his wife.
MRS. BULL.--It is a most sad life we lead, my dear, to be so teazed,
paying interest for old debts, and still contracting new ones. However,
I don't blame you for vindicating your honour and chastising old Lewis.
To curb the insolent, protect the oppressed, recover one's own, and
defend what one has, are good effects of the law. The only thing I want
to know is how you came to make an end of your money before you finished
your suit.
JOHN BULL.--I was told by the learned in the law that my suit stood upon
three firm pillars: more money for more law, more law for more
money, and no composition. More money for more law was plain to a
demonstration, for who can go to law without money? and it was plain
that any man that has money may have law for it. The third was as
evident as the other two; for what composition could be made with a
rogue that never kept a word he said?
MRS. BULL.--I think you are most likely to get out of this labyrinth
by the second door, by want of ready money to purchase this precious
commodity. But you seem not only to have bought too much of it, but have
paid too dear for what you bought, else how was it possible to run
so much in debt when at this very time the yearly income of what is
mortgaged to those usurers would discharge Hocus's bills, and give you
your bellyfull of law for all your life, without running one sixpence
in debt? You have been bred up to business; I suppose you can cypher; I
wonder you never used your pen and ink.
JOHN BULL.--Now you urge me too far; prithee, dear wife, hold thy
tongue. Suppose a young heir, heedless, raw, and inexperienced, full
of spirit and vigour, with a favourite passion, in the hands of money
scriveners. Such fellows are like your wire-drawing mills: if they get
hold of a man's finger they will pull in his whole body at last, till
they squeeze the heart, blood, and guts out of him. When I wanted money,
half a dozen of these fellows were always waiting in my ante-chamber
with their securities ready drawn.* I was tempted with the ready, some
farm or other went to pot. I received with one hand, and paid it away
with the other to lawyers that, like so many hell hounds, were ready to
devour me. Then the rogues would plead poverty and scarcity of money,
which always ended in receiving ninety for the hundred. After they had
got possession of my best rents they were able to supply me with my own
money. But, what was worse, when I looked into the securities there was
no clause of redemption.
* Methods of preying upon the necessities of the Government.
MRS. BULL.--No clause of redemption, say you? That's hard.
JOHN BULL.--No great matter. For I cannot pay them. They had got a
worse trick than that. The same man bought and sold to himself, paid the
money, and gave the acquittance; the same man was butcher and grazier,
brewer and butler, cook and poulterer. There is something still worse
than all this. There came twenty bills upon me at once, which I had
given money to discharge. I was like to be pulled to pieces by brewer,
butcher, and baker; even my herb-woman dunned me as I went along the
streets. Thanks to my friend Sir Roger, else I must have gone to jail.
When I asked the meaning of this, I was told the money went to the
lawyers. "Counsel won't tick, sir." Hocus was urging; my book-keeper
sat sotting all day, playing at Put and All-fours. In short, by griping
usurers, devouring lawyers, and negligent servants I am brought to this
pass.
MRS. BULL.--This was hard usage. But methinks the least reflection might
have retrieved you.
JOHN BULL.--'Tis true; yet consider my circumstances--my honour was
engaged, and I did not know how to get out. Besides, I was for five
years often drunk, always muddled; they carried me from tavern to
tavern, to ale-houses and brandy-shops, and brought me acquainted with
such strange dogs. "There goes the prettiest fellow in the world," says
one, "for managing a jury: make him yours. There's another can pick you
up witnesses. Serjeant such-a-one has a silver tongue at the bar."* I
believe, in time I should have retained every single person within the
Inns of Court. The night after a trial I treated the lawyers, their
wives, and daughters, with fiddles, hautboys, drums, and trumpets. I was
always hot-headed. Then they placed me in the middle, the attorneys and
their clerks dancing about me, whooping and holloing, "Long live John
Bull, the glory and support of the law!"
* Hiring still more troops.
MRS. BULL.--Really, husband, you went through a very notable course.
JOHN BULL.--One of the things that first alarmed me was that they showed
a spite against my poor old mother.* "Lord," quoth I, "what makes you
so jealous of a poor, old, innocent gentlewoman, that minds only her
prayers and her Practice of Piety? She never meddles in any of your
concerns." "Fob," say they, "to see a handsome, brisk, genteel young
fellow so much governed by a doting old woman! Do you consider she keeps
you out of a good jointure? She has the best of your estate settled upon
her for a rent-charge. Hang her, old thief! turn her out of doors,
seize her lands, and let her go to law if she dares." "Soft and fair,
gentlemen," quoth I; "my mother's my mother, our family are not of an
unnatural temper. Though I don't take all her advice, I won't seize her
jointure; long may she enjoy it, good woman; I don't grudge it her. She
allows me now and then a brace of hundreds for my lawsuit; that's pretty
fair." About this time the old gentlewoman fell ill of an odd sort of a
distemper.**
* Railing against the Church.
** Carelessness in forms and discipline.
It began with a coldness and numbness in her limbs, which by degrees
affected the nerves (I think the physicians call them), seized the
brain, and at last ended in a lethargy. It betrayed itself at first in
a sort of indifference and carelessness in all her actions, coldness to
her best friends, and an aversion to stir or go about the common offices
of life. She, that was the cleanliest creature in the world, never
shrank now if you set a close-stool under her nose. She that would
sometimes rattle off her servants pretty sharply, now if she saw them
drink, or heard them talk profanely, never took any notice of it.
Instead of her usual charities to deserving persons, she threw away her
money upon roaring, swearing bullies and beggars, that went about the
streets.* "What is the matter with the old gentlewoman?" said everybody;
"she never used to do in this manner." At last the distemper grew more
violent, and threw her downright into raving fits, in which she shrieked
out so loud that she disturbed the whole neighbourhood.** In her fits
she called upon one Sir William.*** "Oh! Sir William, thou hast betrayed
me, killed me, stabbed me! See, see! Clum with his bloody knife! Seize
him! seize him! stop him! Behold the fury with her hissing snakes!
Where's my son John? Is he well, is he well? Poor man! I pity him!" And
abundance more of such strange stuff, that nobody could make anything
of.
* Disposing of some preferments to libertine and
unprincipled persons.
** The too violent clamour about the danger of the Church.
*** Sir William, a cant name of Sir Humphry's for Lord
Treasurer Godolphin.
I knew little of the matter; for when I inquired about her health, the
answer was that she was in a good moderate way. Physicians were sent for
in haste. Sir Roger, with great difficulty, brought Ratcliff; Garth came
upon the first message. There were several others called in, but, as
usual upon such occasions, they differed strangely at the consultation.
At last they divided into two parties; one sided with Garth, the other
with Ratcliff.* Dr. Garth said, "This case seems to me to be plainly
hysterical; the old woman is whimsical; it is a common thing for your
old women to be so; I'll pawn my life, blisters, with the steel diet,
will recover her." Others suggested strong purging and letting of blood,
because she was plethoric. Some went so far as to say the old woman
was mad, and nothing would be better than a little corporal correction.
Ratcliff said, "Gentlemen, you are mistaken in this case; it is plainly
an acute distemper, and she cannot hold out three days unless she is
supported with strong cordials." I came into the room with a good deal
of concern, and asked them what they thought of my mother? "In no manner
of danger, I vow to God," quoth Garth; "the old woman is hysterical,
fanciful, sir, I vow to God." "I tell you, sir," says Ratcliff, "she
cannot live three days to an end, unless there is some very effectual
course taken with her; she has a malignant fever." Then "fool," "puppy,"
and "blockhead," were the best words they gave. I could hardly restrain
them from throwing the ink-bottles at one another's heads. I forgot to
tell you that one party of the physicians desired I would take my sister
Peg into the house to nurse her, but the old gentlewoman would not hear
of that. At last one physician asked if the lady had ever been used to
take laudanum? Her maid answered, not that she knew; but, indeed, there
was a High German liveryman of hers, one Van Ptschirnsooker,** that gave
her a sort of a quack powder. The physician desired to see it. "Nay,"
says he, "there is opium in this, I am sure."
* Garth, the Low Church party. Ratcliff, High Church party.
** Van Ptschirnsooker, a bishop at that time, a great dealer
in politics and physic.
MRS. BULL.--I hope you examined a little into this matter?
JOHN BULL.--I did, indeed, and discovered a great mystery of iniquity.
The witnesses made oath that they had heard some of the liverymen*
frequently railing at their mistress. They said she was a troublesome
fiddle-faddle old woman, and so ceremonious that there was no bearing of
her. They were so plagued with bowing and cringing as they went in and
out of the room that their backs ached. She used to scold at one for his
dirty shoes, at another for his greasy hair and not combing his head.
Then she was so passionate and fiery in her temper that there was no
living with her. She wanted something to sweeten her blood. That they
never had a quiet night's rest for getting up in the morning to early
Sacraments. They wished they could find some way or another to keep the
old woman quiet in her bed. Such discourses were often overheard among
the liverymen, while the said Van Ptschirnsooker had undertook
this matter. A maid made affidavit "That she had seen the said Van
Ptschirnsooker, one of the liverymen, frequently making up of medicines
and administering them to all the neighbours; that she saw him one
morning make up the powder which her mistress took; that she had the
curiosity to ask him whence he had the ingredients. 'They come,' says
he, 'from several parts of de world. Dis I have from Geneva, dat from
Rome, this white powder from Amsterdam, and the red from Edinburgh, but
the chief ingredient of all comes from Turkey." It was likewise proved
that the said Van Ptschirnsooker had been frequently seen at the "Rose"
with Jack, who was known to bear an inveterate spite to his mistress.
That he brought a certain powder to his mistress which the examinant
believes to be the same, and spoke the following words:--"Madam, here
is grand secret van de world, my sweetening powder; it does temperate
de humour, dispel the windt, and cure de vapour; it lulleth and quieteth
the animal spirits, procuring rest and pleasant dreams. It is de
infallible receipt for de scurvy, all heats in de bloodt, and breaking
out upon de skin. It is de true bloodstancher, stopping all fluxes of de
blood. If you do take dis, you will never ail anyding; it will cure
you of all diseases." And abundance more to this purpose, which the
examinant does not remember.
* The clergy.
John Bull was interrupted in his story by a porter, that brought him a
letter from Nicholas Frog, which is as follows.