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]