They came in two by two, though matched in the most dissociable
manner, and mingled together in a kind of dance. It would be
tedious to describe their habits and persons; for which reason I
shall only inform my reader, that the first couple were Tyranny and
Anarchy; the second were Bigotry and Atheism; the third, the Genius
of a commonwealth and a young man of about twenty-two years of age,
whose name I could not learn. He had a sword in his right hand,
which in the dance he often brandished at the Act of Settlement; and
a citizen, who stood by me, whispered in my ear, that he saw a
sponge in his left hand. The dance of so many jarring natures put
me in mind of the sun, moon, and earth, in the Rehearsal, that
danced together for no other end but to eclipse one another.
The reader will easily suppose, by what has been before said, that
the lady on the throne would have been almost frighted to
distraction, had she seen but any one of the spectres: what then
must have been her condition when she saw them all in a body? She
fainted, and died away at the sight.
Et neque jam color est misto candore rubori;
Nec vigor, et vires, et quae modo rise placebant;
Nec corpus remanet--.
OVID, Met. iii. 491.
- Her spirits faint,
Her blooming cheeks assume a pallid teint,
And scarce her form remains.
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