A Letter of News from Mr. Joseph Haines, of Merry Memory, to his Friends at Will’s Coffee-House in Covent-Garden. By Mr. Tho. Brown.
Gentlemen,
I Had done myself the honour to write to you long ago, but wanted a convenience of sending my letter; for you must not imagine ’tis as easy a matter for us on this side the river Styx, to maintain a correspondence with you in the upper world, as ’tis to send a pacquet from London to Rotterdam, or from Paris to Madrid: But upon the news of a fresh war ready to break out in your part of the world, (which, by the by, makes us keep holy-day here in hell) Pluto having thought fit to dispatch an extraordinary messenger to see how your parliament, upon whose resolutions the fate of Europe seems wholly to depend, will behave themselves in this critical conjuncture. I tipp’d the fellow a George to carry this letter for me, and leave it with the master at Will’s in his way to Westminster.
I am not insensible, gentlemen, that Homer, Virgil, Dante, Don Quevedo, and many more before me, have given an account of these subterranean dominions, for which reason it may look like affectation or vanity in me to meddle with a subject so often handled; but if new travels into Italy, Spain and Germany, are daily read with approbation, because new matters of enquiry and observation perpetually arise, I don’t see why the present state of the Plutonian kingdoms may not be acceptable, there having been as great changes and alterations in these infernal regions, as in any other part of the universe whatever.
When I shook hands with your upper hemisphere, I stumbled into a dark, uncouth, dismal lane, which, if it be lawful to compare great things with small, somewhat resembles that dusky dark cut under the mountains called the grotto of Puzzoli in the way to Naples. I was in so great a consternation, that I don’t remember exactly how long it was, but this I remember full well, that there were a world of ditches on both sides of the wall, adorned and furnished with harpies, gorgons, centaurs, chimeras, and such like pretty curiosities, which could not but give a man a world of titillation as he traveled on the road. The three-headed Gerion, put me in mind of the master of the Temple’s three intellectual minds, and when I saw Briares with his hundred arms and hands, out of my zeal to king William and his government, I could not but wish that we had so well qualify’d a person for secretary of state ever since the Revolution; for having so many heads and hands to employ, he might easily have managed all affairs domestick and foreign, and been both dictator and clerk to himself. Which besides the advantage of keeping secret all orders and instructions, (and that you know, gentlemen, is of no small importance in politicks) would have saved his majesty no inconsiderable sum in his civil list.
Being arrived at the end of this doleful and execrable lane, I came into a large open, barren plain, thro’ which ran a river, whose water was as black as my hat: Coming to the banks of this wonderful river, an old ill-look’d wrinkl’d fellow in a tatter’d boat, which did not seem to be worth a groat, making towards the shoar, beckon’d, and held out his right-hand to me: Knowing nothing of his business or character, I could not imagine what he meant by doing so; but upon second thoughts, thinking he had a mind to have his fortune told, You must understand, old gentleman, says I to him, that there are three principal lines in a man’s hand, the first of which is called by the learned Ludovicus Vives, Secretary to Tamerlain the magnificent, the linea boetica, line of life; the second, the linea hepatica, or liver line; the third and last, the linea intercalaris, so call’d by Sebastian Munster and Erra Pater, because it crosses the two aforesaid lines in an equicrural parabola. Hold your impertinent stuff, says the old ferryman, erra me no erra paters, but speak to the point, and give me my fare, if you design to come over. By this I perceiv’d my mistake, and knew him to be Charon: So I dived into my pockets, but alas! I found all the birds were flown, if ever any had been there, which you may believe, gentlemen, was no small mortification to me. Get you gone for a rascally scoundrel as you are, says Charon, some son of whore of a fiddler, or player, I warrant you; go and take up your quarters with those pennyless rogues that are sunning themselves on yonder hillock. To see now how a man may be mistaken by a fair outside! when I came up to ’em, I found them a parcel of jolly well-look’d fellows, who, one would have thought were wealthy enough to have fined for sheriffs: I counted, let me see, six princes of the empire that were younger brothers, ten French counts, fourteen knights of Malta, twelve Welsh gentlemen, sixteen Scotch lairds, with abundance of chymists, projectors, insurers, noblemens creditors, and the like; that were all wind-bound for want of the ready rhino. Two days we continued in this doleful condition; and as Dr. Sherlock says of himself, in relation to the 13th chapter of the Romans, here I stuck, and had stuck till the last conflagration, if it had not been for bishop Overall’s Convocation-Book; e’en so here we might have tarry’d world without end, if an honest teller of the Exchequer, and a clerk of the pay-office, had not come to our relief; who understanding our case, cry’d out, Come along, gentlemen, we have money enough to defray twenty such trifles as this; God be prais’d, we had the good luck to die before the parliament looked into our accounts. With that they gave Charon a broad-piece each of ’em, so our whole caravan consisting of about 70 persons in all, that had not a farthing in the world to bless themselves, ferry’d over to the other side of the river.
As we were crossing the stream, Charon told us how an Irish captain would have trick’d him. He came strutting down to the river-side, says he, as fine as a prince, in a long scarlet cloak, all bedaub’d with silver lace, but had not a penny about him. Dear joy, crys he to me, I came away in a little haste from the other world, and left my breeches behind me, but I’ll make thee amends by Chreest and St. Patrick, for I’ll refresh thy antient nostrils with some of Hippolito’s best snuff, which cost me a week ago, a crown an ounce. I told the Hibernian, that old birds were not to be taken with chaff, nor Charon to be banter’d out of his due with a little dust of sot-weed; and giving him a reprimand with my stretcher over the noddle, bid him go, like a coxcomb as he was, about his business. The wretch santer’d about the banks for a month, but at last, pretended to be a Frenchman, got over gratis this summer, among the duke of Orlean’s retinue. But what was the most surprizing piece of news I ever heard, Charon assured us, upon his veracity, that the late king of Spain was forc’d to lie by full a fortnight, for want of money to carry him over; for cardinal Portocarero had been so busy in forging his will, that he had forgot to leave the poor monarch a farthing in his pocket; and that at last, one of his own grandees, coming by that way, was so complaisant as to defray his prince’s passage; and well he might, says our surly ferryman, for in five years time he had cheated him of two millions.
We were no sooner landed on the other side of the river, but some of us fil’d off to the right, and others to the left, as their business called them: For my part, I made the best of my way to the famous city Brandinopolis, seated upon the river Phlegethon, as being a place of the greatest commerce and resort in all king Pluto’s dominions. Who should I meet upon the road but my old friend said acquaintance Mr. Nokes, the comedian, who received me with all imaginable love and affection? Mr. Haines, says he, I am glad with all my heart to see you in Hell; upon my salvation, we have expected you here this great while, and I question not but our royal master will give you a reception befitting a person of your extraordinary merit. Mr. Nokes, said I, Your most obedient servant, you are pleas’d to compliment, but I know no other merit I have, but that of being honour’d with your friendship. But my dear Jo., cries he, how go affairs in Covent-Garden? Does cuckoldom flourish, and fornication maintain its ground still against the reformers? And the play-house in Drury-Lane, is it as much frequented as it us’d to be? I had no sooner given him a satisfactory answer to these questions, but we found ourselves in the suburbs; so my friend Nokes, with that gaity and openness, which became him so well at the play-house, Jo., says he, I’ll give thee thy welcome to Hell; with that he carry’d me to a little blind coffee-house, in the middle of a dirty alley, but certainly one of the worst furnish’d tenements I ever beheld: there was nothing to be seen but a few broken pipes, two or three founder’d chairs, and bare naked walls, with not so much as a superannuated almanack, or tatter’d ballad to keep ’em in countenance; so that I could not but fancy myself in some of love’s little tabernacles about Wildstreet, or Drury-Lane. Come, Mr. Haines, and what are you disposed to drink? What you please, Sir. Here, madam, give the gentleman a glass of Geneva. As soon as I had whipp’d it down, my friend Nokes plucking me by the sleeve, and whispering me in the ear, prithee Jo., who dost think that lady at the bar is? I consider’d her very attentively, by the same token she was three times as ugly as my lady Frightall, countess of —— and three times as thick and bulky as Mrs. Pix the poetress, and very fairly told him, I knew her not. Why then I shall surprize you. This is the famous Semiramis. The Devil she is! answer’d I: What is this the celebrated and renowned queen of Babylon, she that built those stupendious walls and pensile gardens, of which antient historians tell us so many miracles; that victorious heroine, who eclipsed the triumphs of her illustrious husband; that added Æthiopia to her empire; and was the wonder as well as the ornament of her sex? Is it possible she should fall so low as to be forced to sell Geneva, and such ungodly liquors for a subsistence? ’Tis e’en so, says Mr. Nokes, and this may serve as a lesson of instruction to you, that when once death has laid his icy paws upon us, all other distinctions of fortune and quality immediately vanish. These words were no sooner out of his mouth, but in came a formal old gentleman, and plucking a large wooden box from under his cloak, Will you have any fine snuff, gentlemen, here is the finest snuff in the universe, gentlemen; a never failing remedy, gentlemen, against the megrims and head-ach. And who do you take this worthy person to be? says Mr. Nokes, But that I am in this lower world, cry’d I, I durst swear ’tis the very individual quaker that sells his herb-snuff at the Rainbow coffee-house. Damnably mistaken, says Mr. Nokes, before George, no less a man than the great Cyrus, the first founder of the Persian monarchy. I was going to bless myself at this discovery, when a jolly red-nos’d woman in a straw-hat popt into the room, and in a shrill treble cry’d out, Any buckles, combs or scissars, gentlemen, and tooth-picks, bottle-screws or twizers, silver buttons or tobacco-stoppers, gentlemen; well now, my worthy friend, Mr. Haines, who do you think this to be? The Lord knows, reply’d I, for here are such an unaccountable choppings and changings among you that the Devil can’t tell what to make of ’em. Why then, in short, this is the virtuous Thalestris, Queen of the Amazons, the same numerical princess, that beat the hoof so many hundred leagues to get Alexander the Great to administer his royal nipple to her. But Jo. since I find thee so affected at these alterations that have happen’d to persons who lived so many hundred years ago, I am resolv’d to shew thee some of a more modern date, and particularly of such as either thou wast acquainted with in the other world, or at lead hast often heard mention’d in company. So calling for the other glass of Geneva, he left a tester at the bar, and Semiramis, to shew her courtly breeding, dropp’d us abundance of curtesies, and paid us as much respect at our coming out, as your two-penny French barbers in Soho do to a gentleman that gives them a brace of odd half-pence above the original contract in their sign.
