The History of John Bull Part 4

THE PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.

The world is much indebted to the famous Sir Humphry Polesworth for his ingenious and impartial account of John Bull's lawsuit. Yet there is just cause of complaint against him, in that he relates it only by parcels, and won't give us the whole work. This forces me, who am only the publisher, to bespeak the a.s.sistance of his friends and acquaintance to engage him to lay aside that stingey humour and gratify the curiosity of the public at once. He pleads in excuse that they are only private memoirs, wrote for his own use in a loose style to serve as a help to his ordinary conversation. I represented to him the good reception the first part had met with; that, though calculated only for the meridian of Grub Street, it was yet taken notice of by the better sort; that the world was now sufficiently acquainted with John Bull, and interested itself in his concerns. He answered with a smile, that he had, indeed, some trifling things to impart that concerned John Bull's relations and domestic affairs. If these would satisfy me he gave me free leave to make use of them, because they would serve to make the history of the lawsuit more intelligible. When I had looked over the ma.n.u.script I found likewise some further account of the composition, which, perhaps, may not be unacceptable to such as have read the former part.

CHAPTER I. The Character of John Bull's Mother.*

* The Church of England.

John had a mother whom he loved and honoured extremely, a discreet, grave, sober, good-conditioned, cleanly old gentlewoman as ever lived.

She was none of your cross-grained, termagant, scolding jades that one had as good be hanged as live in the house with, such as are always censuring the conduct and telling scandalous stories of their neighbours, extolling their own good qualities and undervaluing those of others. On the contrary, she was of a meek spirit, and, as she was strictly virtuous herself, so she always put the best construction upon the words and actions of her neighbours, except where they were irreconcileable to the rules of honesty and decency. She was neither one of your precise prudes, nor one of your fantastical old belles that dress themselves like girls of fifteen; as she neither wore a ruff, forehead-cloth, nor high-crowned hat, so she had laid aside feathers, flowers, and crimpt ribbons in her head-dress, furbelow-scarfs, and hooped-petticoats. She scorned to patch and paint, yet she loved to keep her hands and her face clean. Though she wore no flaunting laced ruffles, she would not keep herself in a constant sweat with greasy flannel. Though her hair was not stuck with jewels, she was not ashamed of a diamond cross; she was not, like some ladies, hung about with toys and trinkets, tweezer-cases, pocket-gla.s.ses, and essence-bottles; she used only a gold watch and an almanack to mark the hours and the holy days.

Her furniture was neat and genteel, well fancied with a bon gout. As she affected not the grandeur of a state with a canopy, she thought there was no offence in an elbow-chair. She had laid aside your carving, gilding, and j.a.pan work as being too apt to gather dirt. But she never could be prevailed upon to part with plain wainscot and clean hangings.

There are some ladies that affect to smell a stink in everything; they are always highly perfumed, and continually burning frankincense in their rooms. She was above such affectation, yet she never would lay aside the use of brooms and scrubbing-brushes, and scrupled not to lay her linen in fresh lavender.

She was no less genteel in her behaviour, well-bred, without affectation; in the due mean between one of your affected, curtseying pieces of formality and your romps that have no regard to the common rules of civility. There are some ladies that affect a mighty regard for their relations. "We must not eat to-day, for my uncle Tom, or my cousin Betty, died this time ten years. Let's have a ball to-night, it is my neighbour Such-a-one's birthday." She looked upon all this as grimace, yet she constantly observed her husband's birthday, her wedding-day, and some few more.

Though she was a truly good woman, and had a sincere motherly love for her son John, yet there wanted not those who endeavoured to create a misunderstanding between them, and they had so far prevailed with him once that he turned her out of doors, to his great sorrow, as he found afterwards, for his affairs went on at sixes and sevens.

She was no less judicious in the turn of her conversation and choice of her studies, in which she far exceeded all her s.e.x. Your rakes that hate the company of all sober, grave gentlewomen would bear hers, and she would, by her handsome manner of proceeding, sooner reclaim than some that were more sour and reserved. She was a zealous preacher up of conjugal fidelity in wives, and by no means a friend to the new-fangled doctrine of the indispensable duty of change. Though she advanced her opinions with a becoming a.s.surance, yet she never ushered them in as some positive creatures will do, with dogmatical a.s.sertions. "This is infallible; I cannot be mistaken; none but a rogue can deny it." It has been observed that such people are oftener in the wrong than anybody.

Though she had a thousand good qualities, she was not without her faults, amongst which one might, perhaps, reckon too great lenity to her servants, to whom she always gave good counsel, but often too gentle correction. I thought I could not say less of John Bull's mother, because she bears a part in the following transactions.

CHAPTER II. The Character of John Bull's Sister Peg,* with the Quarrels that happened between Master and Miss in their Childhood.

* The nation and Church of Scotland.

John had a sister, a poor girl that had been starved at nurse. Anybody would have guessed Miss to have been bred up under the influence of a cruel stepdame, and John to be the fondling of a tender mother. John looked ruddy and plump, with a pair of cheeks like a trumpeter; Miss looked pale and wan, as if she had the green sickness; and no wonder, for John was the darling: he had all the good bits, was crammed with good pullet, chicken, pig, goose, and capon; while Miss had only a little oatmeal and water, or a dry crust without b.u.t.ter. John had his golden pippins, peaches, and nectarines; poor Miss, a crab-apple, sloe, or a blackberry. Master lay in the best apartment, with his bedchamber towards the south sun. Miss lodged in a garret exposed to the north wind, which shrivelled her countenance. However, this usage, though it stunted the girl in her growth, gave her a hardy const.i.tution; she had life and spirit in abundance, and knew when she was ill-used. Now and then she would seize upon John's commons, s.n.a.t.c.h a leg of a pullet, or a bit of good beef, for which they were sure to go to fisticuffs. Master was indeed too strong for her, but Miss would not yield in the least point; but even when Master had got her down, she would scratch and bite like a tiger; when he gave her a cuff on the ear, she would p.r.i.c.k him with her knitting-needle. John brought a great chain one day to tie her to the bedpost, for which affront Miss aimed a penknife at his heart. In short, these quarrels grew up to rooted aversions; they gave one another nicknames, though the girl was a tight clever wench as any was, and through her pale looks you might discern spirit and vivacity, which made her not, indeed, a perfect beauty, but something that was agreeable. It was barbarous in parents not to take notice of these early quarrels, and make them live better together, such domestic feuds proving afterwards the occasion of misfortunes to them both. Peg had, indeed, some odd humours* and comical antipathy, for which John would jeer her. "What think you of my sister Peg," says he, "that faints at the sound of an organ, and yet will dance and frisk at the noise of a bagpipe?" "What's that to you?" quoth Peg. "Everybody's to choose their own music." Then Peg had taken a fancy not to say her Paternoster, which made people imagine strange things of her. Of the three brothers that have made such a clutter in the world--Lord Peter, Martin, and Jack--Jack had of late been her inclinations. Lord Peter she detested, nor did Martin stand much better in her good graces; but Jack had found the way to her heart.

I have often admired what charms she discovered in that awkward b.o.o.by, till I talked with a person that was acquainted with the intrigue, who gave me the following account of it.

* Love of Presbytery.

CHAPTER III. Jack's Charms,* or the Method by which he gained Peg's Heart.

* Character of the Presbyterians.

In the first place, Jack was a very young fellow, by much the youngest of the three brothers, and people, indeed, wondered how such a young upstart jackanapes should grow so pert and saucy, and take so much upon him.

Jack bragged of greater abilities than other men. He was well gifted, as he pretended: I need not tell you what secret influence that has upon the ladies.

Jack had a most scandalous tongue, and persuaded Peg that all mankind, besides himself, were plagued by that scarlet-faced woman, Signiora Bubonia.* "As for his brother, Lord Peter, the tokens were evident on him--blotches and scabs. His brother Martin, though he was not quite so bad, had some nocturnal pains, which his friends pretended were only s...o...b..tical; but he was sure it proceeded from a worse cause." By such malicious insinuations he had possessed the lady that he was the only man in the world of a sound, pure, and untainted const.i.tution, though there were some that stuck not to say that Signiora Bubonia and Jack railed at one another only the better to hide an intrigue, and that Jack had been found with Signiora under his cloak, carrying her home on a dark stormy night.

* The Woman of Babylon, or the Pope.

Jack was a prodigious ogler; he would ogle you the outside of his eye inward, and the white upward.

Jack gave himself out for a man of a great estate in the Fortunate Islands, of which the sole property was vested in his person. By this trick he cheated abundance of poor people of small sums, pretending to make over plantations in the said islands; but when the poor wretches came there with Jack's grant, they were beat, mocked, and turned out of doors.

I told you that Peg was whimsical, and loved anything that was particular. In that way Jack was her man, for he neither thought, spoke, dressed, nor acted like other mortals. He was for your bold strokes. He railed at fops, though he was himself the most affected in the world; instead of the common fas.h.i.+on, he would visit his mistress in a mourning-cloak, band, short cuffs, and a peaked beard. He invented a way of coming into a room backwards, which he said showed more humility and less affectation. Where other people stood, he sat; where they sat, he stood; when he went to Court, he used to kick away the state, and sit down by his prince cheek by jowl. "Confound these states," says he, "they are a modern invention." When he spoke to his prince, he always turned his back upon him. If he was advised to fast for his health, he would eat roast beef; if he was allowed a more plentiful diet, then he would be sure that day to live upon water-gruel; he would cry at a wedding, laugh and make jests at a funeral.

He was no less singular in his opinions. You would have burst your sides to hear him talk of politics. "All government," says he, "is founded upon the right distribution of punishments: decent executions keep the world in awe; for that reason, the majority of mankind ought to be hanged every year. For example, I suppose the magistrate ought to pa.s.s an irreversible sentence upon all blue-eyed children from the cradle; but that there may be some show of justice in this proceeding, these children ought to be trained up by masters, appointed for that purpose, to all sorts of villany, that they may deserve their fate, and the execution of them may serve as an object of terror to the rest of mankind."* As to the giving of pardons, he had this singular method:**

that when these wretches had the rope about their necks, it should be inquired who believed they should be hanged, and who not? The first were to be pardoned, the last hanged outright. Such as were once pardoned were never to be hanged afterwards for any crime whatsoever. He had such skill in physiognomy, that he would p.r.o.nounce peremptorily upon a man's face. "That fellow," says he, "do what he will, can't avoid hanging; he has a hanging look." By the same art he would prognosticate a princ.i.p.ality to a scoundrel.

* Absolute predestination and reprobation.

** Saving Faith: a belief that one shall certainly be saved.

He was no less particular in the choice of his studies; they were generally bent towards exploded chimeras*--the perpetuum mobile, the circular shot, philosopher's stone, silent gunpowder, making chains for fleas, nets for flies, and instruments to unravel cobwebs and split hairs.

* The learning of the Presbyterians.

Thus, I think, I have given a distinct account of the methods he practised upon Peg. Her brother would now and then ask her, "What dost thou see in that pragmatical c.o.xcomb to make thee so in love with him?

He is a fit match for a tailor's or a shoemaker's daughter, but not for you that are a gentlewoman?" "Fancy is free," quoth Peg; "I'll take my own way, do you take yours. I do not care for your flaunting beaus, that gang with their b.r.e.a.s.t.s open, and their sarks over their waistcoats, that accost me with set speeches out of Sidney's 'Arcadia' or the 'Academy of Compliments.' Jack is a sober, grave young man; though he has none of your studied harangues, his meaning is sincere. He has a great regard to his father's will, and he that shows himself a good son will make a good husband. Besides, I know he has the original deed of conveyance to the Fortunate Islands; the others are counterfeits." There is nothing so obstinate as a young lady in her amours; the more you cross her, the worse she is.

CHAPTER IV. How the relations reconciled John and his sister Peg, and what return Peg made to John's message.*

* The Treaty of Union. Reason of it: the Succession not being settled in Scotland. Fears for the Presbyterian Church Government, and of being burdened with the English National Debts.

John Bull, otherwise a good-natured man, was very hard-hearted to his sister Peg, chiefly from an aversion he had conceived in his infancy.

While he flourished, kept a warm house, and drove a plentiful trade, poor Peg was forced to go hawking and peddling about the streets selling knives, scissors, and shoe-buckles; now and then carried a basket of fish to the market; sewed, spun, and knit for a livelihood, till her fingers' ends were sore; and when she could not get bread for her family, she was forced to hire them out at journey-work to her neighbours. Yet in these her poor circ.u.mstances she still preserved the air and mien of a gentlewoman--a certain decent pride that extorted respect from the haughtiest of her neighbours. When she came in to any full a.s.sembly, she would not yield the pas to the best of them. If one asked her, "Are not you related to John Bull?" "Yes," says she, "he has the honour to be my brother." So Peg's affairs went till all the relations cried out shame upon John for his barbarous usage of his own flesh and blood; that it was an easy matter for him to put her in a creditable way of living, not only without hurt, but with advantage to himself, seeing she was an industrious person, and might be serviceable to him in his way of business. "Hang her, jade," quoth John, "I can't endure her as long as she keeps that rascal Jack's company." They told him the way to reclaim her was to take her into his house; that by conversation the childish humours of their younger days might be worn out. These arguments were enforced by a certain incident. It happened that John was at that time about making his will* and entailing his estate, the very same in which Nic. Frog is named executor. Now, his sister Peg's name being in the entail, he could not make a thorough settlement without her consent. There was, indeed, a malicious story went about as if John's last wife had fallen in love with Jack as he was eating custard on horseback;** that she persuaded John to take his sister into the house the better to drive on the intrigue with Jack, concluding he would follow his mistress Peg. All I can infer from this story is that when one has got a bad character in the world people will report and believe anything of them, true or false. But to return to my story. When Peg received John's message she huffed and stormed: "My brother John," quoth she, "is grown wondrous kind-hearted all of a sudden, but I meikle doubt whether it be not mair for their own conveniency than for my good; he draws up his writs and his deeds, forsooth, and I must set my hand to them, unsight, unseen. I like the young man he has settled upon well enough, but I think I ought to have a valuable consideration for my consent. He wants my poor little farm because it makes a nook in his park-wall. Ye may e'en tell him he has mair than he makes good use of; he gangs up and down drinking, roaring, and quarrelling, through all the country markets, making foolish bargains in his cups, which he repents when he is sober; like a thriftless wretch, spending the goods and gear that his forefathers won with the sweat of their brows: light come, light go, he cares not a farthing. But why should I stand surety for his contracts? The little I have is free, and I can call it my awn--hame's hame, let it be never so hamely. I ken him well enough, he could never abide me, and when he has his ends he'll e'en use me as he did before. I'm sure I shall be treated like a poor drudge--I shall be set to tend the bairns, darn the hose, and mend the linen. Then there's no living with that old carline his mother; she rails at Jack, and Jack's an honester man than any of her kin: I shall be plagued with her spells and her Paternosters, and silly old world ceremonies; I mun never pare my nails on a Friday, nor begin a journey on Childermas Day; and I mun stand beeking and binging as I gang out and into the hall. Tell him he may e'en gang his get; I'll have nothing to do with him; I'll stay like the poor country mouse, in my awn habitation." So Peg talked; but for all that, by the interposition of good friends, and by many a bonny thing that was sent, and many more that were promised Peg, the matter was concluded, and Peg taken into the house upon certain articles:*** one of which was that she might have the freedom of Jack's conversation, and might take him for better and for worse if she pleased: provided always he did not come into the house at unseasonable hours and disturb the rest of the old woman, John's mother.

* The Act of Succession.

** A Presbyterian Lord Mayor.

*** The Act of Toleration.

CHAPTER V. Of some Quarrels that happened after Peg was taken into the Family.*

*Quarrels about some of the Articles of Union, particularly the peerage.

It is an old observation that the quarrels of relations are harder to reconcile than any other; injuries from friends fret and gall more, and the memory of them is not so easily obliterated. This is cunningly represented by one of your old sages called Aesop, in the story of the bird that was grieved extremely at being wounded with an arrow feathered with his own wing; as also of the oak that let many a heavy groan when he was cleft with a wedge of his own timber.

There was no man in the world less subject to rancour than John Bull, considering how often his good nature has been abused; yet I don't know but he was too apt to hearken to tattling people that carry tales between him and his sister Peg, on purpose to sow jealousies and set them together by the ears. They say that there were some hards.h.i.+ps put upon Peg which had been better let alone; but it was the business of good people to restrain the injuries on one side and moderate the resentments on the other--a good friend acts both parts, the one without the other will not do.

The purchase-money of Peg's farm was ill paid;* then Peg loved a little good liquor, and the servants shut up the wine-cellar; but for that Peg found a trick, for she made a false key.** Peg's servants complained that they were debarred from all manner of business, and never suffered to touch the least thing within the house; if they offered to come into the warehouse, then straight went the yard slap over their noddle; if they ventured into the counting-room a fellow would throw an ink-bottle at their head; if they came into the best apartment to set anything there in order, they were saluted with a broom; if they meddled with anything in the kitchen it was odds but the cook laid them over the pate with a ladle; one that would have got into the stables was met by two rascals, who fell to work with him with a brush and a curry-comb; some climbing up into the coachbox, were told that one of their companions had been there before that could not drive, then slap went the long whip about their ears.

* The equivalent not paid.