Then Satan, the devil of delusion, who was on Lucifer’s left hand, arose, and turning his grim visage to the king, began: “It is unnecessary for me to recount my deeds to thee, Oh lost Archangel, or to you, swarthy princes of Destruction: for ’twas I who dealt the first blow to man, and mighty was that blow, to be the cause of death from the beginning of the world to its end. Is it likely that I, who erst ravaged all the earth, could not now give advice that would serve one little isle? Could not I, who deceived Eve in Paradise, overcome Anne in Britain? If inborn craft and continuous experience for five thousand years profit aught, my advice is that you adorn your daughter Hypocrisy to deceive Britain and its queen: you have no other as serviceable as she; her sway extends more widely than that of all the rest of your daughters, and her subjects are more numerous. Was it not through her that I beguiled the first woman? And ever since she has remained on earth and waxed very great therein, so that by now the world is hardly anything but one mass of hypocrisy. And were it not for the craftiness of Hypocrisy how could anyone of us do business in any part of the world? For what man would ever have aught to do with sin, did he once behold it in its true color and under its own proper name? He would sooner clasp a devil in his own infernal shape and garb. If it were not that Hypocrisy can disguise the name and nature of every evil under the semblance of some good, and give a bad name to every goodness, no man at all would put forth his hand to do evil or would lust after it. Walk through the entire city of Destruction and ye will perceive her greatness in every quarter. Go to the street of Pride and ask for an arrogant man or for a penny-worth of affectation mixed through pride: ‘Woe is me,’ exclaims Hypocrisy, ‘there is no such thing here,’ no, nor for a devil, anything else in the whole street save proud demeanour. Or walk into the street of Lucre and enquire for the miser’s house: pshaw, there is no one of the kind therein; or for the dwelling of the murderer among the doctors, or for the abode of highwaymen amongst the drovers; thou wouldst sooner be thrown to prison for asking than that one should confess to his own name. Yea, Hypocrisy crawls in between a man and his own heart, and so skilfully does she hide every wrong under the name and guise of some virtue that she has caused well nigh all to lose cognisance of their own selves. Greed she calls thrift; in her tongue riotous living is innocent joy; pride is courtesy; the froward, a clever, courageous man; the drunkard, a boon companion; and adultery is a mere freak of youth. On the other hand, if she and her scholars’ {110} are to be believed, the godly is a hypocrite or a fool; the gentle, a coward; the abstemious, a churl, and so for every other quality. Send her thither in all her adornment, and I warrant you she will deceive