imagine that night having made all things black the Sun plunged them in the river to wash them But what shall I say of this liquid Glasse this little world turn'd topsie-turvy that places the Oakes under the mosse and the heavens lower then the Oaks Are they not of those virgins formerly Metamorphos'd into Trees that still finding their Chastity violated by the kisses of Apollo desperatly cast themselves into the floud with their head formost Or is it not Apollo himselfe who offended that they durst keep the aire from him hath thus hanged them by the feet Now the fish walke in the woods and whole forrests in the midst of the water without wetting themselves there 's an old Elme amongst the rest would make you laugh which doth almost loll on the other side to the end that his Image taking the same posture he might make of his body and his shaddow an Angle for the fish the river is not ingratefull to the willowes for their visites she hath made the universe bor'd through transparent lest the down of her head should foule their branches and not content to have made crystall with mud she hath vaulted the heavens the Planets underneath that it might not be said that those that visited her were deprived of the light which they forsook for her Now we may look downe on the heavens and by her the light may brag that as weak as she is at four in the morning he has the power to precipitate the heavens into the Deep Butadmire the power that the lower region of the soul exercises upon the higher After having discovered that all these wonders are but delusions of the sense I cannot for all hinder my sight from taking this Imaginary Firmament for a great Laque on which the Earth floates The Nightingale who from the top of a bough sees himselfe in it believes he 's fallen into the river he is on the top of an Oake and yet is afraid of being drowned but after having freed himselfe by his eyes and his feet from feare his picture then seeming a Rivall come to combate he chatters and warbles and that other Nightingale to his thinking silently does the same and cosen the Soul with so many Charms that one would fancy he sung purposely to be heard by our eyes I think he by motion chatters and sends no sound at all to the ear that he may at the same time answer his enemy and that he may not infringe the lawes of that Country he inhabites whose people are dumb the Pearch the Trout and the Goldenie that see him know not whether it be a fish cloathed with feathers or a bird devested of his body they gather about him and look on him as a Monster and the Pike the Tyrant of Rivers jealous to see a stranger in his Throne seeks him when he hath found him touches him and yet cannot feel him runs after him when he 's upon him and wonders that he hath so often passed by him without doing him any hurt I my selfe remaine so much amazed that I am forc't to quit this description I beseech you suspend his Condemnation since 't is difficult to judge of a shaddow for although my Enthusiasms should have the reputation to be very cleer yet 't is not impossible that the light of this may be dull having been taken in the shade Besides what more can I add to the description of this illuminated Image unlesse that it is a visible Nothing a spirituall Camelion a darknesse that the night kills a debate betwixt our reason and our Eyes a privation of light that the light produces In sine that 't is a slave that is no more wanting of master then the end of my letters are of SIR your Servant 8. Of a Cypresse Tree SIR IT was my designe to have sent you the description of a Cypress but this is onely the rough drauft because it is so sharp that the keenest wit dare not undertake it His colour and forme makes me think of a Lizard turn'd upside downewards which stings the heavens at the same time he bites the Earth If there be among trees as among men diversity of trades seeing this ladder with awles instead of leaves makes me believe heis the Trees shoo-maker I hardly dare bring my Imagination neer his prickly niedles for fear of being provok't to say too much of 10 thousand lances he makes but one without joyning them one would think it a shaft that the universe in rebellion darts at heaven or a great naile with which nature fastens the empire of the living to that of the dead this Obelisk this Dragon-tree whose taile is at his head seems to me a more commodious Piramid then that of Mausolus for instead of carrying the dead Corps as they did into that this is carried to the buriall of the dead But I prophane the Adventure of young Cyparissus the beloved of Apollo to make him act the persons of those monuments unworthy and below him This poore Metamorphosis still remembers the Sun he bursts his Sepulchre and rising whets himselfe that he may pierce the heavens and the sooner arive at his beloved he would have bin there before this but that the earth his Mother holds him by the foot Phobus to make him gratifie him makes him one of his vegetals to whom all the seasons beare respect the heats of the summer dare not hurt him he being their Master's minion the winter frosts feare him as a thing the most fatal in the world so that were it not for Crowning the heads of Conquerours or Lovers he is no more obliged to uncoife than the Laurell or the Myrtle at the yeare 's farewell The Antients who knowing this Tree to be the soul of the Parks brought it to the funeralls to awe death with the feare of losing her household-stuffe This is all I can say to you of the body branches of this tree I would now end with the top that I might conclude with a point of wit but I am so unhappy that I should not find water in the sea I am upon a point and yet cannot see it because perhaps it hath put out my eyes Consider a little I beseech you how to escape my fancy he pines away in his birth he becomes lesse by growing and I would say he were a fixt river that glides along in the Aire did he not contract himselfe by running and if it were not more probable that he is a Pike on fire whose flame is greene Thus I force the Cypresse that fatal tree that delights it self onely in shady groves to represent fire for 't is but reasonable that he should be once a presage of good and that by him I may daily remember when I see him that furnishing me with matter for a Letter he was the cause that I had the honour ending to write my self SIR your Servant 9. Of a Tempest SIR HOwever I am here very softly lodged yet I am not much at
beliefe to the Possessed 't is seene enough by the contorsions that disturbe you and your corporall torments that you have the divell in you and 't is to little purpose that you think to free your selfe from the torments of hell by a strong imagination and haunting debauched places But we care not provided you lime none but old or barren ones because the coming of Antichrist startles us and you know the prophesie but you laugh master Ican you that believe in the Apocalyps as in the Mythologie say that hell is a foolish story to fright men withall as they use to fright Children by threatning to make them eate a piece of the Moon Confesse confesse that you are the Incomparable for expound a little how can you be impious and Bigot at the same time and weave with the thread of your life a mixed stuff of Superstition Athism Ah! master John my friend you 'l dye dancing to the Saints-bel indeed when we consider the joint peeces that compose the symmetry of your members we are so satisfied that we need not consult an Oracle to be assured and were your haire more cleane and upright then your Conscience your forehead cut into Lanes after the Modell of the fields of Beausse where the sun markes your flats by the shaddow of your furrowes as exactly as he shows the day-hours upon a sundiall your eyes under shelter of your bushie eye-browes that look like two precipices on the brink of a wood are so much sunke that if you live but a month longer you 'l look upon us with your Occiput to see them so red as they are one is perswaded that one sees two bloody Cometts and I find some resemblance a little above in your Eye-browes is discovered fixed starres that some call otherwise your face is shaded by a nose whose infection is the cause that you stink in all mens opinions and my shoo-maker assured me the other day that he took your cheeks for a peece of black Spanish leather nay I have suffered my tongue to say that the smallest haires of your Mustachoces charitably furnishes your Church with a holy water-brush this I think is somewhat neere in Hieroglyphick the Image that Constistutes your Horoscope I would proceed but expecting visiters I feared least I should omit telling you at the bottome of my Letter that which is not ordinarily set there that I am not nor ever will be Your Servant Mons r Ican 28. Against a Pedant SIR I Wonder that such a log as you who by your habit seems to be become but a great Charcoal should not yet blush and become red with the fire that burns you within Think at least when your bad Angel makes you rebell against me that my arme is not far from my head and that till now your own weaknesse and my generosity hath secured you although you are a very contemptible thing yet I 'le free my self of you if you become troublesom Give me not occasion then to remember that you are in the world and if you will live above a day call to minde often that I have forbid you to make me the object of your slanders my name fills a period but ill the thicknesse of your square waste would close it a great deal better You act Caesar when from your Pedagogist-Tribunall you see your little Monarchy tremble under your wooden Scepter But take heed that a Tyrant raises not up a Brutus for although you are the space of four hours upon the head of Emperours your Domination is not so strongly established but that the sound of a Bell destroyes it twice a day 'T is said you boast that you expose in all places your conscience and your salvation I believe this of your piety But to hazard your life for it I know you want courage and that you would not stake it against the Monarchy of the world You consult and plot my ruine but they are bitts that you cut out for others You would gladly from the shore in safety behold a ship wrack at Sea and I the whilst am condemned to the Pistoll by a Puritanicall pedant a Pedant in sacris who ought for an example if the image of a Pistoll had taken place in his thoughts to be exorcised Barbarous Schoolmaster what cause have I given you to wish me this ill You run over all the crimes perhaps which you are guilty of and then you think of accusing me of that impiety which your own memory taxes you withall But know that I know a thing which you know not and that thing is god and that one of the strongest arguments after those of faith that hath convinced me of his true existence is the consideration that were it not for a summary and soveraign goodnesse that reignes in the Universe thus wicked and weak as you are you could not have lived so long unpunished Besides I have learnt that some little works though much above yours hath caused in your timerous courage this passion that you thunder against me But in truth Sir I am ready to quarrell with my own imagination that she hath made my Satyr bite harder then yours although yours be the fruit that the best wits of the antients have sweat for You ought to be offended at Nature and not me that cannot help it for could I imagine that to have wit was to injure you You know besides that I was not in the belly of that Mare that conceived you to dispose to humanity those organs and the complexion that concurred to the making you a Horse I pretend not however that these truths that I preach to you should reflect upon the body of the University that glorious mother of Sciences of which if you are any member it is the shamefull one There is nothing in you that is not very deformed your very soul is black it being in mourning for the death of your conscience and your habit as its giblets keeps the same colour I confesse 't is true that a miserable Hypocondriack as you are cannot obscure the merit of the learned men of your profession and however a ridiculous vain-glory perswades you that you are the ablest Regent of the University I protest to you my good friend that if you are the greatest man in the Muses Academy you are beholden for it onely to the greatnesse of your members and that you are the greatest personage of your Colledge by the same right that St. Christopher is the greatest Saint in our Ladies Church 't is not but that if fortune and justice were agreed you would very well deserve to be the chief of four hundred Asses that are taught at your Colledge yea certainly you deserve it and I know that the Master of the high function whom whipping better becomes then you nor none to whom it more justly belongs and of that great number I know those that would give ten pound to flea you and if you 'l believe me take them at their
Mouth the very paper under the words the Criticks mutter that the great noise that you make in the world is no signe of a great wit that Empty vessells sound more then full ones and that perhaps by reason of the Concavity of your empty braine your mouth like to a Grot makes an ill distinguisht Eccho of all the sounds that strikes it But you must comfort your selfe for all this for that man that can hinder envy from biting vertue is yet unborn for I grant as they say that you are no great wit you are neverthelesse a great man what you are able by your very shaddow to black a whole tennis court none heares your stature spoken of but believe that one is a telling a story of a Cedar or a Fir-tree and others that know you more particularly provethat you have nothing of man but the voice assuring us that they have learnt by tradition that you are an Oake transplanted from the forrest of Doone 't is not by my advice that they give this testimony for I have told them a hundred times that t' was not likely that you were an Oake seeing the most learned all agreed that you are but a block for my part I that have been of a longer acquaintance with you maintaine to them that 't is very farre from truth to imagine that you are a tree for although your superior part which by reason of the situation is called your head doth no reasonable nor sensitive function yet I could not believe it to be of wood but I imagine that it was deprived of the use of its senses And because that one humane soul being not large enough to animate from one end to the other so vaste a Colosse nature was forced to leave the upper region desart And indeed is there any body that knowes not that when nature loged that which in others is called wit in your immense body for all her stretching and pulling she could never make it reach to your head your very Members are so prodigious that who considers them thinks you have two Giants hung to the bottom of your belly instead of thighs and your mouth is so wide that I am sometimes afraid that your head will fall into it in truth if t' were an Article of our faith to believe that you are a man I should have strong motives to suspect that to give life to your body they had been faine to put into it the universall soul of the world You must needs be something very great indeed since the whole Community of Broakers are employed to cloath you or else that those people seeking to sell their commodities and not being able to bring all the streets in Paris to the market have laden you with their fripperie that the market may walke about the streets but this reproach needs not trouble you contrarywise 't is very advantagious to you it makes you known to be a publique Person since you are cloathed at the publique charge besides many other things renders you very considerable without adding to them that as the Egyptians judged of their abundance by the thicknesse of the mud of Nilus after her overflow so may we by your good case suppute the number of illegitimate embraces that have been made in your suburbs Well but concerning the Tree I just now compared you to 't is said you are so fruitfull a one that there 's never a day but you bring forth But I know that these kinds of injuries come not near you and that your calumniators when the third coat of the Cards was your Picture durst not offer so many affronts to your face you then wore a blade that would have had satisfaction of such backbiters they would not have accused you of impudence as now they do when you was in a condition to change your colour so often These Sir in a manner are the abuses with which they persecute your lamentable reputation I would make a little longer Apology for them but that my paper being at an end I must be so to Permit me then to take my leave of you without the customary ceremonies for these persons that thus scorn you and whom I have a great esteem for would think that I were a servant to the Jamboncineux's servant if I had said at the bottom of this Letter that I am SIR Your Servant Tambourineux 22. Consolation for one of his friends upon the Eternity of his Father in Law THe Doctors better then I will one day ease you of the life of this person let them but alone their stroaks none can put by You 'l answer me without doubt That he hath already above a dozen times passed by the time of dying that the Parque forgot him and that having gon so far beyond him she is now loath and lasie to come back so far and fetch him No no Sir be in good hope till he hath lived nine hundred years the age of Methusalem But speak to him continually and that scoldingly roar play the devill thunder in the house let every thing be crosse to him and take some course to make him aweary of his life Why Artephius and the Sybill Cumea lived nothing in respect of him He was brought forth before Death was born and that 's the reason death dares not strike him for she 's afraid to kill her father and if this consideration did not hinder her she sees him so weak with age that he would not be able to go into th' other world Besides too I think another thing may be the reason which is that death who sees him do no action of life takes him rathtr for a statue then a living creature and thinks it belongs rather to time or fortune to overthrow him then to him After this Sir I much wonder that you should say that he being ready to close the circle of his daies being arived at that point where he first set forth he 's becomming a child again Ah Sir you jeast and for my part I cannot so much as believe that he ever was one What he a Boy No no he never was or Moses was out in his Calculation of the worlds creation Though if it be permitted us to name every thing so that can hardly die the functions of a child I grant you for he must indeed be more ignorant then a plant that knowes not how to die that which every thing that hath life understands without a Master Oh had he been but known by Aristotle that Philosopher would not have defined Man a rational Animal Those of Epicurus his sect which demonstrate that the Beasts have the use of reason must except this Ah! if it were but true that he were a beast But alas in the order of animated beings he is a little more then a Hartichoke and somewhat short of an Oyster insomuch that but that you think he hath no feeling I should believe him to be that which they call the Sensitive plant Confesse then that you
depends on the vicissitude of there proverbs I 'le assure you the thoughts of it hath made me often judge that he had need make use of some points and sharpnesses of wit to prick forward the horses that draw the chariot of his renown otherwise she is not likely if she goes as slow as he doth to go far Why the Greeks were lesse time in besieging Troy than he hath been about his To see him without armes and legs if his tongue were quiet one would take him for a sprout planted in the porch of Death's Temple He doth well to speak otherwise one could not tell whether he were alive or no and I am much mistaken if every one did not say after having so long heard him houl under Larchet that he is a good Violon Do not imagine Sir that I give him this thrust to fence with the equivocation of Violon or others I can assure you if ever the Parque should have a fancy to dance a Saraband shee 'd take in each hand a couple of Scarron's instead of Castagnetes or at least wise she would hold their tongues between her fingers and make use of them as they of do the Lazeres snappers faith since we are gone thus farre we had as good finish his picture I fancy then for we can but fancy those beasts that are not showed for mony that if his conceipts are moulded in his head he must needs have a very flat one that his eyes are of the biggest size if nature hath made them of the same length that he hath made the craze in his head They add to his description that the Parque above 10 yeares since wrung his neck but could not strangle him and some dayes since one of his friends assured me that having considered his bent armes petrified upon his haunches he took his Body for a Gibber where the divell had hung a Soul and perswaded himselfe that it might very well be that heaven animating this cadaverous and rotten Insect to punish him for the sinnes he was to commit would before hand throw his soul to the dunghill well Sir you may please to exhort him from me not to be incensed at these fancies by which I endeavour to divert his thoughts from the cruell paines that torment him I do it not to augment his afflictions but 't is not easie to gaine his beliefe to all pressing troubles Besides having taken a draft of his ill built face Is it not manifest to every one that since the Physitians have been so long employed in the cure of his Carcasse he must needs be very hollow and who knowes but that God punishes him for the hatred he bears to those that have noble thoughts and conceptions since we see his disease is become incurable by having differr'd too long the putting himselfe into the hands of one that is learned I am perswaded that this is also the reason that this enraged Cerberus throws his venom upon every body for I was told that one showing him a Sonnet which he told him being ill inform'd was mine he cast such an Eye upon him as obliged him to put it up againe without reading it But these Caprices do not seeme strange to me for how could he look otherwise then asquint upon this composition that looks no otherwise on the heavens he that persecuted with three scourges remains onely upon the earth to be a continuall object to men of Gods vengance he whose calumnie and rage hath dar'd to throw his foame upon the purple of a Prince of the Church and endeavours to cast the shame upon the face of a Heros who happily under the auspices of Lewis governes the first kingdome of Christendome In fine all that is noble August great and sacred doth so incense this monster that like a Turky-Cook in his anger as well as in his deformity he cannot endure a Red Hat though France under it secure from her Enemies enjoyes a glorious happy quiet You may now easily judg that his scorn concerns me as nothing and that 't would have been a kind of a Miracle if my Sonnet that passeth for smooth and full of salt had relished with a Person so pepper'd but I perceive I am a little too saucy to entertaine you with so abject a subject To conclude I advise you to rest satisfied without that pleasant Comedy that you would entertaine your se'fe withall in showing him my Letter or else learne first Aesop's Language that you may conster the French to him This is a part of what I had to send to you the other consists in adding the I am for feare of bringing it ill in for he is so much an enemy to good thoughts that if this Letter should one day fall into his hands hee 'd publish every where that I had ill concluded if he should find that unawares I had not put at the Bottome I am SIR Your servant 27. Another Letter Master Ican I Much wonder that on the Pulpit of truth you erect a Mountebanks Theater that instead of preaching the Gospell to your Parishoners you fill their Eares with a hundred ridiculous stories that you have the impudence to recite things that Jack pudding under his vizor would blush to bring forth that prophaning the dignity of your office you describe the most licencious and debauched pleasures under colour of reproving them with so particular Circumstances that you put us in mind O abominable of the sacrifices that were heretofore made to the God Priapus whose Priest was the Pimp Certainly Master Ican you ought to exercise your Office with lesse scandall if you were no other wayes obliged to it then that it raised you from the dunghill on which you was borne to the state Eclesiastique for if you have not the power to forbeare your Boffon humour dissembleat least and when your duty obliges you to preach the Gospell to make us believe it do you seeme to do so Permit us to deceive our selves and blind the eyes of our Reason that we may not see your Impertinences and since in spight of the bug beares you are resolved to deliver these holy Mysteries like a farce or pappet play do not ring the bells to call your people to the sermon Come down from the Chair of truth and get up upon a stall at the Corner of a street make use of a Biscayin drum set a Capering Monkey upon your shoulders and to end the momery in all points slip your hand into your shirt and you 'l find Godenot in his knapsack Then no body will be scandalized that you give pastime to the Clownes you may like a Mountebanck tell the vertues of your Mitridate utter your pomander bracelets and balls for the itch and gald Arses you may likewise make provision of Ointment for a burne for the witches of the Country swore to me that they read in the scedule you gave you know to whom that the terme expires at Christmas you may if you will give no
words for ten pounds is more then the skin of a horn'd beast can be worth From all these and from all the other things that I writ to you t'other day you may conclude little Doctor that the Destinies command you by a Letter that you content your self to shipwrack the wits of the youths of Paris against the seats of your School and not think to domineer and play the Regent over him that doth acknowledge the Empire neither of Monet nor The saurus In the mean time you gore me with sharp horns and resuscitating in your memory the thoughts of your cruelty you compose of it a Romance of which you make me the Heros Those that will excuse you lay the fault on Nature that brought you forth in a Countrie where beastialitie is the first patrimony and of a race that the seven deadly sins hath composed the historie of After this in troth I am to blame to take it ill that you endeavour to attribute to me all your crimes since you are of age to give away your wealth and that sometimes you seem so transported with joy in reckoning up the debauched persons of this age that you forgot your own self 'T is not necessary that you ask who told me of this stupid ignorance that you think secret you that glory in publishing it and bellow it out so loud in your School that 't is heard from the Orient to the Occident I advise you however Master Picar henceforward to change the subject of your Haranges for I will no longer see you hear you nor write to you and the reason is this That God who possibly is upon tearms of pardoning my sins would not forgive me if I should have to do with a beast 29. Against Lent SIR YOu may canonize Lent as long as you please For my part 't is a holy-day that my devotion will never celebrate I look upon it as a great gash in the body of the year through which Death introduces himself or as a great Caniball that lives upon mans flesh whilst we eat nothing but roots The cruell Tyrant is so affraid of failing to destroy us that having learnt we are to perish by fire the very first day of his reign he puts the world into ashes and afterwards by a deluge to exterminate the embracements remainders he brings a tyde of fish into our very Cities The Turk that told the Grand Signior that upon a certain day of the year all the Frenchmen became frantick and that a certain powder being applyed to their forehead made them come to themselves again was not of my opinion for I 'le maintain that they are never wiser then upon that day And if they object their Mascarades I answer That they disguise themselves that Lent who looks after them may not find them and indeed he never carches em but the next morning a bed when they have pluckt off their visors The Saints who being inspired by God are wiser then we disguise themselves likewise but they unmask not till Easter day when the enemy is gone 'T is not that this Barbarian hath pitty on us that makes him depart No no but finding us so alter'd that he himself doth not know us he retires thinking he hath mistaken us for some others You see already that our armes lose their flesh our cheeks fall our chins grow sharp our eyes hollow the paunch-belly that you know begins to see his knees human Nature looks hideously To be brief the very Saints in our Churches would fright us if they did not hide themselves And after this doubt whether Martyrs have escap'd the wrack the furnace and boyling oyle when in six weeks we see so many persons in good health after they have appeased the fury of six and forty executioners their presence alone is terrible And I fancy Shrovetide that great day of Metamorphosis a rich elder brother that bursts his belly whilst the poor younger ones dye hunger-starv'd 'T is not but that the law of Fasts is a well invented stratagem to exterminate all the souls out of a Republick that are like to come to the fire But I think these fish-daies are to blame to kill so many Calves in a season in which they permit them not to be eaten and to permit March to blow such bad winds from the quarter of Rome that they make us eat but half what we would do Why Sir there is not one Christian whose belly is not a Sea of frogs or a Kitchen-garden I think upon the carcase of a man that dies in Lent one may see sprout out beet roots skerrets turnips and carrets But to hear our Preachers you would think that at this time we ought not to be flesh What is it not enough that this lean Tyrant ruines our bodies would he corrupt our souls too he hath so perverted our precepts that we may now communicate to women our temptations to the flesh without offending them or god almighty Are not these crimes for which it ought to be expel'd out of well-govern'd Kingdoms But 't is not onely in our daies that he rules with so much insolence for our Saviour died in the first year of his reigne The whole machine of the world was like to have vanisht and the Sun who was not used to these long fasts faild the same day and lost his complexion would never have recovered his weaknesse if they had not presently made an end of Lent O thrice and four times happy is he that dyes on a Shrove-tuesday he is almost the onely man that can boast that he lived a year without Lent Yeas Sir if I were assured to abjure the heresy every holy-Saturday I would turn Huguenot every Ash-wednesday Our reformed fathers may well pray to God that the Pope may never happen to be my prisoner of war for although I am a Catholick good enough yet I would not set him at liberty till he had for his ransom restored all the flesh-daies he hath taken from us I would oblige him likewise to degrade March from the number of the 12 months of the year as being the Ganelon that betraies us to a great deal of hardship 'T is to no purpose to say that he is not altogether against us since either with his head or his heels he alwaies dips in the dripping-pan that he onely frees himself from the Megrim by the Cramp and in fine that Lent is his Gibbet where every year he finds himself hung either by the neck or by the heels He is the principall cause of the mischiefs that our enemies do us because 't is he that lodges them whilst they persecute us and these persecutions are not imaginary if the earth did not stop the mouths of the dead I know what they would say well enough And I think that Easter was purposely so placed at the end of Lent because they that Lent had kill'd could not but want a resurrection Wonder not then that so great a part of the
that I hope they will not suffer my discourse to be troublesome to you This graduate notwithstanding tells me that t' will be nothing and at the same time protests to every body else that I cannot escape without a Miracle Their presages however although fatall do not at all startle me for I know well enough that the cunning of their trade obliges them to condemn all sick persons to death to the end that if any one escapes his recovery may be imputed to their powerfull remedies and if he dyes that every one may cry him up for an Able man and say that he knew well enough what would become of him But admire a little the Impudence of this hangman the more I find the ill increase that his Physick is cause of and the more I complaine of some new distemper the more he rejoyces and sayes nothing but All the better When I tell him that I am fallen into a swoonding Lethargy that held me almost an hour he answers 'T is a good signe When he sees me in the Clawes of a bloody flux that teares me in peeces 't is well sayes he this is as good for you as letting Blood When I grow sad to feel an excesse of cold to take hold of all my extream parts he laughs and sayes he knew it well enough that his Physick would quench that extreame fire nay sometimes when being almost dead I have lost my speech I heare him chide my friends that weep to see me in this sad condition Fools that you are sayes he do you not see that 't is his feavour that is at extremity and is leaving of him Thus this traitor rocks me and in the meene time I am so well that I am almost dead I am not ignorant how much I was to blame to call my Enemies to my help but could I imagine that those whose knowledge makes profession to cure would employ it altogether to kill me for alas you may believe that if this were not the first time that I fell into the ditch I should not now be in a condition to bemoan my self I for my part advise those weak wrastlers that they may be revenged of those that have thrown them to turn Doctors for I 'le assure them they 'l send those to the ground that had laid them there In truth I think that to dream in ones sleep that one meets a Physitian is sufficient to put one into a feavour to see their lean steeds covered with a long hearse-cloth feebly support their feeble Master would one not think 't were a Beere that the Parque is got astride upon and may we not take his riding-rod for death's standard since she brings along his Lieutenant This is the reason without doubt that Policy commanded them to mount Mules and not Mares lest the race of Doctors becoming more numerous there would have been at last more executioners then patients Oh! what pleasure could I take in anatomizing their Mules those poor Mules that never felt spur neither within nor upon their flesh because boots and spurrs are superfluities that the delicate wisdom of the Faculty cannot disgest These Gentlemen govern themselves with so much scruple that they make these poor beasts because they are their domesticks observe fasts more rigorous than those of the Ninivites and abundance of very long ones the custom of which are forgotten By these diets they leave them onely their bare skin upon their bones and we that pay them well are not better used for these frozen Doctors take more Gellâ—y out of us then they put in In fine all their discourses are so cold that I find but one difference between them and the people of the North that is those of Norway have alwaies mules upon their heels and these have alwaies their heeles upon their mules They are so great enemies to heat that they have no sooner found out in a patient any luke-warmness but as if that body were a Vessuvius they are presently a bleeding and glistering drowning this poor stomack in Sena Cassia and Barly-water and weakning life to debilitate say they this heat that takes nourishment as long as it meets with matter to work upon insomuch that if the speciall hand of God makes them bound again towards the world they presently impure it to the vertues of the refrigerative with which they have benum'd this incendiary They steal from us the heat and energy that is in the blood Thus having bled too much our souls flying from us serve as a shittlecock to their Chirurgeons Palletes Well Sir what think you then after this are we not much to blame to complain that for a weeks sicknesse they ask ten pound is it not a cheap cure where the life escapes But confront a little I beseech you the resemblance that is between the Doctor 's proceedings and the processe of a criminall The Physicians having considered the Urine questions the patient upon the stool and condemns him the Chirurgeon binds him and the Apothecary discharges his office behind Those very persons that think they stand in need of them do not much esteem them no sooner are they come into the chamber but one lolls out ones tongue at the Physitian one turns ones arse to the Apothecary and holds up ones fist at the Chirurgeon 'T is true they revenge themselves with a witnesse it alwaies costs the jeaster his life I have observed that all that is fatall in Hell is comprehended in the number three there is three Lakes three Doggs three Judges three Parques three Gerrons three Hecates three Gorgons three Furies The scourges God uses to punish mankind are likewise three the Sword Pestilence and Famine the World the Flesh and the Devill Hail Thunder and Lightning the Blooding the Physick and the Glister In fine three sorts of people are sent into the world purposely to martyrize man in this life the Lawyer torments the purse the Physician the Body and the Divine the soul But these Masters of the Mules brag on 't too for mine comming one day into my chamber I onely said Quot to him this impudent homicide presently apprehending that I ask'd him the number of his murders laying hold of his great beard answered me â—ot I am not asham'd on 't saies he and to show you that we teach how to kill as well as Fencers we all our life-time exercise our selves upon the Tierce and the Quart That which I concluded upon the brazen impudence of this person was That if the rest of the profession confessed lesse they notwithstanding did as much That this was contented onely with killing and that his companions to murder added treachery That if one would write the Physitians travells one could not count them by the Epitaphs onely of one Parish And in fine the Feavour assaults us the Physitian kills us and the Priest sings But 't were nothing for Madam Faculty to send our bodies to the grave if she did not attempt our souls too The
those that he was to commit Permit me a little I beseech you to turn my discourse a little to these Rebells Seditious people come and see an object worthy of Gods judgments 't is the monstrous Scarron that is given you for an example of the punishment that the ungratefull the traitors and the slanderers of their Prince are to suffer in Hell consider in him with what scourges Heaven punishes calumny sedition and detraction Come Burlesque writers and see a compleat Hospitall in the body of your Apollo when you see the King 's Evill that devours him confesse that he is not onely the Queens sick-man as he calls himself but the Kings likewise he dies every day in some member and his tongue staies till the last that his howling may tell you the torments he endures You see him what I tell you is no story since I have been speaking to you he hath perhaps lost his nose or his chin Doth not such a spectacle stir you up to repentance Admire stony-hearts admire the secret judgment of the most High Hearken with an ear of contrition This speaking Mummy she complains that she is not able to bear all the pains that she endures The very blessed ones to punish his impieties and his sacriledges teach Nature new infirmities to confound him with Already by their Ministers he is opprest with the disease of St. Roch of St. Fiacre of St. Clon of St. Renne And that we may in a word comprise all the enemies that he hath in heaven heaven it self hath ordained that he should be sick of the Saint Admire then admire how great and profound are the secrets of the divine providence She knew of the ingratitude of the Parisians to their King that was to break out in 1649. But not desiring so many Victims she caused to be born forty years before a man ungratefull enough alone to expiate all the punishments that a whole City had deserved Make your profit then O people of this miserable miracle and if the consideration of the eternall flames are weak motives to make you wise and to hinder you from casting your Gale upon the scarlet of the Tabernacle at least let the fear of becomming Scarrons terrifie you You 'l please to excuse Sir this little digression since you are not ignorant that Christian charity obliges us to run and help our brethren that without perceiving it are upon the very brink ready to fall into a precipice You have no need of it you that in these great shocks of State have still held fast to the body of the Tree And indeed 't is one of the most considerable motives that I am and will be all my life SIR Your very humble obedient and affectionate servant De Cyrano Bergerac 37. Theseus to Hercules DO you not wonder my deare Hercules that I should write to you from t'other world That being past the flood Lethe I should remember our friendship and that I should preserve the memory of it where the memory of men are shipwrackt Ah! I foresee that you do not you know too well that that correspondence and society whose mutuall esteeme knit our souls is not a knot that Death can loosen and the very inaccessable hell where I am detained is not farre enough to hinder my sighs from reaching to you I know that you have been seen to shiver and tremble with anger against this Tyrant of the night whose rigorous government I endure and that the great Hercules after having dis-horned Bulls torne Lions strangled Giants and carried upon his shoulders the Machine of the world that Atlas could not beare is not a man to be affraid of the barking of a Dog that keepes my Prison Gate 't is a Monster that hath but three heads and Hydra that he overcame had seaven each of which grew to seaven more Come then O triumphant Protector of heaven Come and take the last victory upon your Enemies come into these dark Dens and take from death the Priviledge of Immortality and at last resolve to satisfie the suspense that the terror of your arme holds nature in you have spread your name enough over the Mountaines of the earth and the starres of the firmament think of those that languish in the Center of the world oppressed with the weight of the earth for having fought under your banner Can you imagine to what a miserable condition the unfortunate Theseus is reduced now that his complaints makes his misfortune ring againe in those climates that the Sunne gives light to he is in the most sad and fatalest quarter of the Elisium fields seated upon the trunck of a Lyprus tore with Thunder uncertaine whether he should send you his Request or his Epitaph his eares affrighted and his Eyes offended with the croaking of Ravens and the continuall cryes of a cloud of Ospreys his head leaning on the black marble of a monument in the midst of a frightfull Cymetire environ'd with rivers of blood where deadbodies float whose ponderous motion is excited by the dolefull sound of sighs that the souls breathe out that passe over her This O invincible Hero is the fatall Imployment of those yeares that I ought to spend more gloriously in your service but because that no sad Circumstance should be wanting to my griefe I am tormented not onely by evill it selfe but likewise by the Eternall fight of him I 'le tell you that t'other day excuse me if I speake in this manner in a place fill'd with darknesse where blindnesse raigns every where and where every object weares a perpetuall black t'other day then whilst the rigour of the most unfortunate aspects that an accursed Climate can be deadlily looked on I perceived all affrighted the horrible habitation of the Parques who turn'd their eyes on mine I was a long time imployed in considering these homicide mothers of mankind who had hung at their distaffs the haughty Arbitrer of peoples liberties and wound as negligently the silk of a glorious Tyrant as the thread of a simple shepheard I conjured them by my tears to spin out the thread of my life more quick or else to break the woofe And since the fear of death frighted me more then death it self I desired them to free me from a hundred thousand torments by one onely But I read in their countenances that they had decreed not to grant my petition so soon This frightfull company made me leave my abode but alas I fell into another more horrid 't was a vast floating Fen in which being engaged I found I was at the mercy of an hundred thousand Vipers that hath none and who with their tongues burning with venom having suckt on my cheeks the painfull degorgements of my heart gave me in the room of it the air of their hissings to breathe There I saw those famous offendors whose crimes have condemned them to extream torments bring themselves forth again by the fire that consumed them endure in the flames all the insupportable
much ashamed to have a Salamander for your lover and be troubled to see burn in this world Madam Your Servant 6. Letter Madam I Have received your magnificent Bracelets that seemed to me very proud to wear your characters You need not fear after this that a prisoner held by the arms and by the heart can make an escape from you I confesse I should have suspected your present because that there alwaies goes hair and characters into the making up of charms But you having so many more noble waies of killing 't is not likely I should suspect you of witchcraft besides I should be to blame to withdraw my self from the secrets of your Magick it being not possible for me to escape my Horoscope that is agreed with you of my sad dysaster Add to these considerations that 't will be much more for her advantage if it comes by some supernaturall means and if it be caused by a miracle I believe Madam you think all this is jeasting well then let us be serious tell me in your conscience do you not think that you have gained a heart at a cheap rate since it cost you but half a dozen blowes By my faith if you find any more at that price I would advise you to take them for haires will sooner grow again in the head then hearts in the breasts But did you not cunningly choose to make me a present of hair to explain to me in Hierogliphick the insensibility of your heart No I esteem you more generous But how ill soever you intend I so confound in my joy every thing that comes from you that the hands that strike me or stroak me are alike welcom provided they be yours and the Letter that I send to you is a proof of it since it is onely to give you thanks for tying my arms for drawing me by the hair and by all this violence for having made me Madam Your Servant 7. Another Letter Madam I Do not onely complain of the mischief that your fair eyes have been pleased to do me but likewise of a more cruell torment that I suffer by their absence You lest in my heart when I took my leave of you a tyrant that under pretence of being your Idea takes upon her a power over me of life and death nay she enhaunses tyrannically upon your authority and goes to this excesse of inhumanity to tear open those wounds that you had closed up and to make new ones in those old ones that she knowes cannot heal Let me know I beseech you when that Astre that was eclipsed onely for my sake will come and dissipate the clouds of my afflictions Have you not enough to exercise that constancy to which you promised victory Did you not swear to me when you took your last journey that all my faults were wiped out that you would forget them for ever but me never O sweet hopes that are vanished with the aire that framed them Hardly had you ended these deceitfull words shed some perfidious tears and sent forth artificiall sighs with which your mouth and your eyes belyed your heart but fortifying some cruelty that yet lay hid in you you doubled your kindnesses that you might eternize in my memory the cruell remembrance of your favours which I had lost But you went further you fled from those places where the sight of me would perhaps have been capable to have moved your pitty and absented your selfe from me in my sufferings as the Kings that abandon those places where criminalls are punished for fear of being importuned for a pardon But to what purpose so many precautions Madam you know too well the power of your wounds to be afraid of their cure The Physick that hath spoke of all maladies hath said nothing of that which destroyes me because she spoke of them as being able to deal with them but that which the love of you hath begot in me is incurable for how is it possible to live when one hath given away ones heart which is the cause of life Return it me then or send me yours in the place of my own otherwise in the condition I now am to end my life by a bloody and cruell death you 'l add to the conquest of your eyes too sad a destiny if the Victim that I immolate to you be found without a heart I conjure you then once more since you need not have two hearts to live to send me yours that offering to you a compleat sacrifice she may make both your love and your fortune propitious to you and hinder me from making an ill end although I should tell you improperly at the bottom of my Letter that I am and ever will be even in the other world Madam Your faithfull Slave 8. Letter Madam YOu complain that you discovered my passion from the very first moment that fortune obliged me with the sight of you But you to whom your glasse when he shewes you your image tells that the Sun hath all his light and ardour the very first instant that he appears What reason have you to complain of a thing that neither you nor I could hinder 'T is as essentiall to the splendour of the rayes of your beauty to illuminate bodies as 't is naturall to mine to reflect towards you that light which you bestow upon me And as it is in the power of your consuming looks to kindle a disposed matter so is it in that of my heart to be consumed by it Do not complain then Madam unjustly of this admirable concatenation by which Nature hath joyned by a common society the effects to their causes This unexpected foresight is a continuance of the order that composes the harmony of the Universe and 't was a necessity known at the birth day of the creation of the world that I should see you know you and love you But there being no cause but tends to some end the very time that we are to unite our selves is now come 'T were in vain for you and I to attempt against our destinies But admire the course of this predestination 't was a fishing that I met you the lines that you looking upon me cast did they not declare to you my being taken And although I had scap'd your lines could I have saved my self from the baits hung at the lines of that fair Letter that you did me the honour to send me some daies after every obliging word of which was composed of divers characters onely to charm me and I received it with such respects as I would expresse by saying that I adored it if I were capable of adoring any thing besides your self At leastwise I gave it many tender kisses and laying my lips to your dear Letter I fancyed that I kissed your excellent wit that framed it My eyes took a pleasure in often passing over those characters that your pen had made and grown insolent by their good fortune they attracted my whole soul to them and by fixed looks stuck there to unite it self with those draughts of yours Could you have thought Madam that with one sheet of paper I could have made so great a fire 't will never go out though till my dayes are extinguish'd for if my soul and my passion parts themselves in two sighs at my death that of my love will go out last I 'le conjure la Gonie the faithfullest of my friends to repeat to me that beloved Letter and when he shall be come to the end of it where you humble your self so much as to say that you are my servant I 'le cry out till death Ah! that cannot possibly be for I my self have alwaies been Madam Your most faithfull most humble and most obedient Slave De Bergerac FINIS The Errors of the Presse HIr her for him his in the 23 line of the 8 page Had for have in the 25 line of the 9 page Little for brittle and in the 3 line of the 12 page Hir for him in the 17 line of the 14 page Roch for Poch in the 5 line of the 16 page He for she in the 10 line of the 16 page He for she in the 12 line of the 16 page He for she in the 19 line of the 16 page Bottom for fadom in the 2 line of the 17 page For for to in the 11 line of the 18 page Walls for valleyes in the last line of the 18 page Hostesse for Hospitall in the 26 line of the 23 page Mosse for Messe in the 13 line of the 24 page Matter for Muster in the 17 line of the 26 page Set for sat in the 4 line of the 29 page Seemes for Lances in the 4 line of the 29 page To shew his innocency in line 21. page 30. O gods for O good in the 13 line of the 36 page Leave out with in the 5 line of the 39 page They for he in the 8 line of the 47 page Leave out of in the 11 line of the 52 page Tambocineux's for Jambonomeux's in the last line of the 82 page Doe for die in the 6 line of the 84 page Makes for spakes in the 25 line of the 84 page After for often in the 15 line of the 85 page There for them in the 16 line of the 88 page Cushonet for Cushomet in the 28 line of the 88 page Lately for safely in the 27 line of the 91 page Cannot for Can in the 32 line of the 93 page Read for made in the 3 line of the 96 page Truths for troubles in the 27 line of the 98 page No for that the in the 27 line of the 105 page Roost for roof in the 3 line of the 111 page She for he in the 23 line of the 111 page Others for other in the 20 line of the 139 page That a Republick for the particulars of a Republick in the 23 line of the 145 page Read for head in the 17 line of the 157 page
Chirurgion would run mad rather then not kill with his lint all those that are shipwrackt in his hands and send them to sleep with their fathers Let us conclude then Sir that sometimes they send death and his fyth buried in a grain of Mandragon otherwhile liquified in a Serringe sometimes upon the point of a Launcet that sometimes with a Julip they make us die in October and in fine they usually cloath their poisonings in so fine tearms that not long since I thought that mine had obtained for me of the King an Abbey in commendum when he told me that he was a going to give me a Benefice for the belly Oh! how glad I should have been if I could have found some way equivocally to have beaten him as the country-wench did who being asked by a Mountebank whether she had any Poulxe which in French signifies also Lice she answered him with boxes on the ears and good scratches that he was a fool and that in all her life she never had neither Lice nor Fleas But their crimes are too great to be punish'd onely by equivocation let us summon them to appear before a Justice in the name of the dead Amongst all mankind they 'l not find a Lawyer thre's not a Judge that cannot convince some of them of having killed his father and amongst all those they have practised that they have laid in the Church-yard there is not a head that doth not grind his teeth at them should they devour them there were no fear that the tears shed for their losse would enlarge the Rivers None weeps at the death of such people but those that lament that they lived so long They are so beloved that every thing that concerns them is so even their very death as if they were other Messias's for they die for the good of Mankind But good gods is not this my evill Angel again ah 't is the same I know him by his gown Vade retro Satanas Champagne bring me the holy-water pot Graduated devill I renounce thee O impudent Satan do you not come to give me another purge Have mercy Lord 't is a Huguenot devill he doth not care for holy-water Oh! if I had but strength enough to break his pate But alas that which he hath made me take is so well turn'd to nourishment that by taking a great many consumed broths I have quite consumed my self Come quickly then to my help or you 'l lose SIR Your most faithfull Servant D. C. D. B 34. Against a coward Bragadocio SIR THe Prophet lies cowards do not die at your age besides your life is not considerable enough to be of those that the heavens takes care to mark the duration of Those of your scantling may expect to die without a Comet as well as a great many more that are like you which Nature asleep brings forth every day without taking notice of I have been told in many places that you brag that I had a designe to kill you Alas my friend do you think me so foolish as to undertake an impossibility Ha! pray tell me to kill a man suddainly that hath neither brain nor heart in what place must I strike him I 'le ne'r be seen if your way of living impenitrable by injuries makes not the world believe that you have undertaken to try how long a man without a heart can naturally subsist These reflections were considerable enough to oblige me to make you feel the wait of a cudgell But the long continuance of your Ancestors whose antiquity you proclaim will hold my hand I find indeed some likelyhood that it may be so since a famous Genealogist made it clearly appear to me that all your titles of nobility were lost in the Deluge and that he proved to me that you are as evidently a Gentleman as the country-fellow did to King Francis the first when he told him That Noah had three sons in the Ark and that he was not certain from which he was descended But however I should have guess'd that you were of a good House for no body can deny but yours is as new a one as any there is in the Kingdom If you 'l believe me then take a Coat of Arms let the Heraulds be offended if they will you shall give these Vous porterez de gueules a deux felles chargees de cloux sans numbre a la vilenie en caeur un Baston Brisc sur le chef But as they give not Armes to a Peasant that one would make noble till he hath rendred himself worthy of it by performing some warlike act I stay for you where this lackey will conduct you that according to the prowesse of chivalry that you shall make appear I may clap a pair of spurs on you You need not fear to be the sacrifice for if fate waits for you any where 't is rather in the stable than in the bed of honour or upon the breach of a wall And for my part I that understand a little in Physiognomy I engage you my word that you are not destin'd to die in the field unlesse it be by a surfiet of grasse Consult upon it however all the powers of your soul that I may arm my self quickly with a sword or that which they call in French a Baston End of the Satyricall Letters 35. A Dreame SIR THat vision of Quevedo which yesterday we read together left so many deep Impressions in me of the pleasant things it represented that the last night I dreamt I was in hell but that hell seem'd to me very differing from ours the variety made me believe that they were the Elisium fields and indeed I had not gone farre but I saw the lake Avernus which I knew by the Greeks and the Romans descriptions of it I saw Acheron and the flood Lethe the vigilant Cerberus the Gorgons the Furies and the Parques Ixion upon his wheele Tityus devoured by a vulture and many other things that are amply described in the Mythology Having gone a little further I met divers persons cloathed in the Greek and the Roman fashions the one speaking Greek the others Latin and I perceived others imployed in leading them to severall apartments they all seem'd very sociable which made me put my selfe into their Company I remember I accosted one and after many other discourses having told him that I was a stranger he answered me that I then was come at a good time for that day the dead that have complained that they are ill associated are all to change their lodgings and that if I were curious I might have the pleasure of seeing it he afterwards very courteously proffered me his hand and I gave him mine We go continued he into the Hall where order is taken for the parting those that have a mind to leave me another and lodging them with others we shall have the Convenience to see at ease without tyring our selves how every one will behave himselfe to make his cause