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 reflections upon Peter, 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 dispensable, 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 argu

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