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.