giant Laurcalco,1 who was lord of the silver bridge. Most properly, therefore, O eyes, and with great justice, may you be compared to those foolish lights which 5 conduct men through dirt and darkness, till they fall into a deep pit or a noisome bog.' This I have produced as a scantling of Jack's great eloquence, and the force of He was, besides, a person of great design and improvement in affairs of devotion, having introduced a new deity, who has since met with a vast number of worshippers; by some called Babel, by others Chaos, who had an ancient temple of Gothic structure upon Salisbury plain, famous for its shrine and celebration by pilgrims. When he had some roguish trick to play, he would down with his knees, up with his eyes, and fall to prayers, though in the midst of the kennel. Then it was that those who understood his pranks would be sure to get far enough out of his way; and whenever curiosity attracted strangers to laugh or to listen, he would, of a sudden, . . all bespatter them with mud. ing prentices who looked on that he submitted with entire resignation as to a trip or a blow of fate, with whom he found, by long experience, how vain it was either to wrestle or to cuff; and whoever durst undertake to do either would be sure to come off with a swinging fall or a bloody nose. 'It was ordained,' said he, some few days before the creation, that my nose and this 10 his reasoning upon such abstruse matters. very post should have a rencounter; and therefore nature thought fit to send us both into the world in the same age, and to make us countrymen and fellow-citizens. Now, had my eyes been open, 15 it is very likely the business might have been a great deal worse; for how many a confounded slip is daily got by a man with all this foresight about him? Besides, the eyes of the understanding see 20 best when those of the senses are out of the way; and therefore blind men are observed to tread their steps with much nore caution, and conduct, and judgment, than those who rely with too much 25 condence upon the virtue of the visual nerve, which every little accident shakes out of order, and a drop or a film can whony disconcert; like a lantern among a pack of roaring bullies when they 30 scour the streets, exposing its owner and itself to outward kicks and buffets, which both might have escaped if the vanity of appearing would have suffered them to walk in the dark. But farther. if we 35 examine the conduct of these boasted lights, it will prove yet a great deal worse than their fortune. 'Tis true, I have broke my nose against this post, because fortune either forgot, or did not 40 think it convenient, to twitch me by the elbow, and give me notice to avoid it. But let not this encourage either the present age or posterity to trust their noses into the keeping of their eyes, 45 which may prove the fairest way of losing them for good and all. For, O ye eyes, ye blind guides; miserable guardians are ye of our frail noses; ye, I say, who fasten upon the first precipice in 50 view, and then tow our wretched willing bodies after you to the very brink of destruction. But alas! that brink is rotten, our feet slip, and we tumble down prone into a gulf, without one 55 hospitable shrub in the way to break the fall; a fall to which not any nose of mortal make is equal, except that of the In winter he went always loose and unbuttoned, and clad as thin as possible to let in the ambient heat; and in summer lapped himself close and thick to keep it out. 4 In all revolutions of government he would make his court for the office of hangman general; and in the exercise of that dignity, where he was very dexterous, would make use of no other vizard than a long prayer. 5 He had a tongue so musculous and subtile, that he could twist it up into his nose, and deliver a strange kind of speech from thence. He was also the first in these kingdoms who began to improve the Spanish accomplishment of braying; and having large ears, perpetually exposed and erected, he carried his art to such perfection, that it was a point 1 Vide [See] Don Quixote. The villainies and cruelties, committed by enthusiasts and fanatics among us, were all performed under the disguise of religion and long prayers. 3 They affect differences in habit and behavior. They are severe in persecutors and all form of cant and devotion. a 5 Cromwell and his confederates went, as they called it, to seek the Lord, when they resolved to murder the king. of great difficulty to distinguish, either by the view or the sound, between the original and the copy. He was troubled with a disease reverse to that called the stinging of the tarantula; and would run dog-mad at the noise of music, especially a pair of bagpipes. But he would cure himself again by taking two or three turns in Westminsterhall, or Billingsgate, or in the boarding- to school, or the Royal Exchange, or a state coffee-house. procure a basting sufficient to swell up his fancy and his sides, he would return home extremely comforted, and full of terrible accounts of what he had under5 gone for the public good. 'Observe this stroke,' said he, showing his bare shoulders; a plaguy janizary gave it me this very morning, at seven o'clock, as, with much ado, I was driving off the great Turk. Neighbors, mind, this broken head deserves a plaster; had poor Jack been tender of his noddle, you would have seen the pope and the French king, long before this time of day, among your and your warehouses. Dear christians, the great Mogul was come as far as Whitechapel, and you may thank these poor sides that he hath not (God bless us!) already swallowed up man, woman, and child.' He was a person that feared no colors, but mortally hated all, and, upon that account, bore a cruel aversion against 15 wives painters,1 insomuch that, in his paroxysms, as he walked the streets, he would have his pockets loaden with stones to pelt at the signs. Having, from this manner of living, 20 frequent occasion to wash himself, he would often leap over head and ears into the water, though it were in the midst of the winter, but was always observed to come out again much dirtier, if pos- 25 sible, than he went in. 3 It was highly worth observing the singular effects of that aversion or antipathy which Jack and his brother. Peter seemed, even to an affectation, to bear toward each other. Peter had lately done some rogueries that forced him to abscond, and he seldom ventured to stir out before night, for fear of bailiffs. Their lodgings were at the two most distant parts of the town from each other; and whenever their occasions or humors called them abroad, they would make choice of the oddest unlikely times, and most uncouth rounds they could invent, that they might be sure to avoid one another; yet, after all this, it was their perpetual fortune to meet. The reason of which is easy enough to apprehend; for, the frenzy and the spleen of both having the same foundation, we may look upon them as two pair of compasses, equally extended, and the fixed foot of each remaining in the same center, which, though moving contrary He would stand in the turning of a street, and, calling to those who passed by, would cry to one, 'Worthy sir, do me the honor of a good slap in the 40 chaps.' To another, Honest friend, pray favor me with a handsome kick on the arse: Madam, shall I entreat a small box on the ear from your ladyship's fair hands? Noble captain, lend a reason- 45 ways at first, will be sure to encounter able thwack, for the love of God, with that cane of yours over these poor shoulders.' And when he had, by such earnest solicitations, made a shift to 1 They quarrel at the most innocent decency and ornament, and defaced the statues and paintings in all the churches in England. somewhere or other in the circumference. Besides, it was among the great misfortunes of Jack to bear a huge personal resemblance with his brother 50 Peter. Their humor and dispositions were not only the same, but there was a close analogy in their shape, and size, and their mien. Insomuch, that nothing was more frequent than for a bailiff to 2 Fanatic preaching, composed either of hell and damnation, or a fulsome description of the joys of heaven; both in such a dirty, nauseous style, 55 as to be well resembled to pilgrim's salve. 3 The fanatics have always had a way of affecting to run into persecution, and count vast merit upon every little hardship they suffer. The Papists and fanatics, though they appear the most averse to each other, yet bear a near resemblance in many things, as has been observed by learned men. 5 seize Jack by the shoulder, and cry, 'Mr. Peter, you are the king's prisoner.' Or, at other times, for one of Peter's nearest friends to accost Jack with open arms, Dear Peter, I am glad to see thee; pray send me one of your best medicines for the worms.' This, we may suppose, was a mortifying return of those pains and proceedings Jack had labored in so long; and finding how 10 directly opposite all his endeavors had answered to the sole end and intention which he had proposed to himself, how could it avoid having terrible effects upon a head and heart so furnished as 15 his? However, the poor remainders of his coat bore all the punishment; the orient sun never entered upon his diurnal progress without missing a piece of it. He hired a tailor to stitch up the 20 collar so close that it was ready to choke him, and squeezed out his eyes at such a rate as one could see nothing but the white. What little was left of the main substance of the coat he rub- 25 bed every day for two hours against a rough-cast wall, in order to grind away the remnants of lace and embroidery; but at the same time went on with so much violence that he proceeded heathen philosopher. Yet, after all he could do of this kind, the success continued still to disappoint his expectation. For, as it is the nature of rags to bear a kind of mock resemblance to 35 finery, there being a sort of fluttering appearance in both which is not to be distinguished at a distance, in the dark, or by short-sighted eyes, so, in those junctures, it fared with Jack and his 40 as if they had been marks of grace; tatters, that they offered to the first view a ridiculous flaunting, which, assisting the resemblance in person and air, thwarted all his projects of separation, Effugiet tamen haec sceleratus vincula Proteus. [Still wicked Proteus eludes these chains.] It is good, therefore, to read the maxims of our ancestors, with great allowances to times and persons; for, if we look into primitive records, we shall find that no revolutions have been so great or so frequent as those of human ears. In former days there was a curious invention to catch and keep them, which I think we may justly reckon among the artes perdita [lost arts]; and how can it be otherwise, when in the latter centuries the very species is not only diminished to a very lamentable degree, but the poor remainder is also degenerated so far as to mock our skilfullest tenure? For, if the only slitting of one ear in a stag has been found sufficient to propagate the defect through a whole forest, why should we wonder at the greatest consequences from so many loppings and mutilations to which the ears of our fathers, and our own, have been of late so much exposed? It is true, indeed, that while this island of ours was under the dominion of grace, many ena 30 deavors were made to improve the growth of ears once more among us. The proportion of largeness was not only looked upon as an ornament of the outward man, but as a type of grace in the inward. Lastly, the devouter sisters, who looked upon all extraordinary dilatations of that member as protrusions of zeal, or spiritual excrescences, were sure to honor every head they sat upon 1 but especially that of the preacher, whose ears were usually of the prime magnitude; which, upon that account, he was very frequent and exact in ex and left so near a similitude between 45 posing with all advantages to the peothem as frequently deceived the very disciples and followers of both. ple; in his rhetorical paroxysms turning sometimes to hold forth the one, and sometimes to hold forth the other: from which custom the whole operation of 50 preaching is to this very day, among their professors, styled by the phrase of holding forth. The old Sclavonian proverb said well, that it is with men as with asses; whoever would keep them fast must find a 55 very good hold at their ears. Yet I think we may affirm that it hath been verified by repeated experience that Such was the progress of the saints for advancing the size of that member; and it is thought the success would have been every way answerable, if, in proc 1 As if they had been cloven tongues.- First Edition. ess of time, a cruel king had not risen,1 who raised a bloody persecution against all ears above a certain standard; upon which, some were glad to hide their flourishing sprouts in a black border, others crept wholly under a periwig; some were slit, others cropped, and a great number sliced off to the stumps. But of this more hereafter in my general all due points, to the delicate taste of this our noble age. But, alas! with my utmost endeavors, I have been able only to retain a few of the heads. Under 5 which, there was a full account how Peter got a protection out of the king's bench; and of a reconcilement 3 between Jack and him, upon a design they had, in a certain rainy night, to trepan history of ears, which I design very 10 brother Martin into a spunging-house, speedily to bestow upon the public. and there strip him to the skin. How Martin, with much ado, showed them both a fair pair of heels. How a new warrant came out against Peter; upon which, how Jack left him in the lurch, stole his protection, and made use of it himself. How Jack's tatters came into fashion in court and city; how he got upon a great horse, and eat custard." several others which have now slid out of my memory, are lost beyond all hopes of From this brief survey of the falling state of ears in the last age, and the small care had to advance their ancient growth in the present, it is manifest how 15 little reason we can have to rely upon a hold so short, so weak, and so slippery, and that whoever desires to catch mankind fast must have recourse to some other methods. Now, he that will 20 But the particulars of all these, with examine human nature with circumspection enough may discover several handles, whereof the six 2 senses afford onea-piece, beside a great number that are screwed to the passions, and some few riveted to the intellect. Among these last, curiosity is one, and of all others, affords the firmest grasp: curiosity, that spur in the side, that bridle in the mouth, that ring in the nose, of a lazy and im- 30 patient and a grunting reader. By this handle it is, that an author should seize upon his readers; which as soon as he has once compassed, all resistance and struggling are in vain; and they become 35 his prisoners as close as he pleases, till weariness or dulness force him to let go his grip. 25 40 And therefore, I, the author of this. miraculous treatise, having hitherto, beyond expectation, maintained, by the aforesaid handle, a firm hold upon my gentle readers, it is with great reluctance that I am at length compelled to remit my grasp; leaving them, in the perusal 45 of what remains, to that natural oscitancy inherent in the tribe. I can only assure thee, courteous reader, for both our comforts, that my concern is alto recovery. For which misfortune, leaving my readers to condole with each other, as far as they shall find it to agree with their several constitutions, but conjuring them by all the friendship that has passed between us, from the titlepage to this, not to proceed so far as to injure their healths for an accident past remedy I now go on to the ceremonial part of an accomplished writer, and therefore, by a courtly modern, least of all others to be omitted. Happieno perpet and veing will feceyed. (1704) A MEDITATION UPON A BROOM- This single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected 3 In the reign of King James the Second the Presbyterians, by the king's invitation, joined with the Papists, against the Church of England, and addressed him for repeal of the penal laws and test. The king, by his dispensing power, gave liberty of conscience, which both Papists and Presbyterians made use of; but, upon gether equal to thine for my unhappiness 50 the Revolution, the Papists being down of course, in losing, or mislaying among my papers, the remaining part of these memoirs; which consisted of accidents, turns, and adventures, both new, agreeable, and surprising; and therefore calculated, in 55 1 This was King Charles the Second, who, at his restoration, turned out all the dissenting teachers that would not conform. 2 Including Scaliger's. the Presbyterians freely continued their assemblies, by virtue of King James's indulgence, before they had a toleration by law. This I believe the author means by Jack's stealing Peter's protection, and making use of it himself. Sir Humphry Edwyn, a Presbyterian, when lord-mayor of London, in 1697, had the insolence to go in his formalities to a conventicle, with the ensigns of his office. 5 Custard is a famous dish at a lord-mayor's feast. corner, I once knew in a flourishing 35 A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes. I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation. But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the chil much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them as those who demand our charity in the streets. But a broomstick, perhaps you will 40 ay, is an emblem of a tree standing on its head; and pray, what is man but a topsy-turvy creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational; his head where his heels should be, grovel- 45 dren of professed beggars; it is of a ing on the earth! and yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances; rakes into every slut's corner of nature, bringing hidden 50 corruption to the light, and raises a mighty dust where there was none before; sharing deeply all the while in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away: his last days are spent in 55 slavery to women, and generally the least deserving, till, worn out to the stumps, like his brother besom, he is either As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its dam may be supported by her milk for a solar year, |