their thoughts and wishes and conversation turn entirely upon the subject of their journey's end, and at every splash and plunge and stumble they heartily wish one another at the devil.

On the other side, when a traveller and his horse are in heart and plight, when his purse is full and the day before him, he takes the road only where it is clean and convenient, entertains his company there as agreeably as he can, but upon the first occasion carries them along with him to every delightful scene in view, whether of art, of nature, or of both; and if they chance to refuse, out of stupidity or weariness, lets them jog on by themselves, and he'll overtake them at the next town; at which arriving, he rides furiously through, the men, women, and children run out to gaze, a hundred noisy curs barking after him, of which, if he honours the boldest with a lash of his whip, it is rather out of sport than revenge; but should some sourer mongrel dare too near an approach, he receives a salute on the chops by an accidental stroke from the courser's heels (nor is any ground lost by the blow), which sends him yelping and limping home.

run

I now proceed to sum up the singular adventures of my renowned Jack, the state of whose dispositions and fortunes the careful reader does, no doubt, most exactly remember, as I last parted with them in the conclusion of a former section; therefore his next

By these are meant what the author calls true critics.

care must be, from two of the foregoing to extract a scheme of notions that may best fit his understanding for a true relish of what is to ensue.

Jack had not only calculated the first revolution of his brain so prudently as to give rise to that epidemic sect of Æolists, but succeeding also into a new and strange variety of conceptions, the fruitfulness of his imagination led him into certain notions which, although in appearance very unaccountable, were not without their mysteries and their meanings, nor wanted followers to countenance or improve them. I shall therefore be extremely careful and exact in recounting such material passages of this nature as I have been able to collect, either from undoubted tradition, or indefatigable reading; and shall describe them as graphically as it is possible, and as far as notions of that height and latitude can be brought within the compass of a pen. Nor do I at all question but they will furnish plenty of noble matter for such whose converting imaginations dispose them to reduce all things into types; who can make shadows, no thanks to the sun, and then mould them into substances, no thanks to philosophy; whose peculiar talent lies in fixing tropes and allegories to the letter, and refining what is literal into figure and mystery.

Jack had provided a fair copy of his father's will engrossed in form upon a large skin of parchment and resolving to act the part of a most dutiful son

he became the fondest creature of it imaginable. For though, as I have often told the reader, it consisted wholly in certain plain, easy directions about the management and wearing of their coats, with legacies and penalties in case of obedience or neglect, yet he began to entertain a fancy that the matter was deeper and darker, and therefore must needs have a great deal more of mystery at the bottom. "Gentlemen," said he, "I will prove this very skin of parchment to be meat, drink, and cloth; to be the philosopher's stone and the universal medicine.” * In consequence of which raptures he resolved to make use of it in the most necessary, as well as the most paltry, occasions of life. He had a way of working it into any shape he pleased, so that it served him for a night-cap when he went to bed, and for an umbrella in rainy weather. He would lap a piece of it about a sore toe; or when he had fits, burn two inches under his nose; or if anything lay heavy on his stomach, scrape off and swallow as much of the powder as would lie on a silver penny : they were all infallible remedies. With analogy to these refinements, his common talk and conversation ran wholly in the phrase of his will, and he cir

*The author here lashes those pretenders to purity who place so much merit in using Scripture phrases on all occasions.

The Protestant dissenters use Scripture phrases in their serious discourses and composures more than the Church of England men. Accordingly, Jack is introduced making his common talk and conversation to run wholly in the phrase of his Will.-W. Wotton.

cumscribed the utmost of his eloquence within that compass, not daring to let slip a syllable without authority from thence. Once, at a strange house, his dress being by accident much soiled, he chose rather, as the most prudent course, to incur the penalty in such cases usually annexed; neither was it possible for the united rhetoric of mankind to prevail with him to make himself clean again; because, having consulted the will upon this emergency, he met with a passage near the bottom (whether foisted in by the transcribers is not known) which seemed to forbid it.*

He made it a part of his. religion never to say grace to his meat,† nor could all the world persuade him, as the common phrase is, to eat his victuals like a Christian

He bore a strange kind of appetite to snap-dragon, and to the livid smuts of a burning candle, which he

* I cannot guess the author's meaning here, which I would be very glad to know, because it seems to be of importance.

Ibid. “Incurring the penalty in such cases usually annexed" wants no explanation. "He would not make himself clean, because, having consulted the will [i.e., the New Testament], he met with a passage near the bottom [i.e., in the 11th verse of the last chapter of the Revelation, He which is filthy, let him be fifthy still,'] which seemed to forbid it." "Whether foisted in by the transcriber" is added, because this paragraph is wanted in the Alexandrian MS., the oldest and most authentic copy of the New Testament.-Hawkes.

+ The slovenly way of receiving the sacrament among the fanatics. This is a common phrase to express eating cleanly, and is meant for an invective against that indecent manner among some people in receiving the sacrament; so in the lines before, which is to be understood of the dissenters refusing to kneel at the sacrament.

would catch and swallow, with an agility wonderful to conceive, and by this procedure maintained a perpetual flame in his belly, which issued in a glowing steam from both his eyes, as well as his nostrils and his mouth, and made his head appear, in a dark night, like the skull of an ass wherein a roguish boy had conveyed a farthing candle, to the terror of his Majesty's liege subjects. Therefore he made use of no other expedient to light himself home, but was wont to say that a wise man was his own lantern.

He would shut his eyes as he walked along the street, and if he happened to bounce his head against a post, or fall into the kennel, as he seldom missed either to do one or both, he would tell the gibing apprentices who looked on that he submitted, with entire resignation, as to a trip or blow of fate, with whom he found, by long experience, how vain it was either to wrestle or to cuff, and whoever durst undertake to do either would be sure to come off with swinging fall or a bloody nose. "It was ordained,” said he, "some few days before the creation, that my nose and this very post should have an encounter; and therefore nature thought fit to send us both into the world in the same age, and to make us countrymen and fellow-citizens. Now, had my eyes been open, it is very likely the business might have been a great deal worse, for how many a confounded slip is daily got by man, with all his foresight about him? Besides, the eyes of the understanding see best when