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Section VI - 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
AEolists, 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.
"Mellaeo contingens cuncta lepore."
Content of Section VI - A Tale Of A Tub [Jonathan Swift's ebook: A Tale of a Tub]
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