Page:The Political History of the Devil - Defoe (1726).djvu/30

 ther letters were invented by Cadmus the Phœnician, or dictated immediately from Heaven at mount Sinai.

Nay, he could tell us how and in what manner he wheedled Eve, deluded Adam, put Cain into a passion, till he made him murther his own brother; and made Noah, who was above 500 years a preacher of rightcousness [sic], turn sot in his old age, dishonour all his ministry, debauch himself with wine, and by getting drunk and exposing himself, become the jest and laughing stock of his children, and of all his posterity to this day.

And would Satan, according to the modern practice of the late right reverend Historian, enter into the characters of the great men of his age, how should we be diverted with the just history of Adam, in paradise and out of it, his character, and how he behaved at and after his expulsion; how Cain wandered in the land of Nod, what the mark was which God set upon him, whose daughter his wife was, and how big the city was he built there, according to a certain poet of noble extraction,

He could certainly have drawn Eve's picture, told us every feature in her face, and every inch in her shape, whether she was a perfect beauty or no, and whether with the fall she did grow crooked, ugly, ill natur'd and a scold; as the learned Valdemar suggests to be the effect of the curse.

Descending to the characters of the Patriarchs in that age, he might, no doubt, give us in par-