BELFEGOR.

Sutan. "But, Pug, since you do burn with such desire
"To do the commonwealth of hell some service;
"I am content, assuming of a body,
"You go on earth, and visit men.”

HE

The Devil is an Ass.

LONDON:

MESSRS. SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO

MDCCCXXXVII.

JAMES BURRILL, PRINTER, CHATHAM.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The Author of the following trifle, as

the reader will at once perceive, has taken the idea of his story, (if story it may

be called) from the Novella di Belfegor, of the famous Nicolas Macchiavelli.

BELFEGOR.

SEARCHING of late the legends old
Which ancient Chroniclers have told,
Of pious Saints, and Martyr's hoary,
And other worthies famed in story,
Whose miracles alarmed Old Nick,
And made him sour and splenetic:
A musty parchment met my view,
Of sulph'rous scent, and dingy hue,
Inscribed to good St. Mildred's fame
Since first the Devil to his shame,
On finding the fair Saint at prayers,

Puffed out her candle unawares,

Which God's bright angel in a fit
Of holy gallantry, relit.*

St. Mildred. "Shee was so diligently garded with God's angell attending upon her, that when the divell (finding her at praiers) had put out the candall that was before her, the angell forthwith lighted it unto her again."—W. Lambard's Perambulation through Kent. 1570.

B