He spoke the last word with so much fury, and seemed so confounded, that, perceiving the effect it had on him, I immediately waved the story, and, passing to other matters, we had much conversation touching giants. He said, so far from killing any, he had never seen one alive; that he believed those actions were by mistake recorded of him, instead of Jack the giant-killer, whom he knew very well, and who had, he fancied, extirpated the race. I assured him to the contrary, and told him I had myself seen a huge tame giant, who very complacently stayed in London a whole winter, at the special request of several gentlemen and ladies; though the affairs of his family called him home to Sweden.
I now beheld a stern-looking spirit leaning on the shoulder of another spirit, and presently discerned the former to be Oliver Cromwell, and the latter Charles Martel. I own I was a little surprized at seeing Cromwell here, for I had been taught by my grandmother that he was carried away by the devil himself in a tempest; but he assured me, on his honour, there was not the least truth in that story. However, he confessed he had narrowly escaped the bottomless pit; and, if the former part of his conduct had not been more to his honour than the latter, he had been certainly soused into it. He was, nevertheless, sent back to the upper world with this lot:—Army, cavalier, distress.
He was born, for the second time, the day of Charles II.’s restoration, into a family which had lost a very considerable fortune in the service of that prince and his father, for which they received the reward very often conferred by princes on real merit, viz.—000. At 16 his father bought a small commission for him in the army, in which he served without any promotion all the reigns of Charles II. and of his brother. At the Revolution he quitted his regiment, and followed the fortunes of his former master, and was in his service dangerously wounded at the famous battle of the Boyne, where he fought in the capacity of a private soldier. He recovered of this wound, and retired after the unfortunate king to Paris, where he was reduced to support a wife and seven children (for his lot had horns in it) by cleaning shoes and snuffing candles at the opera. In which situation, after he had spent a few miserable years, he died half-starved and broken-hearted. He then revisited Minos, who, compassionating his sufferings by means of that family, to whom he had been in his former capacity so bitter an enemy, suffered him to enter here.
My curiosity would not refrain asking him one question, i.e., whether in reality he had any desire to obtain the crown? He smiled, and said, “No more than an ecclesiastic hath to the mitre, when he cries Nolo episcopari.” Indeed, he seemed to express some contempt at the question, and presently turned away.
A venerable spirit appeared next, whom I found to be the great historian Livy. Alexander the Great, who was just arrived from the palace of death, past by him with a frown. The historian, observing it, said, “Ay, you may frown; but those troops which conquered the base Asiatic slaves would have made no figure against the Romans.” We then privately lamented the loss of the most valuable part of his history; after which he took occasion to commend the judicious collection made by Mr Hook, which, he said, was infinitely preferable to all others; and at my mentioning Echard’s he gave a bounce, not unlike the going off of a squib, and was departing from me, when I begged him to satisfy my curiosity in one point—whether he was really superstitious or no? For I had always believed he was till Mr Leibnitz had assured me to the contrary. He answered sullenly, “Doth Mr Leibnitz know my mind better than myself?” and then walked away.
Chapter x.
The author is surprised at meeting Julian the apostate in Elysium; but is satisfied by him by what means he procured his entrance there. Julian relates his adventures in the character of a slave.
AS he was departing I heard him salute a spirit by the name of Mr Julian the apostate. This exceedingly amazed me; for I had concluded that no man ever had a better title to the bottomless pit than he. But I soon found that this same Julian the apostate was also the very individual archbishop Latimer. He told me that several lies had been raised on him in his former capacity, nor was he so bad a man as he had been represented. However, he had been denied admittance, and forced to undergo several subsequent pilgrimages on earth, and to act in the different characters of a slave, a Jew, a general, an heir, a carpenter, a beau, a monk, a fiddler, a wise man, a king, a fool, a beggar, a prince, a statesman, a soldier, a taylor, an alderman, a poet, a knight, a dancing-master, and three times a bishop, before his martyrdom, which, together with his other behaviour in this last character, satisfied the judge, and procured him a passage to the blessed regions.