_Lucif._ So be it then, and let the mob of hell make choice of one, for I am resolv’d to trouble myself no more about them. But before we rise, let proclamation be made of a general play-day and jubilee for all the lesser and laborious rank of devils, who have been thus long continually employ’d in damning mankind; let them take their ease as long as matrimony prevails above; for now our business is much better done by woman to our hands: Or if any are so zealously inclin’d to be still busy for the good of their country, let them employ their time and talents to better purpose than formerly, in perswading the easy world against cœlibacy, by stigmatizing all that affect it with the name of whores, rogues, and hypocrites; and if that prevails, we gain our point, and widow’d Heaven may bid good-night to mankind. For if we get them into our noose, we may be sure of our purchase. Let none therefore loyter away his time in tempting the marry’d; for one woman will out-do a legion of you. _For since their grandame_ Eve _in_ Eden _fell,_ _The_ sex _has learnt the damning trade so well,_ _Where e’er that rules, there’s little need of hell_. [Illustration] _The Belgic_ HERO _Unmask’d_; IN A DIALOGUE BETWEEN Sir _Walter Rawleigh_ and _Aaron Smith_. Sir _Walter_. Hold thy impertinent tongue, I say, thou everlasting babbler, or---- _Smith._ Come, come, we lawyers are not so easily silenc’d as you think. Liberty of speech is one of the eldest branches of _magna charta_; therefore I will once more maintain it, before all the world, that the reign of my late _Batavian_ master, was in every respect equal to that of the famous _Elizabeth_. Sir _Walter_. Not that is’t worth my while to enter the list with such a petty-fogging dog as thou art, or the cause in debate admits any manner of parallel: but since thou hast the impudence to defend so monstrous a paradox before all this company, inform us what noble things this hero has perform’d, to deserve all that nauseous idle flattery, which hardly none but _Sectarists_, _Deists_, _Republicans_, and particularly the rascals of thy kidney, when he was alive, conspir’d to give him. _Smith._ Why, in the first place, he deliver’d _England_, then just upon the brink of being devour’d by arbitrary power and popery. He won the noble battle of the _Boyne_, reduc’d _Ireland_, appeas’d the disorders of _Scotland_, reap’d a new harvest of glory every campaign in _Flanders_, and at last, after an obstinate expensive war, forc’d a haughty tyrant, who had insulted and bully’d the whole christian world for almost forty years, to clap up a peace with him upon his own terms at _Ryswick_, by which he was oblig’d to vomit up numberless provinces and towns, which he had dishonourably stollen from their true proprietors. Sir _Walter_. And as for his personal qualities, what have you to say of them?