than Life without it At last wee descended into a spacious Cave circled in on all sides with very high Rampiers and filled with much people and here Death bad mee stay for this was the place of her Tribunall The hangings that adorned the walles were words of Woe alas griefe sighes ill tidings and lamentations as certainely beleeved as unregarded Here Womens teares were deceitfull to themselves and unprevalent with others There sorrow was excluded from comfort and cares were only vigilant being converted into Vermin to gnaw Kings and Princes whose usurped honours made them to suspect all men He ere Envy had put on a mourning habit and kept a continued fast it being not in her power to hurt And there Ingratitude was kneading a kinde of Dough mixt of Pride and Ambition of which now shee framed Men now Devils All quivered with curses and imprecations of which demanding the reason one that was by answered O Destiny would you not have curses heere where there are so many match-makers Lawyers and imprecatours Doe you not know that there is nothing more frequently spoken of in your Region than Cursed be hee that married us Cursed the houre I first beheld thee and Ill hâ—p betide him that first brought us together Cursed bee the Lawyer who counselled mee to follow this Cause that hath undone mee And in other matters Curst that I am I would I might never come into Heaven if I said this or that and The Devill take mee if ever hee spake to mee of any such thing But what is all this to the purpose said I and what have these to doe with Deaths Judgement Hall Ignorant man said the other If there were not so many contrivers of weddings would there bee so many dead and desperate men Is there any thing destroyes so quickly as the cavils and circumventions of entangling Lawyers And doth there any dâ— sooner than hee that precipitates himselfe No certainly therefore thou must conclude that these are the principall Pillars of this Dominion and of the imperiall throne thou seest there At this I lift up mine eyes and saw Death sit in a chaire environed with many little Deaths as The Death of Love the Death of Hunger the Death of Feare and the Death of Laughter each bearing a severall Ensigne and device The Death of Love had very little braines and for Attendants had Pyramus and Thisbe Hero and Leander with divers other Lovers ready to expire under her Sickle but by the rare miracles of the interessed rose againe About The Death of Hunger were many Usurers who having accumulated great wealth deprive themselves of necessary meanes letting their bodies famish and their soules die which they had long before converted into Gold and Silver The Death of Feare was richest and most stately hemm'd in with Tyrants and mighty men such as flie from all thought none pursueth and afford the world no good but this that by their sudden selfe destruction through feare suspition and distrust they revenge themselves the innocent whom they had before condemned and slaine The Death of Laughter was the last rounded with people of quicke apprehension but late repentance that live as if there were no Justice to feare and die as if there were no mercy to bee hoped And these are they that when it is said Restore what you have taken answer You make me die of Laughter Consider that you are old that sinne findes not any thing more to consume in you forsake this Woman that you unlawfully embrace Regard how the Devill mockes you who are now no more unto him but an improfitable booty You make mee die of Laughter Aske God forgivenesse and turne unto him for you have already one foot in the grave You make mee die of Laughter I was never more jocond never more lusty And these are they that being sicke when they are exhorted to rely upon God and order their estate by a religious will answer that they have beene many times in the same case but finde themselves in the other World before they can be perswaded they are going thither Heere I could not containe my selfe from this use Lord thou hast given but one life and are there so many Deaths Grant I beseech thee that if I returne againe I may change my condition and beginne to live well that I may die lamented I had scarce uttered these words but I heard the voyce crying The Dead the Dead the Dead and instantly saw the Earth beginne to open and the bodies of men and women halfe buried in their winding-sheets to arise who ranked themselves in order observing a silent taciturnity Take each his turne said Death when behold one of them came near me with such fury that I began to feare the bastinado Hellish worldlings said he What would you with mee Why let you mee not alone dead and at rest What have I done unto you I that without offending in part am defamed in all and made guilty of those things I am altogether ignorant of And what are you said I whom I neither know nor understand I am said he the unhappy Abraham Ninny that have bin here many years and yet you doe nothing but mocke and deride mee When any folly or extravagancy is committed Oh! 't is an Abraham say you presently Did you ever heare the like What a Ninny-hammer hee is growne Why a very foole would not have done it But know that in acting and speaking follies you your selves are all Abrahams worse than you suppose mee to have beene And for proofe Tell me Have I made any ridiculous wils as you men by which you command others to doe those things which you would never doe your selves Have I rebelled against the potent or hoped to renew my youth Have I strived to reforme Nature and contested with her in colouring and poudering my haire Have I sworne untruths Am I faithlesse in those things which I have promised as you are dayly Have I beene a slave to my money or played away my estate Have I consumed it in banquets or given it to Curtezans Did I suffer my selfe to bee masterd by my Wife or beleeve that I might rely on that man who at my perswasion betraied his friend that trusted in him Did I marry my selfe to bee reveng'd of an inconstant Mistresse or credit that there might bee built any sure foundation on the slippery Wheele of Fortune Have I esteemed them happy that consume their dayes in Princes Courts for the vanity of a momentary looke or taken delight in Hereticall Controversies to bee accounted witty Have I boasted unto people that are below mee or beleeved in Witches and framers of Nativities If Abraham have done no such foppery of what folly can you accuse him Poore Ninny rash and insolent that you are wherefore doe you impute your disorders unto mee that never learnt any thing but patience and was of so innocent and naturall a life that it added an impossibility to wrong any man As wee were
to be teeth and the bearers Tooth-drawers mouth-devasters and drawers on of old age not shaming to wish all mens teeth upon their thread rather than in the place of their birth After these came men of divers habits not unfitly entred because all great talkers Some were called Swimmers by reason that in speaking they spread their armes to and fro as if they were swimming Others imitatours in that they counterfeited the lookes and gestures of those they spoke of And others sowers of dissention because they moved their eyes this way and that way not stirring the head to marke by stealth the actions of those they meant to betray And last of all Dissemblers a presumptuous Generation the worlds true plague who thrust into all assemblies and either by craft flattery or base submission having got the secrets of men convert them to the Relaters prejudice and their owne mercenary profit These were called the extract of all the importunate and because the poyson of Serpents lies in the taile came in the reere as most poysonous Upon this I beganne to consider to what use this great troope and confusion might tend when behold a certaine Apparition drew neare that seemed to bee of the Feminine kinde of light gate and loose proportion Shee was laden with crownes garlands scepters sikles sheephookes buskins wooden shooes tires miters bonnets embroidery silke skinnes wooll gold lead diamonds shels pearle and flint One of her eyes was shut and the other open She was cloathed in all colours on one side appearing young and on the other old Now going apace and anon slowly at one time seeming afarre off and by and by at hand And at all times so inconstant that I could not have leasure to fancy who shee might bee Yet was I not frighted but rather incited to laughter remembring an Italian Comedy I had lately seene in which Halequin faining to come from the other World had a baggage not much dissonant and therefore after I had stood a great while musing I stept to her and demanded who shee was I am Death said shee Death replied I my heart failing mee and whither goe you Mistresse Death I come to fetch thee said she Alas Must I then die No but thou must goe alive with mee and make a journey into the kingdome of the dead for since many departed have rose to see the living it is no injustice that one living should descend to visit them and that the dead bee heard Hast thou not heard that I have power to execute my soveraigne decrees Disrobe and follow mee Ha sighed I in a cold sweat Will you not let me weare my Cloathes There is no need said she apparel will but hinder you besides I ease all men of their luggage that they may walke with more agility There was no contending therefore I went after her but to tell you through what by-wayes shee led mee is impossible for I was transported beyond apprehension As wee were going I doe not said I for all this see by any outward appearance that you are Death because she is painted without flesh consisting of nothing but dry bones Those Image-makers are fooles answered shee and want invention for bones are not Death but the remainder of the Living You Mortals know her not or else shee would appeare in the visages of every one of you and in every severall member lie depicted To die is to finish life and to bee borne is to beginne to die and the truest Image of Death is a mans owne selfe and not a breathlesse trunke or bare anatomy But I pray you Why doe you place Detractours and Tell-tales in the Van next to your owne person because said shee there are more that die by the importunity of great speakers than by diseases and more that are hastened to ruine by the conversation of flatterers and intermedlers than by Physicians practice though in the generall these are my greatest friends and best servants and to this purpose thou must understand that most in the world grow sicke through excesse and superfluity of humours but die by the meanes and diligence of him that administers So that when you are asked of what Disease such an one is dead you must not answer Of a Feaver Plurisie Purple or Pestilence but he is dead by the hand of such a Physitian that hath beene well paid for it is requisite that every Trade should live As we grew thus familiar wee entred into a Vault where the dayes reflexe was betwixt light and obscurity In the entry whereof upon one side I saw three Statues armed and stirring of humane shape yet hard to bee distinguished and on the other an hideous Monster that continually fought with them one against three and three to one Knowest thou said Death what these are Oh no! said I and I trust in God I never shall And yet so it is said shee that since thy Nativity thou hast never kept other Company These are the three capitall Enemies to the Soule the World the Flesh and the Divell looke if they doe not resemble one another so neare that they are scarcely discerned asunder so that if thou entertaine but one of them thou maist bee assured thou hast them all three An aspiring man thinkes he hath all the World and hath got the Divell a lascivious man beleeves hee hath the Flesh but findes it the Divell and so doe the rest But what is shee said I with so many severall faces that fights against them Answer was made The Divell Money who hath bred a controversie upholding that the rest have nothing to doe where she is and that shee alone is all the three First shee grounds her dispute with the World upon those Proverbes men ordinarily use that There is no other World but Money that Hee that hath no Money had better be out of the World that We banish him the World from whom wee take Money and that All things give place to Money Against the second Enemy she saith Money is the Flesh witnesse Whores and Curtezans And against the third she makes use of your speeches also that Nothing can be done without that Divell Money that Love doth much but Money doth all and that That which Money cannot doe the Devill cannot effect Whatsoever the claime is said I The Devill Money needs no coadjutours seeing she defends her Cause so well Wee went forward to a place where on one hand I perceived Hell and on the other Judgement and did heedfully consider Hell because it was a thing very strange What lookest thou on said Death On Hell said I and methinkes by the aspect I have seene it elsewhere Where said she I have seene it in the emulation of great ones in the consciences of them that withhold â—nother mans goods in wicked undertakings in revenges in the desires of the luxurious and in the pride of corporations But as for Justice I am glad to see it in its purity and had rather have Death with Judgement
bee said I that mercy should condemne since that condemnation is an action of Justice You talke like a Divell And you said the Divell like a Foole since you know not that halfe of those that are here are adjudged by Gods mercy But to make you understand the Riddle Consider how many Sinners there are who when they are admonished of their evill doings leave not for all that to continue and increase them more and more in answering to their Reprovers God is mercifull hee regards not so small a thing his mercy is so great and thus whilest they hope in God persevering in their wicked wayes wee never distrust them After your reckoning said I none may rely on the Mercy of God You are dull said hee you must trust in it 't is that that helpes forward good desires and rewards good actions but it is denied to those that are obstinate in their wicked wayes for it is to play with Grace to beleeve that it serves to cover guilt and to thinke that a man may receive it just when hee hath need of it without ever endeavoring to get it Gods mercy is infinite for his Saints and repentant Sinners who struggle to become worthy and those that have the greatest share are such as are most fearfull but hee that knowes how great it is makes himselfe unworthy the effects when he turnes it into the liberty of evill doing and not into spirituall profit Can it be said I overwhelmed with marvell that so good a lesson should proceed from the mouth of so mischievous a Doctour Which spoken the Divell shewed mee a flaming partition wherein as one of the Tortured told me were those that were afflicted with suddaine deaths You lye in reverence bee it spoken to the Gentleman that heares mee said the Fiend no man dies suddainly Death uses no surprize There wants never warning How is it that you complaine of dying suddenly when since your very birth since you beganne the course of your life Death was alwayes with you What is more ordinarily seene in the World than dying and buriall What is spoken of more in the Pulpit or read of more in good Bookes than the frailty of life and certainty of Death First of all the body growes it not every day nearer and nearer to its Tombe Cloathes weare they not Houses decay they not Your owne Diseases and those of others knocke they not at all houres at the Gates of your Soules remembring them that they must dislodge Sleepe represents it not to the life the death of living man and life is it not maintain'd by the death of beasts And for all this you are so impudent as to say that you dyed suddenly No no change language say hereafter that you are unbeleevers dead without ever thinking that you should dye and learne besides that Death takes as soone the youngest stripling as the agedst decrepite and according to what they have done be it good or ill she proves either a Mother or a Stepdame He shewed me also a vast Cauldron savouring of many oily sents wherein were preserved Apothecaries Comfit-makers Chirurgions Distillers Barbers and Mountebankes with many more for feare of rottennesse saying these are the true Alchimists and not Geber Ruspicella with the rest because they onely writ of what metals Gold might bee made but made it not or if they did none ever since could penetrate into the depth of their secrets But these out of puddle water stickes Flies dung Vipers Toads simples sugar and excrements can make Gold of better substance than all those could that ever medled in the art because that theirs is ready coined for use In which respect wee are carefull to preserve them least our treasure should decrease Hereupon another Divell made signes that I should come unto him without noise which having done hee set mee against an open casement saying looke in there and see the ordinary exercise of fowle Women I did as I was commanded and beheld a very great number some whereof were putting blacke patches on their faces others pluckt up the haire on their eyebrowes and others that had none made use of blacke Lead some put on fore-tops of counterfeit haire some placed Ivory teeth in their gummes in stead of those of Ebony which were fallen out This eate Ambergreece Comfits to purifie her breath and those held boxes of painting with which they daubed their faces and by this meanes became infinitely shining without being either Starres or Sunnes Well said the Divell would you have beleeved that Women had been so inventive and ingenious to perdition I knew not what to answer but turned away and saw a man sitting on a Chaire all alone without either fire ice Divell or racke about him who neverthelesse cried out with the fearfullest cries that ever I yet heard his heart tâ—ickled drop by drop from his eyes and he tore his breâ—st and gnawed his armes in so furious a manner that I thought he had been mad O Lord said I with what despaire is this poore man transported no body to my thinking doth him any harme Friend my Friend What Fury bewitches you For what doe you complaine being here alone free from all manner of Torture Alas said hee with a terrible voice I feele in my selfe all the pangs of Hell together You see not the Hangmen that are linkt to my Soule you see them not said hee reiterating his cry and turning about as distracted but hee sees them whose severe and implacable Justice can measure offences with torments without measure O Memory thou art to mee a cruell Divell memory of the good I might have done memory of those wholesome counsels I have despised and the evils I have committed Ah! that thou dost afflict me And to heape up my misfortunes when thou leavest me my Reason beginnes her course and the imagination of that glory I might have had and that others possesse without having bought it so deare as I have done the paines I suffer O understanding What cruelty dost thoâ— use towards mee in setting before me Heaven and Paradise so full of beauty joy content and delight and yet drownest mee more and more in despaire Some release I pray thee And thou my Will Is it possible that thou refusest to make a truce for one poore moment You that are a Pilgrim of the other World who aske what torments mee Know they are the three powers of my Soule converted into invisible flames and into three Executioners who without hand or Element burne and teare my Entrals And if by chance they cease to wracke mee the Worme of Conscience gnawes my Soule as the perpetuall food of insatiable hunger Ending this word he cast forth a deepe groane and turning from me Mortail said he Consider that those of the World who were illuminated with the Gospell and endowed with celestiall Graces and have not employed them to their owne Salvation carry their Hell in themselves and are tormented with the like misery as I am
you dead to get your wealth that seemes to weepe and bemoane you when you are sicke and yet cares not if the Divell had you All this is wanting to the poore man hee is not flatterd envied hath no friend no companion nor no credit neither are his children brethren or alliance de irous of his dissolution for any obscure ends but hee is one that lives well and dies better And there are some so contented with this manner of life that they will not change their condition with Kings because they have liberty to goe every where whither they will in peace and warre free from all charges impositions and publike services exempt from all judgements civill censures processe of Law and jurisdiction and in their Consciences are wholly uncorrupted Moreover they take no care for the morrow observing in that the commandement of God They husband their time well and can justly value the dayes of their pilgrimage in setting before their eyes that death holds in his power all that is past governes all that is present and pretends a right to all that is to come But there is a proverbe that When the Devill preaches the World drawes to an end Wee may truly say that Gods hand is in this said the religious Conjurer Thou art the Father of lyes yet declarest truths able to mollifie an heart of stone You men said the Devill doe not imagine that this that I have spoken is for your salvation deceive not your selves 't is that your paines may be encreased when the time comâ— that you shal suffer and that you may not pretend ignorance and excuse saying No body hath told us You are all Hypocrites The greatest part of teares you shed proceed onely out of griefe to forsake the world and not out of any repentance for your sinnes And though sin be sometimes displeasing to you because of your declining into yeares or of your corporall indispositions yet your will hath much a doe to bee overcome because it is wicked Thou art an Impostour said the reverend man There are at this day many holy Soules whose teares have issue from another fountaine but I see thou seekest to delude us and it may be it is not the will of God that thou shouldest bee expelled this miserable body neverthelesse I conjure thee by his Almighty Power not to torment him any more but to depart The Spirit obeyed and the devout man addressing his speech to us Gentlemen said he although it was the Devill that spoke by the organs of this unhappy man yet there is some pro it in this discourse to be made by him that will meditate upon it Therefore I pray you not to regard from whence these things proceed but to remember that wee often receive health from the hands of our enemies and from thoâ— that most hate us With draw your selves in the Name of God to whom I will pray that this sad and prodigious spectacle may serve to amend your lives and convert you unto him And heere my Slumber left me VISIONS The second Vision OR Death and her Dominion SAad thoughts are naturall to abject men and gather together in multitudes to assault one unhappy Certaine Enemies they are uncertaine Friends not much to be blamed since they doe not derogate from the straine of the world fickle and unstable now rising now declining and set before they attaine the Meridian Cogitations of this mold made me lament mine owne depression and turne over the leaves of some few bookes that by no Rhetoricke could maintaine any more than one way to bee borne but without study could finde a thousand wayes to die Heere I found the ambition of the proud and the covetousnesse of the rich satisfied with so little that I began to hate all indirect dealings and minde the advice was given mee Mortall said one Why dost thou afflict thy selfe and labour for uncertaine riches Is not Death the end of all things which many times comes upon thee before they are obtained or at best well disposed embrace that by dying well and thou canst not wish for those blessings shall bee denied Wherefore dost thou so much feare Death said another What now remaines of the pleasures of thy passed life and of thy first yeares which were so sweet and delightfull Seest thou not that all is vanished and lost in times swiftnesse Prepare thy selfe therefore and take heart put on alacrity of spirit and settle thy Soule in peace and tranquillity Remember saith the Scripture Man that is borne of a Woman is of short dayes and full of trouble hee commeth forth like a flower and is cut downe he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not Dizzied with these Contemplations I fell asleepe over my Instructours and doe verily beleeve it was rather caused by some supernaturall predominancy than naturall disposition because my faculties were free and at liberty from outward molestations and busied in beholding this following Comedy to which my fancy serv'd as a Stage for unusuall Actours I saw divers Physitians enter riding on large foot-clothes ominous in this that they resembled Hearses for the dead Their traine was broken and disordered for some went a foot-pace and others on the spurre Their faces were contracted got more by custome than age in often frowning on their Patients urine which prognosticated to the Sicke more terrour than redresse And these were followed by young Practitients who by their frequent conversation with the Horses more than with the Doctours became easily graduated Apothecaries came next armed with morters pestles and doses whose out-side bore the ascribed cures and inside poysons Their Shops were the Physicians Storehouse and the afflicteds Purgatory Their Recipes began with receive but included to take an ounce for themselves and a scruple for the dying man And all their compositions were disguised with such strange nominations as if they had beene Sorcery cursed inquisitours against life done in policy that their mistake of one thing for another might not bee discerned Chirurgions with some unwillingnesse followed because they conceited precedency the Etymology of their name signifying a Physitian that worketh by hand Their pockets were filled with pincers cauters files sawes knives and lancets and their cries of cut teare dismember burne infused such feare that my bones were consulting how they might serve as sheathes to hide one another Then Mountebankes whose papers speake better than they who with more impudence and lesse skill would cure all Diseases with one Antidote upon which there was no great disspute Nor of the Barbers Surgery who came next because it either killes or heales These were more finicall than their forerunners yet at proudest are but shavers of Excrements Their greatest Artillery were Cizzers Razers and basons and some sharpe lotions the which were allayed by the delicious musicke of their Fiddles and Citternes Seeing them followed by men wearing chaines crosse their breasts and admiring what state they usherd I easily lost that conjecture when I beheld the linkes