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." The devotees of dress are represented as a sect that had lately arisen, whose tenets had spread extensively in the great world, and whose supreme deity was a tailor. "They worshipped," we are told, "a sort of idol, who, as their doctrine delivered, did daily create men by a kind of manufactory operation. This idol they placed in the highest part of the house on an altar erected about three foot: 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 gulf insatiably swallowed, terrible to behold." "To this system of religion," it is added, "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 of the times and fashions." And then the story proceeds as follows: These opinions therefore were so universal, as well as the practices of them, 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 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, and 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 wore shoulder-knots-no approaching the ladies' ruelles without the quota of shoulder-knots. fellow, cries one, has no soul; where is his shoulder-knot? Our three That 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 twelvepenny gallery; if they called a boat, says a waterman, "I am first sculler;" if they stepped to 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 booklearned 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,3 or totidem syllabis. This distinction was immediately approved by all, and so they fell again to examine; but their evil star had so directed the matter that the first syllable was not to be found in the whole writings. Upon which disappointment, he who found the former evasion took heart, and said, "Brothers, there are yet hopes; for, though we cannot find them totidem verbis, nor totidem syllabis, 1 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 any where to be found in ancient manuscripts. It is true, said he, the word Calendar hath in Q. V. C. been sometimes written with a K, but erroneously; for in the best copies it has been 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 written with a C. Upon this all further difficulty vanished-shoulder-knots were made clearly out to be jure paterno,8 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. Shoulderknots 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. What should our three knights do in this momentous affair? They had suffi 1 Middle course. 3 Inclusively. 5 In the third mode or manner. 2 In so many words. Quibusdem veteribus codicibus (in some ancient manuscripts). ® Conformable to paternal law. ciently 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-knot was a loose, flying, circumstantial point; but this of gold lace seemed too considerable an alteration without better warrant; it did aliquo modo essentiæ adhærere, and therefore required a positive precept. But about this time it fell out that the learned brother aforesaid had read Aristotelis Dialectica,3 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,5 nuncupatory and scriptory: 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 would advise his sons to get gold lace on their coats as soon as ever they could procure money to buy it. By G-! that is very true, cries the other: I remember it perfectly well, says the third. And so, without more ado, they got the largest gold lace in the parish, and walked about as fine as lords. 8 A while after there came up in fashion a pretty sort of flame-coloured satin for lining, and the mercer brought a pattern of it immediately to our three gentlemen. "An' please your worships," said he, "my Lord Conway and Sir John Walters 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 pincushion 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 a long search they could fix upon nothing to the matter in hand, except a short advice of their father in the will to take care of fire and put out their candles before they went to sleep. This, though a good deal for the purpose, and helping very far towards selfconviction, yet not seeming wholly of force to establish a command (being resolved to avoid further 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 has 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 1 Deep silence. 2 In some measure belong to the essence. These are all phrases of the schoolmen, whose endless distinctions and methods of reasoning are ridiculed. 3 Aristotle's Dialectics. 5 There are two kinds. 4 On Interpretation. 6 Is granted. 7 If the same thing be affirmed of the nuncupatory, it is denied. Of course, the nuncupatory will is the oral traditions of the Romish church. 8 The fire of purgatory, and prayers for the dead. 9 To subdue their lusts, that they might escape the fire of hell. 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, 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 broomstick, 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 broomstick; 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 broomstick 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. Here 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 any body 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 the 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 farther evasions and solving everlasting contradictions. Resolved, therefore, at all hazards to comply with the modes 1 Pointed, apparently, at the Apocrypha. 1 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, I have forgotten 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;2 upon which the scholar pronounced, ex cathedra,3 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 totidem 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 in the world, he obtained the favour of a certain lord 5 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. 6 In all this the satire is as admirable for the fineness of its edge as for its force and liveliness; but in the sequel the drollery becomes still richer. The glory of the work undoubtedly is the fourth section, in which it is recounted how the learned brother, advanced in the world as we have seen, after a while would not allow the others to call him any longer brother, but Mr. Peter, and then Father Peter, and sometimes My Lord Peter; and what discoveries and inventions he fell upon to support his grandeur, including his purchase of a large continent in terra australis incognita (the other world), which (although its very existence was doubtful) he retailed in parcels to a continual succession of dealers and colonists, who were always shipwrecked in the voyage -his sovereign remedy for the worms (penance and fasting)his whispering office (the confessional)--his office of insurance (indulgences) his puppets and raree-shows (ceremonies and 1 The prohibition of the use of the Scriptures, except in the Greek or Latin languages. 2 Novel rites and doctrines, many of which were sources of pecuniary profit. 3 From the seat of authority, in allusion to the papal decretals and bulls. 4 Many absurd consequences would follow. 5 Constantine the Great. 6 The temporal sovereignty claimed by the popes. |