“As I remember,” said I, “you were speaking e’en now concerning lovers. Pray tell me, have you many of them in your dominions? I ask, because I am myself a little subject to the itch of love, as well as poetry.” “Love,” says the devil, “is like a great spot of oil, that diffuses itself everywhere, and consequently hell cannot but be sufficiently stocked with that sort of vermin. But let me tell you now, we have several sorts of lovers; some dote upon themselves; others upon their pelf; these upon their own discourses; those upon their own actions; and once in an age perchance, comes a fellow that dotes upon his own wife; but this is very rare, for the jades commonly bring their husbands to repentance, and then the devil may throw his cap at them. But above all, for sport (if there can be any in hell) commend me to those gaudy monsieurs, who by the variety of colours and ribands they wear (favours as they call them) one would swear, were only dressed up for a sample, or kind of inventory of all the gewgaws that are to be had for love or money at the mercers. Others you shall have so overcharged with perruque, that you’ll hardly know the head of a cavalier from the ordinary block of a tire-woman: and some again you’d take for carriers, by their packets and bundles of love-letters; which being made combustible by the fire and flame they treat of, we are so thrifty, as to employ upon the singeing of their own tails, for the saving of better fuel. But, oh! the pleasant postures of the maiden-lover, when he is upon the practice of the gentle-leer, and embracing the air for his mistress! Others we have that are condemned for feeling and yet never come to the touch: these pass for a kind of buffoon pretenders; ever upon the vigil, but never arrive at the festival. Some again have lost themselves with Judas for a kiss.
“One story lower is the abode of contented cuckolds; a nasty poisonous place, and strewed all over with the horns of rams and bulls, etc. Now these are so well read in woman, and know their destiny so well beforehand, that they never so much as trouble their heads for the matter. Ye come next to the admirers of old women; and these are wretches of so depraved an appetite, that if they were not kept tied up, and in chains, they’d horse the very devils themselves, and put Barabbas to his trumps, to defend his buttocks: for the truth is, whatever you may think of a devil, he passes with them for a very Adonis or Narcissus.