an end to. At present, though her eyes are blindfolded, her hands are tied fast behind her, like the false Duessa's. The sturdy genius of modern philosophy has got her in much the same situation that Count Fathom has the old woman that he lashes before him from the robbers' cave in the forest. In the following dialogue of this lively satire, the most sacred mysteries of the Catholic faith are mixed up with its idlest legends by old Heywood, who was a martyr to his religious zeal, without the slightest sense of impropriety. The Pardoner cries out in one place (like a lusty Friar John, or a trusty Friar Onion)—

"Lo, here be pardons, half a dozen,
For ghostly riches they have no cousin;
And moreover, to me they bring
Sufficient succour for my living.
And here be relics of such a kind,

As in this world no man can find.

Kneel down all three, and when ye leave kissing,
Who list to offer shall have my blessing.

Friends, here shall ye see even anon,

Of All-Hallows the blessed jaw-bone.

Mark well this, this relic here is a whipper;
My friends unfeigned, here is a slipper
Of one of the seven sleepers, be sure.-

Here is an eye-tooth of the great Turk :
Whose eyes be once set on this piece of work,
May happily lose part of his eye-sight,

But not all till he be blind outright.

Kiss it hardly with good devotion.

Pot. This kiss shall bring us much promotion: Fogh, by St. Saviour I never kiss'd a worse.

For by All-Hallows, yet methinketh,
That All-Hallows' breath stinketh.

Palm. Ye judge All-Hallows' breath unknown: If any breath stink, it is your own.

Pot. I know mine own breath from All-Hallows, Or else it were time to kiss the gallows.

Pard. Nay, Sirs, here may ye see

The great toe of the Trinity;
Who to this toe any money voweth,

And once may roll it in his mouth,
All his life after I undertake,

He shall never be vex'd with the tooth-ache.
Pot. I pray you turn that relic about;
Either the Trinity had the gout;

Or else, because it is three toes in one,

God made it as much as three toes alone.

Pard. Well, let that pass, and look upon this:

Here is a relic that doth not miss

To help the least as well as the most:

This is a buttock-bone of Penticost.

Here is a box full of humble bees,

That stung Eve as she sat on her knees

Tasting the fruit to her forbidden:

Who kisseth the bees within this hidden,
Shall have as much pardon of right,

As for any relic he kiss'd this night.
Good friends, I have yet here in this glass,
Which on the drink at the wedding was

Of Adam and Eve undoubtedly:

If ye honour this relic devoutly,

Although ye thirst no whit the less,
Yet shall ye drink the more, doubtless.
After which drinking, ye shall be as meet
To stand on your head as on your feet."

The same sort of significant irony runs through the Apothecary's knavish enumeration of miraculous cures in his possession.

"For this medicine helpeth one and other,

And bringeth them in case that they need no other.

Here is a syrapus de Byzansis,

A little thing is enough of this;
For even the weight of one scrippal
Shall make you as strong as a cripple.
These be the things that break all strife,
Between man's sickness and his life.
From all pain these shall you deliver,

And set you even at rest forever.

Here is a medicine no more like the same,
Which commonly is called thus by name.
Not one thing here particularly,

But worketh universally;

For it doth me as much good when I sell it,
As all the buyers that take it or smell it.
If any reward may entreat ye,

I beseech your mastership be good to me,
And ye shall have a box of marmalade,
So fine that you may dig it with a spade."

After these quaint but pointed examples of it,

Swift's boast with respect to the invention of

irony,

"Which I was born to introduce,

Refin❜d it first, and shew'd its use,"

can be allowed to be true only in part.

The controversy between them being undecided, the Apothecary, to clench his pretensions "as a liar of the first magnitude," by a coup-degrace, says to the Pedlar, "You are an honest man," but this home-thrust is somehow ingeniously parried. The Apothecary and Pardoner fall to their narrative vein again; and the latter tells a story of fetching a young woman from the lower world, from which I shall only give one specimen more as an instance of ludicrous and fantastic exaggeration. By the help of a passport from Lucifer, "given in the furnace of our palace," he obtains a safe conduct from one of the subordinate imps to his master's presence.

"This devil and I walked arm in arm

So far, 'till he had brought me thither,
Where all the devils of hell together
Stood in array in such apparel,
As for that day there meetly fell.

Their horns well gilt, their claws full clean,
Their tails well kempt, and as I ween,
With sothery butter their bodies anointed;
I never saw devils so well appointed,

The master-devil sat in his jacket,
And all the souls were playing at racket.
None other rackets they had in hand,`
Save every soul a good fire-brand;
Wherewith they play'd so prettily,
That Lucifer laugh'd merrily.

And all the residue of the fiends
Did laugh thereat full well like friends.
But of my friend I saw no whit,
Nor durst not ask for her as yet.

Anon all this rout was brought in silence,
And I by an usher brought to presence
Of Lucifer; then low, as well I could,
I kneeled, which he so well allow'd
That thus he beck'd, and by St. Antony
He smiled on me well-favour'dly,
Bending his brows as broad as barn-doors;
Shaking his ears as rugged as burrs;
Rolling his eyes as round as two bushels;
Flashing the fire out of his nostrils;
Gnashing his teeth so vain-gloriously,
That methought time to fall to flattery,
Wherewith I told, as I shall tell;

Oh pleasant picture! O prince of hell!" &c.

The piece concludes with some good wholesome advice from the Pedlar, who here, as well as in the poem of the Excursion, performs the part of Old Morality; but he does not seem, as in the latter case, to be acquainted with the

mighty stream of Tendency." He is more "full of wise saws than modern instances;" as prosing, but less paradoxical!