Beau Norton, to his Brothers at Hippollito’s in Covent-Garden. By Captain Ayloff.
Dearly beloved Brothers of the Orange-Butter-Box.
YOU will soon be satisfy’d what mighty changes we suffer by death; and that there is no two things at more distance from one another, than to be and not to be. You know how, Roman like, I took pett, and dar’d to die! for time had bejaded me a little, and to renounce the tyranny of the fickle goddess, I was oblig’d to renounce your light. Since my arrival at the grim Tartarian territories, I have received the usual compliments of the place; and tho’ the most accurate courtiers that ever was bred at Versailles, and all the wits of the most gallant courts in the universe, are here in whole shoals; yet to my great wonder and amazement, not one of them said a genteel thing to me. But with a strange familiar air, that favour’d much of our bear-garden friendship, some a hundred or two, hall’d me by the ears, and puffing out thick clouds of flaming sulphur, cry’d all with a hoarse and dismal voice, well, Doily, this was kindly done of thee, to take pas avance of destiny, and shew the world, that no man need be miserable, but who is afraid to die.
I was (amongst friends) as much out of countenance at this saucy proceeding, as when our old friends, Shore and la Rocha, refus’d to lend me five paultry guineas, after I had equipp’d them with more than one thousand apiece. I wonder’d at the roughness of their acueil, and they burst out a laughing at the impertinency of my astonishment. Well, gentlemen, give me leave to tell you, that if I had but suspected a quarter part of this inhuman and ungentleman-like reception, I would have suspended the honours of my self-sacrifice, and have chosen rather to wait the fatal period of life in a more contracted orb, than thus suddenly have plung’d myself into such a disappointment. After having allotted me my portion for my vanity and foppery, and I had been put into possession of my shop, you cannot conceive how heavy it lay upon my spirits; but suffer it I must; and if it had not been the odiousest and most abominable, most nauseous, and most execrable function I could have laboured under, they would not have been so merciful as to have enjoin’d it me. ’Twas long before I could obtain leave to insinuate thus much to you; for they are no ways here below inclined to grant any the minutest thing imaginable, that may contribute to the benefit of mankind. Jo. Haines came to me, (and his breath had as much augmented its stench, as light is different from darkness: In a word, there was as great disproportion for the worse, as between us and you) and with a displayed pair of chaps, told me, I must not have any correspondency with the upper regions, for it might tend to the dispeopling the Acherontic territories; and that I was a bubble to think they had not as much of self-interest here below, as any merchant, statesman, lawyer, or nobleman in all the dominions above. But seeing my and your old acquaintance, (gentlemen) I took heart a little, and held my nose; and after some usual ceremonies, (to which he made but a scurvy return) I told him, look you Mr Haines, you know, as well as I, that those powder’d members of the vain fraternity are all of them incorrigible; present smart and future fear affects them not; they are out of the reach of good advice; reason was never their talent; for if they were ever in election to have a thought, as it would be the first, so would it be the fatalest too. Could any glass but shew them to themselves as really they are, they would all despair like me, and die like me. A sly young whelp of the second class of Pluto’s footmen, said, well, Mr. Haines, there may be much in what he says, he came last from thence, therefore let him make an end of his epistle, it may turn to better account than we are aware of. I thank’d the gentleman for his civility, and would have administred a half-crown; but you know (my worthy brothers) that the last twelve shillings I had was laid out in three glasses of Ratifia, and a bottle of Essence; with which, I first comb’d out my wig, then clean’d my shoes, and then oil’d the locks of my pistols, and so set out for this tedious and lugubrous journey: and that you may see, that Pluto’s skip-kennels are not so insolent as yours are, the fellow told me, with a malicious smile, that if the powder’d gentry of the other world were so very despicable animals, as I represented them, he would take a small tour with me, and then I might have something material to communicate to them.
We had not walk’d so far as from the chocolate-house to the Rose, but in a narrow, obscure, obscene alley, there hung out a piece of a broken chamber-pot, upon which was written in sulphurous characters, Fleshly relief for the sons of Adam. I had hardly made an end of reading this merry motto, but the door open’d, and what should my eyes behold, but a reverend lady, of illustrious charms, that gave us too visible proofs of the depredations of time: I recollected her phiz, as engineers tell by the very ruins, whether the fabric were Doric or Ionic, &c. and who should this be but the celebrated fair Rosamond; her present occupation was to be runner to this bawdy coffee-house. Queen Eleanor, her mortal enemy, sells sprats, and has
her stall in Pluto’s stable-yard. In my peregrination, I met several things unexpected, and therefore surprising; I shall not give you the trouble of every particular dark passage we went thro’, but in general terms relate the most memorable things that occurred during a very considerable walk that we had together. Taking a solitary walk on the gloomy banks of Acheron, I met a finical fellow, powder’d from top to toe, his hands in his pocket, a-la-mode de Paris, humming a new minuet; and who would it be, but Gondamour, that famous Spaniard. Helen of Greece cry’d kitchin-stuff, and Roxano had a little basket of tripe and trotters; Agamemnon sold bak’d ox-cheek, hot, hot; Hannibal sells Spanish-nuts, come crack it away; the so famous Hector of Troy is a head-dresser; the Decii keep a coblers-stall, in the corner of the Forum, and the Horatii a chandler’s-shop; Sardanapalus cries lilly-white-vinegar, and Heliogabalus bakes fritters, in the via appia of this metropolis; Lucius Æmilius Paulus is a bayliff’s follower, and the famous queen Thomyris proportions out the offals for Cerberus; Tarquin sweeps his den, and Romulus is a turnspit in Pluto’s kitchen; Artaxerxes is an under scullion, and Pompey the magnificent, a rag-man; Mark Anthony, that disputed his mistress at the price of the whole universe, goes now about with dancing-dogs, a monkey and a rope; Cleopatra, that could swallow a province at one draught, when it was to drink her lover’s health, submits now to the humble employment of feeding Proserpine’s pigs: that luxurious Roman, who was once so dissolv’d in ease, as that a very rose-leaf doubled under him, prevented his rest, is now labouring at the anvil with a half hundred hammer; Oliver Cromwell is a rat-catcher, and my lord Bellew a chimney-sweeper.
There was besides these, a list of people nearer hand; but you may easily guess upon what score they are left out of the list. We needed not have gone so far back in the records of persons and things, to have met instances of barbarity, luxury, avarice, lust of dominion, as well as of sensuality. Malversations of government in sovereigns and subjects; publick justice avoided, private feuds fomented, every thing sacrificed to a Colbert, Maintenon, or a Loüis.
There is somebody hollows most damnably on the other side of Styx, and lest I lose this opportunity, I shall only relate some memorable things to you: Therefore pray pardon me that I cannot dilate upon every particular. In short then, Alexander the Great is bully to a guinea-dropper; and cardinal Mazarine keeps a nine-holes; Mary of Medicis foots stockings, and Katherine, queen of Sweedland cries two bunches a penny card-matches, two bunches a penny; Henry the fourth of France carries a rary-show; and Mahomet, muscles; Seneca keeps a fencing-school, and Julius Cæsar a two-penny ordinary; Xenophon, that great philosopher, cries cucumbers to pickle; and Cato is the perfectest Sir Courtly of the whole Plutonian kingdom; Richelieu cries topping bunno; and the late pope, any thing to day; Lewis the thirteenth is a corn-cutter; Gustavus Adolphus cries sparrowgrass, with a thousand more particulars of this nature. You must allow the scenes to be mightily alter’d from their former stations; but alas! Sir, this change we suffer, and as pleasure is the reward of virtue, so disgrace and infamy is of cruelty, pride, and hypocrisy. What can be more surprising than to see the renowned Penthefilea, queen of the Amazons, crying new almanacks, and Darius gingerbread, van Trump cries ballads, and admiral de Ruyter long and strong thread-laces.