After this, advancing a little further, I saw on one hand judgment, and hell on the other (for so Death called them). Upon the sight of hell, making a stop, to take a stricter survey of it, Death asked me, what it was I looked at. I told her, it was hell; and I was the more intent upon it, because I thought I had seen it somewhere else before. She questioned me, where? I told her, that I had seen it in the corruption and avarice of wicked magistrates; in the pride and haughtiness of grandees; in the appetites of the voluptuous; in the lewd designs of ruin and revenge; in the souls of oppressors; and in the vanity of divers princes. But he that would see it whole and entire, in one subject, must go to the hypocrite, who is a kind of religious broker, and puts out at five-and-forty per cent. the very Sacraments and Ten Commandments. “I am very glad too,” said I, “that I have seen judgment as I find it here, in its purity; for that which we call judgment in the world is a mere mockery: if it were like this, men would live otherwise than they do. To conclude: if it be expected that our judges should govern themselves and us by this judgment, the world’s in an ill case; for there’s but little of’t there. And to deal plainly, as matters are, I have no great maw to go home again: for ’tis better being with the dead, where there’s justice, than with the living, where there’s none.” Our next step was into a fair and spacious plain, encompassed with a huge wall, where he that’s once in must never look to come out again. “Stop here,” quoth Death, “for we are now come to my judgment-seat, and here it is that I give audience.” The walls were hung with sighs and groans, ill-news, fears, doubts, and surprises. Tears did not there avail either the lover or the beggar; but grief and care were without both measure and comfort; and served as vermin to gnaw the hearts of emperors and princes, feeding upon the insolent and ambitious, as their proper nourishment. I saw Envy there dressed up in a widow’s veil, and the very picture of the government of one of your noblemen’s houses. She kept a continual fast as to the shambles, preying only upon herself; and could not but be a very slender gentlewoman, upon so spare a diet. Nothing came amiss to her teeth (good or bad) which made the whole set of them yellow and rotten, and the reason was that, though she bit, and set her mark upon the good and the sound, she could never swallow it. Under her, sat discord; the legitimate issue of her own bowels. She had formerly conversed much with married people, but finding no need of her there, away she went to colleges and corporations, where it seems they had more already than they knew what to do withal; and then she betook herself to courts and palaces, and officiated there, as the devil’s lieutenant. Next to her was ingratitude, and she out of a certain paste made up of pride and malice, was moulding of new devils. I was extreme glad of this