preserve them from falling. Resolving, therefore, to rid his coat of a great quantity of gold-lace, he picked up the stitches with much caution, and dili5 gently gleaned out all the loose threads as he went, which proved to be a work of time. Then he fell about the embroidered Indian figures of men, women, and children; against which, as you have and But here the severe reader may justly tax me as a writer of short memory, a deficiency to which a true modern cannot but of necessity be a little subject. Because memory, being an employment of the mind upon things past, is a faculty for which the learned in our illustrious age have no manner of occasion, who deal entirely with invention, and strike all things out of themselves, or at 10 heard in its due place, their father's least by collision from each other: upon which account we think it highly reasonable to produce our great forgetfulness as an argument unanswerable for our great wit. I ought in method to have informed i the reader, about fifty pages ago, of a fancy lord Peter took, and infused into his brothers, to wear on their coats whatever trimmings came up in fashion; never pulling off any as they went out of the 20 mode, but keeping on all together, which amounted in time to a medley the most antic you can possibly conceive; and this to a degree, that upon the time of their falling out there was hardly a thread of 25 the original coat to be seen; but an infinite quantity of lace, and ribbons, and fringe, and embroidery, and points; I mean only those tagged with silver, for the rest fell off. Now this material cir- 30 cumstance, having been forgot in due place, as good fortune hath ordered, comes in very properly here when the two brothers are just going to reform their vestures into the primitive state 35 prescribed by their father's will. testament was extremely exact But his brother Jack, whose adventures will be so extraordinary as to furnish a great part in the remainder of this discourse, entered upon the matter with other thoughts and a quite different spirit. For the memory of lord Peter's injuries produced a degree of hatred and spite which had a much greater share of inciting him than any regards after hist father's commands; since these appeared, at best, only secondary and subservient to the other. However, for this medley of humor he made a shift to find a very plausible name, honoring it with the title of zeal; which is perhaps the most significant word that has been ever yet produced in any language: as I think I have fully proved in my excellent analytical discourse upon that subject; wherein I have deduced a histori-theophysi-logical account of zeal, showing how it first proceeded from a notion into a word, and thence, in a hot summer, ripened into a tangible substance. This work, containing three large volumes in 55 folio, I design very shortly to publish by the modern way of subscription, not doubting but the nobility and gentry of the land will give me all possible en They both unanimously entered upon this great work, looking sometimes on their coats; and sometimes on the will. Martin laid the first hand; at one twitch 40 brought off a large handful of points; and, with a second pull, stripped away ten dozen yards of fringe. But when he had gone thus far he demurred a while: he knew very well there yet remained a 45 great deal more to be done; however, the first heat being over, his violence began to cool, and he resolved to proceed more moderately in the rest of the work, having already narrowly escaped a swinging rent, in pulling off the points, which, being tagged with silver (as we have observed before), the judicious workman had, with much sagacity, double sewn, to 1 Points tagged with silver are those doctrines that promote the greatness and wealth of the Church, which have been therefore woven deepest into the body of popery. 50 couragement; having had already such a taste of what I am able perform. their actions by any reflection upon Peter, but by observing the rules prescribed in their father's will. That he should remember Peter was still their 5 brother, whatever faults or injuries he had committed; and therefore they should by all means avoid such a thought as that of taking measures for good and evil from no other rule than of opposition to him. That it was true, the testament of their good father was very exact in what related to the wearing of their coats: yet it was no less penal and strict in prescribing agreement, and friendship, and affection between them. And therefore, if straining a point were at all dispensable, it would certainly be so rather to the advance of unity than increase of contradiction. I record, therefore, that brother Jack, brimful of this miraculous compound, reflecting with indignation upon Peter's tyranny, and farther provoked by the despondency of Martin, prefaced his resolutions to this purpose. 'What,' said he, a rogue that locked up his drink, turned away our wives, cheated us of our 10 fortunes; palmed his damned crusts upon us for mutton; and at last kicked us out of doors; must we be in his fashions, with a pox? A rascal, besides, that all the street cries out against.' Having 15 thus kindled and inflamed himself as high as possible, and by consequence in a delicate temper for beginning a reformation, he set about the work immediately; and in three minutes made more despatch 20 than Martin had done in as many hours. For, courteous reader, you are given to understand that zeal is never so highly obliged as when you set it a-tearing; and Jack, who doted on that quality in him- 25 self, allowed it at this time its full swing. Thus it happened that, stripping down a parcel of gold lace a little too hastily, he rent the main body of his coat from top to bottom; and whereas his talent 30 was not of the happiest in taking up a stitch, he knew no better way than to darn it again with packthread and a skewer. But the matter was yet infinitely worse (I record it with tears) 35 when he proceeded to the embroidery: for, being clumsy by nature, and of temper impatient; withal, beholding millions of stitches that required the nicest hand and sedatest constitution to extri- 40 cate; in a great rage he tore off the whole piece, cloth and all, and flung them into the kennel, and furiously thus continuing his career: 'Ah, good brother Martin,' said he, do as I do, for the love of 45 God; strip, tear, pull, rend, flay off all, that we may appear as unlike the rogue Peter as it is possible; I would not for a hundred pounds carry the least mark about me that might give occasion to the 50 neighbors of suspecting that I was related to such a rascal.' But Martin, who at this time happened to be extremely phlegmatic and sedate, begged his brother, of all love, not to damage his 55 coat by any means; for he never would get such another: desired him to consider that it was not their business to form MARTIN had still proceeded as gravely as he began, and doubtless would have delivered an admirable lecture of morality, which might have exceedingly contributed to my reader's repose both of body and mind, the true ultimate end of ethics; but Jack was already gone a flight-shot beyond his patience. And as in scholastic disputes nothing serves to rouse the spleen of him that opposes so much as a kind of pedantic affected calmness in the respondent; disputants being for the most part like unequal scales, where the gravity of one side advances the lightness of the other, and causes it to fly up and kick the beam; so it happened here that the weight of Martin's argument exalted Jack's levity, and made him fly out, and spurn against his brother's moderation. In short, Martin's patience put Jack in a rage; but that which most afflicted him was, to observe his brother's coat so well reduced into the state of innocence; while his own was either wholly rent to his shirt, or those places which had escaped his cruel clutches were still in Peter's livery. So that he looked like a drunken beau, half rifled by bullies; or like a fresh tenant of Newgate, when he has refused the payment of garnish; or like a discovered shoplifter, left to the mercy of Exchange women; or like a bawd in her old velvet petticoat, resigned into the secular hands of the mobile. Like any. or like all these, a medley of rags, and lace, and rents, and fringes, unfortunate Jack did now appear: he would have been extremely glad to see his coat in SECTION XI the condition of Martin's, but infinitely gladder to find that of Martin in the same predicament with his. However, since neither of these was likely to come to pass, he thought fit to lend the whole business another turn, and to dress up necessity into a virtue. Therefore, after as many of the fox's arguments as he could muster up, for bringing Martin to reason, as he called it; or, as he meant 10 it, into his own ragged, bobtailed condition; and observing he said all to little purpose; what, alas! was left for the forlorn Jack to do, but, after a million of scurrilities against his brother, to run 15 writing it is as in traveling; if a man mad with spleen, and spite, and contradiction. To be short, here began a mortal breach between these two. Jack went immediately to new lodgings, and in a few days it was for certain reported that 20 he had run out of his wits. In a short time after he appeared abroad, and confirmed the report by falling into the oddest whimseys that ever a sick brain conceived. After so wide a compass as I have wandered, I do now gladly overtake and 5 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 favor and company, allowing me to conduct him through it along with myself. For in 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), and 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 com25 panion at best; he spatters himself and his fellow-travelers 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. And now the little boys in the streets began to salute him with several names. Sometimes they would call him Jack the bald; sometimes, Jack with a lantern; 2 sometimes, Dutch Jack; 3 sometimes, 30 French Hugh; sometimes, Tom the beggar; and sometimes, Knocking Jack of the North." And it was under one, or some, or all of these appellations, which I leave the learned reader to de- 35 termine, that he has given rise to the most illustrious and epidemic sect of Aeolists; who, with honorable commemoration, do still acknowledge the renowned JACK for their author and 40 founder. Of whose original, as well as principles, I am now advancing to gratify the world with a very particular account. -Melleo contingens cuncta lepore. [Touching everything with a honeyed charm.] 1 That is, Calvin, from calvus, bald. All those who pretend to inward light. Jack of Leyden, who gave rise to the Anabaptists. The Huguenots. The Gueuses, by which name some Protestants in Flanders were called. John Knox, the reformer of Scotland. On the other side, when a traveler 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 and 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; 45 at which arriving, he rides furiously through; the men, women and children, run out of gaze; a hundred noisy curs run barking after him, of which, if he honors the boldest with a lash of his 50 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 55 any ground lost by the blow, which sends him yelping and limping home. By these are meant what the author calls the true critics. 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 10 is to ensue. 20 25 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 15 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. 30 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 35 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. 40 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 im- 45 aginable. For although, as I have often told the reader, it consisted wholly in certain plain, easy directions, about the management and wearing their coats, with legacies, and penalties in case of 50 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, 55 '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 necessary as well as the most paltry occasions of life. He had a way of 5 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 phrase 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. He made it a part of his religion never to say grace to his meat; 2 nor could all the world persuade him, as the common phrase is, to eat his victuals like a christian.3 He bore a strange kind of appetite to snap-dragon, and to the livid snuffs of a burning candle, 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 had 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 lantern. 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 a kennel, as he seldom missed either to do one or both, he would tell the gib 1 The author here lashes those pretenders to purity, who place so much merit in using Scripture phrases on all occasions. 2 The slovenly way of receiving the sacrament among the fanatics. This is a common phrase to express eating cleanly, and is meant for an invective against that indecent manner among some people in receiving the sacrament; so in the lines before, which is to be understood of the Dissenters refusing to kneel at the sacrament. I cannot well find out the author's meaning here, unless it be the hot, untimely, blind zeal of enthusiasts. giant Laurcalco,1 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 5 conduct men through dirt and darkness, till they fall into a deep pit or a noisome bog.' 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 his way; and whenever curiosity at- all be ing prentices 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 swinging fall or a bloody nose. 'It was This I have produced as a scantling of ordained,' said he, some few days be- Jack's great eloquence, and the force of fore the creation, that my nose and this to his reasoning upon such abstruse matters. very post should have a rencounter; and therefore nature 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, 15 it is very likely the business might have been a great deal worse; for how many a confounded slip is daily got by a man with all this foresight about him? Besides, the eyes of the understanding see 20 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 25 would be sure to get far enough out of conndence 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 lantern among a pack of roaring bullies when they 30 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 farther. if we 35 examine the conduct of these boasted lights, it will prove yet a great deal worse than their fortune. 'Tis true, I have broke my nose against this post, because fortune either forgot, or did not 40 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 or posterity to trust their noses into the keeping of their eyes, 45 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 50 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 55 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 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. In all revolutions of government he would make his court for the office of hangman general; and in the exercise of that dignity, where he was very dexterous, would make use of no other vizard 5 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 perfection, that it was a point 1 Vide [See] Don Quixote. 2 The villainies and cruelties, committed by enthusiasts and fanatics among us, were all performed under the disguise of religion and long prayers. They affect differences in habit and behavior. They are severe persecutors and all in a form of cant and devotion. 5 Cromwell and his confederates went, as they called it, to seek the Lord, when they resolved to murder the king. |