As for my sorting of broad-money for the royal snippers, it was grown so universal a practice among all dealers, that it ceas’d from being thought criminal, and became a profitable trade; and I never was so lazy in my life, as to suffer any project to be on foot, wherein money was to be got, but I always had a hand in’t. The Hollanders clipp’d it openly in their shops, and pass’d it afterwards among us. And shall we suffer a foreign nation to ingross that advantage to themselves, which was doubtless rather the property of a true-born Englishman to enjoy? no I am a true lover of my country, and do assert, it’s better to be rogues among our selves, and cozen one another, than it is to be cheated in our own way by a pack of knavish neighbours.
As for my master king James, I dealt honestly by him as long as he continued my customer; but truly when his credit was sunk, and he was forc’d to take sanctuary in a foreign country, my conscience told me ’twas the safest way, even to serve my prince as I had done you my master; for indeed, I could not reasonably think; providence flung so many lucky hits in a man’s way for him to make no use of; besides, what signifies cozening a king of a trifling sum of fourscore thousand pound, when he was going into a country where every body knew he would be well provided for? I consider’d it would do me more kindness by half; and tho’ some of his friends blam’d me, yet I thought myself an honester man by much, than those who stripp’d him of his sovereignty; for if it was a sin to cheat him at all, then those who cheated him most were doubtless the most wicked; and to deal with you like an old friend, without dissimulation, as long as I can imagine there’s a man upon earth more sinful than myself I have a conscience that can fling nothing in my face, but what I can withstand boldly without blushing.
You seem to highly reflect upon me for keeping two domestick conveniences publickly in my family, as if a man of my grandeur should abridge himself of those pleasures which every apprentice-boy has the enjoyment of between the mistress and the maid, without stirring over the threshold; and sure an Alderman in the city, a grave magistrate, a man worth three hundred thousand pounds, need not be either afraid or asham’d of being suspected guilty of that little sniveling sin practis’d daily in every citizen’s house, from the very beds in the garret, down to the stools in the kitchen. Why, at that rate you would muzzle ones appetite, a man had better by half be a presbyterian parson, and have two or three pair of holy sisters to smuggle over every week, than to be an alderman of the city of London, and have his carnal inclinations priest-ridden with a curb-bridle.
As for the fair promises I made to the city in order to have coaks’d them to have chose me mayor, I design’d them only as alluring baits to tempt the godly party over to my interest, and in the common hall it took very good effect; but had I once got into the chair, I should have shew’d them a trick like Sir Timber Temple, and have reduc’d my mountain-promise into a mole-hill performance; which our cunning fraternity mistrusting (for always set a knave to catch a knave) by a piece of unpracticable subtilty they threw me out, when I thought myself as cock-sure of the honour as a man is of a morsel he has got in his mouth: but the city is so corrupted, that an honest church-man can put no confidence in a parcel of knavish fanaticks, but he is sure to be deceiv’d. Had the church party been strong enough to have brought me in, I had then caught what I gap’d for, as sure as there’s a cuckhold in Guild-Hall in the time of election: but knowing our court of wiseakers was at that time under the ascendency of a whiggish planet, I was fearful I should lose it; but they had better have chose me, for I assure them, I would sooner go into Barbary and feed ostriches with my money, than I would lay out one groat towards so much as the repairing of one of their old gates, or in adding any thing to the city’s magnificence, tho’ ’twas no more than a weather-cock: nay I have now so little charity for that ingrateful Sodom, that I would not be at the expence of giving them an engine, tho I was sure ’twould save them a second conflagration.
I fear, Sir, by this time I have quite tired your patience, and shall therefore conclude with this acknowledgment, that I liv’d under one of the best princes in the world, and one of the best masters in the kingdom, and that under both, I thank my stars, I have patch’d up a pretty good fortune, and I profess, as I am a christian of the true church by law establish’d, I would turn subject to the Grand Seignior, and servant to alderman Lucifer, to enjoy again two such precious opportunities. So I rest, with a quiet Conscience, your thankful Servant,
From Henry Purcel to Dr. Blow.
Dear Friend,
TO tell you the truth, I send you this letter on purpose to undeceive you; I know that the upper world has a notion, that these infernal shades are destitute of all harmony, and delight in nothing but jarring, discord, and confusion; upon the word of a musician, you are all mistaken, for I never came into a merrier country, since I knew a whimsy from a fiddle-stick; every body here sings as naturally as a nightingale, and at least as sweet. Lovers sit perch’d upon bows by pairs, like murmuring turtles in a rural grove, and in amorous ditties sing forth their passionate affections; all people on this side the adamantine gates have their organs perfect, and I burn, I burn, I burn, which some persons thought a critical song upon earth, is here sung by every scoundrel: the whole infernal territory is infested with such innumerable crowds of poets and musicians, that a man can’t stir twice his length, but he shall tread upon a new ballad; and as for musick, ’tis so plenty amongst us, that a fellow shall be scraping upon a fiddle at every garret-window, and another tinkling a spinet, or a virginal, in every chimney-corner; flutes, hautboys and trumpets are so perpetually tooting, that all the year round the whole dominion is like a Bartholomew-Fair; and as for drums, you have a set of them under every devil’s window, rattling and thumping like a consort of his majesty’s rat-tat-too’s at an English wedding: we have such a glut of all sorts of performers, that our very ears are surfeited; and any body may hire a consort for a day, large enough to surround Westminster-Abbey, for the price of an hundred of chesnuts; yet every minstrel performs to admiration. Every cobler here that dispatches a voluntary whilst he’s waxing his thread, shall out-sing Mr. Abel, and a carpenter shall make better musick upon an empty cupboard strung with five brass-wires, than Baptist can upon the harpsichord; every trumpet that attends a botkin lottery, sounds better than Shore; and not a porter here plies at the corner of a street, but with his stubbed fingers, can make a smooth table out grunt the harmony of a double curtel. We have catches too in admirable perfection: Fish-women sit and sing them at market, instead of scolding as they do at Billingsgate; hymns and anthems are as frequent among us as among you of the upper world; for to every church God Almighty has on earth, here the devil has a chapel.
You are sensible I was a great lover of musick before I departed my temporal life, but now I am so surfeited with incessant sound, that I would rather chuse to be as deaf as an adder, than be plagu’d with the best ayre that ever Corelli made, or the finest sola or sonata that ever was compos’d in Italy: for you must know the laws of this country are such, that every man, for sins in the other world, shall here be punish’d with excess of that which he there esteem’d most pleasant and delightful. Lovers, that in your region would hang, or drown, or run thro’ fire like a couple of salamanders for one another’s company, are here coupled together like the twins Castor and Pollux, pursuant to their own wishes upon earth, and have all the liberty they can desire with one another, but must never be separated whilst eternity endures. This sort of confinement, tho’ ’tis what they once coveted, makes them so sick of one another in a little time, that they cry out, O damnable slavery! O diabolical matrimony! and are always drawing two several ways with all imaginable hatred, endeavouring, to break their fetters, and pursue variety; thus every one is wedded to what they like best, and yet every person’s desires teminate in their own misery, which sufficiently shews there is no other justice to punish us for our follies, than the objects of our own loose appetites and inclinations; for that which we are apt to covet most when we are in the upper world, generally, if obtain’d, proves our greatest unhappiness; therefore, since experience would not teach us to bridle our inclinations on the other side the grave, the pleasures we pursued when we were living, are, after death, appointed to be our punishments.