TALE A OF A TUB. SECTION I. THE INTRODUCTION. WHOEVER hath an ambition to be heard in a croud, muft prefs, and squeeze, and thruft, and climb with indefatigable pains, till he has exalted himself to a certain degree of altitude above them. Now, in all affemblies, though you wedge them ever fo clofe, we may obferve this peculiar property, That over their heads there is room enough; but how to reach it, is the diffi cult point; it being as hard to get quit of numbers, as of hell. -Evadere ad auras Hoc opus, bic labor eft To this end, the philofopher's way in all ages has been, by erecting certain edifices in the air. But, whatever practice and reputation thefe kinds of structures have formerly poffeffed, or may ftill continue in, not excepting even that of Socrates, when he was fufpended in a basket, to help contemplation; I think, with due fubmiffion, they feem to labour under two inconveniencies. First, That the foundations being laid too high, they have been often out of fight, and ever out of hearing. Secondly, That the materials, being very tranfitory, have fuffered much from inclemencies of air, efpecially in thefe north-west regions. Therefore, towards the juft performance of this great work, there remain but three methods that I can think on; whereof the wifdom of our ancestors, being highly fenfible, has, to encourage all aspiring adventurers, *But to return, and view the chearful skies, In this the talk and mighty labour lies. thought thought fit to erect three wooden machines, for the use of thofe orators who defire to talk much without interruption. These are, the pulpit, the ladder, and the ftage itinerant. For, as to the bar, though it be compounded of the fame matter, and defigned for the fame ufe, it cannot however be well allowed the honour of a fourth, by reafon of its level or inferior fituation, expofing it to perpetual interruption from collaterals. Neither can the bench itself, though raised to a proper eminence, put in a better claim, whatever its advocates infift on. For, if they please to look into the original defign of its erection, and the circumstances or adjunct fubfervient to that defign, they will foon acknowledge the prefent practice exactly correfpondent to the primitive inftitution; and both to answer the etymology of the name, which, in the Phoenician tongue, is a word of great fignification, importing, if literally interpreted, The place of fleep; but in common acceptation, A feat, well bolstered and cushioned, for the repofe of old and gouty limbs Senes ut in otia tuta recedant: Fortune being indebted to them this part of retaliation, that, as formerly, they have long talked, whilft others flept; fo now they may fleep as long, whilft others talk. But if no other argument could occur to exclude the bench and the bar from the lift of oratorical machines, it were fufficient, that the admiffion of them would overthrow a number which I was refolved to establish, whatever argument it might coft me; in imitation of that prudent method obferved by many other philofophers and great clerks, whofe chief art in divifion has been to grow fond of fome proper mystical number, which their imaginations have rendered facred, to such a degree, that they force common reafon to find room forit in every part of nature; reducing, including,and adjusting every genus and fpecies within that compafs, by coupling fome against their wills, and banishing others at any rate. Now, among all the reft, the profound number THREE is that which hath most employed my fublimeft fpeculations, nor ever without wonderful delight. There is now row in the prefs, (and will be published next term), a Panegyrical Eflay of mine upon this number; wherein Ihave, by moft convincing proofs, not only reduced the fenfes and the elements under its banner, but brought over feveral deferters from its two great rivals, SEVEN and NINE. Now the first of thefe oratorical machines, in place as well as dignity, is the pulpit. Of pulpits there are in this ifland feveral forts. But I efteem only that made of timber, from the Sylva Caledonia, which agrees very well with our climate. If it be upon its decay, it is the better, both for conveyance of found, and for other reafons, to be mentioned by and by. The degree of perfection in shape and fize, I take to confift in being extremely narrow, with little ornament, and beft of all without a cover; (for, by ancient rule, it ought to be the only uncovered veffel in every affembly where it is rightfully ufed) by which means, from its near refemblance to a pillory, it will ever have a mighty influence on hu man ears. Of ladders I need fay nothing. It is obferved by foreigners themfelves, to the honour of our country, that we excel all nations in our practice and understanding of this machine. The afcending orators do not only oblige their audience in the agreeable delivery, but the whole world, in the early publication of their fpeeches; which I look upon as the choiceft treafury of our Britith eloquence; and whereof I am informed, that worthy citizen and bookfeller, Mr. John Dunton, hath made a faithful and a painful collection, which he fhortly defigns to publish in twelve volumes in folio, illuftrated with copper-plates: A work highly useful and curious, and altogether worthy of fuch a hand! The laft engine of orators is the ftage itinerant erected with much fagacity, fub Jove pluvio, in triviis et quadriviis +. It is the greatest feminary of the two * That is the Mountebank's stage, whofe orators the author determines either to be the gallows or a conventicle. + In the open air, and in itrees where the greateft refort is. former: former and its orators are sometimes preferred to the one, and fometimes to the other, in proportion to their defervings; there being a strict and perpetual intercourse between all three. From this accurate deduction it is manifeft, that, for obtaining attention in public, there is of neceffity required a fuperior pofition of place. But although this point be generally granted, yet the caufe is little agreed in; and it seems to me, that very few philofophers have fallen into a true, natural solution of this phoenomenon. The deepest account, and the most fairly digested of any I have yet met with, is this, That air being a heavy body, and therefore (according to the fyftem of Epicurus) continually defcending, muft needs be more fo, when loaden and preffed down by words; which are also bodies of much weight and gravity, as it is manifest from those deep impreffions they make and leave upon us; and therefore must be delivered from a due altitude, or elfe they will neither carry a good aim, nor fall down with a fufficient force. Corpoream quoque enim vocem conftare fatendum eft, Lucr. lib. 4. And I am the readier to favour this conjecture, from a common obfervation, That, in the several assemblies of thefe orators, nature itself hath inftructed the hearers to ftand with their mouths open, and erected parallel to the horizon, fo as they may be interfected by a perpendicular line from the zenith to the centre of the earth. In which pofition, if the audience be well compact, every one carries home a share, and little or nothing is loft. I confefs, there is fomething yet more refined in the contrivance and structure of our modern theatres. For, Lucret. lib. 2. 'Tis certain then, that voice that thus can wound, firft, first, the pit is funk below the stage, with due regard to the inftitution above deduced; that whatever weighty matter fhall be delivered thence, (whether it be lead or gold), may fall plum into the jaws of certain critics (as I think they are called) which stand ready open to devour them. Then the boxes are built round, and raised to a level with the scene, in deference to the ladies; because that large portion of wit, laid out in raifing pruriences and protuberances, is obferved to run much upon a line, and ever in a circle. The whining paffions, and little starved conceits, are gently wafted up by their own extreme levity, to the middle region; and there fix, and are frozen by the frigid understandings of the inhabitants. Bombaft and buffoonry, by nature lofty and light, foar highest of all; and would be loft in the roof, if the prudent architect had not, with much forefight, contrived for them a fourth place, called the twelve-penny-gallery; and there planted a fuitable colony, who greedily intercept them in their paffage. Now, this phyfico-logical scheme of oratorical receptacles, or machines, contains a great mystery; being a type, a fign, an emblem, a fhadow, a fymbol, bearing analogy to the fpacious commonwealth of writers, and to thofe methods by which they muft exalt themselves to a certain eminency above the inferior world. By the pulpit are adumbrated the writings of our modern faints in Great Britain, as they have fpiritualized and refined them from the drofs and groffness of fenfe and human reafon. The matter, as we have faid, is of rotten wood; and that upon two confiderations: because it is the quality of rotten wood, to give light in the dark : and, fecondly, because its cavities are full of worms; which is a type with a pair of handles *, having a repect to the two principal qualifications of the orator, and the two different fates attending upon his works. The two principal qualifications of a Fanatic preachen are, his inward light, and his head full of maggots, and the two different fates of his writings are, to be burnt or wormeaton, The |