A TALE OF A TUB.

SECTION I.

THE INTRODUCTION.

WHOEVER hath an ambition to be heard in a crowd, must press, and squeeze, and thrust, and climb, with indefatigable pains, till he has exalted himself to a certain degree of altitude above them. Now, in all assemblies, though you wedge them ever so close, we may observe this peculiar property, That over their heads there is room enough; but how to reach it, is the difficult point; it being as hard to get quit of numbers, as of hell.

Evadere ad auras

Hoc opus, hic labor est.*

To this end, the philosopher's way in all ages has been, by erecting certain edifices in the air. But whatever practice and reputation these kinds of structures have formerly possessed, or may still continue in, not excepting even that of Socrates, when he was suspended in a basket, to help contemplation; I think with due submisson, they seem to labor under two inconveniences. First, that the foundations being laid too

*But to return, and view the cheerful skies,

In this the task and mighty labour lies.

high, they have been often out of sight and ever out of hearing. Secondly, That the materials, being very transitory, have suffered much from inclemencies of air, especially in these north-west regions.

Therefore, towards the just performances of this great work, there remain but three methods that I can think on; whereof the wisdom of our ancestors, being highly sensible, has, to encourage all aspiring adventures, thought fit to erect three wooden machines, for the use of those orators who desire to talk much without interruption. These are, the pulpit, the ladder, and the stage itinerant. For, as to the bar, though it be compounded of the same matter, and designed for the same use, it cannot, however, be well allowed the honour of a fourth, by reason of its level or inferior situation, exposing 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 insist on. For, if they please to look into the original design of its erection, and the circumstances or adjunct subservient to that design, they will soon acknowledge the present practise exactly correspondent to the primitive institution; and both to answer the etymology of the name, which, in the Phoenician tongue, is a word of great signification, importing, if literally interpreted, the place of sleep: but, in common acceptation, a seat, well bolstered and cushioned, for the repose 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, whilst others slept; so now they may sleep as long, whilst others talk.

But if no other argument could occur to exclude the bench and the bar from the list of oratorical machines, it were sufficient, that the admission of them would overthrow a number which I was resolved to establish, whatever argument it might cost me; in imitation of that prudent method observed by

many other philosophers and great clerks, whose chief art in division has been to grow fond of some proper mystical number, which their imaginations have rendered sacred, to such a degree, that they force common reason to find room for it in every part of nature; reducing, including, and adjusting every genius and species within that compass, by coupling some against their wills, and banishing others at any rate. Now, among all the rest, the profound number THREE is that which hath most employed my sublimest speculations, nor ever without wonderful delight. There is now in the press (and will be published next term) a Panegyrical Essay of mine upon this number; wherein I have, by most convincing proofs, not only reduced the senses and the elements under its banner, but brought over several deserters from its two great rivals, SEVEN and NINE.

Now the first of these oratorical machines, in place as well as dignity, is the pulpit. Of pulpits there are in this island several sorts. But I esteem 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 sound, and for other reasons, to be mentioned by and by. The degree of perfection in shape and size, I take to consist in being extremely narrow, with little ornament, and best of all without a cover (for by ancient rule, it ought to be the only uncovered vessel in every assembly where it is rightfully used); by which means, from its near resemblance to a pillory, it will have a mighty influence on human ears.

Of ladders I need say nothing. It is observed by foreigners themselves, to the honour of our country, that we excel all nations in our practise and understanding of this machine. The ascending orators do not only oblige their audience in the agreeable delivery, but the whole world, in the early publication of their speeches; which I look upon as the choicest treasury of our British eloquence; and whereof I am inform

ed, that worthy citizen and bookseller, Mr. John Dunton, hath made a faithful and painful collection, which he shortly designs to publish in twelve volumes in folio, illustrated with copper-plates: a work highly useful and curious, and altogether worthy of such a hand.

The last engine of orators is the stage itinerant,* erected with much sagacity sub Jove pluvio, in triviis et quadriviis.† It is the greatest seminary of the two former: and its orators are sometimes referred to the one, and sometimes to the other, in proportion to their deservings: there being a strict and perpetual intercourse between all three.

From this accurate deduction it is manifest, that for attention in public, there is of necessity required a superior position of place. But although this point be generally granted, yet the cause is little agreed in; and it seems to me, that very few philosophers have fallen into a true, natural solution of this phenomenon. The deepest account, and the most fairly digested of any have met with, in this, That air being a heavy body, and therefore (according to the system of Epicurus) continually descending, must needs be more so, when loaden and pressed down by words, which are also bodies of much weight and gravity, as it is manifest from those deep impressions they make and leave upon us; and therefore must be delivered from a due altitude, or else they will never carry a good aim, nor fall down with a sufficient force.

Corpoream quoque enim vocem constare fatendum est,

Et sonitum, quoniam possunt impellere sensus. §

Lucr. Lib. 4.

And I am the readier to favour this conjecture, from a com

*That is the Mountebank's stage, whose orators the author determines either to be the gallows or a conventicle.

+In the open air, and in streets where the greatest resort is.

Lucret. Lib. 2.

'Tis certain then, that voice that thus can wound,

Is all materiai: body ever sound.

mon observation, That, in the several assemblies of these orators, nature itself hath instructed the hearers to stand with their mouths open, and erected parallel to the horizon, so as they may be intersected by a perpetual line from the zenith to the centre of the earth. In which position, if the audience. be well compact, every one carries home a share, and little or nothing is lost.

I confess, there is something yet more refined in the contrivance and structure of our modern theatres. For, first, the pit is sunk below the stage, with due regard to the institution above deduced; that whatever weighty matter shall be delivered thence (whether it be lead or gold), may fall plump 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 portion of wit, laid out in raising pruriences, and protuberances, is observed to run much upon a line, and ever in a circle. The whining passions, 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. Bombast and buffoonry, by nature lofty and light, soar highest of all; and would be lost in the roof, if the prudent architect had not, with much foresight, contrived for them a fourth place, called the twelve-penny-gallery; and there planted a suitable colony, who greedily intercept them in their passage.

Now, this physico-logical scheme of oratorical receptacles, or machines, contains a great mystery; being a type, a sign, an emblem, a shadow, a symbol, bearing analogy to the spacious commonwealth of writers, and to those methods by which they must exalt themselves to a certain eminency above the inferior world. By the pulpit are adumbrated the writings of our modern saints in Great-Britain, as they have spiritualized and refined them from the dross and grossness of sense and