sick, the gouty, the lame, to church, to mass; or some straggling virgins, back again to their cloister: which is a damned lie; for I am able to prove, that all my trading lay at the play-houses, bawdy-houses, taverns, balls, collations: or else at the _Tour à la Mode_, where there was still appointed some after-meeting; to treat of certain affairs, that highly import the interest and welfare of your dominions. I have indeed carried my mistress sometimes to the church door, but it signified no more than if I had carried her to a conventicle; for all her business there was to meet her gallant, and to agree when they should meet next; according to the way of devotion now in mode. To conclude: It is most certain, that I never took any creature (knowingly) into my coach, that had so much as a good thought. And this was so well known, that it was all one to ask, If a lady were a maid, or if she had ever been in my coach. If it appeared she had, he that married her knew beforehand what he had to trust to. And after all this, ye have made us a fair requital.” With that the devil fell a-laughing, and with five or six twinging jerks, half flayed the poor coachman; so that I was e’en glad to retire, in pity partly to the coachman and partly to myself; for the currying of a coachman is little better than the turning up of a dunghill. My next adventure was into a deep vault, where I began immediately to shudder, and my teeth chattered in my head. I asked the meaning of it; and there came up to me a devil, with kibed heels and his toes all mortified; and told me that that quarter was allotted to the buffoons and drolls, “which are a people,” says he, “of so starved a conceipt, and so cold a discourse, that we are fain to chain and lock them up, for fear they should spoil the temper of our fire.” I asked if a man might see them. The devil told me yes, and showed me one of the lewdest kennels in hell. And there were they at it, pecking at one another, and nothing but the same fooleries over and over again that they had practised upon earth. Among the buffoons, I saw divers that passed here in the world for men of honesty and honour; which were in, as the devil told me, for flattery, and were a sort of buffoon, that goes betwixt the bark and the tree. “But, why are they condemned?” said I. “The other buffoons are condemned,” quoth the devil, “for want of favour; and these, for having too much, and abusing it. You must know, they come upon us, still at unawares; and yet they find all things in readiness; the cloth laid, and the bed made, as if they were at home. To say the truth, we have some sort of kindness for them; for they save us a great deal of trouble, in tormenting one another.