A Tale of a Tub and Other Works
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Title: A Tale of a Tub
Author: Jonathan Swift
Release Date: December, 2003 [EBook #4737]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on March 10, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
Transcribed by Stephen Rice. Additional proofing by David Price,
email [email protected]. From the 1889 "Tale of a Tub and Other
Works" George Routledge and Sons edition.
A TALE OF A TUB
Contents
The Tale of a Tub:
Advert
To the Right Honourable John
Lord Somers
The Bookseller to The
Reader
The Epistle Dedicatory
The Preface
Section I. - The
Introduction
Section II.
Section III. - A Digression
Concerning Critics
Section IV. - A Tale Of A
Tub
Section V. - A Digression In
The Modern Kind
Section VI. - A Tale Of A
Tub
Section VII - A Digression In
Praise Of Digressions
Section VIII. - A Tale Of A
Tub
Section IX. - A Digression
Concerning The Original . . .
Section X. - A Farther
Digression
Section XI. - A Tale Of A
Tub
The Conclusion
The History Of Martin
The History of Martin
A Digression On The Nature . .
.
The History Of Martin -
Continued
A Project For The Universal
Benefit Of Mankind
ADVERT
Treatifes writ by the fame Author, moft of them mentioned in the
following Discourfes; which will be fpeedily publifhed.
A Character of the prefent Set of Wits in this
Ifland.
A Panegyrical Effay upon the Number THREE.
A Differtation upon the principal productions of
Grub-ftree.
Lectures upon the Diffection of Human Nature.
A Panegyrick upon the World.
An Analytical Difcourfe upon Zeal,
Hiftori-theo-phyfi-logicallyconfidered.
A general Hiftory of Ears.
A modeft Defence of the Proceedings of the Rabble in all
Ages.
A Defcription of the Kingdom of Abfurdities.
A Voyage into England, by a Perfon of Quality in Terra
Auftralis incognita, tranflated from the Original.
A Critical Effay upon the Art of Canting, Philofophically,
Phyfically, and Mufically confidered.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN LORD SOMERS.
My LORD,
Though the author has written a large Dedication, yet that being
addressed to a Prince whom I am never likely to have the honour of
being known to; a person, besides, as far as I can observe, not at
all regarded or thought on by any of our present writers; and I
being wholly free from that slavery which booksellers usually lie
under to the caprices of authors, I think it a wise piece of
presumption to inscribe these papers to your Lordship, and to
implore your Lordship’s protection of them. God and your
Lordship know their faults and their merits; for as to my own
particular, I am altogether a stranger to the matter; and though
everybody else should be equally ignorant, I do not fear the sale
of the book at all the worse upon that score. Your Lordship’s
name on the front in capital letters will at any time get off one
edition: neither would I desire any other help to grow an alderman
than a patent for the sole privilege of dedicating to your
Lordship.
I should now, in right of a dedicator, give your Lordship a list of
your own virtues, and at the same time be very unwilling to offend
your modesty; but chiefly I should celebrate your liberality
towards men of great parts and small fortunes, and give you broad
hints that I mean myself. And I was just going on in the
usual method to peruse a hundred or two of dedications, and
transcribe an abstract to be applied to your Lordship, but I was
diverted by a certain accident. For upon the covers of these
papers I casually observed written in large letters the two
following words, DETUR DIGNISSIMO, which, for aught I knew, might
contain some important meaning. But it unluckily fell out
that none of the Authors I employ understood Latin (though I have
them often in pay to translate out of that language). I was
therefore compelled to have recourse to the Curate of our Parish,
who Englished it thus, Let it be given to the worthiest; and
his comment was that the Author meant his work should be dedicated
to the sublimest genius of the age for wit, learning, judgment,
eloquence, and wisdom. I called at a poet’s chamber (who
works for my shop) in an alley hard by, showed him the translation,
and desired his opinion who it was that the Author could
mean. He told me, after some consideration, that vanity was a
thing he abhorred, but by the description he thought himself to be
the person aimed at; and at the same time he very kindly offered
his own assistance gratis towards penning a dedication to
himself. I desired him, however, to give a second
guess. Why then, said he, it must be I, or my Lord
Somers. From thence I went to several other wits of my
acquaintance, with no small hazard and weariness to my person, from
a prodigious number of dark winding stairs; but found them all in
the same story, both of your Lordship and themselves. Now
your Lordship is to understand that this proceeding was not of my
own invention; for I have somewhere heard it is a maxim that those
to whom everybody allows the second place have an undoubted title
to the first.
This infallibly convinced me that your Lordship was the person
intended by the Author. But being very unacquainted in the
style and form of dedications, I employed those wits aforesaid to
furnish me with hints and materials towards a panegyric upon your
Lordship’s virtues.
In two days they brought me ten sheets of paper filled up on every
side. They swore to me that they had ransacked whatever could
be found in the characters of Socrates, Aristides, Epaminondas,
Cato, Tully, Atticus, and other hard names which I cannot now
recollect. However, I have reason to believe they imposed
upon my ignorance, because when I came to read over their
collections, there was not a syllable there but what I and
everybody else knew as well as themselves: therefore I grievously
suspect a cheat; and that these Authors of mine stole and
transcribed every word from the universal report of mankind.
So that I took upon myself as fifty shillings out of pocket to no
manner of purpose.
If by altering the title I could make the same materials serve for
another dedication (as my betters have done), it would help to make
up my loss; but I have made several persons dip here and there in
those papers, and before they read three lines they have all
assured me plainly that they cannot possibly be applied to any
person besides your Lordship.
I expected, indeed, to have heard of your Lordship’s bravery at the
head of an army; of your undaunted courage in mounting a breach or
scaling a wall; or to have had your pedigree traced in a lineal
descent from the House of Austria; or of your wonderful talent at
dress and dancing; or your profound knowledge in algebra,
metaphysics, and the Oriental tongues: but to ply the world with an
old beaten story of your wit, and eloquence, and learning, and
wisdom, and justice, and politeness, and candour, and evenness of
temper in all scenes of life; of that great discernment in
discovering and readiness in favouring deserving men; with forty
other common topics; I confess I have neither conscience nor
countenance to do it. Because there is no virtue either of a
public or private life which some circumstances of your own have
not often produced upon the stage of the world; and those few which
for want of occasions to exert them might otherwise have passed
unseen or unobserved by your friends, your enemies have at length
brought to light.
It is true I should be very loth the bright example of your
Lordship’s virtues should be lost to after-ages, both for their
sake and your own; but chiefly because they will be so very
necessary to adorn the history of a late reign; and that is another
reason why I would forbear to make a recital of them here; because
I have been told by wise men that as dedications have run for some
years past, a good historian will not be apt to have recourse
thither in search of characters.
There is one point wherein I think we dedicators would do well to
change our measures; I mean, instead of running on so far upon the
praise of our patron’s liberality, to spend a word or two in
admiring their patience. I can put no greater compliment on
your Lordship’s than by giving you so ample an occasion to exercise
it at present. Though perhaps I shall not be apt to reckon
much merit to your Lordship upon that score, who having been
formerly used to tedious harangues, and sometimes to as little
purpose, will be the readier to pardon this, especially when it is
offered by one who is, with all respect and veneration,
My LORD,
Your Lordship’s most obedient
and most faithful Servant,
THE BOOKSELLER.
THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER
It is now six years since these papers came first to my hand, which
seems to have been about a twelvemonth after they were written, for
the Author tells us in his preface to the first treatise that he
had calculated it for the year 1697; and in several passages of
that discourse, as well as the second, it appears they were written
about that time.
As to the Author, I can give no manner of satisfaction.
However, I am credibly informed that this publication is without
his knowledge, for he concludes the copy is lost, having lent it to
a person since dead, and being never in possession of it after; so
that, whether the work received his last hand, or whether he
intended to fill up the defective places, is like to remain a
secret.
If I should go about to tell the reader by what accident I became
master of these papers, it would, in this unbelieving age, pass for
little more than the cant or jargon of the trade. I therefore
gladly spare both him and myself so unnecessary a trouble.
There yet remains a difficult question - why I published them no
sooner? I forbore upon two accounts. First, because I
thought I had better work upon my hands; and secondly, because I
was not without some hope of hearing from the Author and receiving
his directions. But I have been lately alarmed with
intelligence of a surreptitious copy which a certain great wit had
new polished and refined, or, as our present writers express
themselves, “fitted to the humour of the age,” as they have already
done with great felicity to Don Quixote, Boccalini, La Bruyère, and
other authors. However, I thought it fairer dealing to offer
the whole work in its naturals. If any gentleman will please
to furnish me with a key, in order to explain the more difficult
parts, I shall very gratefully acknowledge the favour, and print it
by itself.
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY
TO
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE POSTERITY
SIR,
I here present your Highness with the fruits of a very few leisure
hours, stolen from the short intervals of a world of business, and
of an employment quite alien from such amusements as this; the poor
production of that refuse of time which has lain heavy upon my
hands during a long prorogation of Parliament, a great dearth of
foreign news, and a tedious fit of rainy weather. For which,
and other reasons, it cannot choose extremely to deserve such a
patronage as that of your Highness, whose numberless virtues in so
few years, make the world look upon you as the future example to
all princes. For although your Highness is hardly got clear
of infancy, yet has the universal learned world already resolved
upon appealing to your future dictates with the lowest and most
resigned submission, fate having decreed you sole arbiter of the
productions of human wit in this polite and most accomplished
age. Methinks the number of appellants were enough to shock
and startle any judge of a genius less unlimited than yours; but in
order to prevent such glorious trials, the person, it seems, to
whose care the education of your Highness is committed, has
resolved, as I am told, to keep you in almost an universal
ignorance of our studies, which it is your inherent birthright to
inspect.
It is amazing to me that this person should have assurance, in the
face of the sun, to go about persuading your Highness that our age
is almost wholly illiterate and has hardly produced one writer upon
any subject. I know very well that when your Highness shall
come to riper years, and have gone through the learning of
antiquity, you will be too curious to neglect inquiring into the
authors of the very age before you; and to think that this
insolent, in the account he is preparing for your view, designs to
reduce them to a number so insignificant as I am ashamed to
mention; it moves my zeal and my spleen for the honour and interest
of our vast flourishing body, as well as of myself, for whom I know
by long experience he has professed, and still continues, a
peculiar malice.
It is not unlikely that, when your Highness will one day peruse
what I am now writing, you may be ready to expostulate with your
governor upon the credit of what I here affirm, and command him to
show you some of our productions. To which he will answer -
for I am well informed of his designs - by asking your Highness
where they are, and what is become of them? and pretend it a
demonstration that there never were any, because they are not then
to be found. Not to be found! Who has mislaid
them? Are they sunk in the abyss of things? It is
certain that in their own nature they were light enough to swim
upon the surface for all eternity; therefore, the fault is in him
who tied weights so heavy to their heels as to depress them to the
centre. Is their very essence destroyed? Who has
annihilated them? Were they drowned by purges or martyred by
pipes? Who administered them to the posteriors of
-------. But that it may no longer be a doubt with your
Highness who is to be the author of this universal ruin, I beseech
you to observe that large and terrible scythe which your governor
affects to bear continually about him. Be pleased to remark
the length and strength, the sharpness and hardness, of his nails
and teeth; consider his baneful, abominable breath, enemy to life
and matter, infectious and corrupting, and then reflect whether it
be possible for any mortal ink and paper of this generation to make
a suitable resistance. Oh, that your Highness would one day
resolve to disarm this usurping maître de palais of his
furious engines, and bring your empire hors du page.
It were endless to recount the several methods of tyranny and
destruction which your governor is pleased to practise upon this
occasion. His inveterate malice is such to the writings of
our age, that, of several thousands produced yearly from this
renowned city, before the next revolution of the sun there is not
one to be heard of. Unhappy infants! many of them barbarously
destroyed before they have so much as learnt their mother-tongue to
beg for pity. Some he stifles in their cradles, others he
frights into convulsions, whereof they suddenly die, some he flays
alive, others he tears limb from limb, great numbers are offered to
Moloch, and the rest, tainted by his breath, die of a languishing
consumption.
But the concern I have most at heart is for our Corporation of
Poets, from whom I am preparing a petition to your Highness, to be
subscribed with the names of one hundred and thirty-six of the
first race, but whose immortal productions are never likely to
reach your eyes, though each of them is now an humble and an
earnest appellant for the laurel, and has large comely volumes
ready to show for a support to his pretensions. The
never-dying works of these illustrious persons your governor, sir,
has devoted to unavoidable death, and your Highness is to be made
believe that our age has never arrived at the honour to produce one
single poet.
We confess immortality to be a great and powerful goddess, but in
vain we offer up to her our devotions and our sacrifices if your
Highness’s governor, who has usurped the priesthood, must, by an
unparalleled ambition and avarice, wholly intercept and devour
them.
To affirm that our age is altogether unlearned and devoid of
writers in any kind, seems to be an assertion so bold and so false,
that I have been sometimes thinking the contrary may almost be
proved by uncontrollable demonstration. It is true, indeed,
that although their numbers be vast and their productions numerous
in proportion, yet are they hurried so hastily off the scene that
they escape our memory and delude our sight. When I first
thought of this address, I had prepared a copious list of titles to
present your Highness as an undisputed argument for what I
affirm. The originals were posted fresh upon all gates and
corners of streets; but returning in a very few hours to take a
review, they were all torn down and fresh ones in their
places. I inquired after them among readers and booksellers,
but I inquired in vain; the memorial of them was lost among men,
their place was no more to be found; and I was laughed to scorn for
a clown and a pedant, devoid of all taste and refinement, little
versed in the course of present affairs, and that knew nothing of
what had passed in the best companies of court and town. So
that I can only avow in general to your Highness that we do abound
in learning and wit, but to fix upon particulars is a task too
slippery for my slender abilities. If I should venture, in a
windy day, to affirm to your Highness that there is a large cloud
near the horizon in the form of a bear, another in the zenith with
the head of an ass, a third to the westward with claws like a
dragon; and your Highness should in a few minutes think fit to
examine the truth, it is certain they would be all chanced in
figure and position, new ones would arise, and all we could agree
upon would be, that clouds there were, but that I was grossly
mistaken in the zoography and topography of them.
But your governor, perhaps, may still insist, and put the question,
What is then become of those immense bales of paper which must
needs have been employed in such numbers of books? Can these
also be wholly annihilated, and to of a sudden, as I pretend?
What shall I say in return of so invidious an objection? It
ill befits the distance between your Highness and me to send you
for ocular conviction to a jakes or an oven, to the windows of a
bawdyhouse, or to a sordid lanthorn. Books, like men their
authors, have no more than one way of coming into the world, but
there are ten thousand to go out of it and return no more.
I profess to your Highness, in the integrity of my heart, that what
I am going to say is literally true this minute I am writing; what
revolutions may happen before it shall be ready for your perusal I
can by no means warrant; however, I beg you to accept it as a
specimen of our learning, our politeness, and our wit. I do
therefore affirm, upon the word of a sincere man, that there is now
actually in being a certain poet called John Dryden, whose
translation of Virgil was lately printed in large folio, well
bound, and if diligent search were made, for aught I know, is yet
to be seen. There is another called Nahum Tate, who is ready
to make oath that he has caused many reams of verse to be
published, whereof both himself and his bookseller, if lawfully
required, can still produce authentic copies, and therefore wonders
why the world is pleased to make such a secret of it. There
is a third, known by the name of Tom Durfey, a poet of a vast
comprehension, an universal genius, and most profound
learning. There are also one Mr. Rymer and one Mr. Dennis,
most profound critics. There is a person styled Dr. Bentley,
who has wrote near a thousand pages of immense erudition, giving a
full and true account of a certain squabble of wonderful importance
between himself and a bookseller; he is a writer of infinite wit
and humour, no man rallies with a better grace and in more
sprightly turns. Further, I avow to your Highness that with
these eyes I have beheld the person of William Wotton, B.D., who
has written a good-sized volume against a friend of your governor,
from whom, alas! he must therefore look for little favour, in a
most gentlemanly style, adorned with utmost politeness and
civility, replete with discoveries equally valuable for their
novelty and use, and embellished with traits of wit so poignant and
so apposite, that he is a worthy yoke-mate to his fore-mentioned
friend.
Why should I go upon farther particulars, which might fill a volume
with the just eulogies of my contemporary brethren? I shall
bequeath this piece of justice to a larger work, wherein I intend
to write a character of the present set of wits in our nation;
their persons I shall describe particularly and at length, their
genius and understandings in miniature.
In the meantime, I do here make bold to present your Highness with
a faithful abstract drawn from the universal body of all arts and
sciences, intended wholly for your service and instruction.
Nor do I doubt in the least but your Highness will peruse it as
carefully and make as considerable improvements as other young
princes have already done by the many volumes of late years written
for a help to their studies.
That your Highness may advance in wisdom and virtue, as well as
years, and at last outshine all your royal ancestors, shall be the
daily prayer of,
SIR,
Your Highness’s most devoted, &c. Decemb.
1697.
THE PREFACE.
The wits of the present age being so very numerous and penetrating,
it seems the grandees of Church and State begin to fall under
horrible apprehensions lest these gentlemen, during the intervals
of a long peace, should find leisure to pick holes in the weak
sides of religion and government. To prevent which, there has
been much thought employed of late upon certain projects for taking
off the force and edge of those formidable inquirers from
canvassing and reasoning upon such delicate points. They have
at length fixed upon one, which will require some time as well as
cost to perfect. Meanwhile, the danger hourly increasing, by
new levies of wits, all appointed (as there is reason to fear) with
pen, ink, and paper, which may at an hour’s warning be drawn out
into pamphlets and other offensive weapons ready for immediate
execution, it was judged of absolute necessity that some present
expedient be thought on till the main design can be brought to
maturity. To this end, at a grand committee, some days ago,
this important discovery was made by a certain curious and refined
observer, that seamen have a custom when they meet a Whale to fling
him out an empty Tub, by way of amusement, to divert him from
laying violent hands upon the Ship. This parable was
immediately mythologised; the Whale was interpreted to be Hobbes’s
“Leviathan,” which tosses and plays with all other schemes of
religion and government, whereof a great many are hollow, and dry,
and empty, and noisy, and wooden, and given to rotation. This
is the Leviathan from whence the terrible wits of our age are said
to borrow their weapons. The Ship in danger is easily
understood to be its old antitype the commonwealth. But how
to analyse the Tub was a matter of difficulty, when, after long
inquiry and debate, the literal meaning was preserved, and it was
decreed that, in order to prevent these Leviathans from tossing and
sporting with the commonwealth, which of itself is too apt to
fluctuate, they should be diverted from that game by “A Tale of a
Tub.” And my genius being conceived to lie not unhappily that
way, I had the honour done me to be engaged in the
performance.
This is the sole design in publishing the following treatise, which
I hope will serve for an interim of some months to employ those
unquiet spirits till the perfecting of that great work, into the
secret of which it is reasonable the courteous reader should have
some little light.
It is intended that a large Academy be erected, capable of
containing nine thousand seven hundred forty and three persons,
which, by modest computation, is reckoned to be pretty near the
current number of wits in this island {50}. These are to
be disposed into the several schools of this Academy, and there
pursue those studies to which their genius most inclines
them. The undertaker himself will publish his proposals with
all convenient speed, to which I shall refer the curious reader for
a more particular account, mentioning at present only a few of the
principal schools. There is, first, a large pederastic
school, with French and Italian masters; there is also the spelling
school, a very spacious building; the school of looking-glasses;
the school of swearing; the school of critics; the school of
salivation; the school of hobby-horses; the school of poetry; the
school of tops; the school of spleen; the school of gaming; with
many others too tedious to recount. No person to be admitted
member into any of these schools without an attestation under two
sufficient persons’ hands certifying him to be a wit.
But to return. I am sufficiently instructed in the principal
duty of a preface if my genius, were capable of arriving at
it. Thrice have I forced my imagination to take the tour of
my invention, and thrice it has returned empty, the latter having
been wholly drained by the following treatise. Not so my more
successful brethren the moderns, who will by no means let slip a
preface or dedication without some notable distinguishing stroke to
surprise the reader at the entry, and kindle a wonderful
expectation of what is to ensue. Such was that of a most
ingenious poet, who, soliciting his brain for something new,
compared himself to the hangman and his patron to the
patient. This was insigne, recens, indictum ore alio
{51a}.
When I went through that necessary and noble course of study,
{51b} I had the
happiness to observe many such egregious touches, which I shall not
injure the authors by transplanting, because I have remarked that
nothing is so very tender as a modern piece of wit, and which is
apt to suffer so much in the carriage. Some things are
extremely witty to-day, or fasting, or in this place, or at eight
o’clock, or over a bottle, or spoke by Mr. Whatdyecall’m, or in a
summer’s morning, any of which, by the smallest transposal or
misapplication, is utterly annihilate. Thus wit has its walks
and purlieus, out of which it may not stray the breadth of a hair,
upon peril of being lost. The moderns have artfully fixed
this Mercury, and reduced it to the circumstances of time, place,
and person. Such a jest there is that will not pass out of
Covent Garden, and such a one that is nowhere intelligible but at
Hyde Park Corner. Now, though it sometimes tenderly affects
me to consider that all the towardly passages I shall deliver in
the following treatise will grow quite out of date and relish with
the first shifting of the present scene, yet I must need subscribe
to the justice of this proceeding, because I cannot imagine why we
should be at expense to furnish wit for succeeding ages, when the
former have made no sort of provision for ours; wherein I speak the
sentiment of the very newest, and consequently the most orthodox
refiners, as well as my own. However, being extremely
solicitous that every accomplished person who has got into the
taste of wit calculated for this present month of August 1697
should descend to the very bottom of all the sublime throughout
this treatise, I hold it fit to lay down this general maxim.
Whatever reader desires to have a thorough comprehension of an
author’s thoughts, cannot take a better method than by putting
himself into the circumstances and posture of life that the writer
was in upon every important passage as it flowed from his pen, for
this will introduce a parity and strict correspondence of ideas
between the reader and the author. Now, to assist the
diligent reader in so delicate an affair - as far as brevity will
permit - I have recollected that the shrewdest pieces of this
treatise were conceived in bed in a garret. At other times
(for a reason best known to myself) I thought fit to sharpen my
invention with hunger, and in general the whole work was begun,
continued, and ended under a long course of physic and a great want
of money. Now, I do affirm it will be absolutely impossible
for the candid peruser to go along with me in a great many bright
passages, unless upon the several difficulties emergent he will
please to capacitate and prepare himself by these directions.
And this I lay down as my principal postulatum.
Because I have professed to be a most devoted servant of all modern
forms, I apprehend some curious wit may object against me for
proceeding thus far in a preface without declaiming, according to
custom, against the multitude of writers whereof the whole
multitude of writers most reasonably complain. I am just come
from perusing some hundreds of prefaces, wherein the authors do at
the very beginning address the gentle reader concerning this
enormous grievance. Of these I have preserved a few examples,
and shall set them down as near as my memory has been able to
retain them.
One begins thus: “For a man to set up for a writer when the press
swarms with,” &c.
Another: “The tax upon paper does not lessen the number of
scribblers who daily pester,” &c.
Another: “When every little would-be wit takes pen in hand, ‘tis in
vain to enter the lists,” &c.
Another: “To observe what trash the press swarms with,”
&c.
Another: “Sir, it is merely in obedience to your commands that I
venture into the public, for who upon a less consideration would be
of a party with such a rabble of scribblers,” &c.
Now, I have two words in my own defence against this
objection. First, I am far from granting the number of
writers a nuisance to our nation, having strenuously maintained the
contrary in several parts of the following discourse; secondly, I
do not well understand the justice of this proceeding, because I
observe many of these polite prefaces to be not only from the same
hand, but from those who are most voluminous in their several
productions; upon which I shall tell the reader a short tale.
A mountebank in Leicester Fields had drawn a huge assembly about
him. Among the rest, a fat unwieldy fellow, half stifled in
the press, would be every fit crying out, “Lord! what a filthy
crowd is here. Pray, good people, give way a little.
Bless need what a devil has raked this rabble together.
Z----ds, what squeezing is this? Honest friend, remove your
elbow.” At last a weaver that stood next him could hold no
longer. “A plague confound you,” said he, “for an overgrown
sloven; and who in the devil’s name, I wonder, helps to make up the
crowd half so much as yourself? Don’t you consider that you
take up more room with that carcass than any five here? Is
not the place as free for us as for you? Bring your own guts
to a reasonable compass, and then I’ll engage we shall have room
enough for us all.”
There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit
whereof I hope there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that
where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something
very useful and profound is couched underneath; and again, that
whatever word or sentence is printed in a different character shall
be judged to contain something extraordinary either of wit or
sublime.
As for the liberty I have thought fit to take of praising myself,
upon some occasions or none, I am sure it will need no excuse if a
multitude of great examples be allowed sufficient authority; for it
is here to be noted that praise was originally a pension paid by
the world, but the moderns, finding the trouble and charge too
great in collecting it, have lately bought out the fee-simple,
since which time the right of presentation is wholly in
ourselves. For this reason it is that when an author makes
his own eulogy, he uses a certain form to declare and insist upon
his title, which is commonly in these or the like words, “I speak
without vanity,” which I think plainly shows it to be a matter of
right and justice. Now, I do here once for all declare, that
in every encounter of this nature through the following treatise
the form aforesaid is implied, which I mention to save the trouble
of repeating it on so many occasions.
It is a great ease to my conscience that I have written so
elaborate and useful a discourse without one grain of satire
intermixed, which is the sole point wherein I have taken leave to
dissent from the famous originals of our age and country. I
have observed some satirists to use the public much at the rate
that pedants do a naughty boy ready horsed for discipline.
First expostulate the case, then plead the necessity of the rod
from great provocations, and conclude every period with a
lash. Now, if I know anything of mankind, these gentlemen
might very well spare their reproof and correction, for there is
not through all Nature another so callous and insensible a member
as the world’s posteriors, whether you apply to it the toe or the
birch. Besides, most of our late satirists seem to lie under
a sort of mistake, that because nettles have the prerogative to
sting, therefore all other weeds must do so too. I make not
this comparison out of the least design to detract from these
worthy writers, for it is well known among mythologists that weeds
have the pre-eminence over all other vegetables; and therefore the
first monarch of this island whose taste and judgment were so acute
and refined, did very wisely root out the roses from the collar of
the order and plant the thistles in their stead, as the nobler
flower of the two. For which reason it is conjectured by
profounder antiquaries that the satirical itch, so prevalent in
this part of our island, was first brought among us from beyond the
Tweed. Here may it long flourish and abound; may it survive
and neglect the scorn of the world with as much ease and contempt
as the world is insensible to the lashes of it. May their own
dulness, or that of their party, be no discouragement for the
authors to proceed; but let them remember it is with wits as with
razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as
when they have lost their edge. Besides, those whose teeth
are too rotten to bite are best of all others qualified to revenge
that defect with their breath.
I am not, like other men, to envy or undervalue the talents I
cannot reach, for which reason I must needs bear a true honour to
this large eminent sect of our British writers. And I hope
this little panegyric will not be offensive to their ears, since it
has the advantage of being only designed for themselves.
Indeed, Nature herself has taken order that fame and honour should
be purchased at a better pennyworth by satire than by any other
productions of the brain, the world being soonest provoked to
praise by lashes, as men are to love. There is a problem in
an ancient author why dedications and other bundles of flattery run
all upon stale musty topics, without the smallest tincture of
anything new, not only to the torment and nauseating of the
Christian reader, but, if not suddenly prevented, to the universal
spreading of that pestilent disease the lethargy in this island,
whereas there is very little satire which has not something in it
untouched before. The defects of the former are usually
imputed to the want of invention among those who are dealers in
that kind; but I think with a great deal of injustice, the solution
being easy and natural, for the materials of panegyric, being very
few in number, have been long since exhausted; for as health is but
one thing, and has been always the same, whereas diseases are by
thousands, besides new and daily additions, so all the virtues that
have been ever in mankind are to be counted upon a few fingers, but
his follies and vices are innumerable, and time adds hourly to the
heap. Now the utmost a poor poet can do is to get by heart a
list of the cardinal virtues and deal them with his utmost
liberality to his hero or his patron. He may ring the changes
as far as it will go, and vary his phrase till he has talked round,
but the reader quickly finds it is all pork, {56a} with a little
variety of sauce, for there is no inventing terms of art beyond our
ideas, and when ideas are exhausted, terms of art must be so
too.
But though the matter for panegyric were as fruitful as the topics
of satire, yet would it not be hard to find out a sufficient reason
why the latter will be always better received than the first; for
this being bestowed only upon one or a few persons at a time, is
sure to raise envy, and consequently ill words, from the rest who
have no share in the blessing. But satire, being levelled at
all, is never resented for an offence by any, since every
individual person makes bold to understand it of others, and very
wisely removes his particular part of the burden upon the shoulders
of the World, which are broad enough and able to bear it. To
this purpose I have sometimes reflected upon the difference between
Athens and England with respect to the point before us. In
the Attic {56b}
commonwealth it was the privilege and birthright of every citizen
and poet to rail aloud and in public, or to expose upon the stage
by name any person they pleased, though of the greatest figure,
whether a Creon, an Hyperbolus, an Alcibiades, or a
Demosthenes. But, on the other side, the least reflecting
word let fall against the people in general was immediately caught
up and revenged upon the authors, however considerable for their
quality or their merits; whereas in England it is just the reverse
of all this. Here you may securely display your utmost
rhetoric against mankind in the face of the world; tell them that
all are gone astray; that there is none that doeth good, no, not
one; that we live in the very dregs of time; that knavery and
atheism are epidemic as the pox; that honesty is fled with Astræa;
with any other common-places equally new and eloquent, which are
furnished by the splendida bills {56c}; and when you
have done, the whole audience, far from being offended, shall
return you thanks as a deliverer of precious and useful
truths. Nay, further, it is but to venture your lungs, and
you may preach in Covent Garden against foppery and fornication,
and something else; against pride, and dissimulation, and bribery
at Whitehall. You may expose rapine and injustice in the
Inns-of-Court chapel, and in a City pulpit be as fierce as you
please against avarice, hypocrisy, and extortion. It is but a
ball bandied to and fro, and every man carries a racket about him
to strike it from himself among the rest of the company. But,
on the other side, whoever should mistake the nature of things so
far as to drop but a single hint in public how such a one starved
half the fleet, and half poisoned the rest; how such a one, from a
true principle of love and honour, pays no debts but for wenches
and play; how such a one runs out of his estate; how Paris, bribed
by Juno and Venus, loath to offend either party, slept out the
whole cause on the bench; or how such an orator makes long speeches
in the Senate, with much thought, little sense, and to no purpose;
- whoever, I say, should venture to be thus particular, must expect
to be imprisoned for scandalum magnatum, to have challenges
sent him, to be sued for defamation, and to be brought before the
bar of the House.
But I forget that I am expatiating on a subject wherein I have no
concern, having neither a talent nor an inclination for
satire. On the other side, I am so entirely satisfied with
the whole present procedure of human things, that I have been for
some years preparing material towards “A Panegyric upon the World;”
to which I intended to add a second part, entitled “A Modest
Defence of the Proceedings of the Rabble in all Ages.” Both
these I had thoughts to publish by way of appendix to the following
treatise; but finding my common-place book fill much slower than I
had reason to expect, I have chosen to defer them to another
occasion. Besides, I have been unhappily prevented in that
design by a certain domestic misfortune, in the particulars
whereof, though it would be very seasonable, and much in the modern
way, to inform the gentle reader, and would also be of great
assistance towards extending this preface into the size now in
vogue - which by rule ought to be large in proportion as the
subsequent volume is small - yet I shall now dismiss our impatient
reader from any further attendance at the porch; and having duly
prepared his mind by a preliminary discourse, shall gladly
introduce him to the sublime mysteries that ensue.
SECTION I. - THE INTRODUCTION.
Whoever has an ambition to be heard in a crowd must press, and
squeeze, and thrust, and climb with indefatigable pains, till he
has exalted himself to a certain degree of altitude above
them. Now, in all assemblies, though you wedge them ever so
close, we may observe this peculiar property, that over their heads
there is room enough; but how to reach it is the difficult point,
it being as hard to get quit of number as of hell.
“ - Evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.” {59}
To this end the philosopher’s way in all ages has been by erecting
certain edifices in the air; but whatever practice and reputation
these kind of structures have formerly possessed, or may still
continue in, not excepting even that of Socrates when he was
suspended in a basket to help contemplation, I think, with due
submission, they seem to labour under two inconveniences.
First, that the foundations being laid too high, they have been
often out of sight and ever out of hearing. Secondly, that
the materials being very transitory, have suffered much from
inclemencies of air, especially in these north-west regions.
Therefore, towards the just performance of this great work there
remain but three methods that I can think on; whereof the wisdom of
our ancestors being highly sensible, has, to encourage all aspiring
adventures, thought fit to erect three wooden machines for the use
of those orators who desire to talk much without
interruption. These are the Pulpit, the Ladder, and the
Stage-itinerant. For as to the Bar, though it be compounded
of the same matter and designed for the same use, it cannot,
however, be well allowed the honour of a fourth, by reason of its
level or inferior situation exposing it to perpetual interruption
from collaterals. Neither can the Bench itself, though raised
to a proper eminency, put in a better claim, whatever its advocates
insist on. For if they please to look into the original
design of its erection, and the circumstances or adjuncts
subservient to that design, they will soon acknowledge the present
practice exactly correspondent to the primitive institution, and
both to answer the etymology of the name, which in the Phoenician
tongue is a word of great signification, importing, if literally
interpreted, “The place of sleep,” but in common acceptation, “A
seat well bolstered and cushioned, for the repose of old and gouty
limbs;” senes ut in otia tuta recedant {60}. Fortune
being indebted to them this part of retaliation, that as formerly
they have long talked whilst others slept, so now they may sleep as
long whilst others talk.
But if no other argument could occur to exclude the Bench and the
Bar from the list of oratorical machines, it were sufficient that
the admission of them would overthrow a number which I was resolved
to establish, whatever argument it might cost me; in imitation of
that prudent method observed by many other philosophers and great
clerks, whose chief art in division has been to grow fond of some
proper mystical number, which their imaginations have rendered
sacred to a degree that they force common reason to find room for
it in every part of Nature, reducing, including, and adjusting,
every genus and species within that compass by coupling some
against their wills and banishing others at any rate. Now,
among all the rest, the profound number THREE {61} is that which has
most employed my sublimest speculations, nor ever without wonderful
delight. There is now in the press, and will be published
next term, a panegyrical essay of mine upon this number, wherein I
have, by most convincing proofs, not only reduced the senses and
the elements under its banner, but brought over several deserters
from its two great rivals, SEVEN and NINE.
Now, the first of these oratorical machines, in place as well as
dignity, is the Pulpit. Of pulpits there are in this island
several sorts, but I esteem only that made of timber from the Sylva
Caledonia, which agrees very well with our climate. If it be
upon its decay, it is the better, both for conveyance of sound and
for other reasons to be mentioned by and by. The degree of
perfection in shape and size I take to consist in being extremely
narrow, with little ornament, and, best of all, without a cover;
for, by ancient rule, it ought to be the only uncovered vessel in
every assembly where it is rightfully used, by which means, from
its near resemblance to a pillory, it will ever have a mighty
influence on human ears.
Of Ladders I need say nothing. It is observed by foreigners
themselves, to the honour of our country, that we excel all nations
in our practice and understanding of this machine. The
ascending orators do not only oblige their audience in the
agreeable delivery, but the whole world in their early publication
of their speeches, which I look upon as the choicest treasury of
our British eloquence, and whereof I am informed that worthy
citizen and bookseller, Mr. John Dunton, has made a faithful and a
painful collection, which he shortly designs to publish in twelve
volumes in folio, illustrated with copper-plates, - a work highly
useful and curious, and altogether worthy of such a hand.
The last engine of orators is the Stage-itinerant, erected with
much sagacity, sub Jove pluvio, in triviis et quadriviis.
{62a} It
is the great seminary of the two former, and its orators are
sometimes preferred to the one and sometimes to the other, in
proportion to their deservings, there being a strict and perpetual
intercourse between all three.
From this accurate deduction it is manifest that for obtaining
attention in public there is of necessity required a superior
position of place. But although this point be generally
granted, yet the cause is little agreed in; and it seems to me that
very few philosophers have fallen into a true natural solution of
this phenomenon. The deepest account, and the most fairly
digested of any I have yet met with is this, that air being a heavy
body, and therefore, according to the system of Epicurus {62b}, continually
descending, must needs be more so when laden and pressed down by
words, which are also bodies of much weight and gravity, as is
manifest from those deep impressions they make and leave upon us,
and therefore must be delivered from a due altitude, or else they
will neither carry a good aim nor fall down with a sufficient
force.
“Corpoream quoque enim vocem constare fatendum est,
Et sonitum, quoniam possunt impellere sensus.”
- Lucr. lib. 4. {62c}
And I am the readier to favour this conjecture from a common
observation, that in the several assemblies of these orators Nature
itself has instructed the hearers to stand with their mouths open
and erected parallel to the horizon, so as they may be intersected
by a perpendicular line from the zenith to the centre of the
earth. In which position, if the audience be well compact,
every one carries home a share, and little or nothing is
lost.
I confess there is something yet more refined in the contrivance
and structure of our modern theatres. For, first, the pit is
sunk below the stage with due regard to the institution above
deduced, that whatever weighty matter shall be delivered thence,
whether it be lead or gold, may fall plump into the jaws of certain
critics, as I think they are called, which stand ready open to
devour them. Then the boxes are built round and raised to a
level with the scene, in deference to the ladies, because that
large portion of wit laid out in raising pruriences and
protuberances is observed to run much upon a line, and ever in a
circle. The whining passions and little starved conceits are
gently wafted up by their own extreme levity to the middle region,
and there fix and are frozen by the frigid understandings of the
inhabitants. Bombast and buffoonery, by nature lofty and
light, soar highest of all, and would be lost in the roof if the
prudent architect had not, with much foresight, contrived for them
a fourth place, called the twelve-penny gallery, and there planted
a suitable colony, who greedily intercept them in their
passage.
Now this physico-logical scheme of oratorical receptacles or
machines contains a great mystery, being a type, a sign, an emblem,
a shadow, a symbol, bearing analogy to the spacious commonwealth of
writers and to those methods by which they must exalt themselves to
a certain eminency above the inferior world. By the Pulpit
are adumbrated the writings of our modern saints in Great Britain,
as they have spiritualised and refined them from the dross and
grossness of sense and human reason. The matter, as we have
said, is of rotten wood, and that upon two considerations: because
it is the quality of rotten wood to light in the dark; and
secondly, because its cavities are full of worms - which is a type
with a pair of handles, having a respect to the two principal
qualifications of the orator and the two different fates attending
upon his works. {63}
The Ladder is an adequate symbol of faction and of poetry, to both
of which so noble a number of authors are indebted for their
fame. Of faction, because …(Hiatus in MS.)… Of poetry,
because its orators do perorare with a song; and because,
climbing up by slow degrees, fate is sure to turn them off before
they can reach within many steps of the top; and because it is a
preferment attained by transferring of propriety and a confounding
of meum and tuum.
Under the Stage-itinerant are couched those productions designed
for the pleasure and delight of mortal man, such as “Six Pennyworth
of Wit,” “Westminster Drolleries,” “Delightful Tales,” “Complete
Jesters,” and the like, by which the writers of and for Grub Street
have in these later ages so nobly triumphed over time, have clipped
his wings, pared his nails, filed his teeth, turned back his
hour-glass, blunted his scythe, and drawn the hobnails out of his
shoes. It is under this class I have presumed to list my
present treatise, being just come from having the honour conferred
upon me to be adopted a member of that illustrious
fraternity.
Now, I am not unaware how the productions of the Grub Street
brotherhood have of late years fallen under many prejudices, nor
how it has been the perpetual employment of two junior start-up
societies to ridicule them and their authors as unworthy their
established post in the commonwealth of wit and learning.
Their own consciences will easily inform them whom I mean; nor has
the world been so negligent a looker-on as not to observe the
continual efforts made by the societies of Gresham and of Will’s
{64}, to edify a
name and reputation upon the ruin of ours. And this is yet a
more feeling grief to us, upon the regards of tenderness as well as
of justice, when we reflect on their proceedings not only as
unjust, but as ungrateful, undutiful, and unnatural. For how
can it be forgot by the world or themselves, to say nothing of our
own records, which are full and clear in the point, that they both
are seminaries, not only of our planting, but our watering
too. I am informed our two rivals have lately made an offer
to enter into the lists with united forces and challenge us to a
comparison of books, both as to weight and number. In return
to which, with license from our president, I humbly offer two
answers. First, we say the proposal is like that which
Archimedes made upon a smaller affair {65a}, including an
impossibility in the practice; for where can they find scales of
capacity enough for the first, or an arithmetician of capacity
enough for the second. Secondly, we are ready to accept the
challenge, but with this condition, that a third indifferent person
be assigned, to whose impartial judgment it shall be left to decide
which society each book, treatise, or pamphlet do most properly
belong to. This point, God knows, is very far from being
fixed at present, for we are ready to produce a catalogue of some
thousands which in all common justice ought to be entitled to our
fraternity, but by the revolted and newfangled writers most
perfidiously ascribed to the others. Upon all which we think
it very unbecoming our prudence that the determination should be
remitted to the authors themselves, when our adversaries by
briguing and caballing have caused so universal a defection from
us, that the greatest part of our society has already deserted to
them, and our nearest friends begin to stand aloof, as if they were
half ashamed to own us.
This is the utmost I am authorised to say upon so ungrateful and
melancholy a subject, because we are extremely unwilling to inflame
a controversy whose continuance may be so fatal to the interests of
us all, desiring much rather that things be amicably composed; and
we shall so far advance on our side as to be ready to receive the
two prodigals with open arms whenever they shall think fit to
return from their husks and their harlots, which I think, from the
present course of their studies {65b}, they most properly may be said to be
engaged in, and, like an indulgent parent, continue to them our
affection and our blessing.
But the greatest maim given to that general reception which the
writings of our society have formerly received, next to the
transitory state of all sublunary things, has been a superficial
vein among many readers of the present age, who will by no means be
persuaded to inspect beyond the surface and the rind of things;
whereas wisdom is a fox, who, after long hunting, will at last cost
you the pains to dig out. It is a cheese which, by how much
the richer, has the thicker, the homelier, and the coarser coat,
and whereof to a judicious palate the maggots are the best.
It is a sack-posset, wherein the deeper you go you will find it the
sweeter. Wisdom is a hen whose cackling we must value and
consider, because it is attended with an egg. But then,
lastly, it is a nut, which, unless you choose with judgment, may
cost you a tooth, and pay you with nothing but a worm. In
consequence of these momentous truths, the Grubæan sages have
always chosen to convey their precepts and their arts shut up
within the vehicles of types and fables; which having been perhaps
more careful and curious in adorning than was altogether necessary,
it has fared with these vehicles after the usual fate of coaches
over-finely painted and gilt, that the transitory gazers have so
dazzled their eyes and filled their imaginations with the outward
lustre, as neither to regard nor consider the person or the parts
of the owner within. A misfortune we undergo with somewhat
less reluctancy, because it has been common to us with Pythagoras,
Æsop, Socrates, and other of our predecessors.
However, that neither the world nor ourselves may any longer suffer
by such misunderstandings, I have been prevailed on, after much
importunity from my friends, to travail in a complete and laborious
dissertation upon the prime productions of our society, which,
besides their beautiful externals for the gratification of
superficial readers, have darkly and deeply couched under them the
most finished and refined systems of all sciences and arts, as I do
not doubt to lay open by untwisting or unwinding, and either to
draw up by exantlation or display by incision.
This great work was entered upon some years ago by one of our most
eminent members. He began with the “History of Reynard the
Fox,” but neither lived to publish his essay nor to proceed farther
in so useful an attempt, which is very much to be lamented, because
the discovery he made and communicated to his friends is now
universally received; nor do I think any of the learned will
dispute that famous treatise to be a complete body of civil
knowledge, and the revelation, or rather the apocalypse, of all
state arcana. But the progress I have made is much greater,
having already finished my annotations upon several dozens from
some of which I shall impart a few hints to the candid reader, as
far as will be necessary to the conclusion at which I aim.
The first piece I have handled is that of “Tom Thumb,” whose author
was a Pythagorean philosopher. This dark treatise contains
the whole scheme of the metempsychosis, deducing the progress of
the soul through all her stages.
The next is “Dr.
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