"It was one of the most wealthy families in Great Britain into which I
was born, and it was a very great happiness to me that it so happened,
otherwise I had still, in all probability, been living; but I shall
recount to you all the occurrences of my short and miserable existence,
just as, by examining into the traces made in my brain, they appeared to
me at that time. The first thing that ever struck my senses was a noise
over my head of one shrieking; after which, methought, I took a full
jump, and found myself in the hands of a sorceress, who seemed as if she
had been long waking and employed in some incantation: I was thoroughly
frightened, and cried out; but she immediately seemed to go on in some
magical operation, and anointed me from head to foot. What they meant
I could not imagine; for there gathered a great crowd about me, crying,
'An heir! an heir!' upon which I grew a little still, and believed this
was a ceremony to be used only to great persons, and such as made them,
what they called Heirs. I lay very quiet; but the witch, for no manner
of reason or provocation in the world, takes me, and binds my head as
hard as possibly she could; then ties up both my legs, and makes me
swallow down a horrid mixture. I thought it a harsh entrance into life,
to begin with taking physic; but I was forced to it, or else must have
taken down a great instrument in which she gave it me. When I was thus
dressed, I was carried to a bedside, where a fine young lady, my mother
I wot, had like to have hugged me to death. From her they faced me
about, and there was a thing with quite another look from the rest
of the room, to whom they talked about my nose. He seemed wonderfully
pleased to see me; but I knew since, my nose belonged to another family.
That into which I was born is one of the most numerous amongst you;
therefore crowds of relations came every day to congratulate my arrival;
among others my cousin Betty, the greatest romp in nature; she whisks
me such a height over her head that I cried out for fear of falling.
She pinched me, and called me squealing chit, and threw me into a
girl's arms that was taken in to tend me. The girl was very proud of the
womanly employment of a nurse, and took upon her to strip and dress me
a-new, because I made a noise, to see what ailed me; she did so, and
stuck a pin in every joint about me. I still cried; upon which she lays
me on my face in her lap; and, to quiet me, fell a-nailing in all the
pins by clapping me on the back and screaming a lullaby. But my pain
made me exalt my voice above hers, which brought up the nurse, the witch
I first saw, and my grandmother. The girl is turned downstairs, and I
stripped again, as well to find what ailed me as to satisfy my grandam's
farther curiosity. This good old woman's visit was the cause of all my
troubles. You are to understand that I was hitherto bred by hand, and
anybody that stood next gave me pap, if I did but open my lips; insomuch
that I was grown so cunning as to pretend myself asleep when I was not,
to prevent my being crammed. But my grandmother began a loud lecture
upon the idleness of the wives of this age, who, for fear of their
shape, forbear suckling their own offspring; and ten nurses were
immediately sent for; one was whispered to have a wanton eye, and would
soon spoil her milk; another was in a consumption; the third had an
ill voice, and would frighten me instead of lulling me to sleep. Such
exceptions were made against all but one country milch-wench, to whom I
was committed, and put to the breast. This careless jade was eternally
romping with the footman and downright starved me; insomuch that I daily
pined away, and should never have been relieved had it not been that,
on the thirtieth day of my life, a Fellow of the Royal Society, who had
writ upon Cold Baths, came to visit me, and solemnly protested I was
utterly lost for want of that method; upon which he soused me head and
ears into a pail of water, where I had the good fortune to be drowned;
and so escaped being lashed into a linguist till sixteen, and being
married to an ill-natured wife till sixty, which had certainly been my
fate had not the enchantment between body and soul been broken by this
philosopher. Thus, till the age I should have otherwise lived, I am
obliged to watch the steps of men; and, if you please, shall accompany
you in your present walk, and get you intelligence from the aerial
lackey, who is in waiting, what are the thoughts and purposes of any
whom you inquire for."
I accepted his kind offer, and immediately took him with me in a hack to
White's.
*****
White's Chocolate-house, May 13.
We got in hither, and my companion threw a powder round us, that made
me as invisible as himself; so that we could see and hear all others,
ourselves unseen and unheard.
The first thing we took notice of was a nobleman of a goodly and frank
aspect, with his generous birth and temper visible in it, playing at
cards with a creature of a black and horrid countenance, wherein were
plainly delineated the arts of his mind, cozenage, and falsehood.
They were marking their game with counters, on which we could see
inscriptions, imperceptible to any but us. My Lord had scored with
pieces of ivory, on which were writ, "Good Fame, Glory, Riches, Honour,
and Posterity!" The spectre over-against him had on his counters the
inscriptions of "Dishonour, Impudence, Poverty, Ignorance, and Want of
Shame." "Bless me!", said I; "sure, my Lord does not see what he plays
for?" "As well as I do," says Pacolet. "He despises that fellow he plays
with, and scorns himself for making him his companion." At the very
instant he was speaking, I saw the fellow who played with my Lord hide
two cards in the roll of his stocking. Pacolet immediately stole them
from thence; upon which the nobleman soon after won the game. The little
triumph he appeared in, when he got such a trifling stock of ready
money, though he had ventured so great sums with indifference, increased
my admiration. But Pacolet began to talk to me. "Mr. Isaac, this to you
looks wonderful, but not at all to us higher beings: that nobleman has
as many good qualities as any man of his order, and seems to have no
faults but what, as I may say, are excrescences from virtues. He is
generous to a prodigality, more affable than is consistent with his
quality, and courageous to a rashness. Yet, after all this, the source
of his whole conduct is, though he would hate himself if he knew it,
mere avarice. The ready cash laid before the gamester's counters makes
him venture, as you see, and lay distinction against infamy, abundance
against want; in a word, all that is desirable against all that is to
be avoided." "However," said I, "be sure you disappoint the sharpers
to-night, and steal from them all the cards they hide." Pacolet obeyed
me, and my Lord went home with their whole bank in his pocket.