the world, so useful to you as she; she has more extensive authority and more numerous subjects, than all your other daughters. Was it not through her that I cheated the first woman? It was: and ever from that time she has remained and increased exceedingly upon the earth. At present indeed, the whole vast world is but one Hypocrisy; and if it were not for the skill of Hypocrisy, how should any one of us do business in any corner of the world? Because if people were to see sin in its own color, and under its own name, who would ever come in contact with it? The world would no more do so, than it would embrace the Devil in his infernal shape and garb. If Hypocrisy were not able to disguise her name, and the nature of every evil, under the similitude of some good, and were not able to give some evil nickname to all goodness, no one would approach, and no one would covet evil at all. Traverse the whole city of Destruction, and you will see her in every corner. Go to the street of Pride, and enquire for an arrogant man, or for a pennyworth of coquetry, mixed up by Pride; ‘woe’s me,’ says Hypocrisy, ‘there is no such thing here; nothing at all I assure you in the whole street but grandeur.’ Or go to the street of Lucre, and enquire for the house of the Miser; fie, there is no such person in it: or for the house of the murderer amongst the physicians: or the house of the arrant thief amongst the drovers, and see how you would fare; you would sooner get into prison for enquiring, than get any body to confess his name. Yes, Hypocrisy creeps between man and his own heart, and conceals every iniquity so craftily, under the name and similitude of some virtue, that she has made every body almost unable to recognise himself. Avarice she will call economy. In her language dissipation is innocent diversion; pride is gentility; a perverse
man is a fine manly fellow; drunkenness is good fellowship, and adultery is only the heat of youth. On the other hand, if she and her disciples are to be believed, the devout man is only a hypocrite or a blockhead; the gentle but a sneaking dog; the sober a mere hunks, and so on. Send her, therefore,” he continued, “thither, in her full array, I will warrant that she will deceive every body, and that she will blind the counsellors and the warriors, and all the officers, secular and ecclesiastical, and will draw them hither in multitudes presently, by means of her mask of changeable hue.” And thereupon he sat down.
Then Beelzebub arose, the devil of Inconsiderateness, and with a rough, bellowing voice,—“I am,” said he, “the mighty prince of Bewilderment; to me it pertains to prevent man from reflecting upon and considering his condition. I am the principal of those wicked, infernal flies which craze mankind, by keeping them ever in a kind of continual buzz, about their possessions or their pleasures, without ever leaving them with my consent, a moment’s respite, to think about their courses or their end. It ill becomes one of you, to attempt to put himself on an equality with me, for feats useful to the kingdom of Darkness. For what is Tobacco but one of my meanest instruments, to carry bewilderment into the brain? And what is the kingdom of Mammon, but a branch of my vast domain? Yea, if I were to recite the ties which I have on the subjects of Mammon and Pride—yea, and on the subjects of Asmodeus, Belphegor, and Hypocrisy—no man would tarry a minute longer under the rule of one of them. Therefore,” said he, “I am the one to do the work, and let none of you boast again about his merits.” Then Lucifer the Great arose himself from his burning throne, and with a would-be complaisant but nevertheless frightful look on both
sides,—“Ye master-spirits of eternal Night! ye supreme possessors of the cunning of Despair!” he said, “though the vast black gulf and the wilds of Destruction, are indebted to no one for inhabitants, more than to my own royal majesty since I of yore, failing to drag the Omnipotent from his possession, drew millions of you, my swarthy angels to this place of horrors, and have since drawn millions of men to you; nevertheless, it cannot be denied, that ye too have all done your part, to sustain this vast infernal empire.”
Then Lucifer began to answer them one by one. “For one of late origin, I will not deny, O Cerberus, that thou hast brought to us many a booty from the island of our enemies, by means of tobacco, a weed the cause of much deceit; for how much deceit is practiced in carrying it about, in mixing it, and in weighing it: a weed which entices some people to bib ale; others to curse, swear, and to flatter in order to obtain it, and others to tell lies in denying that they use it: a weed productive of maladies in various bodies, the excess of which is injurious to every man’s body, without speaking of his soul: a weed, moreover, by which we get multitudes of the poor, whom we should never get, did they not set their love on tobacco, and allow it to master them, and pull the bread from the mouths of their children.
“And as for you, my brother Mammon, your power is so universal, and likewise so manifest upon the earth, that it has become a proverb that ‘any thing can be got for money.’ And undoubtedly,” said he, turning to Apollyon, “my beloved daughter Pride is of great utility to us; for what is more capable of injuring a man in his condition, his body, and his soul, than that proud, haughty idea, which will make him squander a hundred pounds for display, rather than stoop to
give a crown for peace. She keeps people so stiff-necked, with their sight so intent on lofty things, that it is a pleasure to see them, by staring and reaching into the air, falling plump into the abysses of Hell. As for you, Asmodeus, we all remember your great services of yore; no one keeps his prisoners more firmly under the lock, and no one meets with less rebuke than yourself—the whole rebuke, indeed, consisting in a little laughing, at what is called wanton tricks. Yes, Asmodeus, I admit that your power is very great; though I cannot help reminding you,” he added, with a jocular though truly infernal grin, “that you were all but starved, above there, during the last dear years. As for you, my son Belphegor, lousy prince of Sloth, nobody has afforded us more pleasure than yourself, so very great is your authority amongst gentle and simple, even down to the beggar. Nevertheless, if it were not for the skill of my daughter Hypocrisy, in coloring and disguising, who would ever swallow one of your hooks? And after all, if it were not for the diligent firmness of my brother Beelzebub, in keeping men in inconsiderate bewilderment, I question whether all of you united would be worth a straw. Now,” said he, “let us review the whole.
“What would you be worth, Cerberus, with your excessive sucking, if it were not for the assistance of Mammon? What merchant would ever fetch your leaves from India, through so many perils, if it were not for the sake of Mammon? And if it were not for his sake, what king would receive it, in Britain especially? And who, but for the sake of Mammon, would carry it to every corner of the kingdom? But, notwithstanding this, what wouldst thou be worth, Mammon, without Pride to squander thee upon fine houses, magnificent garments, needless litigations, music, horses and
costly appurtenances, various dishes, beer and ale in a flood, far above the means and rank of the possessor; for if money were used within the limits of necessity and propriety, of what advantage would Mammon be to us? Thus you would be worth nothing without Pride; and little would Pride be worth without Wantonness, because bastards are the most numerous and the fiercest subjects, which my daughter Pride possesses in the world.
“You too, Asmodeus, prince of Wantonness, what would you be worth, if it were not for Sloth and Idleness; where but for them would you get a night’s lodging? You could hardly expect it from a labourer or toiling student. And you, Belphegor of Idleness, who would welcome you a minute, attended as you would be with shame and reproach, if it were not for Hypocrisy, who conceals your ugliness under the name of internal sickness, or of a well meaning person, or under the shape of despising riches and the like.