At this game of imposture, the cunning dealer in pins and laces undertakes to judge their merits; and they accordingly set to work like regular graduates. The Pardoner takes the lead, with an account of the virtues of his relics; and here we may find a plentiful mixture of Popish superstition and indecency. The bigotry of any age is by no means a test of its piety, or even sincerity. Men seemed to make themselves amends for the enormity of their faith by levity of feeling, as well as by laxity of principle; and in the indifference or ridicule with which they treated the wilful absurdities and extravagances to which they hood-winked their understandings, almost resembled children playing at blindman’s buff, who grope their way in the dark, and make blunders on purpose to laugh at their own idleness and folly. The sort of mummery at which Popish bigotry used to play at the time when this old comedy was written, was not quite so harmless as blind-man’s buff: what was sport to her, was death to others. She laughed at her own mockeries of common sense and true religion, and murdered while she laughed. The tragic farce was no longer to be borne, and it was partly put 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.