ered you most
service; and whilst we were at it, a pack of Roundheads broke their
prison and put in their oar; asserting that their league and covenant,
deserved more respect at your hands than either. Thus from disputing we
have come to blows, and from words to arms. But at present, as your
majesty has returned from Unknown, I will refer the matter to yourself."
"Stay, we shall not let you escape thus!" said pope Julius; and to it
again they went, tooth and nail, in the most furious manner, till the
strokes were like an earthquake. O you should have seen the three armies
of the damned, tearing one another to pieces over the expanse of the
burning plains; and each individual body that was rent to pieces,
becoming joined again serpent fashion. At last Lucifer caused his old
soldiers, the champions of Hell, to pull them from each other, and it was
no easy matter to do so.

When the tumult was hushed, pope Clement began to speak. "O emperor of
Horrors! as no throne has ever performed more faithful and universal
service to the infernal crown, over a great part of the world, for eleven
hundred years, than the papal chair, I hope you will not suffer any one
to contend with us for your favour." "Well," said a Scott of Cromwell's
army, "though the Koran has done great service for eight hundred years,
and the superstition of the Pope for a much longer period, yet has the
covenant done more since it came out, than the other two have ever done.
Moreover it is notorious that, whilst the votaries of those two are every
day rapidly diminishing, the followers of the covenant are increasing in
numbers, over the whole face of the world, and particularly in the island
of your enemies Britain, whose capital, London, the most noble city under
the sun, abounds with them." "Pshaw, pshaw!" said Lucifer, "if I am
rightly informed, the covenant itself is under a cloud, and you are no
longer what you were. And now I have one thing to tell the whole of
you--which is, that, whatever ye may do in other kingdoms, I will not
permit you to trouble mine. Therefore rest peaceably, under penalty of
worse torments corporeal and spiritual." At those words many of the
devils dropped their tails between their hoofs, and all the damned
sneaked away to their holes, for fear of a change for the worse.

After causing the whole of them to be locked up in their prisons, and the
careless wardens to be deprived of their office, for having permitted
them t