The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas

THIS Preface is merely for fashion-sake, to fill a space, and please the stationer, who says ’tis neither usual nor handsome, to leap immediately from the title-page to the matter. So that, in short, a Preface ye have, together with the reason of it, both under one: but as to the ordinary mode and pretence of prefaces, the translator desires to be excused. For he makes a conscience of a lie, and it were a damned one, to tell ye, that he has published this, either to gratify the importunity of friends, or to oblige the public, or for any other reason of a hundred, that are commonly given in excuse of scribbling. Not but that he loves his friends, as well as any man, and has taken their opinion along with him. Nor, but that he loves the public too (as many a man does a coy mistress that has made his heart ache.) But to pass from what had no effect upon him in this publication, to that which overruled him in it. It was pure spite. For he has had hard measure among the physicians, the lawyers, the women, etc. And Dom Francisco de Quevedo, in English, revenges him upon all his enemies. For it is a satire, that taxes corruption of manners, in all sorts and degrees of people, without reflecting upon particular states or persons. It is full of sharpness and morality; and has found so good entertainment in the world, that it wanted only English of being baptized into all Christian languages.

THE FIRST VISION OF THE ALGOUAZIL (OR CATCHPOLE) POSSESSED

GOING t’other day to hear mass at a convent in this town, the door it seems was shut, and a world of people pressing and begging to get in. Upon enquiry what the matter was; they told me of a demoniac to be exorcised; (or dispossessed) which made me put in for one, to see the ceremony: though to little purpose; for when I had half smothered myself in the throng, I was e’en glad to get out again, and bethink myself of my lodging. Upon my way homeward, at the street’s end, it was my fortune to meet a familiar friend of mine of the same convent; who told me over again what I had heard before, and taking notice of my curiosity, bade me follow him; which I did, till with his passe-partout he brought me through a little back-door into the church, and so into the vestry: where we saw a wretched kind of a dog-looked fellow with a tippet about his neck, as ill ordered as you’d wish; his clothes all in tatters, his hands bound behind him, roaring and tearing after a most hideous manner. “Bless me,” quoth I, crossing myself, “what spectacle have we here?” “This,” said the good Father who was to do the feat, “is a man that’s possessed with an evil spirit.” “That’s a damned lie,” with respect of the company, cried the devil that tormented him, “for this is not a man possessed with a devil, but a devil possessed with a man; and therefore you should do well to have a care what you say, for it is most evident, both by the question and answer, that you are but a company of sots. You are to understand that we devils never enter into the body of a catchpole, but by force, and in spite of our hearts; and therefore to speak properly, you are to say, this is a devil catchpoled, and not a catchpole bedevilled. And, to give you your due, you men can deal better with us devils, than with the catchpoles, for we fly from the cross, whereas they make use of it, for a cloak for their villainy.

“But though we differ thus in our humours, we hold a very fair correspondence in our offices: if we draw men into judgment and condemnation, so do the catchpoles; we pray for an increase of wickedness in the world, so do they; nay and more zealously than we, for it is their livelihood, and we do it only for company: and in this the catchpoles are worse than the devils; they prey upon their own kind, and worry one another. For our parts, we are angels still, though black ones, and were turned into devils only for aspiring into an equality with our Maker: whereas the very corruption of mankind is the generation of a catchpole. So that, my good Father, your labour is but lost in plying this wretch with relics; for you may as soon redeem a soul from hell, as a prey out of his clutches. In fine, your algouazils (or catchpoles) and your devils are both of an order, only your catchpole-devils wear shoes and stockings, and we go barefoot after the fashion of this reverend Father; and (to deal plainly) have a very hard time on’t.”

I was not a little surprised to find the devil so great a sophister, but all this notwithstanding, the holy man went on with his exorcism, and to stop the spirit’s mouth, washed his face with a little holy water, which made the demoniac ten times madder than before, and set him a yelping so horribly, that it deafened the company, and made the very ground under us to tremble. “And now,” says he, “you may, perchance, imagine this extravagance to be the effect of your holy water; but let me tell you, that mere water itself would have done the same thing; for your catchpole hates nothing in this world like water [especially that of a Gray’s Inn pump]. But to conclude, they are so reprobated a sort of Christians, that they have quitted even the very name of misins, by which they were formerly known, for that of algouazils; the latter being of Pagan extraction, and more suitable to their manners.”

“Come, come,” says the Father, “there is no ear, nor credit to be given to this villain; set but his tongue at liberty, and you shall have him fall foul upon the Government, and the ministers of justice, for keeping the world in order and suppressing wickedness, because it spoils his market.” “No more chopping of logic good Mr. Conjurer,” says the devil, “for there’s more in’t than you are aware of; but if you’ll do a poor devil a good office, give me my dispatch out of this accursed algouazil; for I am a devil, you must know, of reputation and quality, and shall never be able to endure the gibes and affronts will be put upon me at my return to hell, for having kept this rascal company.” “All in good time,” said the Father, “thou shalt have thy discharge; that is to say, in pity to this miserable creature, and not for thy own sake. But tell me now, what makes thee torment him thus?” “Nothing in the world,” quoth the devil, “but a contest betwixt him and me, which was the greater devil of the two.”

The conjurer did not at all relish these wild and malicious replies; but to me the dialogue was extreme pleasant, especially being by this time a little familiarized with the devil. “Upon which confidence, my good Father,” said I, “here are none but friends; and I may speak to you as my confessor, and the confidant of all the secrets of my soul; I have a great mind, with your leave, to ask the devil a few questions, and who knows but a man may be the better for his answers, though perchance contrary to his intention! keep him only in the interim from tormenting this poor creature.” The conjurer granted my request, and the spirit went on with his babble. “Well,” says he smiling, “the devil shall never want a friend at court, so long as there’s a poet within the walls. And indeed the poets do us many a good turn, both by pimping and otherwise; but if you,” said he, “should not be kind to us,” looking upon me, “you’ll be thought very ungrateful, considering the honour of your entertainment now in hell.” I asked him then what store of poets they had? “Whole swarms,” says the devil; “so many, that we have been forced to make more room for them: nor is there anything in nature so pleasant as a poet in the first year of his probation; he comes ye laden forsooth, with letters of recommendation to our superiors, and enquires very gravely for Charon, Cerberus, Rhadamanthus, Æacus, Minos.”

“Well,” said I, “but what’s their punishment?” (for I began now to make the poets’ case my own). “Their punishments,” quoth the devil, “are many, and suited to the trade they drive. Some are condemned to hear other men’s works: (and this is the plague of the fiddlers too) we have others that are in for a thousand year, and yet still poring upon some old stanzas they have made of jealousy. Some again are beating their foreheads with the palms of their hands, and even boring their very noses with hot irons, in rage that they cannot come to a resolution, whether they shall say face or visage; whether they shall write jail or gaol; whether cony or cunny, because it comes from cuniculus, a rabbit. Others are biting their nails to the quick, and at their wits’ end for a rime to chimney; and dozing up and down in a brown study, till they drop into some hole at last, and give us trouble enough to get them out again. But they that suffer the most, and fare the worst, are your comic poets, for whoring so many queens and princesses upon the stage, and coupling ladies of honour with lackeys, and noblemen with common strumpets, in the winding up of their plays; and for giving the bastinado to Alexander and Julius Cæsar in their interludes and farces. Now be it known to you, that we do not lodge these with other poets, but with pettifoggers and attorneys, as common dealers in the mystery of shifting, shuffling, forging, and cheating: and now for the discipline of hell, you are to understand we have incomparable harbingers and quartermasters; insomuch that let them come in whole caravans, as it happened t’other day, every man is in his quarter before you can say what’s this.

“There came to us several tradesmen; the first of them a poor rogue that made profession of drawing the long bow; and him we were about to put among the armourers, but one of the company moved and carried it, that since he was so good at draughts, he might be sent to the clerks and scriveners; a sort of people that will fit you with draughts, good and bad, of all sorts and sizes, and to all purposes. Another called himself a cutter, we asked him whether in wood or stone? ‘Neither,’ said he, ‘but in cloth and stuff’ (Anglicè a tailor); and him we turned over to those that were in for detraction and calumny, and for cutting large thongs out of other men’s leather. There was a blind fellow would fain have been among the poets, but (for likeness’ sake) we quartered him among the lovers. After him, came a sexton, or (as he styled himself) a burier of the dead; and then a cook that was troubled in conscience for putting off cats for hares: These were dispatched away to the pastry-men. A matter of half a dozen crack-brained fools we disposed of among the astrologers and alchymists. In the number, there was one notorious murderer, and him we packed away to the gentlemen of the faculty, the physicians. The broken merchants we kennelled with Judas for making ill bargains. Corrupt ministers and magistrates, with the thief on the left hand. The embroilers of affairs, and the water-bearers take up with the vintners; and the brokers with the Jews. Upon the whole matter, the policy of hell is admirable, where every man has his place according to his condition.”

“As I remember,” said I, “you were speaking e’en now concerning lovers. Pray tell me, have you many of them in your dominions? I ask, because I am myself a little subject to the itch of love, as well as poetry.” “Love,” says the devil, “is like a great spot of oil, that diffuses itself everywhere, and consequently hell cannot but be sufficiently stocked with that sort of vermin. But let me tell you now, we have several sorts of lovers; some dote upon themselves; others upon their pelf; these upon their own discourses; those upon their own actions; and once in an age perchance, comes a fellow that dotes upon his own wife; but this is very rare, for the jades commonly bring their husbands to repentance, and then the devil may throw his cap at them. But above all, for sport (if there can be any in hell) commend me to those gaudy monsieurs, who by the variety of colours and ribands they wear (favours as they call them) one would swear, were only dressed up for a sample, or kind of inventory of all the gewgaws that are to be had for love or money at the mercers. Others you shall have so overcharged with perruque, that you’ll hardly know the head of a cavalier from the ordinary block of a tire-woman: and some again you’d take for carriers, by their packets and bundles of love-letters; which being made combustible by the fire and flame they treat of, we are so thrifty, as to employ upon the singeing of their own tails, for the saving of better fuel. But, oh! the pleasant postures of the maiden-lover, when he is upon the practice of the gentle-leer, and embracing the air for his mistress! Others we have that are condemned for feeling and yet never come to the touch: these pass for a kind of buffoon pretenders; ever upon the vigil, but never arrive at the festival. Some again have lost themselves with Judas for a kiss.