others. The garment of the second was put on with the greatest care and exactness, and richly embroidered with the gayest colours; but it did not seem to fit her. But it was the third whom I most admired: she was crowned with roses and a variety of other flowers; she played upon all the instruments, and never stayed five minutes in a place. Just as I was going to sit down to a fine repast which they had prepared for me, of the fruits of the mountain, we saw two grave-looking men advancing towards us. Immediately Imagination shrieked out, and Good Will said she had great reason, for those were Severity and Ill Humour, who had like to have run away with her when but a child, as she had told me before. "You too," added she, "may be in danger; therefore come into the midst of us." I did so, and by this time the two men were come up. One of them was completely armed, and held a mirror in his hand; the other wore a long robe, and held in one hand a mariner's compass, and in the other a lantern. They soon pierced to the centre of our little troop; and the first, with much ado, at length forced me from the only two who still held out against them, and made me hearken to the other, who bade me not be afraid, and told me, though I might be prejudiced against him and his companion by those I had lately been with, yet they had a greater desire of my happiness, and would do more towards it. 66 But," said he, "if you have eat any of that fruit which you have in your hand, of which the real name is Obstinacy, all I can say will be ineffectual." I assured him I had not tasted this fatal fruit. He said he was very glad of it, and bade me throw it down and follow him, which I did, till by a shorter way we came to the brow of the mountain. When we were there, he told me the only way to deliver myself from the danger I was then in, was to leap down into the plain below. As the mountain seemed very steep, and the plain very barren, I could neither persuade myself to obey, nor had I courage to disobey him. I thus stood wavering for some time, till the man in armour pushed me down, as Mentor did Telemachus. When I was recovered from the first shock of my fall, how great was my surprise to find this paradise of the world, this delightful mountain, was raised to that prodigious height by mere empty clouds! After they had given me some time to wonder, he who held the lantern in his hand, told me that the place before me was the mount of Folly: that Imagination was Romance, Good Will was Flattery, Apollo was Bombast: that the two false Muses who tried most to keep me from coming with them, were Self Conceit and Idleness: that the others were Inconstancy, False Taste, Ignorance, and Affectation her daughter; Euthusiasm of Poetry; Credulity, a great promoter of their despotic dominion; and Fantasticalness, who took as many hearts as any of the rest. I thanked him for this information, and told him that it would almost equal the joy of my deliverance, to know the names of my deliverers: he told me his own was Good Advice, and his companion's Good Sense, his brother, and born at the same time. He added, that if I liked their com pany, they would, after having shown me the many thousand wretches whom my false friends had betrayed, conduct me to the abode of Application and Perseverance, the parents of all the Virtues. I told him that nothing could afford me a more sensible pleasure. "Then," said he, "prepare yourself for a scene of horror;" and immediately, with the help of his brother, he lifted up the mountain, and discovered to my sight a dark and hollow vale, where, under the shade of cypress and yew, lay, in the utmost misery, multitudes of unhappy mortals, mostly young women, run away with by Romance. When I had left this dreadful spot, and the mountain was closed upon them, just as I was going to be good and happy, some unhappy accident awakened me. |