We were no sooner landed on the other side of the river, but some of us fil’d off to the right, and others to the left, as their business called them: For my part, I made the best of my way to the famous city _Brandinopolis_, seated upon the river _Phlegethon_, as being a place of the greatest commerce and resort in all king _Pluto_’s dominions. Who should I meet upon the road but my old friend said acquaintance Mr. _Nokes_, the comedian, who received me with all imaginable love and affection? Mr. _Haines_, says he, _I am glad with all my heart to see you in Hell_; upon my salvation, we have expected you here this great while, and I question not but our royal master will give you a reception befitting a person of your extraordinary merit. Mr. _Nokes_, said I, _Your most obedient servant_, you are pleas’d to compliment, but I know no other merit I have, but that of being honour’d with your friendship. _But my dear_ Jo., cries he, _how go affairs in Covent-Garden?_ Does cuckoldom flourish, and fornication maintain its ground still against the reformers? And the play-house in _Drury-Lane_, is it as much frequented as it us’d to be? I had no sooner given him a satisfactory answer to these questions, but we found ourselves in the suburbs; so my friend _Nokes_, with that gaity and openness, which became him so well at the play-house, _Jo._, says he, I’ll give thee thy welcome to Hell; with that he carry’d me to a little blind coffee-house, in the middle of a dirty alley, but certainly one of the worst furnish’d tenements I ever beheld: there was nothing to be seen but a few broken pipes, two or three founder’d chairs, and bare naked walls, with not so much as a superannuated almanack, or tatter’d ballad to keep ’em in countenance; so that I could not but fancy myself in some of love’s little tabernacles about _Wildstreet_, or _Drury-Lane_. Come, Mr. _Haines_, and what are you disposed to drink? What you please, Sir. Here, madam, give the gentleman a glass of _Geneva_. As soon as I had whipp’d it down, my friend _Nokes_ plucking me by the sleeve, and whispering me in the ear, prithee _Jo._, who dost think that lady at the bar is? I consider’d her very attentively, by the same token she was three times as ugly as my lady _Frightall_, countess of ---- and three times as thick and bulky as Mrs. _Pix_ the poetress, and very fairly told him, I knew her not. Why then I shall surprize you. This is the famous _Semiramis_. The Devil she is! answer’d I: What is this the celebrated and renowned queen of _Babylon_, she that built those stupendious walls and pensile gardens, of which antient historians tell us so many miracles; that victorious _heroine_, who eclipsed the triumphs of her illustrious husband; that added _Æthiopia_ to her empire; and was the wonder as well as the ornament of her sex? Is it possible she should fall so low as to be forced to sell _Geneva_, and such ungodly liquors for a subsistence? ’Tis e’en so, says Mr.