History then advanced upon the stage. Before her went Fame, with a long brazen trumpet. She herself was hung round with stories of murders, poisonings, perjuries, conspiracies, and other horrors. Behind her panted, beneath a prodigious load of chronicles, diplomas, and documents, a strong nervous man, clothed in the German fashion. She danced with Slavery, to the rustling of the stories with which she was hung. Falsehood at length took the trumpet from the mouth of Fame, and tuned it to the dance; and Flattery led the figures.
Then appeared Medicine and Quackery, and were received with loud laughter: they danced a minuet, to which Death clinked the music with a purse of gold.
After them were seen Astrology, Cabala, Theosophy, and Mysticism. They grasped each other by the hands, and whirled around in intricate figures; while Superstition, Delusion, and Fraud stood near, and blew the bagpipes.
These were followed by Jurisprudence, a sleek, rosy-faced dame, fed with fees, and hung about with commentaries—she coughed through a tedious solo; and Chicanery played the bass-viol.
Last of all entered Policy, in a triumphant car drawn by two mares, Weakness and Deceit. On her right sat Theology, holding in one hand a sharp-pointed dagger, and in the other a blazing torch. Policy herself wore a golden crown upon her head, and supported a sceptre over her right shoulder. She descended from the car, and danced with Theology a pas-de-deux, to which Cunning, Ambition, and Tyranny played on soft tinkling instruments. After she had finished the pas-de-deux, she made all the other figures a sign to begin a general dance. They immediately obeyed, and sprang about in wild confusion. All the before-mentioned musicians played on their instruments, and raised a din, only surpassed in loudness by the table-music of Satan. Yet Contention soon insinuated herself among the unsuspicious dancers; and, animated by Zeal and Fury, they hastily snatched up weapons. When Theology
perceived that all embraced delightful Poetry, and that Morality wished to tear off her own veil, in order to cover her with it, she gave the latter a thrust with a poniard from behind, and singed the nude and tender Poetry with her flaming torch. Both raised a dreadful shriek: Policy commanded silence, and Quackery hastened to bind up the wound of Morality, whilst Medicine cut a shred from her robe in payment. Death stretched out his claw from under the mantle of thievish Medicine to seize Morality, but Policy gave him such a blow that he yelled aloud, and grinned most hideously. Poetry was allowed to hop about, because she was naked, and had nothing to be despoiled of. At length History took pity on her, and laid upon the burn a wet leaf from a sentimental romance. Policy then tied them all behind her chariot, and drove away in triumph.
All hell expressed approbation of this last spectacle by reiterated clappings; and Satan embraced the devil Leviathan for having got up the entertainment, which flattered him exceedingly, it being one of his chief whims to be
reckoned by the fiends as the inventor of the sciences. He often said, in his pride, that he had begotten them in his intercourse with the daughters of earth, in order to divert men from the straightforward and noble feelings of their hearts; to remove from their eyes the mystic veil which constitutes their happiness; to make them acquainted with their state of restriction and weakness; and to fill them with painful doubt concerning their after destination. “I taught them,” he would continue, “by their means, to reason, so that they might forget to practise virtue, and to worship. We ourselves have defied Heaven with bold and open weapons, and I have at least shown them the way of skirmishing incessantly with the Eternal.”
The sensible reader will here pause, and admire the strict resemblance of all courts to each other: that is, how the great, through the service, toil, and sweat of the little, win the favour of their sovereigns, and bear away the rewards. Leviathan gave himself out as the inventor of this allegorical ballet, and was on that account thanked
and caressed, although the real author of it was the Bavarian Poet Laureate, who a short time before had died of hunger, and found his way to hell. He prepared the ballet after the latest court-fashion, by the command of Prince Leviathan, who had at least talent enough to discover merit: the reason of his bitter allusions to the sciences was, probably, because they had so ill supported him; and perhaps Leviathan, who knew perfectly well what would please Satan, had given him a hint to that effect. Be this as it may, the devil had the reward, and the thin shade of the Bavarian Laureate sat cowering behind a rock of the theatre, and observed with bitterest agony the marks of unmerited favour which Satan had lavished on Leviathan.