There is in this famous island of Britain a certain paltry
scribbler, very voluminous, whose character the reader cannot wholly
be a stranger to. He deals in a pernicious kind of writings called
"Second Parts," and usually passes under the name of "The Author of
the First." I easily foresee that as soon as I lay down my pen this
nimble operator will have stole it, and treat me as inhumanly as he
has already done Dr. Blackmore, Lestrange, and many others who
shall here be nameless. I therefore fly for justice and relief into
the hands of that great rectifier of saddles and lover of mankind,
Dr. Bentley, begging he will take this enormous grievance into his
most modern consideration; and if it should so happen that the
furniture of an ass in the shape of a second part must for my sins
be clapped, by mistake, upon my back, that he will immediately
please, in the presence of the world, to lighten me of the burthen,
and take it home to his own house till the true beast thinks fit to
call for it.
In the meantime, I do here give this public notice that my
resolutions are to circumscribe within this discourse the whole
stock of matter I have been so many years providing. Since my vein
is once opened, I am content to exhaust it all at a running, for the
peculiar advantage of my dear country, and for the universal benefit
of mankind. Therefore, hospitably considering the number of my
guests, they shall have my whole entertainment at a meal, and I
scorn to set up the leavings in the cupboard. What the guests
cannot eat may be given to the poor, and the dogs under the table
may gnaw the bones {140}. This I understand for a more generous
proceeding than to turn the company's stomachs by inviting them
again to-morrow to a scurvy meal of scraps.
If the reader fairly considers the strength of what I have advanced
in the foregoing section, I am convinced it will produce a wonderful
revolution in his notions and opinions, and he will be abundantly
better prepared to receive and to relish the concluding part of this
miraculous treatise. Readers may be divided into three classes--the
superficial, the ignorant, and the learned, and I have with much
felicity fitted my pen to the genius and advantage of each. The
superficial reader will be strangely provoked to laughter, which
clears the breast and the lungs, is sovereign against the spleen,
and the most innocent of all diuretics. The ignorant reader
(between whom and the former the distinction is extremely nice) will
find himself disposed to stare, which is an admirable remedy for ill
eyes, serves to raise and enliven the spirits, and wonderfully helps
perspiration. But the reader truly learned, chiefly for whose
benefit I wake when others sleep, and sleep when others wake, will
here find sufficient matter to employ his speculations for the rest
of his life. It were much to be wished, and I do here humbly
propose for an experiment, that every prince in Christendom will
take seven of the deepest scholars in his dominions and shut them up
close for seven years in seven chambers, with a command to write
seven ample commentaries on this comprehensive discourse. I shall
venture to affirm that, whatever difference may be found in their
several conjectures, they will be all, without the least distortion,
manifestly deducible from the text. Meantime it is my earnest
request that so useful an undertaking may be entered upon (if their
Majesties please) with all convenient speed, because I have a strong
inclination before I leave the world to taste a blessing which we
mysterious writers can seldom reach till we have got into our
graves, whether it is that fame being a fruit grafted on the body,
can hardly grow and much less ripen till the stock is in the earth,
or whether she be a bird of prey, and is lured among the rest to
pursue after the scent of a carcass, or whether she conceives her
trumpet sounds best and farthest when she stands on a tomb, by the
advantage of a rising ground and the echo of a hollow vault.
It is true, indeed, the republic of dark authors, after they once
found out this excellent expedient of dying, have been peculiarly
happy in the variety as well as extent of their reputation. For
night being the universal mother of things, wise philosophers hold
all writings to be fruitful in the proportion they are dark, and
therefore the true illuminated (that is to say, the darkest of all)
have met with such numberless commentators, whose scholiastic
midwifery hath delivered them of meanings that the authors
themselves perhaps never conceived, and yet may very justly be
allowed the lawful parents of them, the words of such writers being
like seed, which, however scattered at random, when they light upon
a fruitful ground, will multiply far beyond either the hopes or
imagination of the sower.
And therefore, in order to promote so useful a work, I will here
take leave to glance a few innuendos that may be of great assistance
to those sublime spirits who shall be appointed to labour in a
universal comment upon this wonderful discourse. And first, I have
couched a very profound mystery in the number of 0's multiplied by
seven and divided by nine. Also, if a devout brother of the Rosy
Cross will pray fervently for sixty-three mornings with a lively
faith, and then transpose certain letters and syllables according to
prescription, in the second and fifth section they will certainly
reveal into a full receipt of the opus magnum. Lastly, whoever will
be at the pains to calculate the whole number of each letter in this
treatise, and sum up the difference exactly between the several
numbers, assigning the true natural cause for every such difference,
the discoveries in the product will plentifully reward his labour.
But then he must beware of Bythus and Sige, and be sure not to
forget the qualities of Acamoth; a cujus lacrymis humecta prodit
substantia, a risu lucida, a tristitia solida, et a timore mobilis,
wherein Eugenius Philalethes {142} hath committed an unpardonable
mistake.
SECTION XI.--A TALE OF A TUB.
After so wide a compass as I have wandered, I do now gladly overtake
and close in with my subject, and shall henceforth hold on with it
an even pace to the end of my journey, except some beautiful
prospect appears within sight of my way, whereof, though at present
I have neither warning nor expectation, yet upon such an accident,
come when it will, I shall beg my reader's favour and company,
allowing me to conduct him through it along with myself. For in
writing it is as in travelling. If a man is in haste to be at home
(which I acknowledge to be none of my case, having never so little
business as when I am there), if his horse be tired with long riding
and ill ways, or be naturally a jade, I advise him clearly to make
the straightest and the commonest road, be it ever so dirty; but
then surely we must own such a man to be a scurvy companion at best.
He spatters himself and his fellow-travellers at every step. All
their thoughts, and wishes, and conversation turn entirely upon the
subject of their journey's end, and at every splash, and plunge, and
stumble they heartily wish one another at the devil.
On the other side, when a traveller and his horse are in heart and
plight, when his purse is full and the day before him, he takes the
road only where it is clean or convenient, entertains his company
there as agreeably as he can, but upon the first occasion carries
them along with him to every delightful scene in view, whether of
art, of Nature, or of both; and if they chance to refuse out of
stupidity or weariness, let them jog on by themselves, and be d--
n'd. He'll overtake them at the next town, at which arriving, he
rides furiously through, the men, women, and children run out to
gaze, a hundred noisy curs run barking after him, of which, if he
honours the boldest with a lash of his whip, it is rather out of
sport than revenge. But should some sourer mongrel dare too near an
approach, he receives a salute on the chaps by an accidental stroke
from the courser's heels, nor is any ground lost by the blow, which
sends him yelping and limping home.
I now proceed to sum up the singular adventures of my renowned Jack,
the state of whose dispositions and fortunes the careful reader
does, no doubt, most exactly remember, as I last parted with them in
the conclusion of a former section. Therefore, his next care must
be from two of the foregoing to extract a scheme of notions that may
best fit his understanding for a true relish of what is to ensue.
Jack had not only calculated the first revolution of his brain so
prudently as to give rise to that epidemic sect of AEolists, but
succeeding also into a new and strange variety of conceptions, the
fruitfulness of his imagination led him into certain notions which,
although in appearance very unaccountable, were not without their
mysteries and their meanings, nor wanted followers to countenance
and improve them. I shall therefore be extremely careful and exact
in recounting such material passages of this nature as I have been
able to collect either from undoubted tradition or indefatigable
reading, and shall describe them as graphically as it is possible,
and as far as notions of that height and latitude can be brought
within the compass of a pen. Nor do I at all question but they will
furnish plenty of noble matter for such whose converting
imaginations dispose them to reduce all things into types, who can
make shadows--no thanks to the sun--and then mould them into
substances--no thanks to philosophy--whose peculiar talent lies in
fixing tropes and allegories to the letter, and refining what is
literal into figure and mystery.
Jack had provided a fair copy of his father's will, engrossed in
form upon a large skin of parchment, and resolving to act the part
of a most dutiful son, he became the fondest creature of it
imaginable. For although, as I have often told the reader, it
consisted wholly in certain plain, easy directions about the
management and wearing of their coats, with legacies and penalties
in case of obedience or neglect, yet he began to entertain a fancy
that the matter was deeper and darker, and therefore must needs have
a great deal more of mystery at the bottom. "Gentlemen," said he,
"I will prove this very skin of parchment to be meat, drink, and
cloth, to be the philosopher's stone and the universal medicine."
In consequence of which raptures he resolved to make use of it in
the most necessary as well as the most paltry occasions of life. He
had a way of working it into any shape he pleased, so that it served
him for a nightcap when he went to bed, and for an umbrella in rainy
weather. He would lap a piece of it about a sore toe; or, when he
had fits, burn two inches under his nose; or, if anything lay heavy
on his stomach, scrape off and swallow as much of the powder as
would lie on a silver penny--they were all infallible remedies.
With analogy to these refinements, his common talk and conversation
ran wholly in the praise of his Will, and he circumscribed the
utmost of his eloquence within that compass, not daring to let slip
a syllable without authority from thence. Once at a strange house
he was suddenly taken short upon an urgent juncture, whereon it may
not be allowed too particularly to dilate, and being not able to
call to mind, with that suddenness the occasion required, an
authentic phrase for demanding the way to the back, he chose rather,
as the more prudent course, to incur the penalty in such cases
usually annexed; neither was it possible for the united rhetoric of
mankind to prevail with him to make himself clean again, because,
having consulted the will upon this emergency, he met with a passage
near the bottom (whether foisted in by the transcriber is not known)
which seemed to forbid it {145a}.
He made it a part of his religion never to say grace to his meat,
nor could all the world persuade him, as the common phrase is, to
eat his victuals like a Christian {145b}.
He bore a strange kind of appetite to snap-dragon and to the livid
snuffs of a burning candle {146a}, which he would catch and swallow
with an agility wonderful to conceive; and by this procedure
maintained a perpetual flame in his belly, which issuing in a
glowing steam from both his eyes, as well as his nostrils and his
mouth, made his head appear in a dark night like the skull of an ass
wherein a roguish boy hath conveyed a farthing-candle, to the terror
of his Majesty's liege subjects. Therefore he made use of no other
expedient to light himself home, but was wont to say that a wise man
was his own lanthorn.
He would shut his eyes as he walked along the streets, and if he
happened to bounce his head against a post or fall into the kennel
(as he seldom missed either to do one or both), he would tell the
gibing apprentices who looked on that he submitted with entire
resignation, as to a trip or a blow of fate, with whom he found by
long experience how vain it was either to wrestle or to cuff, and
whoever durst undertake to do either would be sure to come off with
a swingeing fall or a bloody nose. "It was ordained," said he
{146b}, "some few days before the creation, that my nose and this
very post should have a rencounter, and therefore Providence thought
fit to send us both into the world in the same age, and to make us
countrymen and fellow-citizens. Now, had my eyes been open, it is
very likely the business might have been a great deal worse, for how
many a confounded slip is daily got by man with all his foresight
about him. Besides, the eyes of the understanding see best when
those of the senses are out of the way, and therefore blind men are
observed to tread their steps with much more caution, and conduct,
and judgment than those who rely with too much confidence upon the
virtue of the visual nerve, which every little accident shakes out
of order, and a drop or a film can wholly disconcert; like a
lanthorn among a pack of roaring bullies when they scour the
streets, exposing its owner and itself to outward kicks and buffets,
which both might have escaped if the vanity of appearing would have
suffered them to walk in the dark. But further, if we examine the
conduct of these boasted lights, it will prove yet a great deal
worse than their fortune. It is true I have broke my nose against
this post, because Providence either forgot, or did not think it
convenient, to twitch me by the elbow and give me notice to avoid
it. But let not this encourage either the present age of posterity
to trust their noses unto the keeping of their eyes, which may prove
the fairest way of losing them for good and all. For, O ye eyes, ye
blind guides, miserable guardians are ye of our frail noses; ye, I
say, who fasten upon the first precipice in view, and then tow our
wretched willing bodies after you to the very brink of destruction.
But alas! that brink is rotten, our feet slip, and we tumble down
prone into a gulf, without one hospitable shrub in the way to break
the fall--a fall to which not any nose of mortal make is equal,
except that of the giant Laurcalco {147a}, who was Lord of the
Silver Bridge. Most properly, therefore, O eyes, and with great
justice, may you be compared to those foolish lights which conduct
men through dirt and darkness till they fall into a deep pit or a
noisome bog."
This I have produced as a scantling of Jack's great eloquence and
the force of his reasoning upon such abstruse matters.
He was, besides, a person of great design and improvement in affairs
of devotion, having introduced a new deity, who has since met with a
vast number of worshippers, by some called Babel, by others Chaos,
who had an ancient temple of Gothic structure upon Salisbury plain,
famous for its shrine and celebration by pilgrims.
When he had some roguish trick to play, he would down with his
knees, up with his eyes, and fall to prayers though in the midst of
the kennel. Then it was that those who understood his pranks would
be sure to get far enough out of his way; and whenever curiosity
attracted strangers to laugh or to listen, he would of a sudden
bespatter them with mud.
In winter he went always loose and unbuttoned, and clad as thin as
possible to let in the ambient heat, and in summer lapped himself
close and thick to keep it out {147b}.
In all revolutions of government, he would make his court for the
office of hangman-general, and in the exercise of that dignity,
wherein he was very dexterous, would make use of no other vizard
than a long prayer.
He had a tongue so musculous and subtile, that he could twist it up
into his nose and deliver a strange kind of speech from thence. He
was also the first in these kingdoms who began to improve the
Spanish accomplishment of braying; and having large ears perpetually
exposed and erected, he carried his art to such a perfection, that
it was a point of great difficulty to distinguish either by the view
or the sound between the original and the copy.
He was troubled with a disease the reverse to that called the
stinging of the tarantula, and would run dog-mad at the noise of
music, especially a pair of bagpipes {148a}. But he would cure
himself again by taking two or three turns in Westminster Hall, or
Billingsgate, or in a boarding-school, or the Royal Exchange, or a
state coffee-house.
He was a person that feared no colours, but mortally hated all, and
upon that account bore a cruel aversion to painters, insomuch that
in his paroxysms as he walked the streets, he would have his pockets
loaded with stones to pelt at the signs {148b}.
Having from his manner of living frequent occasions to wash himself,
he would often leap over head and ears into the water, though it
were in the midst of the winter, but was always observed to come out
again much dirtier, if possible, than he went in {148c}.
He was the first that ever found out the secret of contriving a
soporiferous medicine to be conveyed in at the ears {148d}. It was
a compound of sulphur and balm of Gilead, with a little pilgrim's
salve.
He wore a large plaister of artificial caustics on his stomach, with
the fervour of which he could set himself a groaning like the famous
board upon application of a red-hot iron.
He would stand in the turning of a street, and calling to those who
passed by, would cry to one, "Worthy sir, do me the honour of a good
slap in the chaps;" to another, "Honest friend, pray favour me with
a handsome kick in the rear;" "Madam, shall I entreat a small box in
the ear from your ladyship's fair hands?" "Noble captain, lend a
reasonable thwack, for the love of God, with that cane of yours over
these poor shoulders." And when he had by such earnest
solicitations made a shift to procure a basting sufficient to swell
up his fancy and his sides, he would return home extremely
comforted, and full of terrible accounts of what he had undergone
for the public good. "Observe this stroke," said he, showing his
bare shoulders; "a plaguy janissary gave it me this very morning at
seven o'clock, as, with much ado, I was driving off the Great Turk.
Neighbours mine, this broken head deserves a plaister; had poor Jack
been tender of his noddle, you would have seen the Pope and the
French King long before this time of day among your wives and your
warehouses. Dear Christians, the Great Moghul was come as far as
Whitechapel, and you may thank these poor sides that he hath not--
God bless us--already swallowed up man, woman, and child."
It was highly worth observing the singular effects of that aversion
or antipathy which Jack and his brother Peter seemed, even to
affectation, to bear towards each other. Peter had lately done some
rogueries that forced him to abscond, and he seldom ventured to stir
out before night for fear of bailiffs. Their lodgings were at the
two most distant parts of the town from each other, and whenever
their occasions or humours called them abroad, they would make
choice of the oddest, unlikely times, and most uncouth rounds that
they could invent, that they might be sure to avoid one another.
Yet, after all this, it was their perpetual fortune to meet, the
reason of which is easy enough to apprehend, for the frenzy and the
spleen of both having the same foundation, we may look upon them as
two pair of compasses equally extended, and the fixed foot of each
remaining in the same centre, which, though moving contrary ways at
first, will be sure to encounter somewhere or other in the
circumference. Besides, it was among the great misfortunes of Jack
to bear a huge personal resemblance with his brother Peter. Their
humour and dispositions were not only the same, but there was a
close analogy in their shape, their size, and their mien; insomuch
as nothing was more frequent than for a bailiff to seize Jack by the
shoulders and cry, "Mr. Peter, you are the king's prisoner;" or, at
other times, for one of Peter's nearest friends to accost Jack with
open arms: "Dear Peter, I am glad to see thee; pray send me one of
your best medicines for the worms." This, we may suppose, was a
mortifying return of those pains and proceedings Jack had laboured
in so long, and finding how directly opposite all his endeavours had
answered to the sole end and intention which he had proposed to
himself, how could it avoid having terrible effects upon a head and
heart so furnished as his? However, the poor remainders of his coat
bore all the punishment. The orient sun never entered upon his
diurnal progress without missing a piece of it. He hired a tailor
to stitch up the collar so close that it was ready to choke him, and
squeezed out his eyes at such a rate as one could see nothing but
the white. What little was left of the main substance of the coat
he rubbed every day for two hours against a rough-cast wall, in
order to grind away the remnants of lace and embroidery, but at the
same time went on with so much violence that he proceeded a heathen
philosopher. Yet after all he could do of this kind, the success
continued still to disappoint his expectation, for as it is the
nature of rags to bear a kind of mock resemblance to finery, there
being a sort of fluttering appearance in both, which is not to be
distinguished at a distance in the dark or by short-sighted eyes, so
in those junctures it fared with Jack and his tatters, that they
offered to the first view a ridiculous flaunting, which, assisting
the resemblance in person and air, thwarted all his projects of
separation, and left so near a similitude between them as frequently
deceived the very disciples and followers of both . . . Desunt
nonnulla, . . .
The old Sclavonian proverb said well that it is with men as with
asses; whoever would keep them fast must find a very good hold at
their ears. Yet I think we may affirm, and it hath been verified by
repeated experience, that -
"Effugiet tamen haec sceleratus vincula Proteus." {151a}
It is good, therefore, to read the maxims of our ancestors with
great allowances to times and persons; for if we look into primitive
records we shall find that no revolutions have been so great or so
frequent as those of human ears. In former days there was a curious
invention to catch and keep them, which I think we may justly reckon
among the artes perditae; and how can it be otherwise, when in these
latter centuries the very species is not only diminished to a very
lamentable degree, but the poor remainder is also degenerated so far
as to mock our skilfullest tenure? For if only the slitting of one
ear in a stag hath been found sufficient to propagate the defect
through a whole forest, why should we wonder at the greatest
consequences, from so many loppings and mutilations to which the
ears of our fathers and our own have been of late so much exposed?
It is true, indeed, that while this island of ours was under the
dominion of grace, many endeavours were made to improve the growth
of ears once more among us. The proportion of largeness was not
only looked upon as an ornament of the outward man, but as a type of
grace in the inward. Besides, it is held by naturalists that if
there be a protuberancy of parts in the superior region of the body,
as in the ears and nose, there must be a parity also in the
inferior; and therefore in that truly pious age the males in every
assembly, according as they were gifted, appeared very forward in
exposing their ears to view, and the regions about them; because
Hippocrates {151b} tells us that when the vein behind the ear
happens to be cut, a man becomes a eunuch, and the females were
nothing backwarder in beholding and edifying by them; whereof those
who had already used the means looked about them with great concern,
in hopes of conceiving a suitable offspring by such a prospect;
others, who stood candidates for benevolence, found there a
plentiful choice, and were sure to fix upon such as discovered the
largest ears, that the breed might not dwindle between them.
Lastly, the devouter sisters, who looked upon all extraordinary
dilatations of that member as protrusions of zeal, or spiritual
excrescences, were sure to honour every head they sat upon as if
they had been cloven tongues, but especially that of the preacher,
whose ears were usually of the prime magnitude, which upon that
account he was very frequent and exact in exposing with all
advantages to the people in his rhetorical paroxysms, turning
sometimes to hold forth the one, and sometimes to hold forth the
other; from which custom the whole operation of preaching is to this
very day among their professors styled by the phrase of holding
forth.
Such was the progress of the saints for advancing the size of that
member, and it is thought the success would have been every way
answerable, if in process of time a cruel king had not arose, who
raised a bloody persecution against all ears above a certain
standard {152a}; upon which some were glad to hide their flourishing
sprouts in a black border, others crept wholly under a periwig; some
were slit, others cropped, and a great number sliced off to the
stumps. But of this more hereafter in my general "History of Ears,"
which I design very speedily to bestow upon the public.
From this brief survey of the falling state of ears in the last age,
and the small care had to advance their ancient growth in the
present, it is manifest how little reason we can have to rely upon a
hold so short, so weak, and so slippery; and that whoever desires to
catch mankind fast must have recourse to some other methods. Now he
that will examine human nature with circumspection enough may
discover several handles, whereof the six {152b} senses afford one
apiece, beside a great number that are screwed to the passions, and
some few riveted to the intellect. Among these last, curiosity is
one, and of all others affords the firmest grasp; curiosity, that
spur in the side, that bridle in the mouth, that ring in the nose of
a lazy, an impatient, and a grunting reader. By this handle it is
that an author should seize upon his readers; which as soon as he
hath once compassed, all resistance and struggling are in vain, and
they become his prisoners as close as he pleases, till weariness or
dulness force him to let go his grip.
And therefore I, the author of this miraculous treatise, having
hitherto, beyond expectation, maintained by the aforesaid handle a
firm hold upon my gentle readers, it is with great reluctance that I
am at length compelled to remit my grasp, leaving them in the
perusal of what remains to that natural oscitancy inherent in the
tribe. I can only assure thee, courteous reader, for both our
comforts, that my concern is altogether equal to thine, for my
unhappiness in losing or mislaying among my papers the remaining
part of these memoirs, which consisted of accidents, turns, and
adventures, both new, agreeable, and surprising, and therefore
calculated in all due points to the delicate taste of this our noble
age. But alas! with my utmost endeavours I have been able only to
retain a few of the heads. Under which there was a full account how
Peter got a protection out of the King's Bench, and of a
reconcilement between Jack and him, upon a design they had in a
certain rainy night to trepan brother Martin into a spunging-house,
and there strip him to the skin. How Martin, with much ado, showed
them both a fair pair of heels. How a new warrant came out against
Peter, upon which Jack left him in the lurch, stole his protection,
and made use of it himself. How Jack's tatters came into fashion in
court and city; how he got upon a great horse and ate custard {153}.
But the particulars of all these, with several others which have now
slid out of my memory, are lost beyond all hopes of recovery. For
which misfortune, leaving my readers to condole with each other as
far as they shall find it to agree with their several constitutions,
but conjuring them by all the friendship that has passed between us,
from the title-page to this, not to proceed so far as to injure
their healths for an accident past remedy, I now go on to the
ceremonial part of an accomplished writer, and therefore by a
courtly modern least of all others to be omitted.
THE CONCLUSION.
Going too long is a cause of abortion as effectual, though not so
frequent, as going too short, and holds true especially in the
labours of the brain. Well fare the heart of that noble Jesuit
{155} who first adventured to confess in print that books must be
suited to their several seasons, like dress, and diet, and
diversions; and better fare our noble notion for refining upon this
among other French modes. I am living fast to see the time when a
book that misses its tide shall be neglected as the moon by day, or
like mackerel a week after the season. No man has more nicely
observed our climate than the bookseller who bought the copy of this
work. He knows to a tittle what subjects will best go off in a dry
year, and which it is proper to expose foremost when the weather-
glass is fallen to much rain. When he had seen this treatise and
consulted his almanac upon it, he gave me to understand that he had
manifestly considered the two principal things, which were the bulk
and the subject, and found it would never take but after a long
vacation, and then only in case it should happen to be a hard year
for turnips. Upon which I desired to know, considering my urgent
necessities, what he thought might be acceptable this month. He
looked westward and said, "I doubt we shall have a bit of bad
weather. However, if you could prepare some pretty little banter
(but not in verse), or a small treatise upon the it would run like
wildfire. But if it hold up, I have already hired an author to
write something against Dr. Bentley, which I am sure will turn to
account."
At length we agreed upon this expedient, that when a customer comes
for one of these, and desires in confidence to know the author, he
will tell him very privately as a friend, naming whichever of the
wits shall happen to be that week in the vogue, and if Durfey's last
play should be in course, I had as lieve he may be the person as
Congreve. This I mention, because I am wonderfully well acquainted
with the present relish of courteous readers, and have often
observed, with singular pleasure, that a fly driven from a honey-pot
will immediately, with very good appetite, alight and finish his
meal on an excrement.
I have one word to say upon the subject of profound writers, who are
grown very numerous of late, and I know very well the judicious
world is resolved to list me in that number. I conceive, therefore,
as to the business of being profound, that it is with writers as
with wells. A person with good eyes can see to the bottom of the
deepest, provided any water be there; and that often when there is
nothing in the world at the bottom besides dryness and dirt, though
it be but a yard and half under ground, it shall pass, however, for
wondrous deep, upon no wiser a reason than because it is wondrous
dark.
I am now trying an experiment very frequent among modern authors,
which is to write upon nothing, when the subject is utterly
exhausted to let the pen still move on; by some called the ghost of
wit, delighting to walk after the death of its body. And to say the
truth, there seems to be no part of knowledge in fewer hands than
that of discerning when to have done. By the time that an author
has written out a book, he and his readers are become old
acquaintance, and grow very loathe to part; so that I have sometimes
known it to be in writing as in visiting, where the ceremony of
taking leave has employed more time than the whole conversation
before. The conclusion of a treatise resembles the conclusion of
human life, which has sometimes been compared to the end of a feast,
where few are satisfied to depart ut plenus vitae conviva. For men
will sit down after the fullest meal, though it be only to dose or
to sleep out the rest of the day. But in this latter I differ
extremely from other writers, and shall be too proud if, by all my
labours, I can have any ways contributed to the repose of mankind in
times so turbulent and unquiet as these. Neither do I think such an
employment so very alien from the office of a wit as some would
suppose; for among a very polite nation in Greece {157} there were
the same temples built and consecrated to Sleep and the Muses,
between which two deities they believed the strictest friendship was
established.
I have one concluding favour to request of my reader, that he will
not expect to be equally diverted and informed by every line or
every page of this discourse, but give some allowance to the
author's spleen and short fits or intervals of dulness, as well as
his own, and lay it seriously to his conscience whether, if he were
walking the streets in dirty weather or a rainy day, he would allow
it fair dealing in folks at their ease from a window, to criticise
his gate and ridicule his dress at such a juncture.
In my disposure of employments of the brain, I have thought fit to
make invention the master, and to give method and reason the office
of its lackeys. The cause of this distribution was from observing
it my peculiar case to be often under a temptation of being witty
upon occasion where I could be neither wise nor sound, nor anything
to the matter in hand. And I am too much a servant of the modern
way to neglect any such opportunities, whatever pains or
improprieties I may be at to introduce them. For I have observed
that from a laborious collection of seven hundred and thirty-eight
flowers and shining hints of the best modern authors, digested with
great reading into my book of common places, I have not been able
after five years to draw, hook, or force into common conversation
any more than a dozen. Of which dozen the one moiety failed of
success by being dropped among unsuitable company, and the other
cost me so many strains, and traps, and ambages to introduce, that I
at length resolved to give it over. Now this disappointment (to
discover a secret), I must own, gave me the first hint of setting up
for an author, and I have since found among some particular friends
that it is become a very general complaint, and has produced the
same effects upon many others. For I have remarked many a towardly
word to be wholly neglected or despised in discourse, which hath
passed very smoothly with some consideration and esteem after its
preferment and sanction in print. But now, since, by the liberty
and encouragement of the press, I am grown absolute master of the
occasions and opportunities to expose the talents I have acquired, I
already discover that the issues of my observanda begin to grow too
large for the receipts. Therefore I shall here pause awhile, till I
find, by feeling the world's pulse and my own, that it will be of
absolute necessity for us both to resume my pen.
[In some early editions of "The Tale of a Tub," Swift added, under
the title of "What Follows after Section IX.," the following sketch
for a "History of Martin."]
THE HISTORY OF MARTIN.
Giving an account of his departure from Jack, and their setting up
for themselves, on which account they were obliged to travel, and
meet many disasters; finding no shelter near Peter's habitation,
Martin succeeds in the North; Peter thunders against Martin for the
loss of the large revenue he used to receive from thence; Harry Huff
sent Marlin a challenge in fight, which he received; Peter rewards
Harry for the pretended victory, which encouraged Harry to huff
Peter also; with many other extraordinary adventures of the said
Martin in several places with many considerable persons.
With a digression concerning the nature, usefulness, and necessity
of wars and quarrels.
How Jack and Martin, being parted, set up each for himself. How
they travelled over hills and dales, met many disasters, suffered
much from the good cause, and struggled with difficulties and wants,
not having where to lay their head; by all which they afterwards
proved themselves to be right father's sons, and Peter to be
spurious. Finding no shelter near Peter's habitation, Martin
travelled northwards, and finding the Thuringians, a neighbouring
people, disposed to change, he set up his stage first among them,
where, making it his business to cry down Peter's powders, plasters,
salves, and drugs, which he had sold a long time at a dear rate,
allowing Martin none of the profit, though he had been often
employed in recommending and putting them off, the good people,
willing to save their pence, began to hearken to Martin's speeches.
How several great lords took the hint, and on the same account
declared for Martin; particularly one who, not having had enough of
one wife, wanted to marry a second, and knowing Peter used not to
grant such licenses but at a swingeing price, he struck up a bargain
with Martin, whom he found more tractable, and who assured him he
had the same power to allow such things. How most of the other
Northern lords, for their own private ends, withdrew themselves and
their dependants from Peter's authority, and closed in with Martin.
How Peter, enraged at the loss of such large territories, and
consequently of so much revenue, thundered against Martin, and sent
out the strongest and most terrible of his bulls to devour him; but
this having no effect, and Martin defending himself boldly and
dexterously, Peter at last put forth proclamations declaring Martin
and all his adherents rebels and traitors, ordaining and requiring
all his loving subjects to take up arms, and to kill, burn, and
destroy all and every one of them, promising large rewards, &c.,
upon which ensued bloody wars and desolation.
How Harry Huff {160a}, lord of Albion, one of the greatest bullies
of those days, sent a cartel to Martin to fight him on a stage at
Cudgels, quarter-staff, backsword, &c. Hence the origin of that
genteel custom of prize-fighting so well known and practised to this
day among those polite islanders, though unknown everywhere else.
How Martin, being a bold, blustering fellow, accepted the challenge;
how they met and fought, to the great diversion of the spectators;
and, after giving one another broken heads and many bloody wounds
and bruises, how they both drew off victorious, in which their
example has been frequently imitated by great clerks and others
since that time. How Martin's friends applauded his victory, and
how Lord Harry's friends complimented him on the same score, and
particularly Lord Peter, who sent him a fine feather for his cap
{160b}, to be worn by him and his successors as a perpetual mark for
his bold defence of Lord Peter's cause. How Harry, flushed with his
pretended victory over Martin, began to huff Peter also, and at last
downright quarrelled with him about a wench. How some of Lord
Harry's tenants, ever fond of changes, began to talk kindly of
Martin, for which he mauled them soundly, as he did also those that
adhered to Peter. How he turned some out of house and hold, others
he hanged or burnt, &c.
How Harry Huff, after a deal of blustering, wenching, and bullying,
died, and was succeeded by a good-natured boy {161a}, who, giving
way to the general bent of his tenants, allowed Martin's notions to
spread everywhere, and take deep root in Ambition. How, after his
death, the farm fell into the hands of a lady {161b}, who was
violently in love with Lord Peter. How she purged the whole country
with fire and sword, resolved not to leave the name or remembrance
of Martin. How Peter triumphed, and set up shops again for selling
his own powders, plasters, and salves, which were now declared the
only true ones, Martin's being all declared counterfeit. How great
numbers of Martin's friends left the country, and, travelling up and
down in foreign parts, grew acquainted with many of Jack's
followers, and took a liking to many of their notions and ways,
which they afterwards brought back into ambition, now under another
landlady {161c}, more moderate and more cunning than the former.
How she endeavoured to keep friendship both with Peter and Martin,
and trimmed for some time between the two, not without countenancing
and assisting at the same time many of Jack's followers; but
finding, no possibility of reconciling all the three brothers,
because each would be master, and allow no other salves, powders, or
plasters to be used but his own, she discarded all three, and set up
a shop for those of her own farm, well furnished with powders,
plasters, salves, and all other drugs necessary, all right and true,
composed according to receipts made by physicians and apothecaries
of her own creating, which they extracted out of Peter's, and
Martin's, and Jack's receipt-books, and of this medley or hodge-
podge made up a dispensatory of their own, strictly forbidding any
other to be used, and particularly Peter's, from which the greatest
part of this new dispensatory was stolen. How the lady, farther to
confirm this change, wisely imitating her father, degraded Peter
from the rank he pretended as eldest brother, and set up herself in
his place as head of the family, and ever after wore her father's
old cap with the fine feather he had got from Peter for standing his
friend, which has likewise been worn with no small ostentation to
this day by all her successors, though declared enemies to Peter.
How Lady Bess and her physicians, being told of many defects and
imperfections in their new medley dispensatory, resolve on a further
alteration, to purge it from a great deal of Peter's trash that
still remained in it, but were prevented by her death. How she was
succeeded by a North-Country farmer {162a}, who pretended great
skill in the managing of farms, though he could never govern his own
poor little farm, nor yet this large new one after he got it. How
this new landlord, to show his valour and dexterity, fought against
enchanters, weeds, giants, and windmills, and claimed great honour
for his victories. How his successor, no wiser than he, occasioned
great disorders by the new methods he took to manage his farms. How
he attempted to establish in his Northern farm the same dispensatory
{162b} used in the Southern, but miscarried, because Jack's powders,
pills, salves, and plasters were there in great vogue.
How the author finds himself embarrassed for having introduced into
his history a new sect different from the three he had undertaken to
treat of; and how his inviolable respect to the sacred number three
obliges him to reduce these four, as he intends to do all other
things, to that number; and for that end to drop the former Martin
and to substitute in his place Lady Bess's institution, which is to
pass under the name of Martin in the sequel of this true history.
This weighty point being cleared, the author goes on and describes
mighty quarrels and squabbles between Jack and Martin; how sometimes
the one had the better and sometimes the other, to the great
desolation of both farms, till at last both sides concur to hang up
the landlord {162c}, who pretended to die a martyr for Martin,
though he had been true to neither side, and was suspected by many
to have a great affection for Peter.
A DIGRESSION ON THE NATURE, USEFULNESS, AND NECESSITY OF WARS AND
QUARRELS.
This being a matter of great consequence, the author intends to
treat it methodically and at large in a treatise apart, and here to
give only some hints of what his large treatise contains. The state
of war, natural to all creatures. War is an attempt to take by
violence from others a part of what they have and we want. Every
man, fully sensible of his own merit, and finding it not duly
regarded by others, has a natural right to take from them all that
he thinks due to himself; and every creature, finding its own wants
more than those of others, has the same right to take everything its
nature requires. Brutes, much more modest in their pretensions this
way than men, and mean men more than great ones. The higher one
raises his pretensions this way, the more bustle he makes about
them, and the more success he has, the greater hero. Thus greater
souls, in proportion to their superior merit, claim a greater right
to take everything from meaner folks. This the true foundation of
grandeur and heroism, and of the distinction of degrees among men.
War, therefore, necessary to establish subordination, and to found
cities, kingdoms, &c., as also to purge bodies politic of gross
humours. Wise princes find it necessary to have wars abroad to keep
peace at home. War, famine, and pestilence, the usual cures for
corruption in bodies politic. A comparison of these three--the
author is to write a panegyric on each of them. The greatest part
of mankind loves war more than peace. They are but few and mean-
spirited that live in peace with all men. The modest and meek of
all kinds always a prey to those of more noble or stronger
appetites. The inclination to war universal; those that cannot or
dare not make war in person employ others to do it for them. This
maintains bullies, bravoes, cut-throats, lawyers, soldiers, &c.
Most professions would be useless if all were peaceable. Hence
brutes want neither smiths nor lawyers, magistrates nor joiners,
soldiers or surgeons. Brutes having but narrow appetites, are
incapable of carrying on or perpetuating war against their own
species, or of being led out in troops and multitudes to destroy one
another. These prerogatives proper to man alone. The excellency of
human nature demonstrated by the vast train of appetites, passions,
wants, &c., that attend it. This matter to be more fully treated in
the author's panegyric on mankind.
THE HISTORY OF MARTIN--Continued.
How Jack, having got rid of the old landlord, set up another to his
mind, quarrelled with Martin, and turned him out of doors. How he
pillaged all his shops, and abolished his whole dispensatory. How
the new landlord {164a} laid about him, mauled Peter, worried
Martin, and made the whole neighbourhood tremble. How Jack's
friends fell out among themselves, split into a thousand parties,
turned all things topsy-turvy, till everybody grew weary of them;
and at last, the blustering landlord dying, Jack was kicked out of
doors, a new landlord {164b} brought in, and Martin re-established.
How this new landlord let Martin do what he pleased, and Martin
agreed to everything his pious landlord desired, provided Jack might
be kept low. Of several efforts Jack made to raise up his head, but
all in vain; till at last the landlord died, and was succeeded by
one {164c} who was a great friend to Peter, who, to humble Martin,
gave Jack some liberty. How Martin grew enraged at this, called in
a foreigner {164d} and turned out the landlord; in which Jack
concurred with Martin, because this landlord was entirely devoted to
Peter, into whose arms he threw himself, and left his country. How
the new landlord secured Martin in the full possession of his former
rights, but would not allow him to destroy Jack, who had always been
his friend. How Jack got up his head in the North, and put himself
in possession of a whole canton, to the great discontent of Martin,
who finding also that some of Jack's friends were allowed to live
and get their bread in the south parts of the country, grew highly
discontented with the new landlord he had called in to his
assistance. How this landlord kept Martin in order, upon which he
fell into a raging fever, and swore he would hang himself or join in
with Peter, unless Jack's children were all turned out to starve.
Of several attempts to cure Martin, and make peace between him and
Jack, that they might unite against Peter; but all made ineffectual
by the great address of a number of Peter's friends, that herded
among Martin's, and appeared the most zealous for his interest. How
Martin, getting abroad in this mad fit, looked so like Peter in his
air and dress, and talked so like him, that many of the neighbours
could not distinguish the one from the other; especially when Martin
went up and down strutting in Peter's armour, which he had borrowed
to fight Jack {165a}. What remedies were used to cure Martin's
distemper . . .
Here the author being seized with a fit of dulness, to which he is
very subject, after having read a poetical epistle addressed to . .
. it entirely composed his senses, so that he has not writ a line
since.
N.B.--Some things that follow after this are not in the MS., but
seem to have been written since, to fill up the place of what was
not thought convenient then to print.
A PROJECT FOR THE UNIVERSAL BENEFIT OF MANKIND.
The author, having laboured so long and done so much to serve and
instruct the public, without any advantage to himself, has at last
thought of a project which will tend to the great benefit of all
mankind, and produce a handsome revenue to the author. He intends
to print by subscription, in ninety-six large volumes in folio, an
exact description of Terra Australis incognita, collected with great
care, and prints from 999 learned and pious authors of undoubted
veracity. The whole work, illustrated with maps and cuts agreeable
to the subject, and done by the best masters, will cost but one
guinea each volume to subscribers, one guinea to be paid in advance,
and afterwards a guinea on receiving each volume, except the last.
This work will be of great use for all men, and necessary for all
families, because it contains exact accounts of all the provinces,
colonies, and mansions of that spacious country, where, by a general
doom, all transgressors of the law are to be transported; and every
one having this work may choose out the fittest and best place for
himself, there being enough for all, so as every one shall be fully
satisfied.
