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Section II
Once upon a time there was a man who had three sons by one wife {70}
and all at a birth, neither could the midwife tell certainly which
was the eldest. Their father died while they were young, and upon
his death-bed, calling the lads to him, spoke thus:-
"Sons, because I have purchased no estate, nor was born to any, I
have long considered of some good legacies to bequeath you, and at
last, with much care as well as expense, have provided each of you
(here they are) a new coat. Now, you are to understand that these
coats have two virtues contained in them; one is, that with good
wearing they will last you fresh and sound as long as you live; the
other is, that they will grow in the same proportion with your
bodies, lengthening and widening of themselves, so as to be always
fit. Here, let me see them on you before I die. So, very well!
Pray, children, wear them clean and brush them often. You will find
in my will (here it is) full instructions in every particular
concerning the wearing and management of your coats, wherein you
must be very exact to avoid the penalties I have appointed for every
transgression or neglect, upon which your future fortunes will
entirely depend. I have also commanded in my will that you should
live together in one house like brethren and friends, for then you
will be sure to thrive and not otherwise."
Here the story says this good father died, and the three sons went
all together to seek their fortunes.
I shall not trouble you with recounting what adventures they met for
the first seven years, any farther than by taking notice that they
carefully observed their father's will and kept their coats in very
good order; that they travelled through several countries,
encountered a reasonable quantity of giants, and slew certain
dragons.
Being now arrived at the proper age for producing themselves, they
came up to town and fell in love with the ladies, but especially
three, who about that time were in chief reputation, the Duchess
d'Argent, Madame de Grands-Titres, and the Countess d'Orgueil {71}.
On their first appearance, our three adventurers met with a very bad
reception, and soon with great sagacity guessing out the reason,
they quickly began to improve in the good qualities of the town.
They wrote, and rallied, and rhymed, and sung, and said, and said
nothing; they drank, and fought, and slept, and swore, and took
snuff; they went to new plays on the first night, haunted the
chocolate-houses, beat the watch; they bilked hackney-coachmen, ran
in debt with shopkeepers, and lay with their wives; they killed
bailiffs, kicked fiddlers down-stairs, ate at Locket's, loitered at
Will's; they talked of the drawing-room and never came there; dined
with lords they never saw; whispered a duchess and spoke never a
word; exposed the scrawls of their laundress for billet-doux of
quality; came ever just from court and were never seen in it;
attended the levee sub dio; got a list of peers by heart in one
company, and with great familiarity retailed them in another. Above
all, they constantly attended those committees of Senators who are
silent in the House and loud in the coffeehouse, where they nightly
adjourn to chew the cud of politics, and are encompassed with a ring
of disciples who lie in wait to catch up their droppings. The three
brothers had acquired forty other qualifications of the like stamp
too tedious to recount, and by consequence were justly reckoned the
most accomplished persons in town. But all would not suffice, and
the ladies aforesaid continued still inflexible. To clear up which
difficulty, I must, with the reader's good leave and patience, have
recourse to some points of weight which the authors of that age have
not sufficiently illustrated.
For about this time it happened a sect arose whose tenets obtained
and spread very far, especially in the grand monde, and among
everybody of good fashion. They worshipped a sort of idol {72a},
who, as their doctrine delivered, did daily create men by a kind of
manufactory operation. This idol they placed in the highest parts
of the house on an altar erected about three feet. He was shown in
the posture of a Persian emperor sitting on a superficies with his
legs interwoven under him. This god had a goose for his ensign,
whence it is that some learned men pretend to deduce his original
from Jupiter Capitolinus. At his left hand, beneath the altar, Hell
seemed to open and catch at the animals the idol was creating, to
prevent which, certain of his priests hourly flung in pieces of the
uninformed mass or substance, and sometimes whole limbs already
enlivened, which that horrid gulph insatiably swallowed, terrible to
behold. The goose was also held a subaltern divinity or Deus
minorum gentium, before whose shrine was sacrificed that creature
whose hourly food is human gore, and who is in so great renown
abroad for being the delight and favourite of the Egyptian
Cercopithecus {72b}. Millions of these animals were cruelly
slaughtered every day to appease the hunger of that consuming deity.
The chief idol was also worshipped as the inventor of the yard and
the needle, whether as the god of seamen, or on account of certain
other mystical attributes, hath not been sufficiently cleared.
The worshippers of this deity had also a system of their belief
which seemed to turn upon the following fundamental. They held the
universe to be a large suit of clothes which invests everything;
that the earth is invested by the air; the air is invested by the
stars; and the stars are invested by the Primum Mobile. Look on
this globe of earth, you will find it to be a very complete and
fashionable dress. What is that which some call land but a fine
coat faced with green, or the sea but a waistcoat of water-tabby?
Proceed to the particular works of the creation, you will find how
curious journeyman Nature hath been to trim up the vegetable beaux;
observe how sparkish a periwig adorns the head of a beech, and what
a fine doublet of white satin is worn by the birch. To conclude
from all, what is man himself but a microcoat, or rather a complete
suit of clothes with all its trimmings? As to his body there can be
no dispute, but examine even the acquirements of his mind, you will
find them all contribute in their order towards furnishing out an
exact dress. To instance no more, is not religion a cloak, honesty
a pair of shoes worn out in the dirt, self-love a surtout, vanity a
shirt, and conscience a pair of breeches, which, though a cover for
lewdness as well as nastiness, is easily slipped down for the
service of both.
These postulata being admitted, it will follow in due course of
reasoning that those beings which the world calls improperly suits
of clothes are in reality the most refined species of animals, or to
proceed higher, that they are rational creatures or men. For is it
not manifest that they live, and move, and talk, and perform all
other offices of human life? Are not beauty, and wit, and mien, and
breeding their inseparable proprieties? In short, we see nothing
but them, hear nothing but them. Is it not they who walk the
streets, fill up Parliament-, coffee-, play-, bawdy-houses. It is
true, indeed, that these animals, which are vulgarly called suits of
clothes or dresses, do according to certain compositions receive
different appellations. If one of them be trimmed up with a gold
chain, and a red gown, and a white rod, and a great horse, it is
called a Lord Mayor; if certain ermines and furs be placed in a
certain position, we style them a judge, and so an apt conjunction
of lawn and black satin we entitle a Bishop.
Others of these professors, though agreeing in the main system, were
yet more refined upon certain branches of it; and held that man was
an animal compounded of two dresses, the natural and the celestial
suit, which were the body and the soul; that the soul was the
outward, and the body the inward clothing; that the latter was ex
traduce, but the former of daily creation and circumfusion. This
last they proved by Scripture, because in them we live, and move,
and have our being: as likewise by philosophy, because they are all
in all, and all in every part. Besides, said they, separate these
two, and you will find the body to be only a senseless unsavoury
carcass. By all which it is manifest that the outward dress must
needs be the soul.
To this system of religion were tagged several subaltern doctrines,
which were entertained with great vogue; as particularly the
faculties of the mind were deduced by the learned among them in this
manner: embroidery was sheer wit, gold fringe was agreeable
conversation, gold lace was repartee, a huge long periwig was
humour, and a coat full of powder was very good raillery. All which
required abundance of finesse and delicatesse to manage with
advantage, as well as a strict observance after times and fashions.
I have with much pains and reading collected out of ancient authors
this short summary of a body of philosophy and divinity which seems
to have been composed by a vein and race of thinking very different
from any other systems, either ancient or modern. And it was not
merely to entertain or satisfy the reader's curiosity, but rather to
give him light into several circumstances of the following story,
that, knowing the state of dispositions and opinions in an age so
remote, he may better comprehend those great events which were the
issue of them. I advise, therefore, the courteous reader to peruse
with a world of application, again and again, whatever I have
written upon this matter. And so leaving these broken ends, I
carefully gather up the chief thread of my story, and proceed.
These opinions, therefore, were so universal, as well as the
practices of them, among the refined part of court and town, that
our three brother adventurers, as their circumstances then stood,
were strangely at a loss. For, on the one side, the three ladies
they addressed themselves to (whom we have named already) were ever
at the very top of the fashion, and abhorred all that were below it
but the breadth of a hair. On the other side, their father's will
was very precise, and it was the main precept in it, with the
greatest penalties annexed, not to add to or diminish from their
coats one thread without a positive command in the will. Now the
coats their father had left them were, it is true, of very good
cloth, and besides, so neatly sewn you would swear they were all of
a piece, but, at the same time, very plain, with little or no
ornament; and it happened that before they were a month in town
great shoulder-knots came up. Straight all the world was shoulder-
knots; no approaching the ladies' ruelles without the quota of
shoulder-knots. "That fellow," cries one, "has no soul: where is
his shoulder-knot?" {75} Our three brethren soon discovered their
want by sad experience, meeting in their walks with forty
mortifications and indignities. If they went to the playhouse, the
doorkeeper showed them into the twelve-penny gallery. If they
called a boat, says a waterman, "I am first sculler." If they
stepped into the "Rose" to take a bottle, the drawer would cry,
"Friend, we sell no ale." If they went to visit a lady, a footman
met them at the door with "Pray, send up your message." In this
unhappy case they went immediately to consult their father's will,
read it over and over, but not a word of the shoulder-knot. What
should they do? What temper should they find? Obedience was
absolutely necessary, and yet shoulder-knots appeared extremely
requisite. After much thought, one of the brothers, who happened to
be more book-learned than the other two, said he had found an
expedient. "It is true," said he, "there is nothing here in this
will, totidem verbis, making mention of shoulder-knots, but I dare
conjecture we may find them inclusive, or totidem syllabis." This
distinction was immediately approved by all; and so they fell again
to examine the will. But their evil star had so directed the matter
that the first syllable was not to be found in the whole writing;
upon which disappointment, he who found the former evasion took
heart, and said, "Brothers, there is yet hopes; for though we cannot
find them totidem verbis nor totidem syllabis, I dare engage we
shall make them out tertio modo or totidem literis." This discovery
was also highly commended, upon which they fell once more to the
scrutiny, and soon picked out S, H, O, U, L, D, E, R, when the same
planet, enemy to their repose, had wonderfully contrived that a K
was not to be found. Here was a weighty difficulty! But the
distinguishing brother (for whom we shall hereafter find a name),
now his hand was in, proved by a very good argument that K was a
modern illegitimate letter, unknown to the learned ages, nor
anywhere to be found in ancient manuscripts. "It is true," said he,
"the word Calendae, had in Q. V. C. {76} been sometimes writ with a
K, but erroneously, for in the best copies it is ever spelt with a
C; and by consequence it was a gross mistake in our language to
spell 'knot' with a K," but that from henceforward he would take
care it should be writ with a C. Upon this all further difficulty
vanished; shoulder-knots were made clearly out to be jure paterno,
and our three gentlemen swaggered with as large and as flaunting
ones as the best.
But as human happiness is of a very short duration, so in those days
were human fashions, upon which it entirely depends. Shoulder-knots
had their time, and we must now imagine them in their decline, for a
certain lord came just from Paris with fifty yards of gold lace upon
his coat, exactly trimmed after the court fashion of that month. In
two days all mankind appeared closed up in bars of gold lace.
Whoever durst peep abroad without his complement of gold lace was as
scandalous as a ----, and as ill received among the women. What
should our three knights do in this momentous affair? They had
sufficiently strained a point already in the affair of shoulder-
knots. Upon recourse to the will, nothing appeared there but altum
silentium. That of the shoulder-knots was a loose, flying,
circumstantial point, but this of gold lace seemed too considerable
an alteration without better warrant. It did aliquo modo essentiae
adhaerere, and therefore required a positive precept. But about
this time it fell out that the learned brother aforesaid had read
"Aristotelis Dialectica," and especially that wonderful piece de
Interpretatione, which has the faculty of teaching its readers to
find out a meaning in everything but itself, like commentators on
the Revelations, who proceed prophets without understanding a
syllable of the text. "Brothers," said he, "you are to be informed
that of wills, duo sunt genera, nuncupatory and scriptory, {77a}
that in the scriptory will here before us there is no precept or
mention about gold lace, conceditur, but si idem affirmetur de
nuncupatorio negatur. For, brothers, if you remember, we heard a
fellow say when we were boys that he heard my father's man say that
he heard my father say that he would advise his sons to get gold
lace on their coats as soon as ever they could procure money to buy
it." "That is very true," cries the other. "I remember it
perfectly well," said the third. And so, without more ado, they got
the largest gold lace in the parish, and walked about as fine as
lords.
A while after, there came up all in fashion a pretty sort of flame-
coloured satin {77b} for linings, and the mercer brought a pattern
of it immediately to our three gentlemen. "An please your
worships," said he, "my Lord C--- and Sir J. W. had linings out of
this very piece last night; it takes wonderfully, and I shall not
have a remnant left enough to make my wife a pin-cushion by to-
morrow morning at ten o'clock." Upon this they fell again to
rummage the will, because the present case also required a positive
precept, the lining being held by orthodox writers to be of the
essence of the coat. After long search they could fix upon nothing
to the matter in hand, except a short advice in their father's will
to take care of fire and put out their candles before they went to
sleep {78a}. This, though a good deal for the purpose, and helping
very far towards self-conviction, yet not seeming wholly of force to
establish a command, and being resolved to avoid farther scruple, as
well as future occasion for scandal, says he that was the scholar,
"I remember to have read in wills of a codicil annexed, which is
indeed a part of the will, and what it contains hath equal authority
with the rest. Now I have been considering of this same will here
before us, and I cannot reckon it to be complete for want of such a
codicil. I will therefore fasten one in its proper place very
dexterously. I have had it by me some time; it was written by a
dog-keeper of my grandfather's, and talks a great deal, as good luck
would have it, of this very flame-coloured satin." The project was
immediately approved by the other two; an old parchment scroll was
tagged on according to art, in the form of a codicil annexed, and
the satin bought and worn.
Next winter a player, hired for the purpose by the Corporation of
Fringemakers, acted his part in a new comedy, all covered with
silver fringe {78b}, and according to the laudable custom gave rise
to that fashion. Upon which the brothers, consulting their father's
will, to their great astonishment found these words: "Item, I
charge and command my said three sons to wear no sort of silver
fringe upon or about their said coats," &c., with a penalty in case
of disobedience too long here to insert. However, after some pause,
the brother so often mentioned for his erudition, who was well
skilled in criticisms, had found in a certain author, which he said
should be nameless, that the same word which in the will is called
fringe does also signify a broom-stick, and doubtless ought to have
the same interpretation in this paragraph. This another of the
brothers disliked, because of that epithet silver, which could not,
he humbly conceived, in propriety of speech be reasonably applied to
a broom-stick; but it was replied upon him that this epithet was
understood in a mythological and allegorical sense. However, he
objected again why their father should forbid them to wear a broom-
stick on their coats, a caution that seemed unnatural and
impertinent; upon which he was taken up short, as one that spoke
irreverently of a mystery which doubtless was very useful and
significant, but ought not to be over-curiously pried into or nicely
reasoned upon. And in short, their father's authority being now
considerably sunk, this expedient was allowed to serve as a lawful
dispensation for wearing their full proportion of silver fringe.
A while after was revived an old fashion, long antiquated, of
embroidery with Indian figures of men, women, and children {79a}.
Here they had no occasion to examine the will. They remembered but
too well how their father had always abhorred this fashion; that he
made several paragraphs on purpose, importing his utter detestation
of it, and bestowing his everlasting curse to his sons whenever they
should wear it. For all this, in a few days they appeared higher in
the fashion than anybody else in the town. But they solved the
matter by saying that these figures were not at all the same with
those that were formerly worn and were meant in the will; besides,
they did not wear them in that sense, as forbidden by their father,
but as they were a commendable custom, and of great use to the
public. That these rigorous clauses in the will did therefore
require some allowance and a favourable interpretation, and ought to
be understood cum grano salis.
But fashions perpetually altering in that age, the scholastic
brother grew weary of searching further evasions and solving
everlasting contradictions. Resolved, therefore, at all hazards to
comply with the modes of the world, they concerted matters together,
and agreed unanimously to lock up their father's will in a strong-
box, brought out of Greece or Italy {79b} (I have forgot which), and
trouble themselves no farther to examine it, but only refer to its
authority whenever they thought fit. In consequence whereof, a
while after it grew a general mode to wear an infinite number of
points, most of them tagged with silver; upon which the scholar
pronounced ex cathedra {80a} that points were absolutely jure
paterno as they might very well remember. It is true, indeed, the
fashion prescribed somewhat more than were directly named in the
will; however, that they, as heirs-general of their father, had
power to make and add certain clauses for public emolument, though
not deducible todidem verbis from the letter of the will, or else
multa absurda sequerentur. This was understood for canonical, and
therefore on the following Sunday they came to church all covered
with points.
The learned brother so often mentioned was reckoned the best scholar
in all that or the next street to it; insomuch, as having run
something behindhand with the world, he obtained the favour from a
certain lord {80b} to receive him into his house and to teach his
children. A while after the lord died, and he, by long practice
upon his father's will, found the way of contriving a deed of
conveyance of that house to himself and his heirs; upon which he
took possession, turned the young squires out, and received his
brothers in their stead.
Content of Section II [Jonathan Swift's ebook: A Tale of a Tub]
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