them, but they cut it away in a trice, for they are damnedly rank-winged, and will make a flight, in the third part of a minute, betwixt earth and hell.” “But if there be so many,” said I, “how comes it we see none of them?” “For that,” quoth the devil, “we change their names, when they come hither once, and call them no longer notaries or scriveners, but cats: and they are so good mousers, that though this place is large, old, and ruinous, yet you see not so much as a rat or a mouse in hell, how full soever of all other sorts of vermin.” “Now ye talk of vermin,” said I, “are there any catchpoles here?” “No, not one,” says he. “How so,” quoth I, “when I dare undertake there are five hundred rogues of the trade for one that’s ought.” “The reason is,” says the devil, “that every catchpole upon earth carries a hell in’s bosom.” “You have still,” said I, crossing myself, “an aching tooth at those poor varlets.” “Why not,” cried he, “for they are but devils incarnate, and so damnedly versed in the art of tormenting, that we live in continual dread of losing our places, and that His Infernal Majesty should take these rascals into his service.” I had enough of this, and travelling on, I saw a little way off a great enclosure, and a world of souls shut up in’t; some of them weeping and lamenting without measure, others in a profound silence. And this I understood to be the lovers’ quarter. It saddened me to consider, that death itself could not kill the lamentations of lovers. Some of them were discoursing their passions, and teasing themselves with fears and jealousies; casting all their miseries upon their appetites and fancies, that still made the picture infinitely fairer than the person. They were for the most part troubled with a simple disease, called (as the devil told me) “I thought.” I asked him what that was, and he answered me, it was a punishment suitable to their offence: for your lovers, when they fall short of their expectations, either in the pursuit or enjoyment of their mistresses, they are wont to say, “Alas! I thought she would have loved me; I thought she would never have pressed me to marry her; I thought she would have been a fortune to me; I thought she would have given me all she had; I thought she would have cost me nothing; I thought she would have asked me nothing; I thought she would have been true to my bed; I thought she would have been dutiful and modest; I thought she would never have kept her gallant.” So that all their pain and damnation comes from I thought this or that, or so, or so. In the middle of them was Cupid, a little beggarly rogue, and as naked as he was born, only here and there covered with an odd kind of embroidery: but whether it was the workmanship of the itch, pox, or measles, I could not perfectly discover; and close by him was this inscription—