of great difficulty to distinguish, either by the view or the sound, between the original and the copy. He was troubled with a disease reverse to that called the stinging of the tarantula; and would run dog-mad at the noise of music, especially a pair of bagpipes. But he would cure himself again by taking two or three turns in Westminsterhall, or Billingsgate, or in the boarding- 10 school, or the Royal Exchange, or a state coffee-house. He was a person that feared no colors, but mortally hated all, and, upon that account, bore a cruel aversion against 15 painters,1 insomuch that, in his paroxysms, as he walked the streets, he would have his pockets loaden with stones to pelt at the signs. 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 under5 gone for the public good. Observe this stroke,' said he, showing his bare shoulders; ‘a plaguy janizary gave it me this very morning, at seven o'clock, as, with much ado, I was driving off the great Turk. Neighbors, mind, this broken head deserves a plaster; 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 Mogul 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.' Having, from this manner of living, 20 frequent occasion 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 pos- 25 bear sible, than he went in. 2 He was the first that ever found out the secret of contriving a soporiferous medicine to be conveyed in at the ears; it was a compound of sulphur and balm 30 of Gilead, with a little pilgrim's salve. He wore a large plaster of artificial caustics on his stomach, with the fervor of which he could set himself a-groaning, like the famous board upon application 35 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 honor of a good slap in the 40 chaps.' a To another, 'Honest friend, It was highly worth observing the singular effects of that aversion or antipathy which Jack and his brother Peter seemed, even to an affectation, to toward 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 humors called them abroad, they would make choice of the oddest unlikely times, and most uncouth rounds 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 center, which, though moving contrary pray favor me with a handsome kick on the arse: Madam, shall I entreat a small box on the ear from your ladyship's fair hands? Noble captain, lend a reason- 45 ways at first, will be sure to encounter able 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 1 They quarrel at the most innocent decency and ornament, and defaced the statues and paintings in all the churches in England. somewhere or other in the circumference. Besides, it was among the great misfortunes of Jack to bear a huge personal resemblance with his brother 50 Peter. Their humor and dispositions were not only the same, but there was a close analogy in their shape, and size, and their mien. Insomuch, that nothing was more frequent than for a bailiff to 2 Fanatic preaching, composed either of hell and damnation, ог a fulsome description of the joys of heaven; both in such a dirty, nauseous style, 55 as to be well resembled to pilgrim's salve. 3 The fanatics have always had a way of affecting to run into persecution, and count vast merit upon every little hardship they suffer. 5 seize Jack by the shoulder, 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 labored in so long; and finding how 10 directly opposite all his endeavors 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 15 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 20 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 rub- 25 bed 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 30 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 35 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 40 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 45 them as frequently deceived the very disciples and followers of both. Desunt non nulla [something is wanting]. 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 that it hath been verified by repeated experience that Effugiet tamen haec sceleratus vincula Proteus. [Still wicked Proteus eludes these chains.] 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 perdita [lost arts]; and how can it be otherwise, when in the 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 the only slitting of one ear in a stag has 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 endeavors 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. Lastly, the devouter sisters, who looked upon all extraordinary dilatations of that member as protrusions of zeal, or spiritual excrescences, were sure to honor every head they sat upon as if they had been marks of grace; 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 50 preaching is to this very day, among their professors, styled by the phrase of holding forth. ess of time, a cruel king had not risen,1 who raised a bloody persecution against all ears above a certain standard; 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 all due points, to the delicate taste of this our noble age. But, alas! with my utmost endeavors, I have been able only to retain a few of the heads. Under 5 which, there was a full account how Peter got a protection out of the king's bench; and of a reconcilement 3 between Jack and him, upon a design they had, in a certain rainy night, to trepan history of ears, which I design very 10 brother Martin into a spunging-house, speedily to bestow upon the public. 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, how 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 eat custard. 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 15 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 20 But the particulars of all these, with examine human nature with circumspection enough may discover several handles, whereof the six 2 senses afford onea-piece, beside a great number that are screwed to the passions, and some few 25 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 and im- 30 patient and a grunting reader. By this handle it is, that an author should seize upon his readers; which as soon as he has once compassed, all resistance and struggling are in vain; and they become 35 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, be- 40 yond 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 45 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 alto several others which have now slid out (1704) A MEDITATION UPON A BROOM- This single stick, which you now be- gether equal to thine for my unhappiness 50 the Revolution, the Papists being down of course, 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 1 This was King Charles the Second, who, at his restoration, turned out all the dissenting teachers that would not conform. 2 Including Scaliger's. 55 the Presbyterians freely continued their assemblies, by virtue of King James's indulgence, before they had a toleration by law. This I believe the author means by Jack's stealing Peter's protection, and making use of it himself. * Sir Humphry Edwyn, a Presbyterian, when lord-mayor of London, in 1697, had the insolence to go in his formalities to a conventicle, with the ensigns of his office. Custard is a famous dish at a lord-mayor's feast. corner, I once knew in a flourishing kicked out of doors, or made use of to kindle flames for others to warm themselves by. (1704) A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes. I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would 40 deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation. But a broomstick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree standing on its head; and pray, what is man but a topsy-turvy creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational; his head where his heels should be, grovel- 45 ing on the earth! and yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances; rakes into every slut's corner of nature, bringing hidden 50 corruption to the light, and raises mighty dust where there was none before; sharing deeply all the while in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away: his last days are spent in 55 slavery to women, and generally the least deserving, till, worn out to the stumps, like his brother besom, he is either a But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them as those who demand our charity in the streets. As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its dam may be supported by her milk for a solar year, Iwith little other nourishment; at most not above the value of 2s., which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of begging; and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall on the contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands. the I am assured by our merchants, that a 5 boy or a girl before twelve years old is no salable commodity; and even when they come to this age they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half-a-crown at most on the exchange; 10 which cannot turn to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags having been at least four times that value. There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that 15 horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us! sacrificing the poor innocent babes I doubt more to avoid the expense than the shame, which would move tears 20 and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast. I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection. I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout. I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, 35 therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; 40 always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter. The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be 25 about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples who are able to maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot 30 be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again substract fifty thousand for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the year. There only remains one hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born. The question therefore is, how this number shall be reared and provided for, which, as I have already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ 45 them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither build houses (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: they can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing, till they arrive at six years old, except 50 where they are of towardly parts, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers, as I have been informed by 55 a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan, who protested to me that he never knew above one or two instances under I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, increaseth to 28 pounds. I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children. |