The Sleeping Bard; Or, Visions of the World, Death, and HellWynne, Ellis
General
The Sleeping Bard; Or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell
Wynne, Ellis
Allegories; Christian life; Religious literature, Welsh; Welsh literature -- 18th century; Welsh literature -- Translations into English
I will go and will send to you a hundred
thousand of the souls of your enemies, through the hollow of a pipe."
"Well, well," said Lucifer, "you have done me excellent service, by
causing the proprietors of tobacco in India to be slaughtered, and those
who take it to die of diseases, and sending many to vend it idly from
house to house, and making others to steal in order to obtain it, and
thousands to love it so far, that they cannot be a day without it in
their right senses.
"Therefore go and do thy best; but, I tell thee, that thou art little
better than nothing in the present exigency." Thereupon Cerberus sat
down, and uprose Mammon, devil of Money, and with a morose sinister look
said:--"I showed men the first mine from which they got money, and
therefore, I am always extolled and worshipped more than God; men undergo
for me trouble and danger, and place their whole mind, their delight, and
their trust upon me: there is no one easy, because he has not obtained
somewhat more of my favour, and the more they obtain the farther are they
ever from rest, until at length by seeking _easy circumstances_, they
arrive at the country of Eternal Torments. How many a crafty old miser
have I not deluded hither, along paths more difficult than those which
lead to the kingdom of Happiness? At fair or market, sessions or
elections, or any other assemblage of people, who has more subjects? who
has more power and authority than I? Cursing, swearing, fighting,
litigating, plotting, deceiving, striking, hoarding, murdering and
robbing, sabbath breaking and uncharitableness, all proceed from me: and
there is no other black mark, which stamps men as belonging to the fold
of Lucifer, which I have not a hand in giving, on which account I am
called 'the root of all evil.' Therefore if it seem good to your
majesty, I will go." And having said that he sat down.
Then arose Apollyon. "I do not know," said he, "any thing that will
bring the Britons hither, more certainly than what brought
yourselves--that is _Pride_: if she ever plant her pole within them and
inflate them, there is no reason to fear that they will stoop to lift the
cross, or go through the narrow gate. I will go," said he, "with my
daughter Pride, and will cause the Welsh, by gazing on the magnificence
of the English, and the English, by imitating the frivolities of the
French, to tumble into this place before they know where they are."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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