“When these authors enter the subterranean abodes, they look around for a Charon, a dog Cerberus, a Rhadamanthus, a Pluto, and all the infernal divinities of fable. In place of that, the demons make them realize, that this is a place much more horrible than that: but this is not their severest punishment; they are forced to hear the compositions of other poets, who are their superiors in talent; then they are tormented by jealousy; they hate the _epigrams_ of Martial, the _stanzas_ of Catullus, the _odes_ of Horace, the _beauties_ of Virgil, the _satires_ of Juvenal, the _comedies_ of Terence, and the _tragedies_ of Seneca. It is thus also the historians suffer, when they listen to the histories of Herodotus, of Titus, Livy, of Sallust, and of Cæsar. “What a punishment for these rhymsters, when they recollect their own works! You cannot imagine the pain they experience, in finding a felicitous rhyme, a happy epithet, a just pause, or an harmonious cadence: they are more tormented by an _a_ or an _e_, than Tantalus is by thirst, or the Italians are with their jealousy, when they have Frenchmen at their houses. And the comic poets, how are they punished, for having filched away the reputation of so many princesses and queens of Castile, of Leon, of Arragon, and other places! This is as fertile a field for them, as all the wars of the Moors of Granada; but for these larcenies, they suffer sharper agonies as Christians, than will ever be inflicted upon the barbarians and Mohammedans, for all their battles and burnings, or upon the alguazils, even for their violences and exactions. “Behold, in review of the subject,” said the demon, who spake by the mouth of the possessed, “there is a much nearer resemblance between poets and alguazils, than one would, at a first glance, imagine.” “A fine comparison,” said I, “for such a false spirit as you!” “How!” answered he, “are not poets and alguazils both thieves? and if you would but confess it, you well know, that in making these remarks of poets, I speak to a poet, whom I wish to undeceive. Do you not recollect the old Spanish proverb, _He who never composed two verses_, _had no wit_; _and he who produced four_, _was a fool_?” “I confess,” said I, “that to be a poet, one must have an original turn of imagination; and the same qualification is necessary to a painter: one would find it very difficult to assume, without merit, the rank of Apelles and Michael Angelo: but as they cannot justly call these celebrated artists so generally admired, fools, so neither do I believe they can accuse of folly the great poets of Spain, of Italy, of France, of Turkey, of Persia, and of China: for in all these places they have made verses.”