_A TALE OF A TUB_.
I HAVE now with much pains and study conducted the reader to a period
where he must expect to hear of great revolutions. For no sooner had our
learned brother, so often mentioned, got a warm house of his own over his
head, than he began to look big and to take mightily upon him, insomuch
that unless the gentle reader out of his great candour will please a
little to exalt his idea, I am afraid he will henceforth hardly know the
hero of the play when he happens to meet him, his part, his dress, and
his mien being so much altered.
He told his brothers he would have them to know that he was their elder,
and consequently his father’s sole heir; nay, a while after, he would not
allow them to call him brother, but Mr. Peter; and then he must be styled
Father Peter, and sometimes My Lord Peter. To support this grandeur,
which he soon began to consider could not be maintained without a better
_fonde_ than what he was born to, after much thought he cast about at
last to turn projector and virtuoso, wherein he so well succeeded, that
many famous discoveries, projects, and machines which bear great vogue
and practice at present in the world, are owing entirely to Lord Peter’s
invention. I will deduce the best account I have been able to collect of
the chief amongst them, without considering much the order they came out
in, because I think authors are not well agreed as to that point.
I hope when this treatise of mine shall be translated into foreign
languages (as I may without vanity affirm that the labour of collecting,
the faithfulness in recounting, and the great usefulness of the matter to
the public, will amply deserve that justice), that of the several
Academies abroad, especially those of France and Italy, will favourably
accept these humble offers for the advancement of universal knowledge. I
do also advertise the most reverend fathers the Eastern missionaries that
I have purely for their sakes made use of such words and phrases as will
best admit an easy turn into any of the Oriental languages, especially
the Chinese. And so I proceed with great content of mind upon reflecting
how much emolument this whole globe of earth is like to reap by my
labours.
The first undertaking of Lord Peter was to purchase a large continent,
lately said to have been discovered in _Terra Australis incognita_. This
tract of land he bought at a very great pennyworth from the discoverers
themselves (though some pretended to doubt whether they had ever been
there), and then retailed it into several cantons to certain dealers, who
carried over colonies, but were all shipwrecked in the voyage; upon which
Lord Peter sold the said continent to other customers again and again,
and again and again, with the same success.
The second project I shall mention was his sovereign remedy for the
worms, especially those in the spleen. The patient was to eat nothing
after supper for three nights; as soon as he went to bed, he was
carefully to lie on one side, and when he grew weary, to turn upon the
other. He must also duly confine his two eyes to the same object, and by
no means break wind at both ends together without manifest occasion.
These prescriptions diligently observed, the worms would void insensibly
by perspiration ascending through the brain.
A third invention was the erecting of a whispering-office for the public
good and ease of all such as are hypochondriacal or troubled with the
cholic, as likewise of all eavesdroppers, physicians, midwives, small
politicians, friends fallen out, repeating poets, lovers happy or in
despair, bawds, privy-counsellors, pages, parasites and buffoons, in
short, of all such as are in danger of bursting with too much wind. An
ass’s head was placed so conveniently, that the party affected might
easily with his mouth accost either of the animal’s ears, which he was to
apply close for a certain space, and by a fugitive faculty peculiar to
the ears of that animal, receive immediate benefit, either by eructation,
or expiration, or evomition.
Another very beneficial project of Lord Peter’s was an office of
insurance for tobacco-pipes, martyrs of the modern zeal, volumes of
poetry, shadows . . . and rivers, that these, nor any of these, shall
receive damage by fire. From whence our friendly societies may plainly
find themselves to be only transcribers from this original, though the
one and the other have been of great benefit to the undertakers as well
as of equal to the public.
Lord Peter was also held the original author of puppets and raree-shows,
the great usefulness whereof being so generally known, I shall not
enlarge farther upon this particular.
But another discovery for which he was much renowned was his famous
universal pickle. For having remarked how your common pickle in use
among housewives was of no farther benefit than to preserve dead flesh
and certain kinds of vegetables, Peter with great cost as well as art had
contrived a pickle proper for houses, gardens, towns, men, women,
children, and cattle, wherein he could preserve them as sound as insects
in amber. Now this pickle to the taste, the smell, and the sight,
appeared exactly the same with what is in common service for beef, and
butter, and herrings (and has been often that way applied with great
success), but for its many sovereign virtues was quite a different thing.
For Peter would put in a certain quantity of his powder pimperlim-pimp,
after which it never failed of success. The operation was performed by
spargefaction in a proper time of the moon. The patient who was to be
pickled, if it were a house, would infallibly be preserved from all
spiders, rats, and weasels; if the party affected were a dog, he should
be exempt from mange, and madness, and hunger. It also infallibly took
away all scabs and lice, and scalled heads from children, never hindering
the patient from any duty, either at bed or board.
But of all Peter’s rarities, he most valued a certain set of bulls, whose
race was by great fortune preserved in a lineal descent from those that
guarded the golden-fleece. Though some who pretended to observe them
curiously doubted the breed had not been kept entirely chaste, because
they had degenerated from their ancestors in some qualities, and had
acquired others very extraordinary, but a foreign mixture. The bulls of
Colchis are recorded to have brazen feet; but whether it happened by ill
pasture and running, by an alloy from intervention of other parents from
stolen intrigues; whether a weakness in their progenitors had impaired
the seminal virtue, or by a decline necessary through a long course of
time, the originals of nature being depraved in these latter sinful ages
of the world—whatever was the cause, it is certain that Lord Peter’s
bulls were extremely vitiated by the rust of time in the metal of their
feet, which was now sunk into common lead. However, the terrible roaring
peculiar to their lineage was preserved, as likewise that faculty of
breathing out fire from their nostrils; which notwithstanding many of
their detractors took to be a feat of art, and to be nothing so terrible
as it appeared, proceeding only from their usual course of diet, which
was of squibs and crackers. However, they had two peculiar marks which
extremely distinguished them from the bulls of Jason, and which I have
not met together in the description of any other monster beside that in
Horace, “Varias inducere plumas,” and “Atrum definit in piscem.” For
these had fishes tails, yet upon occasion could outfly any bird in the
air. Peter put these bulls upon several employs. Sometimes he would set
them a roaring to fright naughty boys and make them quiet. Sometimes he
would send them out upon errands of great importance, where it is
wonderful to recount, and perhaps the cautious reader may think much to
believe it; an _appetitus sensibilis_ deriving itself through the whole
family from their noble ancestors, guardians of the Golden Fleece, they
continued so extremely fond of gold, that if Peter sent them abroad,
though it were only upon a compliment, they would roar, and spit, and
belch, and snivel out fire, and keep a perpetual coil till you flung them
a bit of gold; but then _pulveris exigui jactu_, they would grow calm and
quiet as lambs. In short, whether by secret connivance or encouragement
from their master, or out of their own liquorish affection to gold, or
both, it is certain they were no better than a sort of sturdy, swaggering
beggars; and where they could not prevail to get an alms, would make
women miscarry and children fall into fits; who to this very day usually
call sprites and hobgoblins by the name of bull-beggars. They grew at
last so very troublesome to the neighbourhood, that some gentlemen of the
North-West got a parcel of right English bull-dogs, and baited them so
terribly, that they felt it ever after.
I must needs mention one more of Lord Peter’s projects, which was very
extraordinary, and discovered him to be master of a high reach and
profound invention. Whenever it happened that any rogue of Newgate was
condemned to be hanged, Peter would offer him a pardon for a certain sum
of money, which when the poor caitiff had made all shifts to scrape up
and send, his lordship would return a piece of paper in this form:—
“To all mayors, sheriffs, jailors, constables, bailiffs, hangmen, &c.
Whereas we are informed that A. B. remains in the hands of you, or
any of you, under the sentence of death. We will and command you,
upon sight hereof, to let the said prisoner depart to his own
habitation, whether he stands condemned for murder, sodomy, rape,
sacrilege, incest, treason, blasphemy, &c., for which this shall be
your sufficient warrant. And it you fail hereof, G— d—mn you and
yours to all eternity. And so we bid you heartily farewell. Your
most humble man’s man,
“EMPEROR PETER.”
The wretches trusting to this lost their lives and money too.
I desire of those whom the learned among posterity will appoint for
commentators upon this elaborate treatise, that they will proceed with
great caution upon certain dark points, wherein all who are not _verè
adepti_ may be in danger to form rash and hasty conclusions, especially
in some mysterious paragraphs, where certain arcana are joined for
brevity sake, which in the operation must be divided. And I am certain
that future sons of art will return large thanks to my memory for so
grateful, so useful an inmuendo.
It will be no difficult part to persuade the reader that so many worthy
discoveries met with great success in the world; though I may justly
assure him that I have related much the smallest number; my design having
been only to single out such as will be of most benefit for public
imitation, or which best served to give some idea of the reach and wit of
the inventor. And therefore it need not be wondered if by this time Lord
Peter was become exceeding rich. But alas! he had kept his brain so long
and so violently upon the rack, that at last it shook itself, and began
to turn round for a little ease. In short, what with pride, projects,
and knavery, poor Peter was grown distracted, and conceived the strangest
imaginations in the world. In the height of his fits (as it is usual
with those who run mad out of pride) he would call himself God Almighty,
and sometimes monarch of the universe. I have seen him (says my author)
take three old high-crowned hats, and clap them all on his head, three
storey high, with a huge bunch of keys at his girdle, and an angling rod
in his hand. In which guise, whoever went to take him by the hand in the
way of salutation, Peter with much grace, like a well-educated spaniel,
would present them with his foot, and if they refused his civility, then
he would raise it as high as their chops, and give them a damned kick on
the mouth, which hath ever since been called a salute. Whoever walked by
without paying him their compliments, having a wonderful strong breath,
he would blow their hats off into the dirt. Meantime his affairs at home
went upside down, and his two brothers had a wretched time, where his
first _boutade_ was to kick both their wives one morning out of doors,
and his own too, and in their stead gave orders to pick up the first
three strollers could be met with in the streets. A while after he
nailed up the cellar door, and would not allow his brothers a drop of
drink to their victuals {95}. Dining one day at an alderman’s in the
city, Peter observed him expatiating, after the manner of his brethren in
the praises of his sirloin of beef. “Beef,” said the sage magistrate,
“is the king of meat; beef comprehends in it the quintessence of
partridge, and quail, and venison, and pheasant, and plum-pudding, and
custard.” When Peter came home, he would needs take the fancy of cooking
up this doctrine into use, and apply the precept in default of a sirloin
to his brown loaf. “Bread,” says he, “dear brothers, is the staff of
life, in which bread is contained inclusive the quintessence of beef,
mutton, veal, venison, partridge, plum-pudding, and custard, and to
render all complete, there is intermingled a due quantity of water, whose
crudities are also corrected by yeast or barm, through which means it
becomes a wholesome fermented liquor, diffused through the mass of the
bread.” Upon the strength of these conclusions, next day at dinner was
the brown loaf served up in all the formality of a City feast. “Come,
brothers,” said Peter, “fall to, and spare not; here is excellent good
mutton {96}; or hold, now my hand is in, I’ll help you.” At which word,
in much ceremony, with fork and knife, he carves out two good slices of a
loaf, and presents each on a plate to his brothers. The elder of the
two, not suddenly entering into Lord Peter’s conceit, began with very
civil language to examine the mystery. “My lord,” said he, “I doubt,
with great submission, there may be some mistake.” “What!” says Peter,
“you are pleasant; come then, let us hear this jest your head is so big
with.” “None in the world, my Lord; but unless I am very much deceived,
your Lordship was pleased a while ago to let fall a word about mutton,
and I would be glad to see it with all my heart.” “How,” said Peter,
appearing in great surprise, “I do not comprehend this at all;” upon
which the younger, interposing to set the business right, “My Lord,” said
he, “my brother, I suppose, is hungry, and longs for the mutton your
Lordship hath promised us to dinner.” “Pray,” said Peter, “take me along
with you, either you are both mad, or disposed to be merrier than I
approve of; if you there do not like your piece, I will carve you
another, though I should take that to be the choice bit of the whole
shoulder.” “What then, my Lord?” replied the first; “it seems this is a
shoulder of mutton all this while.” “Pray, sir,” says Peter, “eat your
victuals and leave off your impertinence, if you please, for I am not
disposed to relish it at present;” but the other could not forbear, being
over-provoked at the affected seriousness of Peter’s countenance. “My
Lord,” said he, “I can only say, that to my eyes and fingers, and teeth
and nose, it seems to be nothing but a crust of bread.” Upon which the
second put in his word. “I never saw a piece of mutton in my life so
nearly resembling a slice from a twelve-penny loaf.” “Look ye,
gentlemen,” cries Peter in a rage, “to convince you what a couple of
blind, positive, ignorant, wilful puppies you are, I will use but this
plain argument; by G—, it is true, good, natural mutton as any in
Leadenhall Market; and G— confound you both eternally if you offer to
believe otherwise.” Such a thundering proof as this left no further room
for objection; the two unbelievers began to gather and pocket up their
mistake as hastily as they could. “Why, truly,” said the first, “upon
more mature consideration”—“Ay,” says the other, interrupting him, “now I
have thought better on the thing, your Lordship seems to have a great
deal of reason.” “Very well,” said Peter. “Here, boy, fill me a
beer-glass of claret. Here’s to you both with all my heart.” The two
brethren, much delighted to see him so readily appeased, returned their
most humble thanks, and said they would be glad to pledge his Lordship.
“That you shall,” said Peter, “I am not a person to refuse you anything
that is reasonable; wine moderately taken is a cordial. Here is a glass
apiece for you; it is true natural juice from the grape; none of your
damned vintner’s brewings.” Having spoke thus, he presented to each of
them another large dry crust, bidding them drink it off, and not be
bashful, for it would do them no hurt. The two brothers, after having
performed the usual office in such delicate conjunctures, of staring a
sufficient period at Lord Peter and each other, and finding how matters
were like to go, resolved not to enter on a new dispute, but let him
carry the point as he pleased; for he was now got into one of his mad
fits, and to argue or expostulate further would only serve to render him
a hundred times more untractable.
I have chosen to relate this worthy matter in all its circumstances,
because it gave a principal occasion to that great and famous rupture
{98a} which happened about the same time among these brethren, and was
never afterwards made up. But of that I shall treat at large in another
section.
However, it is certain that Lord Peter, even in his lucid intervals, was
very lewdly given in his common conversation, extreme wilful and
positive, and would at any time rather argue to the death than allow
himself to be once in an error. Besides, he had an abominable faculty of
telling huge palpable lies upon all occasions, and swearing not only to
the truth, but cursing the whole company to hell if they pretended to
make the least scruple of believing him. One time he swore he had a cow
at home which gave as much milk at a meal as would fill three thousand
churches, and what was yet more extraordinary, would never turn sour.
Another time he was telling of an old sign-post {98b} that belonged to
his father, with nails and timber enough on it to build sixteen large
men-of-war. Talking one day of Chinese waggons, which were made so light
as to sail over mountains, “Z—nds,” said Peter, “where’s the wonder of
that? By G—, I saw a large house of lime and stone travel over sea and
land (granting that it stopped sometimes to bait) above two thousand
German leagues.” {98c} And that which was the good of it, he would swear
desperately all the while that he never told a lie in his life, and at
every word: “By G— gentlemen, I tell you nothing but the truth, and the
d—l broil them eternally that will not believe me.”
In short, Peter grew so scandalous that all the neighbourhood began in
plain words to say he was no better than a knave; and his two brothers,
long weary of his ill-usage, resolved at last to leave him; but first
they humbly desired a copy of their father’s will, which had now lain by
neglected time out of mind. Instead of granting this request, he called
them rogues, traitors, and the rest of the vile names he could muster up.
However, while he was abroad one day upon his projects, the two
youngsters watched their opportunity, made a shift to come at the will,
and took a _copia vera_ {99a}, by which they presently saw how grossly
they had been abused, their father having left them equal heirs, and
strictly commanded that whatever they got should lie in common among them
all. Pursuant to which, their next enterprise was to break open the
cellar-door and get a little good drink to spirit and comfort their
hearts {99b}. In copying the will, they had met another precept against
whoring, divorce, and separate maintenance; upon which, their next work
was to discard their concubines and send for their wives {99c}. Whilst
all this was in agitation, there enters a solicitor from Newgate,
desiring Lord Peter would please to procure a pardon for a thief that was
to be hanged to-morrow. But the two brothers told him he was a coxcomb
to seek pardons from a fellow who deserved to be hanged much better than
his client, and discovered all the method of that imposture in the same
form I delivered it a while ago, advising the solicitor to put his friend
upon obtaining a pardon from the king. In the midst of all this platter
and revolution in comes Peter with a file of dragoons at his heels, and
gathering from all hands what was in the wind, he and his gang, after
several millions of scurrilities and curses not very important here to
repeat, by main force very fairly kicks them both out of doors, and would
never let them come under his roof from that day to this.