behind us, as of an immense number of people. Having turned aside to let
them pass forward, we beheld four distinct bands, and soon discovered
that the four princesses of the city of Destruction, were bringing their
subjects as presents to their father. I recognised the princess Pride,
not only by her being before the others, but also by her habit of
stumbling every moment, for want of looking beneath her feet. She had
with her a vast many kings, potentates, courtiers, gentlemen, and pompous
people, many quakers, innumerable females of every rank and degree.
The princess Lucre was next, with her silly, mean figure, bringing along
with her very many of the money loving race--such as usurers, lawyers,
extortioners, overseers, game-keepers, harlots, and some ecclesiastics
also. Next to these was the amiable princess Pleasure and her daughter
Folly, conducting their subjects--consisting of players at dice, cards,
draughts, games of legerdemain, and of poets, musicians, tellers of old
stories, drunkards, ladies of pleasure, debauches, pretty fellows, with a
thousand million of all kinds of baubles, to serve now as instruments of
punishment for the lost fools. After these three had gone with their
prisoners to the palace, to receive their judgment--behold Hypocrisy, the
last of all, conducting a more numerous rout than any of the others, of
all nations and ages, of town and country, gentle and simple, males and
females. At the tail of the two-faced multitudes we advanced till we
came in sight of the palace, through many dragons and horned sprites, and
warriors of Hell, the black wardens of the gloomy pandemonium, I all the
time crouching very carefully within my veil. We entered the frightful
and awful edifice, every corner of which abounded with horror. The walls
were immense rocks of glowing adamant, the pavement of an insufferably
sharp flint, the roof of burning steel, meeting like an arch of greenish-
blue and dusky-red flames, and in its size and its heat, resembling an
immense vaulted baking oven.
Opposite to the door, on a flaming throne, the Arch-Fiend was seated, his
principal lost angels on both sides of him, on thrones of fire terrible
to behold--sitting according to their former rank in the regions of
light, when they were amiable messengers. It would only be in vain to
endeavour to relate how obscene and horrible they were; and the longer I
looked at any one of them, seven times more hideous he appeared. In the
midst, above the head of Lucifer, was a vast fist, holding a very
frightful bolt. The princesses, after making their obeisance, returned
to the world to their charges, without making any stay. As soon as they
had departed, a gigantic, wide-mouthed devil, by command of the king,
uttered a shout louder than a hundred discharges of artillery, as loud if
possible as the last trumpet, for the purpose of summoning the infernal
parliament. And lo! the rabble of Hell instantly filled the palace and
the porch in every shape, after the image and similitude of the principal
sin, which each delighted to thrust upon mankind. After commanding
silence, Lucifer, with his look directed to the potentates nearest to
him, began to speak, very graciously, in the following manner:--
"Ye potentates of Hell! princes of the black abodes of Despair! Though
by our confederacy we have lost possession of those thrones, from which
we once shone resplendent through the higher regions; our confederacy
was, nevertheless, a glorious one, as we aimed at nothing less than the
whole. And we have not lost the whole either; for lo! the extensive and
profound regions, to the extremest wilds of vast Destruction, are yet
beneath our sway. It is true we reign in horrible agony; but spirits of
our eminence prefer ruling in torment to serving in ease. And besides
this, we are on the eve of obtaining another world, more than three parts
of the earth having been beneath my banner for a long time.
"And although the Almighty Enemy, sent his own son to die for the beings
of that world; yet I, by my baubles, obtain ten souls, for every one
which he obtains by his crucified son. And although I have not been able
to reach him, who sits in the high places and discharges the invincible
thunderbolts, yet revenge of some kind is sweet. Let us complete the
destruction of the remnant of human beings, still in the favour of our
destroyer. I remember the time, when you caused them to be burnt by
multitudes and cities, and even the whole race of the earth, by means of
the flood, to be swept down to us in the fire. But at present, though
your strength and your natural cruelty are not a whit diminished, yet you
are become in some degree inactive; if that had not been the case, we
might long since have destroyed the few who are godly, and have caused
the earth to be united with this our vast empire. But know, ye black
ministers of my displeasure, that unless ye be more resolute and more
diligent, and make the most of the short time which yet remains to you
for doing evil, ye shall experience the weight of my anger, in torments
new and strange to the oldest of you. This I swear by the deepest Hell,
and the vast, eternal pit of Darkness." And, thereupon, he frowned, till
the palace became seven times more gloomy than before.
Moloch now arose, one of the infernal potentates, and after making his
obeisance to the king, he said, "O emperor of the Air! mighty ruler of
Darkness! no one ever doubted my propensity to malice and cruelty; the
sufferings of others have been, and still are, my supreme delight. It is
as capital sport to me, to hear the shrieks of infants perishing in the
fire as of old, when thousands of sucklings were sacrificed to me outside
of Jerusalem. When was I ever slack at my work? Since the return of the
crucified Enemy to the supreme abodes, I have employed myself in slaying
and burning his subjects. I did all I could, to destroy the Christians
from the face of the earth, during the reigns of ten emperors; and many
an awful butchery I have made of them in modern times, both in Paris and
England, to say nothing of other places: but what are we the nearer to
our object for all this? The One above has caused the tree to grow,
after its branches have been severed; and all our efforts, are nothing
better than showing one's teeth, without the power of biting." "Pshaw!"
said Lucifer, "a fig for such heartless legions as ye. I will no longer
rely upon you! I will do the work myself, and the glory thereof I will
share with no one. I will go to the earth in my own kingly person, and
will swallow up the whole; not one man, henceforth, shall be found on the
earth to adore the Almighty." Thereupon he gave a furious bound,
attempting to set off, in a firmament of living fire; but, behold! the
fist above his head shook the terrific bolt till he trembled in the midst
of his frenzy, and before he could move far, an invisible hand lugged the
old fox back by his chain, in spite of his teeth. Whereupon he became
seven times more frantic; his eyes were more terrible than lightnings,
black thick smoke burst from his nostrils, and dark green flames from his
mouth and entrails: he gnawed his chain in his agony, and hissed forth
direful blasphemy, and the most frightful curses.
But perceiving how vain it was to seek to break loose, or to struggle
with the Almighty, he returned to his place and proceeded with his
discourse somewhat more calmly, but with ten times more malice. "The
Omnipotent Thunderer has vanquished me, and he alone could have done so.
To him I submit. Against him all my fury is in vain; I will, therefore,
direct it against nearer and lower objects, and pour it in showers upon
those who are yet under my banner, and within the reach of my chain.
Arise, ye ministers of Destruction! rulers of the unquenchable fire! and
as my wrath and my venom flow forth and my malice boileth out, do ye
assiduously spread the whole tide amongst the damned, particularly the
Christians. Urge the instruments of torture to the utmost--devise as
many more as you can--double the fire and the boiling, until the very
cauldrons be overturned; and when they are in the most extreme,
inexpressible torture, mock, deride, and upbraid them; and when your
whole stock of ironry and bitterness is expended, hasten to me, and you
shall obtain more."
There had been for some time a comparative silence in Hell, and the more
cruel tortures had been suspended; but now the stillness which Lucifer
had caused was broken, when the ghastly butchers rushed like wild hungry
bears upon their prisoners. O then there arose an oh! oh! oh! a wail,
and universal howling, more loud than the sound of cataracts, or the
tumult of an earthquake, so that Hell became seven times more frightful.
I should have swooned if my dear companion had not rendered me
assistance. "Take now," said he, "plenty of the water, that you may
obtain strength to see things yet more horrible than these." But
scarcely had these words proceeded from his mouth, when, lo! the
celestial Justice, who sits above the precipice keeping the gate of Hell,
came scourging three men with a rod of fiery scorpions. "Ha! ha!" said
Lucifer, "here are three right reverend gentlemen, whom Justice himself
has deigned to conduct to my kingdom." "Oh! woe is me," said one of the
three, "who asked him to trouble himself?" "Be it known," said Justice,
with a glance which made the devils tremble till they knocked one against
another, "that it is the will of the Great Creator, that I should myself
bring these three accursed murderers to their home. Sirrah," said he to
one of the devils, "unbolt for me the prison of the murderers, where are
Cain and Nero, Bonner, Bradshaw, Ignatius, and innumerable others of a
similar description." "Alas, alas! we never killed any body," said one
of the prisoners. "No, because you did not get time and because you were
prevented," said Justice. When the den was opened, there came out such a
horrible puff of bloody flame, and such a yell as if a thousand dragons
were giving their last gasp in their death agony. Into this den Justice
hurled his prisoners; {93} and on his way back he breathed obliquely,
such a tempest of fiery whirlwinds upon the Arch-Fiend and all his
potentates, as he passed by them, that Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan, Moloch,
Abaddon, Asmodeus, Dagon, Apollyon, Belphegor, Mephistophiles, and all
the other principal demons were whisked away, and tumbled headlong into a
kind of gulf, which was opening and closing in the midst of the palace,
and whose aspect was more horrible, and whose steam was more frightful
than the aspect and vapour of any gulf which I had previously seen.
Before I could enquire of the angel as to what it was, he said, "that is
a hole which leads to another vast world." "Pray," said I, "what is the
name of that world?" "It is called," said he, "Unknown, or extremest
Hell, the habitation of the devils, and the place to which they are at
present gone. The vast wilderness, over part of which you have come, is
called the country of Despair, a place intended for the lost until the
Day of Judgment, when it will fall into extremest, bottomless Hell, and
the two will become one. When that has happened one of ourselves will
come and close the gate of the whole region of horror upon the devils and
the damned, which gate shall never, to all eternity, be opened for them.
In the meantime, however, permission is given to the devils to come to
these cooler regions, in order to torment the lost souls. Yea, they
often obtain permission to go even into the air, and about the earth, to
tempt men to the destructive paths, which lead to this dismal prison,
from which there is no escape." In the midst of this history, and whilst
I was in great surprise at seeing the mouth of Unknown, so much
surpassing in horror the jaws of upper Hell, I could hear a prodigious
noise of arms, and loud discharges from one side, answered by what seemed
to be hoarse thunders from the other; the rocks of Death, meanwhile,
rebellowing the tumult.
"That is the sound of war," said I. "Is there war then in Hell?" "There
is," said the angel; "and it is impossible that there should not be here
continual war." Whilst we were moving out, to see what was the matter, I
beheld the mouth of Unknown opening, and casting up thousands of candles,
burning with a frightful green flame. These were Lucifer and his
potentates, who had contrived to subdue the tempest. But when the Arch
Fiend heard the noise of war, he became more pale than Death, and began
to call and gather together bands of his old experienced soldiers to
quell the tumult. At this moment he stumbled against a little puppy of
an imp, who had escaped between the feet of the combatants. "What is the
matter?" said the king. "Such a matter as will endanger your crown,
unless you look to yourself," said the imp. Close behind him came
another fiendish courier, bawling hoarsely, "you are plotting disquiet
for others, look now to your own repose. Yonder are the Turks, the
Papists, and the bloody-handed Roundheads, in three bands, filling all
the plains of the dark abodes, committing terrible outrages, and turning
every thing topsy-turvy." "How came they out?" said the Arch Fiend,
looking worse than Demigorgon. "The Papists," said the messenger, "broke
out of their Purgatory, I do not know how; and then on account of an old
grudge, they went to attack the back gate of the Paradise of Mahomet, and
let all the Turks out of their prison; and afterwards, in the hubbub, the
seed of Cromwell found some means to break out of their cells." Then
Lucifer turned about and looked under his throne, where were all the lost
kings, and caused Cromwell to be kept close in his kennel; and likewise
all the emperors of the Turks, under watch and ward. He then hastened
with his legions along the black wilds of Darkness, each obtaining light
from the fire which was incessantly tormenting his body. Guided by the
horrid uproar, the fiends advanced courageously towards the combatants;
then silence was enjoined in the name of the king, and Lucifer enquired,
"what is the cause of this disturbance in my kingdom?" "Please, your
infernal majesty," said Mahomet, "a dispute arose between me and pope
Leo, as to whether my Koran or the creed of Rome, had rendered you most
service; and whilst we were at it, a pack of Roundheads broke their
prison and put in their oar; asserting that their league and covenant,
deserved more respect at your hands than either. Thus from disputing we
have come to blows, and from words to arms. But at present, as your
majesty has returned from Unknown, I will refer the matter to yourself."
"Stay, we shall not let you escape thus!" said pope Julius; and to it
again they went, tooth and nail, in the most furious manner, till the
strokes were like an earthquake. O you should have seen the three armies
of the damned, tearing one another to pieces over the expanse of the
burning plains; and each individual body that was rent to pieces,
becoming joined again serpent fashion. At last Lucifer caused his old
soldiers, the champions of Hell, to pull them from each other, and it was
no easy matter to do so.
When the tumult was hushed, pope Clement began to speak. "O emperor of
Horrors! as no throne has ever performed more faithful and universal
service to the infernal crown, over a great part of the world, for eleven
hundred years, than the papal chair, I hope you will not suffer any one
to contend with us for your favour." "Well," said a Scott of Cromwell's
army, "though the Koran has done great service for eight hundred years,
and the superstition of the Pope for a much longer period, yet has the
covenant done more since it came out, than the other two have ever done.
Moreover it is notorious that, whilst the votaries of those two are every
day rapidly diminishing, the followers of the covenant are increasing in
numbers, over the whole face of the world, and particularly in the island
of your enemies Britain, whose capital, London, the most noble city under
the sun, abounds with them." "Pshaw, pshaw!" said Lucifer, "if I am
rightly informed, the covenant itself is under a cloud, and you are no
longer what you were. And now I have one thing to tell the whole of
you--which is, that, whatever ye may do in other kingdoms, I will not
permit you to trouble mine. Therefore rest peaceably, under penalty of
worse torments corporeal and spiritual." At those words many of the
devils dropped their tails between their hoofs, and all the damned
sneaked away to their holes, for fear of a change for the worse.
After causing the whole of them to be locked up in their prisons, and the
careless wardens to be deprived of their office, for having permitted
them to break out, Lucifer and his counsellors returned to the palace,
and sat down again, according to their rank, upon their fiery thrones.
After silence had been called and the place cleared, a huge,
wry-shouldered devil, placed a back-load of fresh prisoners before the
bar. "Is this the road to Paradise," said one, (for they all pretended
not to know where they were.) "Or if this be Purgatory," said another,
"we have with us an authority, under the hand of the Pope, to go straight
to Paradise without tarrying any where a minute. Therefore show us the
way, or, by the Pope's toe, we will cause him to punish you." Ha! ha!
ha!--ho! ho! ho! said eight hundred devils; and Lucifer himself, parted
his jaws half a yard in a kind of bitter laugh. The others were
confounded at this; but one said, "well, if we have lost our way in the
darkness, we would pay any one who would guide us." "Ha! ha!" said
Lucifer, "you will pay the last farthing before ye go." Thereupon each
fell to searching for his money, but found, to his sorrow, that he had
left his breeches behind him. Quoth the Arch Fiend, "you left Paradise
on the left hand, above the lofty mountains; and, notwithstanding, it was
so easy to come down here, it is next to impossible to go back, owing to
the nature of the country, through which the road back lies. For it is a
country abounding with mountains of burning iron, immense dismal crags,
sheets of eternal ice, and roaring, headlong cataracts; a country, in
short, far too difficult for you to travel, unless indeed you have talons
of the true devilish length. Come, come," said he to his myrmidons,
"take these blockheads to our paradise, to their companions." At this
moment I could hear the voice of some people who were coming, swearing
and cursing in a frightful manner. "O the Devil! the blood of the Devil!
a hundred thousand devils! a thousand million devils take me if I will go
farther!" but, nevertheless, they were cast slap down before the judge.
"Here you have," said the carrier, "a load of as good fire wood as the
best in Hell." "What are they?" said Lucifer. "Masters of the genteel
art of cursing and swearing," replied the devil; "men who understand the
language of Hell quite as well as ourselves." "You lie in your mouth, by
the Devil!" said one of them. "Sirrah! do you take my name in vain?"
said the Arch Fiend. "Quick! and hang them by their tongues to the
burning precipice yonder, and if they call for the Devil, be ready to
serve them; yea, if they call for a thousand, let them be satisfied."
When these were gone, lo! a giant of a devil vociferated to have the bar
cleared, and flung down a man whom he bore. "What have you brought
there?" said Lucifer. "A tavern-keeper," replied the other. "What,"
said the king, "_one_ tavern-keeper! Why they are in the habit of coming
to the tune of five or six thousand. Have you not been out, sirrah, for
ten years, and yet you bring us but one? and he one who has done us much
more service in the world than yourself, you lazy, stinking dog!" "You
are too ready to condemn me, before listening to me," he replied. "This
fellow only was given to my charge, and, behold! I am clear of him. But
still I have sent to you from his house, many a worthless chap, after
guzzling down the maintenance of his family; many a dicer and
card-player; many a genteel swearer; many a pleasant, good kind of belly
god; and many a careless servant." "Well," said the Arch Fiend, "though
the tavern-keeper has merited to be amongst the flatterers below us, take
him at present to his brethren, in the cell of the liquid murderers; to
the thousands of apothecaries and poisoners, who are there for making
drink to kill their customers--boil him well for not having brewed better
ale." "With your permission," said the tavern-keeper shivering, "I have
deserved no such treatment. Must not every trade live?" "And could you
not live," said the Fiend, "without encouraging dissipation and gaming,
uncleanness, drunkenness, oaths, quarrels, slander and lies? and would
you, hell-hound, live at present better than ourselves! Pray what evil
have we here that you had not at home, the punishment solely excepted?
And having told you this bitter truth, I will add, that the infernal heat
and cold were not unknown to you either.
"Did you not see sparks of our fire in the tongues of the swearers and of
the scolds, when seeking to get their husbands home? Was there not
plenty of the unquenchable fire in the mouth of the drunkard, and in the
eyes of the brawler? And could you not perceive something of the
infernal cold in the lovingness of the spendthrift, and in your own
civility to your customers, whilst any thing remained with them--in the
drollery of the buffoons, in the praise of the envious and the backbiter,
in the promises of the wanton, or in the shanks of the good companions
freezing beneath your tables? Art thou unacquainted with Hell, when the
house thou didst keep was Hell? Go, hell-dog, to thy punishment."
At this moment appeared ten devils with their burdens, which they cast
upon the fiery floor, puffing terribly. "What have you there?" said
Lucifer. "We have brought," said one of the fiendish carriers, "five
things which were called kings the day before yesterday." (I looked
attentively and beheld in one of them old Louis of France.) "Fling them
here," said the king; whereupon they were flung to the other crowned
heads, under the feet of Lucifer.