THE THIRD VISION OF THE LAST JUDGMENT

Homer makes Jupiter the author or inspirer of dreams; especially the dreams of princes and governors; and if the matter of them be pious and important. And it is likewise the judgment of the learned Propertius that good dreams come from above, have their weight, and ought not to be slighted. And truly I am much of his mind, in the case of a dream I had the other night. As I was reading a discourse touching the end of the world, I fell asleep over the book, and dreamt of the last judgment. (A thing which in the house of a poet is scarce admitted so much as in a dream.) This fancy minded me of a passage in Claudian: that all creatures dream at night of what they have heard and seen in the day, as the hound dreams of hunting the hare.

Methought I saw a very handsome youth towering in the air, and sounding of a trumpet; but the forcing of his breath did indeed take off much of his beauty. The very marbles, I perceived, and the dead obeyed his call; for in the same moment, the earth began to open, and set the bones at liberty, to seek their fellows. The first that appeared were sword-men, as generals of armies, captains, lieutenants, common soldiers, who supposing that it had sounded a charge, came out of their graves, with the same briskness and resolution, as if they had been going to an assault or a combat. The misers put their heads out, all pale and trembling, for fear of a plunder. The cavaliers and good fellows believed they had been going to a horserace, or a hunting-match. And in fine, though they all heard the trumpet, there was not any creature knew the meaning of it (for I could read their thoughts by their looks and gestures). After this, there appeared a great many souls, whereof some came up to their bodies, though with much difficulty and horror; others stood wondering at a distance, not daring to come near so hideous and frightful a spectacle. This wanted an arm, that an eye, t’other a head. Upon the whole, though I could not but smile at the prospect of so strange a variety of figures, yet was it not without just matter of admiration at the all-powerful Providence, to see order drawn out of confusion, and every part restored to the right owner. I dreamt myself then in a churchyard; and there, methought, divers that were loth to appear were changing of heads; and an attorney would have demurred upon pretence that he had got a soul was none of his own, and that his body and soul were not fellows.

At length, when the whole congregation came to understand that this was the day of judgment, it was worth the while to observe what shifting and shuffling there was among the wicked. The epicure and whoremaster would not own his eyes, nor the slanderer his tongue, because they’d be sure to appear in evidence against them. The pickpockets ran away as hard as they could drive from their own fingers. There was one that had been embalmed in Egypt, and staying for his tripes, an old usurer asked him, if the bags were to rise with the bodies? I could have laughed at this question, but I was presently taken up with a crowd of cutpurses, running full speed from their own ears (that were offered them again) for fear of the sad stories they expected to hear. I saw all this from a convenient standing; and in the instant, there was an outcry at my feet, “Withdraw, withdraw.” The word was no sooner given, but down I came, and immediately a great many handsome ladies put forth their heads, and called me clown, for not paying them that respect and ceremony which belonged to their quality (now you must know that the women stand upon their pantofles, even in hell itself). They seemed at first very gay and frolic; and truly, well enough pleased to be seen naked, for they were clean-skinned and well made. But when they came to understand that this was the great day of accompt; their consciences took check, and all the jollity was dashed in a moment; whereupon they took to the valley, miserably listless and out of humour. There was one among the rest, that had had seven husbands, and promised every one of them never to marry again, for she could never love anything else she was sure: this lady was casting about for fetches, and excuses, and what answer she should make to that point. Another that had been as common as Ratcliff highway, would neither lead nor drive, and stood humming and hawing a good while, pretending she had forgot her night-gear, and such fooleries; but spite of her heart, she was brought at last within sight of the throne, where she found a world of her old acquaintance that she had carried part of their way to hell, who had no sooner set eye on her, but they fell a pointing and hooting, so that she took up her heels and herded herself in a troop of serjeants. After this, I saw a many people driving a physician along the bank of a river, and these were only such as he had unnecessarily dispatched before their time. They followed him with cries of, “Justice, justice,” and forced him on toward the judgment-seat, where they arrived in the end with much ado. While this passed, I heard, methought, upon my left hand a paddling in the water, as if one had been swimming: and what should this be, but a judge in the middle of a river washing and rinsing his hands, over and over. I asked him the meaning of it; and he told me, that in his lifetime he had been often daubed in the fist, to make the business slip the better, and he would willingly get out the grease before he came to hold up his hand at the bar. There followed next a multitude of vintners and tailors, under the guard of a legion of devils, armed with rods, whips, cudgels, and other instruments of correction: and these counterfeited themselves deaf, and were very loth to leave their graves, for fear of a worse lodging. As they were passing on, up started a little lawyer, and asked whither they were going; they made answer, that they were going to give an account of their works. With that the lawyer threw himself flat upon his belly in his hole again: “If I am to go downward at last,” says he, “I am thus much onward of my way.” The vintner sweat as he walked, till one drop followed another; “That’s well done,” cried a devil at’s elbow, “to purge out thy water, that we may have none in our wine.” There was a tailor wrapped up in sarcenets, crook-fingered and baker-legged, spake not one word all the way he went, but alas! alas! how can any man be a thief that dies for want of bread? But his companions gave him a rebuke for discrediting his trade. The next that appeared were a band of highwaymen, following upon the heels one of another, in great distrust and jealousy of thieves among themselves. These were fetched up by a party of devils in the turning of a hand and lodged with the tailors; “for,” said one of the company, “your highwayman is but a wild tailor.” They were a little quarrelsome at first, but in the conclusion, they went down into the valley, and kennelled quietly together. After these came Folly with her gang of poets, fiddlers, lovers, and fencers: the people of all the world, that dream the least of a day of reckoning; these were disposed of among the hangmen, Jews, scribes, and philosophers. There were also a great many solicitors wondering among themselves, that they should have so much conscience when they were dead, and none at all living. In fine, the word was given, Silence.

The throne being erected, and the great day come: a day of comfort to the good, and of terror to the wicked. The sun and the stars waited on the footstool; the wind was still; the water quiet; the earth in suspense and anguish for fear of her children: and in brief, the whole creation was in anxiety and disorder. The righteous they were employed in prayers and thanksgivings; and the ungodly in framing of shifts and evasions, to extenuate their pains. The guardian angels were at hand, on the one side to acquit themselves of their duties and commissions. And on the other side, were the devils hunting for more matters of aggravation and charge against offenders. The Ten Commandments had the guard of a narrow gate, which was so strait, that the most mortified body could not pass it, without leaving a good part of his skin behind him.

On one hand, there were in multitudes, disgraces, misfortunes, plagues, griefs, and troubles; all in a clamour against the physicians. The plague confessed, indeed, that she had struck many; but ’twas the doctor did their business. Melancholy and disgrace said the like; and misfortunes of all sorts made open protestation, that they never brought any man to his grave without the help and advice of a doctor. So that the gentlemen of the faculty were called to account for those they had killed. They took their places upon a scaffold, with pen, ink, and paper about them; and still as the dead were called, some or other of them answered to the name, and declared the year and day when such a patient passed through his hand.

They began the inquiry at Adam, who, methought, was severely handled about an apple. “Alas!” cried Judas that was by, “if that were such a fault, what will become of me that sold and betrayed my Lord and Master?” Next came the patriarchs, and then the apostles, who took their places by Saint Peter. It was worth the noting, that at this day there was no distinction between kings and beggars, before the judgment-seat. Herod and Pilate, so soon as they put out their heads, found it was like to go hard with them. “My judgment is just,” quoth Pilate. “Alack!” cried Herod, “what have I to trust to? Heaven is no place for me, and in Limbo I should fall among the innocents I have murdered; so that without more ado I must e’en take up my lodging in hell: the common receptacle of notorious malefactors.”

There came in immediately upon this a kind of a sour rough-hewn fellow. “Look ye,” says he, stretching out his arm, “here are my letters.” The company wondered at the humour, and asked the porter what he was; which he himself overhearing, “I am,” quoth he, “a master of the noble science of defence;” and, plucking out several sealed parchments, “These,” said he, “are the attestations of my exploits.” At which word, all his testimonials fell out of his hand, and a couple of devils would fain have whipped them up, to have brought them in evidence against him at his trial; but the fencer was too nimble for them, and took them up himself. At which time, an angel offered him his hand to help him in; but he, for fear of an attack, leaped a step backward, and with great agility, alonging withal, “Now,” says he, “if ye think fit, I’ll give ye a taste of my skill.” The company fell a laughing, and this sentence was passed upon him: that since by his rules of art he had occasioned so many duels and murders, he should himself go to the devil by a perpendicular line. He pleaded for himself, that he was no mathematician, and knew no such line; but while the word was in his mouth a devil came up to him, gave him a turn and a half, and down he tumbled.

After him, came the treasurers, and such a cry following them, for cheating and stealing, that some said the thieves were coming; others said no; and the company was divided upon’t. They were much troubled at the word, thieves, and desired the benefit of counsel to plead their cause. “And very good reason,” said one of the devils, “here’s a discarded apostle that has executed both offices, let them take him, where’s Judas?” When the treasurers heard that, they turned aside, and by chance, spied in a devil’s hand, a huge roll of accusations ready drawn into a formal charge against them. With that, one of the boldest among them: “Away, away,” cried he, “with these informations; we’ll rather come to a fine and compound, though it were for ten or twenty thousand years in purgatory.” “Ha! ha!” quoth the devil, a cunning snap that drew up the charge, “if ye are upon those terms ye are hard put to’t.” Whereupon the treasurers, being brought to a forced put, were e’en glad to make the best of a bad game, and follow the fencer.

These were no sooner gone, but in came an unlucky pastry-man; they asked him if he would be tried. “That’s e’en as’t hits,” said he. At that word, the devil that managed the cause against him, pressed his charge, and laid it home to him, that he had put off cats for hares; and filled his pies with bones instead of flesh; and not only so, but that he had sold horse-flesh, dogs, and foxes, for beef and mutton. Upon the issue, it was proved against him, that Noah never had so many animals in his ark as this poor fellow had put in his pies (for we read of no rats and mice there), so that he e’en gave up his cause, and went away to see if his oven were hot. Next, came the philosophers with their syllogisms, and it was no ill entertainment to hear them chop logic, and put all their expostulations, in mood and figure. But the pleasantest people in the world were the poets, who insisted upon it, that they were to be tried by Jupiter; and to the charge of worshiping false gods, their answer was that through them they worshipped the true one, and were rather mistaken in the name than in the worship. Virgil had much to say for himself, for his Sicelides Musæ; but Orpheus interrupted him, who being the father of the poets desired to be heard for them all. “What, he?” cried one of the devils, “yes; for teaching that boys were better bed-fellows than wenches; but the women had combed his coxcomb for him, if they could have catched him.” “Away with him to hell once again,” then they cried; “and let him get out now if he can.” So they all filed off, and Orpheus was their guide, because he had been there once before. So soon as the poets were gone, there knocked at the gate a rich penurious chuff; but ’twas told him that the Ten Commandments kept it, and that he had not kept them. “It is impossible,” quoth he, “under favour, to prove that ever I broke any one of them.” And so he went to justify himself from point to point: he had done this and that; and he had never done that, nor t’other; but in the end, he was delivered over to be rewarded according to his works. And then came on a company of house-breakers and robbers, so dexterous, some of them, that they saved themselves from the very ladder. The scriveners and attorneys observing that, ah! thought they; if we could but pass for thieves now! And yet they set a face good enough upon the business too; which made Judas and Mahomet hope well of themselves; “for,” said they, “if any of these fellows come off, there’s no fear of us.” Whereupon they advanced boldly, with a resolution to take their trial; which set the devils all a laughing. The guardian angels of the scriveners and attorneys moved that the evangelists might be of their counsel; which the devils opposed, “for,” said they, “we shall insist only upon the matter of fact, and leave them without any possibility of reply, or excuse. We might indeed content ourselves with the bare proof of what they are; for ’tis crime enough that they are scriveners and attorneys.” With that, the scriveners denied their trade, alleging that they were secretaries; and the attorneys called themselves solicitors. All was said, in effect, that the case would bear; but the best part of their plea was church-membership. And in fine, after several replications and rejoinders, they were all sent to Old Nick; save only two or three, that found mercy. “Well,” cried one of the scriveners, “this ’tis to keep lewd company!” The devils called out then, to clear the bar, and said they should have occasion for the scriveners themselves, to enter protestations in the quality of public notaries, against lawless and disorderly people; but the poor wretches, it seems, could not hear on that ear. To say the truth, the Christians were much more troublesome than the pagans, which the devils took exceeding ill; but they had this to say for themselves, that they were christened when they were children, so that ’twas none of their fault, and their parents must answer for’t. Judas and Mahomet took such courage, when they saw two or three of the scriveners and attorneys saved that they were just upon the point of challenging their clergy; but they were prevented by the doctor I told ye of, who was set first to the bar, in company with an apothecary and a barber, when a certain devil, with a great bundle of evidences in his hand, informed the court that the greatest part of the dead there present were sent thither by the doctor then at the bar, in confederacy with his apothecary and barber, to whom they were to acknowledge their obligation for that fair assembly. An angel then interposing for the defendant, recommended the apothecary for a charitable person and one that physicked the poor for nothing. “No matter for that,” cried the devil; “for I have him in my books, and am able to prove that he has killed more people with two little boxes than the King of Spain has done with two thousand barrels of powder, in the low-country wars. All his medicines are corrupted, and his compositions hold a perfect intelligence with the plague: he has utterly unpeopled a couple of his neighbour villages, in a matter of three weeks’ time.” The doctor he let fly upon the ’pothecary too, and said he would maintain, against the whole college, that his prescriptions were according to the dispensatory; and if an apothecary would play the knave, or the fool, and put in this for that, he could not help it. So that without any more words the ’pothecary was put to the sommersault, and the doctor and barber were brought off, at the intercession of St. Cosmus and St. Damian.

After these, came a dapper lawyer, with a tongue steeped in oil, and a great master of his words and actions; a most exquisite flatterer, and no man better skilled in the art of moving the passions than himself, or more ready at bolting a lucky president at a dead lift, or at making the best of a bad cause; for he had all the shifts and starting-holes in the law at his fingers’ ends. But all this would not serve, for the verdict went against him, and he was ordered to pay costs. In that instant, there was a discovery made of a fellow that hid himself in a corner, and looked like a spy. They asked him what he was. He made answer, “An empiric.” “What,” said a devil, “my old friend Pontæus: Alas! alas! thou hadst ten thousand times better be in Covent Garden now, or at Charing Cross; for upon my word thou’t have nothing to do here, unless, perhaps, for an ointment for a burn or so;” and so Pontæus went his way. The next that appeared were a company of vintners, who were accused for adulterating and mingling water with their wines. Their plea was that in compensation they had furnished the hospitals with communion-wine that was right, upon free cost; but this excuse signified as little as that of the tailors there present, who suggested that they had clothed so many friars, gratis; and so they were dispatched away together. After these, followed a number of bankers, that had turned bankrupt to cozen their creditors; who finding there several of their old correspondents, that they had reduced to a morsel of bread, began to treat of composition; but one of the devils presently cried out, “All the rest have had enough to do to answer for themselves; but these people are to reckon for other men’s scores as well as their own.” And hereupon, they were forthwith sent away to Pluto with letters of exchange; but, as it happened at that time, the devil was out of cash.

After this, entered a Spanish cavalier, as upright as Justice itself. He was a matter of a quarter of an hour in his legs and reverences to the company. We could see no head he had, for his prodigious starched ruff that stood staring up like a turkey-cock’s tail, and covered it. In fine, it was so fantastic a figure that the porter was gaping at it a good while, and asked if it were a man, or no? “It is a man,” quoth the Spaniard, “upon the honour of a cavalier, and his name is Don Pedro Rhodomontadoso,” etc. He was so long a telling his name and titles that one of the devils burst out a laughing in the middle of his pedigree, and demanded What he would be at. “Glory,” quoth he, which they taking in the worse sense, for pride, sent him away immediately to Lucifer. He was a little severe upon his guides, for disordering his mustachios, but they helped him presently to a pair of beard-irons, and all was well again.

In the next place, came a fellow, weeping and wailing. “But, my masters,” says he, “my cause is never the worse for my crying, for if I would stand upon my merits, I could tell ye that I have kept as good company, and had as much to do with the saints as another body.” “What have we here,” cried one, “Diocletian, or Nero?” For they had enough to do with the saints, though ’twere but to persecute them. But upon the upshot, what was this poor creature but a small officer, that swept the church and dusted the images and pictures. His charge was for stealing the oil out of the lamps and leaving all in the dark, pretending that the owls and jackdaws had drunk it up. He had a trick too of clothing himself out of the church habits, which he got new-dyed; and of cramming his porridge with consecrated bread, that he stole every Sunday. What he said for himself, I know not; but he had his mittimus, and took the left-hand way at parting.

With that, a voice was heard, “Make way there, clear the passage;” and this was for a bevy of handsome, buxom Bona Roba’s, in their caps and feathers that came dancing, laughing, and singing of ballads and lampoons, and as merry as the day was long. But they quickly changed their note, for so soon as ever they saw the hideous looks of the devils, they fell into violent fits of the mother; beating their breasts, and tearing their hair, with all the horror and fury imaginable. There was an angel offered in their favour that they had been great frequenters of Our Lady’s chapel. “Yes, yes,” cried a devil, “less of her chapel, and more of her virtue, would have done well.” There was a notable whipster, among the rest, that confessed the devil had reason. And then her trial came on, for making a cloak of a sacrament, and only marrying, that she might play the whore with privilege, and never want a father for her bastards. It was her fortune alone to be condemned; and going along, “Well!” she cried; “if I had thought ’twould have come to this, I should ne’er have troubled myself with so many masses.”

And now, after long waiting, came Judas and Mahomet upon the stage, and to them Jack of Leyden. Up comes an officer and asked which of the three was Judas. “I am he,” quoth Jack of Leyden. “Nay, but I am Judas,” cried Mahomet. “They’re a couple of lying rascals,” says Judas himself, “for I am the man: only the rogues make use of my name to save their credit. ’Tis true I sold my Master once, and the world has ever since been the better for’t; but these villains sell Him and themselves too every hour of the day, and there follows nothing but misery and confusion.” So they were all three packed away to their disciples.

The angel that kept the book found that the serjeants and remembrancers were to come on next; whereupon they were called, and appeared; but the court was not much troubled with them, for they confessed guilty at first word, and so were tied up without any more ado.

The next that appeared was an astrologer, loaden with almanacks, globes, astrolabes, etc., making proclamation as loud as he could bawl that there must needs be a gross mistake in the reckoning, for Saturn had not finished his course, and the world could not be yet at an end. One of the devils that saw how he came provided, and looked upon him as his own already: “A provident slave,” quoth he, “I warrant him, to bring his firing along with him. But this I must needs tell ye,” says he to the mathematician, “’tis a strange thing, ye should create so many heavens in your life, and go to the devil for want of one after your death.” “Nay, for going,” cried the astrologer, “ye shall excuse me; but if you’ll carry me, well and good.” And immediately order was given to carry him away and pay the porter.

Hereupon, methought, the court rose, the throne vanished; the shadows and darkness withdrew; the air sweetened; the earth was covered with flowers; the heavens clear: and then I waked, not a little satisfied to find that after all this, I was still in my bed, and among the living. The use I made of my dream was this: I betook myself presently to my prayers, with a firm resolution of changing my life, and putting my soul into such a frame of piety and obedience, that I might attend the coming of the great day with peace and comfort.

THE END OF THE THIRD VISION