you shall crave, is the epidemic curse of the street.  The Stewards were rejected at the first offer, lest they should impoverish the whole street, and, as they had raised their palaces on the ruins of their masters, lest they

should in the end turn the princess out of her possession; then the dispute arose between the three others; the Merchants had the most silks, the Lawyers most mortgages on lands, and the Usurers the greatest number of full bags, and bills and bonds.  “Ha! they will not agree to night,” said the angel, “so come away; the Lawyers are richer than the Merchants, the Usurers are richer than the Lawyers, and the Stewards than the Usurers, and Belial than the whole, for he owns them all, and their property too.”

“For what reason is the princess keeping these thieves about her?” I demanded.  “What can be more proper,” said he, “when she herself is the arrantest of thieves.”  I was astonished to hear him call the princess thus, and the greatest potentates thieves of the first water.  “Pray, my lord,” said I, “how can you call those illustrious people greater thieves than robbers on the highway?”  “You are but a dupe,” said he; “is not the villain who goes over the world with his sword in his hand and his plunderers behind him, burning and slaying, wresting kingdoms from their right owners, and looking forward to be adored as a conqueror, worse than the rogue who takes a purse upon the highway?  What is the tailor who cabbages a piece of cloth, to the great man who takes a piece out of the parish common?  Ought not the latter to be called a thief of the first water, or ten times more a rogue than the other?—the tailor merely takes snips of cloth from his customer, whilst the other takes from the poor man the sustenance of his beast, and by so doing the sustenance of himself and his little ones—what is taking a handful of flour at the mill, to keeping a hundred sacksfull to putrify, in order to obtain afterwards a four-fold price?—what is the half-naked soldier who takes

your garment away with his sword, to the lawyer, who takes your whole estate from you with a goose’s quill, without any claim or bond upon it?—and what is the pickpocket who takes five pounds, to the cogger of dice who will cheat you of a hundred in the third part of a night?—and what is the jockey who tricks you in some old unsound horse, to the apothecary who chouses you of your money, and your life also with some old unwholesome physic?—and yet what are all these thieves to the mistress-thief there, who takes away from the whole all these things, and their hearts and their souls at the end of the fair?”  From this dirty, disorderly street we proceeded to the street of the princess Pleasure, in which I beheld a number of Britons, French, Italians, Pagans, &c.  She was a princess exceedingly beautiful to the eye, with a cup of drugged wine in the one hand, and a crown and a harp in the other.  In her treasury there were numberless pleasures and pretty things to obtain the custom of every body, and to keep them in the service of her father.  Yea! there were many who escaped to this charming street, to cast off the melancholy arising from their losses and debts in the other streets.  It was a street prodigiously crowded, especially with young people; and the princess was careful to please every body, and to keep an arrow adapted to every mark.  If you are thirsty, you can have here your choice of drink; if you love dancing and singing, you can get here your fill.  If her comeliness entice you to lust for the body of a female, she has only to lift up her finger to one of the officers of her father, (who surround her at all times, though invisibly), and they will fetch you a lass in a minute, or the body of a harlot newly buried, and will go into her in lieu of a soul, rather than you should abandon so good a design.

Here there are handsome houses with very pleasant gardens, teeming orchards, and shadowy groves, adapted to all kinds of secret meetings, in which one can hunt birds and a certain fair coney; here there are delightful rivers for fishing, and wide fields hedged around, in which it is pleasant to hunt the hare and fox.  All along the street you could see farces being acted, juggling going on, and all kinds of tricks of legerdemain; there was plenty of licentious music, vocal and instrumental, ballad singing, and every species of merriment; there was no lack of male and female beauty, singing and dancing; and there were here many from the street of Pride, who came to receive praise and adoration.  In the interior of the houses I could see people on beds of silk and down, wallowing in voluptuousness; some were engaged at billiard-playing, and were occasionally swearing or cursing the table keeper; others were rattling the dice or shuffling the cards.  My guide pointed out to me some from the street of Lucre, who had chambers in this street; they had run hither to reckon their money, but they did not tarry long lest some of the innumerable tempting things to be met with here should induce them to part with their pelf, without usury.  I could see throngs of individuals feasting, with something of every creature before them; oh, how every one did gorge, swallowing mess after mess of dainties, sufficient to have feasted a moderate man for three weeks, and when they could eat no more, they belched out a thanks for what they had received, and then gave the health of the king and every jolly companion; after which, they drowned the savour of the food, and their cares besides, in an ocean of wine; then they called for tobacco, and began telling stories of their neighbours—and, I observed, that all the stories were well received, whether true

or false, provided they were amusing and of late date, above all if they contained plenty of scandal: there they sat, each with his clay pistol puffing forth fire and smoke, and slander to his neighbour.  At length I was fain to request my guide to permit me to move on; the floor was impure with saliva and spilt drink, and I was apprehensive that certain heavy hiccups which I heard, might be merely the prelude to something more disagreeable.

From thence we went to a place where we heard a terrible noise, a medley of striking, jabbering, crying and laughing, shouting and singing.  “Here’s Bedlam, doubtless,” said I.  By the time we entered the den the brawling had ceased.  Of the company, one was on the ground insensible; another was in a yet more deplorable condition; another was nodding over a hearthful of battered pots, pieces of pipes, and oozings of ale.  And what was all this, upon enquiry, but a carousal of seven thirsty neighbours—a goldsmith, a pilot, a smith, a miner, a chimney-sweeper, a poet, and a parson who had come to preach sobriety, and to exhibit in himself what a disgusting thing drunkenness is.  The origin of the last squabble was a dispute which had arisen among them, about which of the seven loved a pipe and flagon best.  The poet had carried the day over all the rest, with the exception of the parson, who, out of respect for his cloth, had the most votes, being placed at the head of the jolly companions—the poet singing:—

“Oh, where are there seven beneath the sky,
Who with these seven for thirst can vie?
But the best for good ale, these seven among,
Are the jolly divine, and the son of song.”

Disgusted with these drunken swine, we went nearer to

the gate, to take a peep at the follies of the palace of Love, the purblind