This was no place to stay in, there was so noisome a vapour; and so I struck off, upon the left hand, where I saw a number of old men beating their breasts and tearing their faces, with bitter groans and lamentations. It made my heart ache to see them, and I asked what they were: answer was made, that I was now in the quarter of the fathers that damned themselves to raise their posterity; which were called by some, the unadvised. “Wretch that I am!” cried one of them, “the greatest penitent that ever lived, never suffered the mortification I have endured. I have watched, I have fasted, I have scarce had any clothes to my back; my whole life has been a restless course of torment, both of body and mind: and all this, to get money for my children; that I might see them well married; buy them places at court, or procure them some other preferment in the world: starving myself in the conclusion, rather than I would lessen the provision I had made for my posterity. And yet, notwithstanding this my fatherly care, I was scarce sooner dead, than forgotten: and my next heir buried me without tears, or mourning; and indeed without so much as paying of legacies, or praying for my soul: as if they had already received certain intelligence of my damnation. And to aggravate my sorrows, the prodigals are now squandering and consuming that estate, in gaming, whoring, and debauches, which I had scraped together by so much industry, vexation and oppression, and for which I suffer at this instant such insupportable torments.” “This should have been thought on before,” cried a devil, “for sure you have heard of the old saying, ‘Happy is the child whose father goes to the devil.’” At which word, the old misers brake out into fresh rage and lamentation, tearing their flesh, with tooth and nail, in so rueful a manner, that I was no longer able to endure the spectacle. A little farther there was a dark, hideous prison, where I heard the clattering of chains, the crackling of flames, the slapping of whips, and a confused outcry of complaints. I asked what quarter this was; and they told me it was the quarter of the Oh that I had’s! “What are those,” said I? Answer was made, that they were a company of brutish sots, so absolutely delivered up to vice, that they were damned insensibly, and in hell before they were aware. They are now reflecting upon their miscarriages and omissions, and perpetually crying out, “Oh that I had examined my conscience!” “Oh that I had frequented the Sacraments!” “Oh that I had humbled myself with fasting, and prayer!” “Oh that I had served God as I ought!” “Oh that I had visited the sick, and relieved the poor!” “Oh that I had set a watch before the door of my lips!”