What mischief is there in the world, that these men are not the cause of? How many good families are utterly ruined, and at this day in the hospital, for trusting to their oaths and promises! and becoming bound for them, for vast sums of money to maintain them in tipple, and whores, and in all sorts of luxury and riot?” This rhetorical devil would have said a thousand times more, but that his companions called him off, and told him they had business elsewhere. The cavalier hearing that, “My friend,” said he, “your morals are very good, but yet with your favour, all men are not alike.” “There’s never a barrel better herring,” said the devil, “you are all of ye tainted with original sin, and if you had been any better than your fellows you had never been sent hither. But if you are indeed so noble, as you say, you’re worth the burning, if ’twere but for your ashes. And that you may have no cause of complaint, you shall see, we’ll treat you like a person of your condition.” And in that instant, two devils presented themselves; the one of them bridled and saddled; and the other, doing the office of the squire; holding the stirrup, with his left hand, and giving the gentleman a lift into the saddle with the other. Which was no sooner done, but away he went like an arrow out of a bow. I asked the devil then into what country he carried him. And he told me, not far: for ’twas only matter of decorum, to send the nobility to hell a-horseback. “Look on that side now,” says he, and so I did; and there I saw the poor cavalier in a huge furnace, with the first inventors of nobility, and arms: as Cain, Cham, Nimrod, Esau, Romulus, Tarquin, Nero, Caligula, Domitian, Heliogabalus; and a world of other brave fellows, that had made themselves famous by usurpation and blood. The place was a little too hot for me, and so I retired, meditating on what I had heard; and not a little satisfied with the discourse of so learned a devil. Till that time I took the devil for a notorious liar; but I find now that he can speak the truth too, when he pleases; and I would not for all I am worth but have heard him preach. When I was thus far, my curiosity carried me still farther; and within twenty yards I came to a huge muddy, stinking lake, near twice as big as that of Geneva; and heard in’t so strange a noise that I was almost out of my wits to know what it was. They told me that the lake was stored with Doüegnas, or Gouvernantes, which are turned into a kind of frogs in hell, and perpetually drivelling, sputtering, and croaking. Methought the conversion was apt enough; for they are neither fish, nor flesh, no more than frogs; and only the lower parts of them are man’s-meat, but their heads are enough to turn a very good stomach. I could not but laugh to see how they gaped, and stretched out their legs as they swam, and still as we came near they’d scud away and dive.