A Tale of a Tub Part 7

This being a matter of great consequence, the author intends to treat it methodically and at large in a treatise apart, and here to give only some hints of what his large treatise contains. The state of war, natural to all creatures. War is an attempt to take by violence from others a part of what they have and we want. Every man, fully sensible of his own merit, and finding it not duly regarded by others, has a natural right to take from them all that he thinks due to himself; and every creature, finding its own wants more than those of others, has the same right to take everything its nature requires. Brutes, much more modest in their pretensions this way than men, and mean men more than great ones. The higher one raises his pretensions this way, the more bustle he makes about them, and the more success he has, the greater hero. Thus greater souls, in proportion to their superior merit, claim a greater right to take everything from meaner folks. This the true foundation of grandeur and heroism, and of the distinction of degrees among men.

War, therefore, necessary to establish subordination, and to found cities, kingdoms, &c., as also to purge bodies politic of gross humours. Wise princes find it necessary to have wars abroad to keep peace at home. War, famine, and pestilence, the usual cures for corruption in bodies politic. A comparison of these three--the author is to write a panegyric on each of them. The greatest part of mankind loves war more than peace. They are but few and mean- spirited that live in peace with all men. The modest and meek of all kinds always a prey to those of more n.o.ble or stronger appet.i.tes. The inclination to war universal; those that cannot or dare not make war in person employ others to do it for them. This maintains bullies, bravoes, cut-throats, lawyers, soldiers, &c.

Most professions would be useless if all were peaceable. Hence brutes want neither smiths nor lawyers, magistrates nor joiners, soldiers or surgeons. Brutes having but narrow appet.i.tes, are incapable of carrying on or perpetuating war against their own species, or of being led out in troops and mult.i.tudes to destroy one another. These prerogatives proper to man alone. The excellency of human nature demonstrated by the vast train of appet.i.tes, pa.s.sions, wants, &c., that attend it. This matter to be more fully treated in the author's panegyric on mankind.

THE HISTORY OF MARTIN--Continued.

How Jack, having got rid of the old landlord, set up another to his mind, quarrelled with Martin, and turned him out of doors. How he pillaged all his shops, and abolished his whole dispensatory. How the new landlord {164a} laid about him, mauled Peter, worried Martin, and made the whole neighbourhood tremble. How Jack's friends fell out among themselves, split into a thousand parties, turned all things topsy-turvy, till everybody grew weary of them; and at last, the bl.u.s.tering landlord dying, Jack was kicked out of doors, a new landlord {164b} brought in, and Martin re-established.

How this new landlord let Martin do what he pleased, and Martin agreed to everything his pious landlord desired, provided Jack might be kept low. Of several efforts Jack made to raise up his head, but all in vain; till at last the landlord died, and was succeeded by one {164c} who was a great friend to Peter, who, to humble Martin, gave Jack some liberty. How Martin grew enraged at this, called in a foreigner {164d} and turned out the landlord; in which Jack concurred with Martin, because this landlord was entirely devoted to Peter, into whose arms he threw himself, and left his country. How the new landlord secured Martin in the full possession of his former rights, but would not allow him to destroy Jack, who had always been his friend. How Jack got up his head in the North, and put himself in possession of a whole canton, to the great discontent of Martin, who finding also that some of Jack's friends were allowed to live and get their bread in the south parts of the country, grew highly discontented with the new landlord he had called in to his a.s.sistance. How this landlord kept Martin in order, upon which he fell into a raging fever, and swore he would hang himself or join in with Peter, unless Jack's children were all turned out to starve.

Of several attempts to cure Martin, and make peace between him and Jack, that they might unite against Peter; but all made ineffectual by the great address of a number of Peter's friends, that herded among Martin's, and appeared the most zealous for his interest. How Martin, getting abroad in this mad fit, looked so like Peter in his air and dress, and talked so like him, that many of the neighbours could not distinguish the one from the other; especially when Martin went up and down strutting in Peter's armour, which he had borrowed to fight Jack {165a}. What remedies were used to cure Martin's distemper ...

Here the author being seized with a fit of dulness, to which he is very subject, after having read a poetical epistle addressed to . .

. it entirely composed his senses, so that he has not writ a line since.

N.B.--Some things that follow after this are not in the MS., but seem to have been written since, to fill up the place of what was not thought convenient then to print.

A PROJECT FOR THE UNIVERSAL BENEFIT OF MANKIND.

The author, having laboured so long and done so much to serve and instruct the public, without any advantage to himself, has at last thought of a project which will tend to the great benefit of all mankind, and produce a handsome revenue to the author. He intends to print by subscription, in ninety-six large volumes in folio, an exact description of Terra Australis incognita, collected with great care, and prints from 999 learned and pious authors of undoubted veracity. The whole work, ill.u.s.trated with maps and cuts agreeable to the subject, and done by the best masters, will cost but one guinea each volume to subscribers, one guinea to be paid in advance, and afterwards a guinea on receiving each volume, except the last.

This work will be of great use for all men, and necessary for all families, because it contains exact accounts of all the provinces, colonies, and mansions of that s.p.a.cious country, where, by a general doom, all transgressors of the law are to be transported; and every one having this work may choose out the fittest and best place for himself, there being enough for all, so as every one shall be fully satisfied.

The author supposes that one copy of this work will be bought at the public charge, or out of the parish rates, for every parish church in the three kingdoms, and in all the dominions thereunto belonging.

And that every family that can command 10 pounds per annum, even though retrenched from less necessary expenses, will subscribe for one. He does not think of giving out above nine volumes nearly; and considering the number requisite, he intends to print at least 100,000 for the first edition. He is to print proposals against next term, with a specimen, and a curious map of the capital city with its twelve gates, from a known author, who took an exact survey of it in a dream. Considering the great care and pains of the author, and the usefulness of the work, he hopes every one will be ready, for their own good as well as his, to contribute cheerfully to it, and not grudge him the profit he may have by it, especially if he comes to a third or fourth edition, as he expects it will very soon.

He doubts not but it will be translated into foreign languages by most nations of Europe, as well as Asia and Africa, being of as great use to all those nations as to his own; for this reason he designs to procure patents and privileges for securing the whole benefit to himself from all those different princes and states, and hopes to see many millions of this great work printed in those different countries and languages before his death.

After this business is pretty well established, he has promised to put a friend on another project almost as good as this, by establis.h.i.+ng insurance offices everywhere for securing people from s.h.i.+pwreck and several other accidents in their voyage to this country; and these officers shall furnish, at a certain rate, pilots well versed in the route, and that know all the rocks, shelves, quicksands, &c., that such pilgrims and travellers may be exposed to. Of these he knows a great number ready instructed in most countries; but the whole scheme of this matter he is to draw up at large and communicate to his friend.

Footnotes:

{50} The number of livings in England.--Pate.

{51a} "Distinguished, new, told by no other tongue."--Horace.

{51b} "Reading prefaces, &c."--Swift's note in the margin.

{56a} Plutarch.--Swift's note in the margin.

{56b} Xenophon.--Swift's note in the margin, marked, in future, S.

{56c} Spleen.--Horace.

{59} "But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labour lies."

- Dryden's "Virgil"

{60} "That the old may withdraw into safe ease."

{61} In his subsequent apology for "The Tale of a Tub," Swift wrote of these machines that, "In the original ma.n.u.script there was a description of a fourth, which those who had the papers in their power blotted out, as having something in it of satire that I suppose they thought was too particular; and therefore they were forced to change it to the number three, whence some have endeavoured to squeeze out a dangerous meaning that was never thought on. And indeed the conceit was half spoiled by changing the numbers; that of four being much more cabalistic, and therefore better exposing the pretended virtue of numbers, a superst.i.tion then intended to be ridiculed."

{62a} "Under the rainy sky, in the meetings of three and of four ways."

{62b} Lucretius, lib. 2.--S.

{62c} "'Tis certain, then, the voice that thus can wound; Is all material body, every sound."

{63} To be burnt or worm-eaten.

{64} The Royal Society first met at Gresham College, the resort of men of science. Will's Coffee-House was the resort of wits and men of letters.

{65a} Viz., about moving the earth.--S.

{65b} "Virtuoso experiments and modern comedies."--S.

{67a} He lived a thousand.--S.

{67b} Viz., in the year 1697.--S. Dryden died in 1700, and the publication of the "Tale of a Tub," written in 1697, was not until 1704.

{69a} The t.i.tle-page in the original was so torn that it was not possible to recover several t.i.tles which the author here speaks of.- -S.

{69b} See Virgil translated, &c.--S.

{70} Peter, the Church of Rome; Martin, the Reformed Church as established by authority in England; Jack, the dissenters from the English Church Establishment. Martin, named probably from Martin Luther; Jack, from John Calvin. The coats are the coats of righteousness, in which all servants of G.o.d should be clothed; alike in love and duty, however they may differ in opinion.

{71} Covetousness, ambition, and pride, which were the three great vices that the ancient fathers inveighed against as the first corruptions of Christianity.--W. Wotton.

{72a} The tailor.

{72b} A sacred monkey.

{75} The Roman Catholics were considered by the Reformers to have added to the simple doctrines of Christianity inventions of their own, and to have laid especial stress on the adoption of them. Upon Swift's saying of the three brothers, "Now the coats their father had left them were, it is true, of very good cloth, and besides so neatly sewn that you would swear they were all of a piece, but, at the same time, very plain, with little or no ornament," W. Wotton observes: "This is the distinguis.h.i.+ng character of the Christian religion. Christiana religio absoluta et simplex, was Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus's description of it, who was himself a heathen." But the learned Peter argues that if a doctrine cannot be found, totidem verbis, in so many words, it may be found in so many syllables, or, if that way fail, we shall make them out in a third way, of so many letters.

{76} Quibusdam veteribus codicibus [some ancient MSS.].--S.

{77a} There are two kinds--oral tradition and the written record,-- reference to the value attached to tradition in the Roman Church.

{77b} The flame-coloured lining figures the doctrine of Purgatory; and the codicil annexed, the Apocryphal books annexed to the Bible.

The dog-keeper is said to be an allusion to the Apocryphal book of Tobit.

{78a} Dread h.e.l.l and subdue their l.u.s.ts.