_Ghost._ First, Signor, adjust some points in dispute, which highly concern the honour of our country, and the decorum of good breeding, and I shall, for all this noble train that follow me, answer to your devilship’s queries. Coming to the confines of your flourishing empire, we were met by some of the officers of this honourable assembly, who gave us safe conduct to your royal presence: but just now, entring into these lifts, confronted us a company of paltry scoundrels, and press’d for precedence, swearing, That they were _Englishmen_, and ought to take place of all that were damn’d for cuckolds. We urg’d our title in heraldry, that we ought to take place of all nations, being the successors of the once masters of the universe; but they were deaf to reason here, as well as in the world, and one swore _d--me_, _bl--d_ and _z--ns_, another, oaths all round the compass; and in this volly of mouth-grenadoes, one very demure gentleman press’d, by _Yea_ and _Nay_, that we were in the wrong; and had it not been for this honourable devil here, that’s a friend to our nation, we had been worm’d out of our birth-right by the arse and refuse of the world: _Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos_, as our noble country-man has it, Dogs shut out of doors from all the rest of mankind. I therefore appeal to this thrice excellent senate, and you the _right and most reverend doge_, to redress this affront. _Lucif._ Hey-day? What, has not hell yet brought you to your senses, that you can think we devils are such sots to trouble our heads about the ridiculous whims of ceremonious mankind? But since they were so obstreperous to make a disturbance in hell, they shall be the last heard: Therefore proceed to the question. _Ghost._ An’t please your thrice puissant devilship, noble signor, I was coming to that point: Therefore, to be brief, (for I hate prolixity) I am, Sir, an _Italian_ by nation, and a noble-man by quality. My own vanity, and ill chance, give me a pretty wife, and my honour made me chuse her of an illustrious house; but she prov’d lewd and prodigal, the natural issue of beauty and high birth; my dotage on her charms hath bred in me such a fond, blind, uxorious vice (which my countrymen are seldom guilty of) that I was almost ruin’d before I found I was betray’d: but travelling towards _Genoa_, I met the spark, my pretended friend, on the road to my dwelling; I seemingly pass’d on my way, but in the night return’d, unexpected, and surpriz’d ’em all, and, therefore, as my honour bid me, I murder’d him, and bak’d him in a pye, and (ingeniously in my revenge) swore she should eat no other food but her lover: the crust she a while did eat, but one day, having prepar’d a _stelleto_, at supper she dispatch’d me thus to your thrice noble and illustrious devilship. _Lucif._ Very well! and worthy thou art of such a punishment, that could’st not forgive beauty a gentle slip of that nature thou thyself hadst so often transgress’d. Speak the next.