_A TALE OF A TUB_.
WE left Lord Peter in open rupture with his two brethren, both for ever
discarded from his house, and resigned to the wide world with little or
nothing to trust to. Which are circumstances that render them proper
subjects for the charity of a writer’s pen to work on, scenes of misery
ever affording the fairest harvest for great adventures. And in this the
world may perceive the difference between the integrity of a generous
Author and that of a common friend. The latter is observed to adhere
close in prosperity, but on the decline of fortune to drop suddenly off;
whereas the generous author, just on the contrary, finds his hero on the
dunghill, from thence, by gradual steps, raises him to a throne, and then
immediately withdraws, expecting not so much as thanks for his pains; in
imitation of which example I have placed Lord Peter in a noble house,
given him a title to wear and money to spend. There I shall leave him
for some time, returning, where common charity directs me, to the
assistance of his two brothers at their lowest ebb. However, I shall by
no means forget my character of a historian, to follow the truth step by
step whatever happens, or wherever it may lead me.
The two exiles so nearly united in fortune and interest took a lodging
together, where at their first leisure they began to reflect on the
numberless misfortunes and vexations of their life past, and could not
tell of the sudden to what failure in their conduct they ought to impute
them, when, after some recollection, they called to mind the copy of
their father’s will which they had so happily recovered. This was
immediately produced, and a firm resolution taken between them to alter
whatever was already amiss, and reduce all their future measures to the
strictest obedience prescribed therein. The main body of the will (as
the reader cannot easily have forgot) consisted in certain admirable
rules, about the wearing of their coats, in the perusal whereof the two
brothers at every period duly comparing the doctrine with the practice,
there was never seen a wider difference between two things, horrible
downright transgressions of every point. Upon which they both resolved
without further delay to fall immediately upon reducing the whole exactly
after their father’s model.
But here it is good to stop the hasty reader, ever impatient to see the
end of an adventure before we writers can duly prepare him for it. I am
to record that these two brothers began to be distinguished at this time
by certain names. One of them desired to be called Martin, and the other
took the appellation of Jack. These two had lived in much friendship and
agreement under the tyranny of their brother Peter, as it is the talent
of fellow-sufferers to do, men in misfortune being like men in the dark,
to whom all colours are the same. But when they came forward into the
world, and began to display themselves to each other and to the light,
their complexions appeared extremely different, which the present posture
of their affairs gave them sudden opportunity to discover.
But here the severe reader may justly tax me as a writer of short memory,
a deficiency to which a true modern cannot but of necessity be a little
subject. Because, memory being an employment of the mind upon things
past, is a faculty for which the learned in our illustrious age have no
manner of occasion, who deal entirely with invention and strike all
things out of themselves, or at least by collision from each other; upon
which account, we think it highly reasonable to produce our great
forgetfulness as an argument unanswerable for our great wit. I ought in
method to have informed the reader about fifty pages ago of a fancy Lord
Peter took, and infused into his brothers, to wear on their coats
whatever trimmings came up in fashion, never pulling off any as they went
out of the mode, but keeping on all together, which amounted in time to a
medley the most antic you can possibly conceive, and this to a degree
that, upon the time of their falling out, there was hardly a thread of
the original coat to be seen, but an infinite quantity of lace, and
ribbands, and fringe, and embroidery, and points (I mean only those
tagged with silver, for the rest fell off). Now this material
circumstance having been forgot in due place, as good fortune hath
ordered, comes in very properly here, when the two brothers are just
going to reform their vestures into the primitive state prescribed by
their father’s will.
They both unanimously entered upon this great work, looking sometimes on
their coats and sometimes on the will. Martin laid the first hand; at
one twitch brought off a large handful of points, and with a second pull
stripped away ten dozen yards of fringe. But when he had gone thus far
he demurred a while. He knew very well there yet remained a great deal
more to be done; however, the first heat being over, his violence began
to cool, and he resolved to proceed more moderately in the rest of the
work, having already very narrowly escaped a swinging rent in pulling off
the points, which being tagged with silver (as we have observed before),
the judicious workman had with much sagacity double sewn to preserve them
from falling. Resolving therefore to rid his coat of a huge quantity of
gold lace, he picked up the stitches with much caution and diligently
gleaned out all the loose threads as he went, which proved to be a work
of time. Then he fell about the embroidered Indian figures of men,
women, and children, against which, as you have heard in its due place,
their father’s testament was extremely exact and severe. These, with
much dexterity and application, were after a while quite eradicated or
utterly defaced. For the rest, where he observed the embroidery to be
worked so close as not to be got away without damaging the cloth, or
where it served to hide or strengthened any flaw in the body of the coat,
contracted by the perpetual tampering of workmen upon it, he concluded
the wisest course was to let it remain, resolving in no case whatsoever
that the substance of the stuff should suffer injury, which he thought
the best method for serving the true intent and meaning of his father’s
will. And this is the nearest account I have been able to collect of
Martin’s proceedings upon this great revolution.
But his brother Jack, whose adventures will be so extraordinary as to
furnish a great part in the remainder of this discourse, entered upon the
matter with other thoughts and a quite different spirit. For the memory
of Lord Peter’s injuries produced a degree of hatred and spite which had
a much greater share of inciting him than any regards after his father’s
commands, since these appeared at best only secondary and subservient to
the other. However, for this medley of humour he made a shift to find a
very plausible name, honouring it with the title of zeal, which is,
perhaps, the most significant word that has been ever yet produced in any
language, as, I think, I have fully proved in my excellent analytical
discourse upon that subject, wherein I have deduced a
histori-theo-physiological account of zeal, showing how it first
proceeded from a notion into a word, and from thence in a hot summer
ripened into a tangible substance. This work, containing three large
volumes in folio, I design very shortly to publish by the modern way of
subscription, not doubting but the nobility and gentry of the land will
give me all possible encouragement, having already had such a taste of
what I am able to perform.
I record, therefore, that brother Jack, brimful of this miraculous
compound, reflecting with indignation upon Peter’s tyranny, and further
provoked by the despondency of Martin, prefaced his resolutions to this
purpose. “What!” said he, “a rogue that locked up his drink, turned away
our wives, cheated us of our fortunes, palmed his crusts upon us for
mutton, and at last kicked us out of doors; must we be in his fashions?
A rascal, besides, that all the street cries out against.” Having thus
kindled and inflamed himself as high as possible, and by consequence in a
delicate temper for beginning a reformation, he set about the work
immediately, and in three minutes made more dispatch than Martin had done
in as many hours. For, courteous reader, you are given to understand
that zeal is never so highly obliged as when you set it a-tearing; and
Jack, who doted on that quality in himself, allowed it at this time its
full swing. Thus it happened that, stripping down a parcel of gold lace
a little too hastily, he rent the main body of his coat from top to
bottom {110}; and whereas his talent was not of the happiest in taking up
a stitch, he knew no better way than to darn it again with packthread
thread and a skewer. But the matter was yet infinitely worse (I record
it with tears) when he proceeded to the embroidery; for being clumsy of
nature, and of temper impatient withal, beholding millions of stitches
that required the nicest hand and sedatest constitution to extricate, in
a great rage he tore off the whole piece, cloth and all, and flung it
into the kennel, and furiously thus continuing his career, “Ah! good
brother Martin,” said he, “do as I do, for the love of God; strip, tear,
pull, rend, flay off all that we may appear as unlike that rogue Peter as
it is possible. I would not for a hundred pounds carry the least mark
about me that might give occasion to the neighbours of suspecting I was
related to such a rascal.” But Martin, who at this time happened to be
extremely phlegmatic and sedate, begged his brother, of all love, not to
damage his coat by any means, for he never would get such another;
desired him to consider that it was not their business to form their
actions by any reflection upon Peter’s, but by observing the rules
prescribed in their father’s will. That he should remember Peter was
still their brother, whatever faults or injuries he had committed, and
therefore they should by all means avoid such a thought as that of taking
measures for good and evil from no other rule than of opposition to him.
That it was true the testament of their good father was very exact in
what related to the wearing of their coats; yet was it no less penal and
strict in prescribing agreement, and friendship, and affection between
them. And therefore, if straining a point were at all defensible, it
would certainly be so rather to the advance of unity than increase of
contradiction.
Martin had still proceeded as gravely as he began, and doubtless would
have delivered an admirable lecture of morality, which might have
exceedingly contributed to my reader’s repose both of body and mind (the
true ultimate end of ethics), but Jack was already gone a flight-shot
beyond his patience. And as in scholastic disputes nothing serves to
rouse the spleen of him that opposes so much as a kind of pedantic
affected calmness in the respondent, disputants being for the most part
like unequal scales, where the gravity of one side advances the lightness
of the other, and causes it to fly up and kick the beam; so it happened
here that the weight of Martin’s arguments exalted Jack’s levity, and
made him fly out and spurn against his brother’s moderation. In short,
Martin’s patience put Jack in a rage; but that which most afflicted him
was to observe his brother’s coat so well reduced into the state of
innocence, while his own was either wholly rent to his shirt, or those
places which had escaped his cruel clutches were still in Peter’s livery.
So that he looked like a drunken beau half rifled by bullies, or like a
fresh tenant of Newgate when he has refused the payment of garnish, or
like a discovered shoplifter left to the mercy of Exchange-women {111a},
or like a bawd in her old velvet petticoat resigned into the secular
hands of the mobile {111b}. Like any or like all of these, a medley of
rags, and lace, and fringes, unfortunate Jack did now appear; he would
have been extremely glad to see his coat in the condition of Martin’s,
but infinitely gladder to find that of Martin in the same predicament
with his. However, since neither of these was likely to come to pass, he
thought fit to lend the whole business another turn, and to dress up
necessity into a virtue. Therefore, after as many of the fox’s arguments
as he could muster up for bringing Martin to reason, as he called it, or
as he meant it, into his own ragged, bobtailed condition, and observing
he said all to little purpose, what alas! was left for the forlorn Jack
to do, but, after a million of scurrilities against his brother, to run
mad with spleen, and spite, and contradiction. To be short, here began a
mortal breach between these two. Jack went immediately to new lodgings,
and in a few days it was for certain reported that he had run out of his
wits. In a short time after he appeared abroad, and confirmed the report
by falling into the oddest whimsies that ever a sick brain conceived.
And now the little boys in the streets began to salute him with several
names. Sometimes they would call him Jack the Bald, sometimes Jack with
a Lanthorn, sometimes Dutch Jack, sometimes French Hugh, sometimes Tom
the Beggar, and sometimes Knocking Jack of the North {112}. And it was
under one or some or all of these appellations (which I leave the learned
reader to determine) that he hath given rise to the most illustrious and
epidemic sect of Æolists, who, with honourable commemoration, do still
acknowledge the renowned Jack for their author and founder. Of whose
originals as well as principles I am now advancing to gratify the world
with a very particular account.
“Mellæo contingens cuncta lepore.”