire of all the company concerning the
story, all have heard it of Someone, but no one knows of whom. Is it not
a shameful wrong?” he cried, “I beg of you to inform everybody who names
me that I uttered nought of such things. I never invented or repeated a
lie to disgrace anyone, nor a single tale to cause kinsmen to fly at each
other’s throats; I do not come near them; I know nothing of their
scandal, or business, or accursed secrets—they must not charge me with
their evils, but their own corrupt brains.”
Hereupon a little Death, one of the King’s secretaries, asked me my name,
and bade Master Sleep carry me at once into the King’s presence. I had
to go, though most unwilling, by reason of the power that took me up like
a whirlwind, ’twixt high and low, thousands of miles back on our left,
till we came, a second time, in sight of the boundary wall, and in an
enclosed corner we could see a vast palace, roofless and in ruins,
extending to the wall wherein were the countless doors, all of which led
to this terrible court. Its walls were built of human skulls with
hideous, grinning teeth; the clay was black with mingled tears and sweat,
the lime ruddy with gore. On the summit of each tower stood a Deathling,
with a quivering heart on the point of his shaft. Around the court were
a few trees—a poisonous yew or twain, or a deadly cypress, and in these
owls, ravens, vampires and the like, make their nests, and cry
unceasingly for flesh, although the whole place is but one vast, putrid
shamble. The pillars of the hall were made of thighbones, and those of
the parlour of shinbones, while the floors were formed of layer upon
layer of all manner of charnel.
I had not to wait a longwhile ere I came in view of a tremendous altar,
where we could see the King of Terrors devouring human flesh and blood,
while a thousand impish deaths, from every hole, were continually feeding
him with warm, fresh meat. “Here is a rogue,” said the Death that led me
thither, “whom I found in the midst of the land of Oblivion, having
approached so light-footed that your majesty never tasted a bite of him,”
“How can that be?” demanded the king, opening his jaws, wide as a chasm,
to swallow me. Whereupon I turned trembling to Sleep. “It was I who
brought him hither,” said he. “Well then, for my brother Sleep’s sake,”
said the awful and lanky monarch, “you can retrace your steps for the
nonce; but beware of me the next time.” Having been for some time
cramming his gluttonous maw with carrion, he caused his subjects to be
called together, and moved from the altar to a very lofty and dreadful
throne, to adjudge newly-arrived prisoners. In an instant, lo! the dead
in countless multitudes paid homage to the king, and took their places in
wonderful array. King Death was in his regal robe of brilliant scarlet,
whereon depicted were wives and children weeping and husbands sighing; on
his head a dark-red, three-cornered cap, a gift his cousin Lucifer had
sent him, on the corners of which were written Grief, Sorrow, and Woe.
Above his head were a myriad pictures of battles on land and sea, of
towns aflame, of the earth yawning, and of the waters of the deluge; the
ground beneath his feet was nought else than the crowns and sceptres of
all the kings he had ever conquered. At his right hand sat Fate with a
morose and scowling visage, reading an enormous tome that lay before him;
at his left, was an old man called Time, warping innumerable threads of
gold, silver, copper, and many of iron—some threads were growing better
towards the end, a myriad worse; along the threads were marked hours,
days and years, and Fate, at his book, cut the thread of life and opened
the doors in the boundary wall between the two worlds.
I had not been looking about me long, when I heard four fiddlers, just
dead, summoned to the bar. “How is it,” asked the King of Terrors, “that
ye, who are so found of joy, did not stay on yonder side of the chasm?
For on this side joy never existed.” “We have done no man ever any
hurt,” said one of the minstrels, “but on the contrary have made them
merry, and quietly took whatever was given us for our pains.” “Have ye
caused no one,” said Death, “to lose time from his work, or to absent
himself from church, eh?” “No,” replied another, “unless we were some
Sundays after service in an inn till the morrow, or in summer time on the
village green, and indeed we had a better and more beloved congregation
than the parson.” “Away, with them to the land of Oblivion,” cried the
terrible king, “bind the four, back to back, and pitch them to their
partners, to dance barefoot on glowing hearths, and scrape their fiddles
for ever without praise or pay.”
The next to come to the bar was a king from near Rome. “Raise thy hand,
caitiff,” bade one of the officers. “I hope,” said he, “ye have somewhat
better manners and favor for a king.” “Sirrah, you too,” said Death,
“ought to have kept on the other side of the gulf where everybody is
king; but know that, on this side, there are none besides myself and
another, who dwelleth down below, and you shall see that that king and
myself will set no value upon the degree of your greatness, but rather
upon the degree of your wickedness, and so make your punishment
proportionate to your crimes; therefore give answer to the questions.”
“Sir, allow me to tell you that you have no authority to arrest and
examine me,” said he, “I hold a pardon under the Pope’s own hand for all
my sins. Because I served him faithfully, he gave me a dispensation to
go straight to Paradise, without a moment’s stay in Purgatory.” At that
the king, and all the lean jaws, gave a dismal grin in imitation of
laughter, and the other, angered at their laughing, ordered them to show
him the way. “Silence, lost fool!” cried Death, “Purgatory lies behind
thee, on the other side of the wall, for it was in life thou hadst ought
to have purified thyself, and Paradise is on the right, beyond that
chasm. Now there is no way of escape for thee, neither across this abyss
to Paradise, nor through the boundary wall back to earth; for wert thou
to give thy kingdom—though thou hast not a ha’penny to give—the warder of
those doors would not let thee look once, even through the keyhole. This
is called the irremeable wall, for once it is passed there is no hope of
return. But since you are so high in the Pope’s favor, {54} you shall go
and get his bed ready with his predecessor, and there you may kiss his
toe for ever, and he, the toe of Lucifer.” At the word, four death-imps
raised him up, now trembling like an aspen leaf, and snatched him away
out of sight, with the speed of lightning.
Next after him, came a man and woman; he had been a boon companion, and
she a kind and lavish maid, but there they were called by their plain,
unvarnished names, a drunkard and a harlot. “I hope,” said the drunkard,
“I may obtain some favor in your eyes, for I despatched hither on a flood
of good ale many a fatted prey, and when I failed to slay others, I
willingly came myself to feed you.” “By the court’s leave,” said the
minion, “not half so many as I have despatched to you as a burnt offering
ready for table.” “Ha, ha,” exclaimed Death, “it was to feed your own
accursed lusts, and not me, that all this was done. Let them be bound
together and hurled into the land of darkness.” And so they too were
hurried away headlong.
Next to them came seven recorders, who, on being bidden to raise their
hands {55} to the bar, pretended not to hear the command, for their palms
were so thickly greased. One of them, bolder than the rest, began to
argue, “We ought to have had fair citation, in order to prepare our
reply, instead of being attacked unawares.” “Oh, we are not bound to
give you any particular notice,” said Death, “because ye have,
everywhere, and everywhile throughout your lives, warning of my advent.
How many sermons on the mortality of man have ye heard? How many books,
how many graves, knells and fevers, how many messages and signs, have ye
seen? What is your Sleep but my brother? Your heads but my image? Your
daily food but dead creatures? Seek not to lay the blame of your ill hap
on my shoulders—ye would not hear of the summons, although ye had it an
hundred times.” “Pray what have you against us?” asked one ruddy
recorder. “What indeed?” exclaimed Death, “the drinking the sweat and
blood of the poor, and the doubling your fees.” “Here is an honest man,”
he said, pointing to a wrangler behind them, “who knows I never did aught
but what was fair, and it is not fair in you to detain us here, seeing
you have no specific charge to prove against us.” “Ha, ha!” cried Death,
“ye shall bring proof against yourselves; place them on the verge of the
precipice before the throne of Justice; there they will obtain justice,
though they practised it not.”
There were yet seven other prisoners, who kept up such commotion and
clamour—some blandishing, gnashing the teeth and uttering threats, others
giving advice and so on. Scarcely had they been summoned to the bar than
the whole court darkened sevenfold more hideously than before, a
murmuring and great confusion arose around the throne, and Death became
more livid than ever. Upon enquiry it seemed that one of Lucifer’s
envoys had arrived, bearing a letter to Death, concerning these seven
prisoners; and shortly, Fate called for silence to read the letter which,
as far as I can recollect, was as follows:—
“LUCIFER, _King of the Kings of Earth_, _Prince of Perdition and
Archruler of the Deep_, _To our natural son_, _mightiest and most
terrible King Death_, _greeting_, _wishing you supremacy and booty
without end_:
“Whereas some of our swift messengers, who are always out espying,
have informed us that there lately came into your royal court seven
prisoners of the seven most worthless and dangerous species in the
world, and that you are about to hurl them over the precipice into my
realm: our advice is, that you endeavour, by every possible way, to
let them return to the earth; there they will be more serviceable—to
you, in the matter of food, to me, for supplying better company. We
had too much trouble with their partners in days gone by, and our
kingdom is, even now, unsettled. Wherefore, turn them back or retain
them yourself; for, by the infernal crown, if thou cast them hither,
I will undermine the foundations of thy kingdom, until it fall and
become one with mine own great realm.
“_From our Court_, _on the miry Swamp in the glowing Evildom_, _in
the year of our reign_, _5425_.”
King Death, his visage green and livid, stood for a time undecided. But
while he was meditating, Fate turned upon him such a grim frown that he
trembled. “Sire,” said Fate, “consider well what you are about to do. I
dare not allow anyone to repass the bounds of Eternity—the insurmountable
ramparts, nor deign you harbour any here, wherefore, send them on to
their doom, spite of the great Evil One. He has been able to array in a
moment many a haul of a thousand or ten thousand souls, and allot each
one his place, and what difficulty will he have with these seven now,
however dangerous they may be? Whatever happen, even if they overturn
the infernal government, send them thither instantly, lest I be commanded
to crush thee to untimely nothingness. As for his menaces, they are
false, and although thy doom, and that of yon ancient (looking at Time),
are not many pages hence, yet, thou need have no fear of sinking down to
Lucifer, for however glad everybody there would be to have thee, they
never will; for the eternal rocks of steel and adamant, which roof Hell,
are somewhat too firm to be shattered.” Whereupon Death, in great
agitation, called for someone to indite thus his reply:—
“DEATH, _King of Terrors_, _Conqueror of Conquerors_, _To our most
revered kinsman and neighbour_, _Lucifer_, _Monarch of the Endless
Night_, _and Emperor of the Sheer Vortex_, _Salutation_:
“After giving earnest thought to this your royal wish, it seemeth to
us more advantageous, not only to our state, but also to your vast
realm, that these prisoners be sent to the furthest point possible
from the portals of the impervious wall, left their putrid odour
should so terrify the entire City of Destruction that no one would
ever enter Eternity from that side of the gulf, and I, in
consequence, would be unable to cool my sting, and you should have no
commerce betwixt earth and hell. But I leave you to judge them, and
to cast them into the cells you deem most secure and befitting.
“_From our Lower Court in the Great Tollgate of Destruction: from the
year of the restoration of my Kingdom_, _1670_.”
After hearing all this, I was itching to know what manner of folk these
seven might be, seeing that the devils themselves feared them so much.
But ere long, the Clerk to the Crown calls them by name, as follows:
“Mister Busybody, alias Finger-in-every-pie.” This fellow was so fussily
and busily directing the others, that he had no leisure to answer to his
name until Death threatened to sunder him with his dart. Then, “Mr.
Slanderer, alias Foe-of-Good-Fame,” was called, but no response came.
“He is rather bashful to hear his titles,” said the third, “he can’t
abide the nicknames.” “Have you no titles, I wonder?” asked the
Slanderer, “call Mr. Honey-tongued Swaggerer, alias Smoothgulp, alias
Venomsmile.” “Here,” cried a woman, who was standing near, pointing to
the Swaggerer. “Ha, Madam Huntress!” cried he, “your humble servant; I
am glad to see you well, I never saw a more beautiful woman in breeches,
but woe’s me to think how pitiable is the country, having lost in you
such an unrivalled ruler; and yet, your pleasant company will make hell
itself somewhat better.” “Oh, thou scion of evil,” cried she, “no one
need a worse hell than to be with thee—thou art enough.” Then the crier
called, “Huntress, alias Mistress o’ the Breeches.” “Here,” answered
someone else, she herself not saying a word because they did not “madam”
her. Next was called the Schemer, alias Jack-of-all-Trades. But he,
too, failed to answer, for he was assiduously plotting to escape the Land
of Despair. “Here, here,” cried someone behind him, “here he is spying
for a place to break out of your great court, and unless you be on your
guard, he has a considerable plot against you.” “Then,” said the
Schemer, “Let him also be called, to wit, The Accuser-of-his-Brethren,
alias Faultfinder, alias Complaint-monger.” “Here, here he is,” cried
the Litigious Wrangler—for each one knew the other’s name, but none would
acknowledge his own. “You are also called,” said the Accuser, “Mr.
Litigious Wrangler, alias Cumber-of-Courts.” “Witness, witness, all of
you, what names the knave has given me,” cried the Wrangler. “Ha, ha,
’tis not according to the font, but according to the fault, that
everybody is named in this land,” said Death, “and with your permission,
Mr. Wrangler, these names must stick to you for evermore.” “Indeed,”
quoth the Wrangler, “by the devil, I’ll make it hot for you; although you
may put me to death, you have no right to nickname me. I shall enter a
plaint for this and for false imprisonment, against you and your kinsman
Lucifer, in the Court of Justice.”
By this I could see the armies of Death in array and armed, looking to
the king for the word of command. Then the king, standing erect on his
throne, spoke as follows: “My terrible and invincible hosts, spare
neither care nor haste to despatch these prisoners out of my territories,
lest they corrupt my country; throw them in bonds headlong over the
hopeless precipice. But as to the eighth, this cumbrous fellow who
menaces me, let him free on the brink beneath the Court of Justice, so
that he may make good his charge against me, if he can.” No sooner had
he sat down than the whole deadly armies surrounded and bound the
prisoners, and led them towards their appointed dwelling. And when I,
having gone out, half-turned to look at them. “Come hither,” cried
Sleep, and flew with me to the top of the loftiest tower on the court;
from whence I saw the prisoners going forth to their everlasting doom.
Before long a sudden whirlwind arose, and drove away the pitch-dark mist
usually hovering over the Land of Oblivion, and in the wan light, I could
see myriads of livid candles, and by their gleam, I obtained a far-off
view of the mouth of the bottomless abyss. But if that was a horrible
sight, overhead was one still more horrible—Justice, on her throne,
guarding the portal of hell, and holding a special tribunal above the
entrance thereto, to pronounce the doom of the damned as they arrive. I
beheld the seven hurled headlong over the terrible verge, and the
Wrangler, too, rushing to throw himself over, lest he should once look on
the Court of Justice, for, alas, the sight thereof was intolerable to
guilty eyes. I was only gazing from a distance, yet I beheld more
dreadful horrors than I can now relate, nor then could endure; for my
spirit so strove and panted through exceeding fear, and struggled so
violently, that all the bonds of Sleep were burst; my soul returned to
its wonted functions, and I rejoiced greatly to perceive myself still
among the living, and resolved to lead a better life, for I would rather
suffer affliction an hundred years in the paths of holiness than,
perforce, take another glance at the horrors of that night.
1 Must I leave home and fatherland,
And every charm and pleasure?
Leave honored name and high degree
Enjoyed in life’s brief measure?
2 Leave beauty, strength, and wisdom, too,
All won in hard employment,—
All I have learnt, and all I’ve loved,
And all this world’s enjoyment.
3 Can I evade the stroke of Death
That rends all ties asunder?
Do not his awful shambles gape
For me to be his plunder?
4 Ye gilded men would fain enjoy
The wealth your souls engrossing,
But ye must bow to him and go
The journey of his choosing.
5 Ye favored fair, whose lightest word
Has caused ten thousand errors,
Think not your garish, tinselled charms
Can blind the King of Terrors.
6 Ye who rejoice in heedless youth
And follow fleeting pleasures,
Know that ye cannot conquer Death
By valor, arts, or treasures.
7 Ye who exult in madding song
The giddy dances treading,
Think not that all the mirth of France
Can thwart the fate you’re dreading.
8 Ye who have roamed the wide world o’er,
Where have ye found the tower,
With walls and portals strong enough
To check Death’s awful power?
9 Statesmen and learned sages, all
Of godlike understanding,
What will your craft and skill avail?
’Tis Death who is commanding.
10 The greatest foes of man are now
The world, the flesh, the devil;
And yet, ere long, we’ll surely find
In Death a greater evil.
11 How little now it seems to die—
To gain the suit or lose it?
But when the doom is of thyself
How great thy care to chose it?
12 We care, at present, not a jot
Which way our gains may turn us;
Eternal life, howe’er so great,
We think can not concern us.
13 But when thou’rt hedged on every side
And Death himself is nearest,
For one brief, ling’ring space we’ll give
Whate’er to us is dearest.
14 Think not that thou canst make thy terms
For thine eternal dwelling,
On either side of that dread gulf,
With death thy steps compelling.
15 Repentence, faith, and righteousness,
Alone are thy Salvation,
And in the agony of Death
Shall be thy consolation.
16 And when the world is passing by,
Its joys and pleasures ending,
Infinite thou wilt deem their worth
When to the bourne descending!
III.—THE VISION OF HELL.
One April morning, bright and mild, when earth was with verdure laden,
and Britain, like a paradise, had donned its brilliant livery,
foretelling summer’s sunshine, I sauntered along the banks of the Severn,
while around me, chaunting their sweet carols, the forest’s little
songsters in rivalry poured forth songs of praise to their Maker; and I,
who was far more bounden than they to give praise, at one while lifted up
my voice with the gentle winged choristers, and at another read “_The
Practice of Piety_.” {67} For all that, my previous visions would not
from my mind, but time after time broke in upon every other thought.
They continued to trouble me until after careful reasoning I concluded
that every vision is a heaven-sent warning against sin, and that
therefore it was my duty to write them down as a warning to others also.
And whilst occupied with this work, and sadly endeavouring to recall some
of those awful memories, there fell upon me at my task such drowsiness
that soon opened the way for Master Sleep to glide in perforce. No
sooner had sleep taken possession of my senses than there drew nigh unto
me a glorious apparition upon the form of a young man, tall and exceeding
fair; his raiments were whiter sevenfold than snow, the brightness of his
face darkened the sun, his wavy, golden locks rested on his brow in two
shining coronal wreaths. “Come with me, thou mortal being,” he
exclaimed, when he had drawn near. “Who art thou, Lord?” said I. “I am
the Angel of the realms of the North,” answered he, “guardian of Britain
and its queen. I am one of the princes who stand below the throne of the
Lamb, receiving his commands to protect the Gospel against all its
enemies in Hell, in Rome and in France, in Constantinople, in Africa and
in India, and wherever else they may be, devising plans for its
destruction. I am the Angel who saved thee beneath the Castle of Belial,
and who showed thee the vanity and madness of all the earth, the City of
Destruction and the splendor of Emmanuel’s City; and again have I come at
his bidding to show thee greater things, because thou art seeking to make
good use of what thou hast seen erstwhile.” “How can it be, Lord,” asked
I, “that your glorious highness, guardian of kings and kingdoms, does
condescend to associate with carrion such as I?” “Ah,” said he, “in our
sight a beggar’s virtue is more than a king’s majesty. What if I am
greater than all the kings of earth, and supreme to many of the countless
lords of heaven? Yet, since our eternal Sovereign vouchsafed to take
upon Himself such unutterable humiliation—put on one of your bodies,
lived in your midst, and died to save you, how dare I deem it otherwise
than too sublime for my office to serve thee and the meanest of men, who
are so high in my Master’s favor? Hence, spirit, cast off thine earthy
mould!” he cried, gazing upwards: and at the word, I beheld him fall free
of all bodily form, and snatch me up to the vault of heaven, through the
region of thunder and lightning, and all the glowing armouries of the
empyrean; higher, immeasureably higher than I had previously been with
him, and where the earth appeared scarcely wider than a stack-yard.
Having allowed me to rest awhile, he hurried me upwards a myriad miles,
until the sun appeared far beneath us; through the milky way, past
Pleiades, and many other stars of appalling magnitude, catching a distant
glimpse of other worlds. And after journeying for a long time, we come
at last to the confines of the great eternity, in sight of the two courts
of the vauntful King of Death—one to the right, the other to the left,
but very far apart from one another as there lay an immense void between
them. I asked whether I might go and see the court on my right hand, for
I observed that this was not at all like the other I had previously seen.
“Thou shalt perchance,” said he, “see, somewhile, more of the difference
there is between them. But now we must proceed in another direction.”
At that we turned away from the little world, and across the intervening
space we let ourselves descend into the Eternal Realm between the two
courts, into the formless void, a boundless tract, most deep and dark,
chaotic and uninhabited, at one time cold, at another hot, {69} now
silent, now resounding with the roaring of cataracts falling and
quenching the fires, and anon of the fire bursting out and burning up the
water. Thus, there was neither order nor completeness, nor life nor
form: nought but this dazing dissonance, this mysterious stupor which
would have made me for ever blind, had not my friend laid bare once more
his vesture of heavenly sheen. By the light he gave I saw before me to
the left the Land of Oblivion, and the borders of the Wilds of
Destruction; and to my right, methought, the base of the ramparts of
Glory. “This is the great abysm between Abraham and Dives,” said he,
“which is called Chaos: this is the land of the matter which God did
first create, and here is the seed of every living thing; of these the
Almighty Word created your world and all it doth contain—water, fire,
air, earth, beasts, fishes, insects, birds and the human body; but your
souls are of a higher and nobler origin and stock.”
Through the huge, frightful chaos we at length broke forth to the left;
and ere we had journey’d far therein where every object grew uglier and
uglier, I felt my heart in my throat, and my hair erect like a hedgehog’s
bristles, even before perceiving anything; but what I did perceive was a
sight no tongue can describe nor the mind of a mortal dwell upon. I
fainted. Oh, that limitless abyss, so dire and terrible, opening out
upon another world! How those awful flames crackled incessantly as they
darted upwards above the banks of the accursed ravine, and the shafts of
impetuous lightning rent the thick, black smoke which the yawning chasm
belched forth! When my beloved companion awoke me, he gave me ambrosial
water to drink, of most excellent flavor and color. After drinking this
heavenly water I felt some wonderful power within me,—wit, courage,
faith, and many other divine virtues. Thereupon I drew nigh with him
unfearingly to the edge of the precipice, shrouded in the veil, whilst
the flames parted asunder around us, and dared not touch denizens of the
supernal regions. Then from the edge of that dread gulf, we let
ourselves descend, like two stars falling from the canopy of heaven,
down, down for myriad millions of miles, over many sulphurous rocks, and
many a hideous cataract and fiery precipice, where all things bent
downwards ever, with impending aspect; yet they all avoided us, except
when once I poked my nose out of the veil, there struck me such a
stifling and choking stench as would have ended me had he not saved me
out of hand with the reviving water. When I had recovered, I could see
that we were come to a halt, for in all that stupenduous chasm no sooner
stay were possible, so sheer and slippery was it. There my Guide allowed
me once more to rest; and during that respite it chanced that the thunder
and the fierce whirlwinds were a little hushed, and above the roar of the
foaming cataracts, {71} I could hear from afar, louder than all, the
noise of such awful shrieks, wails, cries, and loud groans, of swearing,
cursing and blaspheming, that I would rather have set a bargain upon my
ears than listen. And before we had moved an inch, we heard from above
such _hip-drip-drop_ that had we not straightway stepped aside, there
would have fallen upon us hundreds of unhappy men whom a host of fiends
were hurling headlong, and too hurriedly to a woful fate. “Ho, slowly
sir!” quoth one sprite, “lest you displace your curly lock;” and to
another “Madam, will you have your soft cushion? I fear me you will be
much disordered before you reach your resting-place.”
The strangers were most reluctant to advance, insisting that they were on
the wrong road; still, onward they went, up to the bank of a wide, dark
torrent, whilst we followed in their wake and crossed over with them, my
companion, meanwhile, holding the water to my nostrils to protect me from
the stench rising out of the river. When I beheld some of the
inhabitants (for till now I had not seen a single devil, though I had
heard their voices) I asked: “What, pray, my Guide, is the name of this
death-like stream?” “The river of the Evil One,” answered he, “wherein
all his subjects are immersed to render them accustomed to the country;
its cursed waters changed their countenance, washing away every relic of
goodness, every shadow of hope and happiness.” And on seeing the horde
pass through, I could perceive no difference in loathsomeness between the
devils and the damned. Some wished to crouch at the bottom of the river,
there to remain in suffocation to all eternity, rather than find further
on a worse dwelling; but as the proverb says: “He whom the devil urges
must run,” so these damned beings, thrust on by the demons, were swiftly
borne along the stream of destruction to their eternal ruin; where I too
saw at the first glimpse more tortures and torments than man’s heart can
imagine, far less a tongue repeat; to see one of which was enough to
cause one’s hair to stand on an end, his blood to freeze, his flesh to
melt, his bones to give way, yea and his spirit to swoon within him. Why
speak I of such deeds as the impaling or sawing of men alive, the tearing
of the flesh in pieces with iron pincers or the broiling of it, chop by
chop, with candles, or the jambing of skulls as flat as a slate, in a
press, and all the most frightful degradation the earth ever witnessed?
All such are but pleasures compared with one of these. Here, a million
shrieks, harsh groans and deep sighs; there, fierce lamentations and loud
cries in answer: the howling of dogs were sweet, delightful music
compared with these voices. Before we had gone far from the shores of
that accursed river into wild Perdition, we could see by the light of
their own fire, here and there, men and women without number, whom a
countless host of devils unceasingly and with all their might kept always
torturing; and as the devils were shrieking from the intensity of their
own suffering, they made the damned give response to the utmost. I
observed the part nearest me more minutely: there, the devils with
pitchforks hurled them head foremost upon poisonous hatchels formed of
terrible, barbed darts, thereon to struggle by their brains; then
shortly, they threw them together, layer on layer, upon the summit of one
of the burning crags, there to blaze like a bonfire. Thence they were
snatched away up the ravines amidst the eternal ice and snow; {73} then
plunged again into an enormous flood of seething brimstone to be parched,
stifled, and choked by the direful stench; thence to a quagmire of
vermin, to embrace hellish reptiles far more noxious than serpents or
vipers. After that the devils took knotted rods of fiery steel from the
furnace, wherewith they beat them so that their howls resounded
throughout all Hell, so inexpressibly excruciating was the pain, and then
they seized hot irons to sear the bloody wounds. No swoon or trance is
there to beguile with a moment’s respite, but an unchanging strength to
suffer and to feel; though one would have thought that after one awful
wail there never could be the strength to raise another as weirdly-loud;
yet never will their key be lowered, with the devils ever answering:
“This is your welcome for aye.” And worse, were it possible, than the
pain, was the scorn and bitterness of the devils’ mockery and derision,
but worst of all, their own conscience was now thoroughly awakened, and
devoured them more relentlessly than a thousand infernal lions.
Still down we go, down afar—the further we go the worse the plight; at
the first view I saw a horrid prison wherein a great many men were
uttering blasphemous groans beneath the scourges of the devils: “Who are
all these?” asked I; “This,” answered the Angel, “this is the abode of
Woe-that-I-had-not.” “Woe that I had not been cleansed of all manner of
sin in good time,” quoth one. “Woe is me that I had not believed and
repented before my coming here,” quoth another. Next to the cell of
Too-late-a-repentance, and of Pleading-after-judgment, was the prison of
the Procrastinators, who were always promising to mend their ways, but
who never fulfilled the promise. “When this trouble is past,” saith one,
“I will turn over a new leaf.” “When this hinderance goes by, I’ll be
another man yet,” said another. But when that comes about, they are no
nearer; some other obstacle ever and anon occurs to preventing their
starting towards the gate of holiness; and if sometimes a start is made,
it takes but little to turn them back again. Next to these was the
prison of Presumption, full of those who, whenever they were urged of old
to be rid of their Wantonness, or drunkenness, or avarice, would say:
“God is merciful, and better than His word; He will never damn his own
creature upon a cause so trivial.” But here they yelped blasphemy,
asking: “Where is that mercy boasted to be infinite?” “Silence, ye
whelps!” said a huge, crabbed devil who heard them, “Silence! would he
have mercy who did nought to obtain it? Would ye that Truth should make
its word a lie, merely to gain the company of dross so vile as ye? Was
too much mercy shewn you, a Saviour, a Comforter given you, and the
angels, books, sermons and good examples? Will ye not cease plaguing us
now, prating of mercy where it never was.”
While making our exit from this glaring pit, I heard one moaning and
crying dolefully: “I knew no better; no pains were ever taken to teach me
to read my duties, nor could I spare the time to read and pray whereof I
had need in order to earn bread for myself and my poor family.”
“Indeed,” quoth a crookback devil who stood close at hand, “hadst thou no
leisure to tell merry tales, no idle roasting before thy fire through the
long winter evenings when I was up the chimney, so that no time might
have been given to learning to read or pray? What of thy Sabbaths? Who
was it that was wont to accompany me to the alehouse rather than the
parson to the church? How many a Sunday afternoon was spent in vain,
noisy talk of worldly things, or in sleeping, instead of in learning to
meditate and pray? Didst thou act according to thy knowledge? Silence,
sirrah, with thy lying chatter!” “Thou raving bloodhound!” exclaimed the
condemned, “’tis not long since thou wert whispering other words in mine
ear; hadst thou said this another day, it is not likely I would have come
hither.” “Ah!” said the devil, “it matters not that we tell you the
hateful truth here; for there is no fear of your returning hence now to
carry tales.”
Lower down I could see a deep, valley whence arose the bluish glare of
what seemed to be a countless number of enormous, burning mounds; and
after drawing nigh, I knew by their howling that they were men piled
mountains high with terrible flames crackling through them. “That
hollow,” said the Angel, “is the abode of those who after committing some
heinous deeds, exclaim: ‘Well, I am not the first—I have plenty of
companions,’ and thus thou see’st they have plenty, to verify their words
and add to their affliction.” Opposite this was a large cellar where I
saw men tortured just as withes are twisted or wet sheets wrung. “Who,
prithee, are these?” asked I. “They are the Mockers,” said he, “and the
devils from pure derision essay to find whether they can be twisted as
pliantly as their tales.” A little below, but scarcely visible, was
another gloomy dungeon-cell, wherein was what had once been men, but now
with the faces of wolf-hounds, up to their lips in a morass, madly
howling blasphemy and lies as often as they got their tongues clear of
the mire. Just then a legion of devils passed by, and some attempted to
bite the heels of ten or twelve of the devils that had brought them
there: “Woe and ruin take you, ye hell-hounds!” exclaimed one of the
bitten devils, at the same time stamping upon the quagmire until they
sank in the reeking depths. “Who more deserving of hell than ye, who
gossipped and imagined all manner of tales, who retailed lies from house
to house so that ye might laugh, after setting the entire neighbourhood
at war? What more would one of us have done?” “This,” said the Angel,
“is the abode of the slanderers, defamers and backbiters, and of all
envious cowards who always do hurt in word or deed behind one’s back.”
From thence we went past an enormous lair, the vilest I had yet seen, and
the fullest of vermin, of soot, and of stench. “This,” said he, “is the
place of those who hoped for heaven because they were harmless, in other
words, because they were neither good nor bad.” Next to this foul pit I
saw a great multitude sitting down, whose groans were more fierce than
anything I had heard hitherto in hell. “Save us all!” cried I, “what
makes these complain more than all others, seeing there be no pain, nor
demon near them?” “Ah,” answered the Angel, “if the pain without is
less, that which is within is more,—here are stubborn heretics, the
godless and unchristian, many of the worldy-wise, of apostates, of the
persecutors of the church, and millions such as they, who have utterly
been given over to the more bitterly painful punishment of the
conscience, which now without let or ceasing has its full sway over them.
“I will not this time,” quoth conscience, “be drowned in beer, or blinded
by rewards, or deafened by song and good company, or hushed or stupified
by a thoughtless torpor; now I will be heard, and never shall the truth,
the stinging truth, cease dinning in your ears.” The will creates a
desire for the lost paradise, the memory reproaches them with the ease
wherewith it might have been gained, and the reason shews the greatness
of the loss, and the certainty that nought awaits them but this
unspeakable gnawing for ever and ever; so by these three means,
conscience rends them more terribly than would all the devils in hell.
Coming out of that wondrous defile, I heard much talking, and for every
word such wild horse-laughter as if some five hundred devils would shed
their horns with laughing. But after I had drawn near to behold the very
rare sight of a smile in hell, what was it but two gentlemen, lately
arrived, appealing for the respect due to their rank, and the merriment
was intended only to give affront to them. A pot-bellied squire stood
there with an enormous roll of parchment, his genealogical chart,
declaring from how many of the Fifteen Tribes of Gwynedd he had sprung,
how many justices of the peace, and how many sheriffs there had been of
his house. “Ha ha,” cried one of the devils, “we know the merit of most
of your forebears, were you like your father, or great-great-grandsire,
we would not have deigned to touch you. But thou, thou art but the heir
of utter darkness, vile whelp, thou art hardly worth a night’s lodging;
and yet thou shalt have some nook to await the dawn.” And at the word
the impetuous monster pierces him with his pitchfork, and after whirling
him thirty times through the fiery welkin, hurled him into a hole out of
sight. “That is right enough for a half-blood squire,” said the other,
“but I hope ye will be better mannered towards a knight who has served
the king in person; twelve earls and fifty knights can I recount from
mine own ancient line.” “If thine ancestors, and thy long pedigree are
all thy plea, thou canst go the same gate,” quoth a devil, “for we
remember scarce one old estate of large extent which some oppressor, some
murderer or robber has not founded, leaving it to others as arrant as
they, to idle blockheads or to drunken swine. To maintain lavish pomp,
they had to grind their vassals and tenants, and if there be a beautiful
pony or a fine cow which my lady covets, she will have them, and well it
happens if the daughters, yea, even the wives, escape the lust of their
lord. And the small free-holders around them must either vainly follow
or give bail for them, resulting in their own ruin, the loss of their
possessions, and the sale of their patrimony, or expect to be hated and
despised, and forced to every idle pursuit. Oh how nobly they swear to
gain the confidence of their minions or of their tradesmen, and when
decked out in their finery, how contemptuously they look upon many an
officer of importance in church and state, as if such were mere worms
compared with them. Woe’s me, is not all blood of one color? Was it not
the same way that ye all entered the world?” “For all that, craving your
pardon,” said the knight, “there are some births purer than others.”
“For the great doom all your carcases are the same,” said the imp,
“everyone of you is defiled by the sin that took its origin in Adam.”
“But, sir,” continued he, “if your blood is aught better than another,
the less scum will there be when shortly it will be bubbling through your
body, and if there be more, we must examine you, part by part, through
fire and through water.” Thereupon, a devil in the shape of a fiery
chariot receives him, and the other mockingly lifts him thereinto, and
away he goes with the speed of lightning. Ere long the angel bade me
look, and I saw the poor knight most horribly sodden in an enormous
boiling furnace with Cain, Nimrod, Esau, Tarquin, Nero, Caligula, and
others who first established lineage, and emblazoned family arms.
After wending our way onward a little, my guide bade me peer through a
riven wall, and within I saw a group of coquetts busily primming up,
doing and undoing the deeds of folly they were formerly wont to do on
earth; some puckering their lips, some plucking their eyebrows with
irons, some anointing themselves, some patching their faces with black
spots to make the yellow look whiter, and some endeavouring to crack the
mirror; and after all the pains to color and adorn, upon seeing their
faces far uglier than the devils’, they would tear away with tooth and
nail all the false coloring, the spots, the skin and the flesh all at
once, and would shriek most dismally. “Accursed be my father,” said one,
“it was he who forced me when a girl to wed an old shrivelling, and it
was his kindling my desires with no power to satiate them, that doomed me
to this place.” “A thousand curses on my parents,” cried another, “for
sending me to a monastery to be taught to live a life of chastity; they
might as well have sent me to a Roundhead to learn how to be generous, or
to a Quaker to be taught good manners, as to a Papist to be taught
honesty.” “Fell ruin seize my mother,” shrieked a third, “whose covetous
pride refused me a husband at my need, and so drove me to obtain by
stealth what I might have honestly obtained.” “Hell, a double hell to
the raging bull of a nobleman who first tempted me,” cried another, “had
he not by fair and foul broken through all bounds, I would not have
become a common chattel, nor would I have come to this infernal place;”
and then would they lacerate themselves again.
I made all haste to leave their loathsome kennel, but I had not proceeded
far before I observed, to my astonishment, another prison full of women,
still more abominable; some had become frogs; some, dragons; some,
serpents, and there they swam about, hissing and foaming, and butting one
another, in a fœtid, stagnant pool that was much larger than Bala Lake.
“Pray, what can these be?” asked I. “There are here,” said he, “four
chief classes of women, not to mention their minions—_Firstly_: Panders,
who maintained harlots to sell their virginity an hundred times, and the
worst of these around them. _Secondly_: Mistresses of gossip, surrounded
by thousands of tale-bearing hags. _Thirdly_: Huntresses followed by a
pack of cowardly, skulking hounds, for no man ever dared approach them,
unless in fear of them. _Fourthly_: The scolds, become a hundredfold
more horrid than snakes, always grinding and gnashing their venomous
stings.” “I would have deemed Lucifer too gracious a monarch to place a
noble lady of my rank with these vulgar furies,” complained one, who much
resembled the others, but was far more hideous than a winged serpent.
“Oh, that he would send hither seven hundred of the basest demons of hell
in exchange for thee, thou poisonous hellworm,” cried another ugly viper.
“Many thanks to you,” quoth a gigantic devil, overhearing them, “we
regard our place and worth as something better; though ye would cause
everyone as much pain as we, yet we do not choose to be deprived of our
office in your favor.” “And Lucifer hath another reason,” whispered the
Angel, “for keeping strict guard over these, and that is, lest on
breaking loose, they might send all hell into utter confusion.”
Thence we still descended until I saw an immense cavern wherein was such
fearful clamor that I had never heard the like before—swearing, cursing,
blaspheming, snarling, groaning and yelling. “Whom have we here?” I
asked. “This,” answered he, “is the Den of Thieves; here are myriads of
foresters, lawyers and stewards, with old Judas in their midst.” And it
grieved them sorely to behold a pack of tailors and weavers above them in
a more comfortable chamber. Hardly had I turned round when a demon, in
the shape of a steed, bore in a physician, and an apothecary, and hurled
them into the midst of the pedlars and horse cheats, because they had
sold worthless drugs. And they too began murmuring against being
allotted to such low society. “Stay, stay,” cried one of the devils, “ye
deserve a better place,” and he pitched them down amongst conquerors and
murderers. There were vast numbers in here for playing false dice and
cheating at cards, but before I had time to observe them closely, I could
hear by the door a huge crowd in wild tumult and shouts—_hai_, _hw_,
_ptrw-how-ho-o-o-p_—as of cattle being driven along. I turned round to
see the cause of it, but could perceive only the hornèd demons. I
enquired of my Guide if there were cuckolds with the devils. “No,” said
he, “they are in another cell; these are drovers who wished to escape to
the prison of the Sabbath-breakers, and are sent here against their
will.” Thereupon I look and saw that they had on their heads the horns
of sheep and kine; and those that were driving them on, cast them down
beneath the feet of blood-stained robbers. “Lie there,” said one,
“however much ye feared footpads on the London road erstwhile, ye
yourselves were the very worst class of highwaymen, who made your living
on the road and on robbery, yea and by the perishing of many a poor
family whom ye left in hunger, vainly hoping for the sustenance of their
possessions, while ye were in Ireland or in the King’s Bench laughing at
them, or on the road with your wine and lemans.” On leaving the
furnace-like cave, I caught a glimpse of a haunt, which for loathsome,
stinking abomination, went beyond anything (with one sole exception) that
I had set my eyes upon in hell,—where an accursed herd of drunken swine
lay weltering in the foulest slime.
The next den was the abode of Gluttony, where Dives and his companions,
wallowing on their bellies, devoured dirt and fire alternately, with
never a drop to drink. A little below this, was a very extensive
roasting-kitchen, where some were being roasted and boiled, others
broiling and flaming in a fiery chimney. “This is the place of the
merciless and the unfeeling,” said the Angel. Turning a little to the
left, where there was a cell lighter than any I had so far seen, I asked
what place it was: “The abode of the Infernal Dragons,” said he, “which
growl and rage, rush about and rend one another every instant.” I drew
near and oh! what an indescribable sight they were! It was the glowing
fire of their eyes that gave all that light. “These are the descendants
of Adam,” said my Guide, “scolds and raving, wrathful men; but yonder are
some of the ancient seed of the great Dragon, Lucifer;” but verily I
could not perceive any difference in loveliness between them. In the
next dungeon dwell the misers in awful torment, being linked by their
hearts to chests of burning coin, the rust of which was consuming them
without end, just as they had never thought of an end to the piling of
them, and now they were tearing themselves to pieces with more than
madness through grief and remorse. Below this was a charnel vault where
some of the apothecaries had been ground down and stuffed into
earthenware pots with _Album graecum_, dung, and many a stale ointment.
Ever downward we were journeying through the wilderness of ruin, in the
midst of untold and eternal tortures, from cell to cell, from dungeon to
dungeon, the last alway surpassing in monstrous ghastliness, until
finally we came within view of an enormous entrance hall, most unsightly
of all that I had previously seen. It was very spacious and terribly
steep, running in the direction of a gloomy red corner, full of the most
inconceivable abominations and horrors: it was the royal court. At the
upper end of the king’s accursed hall, amidst thousands of other dread
sights, by the light my companion shed, I could see in the darkness two
feet of prodigious size, and so enormous as to overcast the whole
infernal firmament. I inquired of my Guide what such immensities might
be. “Thou shalt have a fuller view of this monster when returning,” said
he, “but, come now, let us to see the court.” As we were going down that
awful entrance hall, we heard behind us the noise as of very many people
advancing; on stepping aside to let them pass I noticed four divers host,
and upon enquiry I learnt that it was the four princesses of the City of
Destruction leading their subjects as an offering to their sire. I
distinguished the troop of the Princess of Pride, not only because they
insisted upon the foremost position, but also because they stumbled now
and then from want of keeping their eyes upon the ground. She led
captive kings without number, princes, courtiers, noblemen and braggarts,
many Quakers, and women innumerable and of all grades. Next to these
came the Princess of Lucre with her sly and crafty followers—a great many
of the brood of Simon Skinflint, money lenders, lawyers, userers,
stewards, foresters, harlots, and some of the clergy. Then came the
gracious Princess of Pleasure and her daughter Folly, leading her
subjects—players of dice, cards and back-gammon, conjurers, bards,
minstrels, storytellers, drunkards, bawds, balladmongers and pedlars with
their trinkets in countless number, to be at length instruments of
punishment to the damned fools.
When these three had taken their captives into the court to receive
judgment, Hypocrisy, last of all, brings in a more numerous troop than
any of the others, of every nation and age, from town and country,
patrician and plebeian, men and women. In the rear of this double-faced
legion we came within sight of the court; passing through the midst of
many dragons and hornèd demons, and hell’s giants, the dusky porters of
the devil-hunted fire; I, the while, carefully hiding within the veil, we
entered that direful edifice: wonderful, and of amazing roughness was
every part of it; the walls were cruel rocks of burning adamant; the
floor was one unendurable extent of sharp-cutting flint, the roof of
fiery steel, meeting in an arch of greenish and blood-red flames,
similar, except in its size and heat, to a tremendous circular oven.
Opposite the door, upon a flame-encompassed throne sat the Evil One with
the lost archangels around him, seated on benches of terrible fire,
according to the rank they formerly bore in the region of light—the
lovely whelps—it would only be a waste of words to attempt to describe
how atrociously ugly they were, and the longer I gazed upon them,
sevenfold more frightful did they become. In the centre above Lucifer’s
head was a huge hand grasping an awful bolt. The princesses, after
paying their courtesy, immediately returned to their duties on earth. No
sooner had they departed than at the King’s bidding, a gigantic devil
with cavernous jaws set up a roar, louder than the discharge of a hundred
cannon, and as loud, were it possible, as the last trump, to proclaim the
infernal Parliament, and behold, without delay, the court and hall are
filled by the rabble of hell in every shape, each upon the form and image
of that particular sin he was wont to urge upon men. After enjoining
silence, Lucifer, looking steadfastly upon the chieftains nearest him,
began and spake these gracious words:—
“Ye peers of this profoundest gulf, princes of the hopeless gloom, if we
have lost the place we erst possessed, when, clothed with brightness, we
dwelt in those celestial, happy realms; yet, however great our fall,
’twas glorious, nought less than all did we hazard, nor is all lost—for,
behold regions wide and deep extending to the utmost bounds of desolate
Perdition still ’neath our sway. ’Tis true we reign while racked with
raging torment, yet, for spirits of our majesty, ’tis better to reign in
hell than serve in heaven. {85a} And what is more, we have well nigh won
another world, a greater than a fifth of earth has been for long beneath
my standard. And although our Omnipotent Enemy sent his own Son to die
for them, I, by my pleasing guile, gain ten for every one He gains
through his crucified Son. Though we cannot aspire to do hurt to Him on
high who hurls His all-conquering thunder, yet revenge by whatsoever
means is sweet. {85b} Let us then bring ruin on the rest of men who
adore our Destroyer. Well do I recollect the time when ye caused them,
their armies and their cities, to be consumed in horrible combustion, yea
and caused nigh all the dwellers on the earth to fall through the
whelming waters into this fire. But now, although your strength and
innate cruelty are no whit less, ye have been somewhat listless; were it
not for this, we would have long ago destroyed the godly few, and brought
the earth one with this our vast domain. But know this, ye grim
ministers of my wrath, if ye henceforth be not up and doing, valiantly
and with all haste, seeing the brevity of our alloted time, I swear by
Hell and by Perdition, and by the vast, eternal gloom, that upon you,
yourselves, my ire first shall fall, with pain the like of which the
oldest amongst you hath never proved.” Whereupon he frowned until the
court became sevenfold darker than before.
Next him, Moloch one of the infernal potentates, stood up, and after
making due obeisance to his king, spake thus:—“Oh Emperor of the Sky,
great ruler of the darkness, none ever doubted my desire to practice
utmost bale and cruelty, for that has always been my pleasure; no sound
was more delightful to mine years than the shrieks of children perishing
in the flames outside Jerusalem, where in former days they were
sacrificed to me. And also after our crucified foe had returned to his
celestial home, I, during the reigns of ten emperors, continued as long
as it availed me, slaying and burning his followers in my attempt to
sweep the Christians off the face of the earth. And afterwards in Paris,
in England, and in several other places, did I cause many a massacre of
them; but what have we gained? The tree whose branches are lopped off
grows but the quicker; we snarl without the power of biting.”
“Pshaw!” exclaimed Lucifer, “shame! cowardly hosts that ye are! Never
more will I place my trust in you. This work I myself will perform, this
enterprise none shall partake with me. {87} In mine own imperial majesty
will I descend upon the earth, and alone will I devour all therein
contained; henceforth no man shall there be found to worship the Most
High.” Thereon he gave one terrific flying leap to start—a blaze of
living fire, but the hand overhead whirls the terrible dart so that he
trembles notwithstanding his rage, and ere he had gone far, an invisible
hand drags the brute back by the chain for all his struggles; his rage
becomes sevenfold more vehement, his eyes more fierce than dragons, thick
black clouds of smoke issue from his nostrils, livid flames from his
mouth and bowels, while he gnaws his chain in his grief, and mutters
fearful blasphemy and awful oaths.
At last, finding how futile was his attempt to sunder his bonds and how
unavailing to contend against the Almighty, he returned to his throne and
resumed his speech, in words somewhat more calm, but twice as malignant:
“Though none but the Omnipotent Thunderer could overcome my power and my
guile, to Him I am unwillingly constrained to submit; but I can pour
forth the vials of my wrath here below, nearer at hand, and let loose my
ire upon those who are already under my banner, and within the length of
my chain. Arise, ye too, ministers of destruction, lords of the
unquenchable fires, and as my anger and my venom overflow, and my malice
rush forth, do ye assiduously scatter all broadcast among the damned, and
chiefly among the Christians; urge on the engines of torture to their
uttermost; devise and invent; increase the heat of the fire and the
ebullition, until the hissing flood of the cauldrons overwhelms them; and
when their unutterable woes are extremest, then sneer at them and
mockingly reproach them, and when ye have exhausted all your store of
scorn and gall, hie to me and ye shall be replenished.”
A great stillness had brooded over hell for some time, while the pains
grew far more unbearable by being given no vent. But now the silence
which Lucifer had enjoined was broken, when the fierce butchers, like
bears maddened by hunger, fell upon their captives; then there arose such
doleful cries, such dismal howling, from every quarter, louder than the
roar of rushing torrents, than the rumble of an earthquake, till hell
itself became ten times more horrible. I would have died, had not my
friend saved me. “Quaff deep this time,” said he, “to give thee strength
to behold things yet more dire.” Hardly were the words from his lips,
when lo! heavenly Justice, who sits above the abyss, guardian of the
gates of Hell, advanced scourging three men with rods of fiery scorpions.
“Ha ha,” cried Lucifer, “here are three reverend gentlemen whom Justice
thought worthy himself to conduct to my kingdom.” “Woe’s me,” said one
of the three, “who ever wanted him to take the trouble?” “That matters
not,” answered he, with a look that made the fiends wax pale, and tremble
so that they knocked one against the other, “it was the will of the
Infinite Creator that I myself should lead to their home such accursed
murderers.” “Sirrah,”—addressing one of the demons,—“open me the fold of
the assassins, where Cain, Nero, Bradshaw, Bonner, Ignatius and
innumerable others like them dwell.” “Alack, alack! we have never slain
any man,” cried one. “No thanks to you that you did not, for time only
was wanting,” said Justice. When the den was opened, there came out such
a hideous blast of blood-red flames, and such a shriek as if a thousand
dragons were uttering their death-wail. As Justice was passing by on his
return, in an instant he caused such a tempest of fiery whirlwinds to
fall upon the Evil One and his princes that Lucifer was swept away, and
with him Beelzebub, Satan, Moloch, Abadon, Asmodai, Dagon, Apolyon,
Belphegor, Mephistopheles, and all their compeers, and they were hurled
headlong into a whirlpool which opened and closed in the centre of the
court and which, both in aspect and in the execrable stench that arose
from it, was a hundredfold more foul and horrid than anything I had ever
seen. Before I could ask aught, quoth the Angel: “This is the gulf that
reaches to another great world.” “What, pray, is that world called?” I
enquired. “’Tis called the bottomless pit or the Nethermost Hell, the
home of the devils, whither they now have gone. And those vast, dreary
wilds, parts of which thou hast traversed, are called the Region of
Despair, ordained for the condemned until the Judgment Day; then it will
become one with the utmost, bottomless Hell; then will one of us come and
seal up the devils and the damned together, never more to open upon them,
never to all eternity. In the meantime they have leave to come to this
colder country to torment lost souls. Yea, often are they suffered to
wander through the air, and about the earth, to tempt men into the
pernicious ways that lead to this horrible prison whence no man returns.”
While listening to this account, and wondering that the entrance of
Perdition should differ so from that of the Upper Hell, I heard the
tremendous clash of arms, and the roar of artillery, from one quarter,
and what seemed like loud-rumbling thunder answering from another
quarter, while the deadly rocks resounded. “This is the turmoil of war!”
I cried, “if there be war in hell.” “There is,” said he, “there cannot
be but continuous warfare here.” When we were on the point of going out
to know of the affair, I beheld the jaws of the Pit open and belch forth
thousands of hideous, greenish candles—for such had Lucifer and his
chiefs become after surviving the tempest. But when he heard the din of
war he turned more livid than Death, and began to call out, and levy
armies of his proven veterans to suppress the tumult. While thus
occupied he came across a little imp, who had escaped between the feet of
the warriors. “What is the matter?” demanded the King. “Such a matter
as will endanger your crown, an you look not to it.” Close upon this
one’s heels another devilish courier in a harsh voice cries: “You that
plan the disquietude of others, look now to your own peace; yonder are
the Turks, the Papists and the murderous Roundheads in three armies,
filling the whole plain of Darkness, committing every outrage and turning
everything topsy-turvey.” “How came they out?” demanded the Evil One,
frowning more terribly than Demigorgon. “The Papists,” said the
messenger, “somehow or other broke out of their purgatory, and then, to
pay off old scores, went to unhinge the portals of Mahomet’s paradise,
and let loose the Turks from their prison, and afterwards in the
confusion, through some ill chance, Cromwell’s crew escaped from their
cells.” Then Lucifer turned and peered beneath his throne, where every
damned king lay, and commanded that Cromwell himself should be kept
secure in his kennel, and that all the sultans should be guarded.
Accordingly, Lucifer and his host hurried across the sombre wilds of
darkness, each one’s own person furnishing light and heat; guided by the
tumultuous clangor he marched fearlessly upon them. Silence was
proclaimed in the King’s name, and Lucifer demanded the cause of such
uproar in his realm. “May it please your infernal majesty,” said
Mahomet, “a quarrel arose between myself and Pope Leo as to which had
done you the better service—my Koran or the Romish religion; and when
this was going on a pack of Roundheads, who had broken out of their
prison during the disorder, joined in and clamoured that their Solemn
League and Covenant deserved more respect at your hands than either; so,
from striving to striking from words to blows. But now, since your
majesty hath returned from hell, I lay the matter for your decision.”
“Stay, we’ve not done with you yet,” cried Pope Julius, and madly they
engage once more, tooth and nail, until the strokes clashed like
earthquakes; the three armies of the damned tore each other piecemeal,
and like snakes became whole again, and spread far and wide over the
jagged, burning crags, until Lucifer bade his veterans, the giants of
Hell, separate them, which indeed was no easy task.
When the conflict ceased, Pope Clement spake—“Thou Emperor of Horrors, no
throne has ever performed more faithful and universal service to the
infernal crown than have the bishops of Rome, throughout a large portion
of the world, for eleven centuries, and I hope you will allow none to vie
with them for your favor.” “Well,” said a Scotch-man of Cromwell’s gang,
“however great has been the service of the Koran for these eight hundred
years, and of popish superstitions for a longer period, yet the Covenant
has done far more since its appearance, and everyone begins to doubt the
others and be weary of them, but we are still increasing, the wide world
over, and have much power in the island of your foes, that is, in Britain
and in London, the happiest city under the sun.” “Ha ha,” exclaimed
Lucifer, “if I hear rightly ye too are about to suffer disgrace there.
But whatever ye may have done in other kingdoms, I will have none of your
rioting in mine. Wherefore make your peace forthwith under the penalty
of more woes, bodily and spiritual.” And at the word I could see many of
the fiends and all the damned, with their tails between their hoofs,
steal away to their holes in fear of a change for the worse.
Then after ordering all to be locked up in their lairs, and punishing and
dismissing the officers whose carelessness had allowed them to break
loose, Lucifer and his counsellors returned to the court, and sat once
more upon the fiery thrones, according to their rank; and when silence
had been obtained, and the court cleared, a burly, lob-shouldered devil
threw down at the bar a fresh load of prisoners. “Is this the way to
Paradise?” asked one (for they had no idea where they were). “Or if this
be Purgatory,” said another, “I have a dispensation under the Pope’s own
signet to pass straight on to Paradise, without a moment’s delay
anywhere; wherefore show us the way, or by the Pope’s toe, we will have
him punish you.” “Ha ha,” laughed a thousand demons, and Lucifer himself
opened his tusked jaws some half a yard in scornful laughter. At which
the new comers were sore amazed. “Look ye,” said one, “if we have missed
our way in the dark, we will pay for guidance.” “Ha ha,” cried Lucifer,
“ye shall not hence till ye have paid the uttermost farthing.” But on
searching them it was found that they had one and all left their trouser
behind. “Ye went past Paradise on the left above those mountains there,”
said the Evil One, “and although it is easy to descend hither, to return
is next to impossible, so dark and intricate is the country, so many
steep ascents of flaming iron are there on the way, and huge imminent
rocks, overhanging glaciers of insurmountable ice, and here and there, a
headlong cataract, all too difficult to clamber over, if ye have not
nails as long as a devil’s. Ho there! convey these blockheads to our
paradise to their companions.” Just then I heard voices drawing nigh,
swearing and cursing fearfully. “Fiends’ blood! a myriad devils seize me
if ever I go!” and immediately the noisy crew were cast down before the
court. “There,” exclaimed the steed that bore them, “there is fuel with
the best in hell.” “What are they?” asked Lucifer. “Past masters in the
gentle art of swearing and cursing,” said he, “who knew the language of
hell as well as we do.” “A lie to your face, i’ the devil’s name!” cried
one. “Sirrah! wilt take my name in vain?” said the Evil One. “Ho, seize
them and hook them by their tongues, to that burning precipice, and be at
hand to serve them; if on one devil they call, or on a thousand, they
shall have their fill.”
When these had departed, a gigantic fiend calls loudly for clearing the
bar, and throws down thereat a man who was a load in himself. “What hast
thou there?” demanded Lucifer. “An innkeeper,” answered he. “What?”
cried the King, “only one innkeeper, when they used to come by the
thousands. Hast thou, sirrah, not been out for ten years, and dost bring
hither but one, and such an one as would serve us in the world better
than thee, foul lazy hound!” “You are too just to condemn me before
hearing me,” pleaded he, “he was the only one laid to my charge, and now
I am rid of him. But I despatched you from his house many an idler who
drank his family’s maintenance, and now and then a dicer, and card
player, a fine swearer, an innocent glutton, a negligent tapster and a
maid, harsh in the kitchen, but never a kinder abed or in the cellar.”
“Although this fellow deserves to be with the flatterers beneath,” said
the Evil One, “natheless take him to his comrades in the cell of the
liquid-poisoners, among the apothecaries and drugsters who have concocted
drinks to murder their customers; boil him well for that he did not brew
better beer.” “By your leave,” began the innkeeper tremblingly, “I
deserve no such treatment, the trade must be carried on.” “Couldst thou
not have lived,” quoth the Evil One, “without allowing rioting and
gambling, wantonness and drunkenness, oaths and quarrels, slanders and
lies? and wouldst thou, old hell-hound, now live better than we?
Prithee, tell what evil have we here which thou hadst not at thine home,
save the punishment alone? Indeed, to speak the plain truth here, the
infernal heat and cold are nothing new to thee. Hast thou not seen
sparks of our fire upon the tongues of the cursers and the scolds, whilst
dragging their husbands home? Was there not a deal of the undying flame
on the drunkard’s lips or in the eyes of the angry? And couldst thou not
perceive a trace of hellish cold in the rake’s generosity, and especially
in thine own kindness towards him as long as he had anything in his
possession; in the mocker’s jest; in the praise of the envious and of the
defamer, in the promises of the lecherous, or in the limbs of thy boon
companions, benumbed beneath thy tables? Is hell strange to thee whose
very home is a hell? Aroint thee, flamhound, to thy penance!”
After that ten devils, panting heavily, drop their burdens upon the fiery
floor. “What have ye?” asked Lucifer. “We have what a day or two ago
were called kings,” answered one of the fiendish steeds. (I sought
carefully to see whether Lewis of France were among them.) “Throw them
here,” bade the King; and at that they were thrown amongst the other
crowned heads that lay beneath Lucifer’s feet; and following the monarchs
came their courtiers and their flatterers to receive sentence. Before I
had time to ask any question, I heard the blast of brazen trumpets and
shouts. “Make way, make way,” and at once there came in view a herd of
assize-men and devils bearing the train of six justices, and millions of
their race—barristers, {95a} attorneys, clerks, recorders, bailiffs,
catchpolls, and the litigous busybody. I wondered that none of them was
examined; but in truth, they knew the matter had gone too far against
them, so none of the learned counsels opened their lips, but the busybody
threatened that he would bring an action for false imprisonment against
Lucifer. “Thou shalt have good cause of complaint now,” said the Evil
One, “and never see a court at all.” Then he donned his red cap, and
with unbearable, haughty mien, said: “Go, take the justices to the hall
of Pontius Pilate, to Master Bradshaw, who condemned King Charles; pack
the barristers with the assassins of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, {95b} and
their other false co-partners who simulate mutual contention, merely in
order to slay whomsoever might interpose. Go, greet that prudent lawyer,
who, when dying offered a thousand pounds for a good conscience, and ask
whether he is now willing to give more. Roast the lawyers by the fire of
their own parchments and papers till their learned bowels burst forth;
let the litigous busybodies hang above them with their nostrils deepest
down the roasting chimneys, in order to inhale the noxious vapors arising
thence, to see if they will ever get their fill of law. Throw the
recorders amongst the retailers who prevent or forestall the sale of
corn, who mix it and sell the mixture at double the price of the pure
corn: similarly, they demand for wrong double the fees formerly given for
right. As to the catchpolls, let them free to hunt about and lie in the
ravines and bushes of the earth, to capture those that are debtors to the
infernal crown; for what devil of you could do the work better than
they?”
Shortly there appear twenty demons, like Scotch-men, with packs across
their shoulders, which they cast down before the throne of despair, and
which turned out to be gipsies. “Ho there!” cried Lucifer, “how was it
that ye who knew the fortune of others so well, did not know that your
own fortune was leading you hither?” No answer was given, for they were
amazed at seeing here beings uglier than themselves. “Throw the
tan-faced loons to the witches,” bade the King, “there are no cats or
rush-lights here for them, but divide a frog between them every ten
thousand years, if they will be quiet and not deafen us with their
barbarous chatter.”
After them came, methought, thirty labourers. Everybody wondered to see
so many of that honest calling, so seldom did any of them appear; but
they did not all come from the same parts nor for like faults—some for
raising prices, many for withholding their tithes, and defrauding the
parson of his dues, others for leaving their work to follow after the
gentry, and who in trying to stride along with their masters, strained
themselves, some for doing work on the Sabbath, some for thinking of
their sheep and kine in church, instead of giving attention to the
reading of Holy Writ, and others for wrongful bargains. When Lucifer
began to question them, lo! they were all as pure as gold, and not one of
them found anything amiss in himself so as to deserve such a dwelling
place. One can scarcely believe what neat excuses each one had to hide
his sin, although they were already in hell for it, offering them merely
out of evil disposition to thwart Lucifer and to accuse the righteous
Judge, who had condemned them, of injustice. But it was still more
astonishing to see how cleverly the Evil One exposed their foul sins, and
how he answered with a home-thrust their false excuses. When these were
about to receive their infernal doom, forty scholars were borne forward
by porpoise-shaped fiends, uglier, if possible, than Lucifer himself.
And when they heard the labourers pleading, they too waxed bold to give
excuses, but what ready answers the old Serpent had for them with all
their knavery and learning! As it happened that I heard similar pleas in
another court of justice I will hereafter recount them together, and now
proceed with what I saw in the meantime.
Lucifer had barely pronounced their sentence—that they should be driven
to the great glacier in the land of eternal ice, a doom that set their
teeth a-gnashing, even before they saw their prison, when suddenly, hell
again most marvellously resounded with the crash of terrible bolts, with
loud-rolling thunder, and with every noise of war. Lucifer loured and
grew pale; in a moment, there flew in a wry-footed imp, panting and
trembling. “What is the matter?” cried Lucifer. “A matter fraught with
the greatest peril for you since hell is hell,” said the dwarf, “all the
ends of the kingdom of darkness have risen up against you and against
each other, especially those between whom there was longstanding enmity,
who are already locked together fang to fang, so that it is impossible to
pull them apart. Soldiers have attacked the doctors for taking away
their trade of slaughter; a myriad userers have fallen upon the lawyers,
for claiming a share in the business of robbery; the busybodies and the
swindlers are tearing the gentlemen, limb-meal, for unnecessary swearing
and cursing, whereby they gained their living. Harlots and their
minions, and a million other old friends and former comrades have fallen
out with one another irreconcilably. But worst of all is the fray raging
between the misers and their own offspring, for wasting the goods and
money which, the old pinchfists aver, ‘cost us much pain on earth, and
here endless anguish.’ Their sons, on the other hand, cursing and
rending them outrageously, call for eternal ruin upon their heads for
leaving overmuch wealth to madden them with pride and riotous living,
when a little, under the blessing of heaven, would have rendered them
happy in both worlds.” “Enough, enough,” cried Lucifer, “there is more
need of arms than words. Return, sirrah, and play the spy in every watch
to find the where and why of this great negligence, for there’s some
treachery in the air we wot not of as yet.” The imp departed at his
bidding, and in the meantime Lucifer and his compeers arose in terror and
exceeding fear, and ordered the levying of the bravest armies of the
black angels; and having disposed them, he himself started foremost to
quell the rebellion, his chieftains and their hosts going other ways.
The royal army, like shafts of lightning across the hideous gloom,
advanced (and we in their rear); ere long the uproar falls upon their
ears; a fiendish bellower cries, “Silence, in the King’s name!” to no
purpose, it would be an easier task to hale apart old beavers than one of
these. But when Lucifer’s veterans dashed into their midst, the growls,
and blows, and battering lessened. “Silence in Lucifer’s name!” roared
the devil a second time. “What is this,” demanded the King, “and who are
these?” “Nothing, sire, but that in the general confusion, the drovers
came across the cuckolds, and set a-butting to prove whose horns were the
harder; it might have turned out seriously, had not your horned giants
joined in the affray.” “Well,” said Lucifer, “since ye are all so ready
with your arms, come with me to trounce the other rebels.” But when the
rumour reached these that Lucifer was approaching with three horned
armies, everyone made for his lair.
So he marched on across the desolate plains unresisted, and seeking in
vain the cause of the revolt. After a while, however, one of the King’s
spies returns, quite out of breath: “Most noble, Lucifer! Moloch, your
prince, hath subdued part of the North, and hath cut thousands to pieces
upon the glaciers, but there are three or four dangerous evils still
threatening you.” “Whom meanest thou?” asked Lucifer. “The Slanderer,
the Busybody, and the Lawmonger, have broken out of their prisons and got
free.” “No wonder then,” said the Evil One, “if further troubles arise.”
Then there comes another spy from the South, informing that matters would
soon reach a dire pass in that quarter if the three who had already
thrown the West into utter confusion be not taken, namely, the Huntress,
the Rogue and the Swaggerer. “Since the day I tempted Adam from his
garden,” said Satan, who stood next but one to Lucifer, “I have never
seen so many evils of his race at liberty together. The Huntress, the
Swaggerer, the Rogue, on the one hand, and on the other, the Slanderer,
the Lawmonger and the Busybody—a mixture would make devils reach.”
“Little wonder, verily,” said Lucifer, “that they were so much hated by
all on earth, seeing that they are capable of causing such trouble to us
here.” Not long after, the Huntress comes to meet the King upon the way.
“Ho! grandam o’ the breeches,” cries a shrill-voiced demon, “good night
to you.” “Thy grandam on which side, prithee?” said she, displeased
because he did not “madam” her. “You are a fine king, Lucifer, to keep
such impudent rascals about you; a thousand pities that such a vast realm
should be under so impotent a ruler; would that I might be made its
regent.” Then comes the Swaggerer, nodding in the dark—“Your humble
servant, sir,” saith he to one, over his shoulder; “Are you quite well?”
to another; “Can I be of any service to you?” addressing a third, with a
leering smirk, and to the Huntress: “Your beauty quite fascinates me,
madam.” “Oh oh,” cried she, “away with the hell-hound;” and all join in
the shout: “Away with this new tormentor, hell on hell that he is!” “Let
both be bound together hand and foot,” commanded Lucifer. Soon after the
Lawmonger comes on the scene between two devils. “Ho, ho, thou angel of
peace,” exclaimed Lucifer, “hast thou come? Keep him safe, guards, at
your peril!” Before we had gone far, the Rogue and the Slanderer
appeared, chained between forty devils, and whispering to one another.
“Most noble Lucifer,” began the Rogue, “I am very sorry there is so much
disturbance in your kingdom; but if I may be heard, I will teach you a
better method. Under the pretence of holding a Parliament, you can cite
all the damned into the burning Evildom, and then bid the devils hurl
them headlong to bottomless perdition, and lock them up in its vortex, to
trouble you no more.” “But the Common Meddler is still missing,” said
Lucifer, frowning most darkly at the Rogue. When we reached once more
the entrance of the infernal court, who should come straight to meet the
King but the Busybody. “Ah, your majesty, I have a word with you.” “And
I have one or two with you, peradventure,” said the Evil One. “I have
been over the half of Hell,” said he, “to see how your affairs went. You
have many officers in the East who are remiss, and take their ease
instead of attending to the torturing of their prisoners and to their
safe keeping; it was this that gave rise to the great rebellion. And
moreover many of your fiends, and of the lost whom you sent to the world
to tempt men, have not returned, although their time is up, and others
have come, but hide rather than give an account of their doings.”
Then commanded Lucifer his herald to summon a second Parliament, and in
the twinkling of an eye all the potentates and their officers were again
in attendance at their infernal _Eisteddfod_. The first thing done was
to change the officers, and to order a place to be made round the mouth
of the pit for the Swaggerer and the Huntress, linked face to face, and
for the other rebels, bound topsy-turvy together; and a law was published
that whosoever of the demons or of the damned thenceforth transgressed
his duty should be thrown into their midst till doomsday. At these words
all the fiends and even Lucifer himself trembled and were sore perturbed.
Then next came the trial of the devils and the lost who had been sent to
earth to find “associates and co-partners of their loss;” the devils gave
a clear account, but the statement of the damned was so hazy and
uncertain, that they were driven to the ever-burning school, and there
scourged with fiery, knotted serpents to teach them their task the
better. “Here’s a wench that’s pretty enough when dressed up,” said an
imp, “she was sent up into the world to gain you new subjects; and whom
should she first tempt but a weary ploughman, homeward wending his way,
late from his toils, who, instead of succumbing to her wiles, went on his
knees praying to be saved from the devil and his angels.” “Ho there!”
cried Lucifer, “throw her to that worthless losel who long ago loved
Einion ab Gwalchmai of Mona.” {102} “Stay, stay,” pleaded the fair one,
“this is but my first offence; there is yet scarcely a year since the day
when all was over with me, when I was condemned to your cursed state, Oh
king of woes!” “No, there is not yet three weeks,” said the demon that
had brought her there. “How therefore,” said she, “would you have me be
as skilled as those lost beings who have been here three or four
centuries hunting their prey? If you desire better service at my hands,
let me go free into the world once more to roam about uncensured; and if
I bring you not twenty adulterers for every year I am out, mete me what
punishment you list.” Nevertheless the verdict went against her, and she
was doomed to live a hundred long years under chastisement, that she
might be more careful a second time. Presently, another devil entered,
pushing to the front a man. “Here is a fine messenger,” he said, “who
wandering the other night in his old neighbourhood above, saw a thief
stealing a stallion, but could not help him even to catch the foal
without showing himself; and the thief, when he saw him, abandoned that
career for ever.” “Begging the court’s pardon,” said the man, “if the
thief’s child was endowed with power from above to see me, could I help
that? Moreover, this is only a single case; ’t is not a hundred years
since that day which put an end to all my hopes for ever, and how many of
my own family and of my neighbours have I enticed here after me in that
time? Perdition hold me, if I am not as dutiful to my trade as the best
of you, but the wisest is sometimes at fault.” Then said Lucifer: “Throw
him into the school of the fairies, who are still under castigation for
their mischievous tricks in days gone by, when they were wont to strangle
and threaten their neighbours, and so awaken them from their torpor; for
their fear probably had more influence upon them than forty sermons.”
Then came four constables, an accuser, and fifteen of the damned,
dragging forward two devils. “Lest you lay the blame of every wrongful
service upon the children of Adam,” said the accuser, “here are two of
your old angels who misspent their time above as much as the two who were
last before the court. Here is a rogue quite as worthless as that one at
Shrewsbury the other day, when the Interlude of _Doctor Faustus_ was
being played, amidst all manner of most wanton and lascivious revelries,
and where many things were going on conducive to the welfare of your
realm; when they were busiest, the devil himself appeared to play his
part, and so drove all away from pleasure to prayers. Even so this one,
in his wanderings over the world: he heard some people talk of walking
round the church {104} to see their sweethearts, and what should the fool
do but show himself to the simpletons in his own natural form, and though
their fright was great they recovered their senses, and made a vow to
leave that vanity for ever; whereas had he only assumed the form of some
vile jades, they would have held themselves bound to accept those; and so
the foul fiend might have been master of the household with both parties,
since he himself had mated them. And here is another, who went, last
Twelfth Night, to visit two Welsh lasses who were turning their shifts,
and instead of enticing them to wantonness in the form of a fair youth,
to one he took a bier, to make her thoughts more serious; to the other,
he went with the tumult of war in a hellish whirlwind, to make her madder
than before; and this was quite needless. Nor was this all; for after he
had entered the maiden, and had thrown her about, and sorely tormented
her, some of our learned enemies were sent for to pray for her and to
cast him out, and instead of tempting her to despair and endeavouring to
win over the preachers, he began to preach to them, and to disclose the
mysteries of your kingdom, thus aiding their salvation instead of
hindering it.” At the word “salvation” I saw some leaping up, a living
fire of rage. “Every tale is fair till the other side be told,” quoth
the devil, “I hope Lucifer will not allow one of the earth-born race of
Adam to contend with me, who am an angel of far superior kind and stock.”
“His punishment is certain,” said Lucifer, “but do thou, sirrah, give
clear and ready answer to these charges; or by hopeless Hell I will—.”
“I have led hither,” said he, “many a soul since Satan was in the Garden
of Eden, and I ought to understand my business, better than this upstart
accuser.” “Blood of infernal firebrands,” cried Lucifer, “did I not bid
thee answer clearly and readily?” “By your leave,” said the demon, “I
have preached a hundred times, and have denounced many of the various
ways that lead to your confines, and yet at the same breath, have quietly
brought them hither safe and sound by some other delusive path, just as I
did while preaching recently in the German States, in one of the Faro
Isles, and in several other places. In this manner, through my preaching
have many Papist beliefs, and old traditions come first into the world,
and all in the guise of goodness. For who ever would swallow a baitless
hook? Who ever gained credence for a tale which had not some truth
mingled with the false, or some little good overshadowing the bad? So,
if whilst preaching I can instil one counsel of mine own among a hundred
that are good and true, by means of that one, through heedlessness or
superstition, will more weal betide your kingdom than woe through all the
others ever.” “Well,” said Lucifer, “since thou canst do so much good in
the pulpit, I bid thee dwell seven years in the mouth of a barndoor
preacher who always utter what first comes to his mind; there thou wilt
have an opportunity of putting in a word now and then to thine own
purpose.”
There were many more devils and damned darting to and fro like lightning
about the awful throne, to count and to receive offices. But suddenly
without any warning there came a command for all the messengers and
prisoners to depart from the court, each one to his den, leaving the King
and his chief counsellors alone together. “Is it not better for us also
to depart, lest they find us?” I asked my friend. “Thou needest have no
fear,” answered the angel, “no unclean spirit can ever pierce this veil.”
Wherefore we remained there invisible, to see the issue.
Then Lucifer began graciously to address his peers thus:—“Ye mightiest
spirits of evil, ye archfiends of hellish guile, the utmost of your
malicious wiles am I now constrained to demand. All here know that
Britain and its adjacent isles is the realm most dangerous to my state,
and fullest of mine enemies; and what is a hundredfold worse, there
reigns now a queen most dangerous of all, who has never once inclined
hither, nor along the old way of Rome on the one hand nor yet along the
way of Geneva on the other: to think what great good the Pope has for a
long time done us there and Oliver even to this day! What therefore
shall we do? I fear me we shall entirely lose our ancient possession of
that mart unless we instantly set-to to pave a new way for them to travel
over, for they know too well all the old roads that lead hitherwards.
Since this invincible hand shortens my chain, and prevents me from going
myself to the earth, your advice I pray. Whom shall I appoint my viceroy
to oppose yon hateful queen, Our Enemy’s vicegerent?”
“Oh! thou great Emperor of Darkness,” said Cerberus, {106} the demon of
tobacco, “’tis I that supply the third of that country’s maintenance, I
shall go, and I will despatch you a hundred thousand of your foemen’s
souls through a pipe stem.” “In sooth,” said Lucifer, “thou hast done me
some good service, what with causing the slaughter of the owners in India
and poisoning those that indulge in it, through the saliva, sending many
to wander with it idly from house to house, others to steal in order to
obtain it, and millions to grow that fond of it that they cannot spend a
single day without it, and be in their right mind. For all this, go and
do thy best, but thou art nought to our present purpose.”
Whereupon Cerberus sat down; then rose Mammon, the devil of money, and
with surly skulking mien began: “’T was I who pointed out the first mine
whence money was to be obtained, and ever since I am praised and
worshipped more than God, and men lay their pain and peril, all their
mind, their affection and their trust upon me, yea, there is no man
content, but all crave more of my favor; the more they obtain, the
further still are they from rest, until at last, while seeking ease, they
come to this region of everlasting woes. How many a crafty old miser
have I enticed hither over paths that were harder to traverse than those
that lead to the realm of bliss? Whenever a fair was held, a market,
assize or election, or any other concourse, who had more subjects than I
or greater power and authority? Cursing, swearing, fighting, litigation,
falsehood and deceit, beating, clawing, murdering and robbing one
another, Sabbath-breaking, perjury, cruelty, and what black mark besides,
which stamps men as of Lucifer’s fold, that I have not had a hand in
placing? For which reason have I been called ‘the root of all evil.’
Wherefore, an it please your majesty, I will go.”
He ceased. Then Apolyon uprose and spoke: “I know of nought more certain
to lead them hither than what brought you here, {107} and that is Pride;
once it plants its straight stake in them and puffs them up, there is no
need to fear that they will condescend to bear the cross or go through
the narrow gate. I will go with your daughter Pride, and before they can
realise where they are, I will drive the Welsh hither headlong while
admiring the pomp of the English, and the English while imitating the
vivacity of the French.”
After him arose Asmodai, the devil of lust: “’T is not unknown to you,
mightiest King of the deep, nor to you, princes of the land of despair,
how many of the gulfs of hell have I filled through voluptuousness and
lewdness. What of the time I kindled such a flame of lust over all the
world that the deluge had needs be sent to clear the earth of men, and to
sweep them all into our unquenchable fire? What of Sodoma and Gomorrah,
fine and fair cities, which I so consumed with licentiousness that a
hell-shower blazed in their infernal lusts and beat them down here alive,
to burn for ages on ages. And what of the great hosts of the Assyrians,
who were all slain in one night on my account? I disappointed Sarah of
seven husbands’ {108} and Solomon and many a thousand other kings did I
bring to shame through women. Wherefore let me and this sweet sin go,
and I will kindle the hellish spark so generally that it will at length
become one with this inextinguishable flame, for scarce one will ever
return from following me to walk in the paths of life.” At that he sat
down.
Then Belphegor, chief of sloth and idleness, stood up and spake thus: “I
am the great prince of listlessness and sloth, who have great influence
upon millions of all sorts and conditions of men; I am that stagnant pond
where the spawn of every evil is bred, where the dregs of every
corruption and baleful slime grows rank. What good wouldst thou be,
Asmodai, or ye, chief damned evils, were I not? I, who keep the windows
open and unguarded that ye may enter into the man when ye will, through
his eyes, his ears and his mouth. I will go and roll them all over the
precipice unto you in their sleep.”
Then Satan, the devil of delusion, who was on Lucifer’s left hand, arose,
and turning his grim visage to the king, began: “It is unnecessary for me
to recount my deeds to thee, Oh lost Archangel, or to you, swarthy
princes of Destruction: for ’twas I who dealt the first blow to man, and
mighty was that blow, to be the cause of death from the beginning of the
world to its end. Is it likely that I, who erst ravaged all the earth,
could not now give advice that would serve one little isle? Could not I,
who deceived Eve in Paradise, overcome Anne in Britain? If inborn craft
and continuous experience for five thousand years profit aught, my advice
is that you adorn your daughter Hypocrisy to deceive Britain and its
queen: you have no other as serviceable as she; her sway extends more
widely than that of all the rest of your daughters, and her subjects are
more numerous. Was it not through her that I beguiled the first woman?
And ever since she has remained on earth and waxed very great therein, so
that by now the world is hardly anything but one mass of hypocrisy. And
were it not for the craftiness of Hypocrisy how could anyone of us do
business in any part of the world? For what man would ever have aught to
do with sin, did he once behold it in its true color and under its own
proper name? He would sooner clasp a devil in his own infernal shape and
garb. If it were not that Hypocrisy can disguise the name and nature of
every evil under the semblance of some good, and give a bad name to every
goodness, no man at all would put forth his hand to do evil or would lust
after it. Walk through the entire city of Destruction and ye will
perceive her greatness in every quarter. Go to the street of Pride and
ask for an arrogant man or for a penny-worth of affectation mixed through
pride: ‘Woe is me,’ exclaims Hypocrisy, ‘there is no such thing here,’
no, nor for a devil, anything else in the whole street save proud
demeanour. Or walk into the street of Lucre and enquire for the miser’s
house: pshaw, there is no one of the kind therein; or for the dwelling of
the murderer among the doctors, or for the abode of highwaymen amongst
the drovers; thou wouldst sooner be thrown to prison for asking than that
one should confess to his own name. Yea, Hypocrisy crawls in between a
man and his own heart, and so skilfully does she hide every wrong under
the name and guise of some virtue that she has caused well nigh all to
lose cognisance of their own selves. Greed she calls thrift; in her
tongue riotous living is innocent joy; pride is courtesy; the froward, a
clever, courageous man; the drunkard, a boon companion; and adultery is a
mere freak of youth. On the other hand, if she and her scholars’ {110}
are to be believed, the godly is a hypocrite or a fool; the gentle, a
coward; the abstemious, a churl, and so for every other quality. Send
her thither in all her adornment, and I warrant you she will deceive
everyone; she will blinden the counsellors, the soldiers, and all the
officers of church and state, and will draw them hither in hurrying
multitudes with the varicolored mask upon their eyes.” Whereupon he too
sat down.
Then Beelzebub, the devil of thoughtlessness stood up, and in a harsh
voice said: “I am the great prince of heedlessness whose duty it is to
prevent a man taking reflective heed of his state; I am chief of the
incessant hell-flies who utterly amaze men, ever dinning in their ears
concerning their possessions or their pleasures, and never willingly
allowing them a moment’s leisure to think of their ways or of their end.
No one of you must dare enter the lists against me in feats serviceable
to the realm of darkness. For what is tobacco, but one of my meanest
weapons to stupefy the brain? What is Mammon’s kingdom but a part of my
great dominion? Yea, were I to loosen the bonds I have upon the subjects
of Mammon and Pride, and even of Asmodai, Belphegor and Hypocrisy, no man
would for an instant abide their domination. Wherefore I will do the
work and let no one of you ever utter a word.”
Then great Lucifer himself arose from his burning seat, and having turned
his hideous face to both sides, thus began: “Ye chief spirits of the
Eternal Night, princes of hopeless guile, although the vasty gloom and
the wilds of Destruction are more bounden to none for their inhabitants
than to mine own supreme majesty—for it was I who erewhile wishing to
usurp the Almighty’s throne, drew myriads of you, my swarthy angels, at
my tail into these deadly horrors, and afterwards drew unto you myriads
of men to share this region—yet there is no gainsay that ye all have done
your share in maintaining and extending this great infernal empire.”
Then he began to answer them one by one: “Considering thy recent origin,
Cerberus, I will not deny but that thou hast gained for us much prey in
the island of our foes through tobacco. For they that carry, mix, and
weigh it, practise all manner of fraud; and by its indulgence some are
led on to habitual drinking, some to curse and swear, and some to seek it
through blandishment, and to lie in denying their use of it—not to speak
of the injury it inflicts upon many, and its immoderate use upon all,
body as well as soul. And better than that, myriads of the poor, whom
else we never should touch, sink hither through laying the burden of
their affection upon tobacco, and allowing it to be their master, to
steal the bread from their children’s mouth. Then, brother Mammon, your
power is so universal and so well-known on earth that it is a proverb,
‘Everything may be had for money.’ And without doubt,” said he, turning
to Apolyon, “my beloved daughter Pride is most serviceable to us, for
what can there be more pernicious to a man’s estate, to his body and
soul, than that proud, obdurate opinion which will make him squander a
hundred pounds rather than yield a crown to secure peace. She keeps them
all so stiff-necked and so intent on things on high that it is amusing to
see them, while gazing upwards, and ‘extolling their heads to the stars’
fall straightway into the depths of hell. You too, Asmodai, we all
remember your great services in the past; there is none more resolute
than you to keep safe his prisoners under lock and key, nor any so
unimpeachable. Nowadays a wanton freak provokes only a little laughter,
but you came near perishing there from famine during the recent years of
dearth. And you, my son Belphegor, verminous prince of sloth, no one has
afforded us more pleasure than you; your influence is exceeding great
among noblemen and also among the common people, even to the beggar. And
were it not for the skill of my daughter Hypocrisy in coloring and
adorning, who ever would swallow a single one of our hooks? But after
all, if it were not for the unwearying courage of my brother Beelzebub in
keeping men in heedless dazedness, ye all would not be worth a straw.
Let us once more recapitulate. What good wouldst thou be, Cerberus, with
thy foreign whiff, if Mammon did not succour thee? What merchant would
ever run such risks to obtain thy paltry leaves from India, except for
Mammon’s sake? And only for him what king would receive them, especially
into Britain, and who but for his sake would carry them to every part of
the kingdom? Yet how worthless thou too wouldst be, Mammon, if Pride did
not lavish thee upon fair mansions, fine clothes, needless lawsuits,
gardens and horses, extravagant relatives, numerous dishes, floods of
beer and ale, beyond the power and station of their owner; for if money
were spent within the limit of necessity and of becoming moderation, what
would Mammon avail us? Thus thou art nought without Pride; and little
would Pride profit without Wantonness, for bastards are the most numerous
and the most fierce of all the subjects of my daughter Pride. And thou,
Asmodai, what wouldst thou profit us were it not for Sloth and Idleness?
Where wouldst thou obtain a night’s lodging? Thou wouldst not dare
expect it from a laborer or diligent student. And who, for the dishonor
and the shame, would ever give thee, Belphegor the Slothful, a moment’s
welcome, if Hypocrisy did not disguise thy foulness under the name of an
internal disease, or as a good intent or a seeming despisal of wealth or
the like. She too—my dear daughter Hypocrisy—what good is or ever would
she be, notwithstanding her skill as a seamstress, and her boldness,
without thy aid, my eldest brother, Beelzebub, great chief of
Distraction: if he gave people peace and leisure to reflect seriously
upon the nature of things and their differences, how long would it take
them to find holes in the folds of Hypocrisy’s golden garments, and to
see the hooks through the bait? What man in his senses would gather
together toys and fleeting pleasures, surfeiting, vain and disgraceful,
and choose them in preference to a calm conscience and the bliss of a
glorious eternity? Who would refuse to suffer the pangs of martyrdom for
his faith for an hour or a day, or affliction for forty or sixty years,
if he considered that his neighbours suffer here in an hour more than he
could suffer on earth for ever. Tobacco is nothing without Money, or
Money without Pride, and Pride is but a weakling without Wantonness, nor
is Wantonness aught without Sloth, nor Sloth without Hypocrisy, nor
Hypocrisy without Thoughtlessness. Wherefore, now,” said Lucifer,
lifting his infernal hoofs on their claw-ends, “to give my own opinion:
however excellent all these may be, I have a friend better suited than
all to our foe of Britain.” Then could I see all the archfiends open
wide their horrid mouths upon Lucifer in eager expectation as to what
this could possibly be, while I too was as anxious as they. “A friend,”
continued Lucifer, “whose true worth I have too long neglected, just as
thou, Satan, tempting Job of yore, didst foolishly turn upon him with
severity. This, my kinswoman, I now appoint regent in all matters
appertaining to my kingdom on earth, next to myself. Her name is
Prosperity: she has damned more than all of you together, and little
would ye avail without her presence. For who in war or peril, in famine
or in plague, would lay any value by tobacco, or by money or by the
sprightliness of pride, or who would deign welcome licentiousness or
sloth? And men in such straits are too wide-awake to be distraught by
Hypocrisy, or even by Thoughtlessness; none of the infernal vermin of
Distraction dare show himself in one such storm. Whereas Prosperity,
with its ease and comfort, is the nurse of all of you; beneath her
peaceful shadow and upon her tranquil bosom ye all are nourished, and
every other hellish worm that has its place in the conscience and will be
for ever here gnawing its possessor. As long as one is at ease, there is
no talk but of merriment, of feasts, bargains, genealogies, tales, news
and the like; the name of God is never mentioned except in profane oaths
and curses, whereas the poor and the afflicted have His name upon their
lips and in their hearts always. Go ye, the seven of you, and follow her
and be mindful to keep all a-slumbering and in peace, in good fortune, in
ease and in perfect carelessness; then shall ye see the honest poor
become an untractable, arrogant knave, once he has quaffed of the
alluring cup of Prosperity; ye shall behold the diligent laborer become a
careless babbler and everything else that pleases you. For all seek and
love happy Prosperity; she neither hearkens to advice nor fears censure;
the good she knows not, the bad she nurtures. But this is the greatest
mishap: the man that escapes her sweet charms must be given up in
despair, we must bid farewell to his company for ever. Prosperity then
is my earthly vicegerent; follow her to Britain, and obey her as ye would
our own royal majesty.”
At that instant the huge bolt was whirled, and Lucifer and his chief
counsellors were swept away into the vortex of Uttermost Perdition; woe’s
me, how terrible it was to behold the jaws of Hell yawning wide to
receive them! “Come now,” said the Angel, “we will return, but what thou
hast seen is as nothing compared with all that is within the bounds of
Hell; and if thou didst see everything therein that again would be as
nought when compared with the unutterable woe of the Bottomless Pit; for
it is impossible to have any conception of the life in the Uttermost
Hell.” Then suddenly the heavenly Eagle caught me up into the vault of
the accursed gloom by a way I knew not, where, from the court, across the
entire firmament of dark-burning Perdition, and all the land of oblivion
up to the ramparts of the City of Destruction, I obtained full view of
the hideous monster of a giantess whose feet I had previously observed.
“Words fail me to describe her ways and means; but of herself I can tell
thee, that she was a three-faced ogress: one villainous face turned
towards Heaven, yelping and snarling and belching forth cursèd
abomination against the heavenly King; another face (and this was fair to
look upon) towards earth, to allure men beneath her baneful shadow; and
the other direful face towards the infernal abyss, to torture all therein
for ages without end. She is greater than the earth in its entirety, and
still continuously increases; she is a hundredfold more hideous than all
Hell which she herself created and which she peoples. If Hell were rid
of her, the vasty deep would be a Paradise; if she were driven from the
earth, the little world would become a heaven; and if she ascended into
Heaven, she would make an uttermost hell of that blissful realm. There
is nought in all the worlds which God has not created, save her alone.
She is the mother of the four deadly enchantresses; she is the mother of
Death and of all evil and misery, and her terrible grasp is upon every
living being. Her name is Sin. Blessed, ever blessed be he who escapes
from her clutches,” said the Angel. Thereupon he departed, and I could
hear the distant echo of his voice saying; “Write down what thou hast
seen; and whosoever readeth it thoughtfully will never repent.”
WITH HEAVY HEART.
With heavy heart I sought th’ infernal coast
And saw the vale of everlasting woes,
The awful home of fiends and of the lost
Where torments rage and never grant repose—
A lake of fire whence horrid flames arose
And whither tended every wayward path
Its prey to lead ’midst cruel dragon-foes;
Yet, though I wandered through withouten scath,
A world I’d spurn, to view again that scene of wrath.
With heavy heart oft I recall to mind
How many a loving friend unwarnèd fell
To bottomless perdition, there to find
A dread abode where he for aye must dwell;
Who erst were men are now like hounds of Hell
And with unceasing energy entice
To dire combustion all with wily spell,
And to themselves have ta’en the devils’ guise,
Their power and skill all ill to do in every wise.
With heavy heart I roamed the dismal land
That is ordained the sinner’s end to be;
What mighty waves surge wild on every hand!
What gloomy shadows haunt its canopy!
What horrors fall on high and mean degree!
How hideous is the mien of its fell lords,
What shrieks rise from that boundless glowing sea,
How fierce the curses of the damnèd hordes,
No mortal ken can e’er conceive or paint in words.
With heavy heart we mourn true friends or kin
And grieve the loss of home, of liberty,
Of that good name which all aspire to win
Or health and ease and sweet tranquility;
When dim, dark clouds enshroud our memory
And pass ’tween us and heaven’s gracious smiles,
’Tis sadder far to wake to misery
And feel that Pleasure now no more beguiles,
That sin has left nought but the wounds of its base wiles.
With heavy heart the valiantest of men
Lays low his head beneath th’ impending doom;
In terror he descends death’s awsome glen;
While there appear flashing through the gloom
The lurid shades of deeds which in the bloom
Of youth he dared; at last the conscience cries
With ruthless voice: “There’s life beyond the tomb;”
His dying thoughts all vanities despise
As on the threshold of Eternity he lies.
The heavy heart that suffers all such grief
May, while the breath of life doth still remain,
Hope for a joyous peace and blest relief;
But if grim Death his fated victim gain,
Woe’s him that entereth the realm of pain—
For e’er on him its frowning portals close,
Nor gleam of hope shall he perceive again,
For in that vast eternal night he knows
A woe awaits that far surpasseth earthly woes.
The heavy heart beneath its weight is crushed,
And at its very name—Damnation writ,
All men their vain and froward clamors hushed;
But when within the fiery gaping pit
Whose flaming ramparts none will ever quit,
Above the thunder’s roar th’ accursed host
Raise such loud cries, it passeth human wit
To dream of aught so dire, for at the most,
All woes of earth as pleasures seem unto the lost.
From every vain complaining, cease, my friend,
Since thou art yet not numbered with the dead
But turn thy thoughts unto thy destined end,
Behold thy Fates spin out the vital thread,
And oftèn as thy mind to Hell be led,
To contemplate the doleful gloom aglow,
There will forthwith possess thee such a dread,
Which Christ’s unbounded mercy doth bestow,
Lest thou be doomed to that eternal realm of woe.
NOTES
In the book this note section contains footnotes for the preceding text.
Each note is numbered by the page on which it occurs and as such are just
footnotes poorly done. They have been turned back into footnotes in the
eBook.—DP.
* * * * *
{0} The genealogical tables in the book are in graphical form. The
content is reproduced below as text—DP.
ELLIS WYNNE’S PEDIGREE
William Wynne of Glyn [Cywarch]. Sheriff of Merioneth 1618 & 1637. D.
1658. 12th in direct male descent from Osborn Wyddel = Catherine,
daughter of William Lewis Anwyl of Park. Died 1638. Child: Ellis Wynne
[1], 3rd son who probably lived at Maes-y-garnedd, Llanbedr.
Ellis Wynne [1] = Lowri, only daughter and heiress of Ed. Jones of
Maes-y-garnedd, eldest borther of Col. Jones, Cromwell’s brother-in-law
who was executed in 1660 as a regicide. Children: Edward Wynne [1]
Edward Wynne [1] = . . . heiress of Glasynys. Children: daughter; ELLIS
WYNNE [2].
ELLIS WYNNE [2] = Lowri Llwyd of Hafod-lwyfog Beddgelert. Children:
William [1] Rector of Llanaber; Ellis, died 1752; Catherine, died young;
Edward [1], Rector of Penmorfa; Mary [1].
William [1] = . . . Lloyd of Trallwyn. Children: Daughter [1].
Daughter [1] = Robert Puw of Garth Maelan: Child: John Wynne Puw.
John Wynne Puw’s children: Robert and John.
Edward [1] had children: Frances; Ellis [3], Rector of Llanferres.
Ellis [3] had children: Elizabeth; Ann; Edward; John, Rector of
Llandrillo; Frances; Ellis.
Mary [1] = Robert Own of Tygwyn Dolgellau.
THE RELATION BETWEEN ELLIS WYNNE & BISHOP HUMPHREYS.
Meredydd ap Evan ap Robert (11th in male descent from Owen Gwynedd).
Died 1525. = Margaret, daughter of Morris ap John ap Meredydd of
Clunnenau. Child: Humphrey Wynne ap Meredydd [1] of Gesail-gyfarch.
Humphrey Wynne ap Meredydd [1] = Catherine, daughter and heiress of Evan
ap Griffith of Cwmbowydd. Children: John Wynne ap Humphrey [1] of
Gesail-gyfarch; Evan Llwyd [1] of Hafod-lwyfog.
John Wynne ap Humphrey [1] = Catherine, daughter of William Wynne ap
William of Cochwillan. Child: Robert Wynne [1] died 1637.
Robert Wynne [1] = Mary, daughter of Ellis ap Cadwaladr of Ystumllyn.
Children: John Wynne [2]; Margaret, [2] succeeded to Gesail-gyfarch on
her nephew’s death.
John Wynne [2] = Jane, daughter of Evan Llwyd of Dylase. Child: Robert
Wynne of Gesail-gyfarch, Barr.-at-law. Ob. s. p. 1685.
Margaret [2] = Richard Humphreys of Hendref Gwenllian, Penrhyndeudraeth.
Desceneded in male line from Marchweithian. An Officer in the Royal Army
through Civil War. Died 1699. Children: HUMPHREY [1]. Born 1648.
Dean of Bangor, 1680, Bishop 1689. Bishop of Hereford, 1701. Died 1712;
John, died at Oxford; Catherine.
HUMPHREY [1] = Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Morgan Bishop of Bangor 1678,
son of Rd. Morgan, M.P. for Montgomery Boroughs. Children: Ann, ob. s.
p. 1698; Margaret [1], died 1759.
Margaret [1] = John Llwyd of Penylan, Barr.-at-law, son of Dr. W. Lloyd,
Bishop of Norwich, deprived in 1691 as one of the Nonjurors.
Evan Llwyd [1] = Catherine, Daughter of Griffith Wynne of Penyberth.
Child: John [3]
John [3] had children: Griffith [1] and Evans.
Griffith [1] had children: William ob. s. p.; LOWRI.
LOWRI = ELLIS WYNNE.
{0a} “A Catalogue of Graduates in the University of Oxford between 1659
and 1850” contains the following entry:—“Wynne (Ellis) Jes. BA., Oct. 14,
1718, MA., June 13, 1722.” But one can hardly suppose this to have been
the _Bardd Cwsr_, as in 1718 he would be 47 years of age.
{0b} The following entries are taken from the register at
Llanfair-juxta-Harlech:—“_Elizaeus Wynne Generosus de Lâsynys et Lowria
Lloyd de Havod-lwyfog in agro Arvonensi in matrimonio conjuncti fuere
decimo quarto die Feb. 1702_.”
{0c} “_Elizaeus Wynne junr. de Lâsynys sepultus est decimo die Octobris
A.D. 1732_.”
{0d} “_Owenus Edwards cler. nuper Rector hums ecclesiae sepultus est
tricesimo die Maii A.D. 1711_.” (From the Llanfair parish register.)
{0e} “_Lowria Uxor Elizaei Wynne cler. de Lasynys vigesimo quarto die
Augti. sepulta est Ano. Dom. 1720_.”
“_Elizaeus Wynne Cler. nuper Rector dignissimus huius ecclesiae sepultus
est 17mo. die Julii 1734_.” (From the parish register at Llanfair.)
{0f} “_The Visions of the Sleeping Bard_. First Part. Printed in
London by E. Powell for the Author, 1703.”
{1a} _The opening lines_.—Ellis Wynne opens his vision as so many early
English poets are wont, with a description of the season when, and the
circumstances under which he fell asleep. Compare especially Langland’s
Visions, _prologus_:
In a somer seson whan soft was the sonne
I went wyde in this world wondres to here,
Ac on a May mornynge on Malvern hulles
Me befel a ferly of fairy me thoughte,
I was wery forwandred and went me to reste
Under a brode bank bi a bornes side
And as I lay and leued and loked in the wateres
I slombred in a slepyng it sweyved so merye.
{1b} _One of the mountains_.—The scene these opening lines describe was
one with which the Bard was perfectly familiar. He had often climbed the
slopes of the Vale of Ardudwy to view the glorious panorama around him
from Bardsey Isle to Strumble Head, the whole length of rock-bound coast
lay before him, while behind was the Snowdonian range, from Snowdon
itself to Cader Idris; and often, no doubt, he had watched the sun
sinking “far away over the Irish Sea, and reaching his western ramparts”
beyond the Wicklow Hills.
{1c} _Master Sleep_.—Cp.:
Such sleepy dulness in that instant weigh’d
My senses down.
—_Dante: Inf. C.I._ (_Cary’s trans_.)
Now leaden slumber with life’s strength doth fight.
—_Shakespere_: _Lucrece_, _124_.
{4a} _Such a fantastic rout_.—Literally “such a battle of Camlan.” This
was the battle fought between Arthur and his nephew Medrod about the year
540 on the banks of the Camel between Cornwall and Somerset, where Arthur
received the wounds of which he died. The combatants being relatives and
former friends, it was characterised with unwonted ferocity, and has
consequently come to be used proverbially for any fray or scene of more
than usual tumult and confusion.
So all day long the noise of battle roll’d
Among the mountains by the winter sea,
Until King Arthur’s table, man by man,
Had fallen in Lyonness about their Lord.
—_Tennyson_: _Morte d’Arthur_.
{4b} _To lampoon my king_.—The Bard commenced this Vision in the reign
of William III. (v. also p. 17, “to drink the King’s health”) and
completed it in that of Queen Anne, who is mentioned towards the end of
the Vision.
{7} _The Turk and old Lewis of France_.—The Sultan Mustapha and Lewis
XIV. are thus referred to.
{14} _Clippers_.—The context seems to demand this meaning, that is,
“those who debase coin of the realm,” rather than “beggars” from the
Welsh “_clipan_.”
{20} _Backgammon and dice_.—These games, together with chess, were
greatly in vogue in mediæval Wales, and are frequently alluded to in the
Mabinogion and other early works. The four minor games or feats
(_gogampau_) among the Welsh were playing the harp, chess, backgammon,
and dice. The word “_ffristial a disiau_” are here rendered by the one
word “dice”—_ffristial_ meaning either the dice-box, or the game itself,
and _disiau_, the dice.
{21} _This wailing is for pay_.—Cp.
Ut qui conducti plorant in funere dicunt
et faciunt prope plora dolentibus ex animo.
—_Horace_: _Ars Poetica_, _430–1_.
{23} _The butt of everybody_.—Whenever a number of bards, in the course
of their peregrinations from one patron’s hall to another, met of a
night, their invariable custom was to appoint one of the company to be
the butt of their wit, and he was expected to give ready answer in verse
and parry the attacks of his brethren. It is said of Dafydd ap Gwilym
that he satirized one unfortunate butt of a bard so fiercely that he fell
dead at his feet.
{24} _Congregation of mutes_.—At the time Ellis Wynne wrote, the Quakers
were very numerous in Merioneth and Montgomery and especially in his own
immediate neighbourhood, where they probably had a burying-ground and
conventicle. They naturally became the objects of cruel persecution at
the hands of the dominant church as well as of the state; their meetings
were broken up, their members imprisoned and maltreated, until at last
they were forced to leave their fatherland and seek freedom of worship
across the Atlantic.
{25} _Speak no ill_.—A Welsh proverb; _v. Myv. Arch. III. 182_.
{26} _We came to a barn_.—The beginning of Nonconformity in Wales. In
the Author’s time there were already many adherents to the various
dissenting bodies in North Wales. Walter Cradoc, Morgan Llwyd and others
had been preaching the Gospel many years previously throughout the length
and breadth of Gwynedd; and it was their followers that now fell under
the Bard’s lash.
{28a} _Corruption of the best_.—A Welsh adage; _v. Myv. Arch. III. 185_.
{28b} _Some mocking_.—Compare Bunyan’s Christian starting from the City
of Destruction: “So he looked not behind him, but fled towards the middle
of the plain. The neighbours came out to see him run, and as he ran,
some mocked, others threatened and some cried after him to return.”
{29} _Who is content_.—Cp.
Qui fit, Maecenas, ut nemo, quam sibi sortem
Seu ratio dederit seu fors obiecerit, illa
Contentus vivat, laudet diversa sequentes?
—_Horace_: _Sat. I. i._
{34} _Increases his own penalty_.—Cp.
—the will
And high permission of all-ruling heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs,
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others.
—_Par. Lost_: _I. 211–6_.
{36} _Royal blood_—referring to the execution of Charles I.
{37} _The Pope and his other son_.—The concluding lines of this Vision
were evidently written amidst the rejoicings of the nation at the
victories of Marlborough over the French and of Charles XII. over the
Muscovites
{43a} _Glyn Cywarch_.—The ancestral home of the Author’s father, situate
in a lonely glen about three miles from Harlech.
{43b} _Our brother Death_.—This idea of the kinship of Death and Sleep
is common to all poets, ancient and modern; cp. the “_Consanguineus Leti
Sopor_” of Vergil (Æneid: VI. 278); and also:
Oh thou God of Quiet!
Look like thy brother, Death, so still,—so stirless—
For then we are happiest, as it may be, we
Are happiest of all within the realm
Of thy stern, silent, and unawakening twin.
—_Byron_: _Sardanapulus_, _IV_.
{44} _An extensive domain_.—Compare what follows with Vergil’s
description (Dryden’s trans.):
Just in the gate and in the jaws of Hell,
Revengeful cares and sullen sorrows dwell,
And pale diseases and repining age—
Want, fear, and famine’s unresisted rage;
Here toils and death, and death’s half-brother, Sleep,
Forms terrible to view, their sentry keep.
—_Æneid_: _VI. 273–8_
{48a} _Merlin_.—A bard or seer who is supposed to have flourished about
the middle of the fifth century, when Arthur was king. He figures
largely in early tales and traditions, and many of his prophecies are to
be found in later Cymric poetry, to one of which Tennyson refers in his
_Morte d’Arthur_:
I think that we
Shall never more, at any future time,
Delight our souls with talks of knightly deeds
Walking about the gardens and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
I perish by this people which I made—
Though Merlin sware that I should come again
To rule once more—but let what will be, be.
{48b} _Brutus_, _the son of Silvius_.—According to the Chronicles of the
Welsh Kings, Brwth (Brutus) was the son of Selys (Silvius), the son of
Einion or Æneas who, tradition tells, was the first king of Prydain. In
these ancient chronicles we find many tales recorded of Brutus and his
renowned ancestors down to the fall of Troy and even earlier.
{48c} _A huge_, _seething cauldron_.—This was the mystical cauldron of
Ceridwen which Taliesin considered to be the source of poetic
inspiration. Three drops, he avers, of the seething decoction enabled
him to forsee all the secrets of the future.
{48d} _Upon the face of earth_.—These lines occur in a poem of Taliesin
where he gives an account of himself as existing in various places, and
contemporary with various events in the early eras of the world’s
history—an echo of the teachings of Pythagoras:
Morte carent animae; semperque priore relicta
Sede, novis habitant domibus vivuntque receptae.
—_Ovid_: _Metam. XV. 158–9_.
{48e} _Taliesin_.—Taliesin is one of the earliest Welsh bards whose
works are still extant. He lived sometime in the sixth century, and was
bard of the courts of Urien and King Arthur.
{49a} _Maelgwn Gwynedd_.—He became lord over the whole of Wales about
the year 550 and regained much territory that had once been lost to the
Saxons. Indeed Geoffrey of Monmouth asserts that at one time Ireland,
Scotland, the Orkneys, Norway and Denmark acknowledged his supremacy.
Whatever truth there be in this assertion, it is quite certain that he
built a powerful navy whereby his name became a terror to the Vikings of
the North. In his reign, however, the country was ravaged by a more
direful enemy—the Yellow Plague; “whoever witnessed it, became doomed to
certain death. Maelgwn himself, through Taliesin’s curse, saw the _Vad
Velen_ through the keyhole in Rhos church and died in consequence.”
(_Iolo MSS._)
{49b} _Arthur’s quoit_.—The name given to several _cromlechau_ in Wales;
there is one so named, near the Bard’s home, in the parish of Llanddwywe,
“having the print of a large hand, dexterously carved by man or nature,
on the side of it, as if sunk in from the weight of holding it.” (_v.
Camb. Register_, _1795_.)
{54} _In the Pope’s favor_.—Clement XI. became Pope in 1700, his
predecessor being Innocent XII.
{55} _Their hands to the bar_.—Referring to the custom (now practically
obsolete) whereby a prisoner on his arraignment was required to lift up
his hands to the bar for the purpose of identification. Ellis Wynne was
evidently quite conversant with the practice of the courts, though there
is no proof of his ever having intended to enter the legal profession or
taken a degree in law as one author asserts. (_v. Llyfryddiaeth y
Cymry_, sub. tit. Ellis Wynne.)
{67} “_The Practice of Piety_.”—Its author was Dr. Bayley, Bishop of
Bangor; a Welsh translation by Rowland Vaughan, of Caergai, appeared in
1630, “printed at the signe of the Bear, in Saint Paul’s Churchyard,
London.”
{69} _At one time cold_.—Cp.:
I come
To take you to the other shore across,
Into eternal darkness, there to dwell
In fierce heat and in ice.
—_Dante_: _Inf. c. III._ (_Cary’s trans._).
{71} _Above the roar_.—Cp.:
The stormy blast of Hell
With restless fury drives the spirits on:
When they arrive before the ruinous sweep
There shrieks are heard, there lamentations, moans,
And blasphemies.
—_Dante: Inf. c. V._ (_Cary’s trans._).
{73} _Amidst eternal ice_.—Cp.:
Thither . . . all the damned are brought
. . . and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce!
From beds of raging fire to starve in ice
Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
Immoveable, infix’d and frozen round
Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire.
—_Par. Lost_, _II. 597–603_.
{85a} _Better to reign_.—This speech of Lucifer is very Miltonic;
compare especially—
—in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell;
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
—_Par. Lost_, _I. 261–3_.
{85b} _Revenge is sweet_.—Cp.:
Revenge, at first though sweet
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils.
—_Par. Lost_, _IX. 171–2_.
{87} _This enterprize_.—Cp.:
—this enterprize
None shall partake with me.
—_Par. Lost_, _II. 465_.
{95a} _Barristers_.—The word _cyfarthwyr_, here rendered “barristers,”
really means “those who bark,” which is probably only a pun of the Bard’s
on _cyfarchwyr_—“those who address (the court).”
{95b} _Sir Edmundbury Godfrey_.—A London magistrate who took prominent
part against the Catholics in the reign of Charles II. At the time the
panic which the villainy of Titus Oates had fomented was at its height,
Sir Edmundbury was found dead on Primrose Hill, with his sword through
his body; his tragic end was attributed to the Papists, and many innocent
persons suffered torture and death for their supposed complicity in his
murder.
{102} _Einion the son of Gwalchmai_.—This is a reference to a fable
entitled “Einion and the Lady of the Greenwood,” where the bard is led
astray by “a graceful, slender lady of elegant growth and delicate
feature, her complexion surpassing every red and every white in early
dawn, the snow-flake on the mountain-side, and every beauteous colour in
the blossoms of wood, meadow, and hill.” (_v. Iolo MSS._) Einion was an
Anglesey bard, flourishing in the twelfth century.
{104} _Walking round the church_.—Referring to a superstitious custom in
vogue in some parts of Wales as late as the beginning of the present
century. On All Souls’ Night the women-folk gathered together at the
parish church, each with a candle in her hand; the sexton then came round
and lit the candies, and as these burnt brightly or fitfully, so would
the coming year prove prosperous or adverse. When the last candle died
out, they solemnly march round the church twice or thrice, then home in
silence, and in their dreams that night, their fated husbands would
appear to them.
{106} _Cerberus_, _et seq._—Compare the seven deadly sins in Langland’s
_Vision of Piers Plowman_, Pride, Luxury (_lecherie_), Envy, Wrath,
Covetousness, Gluttony, and Sloth. See also Chaucer’s Persones Tale,
_passim_. A description of these seven sins occurs very frequently in
old authors.
{107} _What brought you here_.—Pride is the greatest of all the deadly
sins. Compare Spenser’s _Faery Queen I. c. IV_, where “proud Lucifera,
as men did call her,” was attended by “her six sage counsellors”—the
other sins. Shakespere names this sin Ambition:
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition,
For by this sin fell the angels.
{108} _Sarah_.—v. Apocrypha, the book of Tobit, c. VI.
{110} If she and her scholars—Cp.:
At nos virtutes ipsas invertimus atque
sincerum cupimus vas incrustare. probus quis
nobiscum vivit multum demissus homo: illi
tardo cognomen pingui damus. his fugit omnes
insidias nullique malo latus obdit apertum pro bene sano
at non incauto fictum astutumque vocamus.
—_Horace_: _Sat. I. iii_.
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