TERTIUS MUNDANUS.

Si cadit hora,

PRIMUS MUNDANUS.

Dies abeunt,

SECUNDUS MUNDANUS.

Perit Omne,

TERTIUS MUNDANUS.
Venit Mors,

PRIMUS MUNDANUS.

Quidnam prodesset fati meminisse futuri ?

SECUNDUS MUNDANUS.

Quidnam prodesset lachrymis consumere vitam?

TERTIU SMUNDANUS.

Quidnam prodesset tantis incumbere curis?

Upon which an unpleasant personage who has just appeared to interrupt their trialogue ob

serves,

Si breve tempus abit, si vita caduca recedit,

Si cadit hora, dies abeunt, perit omne, venit Mors,
Quidnam lethiferæ Mortis meminisse nocebit ?

It is Mors herself who asks the question. The three Worldlings however behave as resolutely as Don Juan in the old drama; they tell Death that they are young and rich and active and vigorous, and set all admonition at defiance. Death or rather Mrs. Death, (for Mors being feminine is called lana, and meretrix, and virago,) takes all this patiently, and

letting them go off in a dance, calls up human Nature who has been asleep meantime, and asks her how she can sleep in peace while her sons are leading a life of dissipation and debauchery? Nature very coolly replies by demanding why they should not? and Death answers, because they must go to the infernal regions for so doing. Upon this Nature, who appears to be liberally inclined, asks if it is credible that any should be obliged to go there? and Death to convince her calls up a soul from bale to give an account of his own sufferings. A dreadful account this Damnatus gives; and when Nature, shocked at what she hears, enquires if he is the only one who is tormented in Orcus, Damnatus assures her that hardly one in a thousand goes to Heaven, but that his fellowsufferers are in number numberless; and he specifies among them Kings and Popes, and Senators and severe Schoolmasters,-a class of men whom Textor seems to have held in great and proper abhorrence-as if like poor Tho

mas Tusser he had suffered under their inhuman discipline.

Horrified at this, Nature asks advice of Mors,

and Mors advises her to send a Son of Thunder round the world, who should reprove the nations for their sins, and sow the seeds of virtue by his preaching. Peregrinus goes upon this mission and returns to give an account of it. Nothing can be worse than the report. As for the Kings of the Earth, it would be dangerous, he says, to say what they were doing. The Popes suffered the ship of Peter to go wherever the winds carried it. Senators were won by intercession or corrupted by gold. Doctors spread their nets in the temples for prey, and Lawyers were dumb unless their tongues were loosened by money.-Had he seen the Italians?—Italy was full of dissentions, ripe for war and defiled by its own infamous vice. The Spaniards? They were suckled by Pride. The English?

Gens tacitis prægnans arcanis, ardua tentans,

Edita tartareis mihi creditur esse tenebris.

In short the Missionary concludes that he has found every where an abundant crop of vices, and that all his endeavours to produce amendment have been like ploughing the sea shore. Again afflicted Nature asks advice of Mors, and

Mors recommends that she should call up Justice and send her abroad with her scourge to repress the wicked. But Justice is found to be so fast asleep that no calling can awaken her. Mors then advises her to summon Veritas; alas! unhappy Veritas enters complaining of pains from head to foot and in all the intermediate parts, within and without; she is dying and entreats that nature will call some one to confess her. But who shall be applied to?Kings? They will not come.-Nobles? Veritas is a hateful personage to them.—Bishops, or mitred Abbots? They have no regard for Truth. -Some saint from the desert? Nature knows not where to find one! Poor Veritas therefore dies "unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled;" and forthwith three Demons enter rejoicing that Human Nature is left with none to help her, and that they are Kings of this world. They call in their Ministers, Caro and Voluptas and Vitium, and send them to do their work among mankind. These successful missionaries return, and relate how well they have sped every where; and the Demons being by

this time hungry, after washing in due form, and many ceremonious compliments among themselves, sit down to a repast which their ministers have provided. The bill of fare was one which Beelzebub's Court of Aldermen might have approved. There were the brains of a fat monk,-a roasted Doctor of Divinity who afforded great satisfaction,—a King's sirloin, some broiled Pope's flesh, and part of a Schoolmaster; the joint is not specified, but I suppose it to have been the rump. Then came a Senator's lights and a Lawyer's tongue.

When they have eaten of these dainties till the distended stomach can hold no more, Virtus comes in and seeing them send off the fragments to their Tartarean den, calls upon mankind to bestow some sustenance upon her, for she is tormented with hunger. The Demons and their ministers insult her and drive her into banishment; they tell Nature that to-morrow the great King of Orcus will come and carry her away in chains; off they go in a dance, and Nature concludes the piece by saying that what they have threatened must happen, un