ments 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 affected 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 in Newgate when he has refused the payment of garnish, or like a discovered shoplifter left to the mercy of Exchange women,* or like a bawd in her old velvet petticoat resigned into the secular hands of the mobile. Like any, or like all of these-a medley of rags and lace and rents 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 *The galleries over the piazzas in the Royal Exchange were formerly filled with shops, kept chiefly by women. The same use was made of a building called the New Exchange in the Strand. This edifice has been pulled down; the shopkeepers have removed from the Royal Exchange into Cornhill and the adjacent streets, and there are now no remains of Exchange women but in Exeter 'Change,+ and they are no longer deemed the first ministers of fashion.-Hawkes. † Pulled down in 1829.-Ed. * arguments as he could muster up for bringing Martin to reason, as he called it, or, as he meant it, into his own ragged, bob-tailed 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 the Lantern, sometimes Dutch Jack,§ sometimes French Hugh,|| sometimes Tom the Beggar,¶ and sometimes Knocking Jack of the North; ** and it was * The fox in the fable, who, having been caught in a trap, and lost his tail, used many arguments to persuade the rest to cut off theirs, that the singularity of his deformity might not expose him to derision.Hawkes. That is, Calvin; from calvus, bald. All those who pretend to inward light. Melleo contingens cuncta lepore. § Jack of Leyden, who gave rise to the Anabaptists. || The Huguenots. The Guenses, by which name some Protestants in Flanders were called. under one, or some, or of all these appellations, which I leave the learned reader to determine, that he hath given rise to the most illustrious and epidemic sect of Æolists, who, with honourable commemoration, do still acknowledge the renowned JACK for their author and founder. Of whose original, as well as principles, I am now advancing to gratify the world with a very particular account. SECTION VII. A DIGRESSION IN PRAISE OF DIGRESSIONS. I HAVE Sometimes heard of an iliad in a nutshell, but it hath been my fortune to have much oftener seen a nut-shell in an iliad. There is no doubt that human life has received most wonderful advantages from both, but to which of the two the world is chiefly indebted I shall leave among the curious, as a problem worthy of their utmost inquiry. For the invention of the latter I think the commonwealth of learning is chiefly employed to the great modern improvement of digressions, the late refinements in knowledge running parallel to those of diet in our nation, which, among men of a judicious taste, are dressed up in various compounds, consisting in soups and olios, fricassees and ragouts. It is true, there is a sort of morose, detracting, ill-bred people, who pretend utterly to disrelish these polite innovations. And as to the similitude from diet, they allow the parallel, but are so bold to pro A DIGRESSION IN PRAISE OF DIGRESSIONS. 327 nounce the example itself a corruption and degeneracy of taste. They tell us that the fashion of jumbling fifty things together in a dish was at first introduced in compliance to a depraved and debauched appetite, as well as to a crazy constitution and to see a man hunting through an olio after the head and brains of a goose, a.widgeon, or a woodcock, is a sign he wants a stomach and digestion for more substantial victuals. Farther, they affirm that digressions in a book are like foreign troops in a state, which argue the nation to want a heart and hands of its own, and either subdue the natives or drive them into the most unfruitful corners. But after all that can be objected by their supercilious censors, it is manifest the society of writers would quickly be reduced to a very inconsiderable number, if men were put up to making books with the fatal confinement of delivering nothing beyond what is to the purpose. It is acknowledged that were the case the same among us as with the Greeks and Romans, when learning was in its cradle to be reared and fed and clothed by inventors, it would be an easy task to fill up volumes upon particular occasions, without farther expatiating from the subject than by moderate excursions, helping to advance or clear the main design. But with knowledge it has fared as with a numerous army encamped in a fruitful country, which for a few days maintains itself by the product of the soil it is on, till, provisions being spent, they |