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Approba.

Affected
Beauty.

Come into Merc. That's my honest cynic. the boat, Menippus. Here is a ghost of sense for you. Go, go forward by te helm, where you may have good sitting, and may see all the passengers. Your servant, Madam. Who may you be, if a man, I meant, if a gd may be so bold? 3d. Ghost Sir, I am the celebrated beauty, who rated my favours so high, as to receive a talent for a kiss. It is true a certain philosopher did grudge my price, saying he had no notion of paying an exorbitant sum for so unpleasant a Contempt. bargain as repentance. But m comfort is, that it was a poor old-fellow. and a philosopher, that made this clownish speech, so different from what I was used to.

Refufing.

Intreat.

Infift with

Sneer.

Merc. Look you, Madam, this country is not famous for gallantry. And, as you will make nothing of your beauty where you are going, I must desire you to leave it all behind, or you don't set a foot in the Stygian ferry-boat.

3d Ghost. Pray, Sir, excuse me. Why must one be ugly, because one is dead ?

Merc. Come, come, Madam, off with your Blame and whole apparatus of temptation, if you mean to cross the Stygian pool. You must not only lay aside the paint on your cheeks, but the cheeks themselves. You must throw off not only the gorgeous attire of your head, but the hair, and the very skin, to the bare skull. So far from granting you a passage with all your finery about you, we shall expect you to strip off both skin and flesh to the very bones. So, Mrs. Beauty, if you please to step aside, and dispose of your tackle, and present yourself by and by, in the plain dress of a skeleton, we shall perhaps carry you over the water.

Vexation.

Infifting.

3d. Ghost. It is deadly hard: and

Merc. This is our way, Madam-*Stop* Refufing. Who are you? You seem to brush forward, as who should say, "I am no small fool."

I ride.

Ath Ghost. Why, Sir, I am no less person than Lampichus the tyrant.

1

Sneer.

Merc. Pray, good Mr. Lampichus the tyrant, where do you intend to stow all that lug- Refufing. gage?

4th Ghost. Consider, Mercury, it is not proper that a king should travel without his conveniencies about him.

Intreat.

Refufing.

Infifting.

Blame.

Merc. Whatever may be proper for you in quality of a king, you must allow me to determine of the necessaries of life requisite for you in quality of a ghost. I shall therefore desire, that your tyrantship will be pleased to leave your bags of goid, your pride, and your cruelty, behind. Apprehen. For, if you were to go into our poor crazy wherry with them, you would sink it, if there were no passenger but yourself.

4th Ghost. Pray, good Mercury, let me carry Intreating. my diadem. (1) It is not much heavier than an old-fashioned wedding-ring. How will the ghosts know that I am a king, without something of a royal ensign about me?

Merc. There is no difference, where you are going, between a king and a cobler, unless the cobler has been the better man, which happens commonly enough.-But who are you, with your rosy gills, and your round paunch?

Refufing.

Queftion.

5th Ghost. I am only a harmless good-natured Intreating. fellow, known by the name of Damasias, the parasite. You see I am naked, I hope, therefore, you will let me into the boat.

Merc. I like such naked passengers as you. Pray Refufing. do you think you can cross the Styx with such a

load of flesh about you? One of your legs would Apprehen. sink the boat.

5th Ghost. What, must I put off my very Vexation, flesh?

Merc. Yes, surely.

5th Ghost. If I must, I must. *Now then, let

me come.

(1) Diadems are thought to have been only a fort of ring to go sound the head, like a wreath.

Infifting.

* Intreat.

Refufing.

Intreating.

Contempt.

Merc. Hold. What have you got under your arm?

5th Ghost. It is only a little book of compliments and poems, in praise of great forks, which I have written out, and keep ready by me, to put any name at the head of thein, as occasion offers, you know.

Merc. You silly fellow! Do you think you Question. will have occasion for panegyrics on the other side of the Styx ?

Difappoint. 5th Ghost. What, are there no great folks there? Merc. Why, you simpleton, don't you know, Contempt. that those, who were greatest in t'other world, are meanest in that you are going to? Besides, there are neither places nor pensions to give there. Who are you, pray?

Question.
Chiding.
Refolution.
Refufing.

Vexation.

Threaten.

Question. Affectation of learning

Boafting.

6th Ghost. A conqueror. I am the famous Merc. You shan't conquer me, I can tell you, Mr. Famous and, therefore, if you don't throw your sword and your spear, and all these trophies, into the Styx, you shan't set a foot in the boat,

6th Ghost. What must not my immortal honours accompany me? If I had not thought of enjoying them in the other world, I bad not taken the pains I did about them.

Merc. You will see presently what honours judge Minos will confer on you for ravaging mankind, and deluging the world with bloodStop; who are you.

7th Ghost. Sir, I am an universal genius. Merc. That is to say, in plain English, a Jack of all trades, and good at none.

7th Ghost. Why, Sir. I have written upon all manner of subjects. I have published ten volumes in folio, sixteen quartos, thirty-five octavos, nineteen volumes in twelves, and twenty-two pamphlets. I am a standard-author in astronomy, in natural history, in physic, in criticism, in history, in epic, tragic, and comic poetry, in metaphysics in grammar, in

Question.

Merc. Plague on thy everlasting tongue; is Contemp. it never to lie still any more? What mountain of a folio is that, thou hast under thy arm?

7th Ghost. Sir, it is only my common-place Intreating, book.

Merc. Well, if you will go and dispose of it, Contempt. and of your learned pride, and your scurrility to all your contemporary authors, and of your arrogance in pretending to be master of so many different subjects, and of your ostentation in giving yourself so many silly airs of learning needlessly; and come back in the dress and disposition of a modest well-behaved skeleton, we shall think of giving you your passage.-Now, who are you?

8th Ghost. Sir, I am worth a plum, as I can shew you by my ledger. Look you here.

Question

Boasting.

Chiding.

"BALANCE Dr. Per. Con. Cr.” Merc. What, in the name of Plutus, (1) has the silly ghost got in his pericranium? Dost think, Contempt. friend, that there is cheating, and usury, and stock-jobbing, in the lower regions? Stand out of the way. Who are you?

9th Ghost. Sir I am a gentleman, rat me.

Refufing

Question.

Foppery.

Merc. Ay, there's little doubt of your rot- Contempt. ting, now you are dead. You was half rotten before you died.

9th Ghost. Sir, I have heen the happiest of Foppery. all mortals in the favour of the ladies, split me. The tender creatures could refuse me nothing. I conquered whatever I tried, stab my vitals.

Boafting.

Chiding.

Merc. I cannot but admire your impudence to tell me a lie. Don't you know, sirrah, that Mercury is a god? No lady, whose favours where worth havirg, ever cared a farthing for you, or any pig-tail'd puppy of your sort. Therefore let me have none of your nonsense and throw your snuff-box, your monkey airs, with Conyour rat me's and your pretensions to favours tempt you never received, your foolish brains, and

(1) The god of riches,

but go Command

Boafting
with Intr

Affecta.with
Intreat.

Affecta. of

Piety.

eation.

your chattering tongue : throw them all into the Styx, and then we shall perhaps talk to you.

10th Ghost. I am an emperor, and could bring three hundred thousand men into the field, and— 11th Ghost. I am a female conqueror, and have had princes at my feet. My beauty has been always thought irresistible, nor has

12th Ghost. I am a venerable priest of the temple of Apollo, and you know, Mercury, whethSelf-Vindi- er the report of the Delphic oracle's being only a contrivance among us, be not a malicious fiction; and whether the priests, in all ages, and in all places, have not been, and will not always be eminent for their artless, undesigning simplicity, their contempt of riches, their honest opposition to the vices of the great, and their seal in promoting truth and liberty of conscience,

Fawning.

Whisper.

Affec.

Affecta. with

and

15th Ghost. I have the honour to tell you, Sir, I am the darling of the greatest prince on earth. I have kept in favour five and twenty years; in spite of the hatred of a whole nation, and the arts of hundreds of rivals. There is not, I will take upon me to say, Sir, a fetch in politics, nor a contrivance for worming in, and screwing out, that I am not master of. I had I assure you, Sir, (a word in your ear) I had my king as much at my command as a shepherd has his dog. Sir, I should be proud to serve you, Sir, if you

14th Ghost. I presume, illustrious_Sir, you wont hinder me of my passage, when I inform you, I only want to carry with me a few nostrums, a little physical Latin, and a small collection of learned phrases for expressing common things more magnificently, which if they were put into a vernacular tongue, would be too easily understood. Besides, I have, I believe

15th Ghost. Great god of eloquence, you will Wheedling. not, I am persuaded, stop a famous lawyer and Boaft. orator. I am master of every trope and figure

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