"Fortune now stationed me in a character which the ingratitude of

mankind hath put them on ridiculing, though they owe to it not only a

relief from the inclemencies of cold, to which they would otherwise be

exposed, but likewise a considerable satisfaction of their vanity. The

character I mean was that of a taylor; which, if we consider it with due

attention, must be confessed to have in it great dignity and importance.

For, in reality, who constitutes the different degrees between men but

the taylor? the prince indeed gives the title, but it is the taylor who

makes the man. To his labours are owing the respect of crouds, and the

awe which great men inspire into their beholders, though these are too

often unjustly attributed to other motives. Lastly, the admiration of

the fair is most commonly to be placed to his account.

"I was just set up in my trade when I made three suits of fine clothes

for king Stephen's coronation. I question whether the person who wears

the rich coat hath so much pleasure and vanity in being admired in it,

as we taylors have from that admiration; and perhaps a philosopher would

say he is not so well entitled to it. I bustled on the day of the

ceremony through the croud, and it was with incredible delight I heard

several say, as my cloaths walked by, 'Bless me, was ever anything so

fine as the earl of Devonshire? Sure he and Sir Hugh Bigot are the two

best drest men I ever saw.' Now both those suits were of my making.

"There would indeed be infinite pleasure in working for the courtiers,

as they are generally genteel men, and shew one's clothes to the best

advantage, was it not for one small discouragement; this is, that they

never pay. I solemnly protest, though I lost almost as much by the court

in my life as I got by the city, I never carried a suit into the latter

with half the satisfaction which I have done to the former; though from

that I was certain of ready money, and from this almost as certain of no

money at all.

"Courtiers may, however, be divided into two sorts, very essentially

different from each other; into those who never intend to pay for their

clothes; and those who do intend to pay for them, but never happen to be

able. Of the latter sort are many of those young gentlemen whom we equip

out for the army, and who are, unhappily for us, cut off before they

arrive at preferment. This is the reason that taylors, in time of war,

are mistaken for politicians by their inquisitiveness into the event of

battles, one campaign very often proving the ruin of half-a-dozen of us.

I am sure I had frequent reason to curse that fatal battle of Cardigan,

where the Welsh defeated some of king Stephen's best troops, and where

many a good suit of mine, unpaid for, fell to the ground.

"The gentlemen of this honourable calling have fared much better in

later ages than when I was of it; for now it seems the fashion is, when

they apprehend their customer is not in the best circumstances, if they

are not paid as soon as they carry home the suit, they charge him in

their book as much again as it is worth, and then send a gentleman with

a small scrip of parchment to demand the money. If this be not

immediately paid the gentleman takes the beau with him to his house,

where he locks him up till the taylor is contented: but in my time these

scrips of parchment were not in use; and if the beau disliked paying for

his clothes, as very often happened, we had no method of compelling him.

"In several of the characters which I have related to you, I apprehend I

have sometimes forgot myself, and considered myself as really interested

as I was when I personated them on earth. I have just now caught myself

in the fact; for I have complained to you as bitterly of my customers as

I formerly used to do when I was the taylor: but in reality, though

there were some few persons of very great quality, and some others, who

never paid their debts, yet those were but a few, and I had a method of

repairing this loss. My customers I divided under three heads: those who

paid ready money, those who paid slow, and those who never paid at all.

The first of these I considered apart by themselves, as persons by whom

I got a certain but small profit. The two last I lumped together,

making those who paid slow contribute to repair my losses by those who

did not pay at all. Thus, upon the whole, I was a very inconsiderable

loser, and might have left a fortune to my family, had I not launched

forth into expenses which swallowed up all my gains. I had a wife and

two children. These indeed I kept frugally enough, for I half starved

them; but I kept a mistress in a finer way, for whom I had a

country-house, pleasantly situated on the Thames, elegantly fitted up

and neatly furnished. This woman might very properly be called my

mistress, for she was most absolutely so; and though her tenure was no

higher than by my will, she domineered as tyrannically as if my chains

had been riveted in the strongest manner. To all this I submitted, not

through any adoration of her beauty, which was indeed but indifferent.

Her charms consisted in little wantonnesses, which she knew admirably

well to use in hours of dalliance, and which, I believe, are of all

things the most delightful to a lover.

"She was so profusely extravagant, that it seemed as if she had an

actual intent to ruin me. This I am sure of, if such had been her real

intention, she could have taken no properer way to accomplish it; nay, I

myself might appear to have had the same view: for, besides this

extravagant mistress and my country-house, I kept likewise a brace of

hunters, rather for that it was fashionable so to do than for any great

delight I took in the sport, which I very little attended; not for want

of leisure, for few noblemen had so much. All the work I ever did was

taking measure, and that only of my greatest and best customers. I

scarce ever cut a piece of cloth in my life, nor was indeed much more

able to fashion a coat than any gentleman in the kingdom. This made a

skilful servant too necessary to me. He knew I must submit to any terms

with, or any treatment from, him. He knew it was easier for him to find

another such a taylor as me than for me to procure such another workman

as him: for this reason he exerted the most notorious and cruel tyranny,

seldom giving me a civil word; nor could the utmost condescension on my

side, though attended with continual presents and rewards, and raising

his wages, content or please him. In a word, he was as absolutely my

master as was ever an ambitious, industrious prime minister over an

indolent and voluptuous king. All my other journeymen paid more respect

to him than to me; for they considered my favour as a necessary

consequence of obtaining his.

"These were the most remarkable occurrences while I acted this part.

Minos hesitated a few moments, and then bid me get back again, without

assigning any reason."

Chapter xxiii.

_The life of alderman Julian._

"I now revisited England, and was born at London. My father was one of

the magistrates of that city. He had eleven children, of whom I was the

eldest. He had great success in trade, and grew extremely rich, but the

largeness of his family rendered it impossible for him to leave me a

fortune sufficient to live well on independent of business. I was

accordingly brought up to be a fishmonger, in which capacity I myself

afterwards acquired very considerable wealth.

"The same disposition of mind which in princes is called ambition is in

subjects named faction. To this temper I was greatly addicted from my

youth. I was, while a boy, a great partisan of prince John's against

his brother Richard, during the latter's absence in the holy war and in

his captivity. I was no more than one-and-twenty when I first began to

make political speeches in publick, and to endeavour to foment

disquietude and discontent in the city. As I was pretty well qualified

for this office, by a great fluency of words, an harmonious accent, a

graceful delivery, and above all an invincible assurance, I had soon

acquired some reputation among the younger citizens, and some of the

weaker and more inconsiderate of a riper age. This, co-operating with my

own natural vanity, made me extravagantly proud and supercilious. I soon

began to esteem myself a man of some consequence, and to overlook

persons every way my superiors.

"The famous Robin Hood, and his companion Little John, at this time made

a considerable figure in Yorkshire. I took upon me to write a letter to

the former, in the name of the city, inviting him to come to London,

where I assured him of very good reception, signifying to him my own

great weight and consequence, and how much I had disposed the citizens

in his favour. Whether he received this letter or no I am not certain;

but he never gave me any answer to it.

"A little afterwards one William Fitz-Osborn, or, as he was nicknamed,

William Long-Beard, began to make a figure in the city. He was a bold

and an impudent fellow, and had raised himself to great popularity with

the rabble, by pretending to espouse their cause against the rich. I

took this man's part, and made a public oration in his favour, setting

him forth as a patriot, and one who had embarked in the cause of

liberty: for which service he did not receive me with the

acknowledgments I expected. However, as I thought I should easily gain

the ascendant over this fellow, I continued still firm on his side,

till the archbishop of Canterbury, with an armed force, put an end to

his progress: for he was seized in Bow-church, where he had taken

refuge, and with nine of his accomplices hanged in chains.

"I escaped narrowly myself; for I was seized in the same church with the

rest, and, as I had been very considerably engaged in the enterprize,

the archbishop was inclined to make me an example; but my father's

merit, who had advanced a considerable sum to queen Eleanor towards the

king's ransom, preserved me.

"The consternation my danger had occasioned kept me some time quiet, and

I applied myself very assiduously to my trade. I invented all manner of

methods to enhance the price of fish, and made use of my utmost

endeavours to engross as much of the business as possible in my own

hands. By these means I acquired a substance which raised me to some

little consequence in the city, but far from elevating me to that degree

which I had formerly flattered myself with possessing at a time when I

was totally insignificant; for, in a trading society, money must at

least lay the foundation of all power and interest.

"But as it hath been remarked that the same ambition which sent

Alexander into Asia brings the wrestler on the green; and as this same

ambition is as incapable as quicksilver of lying still; so I, who was

possessed perhaps of a share equal to what hath fired the blood of any

of the heroes of antiquity, was no less restless and discontented with

ease and quiet. My first endeavours were to make myself head of my

company, which Richard I. had just published, and soon afterwards I

procured myself to be chosen alderman.

"Opposition is the only state which can give a subject an opportunity of

exerting the disposition I was possessed of. Accordingly, king John was

no sooner seated on his throne than I began to oppose his measures,

whether right or wrong. It is true that monarch had faults enow. He was

so abandoned to lust and luxury, that he addicted himself to the most

extravagant excesses in both, while he indolently suffered the king of

France to rob him of almost all his foreign dominions: my opposition

therefore was justifiable enough, and if my motive from within had been

as good as the occasion from without I should have had little to excuse;

but, in truth, I sought nothing but my own preferment, by making myself

formidable to the king, and then selling to him the interest of that

party by whose means I had become so. Indeed, had the public good been

my care, however zealously I might have opposed the beginning of his

reign, I should not have scrupled to lend him my utmost assistance in

the struggle between him and pope Innocent the third, in which he was so

manifestly in the right; nor have suffered the insolence of that pope,

and the power of the king of France, to have compelled him in the issue,

basely to resign his crown into the hands of the former, and receive it

again as a vassal; by means of which acknowledgment the pope afterwards

claimed this kingdom as a tributary fief to be held of the papal chair;

a claim which occasioned great uneasiness to many subsequent princes,

and brought numberless calamities on the nation.

"As the king had, among other concessions, stipulated to pay an

immediate sum of money to Pandulph, which he had great difficulty to

raise, it was absolutely necessary for him to apply to the city, where

my interest and popularity were so high that he had no hopes without my

assistance. As I knew this, I took care to sell myself and country as

high as possible. The terms I demanded, therefore, were a place, a

pension, and a knighthood. All those were immediately consented to. I

was forthwith knighted, and promised the other two.

"I now mounted the hustings, and, without any regard to decency or

modesty, made as emphatical a speech in favour of the king as before I

had done against him. In this speech I justified all those measures

which I had before condemned, and pleaded as earnestly with my

fellow-citizens to open their purses, as I had formerly done to prevail

with them to keep them shut. But, alas! my rhetoric had not the effect I

proposed. The consequence of my arguments was only contempt to myself.

The people at first stared on one another, and afterwards began

unanimously to express their dislike. An impudent fellow among them,

reflecting on my trade, cryed out, 'Stinking fish;' which was

immediately reiterated through the whole croud. I was then forced to

slink away home; but I was not able to accomplish my retreat without

being attended by the mob, who huzza'd me along the street with the

repeated cries of 'Stinking fish.'

"I now proceeded to court, to inform his majesty of my faithful service,

and how much I had suffered in his cause. I found by my first reception

he had already heard of my success. Instead of thanking me for my

speech, he said the city should repent of their obstinacy, for that he

would shew them who he was: and so saying, he immediately turned that

part to me to which the toe of man hath so wonderful an affection, that

it is very difficult, whenever it presents itself conveniently, to keep

our toes from the most violent and ardent salutation of it.

"I was a little nettled at this behaviour, and with some earnestness

claimed the king's fulfilling his promise; but he retired without

answering me. I then applied to some of the courtiers, who had lately

professed great friendship to me, had eat at my house, and invited me to

theirs: but not one would return me any answer, all running away from me

as if I had been seized with some contagious distemper. I now found by

experience that, as none can be so civil, so none can be ruder than a

courtier.

"A few moments after the king's retiring I was left alone in the room to

consider what I should do or whither I should turn myself. My reception

in the city promised itself to be equal at least with what I found at

court. However, there was my home, and thither it was necessary I should

retreat for the present.

"But, indeed, bad as I apprehended my treatment in the city would be, it

exceeded my expectation. I rode home on an ambling pad through crouds

who expressed every kind of disregard and contempt; pelting me not only

with the most abusive language, but with dirt. However, with much

difficulty I arrived at last at my own house, with my bones whole, but

covered over with filth.

"When I was got within my doors, and had shut them against the mob, who

had pretty well vented their spleen, and seemed now contented to retire,

my wife, whom I found crying over her children, and from whom I had

hoped some comfort in my afflictions, fell upon me in the most

outrageous manner. She asked me why I would venture on such a step,

without consulting her; she said her advice might have been civilly

asked, if I was resolved not to have been guided by it. That, whatever

opinion I might have conceived of her understanding, the rest of the

world thought better of it. That I had never failed when I had asked her

counsel, nor ever succeeded without it;--with much more of the same

kind, too tedious to mention; concluding that it was a monstrous

behaviour to desert my party and come over to the court. An abuse which

I took worse than all the rest, as she had been constantly for several

years assiduous in railing at the opposition, in siding with the

court-party, and begging me to come over to it; and especially after my

mentioning the offer of knighthood to her, since which time she had

continually interrupted my repose with dinning in my ears the folly of

refusing honours and of adhering to a party and to principles by which I

was certain of procuring no advantage to myself and my family.

"I had now entirely lost my trade, so that I had not the least

temptation to stay longer in a city where I was certain of receiving

daily affronts and rebukes. I therefore made up my affairs with the

utmost expedition, and, scraping together all I could, retired into the

country, where I spent the remainder of my days in universal contempt,

being shunned by everybody, perpetually abused by my wife, and not much

respected by my children.

"Minos told me, though I had been a very vile fellow, he thought my

sufferings made some atonement, and so bid me take the other trial."

Chapter xxiv.

_Julian recounts what happened to him while he was a poet._

"Rome was now the seat of my nativity, where I was born of a family more

remarkable for honour than riches. I was intended for the church, and

had a pretty good education; but my father dying while I was young, and

leaving me nothing, for he had wasted his whole patrimony, I was forced

to enter myself in the order of mendicants.

"When I was at school I had a knack of rhiming, which I unhappily

mistook for genius, and indulged to my cost; for my verses drew on me

only ridicule, and I was in contempt called the poet.

"This humour pursued me through my life. My first composition after I

left school was a panegyric on pope Alexander IV., who then pretended a

project of dethroning the king of Sicily. On this subject I composed a

poem of about fifteen thousand lines, which with much difficulty I got

to be presented to his holiness, of whom I expected great preferment as

my reward; but I was cruelly disappointed: for when I had waited a year,

without hearing any of the commendations I had flattered myself with

receiving, and being now able to contain no longer, I applied to a

Jesuit who was my relation, and had the pope's ear, to know what his

holiness's opinion was of my work: he coldly answered me that he was at

that time busied in concerns of too much importance to attend the

reading of poems.

"However dissatisfied I might be, and really was, with this reception,

and however angry I was with the pope, for whose understanding I

entertained an immoderate contempt, I was not yet discouraged from a

second attempt. Accordingly, I soon after produced another work,

entitled, The Trojan Horse. This was an allegorical work, in which the

church was introduced into the world in the same manner as that machine

had been into Troy. The priests were the soldiers in its belly, and the

heathen superstition the city to be destroyed by them. This poem was

written in Latin. I remember some of the lines:--

Mundanos scandit fatalis machina muros,

Farta sacerdotum turmis: exinde per alvum

Visi exire omnes, magno cum murmure olentes.

Non aliter quàm cum humanis furibundus ab antris

It sonus et nares simul aura invadit hiantes.

Mille scatent et mille alii; trepidare timore

Ethnica gens coepit: falsi per inane volantes

Effugere Dei--Desertaque templa relinquunt.

Jam magnum crepitavit equus, mox orbis et alti

Ingemuere poli: tunc tu pater, ultimus omnium

Maxime Alexander, ventrem maturus equinum

Deseris, heu proles meliori digne parente."

I believe Julian, had I not stopt him, would have gone through the whole

poem (for, as I observed in most of the characters he related, the

affections he had enjoyed while he personated them on earth still made

some impression on him); but I begged him to omit the sequel of the

poem, and proceed with his history. He then recollected himself, and,

smiling at the observation which by intuition he perceived I had made,

continued his narration as follows:--

"I confess to you," says he, "that the delight in repeating our own

works is so predominant in a poet, that I find nothing can totally root

it out of the soul. Happy would it be for those persons if their hearers

could be delighted in the same manner: but alas! hence that _ingens

solitudo_ complained of by Horace: for the vanity of mankind is so much

greedier and more general than their avarice, that no beggar is so ill

received by them as he who solicits their praise.

"This I sufficiently experienced in the character of a poet; for my

company was shunned (I believe on this account chiefly) by my whole

house: nay, there were few who would submit to hearing me read my

poetry, even at the price of sharing in my provisions. The only person

who gave me audience was a brother poet; he indeed fed me with

commendation very liberally: but, as I was forced to hear and commend in

my turn, I perhaps bought his attention dear enough.

"Well, sir, if my expectations of the reward I hoped from my first poem

had baulked me, I had now still greater reason to complain; for,

instead of being preferred or commended for the second, I was enjoined a

very severe penance by my superior, for ludicrously comparing the pope

to a f--t. My poetry was now the jest of every company, except some few

who spoke of it with detestation; and I found that, instead of

recommending me to preferment, it had effectually barred me from all

probability of attaining it.

"These discouragements had now induced me to lay down my pen and write

no more. But, as Juvenal says,

--Si discedas, Laqueo tenet ambitiosi

Consuetudo mali.

I was an example of the truth of this assertion, for I soon betook

myself again to my muse. Indeed, a poet hath the same happiness with a

man who is dotingly fond of an ugly woman. The one enjoys his muse, and

the other his mistress, with a pleasure very little abated by the esteem

of the world, and only undervalues their taste for not corresponding

with his own.

"It is unnecessary to mention any more of my poems; they had all the

same fate; and though in reality some of my latter pieces deserved (I

may now speak it without the imputation of vanity) a better success, as

I had the character of a bad writer, I found it impossible ever to

obtain the reputation of a good one. Had I possessed the merit of Homer

I could have hoped for no applause; since it must have been a profound

secret; for no one would now read a syllable of my writings.

"The poets of my age were, as I believe you know, not very famous.

However, there was one of some credit at that time, though I have the

consolation to know his works are all perished long ago. The malice,

envy, and hatred I bore this man are inconceivable to any but an author,

and an unsuccessful one; I never could bear to hear him well spoken of,

and writ anonymous satires against him, though I had received

obligations from him; indeed I believe it would have been an absolute

impossibility for him at any rate to have made me sincerely his friend.

"I have heard an observation which was made by some one of later days,

that there are no worse men than bad authors. A remark of the same kind

hath been made on ugly women, and the truth of both stands on one and

the same reason, viz., that they are both tainted with that cursed and

detestable vice of envy; which, as it is the greatest torment to the

mind it inhabits, so is it capable of introducing into it a total

corruption, and of inspiring it to the commission of the most horrid

crimes imaginable.

"My life was but short; for I soon pined myself to death with the vice I

just now mentioned. Minos told me I was infinitely too bad for Elysium;

and as for the other place, the devil had sworn he would never entertain

a poet for Orpheus's sake: so I was forced to return again to the place

from whence I came."

Chapter xxv.

_Julian performs the parts of a knight and a dancing-master._

"I now mounted the stage in Sicily, and became a knight-templar; but, as

my adventures differ so little from those I have recounted you in the

character of a common soldier, I shall not tire you with repetition.

The soldier and the captain differ in reality so little from one

another, that it requires an accurate judgment to distinguish them; the

latter wears finer cloaths, and in times of success lives somewhat more

delicately; but as to everything else, they very nearly resemble one

another.

"My next step was into France, where fortune assigned me the part of a

dancing-master. I was so expert in my profession that I was brought to

court in my youth, and had the heels of Philip de Valois, who afterwards

succeeded Charles the Fair, committed to my direction.

"I do not remember that in any of the characters in which I appeared on

earth I ever assumed to myself a greater dignity, or thought myself of

more real importance, than now. I looked on dancing as the greatest

excellence of human nature, and on myself as the greatest proficient in

it. And, indeed, this seemed to be the general opinion of the whole

court; for I was the chief instructor of the youth of both sexes, whose

merit was almost entirely defined by the advances they made in that

science which I had the honour to profess. As to myself, I was so fully

persuaded of this truth, that I not only slighted and despised those who

were ignorant of dancing, but I thought the highest character I could

give any man was that he made a graceful bow: for want of which

accomplishment I had a sovereign contempt for most persons of learning;

nay, for some officers in the army, and a few even of the courtiers

themselves.

"Though so little of my youth had been thrown away in what they call

literature that I could hardly write and read, yet I composed a treatise

on education; the first rudiments of which, as I taught, were to

instruct a child in the science of coming handsomely into a room. In

this I corrected many faults of my predecessors, particularly that of

being too much in a hurry, and instituting a child in the sublimer parts

of dancing before they are capable of making their honours.

"But as I have not now the same high opinion of my profession which I

had then, I shall not entertain you with a long history of a life which

consisted of borées and coupées. Let it suffice that I lived to a very

old age and followed my business as long as I could crawl. At length I

revisited my old friend Minos, who treated me with very little respect

and bade me dance back again to earth.

"I did so, and was now once more born an Englishman, bred up to the

church, and at length arrived to the station of a bishop.

"Nothing was so remarkable in this character as my always

voting----[J]."

[Illustration: text decoration]

BOOK XIX.

Chapter vii.

_Wherein Anna Boleyn relates the history of her life._

"I am going now truly to recount a life which from the time of its

ceasing has been, in the other world, the continual subject of the

cavils of contending parties; the one making me as black as hell, the

other as pure and innocent as the inhabitants of this blessed place; the

mist of prejudice blinding their eyes, and zeal for what they themselves

profess, making everything appear in that light which they think most

conduces to its honour.

"My infancy was spent in my father's house, in those childish plays

which are most suitable to that state, and I think this was one of the

happiest parts of my life; for my parents were not among the number of

those who look upon their children as so many objects of a tyrannic

power, but I was regarded as the dear pledge of a virtuous love, and all

my little pleasures were thought from their indulgence their greatest

delight. At seven years old I was carried into France with the king's

sister, who was married to the French king, where I lived with a person

of quality, who was an acquaintance of my father's. I spent my time in

learning those things necessary to give young persons of fashion a

polite education, and did neither good nor evil, but day passed after

day in the same easy way till I was fourteen; then began my anxiety, my

vanity grew strong, and my heart fluttered with joy at every compliment

paid to my beauty: and as the lady with whom I lived was of a gay,

chearful disposition, she kept a great deal of company, and my youth and

charms made me the continual object of their admiration. I passed some

little time in those exulting raptures which are felt by every woman

perfectly satisfied with herself and with the behaviour of others

towards her: I was, when very young, promoted to be maid of honour to

her majesty. The court was frequented by a young nobleman whose beauty

was the chief subject of conversation in all assemblies of ladies. The

delicacy of his person, added to a great softness in his manner, gave

everything he said and did such an air of tenderness, that every woman

he spoke to flattered herself with being the object of his love. I was

one of those who was vain enough of my own charms to hope to make a

conquest of him whom the whole court sighed for. I now thought every

other object below my notice; yet the only pleasure I proposed to myself

in this design was, the triumphing over that heart which I plainly saw

all the ladies of the highest quality and the greatest beauty would have

been proud of possessing. I was yet too young to be very artful; but

nature, without any assistance, soon discovers to a man who is used to

gallantry a woman's desire to be liked by him, whether that desire

arises from any particular choice she makes of him, or only from vanity.

He soon perceived my thoughts, and gratified my utmost wishes by

constantly preferring me before all other women, and exerting his utmost

gallantry and address to engage my affections. This sudden happiness,

which I then thought the greatest I could have had, appeared visible in

all my actions; I grew so gay and so full of vivacity, that it made my

person appear still to a better advantage, all my acquaintance

pretending to be fonder of me than ever: though, young as I was, I

plainly saw it was but pretence, for through all their endeavours to the

contrary envy would often break forth in sly insinuations and malicious

sneers, which gave me fresh matter of triumph, and frequent

opportunities of insulting them, which I never let slip, for now first

my female heart grew sensible of the spiteful pleasure of seeing another

languish for what I enjoyed. Whilst I was in the height of my happiness

her majesty fell ill of a languishing distemper, which obliged her to go

into the country for the change of air: my place made it necessary for

me to attend her, and which way he brought it about I can't imagine, but

my young hero found means to be one of that small train that waited on

my royal mistress, although she went as privately as possible. Hitherto

all the interviews I had ever had with him were in public, and I only

looked on him as the fitter object to feed that pride which had no other

view but to shew its power; but now the scene was quite changed. My

rivals were all at a distance: the place we went to was as charming as

the most agreeable natural situation, assisted by the greatest art,

could make it; the pleasant solitary walks, the singing of birds, the

thousand pretty romantic scenes this delightful place afforded, gave a

sudden turn to my mind; my whole soul was melted into softness, and all

my vanity was fled. My spark was too much used to affairs of this nature

not to perceive this change; at first the profuse transports of his joy

made me believe him wholly mine, and this belief gave me such happiness

that no language affords words to express it, and can be only known to

those who have felt it. But this was of a very short duration, for I

soon found I had to do with one of those men whose only end in the

pursuit of a woman is to make her fall a victim to an insatiable desire

to be admired. His designs had succeeded, and now he every day grew

colder, and, as if by infatuation, my passion every day increased; and,

notwithstanding all my resolutions and endeavours to the contrary, my

rage at the disappointment at once both of my love and pride, and at the

finding a passion fixed in my breast I knew not how to conquer, broke

out into that inconsistent behaviour which must always be the

consequence of violent passions. One moment I reproached him, the next I

grew to tenderness and blamed myself, and thought I fancied what was not

true: he saw my struggle and triumphed in it; but, as he had not

witnesses enough there of his victory to give him the full enjoyment of

it, he grew weary of the country and returned to Paris, and left me in a

condition it is utterly impossible to describe. My mind was like a city

up in arms, all confusion; and every new thought was a fresh disturber

of my peace. Sleep quite forsook me, and the anxiety I suffered threw me

into a fever which had like to have cost me my life. With great care I

recovered, but the violence of the distemper left such a weakness on my

body that the disturbance of my mind was greatly assuaged; and now I

began to comfort myself in the reflection that this gentleman's being a

finished coquet was very likely the only thing could have preserved me;

for he was the only man from whom I was ever in any danger. By that time

I was got tolerably well we returned to Paris; and I confess I both

wished and feared to see this cause of all my pain: however, I hoped, by

the help of my resentment, to be able to meet him with indifference.

This employed my thoughts till our arrival. The next day there was a

very full court to congratulate the queen on her recovery; and amongst

the rest my love appeared dressed and adorned as if he designed some new

conquest. Instead of seeing a woman he despised and slighted, he

approached me with that assured air which is common to successful

coxcombs. At the same time I perceived I was surrounded by all those

ladies who were on his account my greatest enemies, and, in revenge,

wished for nothing more than to see me make a ridiculous figure. This

situation so perplexed my thoughts, that when he came near enough to

speak to me, I fainted away in his arms. Had I studied which way I could

gratify him most, it was impossible to have done anything to have

pleased him more. Some that stood by brought smelling-bottles, and used

means for my recovery; and I was welcomed to returning life by all those

repartees which women enraged by envy are capable of venting. One cried,

'Well, I never thought my lord had anything so frightful in his person

or so fierce in his manner as to strike a young lady dead at the sight

of him.' 'No, no,' says another, 'some ladies' senses are more apt to be

hurried by agreeable than disagreeable objects.' With many more such

sort of speeches which shewed more malice than wit. This not being able

to bear, trembling, and with but just strength enough to move, I crawled

to my coach and hurried home. When I was alone, and thought on what had

happened to me in a public court, I was at first driven to the utmost

despair; but afterwards, when I came to reflect, I believe this accident

contributed more to my being cured of my passion than any other could

have done. I began to think the only method to pique the man who had

used me so barbarously, and to be revenged on my spightful rivals, was

to recover that beauty which was then languid and had lost its lustre,

to let them see I had still charms enough to engage as many lovers as I

could desire, and that I could yet rival them who had thus cruelly

insulted me. These pleasing hopes revived my sinking spirits, and worked

a more effectual cure on me than all the philosophy and advice of the

wisest men could have done. I now employed all my time and care in

adorning my person, and studying the surest means of engaging the

affections of others, while I myself continued quite indifferent; for I

resolved for the future, if ever one soft thought made its way to my

heart, to fly the object of it, and by new lovers to drive the image

from my breast. I consulted my glass every morning, and got such a

command of my countenance that I could suit it to the different tastes

of variety of lovers; and though I was young, for I was not yet above

seventeen, yet my public way of life gave me such continual

opportunities of conversing with men, and the strong desire I now had of

pleasing them led me to make such constant observations on everything

they said or did, that I soon found out the different methods of dealing

with them. I observed that most men generally liked in women what was

most opposite to their own characters; therefore to the grave solid man

of sense I endeavoured to appear sprightly and full of spirit; to the

witty and gay, soft and languishing; to the amorous (for they want no

increase of their passions), cold and reserved; to the fearful and

backward, warm and full of fire; and so of all the rest. As to beaus,

and all those sort of men, whose desires are centred in the satisfaction

of their vanity, I had learned by sad experience the only way to deal

with them was to laugh at them and let their own good opinion of

themselves be the only support of their hopes. I knew, while I could get

other followers, I was sure of them; for the only sign of modesty they

ever give is that of not depending on their own judgments, but following

the opinions of the greatest number. Thus furnished with maxims, and

grown wise by past errors, I in a manner began the world again: I

appeared in all public places handsomer and more lively than ever, to

the amazement of every one who saw me and had heard of the affair

between me and my lord. He himself was much surprized and vexed at this

sudden change, nor could he account how it was possible for me so soon

to shake off those chains he thought he had fixed on me for life; nor

was he willing to lose his conquest in this manner. He endeavoured by

all means possible to talk to me again of love, but I stood fixed to my

resolution (in which I was greatly assisted by the croud of admirers

that daily surrounded me) never to let him explain himself: for,

notwithstanding all my pride, I found the first impression the heart

receives of love is so strong that it requires the most vigilant care to

prevent a relapse. Now I lived three years in a constant round of

diversions, and was made the perfect idol of all the men that came to

court of all ages and all characters. I had several good matches offered

me, but I thought none of them equal to my merit; and one of my greatest

pleasures was to see those women who had pretended to rival me often

glad to marry those whom I had refused. Yet, notwithstanding this great

success of my schemes, I cannot say I was perfectly happy; for every

woman that was taken the least notice of, and every man that was

insensible to my arts, gave me as much pain as all the rest gave me

pleasure; and sometimes little underhand plots which were laid against

my designs would succeed in spite of my care: so that I really began to

grow weary of this manner of life, when my father, returning from his

embassy in France, took me home with him, and carried me to a little

pleasant country-house, where there was nothing grand or superfluous,

but everything neat and agreeable. There I led a life perfectly

solitary. At first the time hung very heavy on my hands, and I wanted

all kind of employment, and I had very like to have fallen into the

height of the vapours, from no other reason but from want of knowing

what to do with myself. But when I had lived here a little time I found

such a calmness in my mind, and such a difference between this and the

restless anxieties I had experienced in a court, that I began to share

the tranquillity that visibly appeared in everything round me. I set

myself to do works of fancy, and to raise little flower-gardens, with

many such innocent rural amusements; which, although they are not

capable of affording any great pleasure, yet they give that serene turn

to the mind which I think much preferable to anything else human nature

is made susceptible of. I now resolved to spend the rest of my days

here, and that nothing should allure me from that sweet retirement, to

be again tossed about with tempestuous passions of any kind. Whilst I

was in this situation my lord Percy, the earl of Northumberland's eldest

son, by an accident of losing his way after a fox-chase, was met by my

father about a mile from our house; he came home with him, only with a

design of dining with us, but was so taken with me that he stayed three

days. I had too much experience in all affairs of this kind not to see

presently the influence I had on him; but I was at that time so intirely

free from all ambition, that even the prospect of being a countess had

no effect on me; and I then thought nothing in the world could have

bribed me to have changed my way of life. This young lord, who was just

in his bloom, found his passion so strong, he could not endure a long

absence, but returned again in a week, and endeavoured, by all the means

he could think of, to engage me to return his affection. He addressed me

with that tenderness and respect which women on earth think can flow

from nothing but real love; and very often told me that, unless he could

be so happy as by his assiduity and care to make himself agreeable to

me, although he knew my father would eagerly embrace any proposal from

him, yet he would suffer that last of miseries of never seeing me more

rather than owe his own happiness to anything that might be the least

contradiction to my inclinations. This manner of proceeding had

something in it so noble and generous, that by degrees it raised a

sensation in me which I know not how to describe, nor by what name to

call it: it was nothing like my former passion: for there was no

turbulence, no uneasy waking nights attending it, but all I could with

honour grant to oblige him appeared to me to be justly due to his truth

and love, and more the effect of gratitude than of any desire of my own.

The character I had heard of him from my father at my first returning to

England, in discoursing of the young nobility, convinced me that if I

was his wife I should have the perpetual satisfaction of knowing every

action of his must be approved by all the sensible part of mankind; so

that very soon I began to have no scruple left but that of leaving my

little scene of quietness, and venturing again into the world. But this,

by his continual application and submissive behaviour, by degrees

entirely vanished, and I agreed he should take his own time to break it

to my father, whose consent he was not long in obtaining; for such a

match was by no means to be refused. There remained nothing now to be

done but to prevail with the earl of Northumberland to comply with what

his son so ardently desired; for which purpose he set out immediately

for London, and begged it as the greatest favour that I would accompany

my father, who was also to go thither the week following. I could not

refuse his request, and as soon as we arrived in town he flew to me with

the greatest raptures to inform me his father was so good that, finding

his happiness depended on his answer, he had given him free leave to act

in this affair as would best please himself, and that he had now no

obstacle to prevent his wishes. It was then the beginning of the winter,

and the time for our marriage was fixed for the latter end of March: the

consent of all parties made his access to me very easy, and we conversed

together both with innocence and pleasure. As his fondness was so great

that he contrived all the methods possible to keep me continually in his

sight, he told me one morning he was commanded by his father to attend

him to court that evening, and begged I would be so good as to meet him

there. I was now so used to act as he would have me that I made no

difficulty of complying with his desire. Two days after this, I was very

much surprized at perceiving such a melancholy in his countenance, and

alteration in his behaviour, as I could no way account for; but, by

importunity, at last I got from him that cardinal Wolsey, for what

reason he knew not, had peremptorily forbid him to think any more of me:

and, when he urged that his father was not displeased with it, the

cardinal, in his imperious manner, answered him, he should give his

father such convincing reasons why it would be attended with great

inconveniences, that he was sure he could bring him to be of his

opinion. On which he turned from him, and gave him no opportunity of

replying. I could not imagine what design the cardinal could have in

intermeddling in this match, and I was still more perplexed to find that

my father treated my lord Percy with much more coldness than usual; he

too saw it, and we both wondered what could possibly be the cause of all

this. But it was not long before the mystery was all made clear by my

father, who, sending for me one day into his chamber, let me into a

secret which was as little wished for as expected. He began with the

surprizing effects of youth and beauty, and the madness of letting go

those advantages they might procure us till it was too late, when we

might wish in vain to bring them back again. I stood amazed at this

beginning; he saw my confusion, and bid me sit down and attend to what

he was going to tell me, which was of the greatest consequence; and he

hoped I would be wise enough to take his advice, and act as he should

think best for my future welfare. He then asked me if I should not be

much pleased to be a queen? I answered, with the greatest earnestness,

that, so far from it, I would not live in a court again to be the

greatest queen in the world; that I had a lover who was both desirous

and able to raise my station even beyond my wishes. I found this

discourse was very displeasing; my father frowned, and called me a

romantic fool, and said if I would hearken to him he could make me a

queen; for the cardinal had told him that the king, from the time he saw

me at court the other night, liked me, and intended to get a divorce

from his wife, and to put me in her place; and ordered him to find some

method to make me a maid of honour to her present majesty, that in the

meantime he might have an opportunity of seeing me. It is impossible to

express the astonishment these words threw me into; and, notwithstanding

that the moment before, when it appeared at so great a distance, I was

very sincere in my declaration how much it was against my will to be

raised so high, yet now the prospect came nearer, I confess my heart

fluttered, and my eyes were dazzled with a view of being seated on a

throne. My imagination presented before me all the pomp, power, and

greatness that attend a crown; and I was so perplexed I knew not what

to answer, but remained as silent as if I had lost the use of my speech.

My father, who guessed what it was that made me in this condition,

proceeded to bring all the arguments he thought most likely to bend me

to his will; at last I recovered from this dream of grandeur, and begged

him, by all the most endearing names I could think of, not to urge me

dishonourably to forsake the man who I was convinced would raise me to

an empire if in his power, and who had enough in his power to give me

all I desired. But he was deaf to all I could say, and insisted that by

next week I should prepare myself to go to court: he bid me consider of

it, and not prefer a ridiculous notion of honour to the real interest of

my whole family; but, above all things, not to disclose what he had

trusted me with. On which he left me to my own thoughts. When I was

alone I reflected how little real tenderness this behaviour shewed to

me, whose happiness he did not at all consult, but only looked on me as

a ladder, on which he could climb to the height of his own ambitious

desires: and when I thought on his fondness for me in my infancy I could

impute it to nothing but either the liking me as a plaything or the

gratification of his vanity in my beauty. But I was too much divided

between a crown and my engagement to lord Percy to spend much time in

thinking of anything else; and, although my father had positively forbid

me, yet, when he came next, I could not help acquainting him with all

that had passed, with the reserve only of the struggle in my own mind on

the first mention of being a queen. I expected he would have received

the news with the greatest agonies; but he shewed no vast emotion:

however, he could not help turning pale, and, taking me by the hand,

looked at me with an air of tenderness, and said, 'If being a queen

would make you happy, and it is in your power to be so, I would not for

the world prevent it, let me suffer what I will.' This amazing greatness

of mind had on me quite the contrary effect from what it ought to have

had; for, instead of increasing my love for him it almost put an end to

it, and I began to think, if he could part with me, the matter was not

much. And I am convinced, when any man gives up the possession of a

woman whose consent he has once obtained, let his motive be ever so

generous, he will disoblige her. I could not help shewing my

dissatisfaction, and told him I was very glad this affair sat so easily

on him. He had not power to answer, but was so suddenly struck with this

unexpected ill-natured turn I gave his behaviour, that he stood amazed

for some time, and then bowed and left me. Now I was again left to my

own reflections; but to make anything intelligible out of them is quite

impossible: I wished to be a queen, and wished I might not be one: I

would have my lord Percy happy without me; and yet I would not have the

power of my charms be so weak that he could bear the thought of life

after being disappointed in my love. But the result of all these

confused thoughts was a resolution to obey my father. I am afraid there

was not much duty in the case, though at that time I was glad to take

hold of that small shadow to save me from looking on my own actions in

the true light. When my lover came again I looked on him with that

coldness that he could not bear, on purpose to rid myself of all

importunity: for since I had resolved to use him ill I regarded him as

the monument of my shame, and his every look appeared to me to upbraid

me. My father soon carried me to court; there I had no very hard part to

act; for, with the experience I had had of mankind, I could find no

great difficulty in managing a man who liked me, and for whom I not

only did not care but had an utter aversion to: but this aversion he

believed to be virtue; for how credulous is a man who has an inclination

to believe! And I took care sometimes to drop words of cottages and

love, and how happy the woman was who fixed her affections on a man in

such a station of life that she might show her love without being

suspected of hypocrisy or mercenary views. All this was swallowed very

easily by the amorous king, who pushed on the divorce with the utmost

impetuosity, although the affair lasted a good while, and I remained

most part of the time behind the curtain. Whenever the king mentioned it

to me I used such arguments against it as I thought the most likely to

make him the more eager for it; begging that, unless his conscience was

really touched, he would not on my account give any grief to his

virtuous queen; for in being her handmaid I thought myself highly

honoured; and that I would not only forego a crown, but even give up the

pleasure of ever seeing him more, rather than wrong my royal mistress.

This way of talking, joined to his eager desire to possess my person,

convinced the king so strongly of my exalted merit, that he thought it a

meritorious act to displace the woman (whom he could not have so good an

opinion of, because he was tired of her), and to put me in her place.

After about a year's stay at court, as the king's love to me began to be

talked of, it was thought proper to remove me, that there might be no

umbrage given to the queen's party. I was forced to comply with this,

though greatly against my will; for I was very jealous that absence

might change the king's mind. I retired again with my father to his

country-seat, but it had no longer those charms for me which I once

enjoyed there; for my mind was now too much taken up with ambition to

make room for any other thoughts. During my stay here, my royal lover

often sent gentlemen to me with messages and letters, which I always

answered in the manner I thought would best bring about my designs,

which were to come back again to court. In all the letters that passed

between us there was something so kingly and commanding in his, and so

deceitful and submissive in mine, that I sometimes could not help

reflecting on the difference betwixt this correspondence and that with

lord Percy; yet I was so pressed forward by the desire of a crown, I

could not think of turning back. In all I wrote I continually praised

his resolution of letting me be at a distance from him, since at this

time it conduced indeed to my honour; but, what was of ten times more

weight with me, I thought it was necessary for his; and I would sooner

suffer anything in the world than be any means of hurt to him, either in

his interest or reputation. I always gave some hints of ill health, with

some reflections how necessary the peace of the mind was to that of the

body. By these means I brought him to recal me again by the most

absolute command, which I, for a little time, artfully delayed (for I

knew the impatience of his temper would not bear any contradictions),

till he made my father in a manner force me to what I most wished, with

the utmost appearance of reluctance on my side. When I had gained this

point I began to think which way I could separate the king from the

queen, for hitherto they lived in the same house. The lady Mary, the

queen's daughter, being then about sixteen, I sought for emissaries of

her own age that I could confide in, to instil into her mind

disrespectful thoughts of her father, and make a jest of the tenderness

of his conscience about the divorce. I knew she had naturally strong

passions, and that young people of that age are apt to think those that

pretend to be their friends are really so, and only speak their minds

freely. I afterwards contrived to have every word she spoke of him

carried to the king, who took it all as I could wish, and fancied those

things did not come at first from the young lady, but from her mother.

He would often talk of it to me, and I agreed with him in his

sentiments; but then, as a great proof of my goodness, I always

endeavoured to excuse her, by saying a lady so long time used to be a

royal queen might naturally be a little exasperated with those she

fancied would throw her from that station she so justly deserved. By

these sort of plots I found the way to make the king angry with the

queen; for nothing is easier than to make a man angry with a woman he

wants to be rid of, and who stands in the way between him and his

pleasure; so that now the king, on the pretence of the queen's obstinacy

in a point where his conscience was so tenderly concerned, parted with

her. Everything was now plain before me; I had nothing farther to do but

to let the king alone to his own desires; and I had no reason to fear,

since they had carried him so far, but that they would urge him on to do

everything I aimed at. I was created marchioness of Pembroke. This

dignity sat very easy on me; for the thoughts of a much higher title

took from me all feeling of this; and I looked upon being a marchioness

as a trifle, not that I saw the bauble in its true light, but because it

fell short of what I had figured to myself I should soon obtain. The

king's desires grew very impatient, and it was not long before I was

privately married to him. I was no sooner his wife than I found all the

queen come upon me; I felt myself conscious of royalty, and even the

faces of my most intimate acquaintance seemed to me to be quite strange.

I hardly knew them: height had turned my head, and I was like a man

placed on a monument, to whose sight all creatures at a great distance

below him appear like so many little pigmies crawling about on the

earth; and the prospect so greatly delighted me, that I did not

presently consider that in both cases descending a few steps erected by

human hands would place us in the number of those very pigmies who

appeared so despicable. Our marriage was kept private for some time, for

it was not thought proper to make it public (the affair of the divorce

not being finished) till the birth of my daughter Elizabeth made it

necessary. But all who saw me knew it; for my manner of speaking and

acting was so much changed with my station, that all around me plainly

perceived I was sure I was a queen. While it was a secret I had yet

something to wish for; I could not be perfectly satisfied till all the

world was acquainted with my fortune: but when my coronation was over,

and I was raised to the height of my ambition, instead of finding myself

happy, I was in reality more miserable than ever; for, besides that the

aversion I had naturally to the king was much more difficult to

dissemble after marriage than before, and grew into a perfect

detestation, my imagination, which had thus warmly pursued a crown, grew

cool when I was in the possession of it, and gave me time to reflect

what mighty matter I had gained by all this bustle; and I often used to

think myself in the case of the fox-hunter, who, when he has toiled and

sweated all day in the chase as if some unheard-of blessing was to crown

his success, finds at last all he has got by his labour is a stinking

nauseous animal. But my condition was yet worse than his; for he leaves

the loathsome wretch to be torn by his hounds, whilst I was obliged to

fondle mine, and meanly pretend him to be the object of my love. For the

whole time I was in this envied, this exalted state, I led a continual

life of hypocrisy, which I now know nothing on earth can compensate. I

had no companion but the man I hated. I dared not disclose my sentiments

to any person about me, nor did any one presume to enter into any

freedom of conversation with me; but all who spoke to me talked to the

queen, and not to me; for they would have said just the same things to a

dressed-up puppet, if the king had taken a fancy to call it his wife.

And as I knew every woman in the court was my enemy, from thinking she

had much more right than I had to the place I filled, I thought myself

as unhappy as if I had been placed in a wild wood, where there was no

human creature for me to speak to, in a continual fear of leaving any

traces of my footsteps, lest I should be found by some dreadful monster,

or stung by snakes and adders; for such are spiteful women to the

objects of their envy. In this worst of all situations I was obliged to

hide my melancholy and appear chearful. This threw me into an error the

other way, and I sometimes fell into a levity in my behaviour that was

afterwards made use of to my disadvantage. I had a son dead-born, which

I perceived abated something of the king's ardour; for his temper could

not brook the least disappointment. This gave me no uneasiness; for, not

considering the consequences, I could not help being best pleased when I

had least of his company. Afterwards I found he had cast his eyes on one

of my maids of honour; and, whether it was owing to any art of hers, or

only to the king's violent passions, I was in the end used even worse

than my former mistress had been by my means. The decay of the king's

affection was presently seen by all those court-sycophants who

continually watch the motions of royal eyes; and the moment they found

they could be heard against me they turned my most innocent actions and

words, nay, even my very looks, into proofs of the blackest crimes. The

king, who was impatient to enjoy his new love, lent a willing ear to all

my accusers, who found ways of making him jealous that I was false to

his bed. He would not so easily have believed anything against me

before, but he was now glad to flatter himself that he had found a

reason to do just what he had resolved upon without a reason; and on

some slight pretences and hearsay evidence I was sent to the Tower,

where the lady who was my greatest enemy was appointed to watch me and

lie in the same chamber with me. This was really as bad a punishment as

my death, for she insulted me with those keen reproaches and spiteful

witticisms, which threw me into such vapours and violent fits that I

knew not what I uttered in this condition. She pretended I had confessed

talking ridiculous stuff with a set of low fellows whom I had hardly

ever taken notice of, as could have imposed on none but such as were

resolved to believe. I was brought to my trial, and, to blacken me the

more, accused of conversing criminally with my own brother, whom indeed

I loved extremely well, but never looked on him in any other light than

as my friend. However, I was condemned to be beheaded, or burnt, as the

king pleased; and he was graciously pleased, from the great remains of

his love, to chuse the mildest sentence. I was much less shocked at this

manner of ending my life than I should have been in any other station:

but I had had so little enjoyment from the time I had been a queen, that

death was the less dreadful to me. The chief things that lay on my

conscience were the arts I made use of to induce the king to part with

the queen, my ill usage of lady Mary, and my jilting lord Percy.

However, I endeavoured to calm my mind as well as I could, and hoped

these crimes would be forgiven me; for in other respects I had led a

very innocent life, and always did all the good-natured actions I found

any opportunity of doing. From the time I had it in my power, I gave a

great deal of money amongst the poor; I prayed very devoutly, and went

to my execution very composedly. Thus I lost my life at the age of

twenty-nine, in which short time I believe I went through more variety

of scenes than many people who live to be very old. I had lived in a

court, where I spent my time in coquetry and gaiety; I had experienced

what it was to have one of those violent passions which makes the mind

all turbulence and anxiety; I had had a lover whom I esteemed and

valued, and at the latter part of my life I was raised to a station as

high as the vainest woman could wish. But in all these various changes I

never enjoyed any real satisfaction, unless in the little time I lived

retired in the country free from all noise and hurry, and while I was

conscious I was the object of the love and esteem of a man of sense and

honour."

On the conclusion of this history Minos paused for a small time, and

then ordered the gate to be thrown open for Anna Boleyn's admittance on

the consideration that whoever had suffered being the queen for four

years, and been sensible during all that time of the real misery which

attends that exalted station, ought to be forgiven whatever she had done

to obtain it.[K]

[Illustration: text decoration]

THE JOURNAL

OF A

VOYAGE TO LISBON.

DEDICATION TO THE PUBLIC.

Your candour is desired on the perusal of the following sheets, as they

are the product of a genius that has long been your delight and

entertainment. It must be acknowledged that a lamp almost burnt out does

not give so steady and uniform a light as when it blazes in its full

vigour; but yet it is well known that by its wavering, as if struggling

against its own dissolution, it sometimes darts a ray as bright as ever.

In like manner, a strong and lively genius will, in its last struggles,

sometimes mount aloft, and throw forth the most striking marks of its

original lustre.

Wherever these are to be found, do you, the genuine patrons of

extraordinary capacities, be as liberal in your applauses of him who is

now no more as you were of him whilst he was yet amongst you. And, on

the other hand, if in this little work there should appear any traces of

a weakened and decayed life, let your own imaginations place before your

eyes a true picture in that of a hand trembling in almost its latest

hour, of a body emaciated with pains, yet struggling for your

entertainment; and let this affecting picture open each tender heart,

and call forth a melting tear, to blot out whatever failings may be

found in a work begun in pain, and finished almost at the same period

with life.

It was thought proper by the friends of the deceased that this little

piece should come into your hands as it came from the hands of the

author, it being judged that you would be better pleased to have an

opportunity of observing the faintest traces of a genius you have long

admired, than have it patched by a different hand, by which means the

marks of its true author might have been effaced.

That the success of the last written, though first published, volume of

the author's posthumous pieces may be attended with some convenience to

those innocents he hath left behind, will no doubt be a motive to

encourage its circulation through the kingdom, which will engage every

future genius to exert itself for your pleasure.

The principles and spirit which breathe in every line of the small

fragment begun in answer to Lord Bolingbroke will unquestionably be a

sufficient apology for its publication, although vital strength was

wanting to finish a work so happily begun and so well designed.

[Illustration: text decoration]

PREFACE.

There would not, perhaps, be a more pleasant or profitable study, among

those which have their principal end in amusement, than that of travels

or voyages, if they were writ, as they might be and ought to be, with a

joint view to the entertainment and information of mankind. If the

conversation of travellers be so eagerly sought after as it is, we may

believe their books will be still more agreeable company, as they will

in general be more instructive and more entertaining.

But when I say the conversation of travellers is usually so welcome, I

must be understood to mean that only of such as have had good sense

enough to apply their peregrinations to a proper use, so as to acquire

from them a real and valuable knowledge of men and things, both which

are best known by comparison. If the customs and manners of men were

everywhere the same, there would be no office so dull as that of a

traveller, for the difference of hills, valleys, rivers, in short, the

various views of which we may see the face of the earth, would scarce

afford him a pleasure worthy of his labour; and surely it would give him

very little opportunity of communicating any kind of entertainment or

improvement to others.

To make a traveller an agreeable companion to a man of sense, it is

necessary, not only that he should have seen much, but that he should

have overlooked much of what he hath seen. Nature is not, any more than

a great genius, always admirable in her productions, and therefore the

traveller, who may be called her commentator, should not expect to find

everywhere subjects worthy of his notice.

It is certain, indeed, that one may be guilty of omission, as well as of

the opposite extreme; but a fault on that side will be more easily

pardoned, as it is better to be hungry than surfeited; and to miss your

dessert at the table of a man whose gardens abound with the choicest

fruits, than to have your taste affronted with every sort of trash that

can be picked up at the green-stall or the wheelbarrow.

If we should carry on the analogy between the traveller and the

commentator, it is impossible to keep one's eye a moment off from the

laborious much-read doctor Zachary Gray, of whose redundant notes on

Hudibras I shall only say that it is, I am confident, the single book

extant in which above five hundred authors are quoted, not one of which

could be found in the collection of the late doctor Mead.

As there are few things which a traveller is to record, there are fewer

on which he is to offer his observations: this is the office of the

reader; and it is so pleasant a one, that he seldom chuses to have it

taken from him, under the pretence of lending him assistance. Some

occasions, indeed, there are, when proper observations are pertinent,

and others when they are necessary; but good sense alone must point them

out. I shall lay down only one general rule; which I believe to be of

universal truth between relator and hearer, as it is between author and

reader; this is, that the latter never forgive any observation of the

former which doth not convey some knowledge that they are sensible they

could not possibly have attained of themselves.

But all his pains in collecting knowledge, all his judgment in

selecting, and all his art in communicating it, will not suffice, unless

he can make himself, in some degree, an agreeable as well as an

instructive companion. The highest instruction we can derive from the

tedious tale of a dull fellow scarce ever pays us for our attention.

There is nothing, I think, half so valuable as knowledge, and yet there

is nothing which men will give themselves so little trouble to attain;

unless it be, perhaps, that lowest degree of it which is the object of

curiosity, and which hath therefore that active passion constantly

employed in its service. This, indeed, it is in the power of every

traveller to gratify; but it is the leading principle in weak minds

only.

To render his relation agreeable to the man of sense, it is therefore

necessary that the voyager should possess several eminent and rare

talents; so rare indeed, that it is almost wonderful to see them ever

united in the same person.

And if all these talents must concur in the relator, they are certainly

in a more eminent degree necessary to the writer; for here the narration

admits of higher ornaments of stile, and every fact and sentiment offers

itself to the fullest and most deliberate examination.

It would appear, therefore, I think, somewhat strange if such writers as

these should be found extremely common; since nature hath been a most

parsimonious distributor of her richest talents, and hath seldom

bestowed many on the same person. But, on the other hand, why there

should scarce exist a single writer of this kind worthy our regard; and,

whilst there is no other branch of history (for this is history) which

hath not exercised the greatest pens, why this alone should be

overlooked by all men of great genius and erudition, and delivered up

to the Goths and Vandals as their lawful property, is altogether as

difficult to determine.

And yet that this is the case, with some very few exceptions, is most

manifest. Of these I shall willingly admit Burnet and Addison; if the

former was not, perhaps, to be considered as a political essayist, and

the latter as a commentator on the classics, rather than as a writer of

travels; which last title, perhaps, they would both of them have been

least ambitious to affect.

Indeed, if these two and two or three more should be removed from the

mass, there would remain such a heap of dulness behind, that the

appellation of voyage-writer would not appear very desirable.

I am not here unapprized that old Homer himself is by some considered as

a voyage-writer; and, indeed, the beginning of his Odyssey may be urged

to countenance that opinion, which I shall not controvert. But, whatever

species of writing the Odyssey is of, it is surely at the head of that

species, as much as the Iliad is of another; and so far the excellent

Longinus would allow, I believe, at this day.

But, in reality, the Odyssey, the Telemachus, and all of that kind, are

to the voyage-writing I here intend, what romance is to true history,

the former being the confounder and corrupter of the latter. I am far

from supposing that Homer, Hesiod, and the other antient poets and

mythologists, had any settled design to pervert and confuse the records

of antiquity; but it is certain they have effected it; and for my part I

must confess I should have honoured and loved Homer more had he written

a true history of his own times in humble prose, than those noble poems

that have so justly collected the praise of all ages; for, though I read

these with more admiration and astonishment, I still read Herodotus,

Thucydides, and Xenophon with more amusement and more satisfaction.

The original poets were not, however, without excuse. They found the

limits of nature too strait for the immensity of their genius, which

they had not room to exert without extending fact by fiction: and that

especially at a time when the manners of men were too simple to afford

that variety which they have since offered in vain to the choice of the

meanest writers. In doing this they are again excusable for the manner

in which they have done it.

Ut speciosa dehinc miracula promant.

They are not, indeed, so properly said to turn reality into fiction, as

fiction into reality. Their paintings are so bold, their colours so

strong, that everything they touch seems to exist in the very manner

they represent it; their portraits are so just, and their landscapes so

beautiful, that we acknowledge the strokes of nature in both, without

enquiring whether Nature herself, or her journeyman the poet, formed the

first pattern of the piece.

But other writers (I will put Pliny at their head) have no such

pretensions to indulgence; they lye for lying sake, or in order

insolently to impose the most monstrous improbabilities and absurdities

upon their readers on their own authority; treating them as some fathers

treat children, and as other fathers do laymen, exacting their belief of

whatever they relate, on no other foundation than their own authority,

without ever taking the pains of adapting their lies to human credulity,

and of calculating them for the meridian of a common understanding; but,

with as much weakness as wickedness, and with more impudence often than

either, they assert facts contrary to the honour of God, to the visible

order of the creation, to the known laws of nature, to the histories of

former ages, and to the experience of our own, and which no man can at

once understand and believe.

If it should be objected (and it can nowhere be objected better than

where I now write,[L] as there is nowhere more pomp of bigotry) that

whole nations have been firm believers in such most absurd suppositions,

I reply, the fact is not true. They have known nothing of the matter,

and have believed they knew not what. It is, indeed, with me no matter

of doubt but that the pope and his clergy might teach any of those

Christian heterodoxies, the tenets of which are the most diametrically

opposite to their own; nay, all the doctrines of Zoroaster, Confucius,

and Mahomet, not only with certain and immediate success, but without

one Catholick in a thousand knowing he had changed his religion.

What motive a man can have to sit down, and to draw forth a list of

stupid, senseless, incredible lies upon paper, would be difficult to

determine, did not Vanity present herself so immediately as the adequate

cause. The vanity of knowing more than other men is, perhaps, besides

hunger, the only inducement to writing, at least to publishing, at all.

Why then should not the voyage-writer be inflamed with the glory of

having seen what no man ever did or will see but himself? This is the

true source of the wonderful in the discourse and writings, and

sometimes, I believe, in the actions of men. There is another fault, of

a kind directly opposite to this, to which these writers are sometimes

liable, when, instead of filling their pages with monsters which nobody

hath ever seen, and with adventures which never have, nor could possibly

have, happened to them, waste their time and paper with recording things

and facts of so common a kind, that they challenge no other right of

being remembered than as they had the honour of having happened to the

author, to whom nothing seems trivial that in any manner happens to

himself. Of such consequence do his own actions appear to one of this

kind, that he would probably think himself guilty of infidelity should

he omit the minutest thing in the detail of his journal. That the fact

is true is sufficient to give it a place there, without any

consideration whether it is capable of pleasing or surprising, of

diverting or informing, the reader.

I have seen a play (if I mistake not it is one of Mrs Behn's or of Mrs

Centlivre's) where this vice in a voyage-writer is finely ridiculed. An

ignorant pedant, to whose government, for I know not what reason, the

conduct of a young nobleman in his travels is committed, and who is sent

abroad to shew my lord the world, of which he knows nothing himself,

before his departure from a town, calls for his journal to record the

goodness of the wine and tobacco, with other articles of the same

importance, which are to furnish the materials of a voyage at his return

home. The humour, it is true, is here carried very far; and yet,

perhaps, very little beyond what is to be found in writers who profess

no intention of dealing in humour at all.

Of one or other, or both of these kinds, are, I conceive, all that vast

pile of books which pass under the names of voyages, travels,

adventures, lives, memoirs, histories, &c., some of which a single

traveller sends into the world in many volumes, and others are, by

judicious booksellers, collected into vast bodies in folio, and

inscribed with their own names, as if they were indeed their own

travels: thus unjustly attributing to themselves the merit of others.

Now, from both these faults we have endeavoured to steer clear in the

following narrative; which, however the contrary may be insinuated by

ignorant, unlearned, and fresh-water critics, who have never travelled

either in books or ships, I do solemnly declare doth, in my own

impartial opinion, deviate less from truth than any other voyage extant;

my lord Anson's alone being, perhaps, excepted.

Some few embellishments must be allowed to every historian; for we are

not to conceive that the speeches in Livy, Sallust, or Thucydides, were

literally spoken in the very words in which we now read them. It is

sufficient that every fact hath its foundation in truth, as I do

seriously aver is the case in the ensuing pages; and when it is so, a

good critic will be so far from denying all kind of ornament of stile or

diction, or even of circumstance, to his author, that he would be rather

sorry if he omitted it; for he could hence derive no other advantage

than the loss of an additional pleasure in the perusal.

Again, if any merely common incident should appear in this journal,

which will seldom I apprehend be the case, the candid reader will easily

perceive it is not introduced for its own sake, but for some

observations and reflexions naturally resulting from it; and which, if

but little to his amusement, tend directly to the instruction of the

reader or to the information of the public; to whom if I chuse to convey

such instruction or information with an air of joke and laughter, none

but the dullest of fellows will, I believe, censure it; but if they

should, I have the authority of more than one passage in Horace to

alledge in my defence.

Having thus endeavoured to obviate some censures, to which a man without

the gift of foresight, or any fear of the imputation of being a

conjurer, might conceive this work would be liable, I might now

undertake a more pleasing task, and fall at once to the direct and

positive praises of the work itself; of which, indeed, I could say a

thousand good things; but the task is so very pleasant that I shall

leave it wholly to the reader, and it is all the task that I impose on

him. A moderation for which he may think himself obliged to me when he

compares it with the conduct of authors, who often fill a whole sheet

with their own praises, to which they sometimes set their own real

names, and sometimes a fictitious one. One hint, however, I must give

the kind reader; which is, that if he should be able to find no sort of

amusement in the book, he will be pleased to remember the public utility

which will arise from it. If entertainment, as Mr Richardson observes,

be but a secondary consideration in a romance; with which Mr Addison, I

think, agrees, affirming the use of the pastry cook to be the first; if

this, I say, be true of a mere work of invention, sure it may well be so

considered in a work founded, like this, on truth; and where the

political reflexions form so distinguishing a part.

But perhaps I may hear, from some critic of the most saturnine

complexion, that my vanity must have made a horrid dupe of my judgment,

if it hath flattered me with an expectation of having anything here seen

in a grave light, or of conveying any useful instruction to the public,

or to their guardians. I answer, with the great man whom I just now

quoted, that my purpose is to convey instruction in the vehicle of

entertainment; and so to bring about at once, like the revolution in the

Rehearsal, a perfect reformation of the laws relating to our maritime

affairs: an undertaking, I will not say more modest, but surely more

feasible, than that of reforming a whole people, by making use of a

vehicular story, to wheel in among them worse manners than their own.

[Illustration: text decoration]

INTRODUCTION.

In the beginning of August, 1753, when I had taken the duke of

Portland's medicine, as it is called, near a year, the effects of which

had been the carrying off the symptoms of a lingering imperfect gout, I

was persuaded by Mr Ranby, the king's premier serjeant-surgeon, and the

ablest advice, I believe, in all branches of the physical profession, to

go immediately to Bath. I accordingly writ that very night to Mrs

Bowden, who, by the next post, informed me she had taken me a lodging

for a month certain.

Within a few days after this, whilst I was preparing for my journey, and

when I was almost fatigued to death with several long examinations,

relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a

week, by different gangs of street-robbers, I received a message from

his grace the duke of Newcastle, by Mr Carrington, the king's messenger,

to attend his grace the next morning, in Lincoln's-inn-fields, upon some

business of importance; but I excused myself from complying with the

message, as, besides being lame, I was very ill with the great fatigues

I had lately undergone added to my distemper.

His grace, however, sent Mr Carrington, the very next morning, with

another summons; with which, though in the utmost distress, I

immediately complied; but the duke, happening, unfortunately for me, to

be then particularly engaged, after I had waited some time, sent a

gentleman to discourse with me on the best plan which could be invented

for putting an immediate end to those murders and robberies which were

every day committed in the streets; upon which I promised to transmit my

opinion, in writing, to his grace, who, as the gentleman informed me,

intended to lay it before the privy council.

Though this visit cost me a severe cold, I, notwithstanding, set myself

down to work; and in about four days sent the duke as regular a plan as

I could form, with all the reasons and arguments I could bring to

support it, drawn out in several sheets of paper; and soon received a

message from the duke by Mr Carrington, acquainting me that my plan was

highly approved of, and that all the terms of it would be complied with.

The principal and most material of those terms was the immediately

depositing six hundred pounds in my hands; at which small charge I

undertook to demolish the then reigning gangs, and to put the civil

policy into such order, that no such gangs should ever be able, for the

future, to form themselves into bodies, or at least to remain any time

formidable to the public.

I had delayed my Bath journey for some time, contrary to the repeated

advice of my physical acquaintance, and to the ardent desire of my

warmest friends, though my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice;

in which case the Bath waters are generally reputed to be almost

infallible. But I had the most eager desire of demolishing this gang of

villains and cut-throats, which I was sure of accomplishing the moment

I was enabled to pay a fellow who had undertaken, for a small sum, to

betray them into the hands of a set of thief-takers whom I had enlisted

into the service, all men of known and approved fidelity and

intrepidity.

After some weeks the money was paid at the treasury, and within a few

days after two hundred pounds of it had come to my hands, the whole gang

of cut-throats was entirely dispersed, seven of them were in actual

custody, and the rest driven, some out of the town, and others out of

the kingdom.

Though my health was now reduced to the last extremity, I continued to

act with the utmost vigour against these villains; in examining whom,

and in taking the depositions against them, I have often spent whole

days, nay, sometimes whole nights, especially when there was any

difficulty in procuring sufficient evidence to convict them; which is a

very common case in street-robberies, even when the guilt of the party

is sufficiently apparent to satisfy the most tender conscience. But

courts of justice know nothing of a cause more than what is told them on

oath by a witness; and the most flagitious villain upon earth is tried

in the same manner as a man of the best character who is accused of the

same crime.

Meanwhile, amidst all my fatigues and distresses, I had the satisfaction

to find my endeavours had been attended with such success that this

hellish society were almost utterly extirpated, and that, instead of

reading of murders and street-robberies in the news almost every

morning, there was, in the remaining part of the month of November, and

in all December, not only no such thing as a murder, but not even a

street-robbery committed. Some such, indeed, were mentioned in the

public papers; but they were all found, on the strictest enquiry, to be

false.

In this entire freedom from street-robberies, during the dark months, no

man will, I believe, scruple to acknowledge that the winter of 1753

stands unrivaled, during a course of many years; and this may possibly

appear the more extraordinary to those who recollect the outrages with

which it began.

Having thus fully accomplished my undertaking, I went into the country,

in a very weak and deplorable condition, with no fewer or less diseases

than a jaundice, a dropsy, and an asthma, altogether uniting their

forces in the destruction of a body so entirely emaciated that it had

lost all its muscular flesh.

Mine was now no longer what was called a Bath case; nor, if it had been

so, had I strength remaining sufficient to go thither, a ride of six

miles only being attended with an intolerable fatigue. I now discharged

my lodgings at Bath, which I had hitherto kept. I began in earnest to

look on my case as desperate, and I had vanity enough to rank myself

with those heroes who, of old times, became voluntary sacrifices to the

good of the public.

But, lest the reader should be too eager to catch at the word _vanity_,

and should be unwilling to indulge me with so sublime a gratification,

for I think he is not too apt to gratify me, I will take my key a pitch

lower, and will frankly own that I had a stronger motive than the love

of the public to push me on: I will therefore confess to him that my

private affairs at the beginning of the winter had but a gloomy aspect;

for I had not plundered the public or the poor of those sums which men,

who are always ready to plunder both as much as they can, have been

pleased to suspect me of taking: on the contrary, by composing, instead

of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and beggars (which I blush when I

say hath not been universally practised), and by refusing to take a

shilling from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had another

left, I had reduced an income of about five hundred pounds[M] a-year of

the dirtiest money upon earth to little more than three hundred pounds;

a considerable proportion of which remained with my clerk; and, indeed,

if the whole had done so, as it ought, he would be but ill paid for

sitting almost sixteen hours in the twenty-four in the most unwholesome,

as well as nauseous air in the universe, and which hath in his case

corrupted a good constitution without contaminating his morals.

But, not to trouble the reader with anecdotes, contrary to my own rule

laid down in my preface, I assure him I thought my family was very

slenderly provided for; and that my health began to decline so fast that

I had very little more of life left to accomplish what I had thought of

too late. I rejoiced therefore greatly in seeing an opportunity, as I

apprehended, of gaining such merit in the eye of the public, that, if my

life were the sacrifice to it, my friends might think they did a popular

act in putting my family at least beyond the reach of necessity, which I

myself began to despair of doing. And though I disclaim all pretence to

that Spartan or Roman patriotism which loved the public so well that it

was always ready to become a voluntary sacrifice to the public good, I

do solemnly declare I have that love for my family.

After this confession therefore, that the public was not the principal

deity to which my life was offered a sacrifice, and when it is farther

considered what a poor sacrifice this was, being indeed no other than

the giving up what I saw little likelihood of being able to hold much

longer, and which, upon the terms I held it, nothing but the weakness of

human nature could represent to me as worth holding at all; the world

may, I believe, without envy, allow me all the praise to which I have

any title.

My aim, in fact, was not praise, which is the last gift they care to

bestow; at least, this was not my aim as an end, but rather as a means

of purchasing some moderate provision for my family, which, though it

should exceed my merit, must fall infinitely short of my service, if I

succeeded in my attempt.

To say the truth, the public never act more wisely than when they act

most liberally in the distribution of their rewards; and here the good

they receive is often more to be considered than the motive from which

they receive it. Example alone is the end of all public punishments and

rewards. Laws never inflict disgrace in resentment, nor confer honour

from gratitude. "For it is very hard, my lord," said a convicted felon

at the bar to the late excellent judge Burnet, "to hang a poor man for

stealing a horse." "You are not to be hanged, sir," answered my

ever-honoured and beloved friend, "for stealing a horse, but you are to

be hanged that horses may not be stolen." In like manner it might have

been said to the late duke of Marlborough, when the parliament was so

deservedly liberal to him, after the battle of Blenheim, "You receive

not these honours and bounties on account of a victory past, but that

other victories may be obtained."

I was now, in the opinion of all men, dying of a complication of

disorders; and, were I desirous of playing the advocate, I have an

occasion fair enough; but I disdain such an attempt. I relate facts

plainly and simply as they are; and let the world draw from them what

conclusions they please, taking with them the following facts for their

instruction: the one is, that the proclamation offering one hundred

pounds for the apprehending felons for certain felonies committed in

certain places, which I prevented from being revived, had formerly cost

the government several thousand pounds within a single year. Secondly,

that all such proclamations, instead of curing the evil, had actually

encreased it; had multiplied the number of robberies; had propagated the

worst and wickedest of perjuries; had laid snares for youth and

ignorance, which, by the temptation of these rewards, had been sometimes

drawn into guilt; and sometimes, which cannot be thought on without the

highest horror, had destroyed them without it. Thirdly, that my plan had

not put the government to more than three hundred pound expence, and had

produced none of the ill consequences above mentioned; but, lastly, had

actually suppressed the evil for a time, and had plainly pointed out the

means of suppressing it for ever. This I would myself have undertaken,

had my health permitted, at the annual expense of the above-mentioned

sum.

After having stood the terrible six weeks which succeeded last

Christmas, and put a lucky end, if they had known their own interests,

to such numbers of aged and infirm valetudinarians, who might have

gasped through two or three mild winters more, I returned to town in

February, in a condition less despaired of by myself than by any of my

friends. I now became the patient of Dr Ward, who wished I had taken his

advice earlier.

By his advice I was tapped, and fourteen quarts of water drawn from my

belly. The sudden relaxation which this caused, added to my enervate,

emaciated habit of body, so weakened me that within two days I was

thought to be falling into the agonies of death.

I was at the worst on that memorable day when the public lost Mr Pelham.

From that day I began slowly, as it were, to draw my feet out of the

grave; till in two months' time I had again acquired some little degree

of strength, but was again full of water.

During this whole time I took Mr Ward's medicines, which had seldom any

perceptible operation. Those in particular of the diaphoretic kind, the

working of which is thought to require a great strength of constitution

to support, had so little effect on me, that Mr Ward declared it was as

vain to attempt sweating me as a deal board.

In this situation I was tapped a second time. I had one quart of water

less taken from me now than before; but I bore all the consequences of

the operation much better. This I attributed greatly to a dose of

laudanum prescribed by my surgeon. It first gave me the most delicious

flow of spirits, and afterwards as comfortable a nap.

The month of May, which was now begun, it seemed reasonable to expect

would introduce the spring, and drive off that winter which yet

maintained its footing on the stage. I resolved therefore to visit a

little house of mine in the country, which stands at Ealing, in the

county of Middlesex, in the best air, I believe, in the whole kingdom,

and far superior to that of Kensington Gravel-pits; for the gravel is

here much wider and deeper, the place higher and more open towards the

south, whilst it is guarded from the north wind by a ridge of hills, and

from the smells and smoak of London by its distance; which last is not

the fate of Kensington, when the wind blows from any corner of the east.

Obligations to Mr Ward I shall always confess; for I am convinced that

he omitted no care in endeavouring to serve me, without any expectation

or desire of fee or reward.

The powers of Mr Ward's remedies want indeed no unfair puffs of mine to

give them credit; and though this distemper of the dropsy stands, I

believe, first in the list of those over which he is always certain of

triumphing, yet, possibly, there might be something particular in my

case capable of eluding that radical force which had healed so many

thousands. The same distemper, in different constitutions, may possibly

be attended with such different symptoms, that to find an infallible

nostrum for the curing any one distemper in every patient may be almost

as difficult as to find a panacea for the cure of all.

But even such a panacea one of the greatest scholars and best of men did

lately apprehend he had discovered. It is true, indeed, he was no

physician; that is, he had not by the forms of his education acquired a

right of applying his skill in the art of physic to his own private

advantage; and yet, perhaps, it may be truly asserted that no other

modern hath contributed so much to make his physical skill useful to the

public; at least, that none hath undergone the pains of communicating

this discovery in writing to the world. The reader, I think, will scarce

need to be informed that the writer I mean is the late bishop of Cloyne,

in Ireland, and the discovery that of the virtues of tar-water.

I then happened to recollect, upon a hint given me by the inimitable and

shamefully-distressed author of the Female Quixote, that I had many

years before, from curiosity only, taken a cursory view of bishop

Berkeley's treatise on the virtues of tar-water, which I had formerly

observed he strongly contends to be that real panacea which Sydenham

supposes to have an existence in nature, though it yet remains

undiscovered, and perhaps will always remain so.

Upon the reperusal of this book I found the bishop only asserting his

opinion that tar-water might be useful in the dropsy, since he had known

it to have a surprising success in the cure of a most stubborn anasarca,

which is indeed no other than, as the word implies, the dropsy of the

flesh; and this was, at that time, a large part of my complaint.

After a short trial, therefore, of a milk diet, which I presently found

did not suit with my case, I betook myself to the bishop's prescription,

and dosed myself every morning and evening with half a pint of

tar-water.

It was no more than three weeks since my last tapping, and my belly and

limbs were distended with water. This did not give me the worse opinion

of tar-water; for I never supposed there could be any such virtue in

tar-water as immediately to carry off a quantity of water already

collected. For my delivery from this I well knew I must be again

obliged to the trochar; and that if the tar-water did me any good at all

it must be only by the slowest degrees; and that if it should ever get

the better of my distemper it must be by the tedious operation of

undermining, and not by a sudden attack and storm.

Some visible effects, however, and far beyond what my most sanguine

hopes could with any modesty expect, I very soon experienced; the

tar-water having, from the very first, lessened my illness, increased my

appetite, and added, though in a very slow proportion, to my bodily

strength.

But if my strength had increased a little my water daily increased much

more. So that, by the end of May, my belly became again ripe for the

trochar, and I was a third time tapped; upon which, two very favourable

symptoms appeared. I had three quarts of water taken from me less than

had been taken the last time; and I bore the relaxation with much less

(indeed with scarce any) faintness.

Those of my physical friends on whose judgment I chiefly depended seemed

to think my only chance of life consisted in having the whole summer

before me; in which I might hope to gather sufficient strength to

encounter the inclemencies of the ensuing winter. But this chance began

daily to lessen. I saw the summer mouldering away, or rather, indeed,

the year passing away without intending to bring on any summer at all.

In the whole month of May the sun scarce appeared three times. So that

the early fruits came to the fulness of their growth, and to some

appearance of ripeness, without acquiring any real maturity; having

wanted the heat of the sun to soften and meliorate their juices. I saw

the dropsy gaining rather than losing ground; the distance growing still

shorter between the tappings. I saw the asthma likewise beginning again

to become more troublesome. I saw the midsummer quarter drawing towards

a close. So that I conceived, if the Michaelmas quarter should steal off

in the same manner, as it was, in my opinion, very much to be

apprehended it would, I should be delivered up to the attacks of winter

before I recruited my forces, so as to be anywise able to withstand

them.

I now began to recall an intention, which from the first dawnings of my

recovery I had conceived, of removing to a warmer climate; and, finding

this to be approved of by a very eminent physician, I resolved to put it

into immediate execution.

Aix in Provence was the place first thought on; but the difficulties of

getting thither were insuperable. The journey by land, beside the

expence of it, was infinitely too long and fatiguing; and I could hear

of no ship that was likely to set out from London, within any reasonable

time, for Marseilles, or any other port in that part of the

Mediterranean.

Lisbon was presently fixed on in its room. The air here, as it was near

four degrees to the south of Aix, must be more mild and warm, and the

winter shorter and less piercing.

It was not difficult to find a ship bound to a place with which we carry

on so immense a trade. Accordingly, my brother soon informed me of the

excellent accommodations for passengers which were to be found on board

a ship that was obliged to sail for Lisbon in three days.

I eagerly embraced the offer, notwithstanding the shortness of the time;

and, having given my brother full power to contract for our passage, I

began to prepare my family for the voyage with the utmost expedition.

But our great haste was needless; for the captain having twice put off

his sailing, I at length invited him to dinner with me at Fordhook, a

full week after the time on which he had declared, and that with many

asseverations, he must and would weigh anchor.

He dined with me according to his appointment; and when all matters were

settled between us, left me with positive orders to be on board the

Wednesday following, when he declared he would fall down the river to

Gravesend, and would not stay a moment for the greatest man in the

world.