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 51; 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 52, or like a bawd in her old velvet petticoat resigned into the secular hands of the mobile 53. 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 54. 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.”
