soul was the outward, and the body the inward clothing; that the latter was ex traduce; but the former of daily creation and circumfusion; this last they proved by scripture, because in them we live, and move, and have our being; as likewise by philosophy, because they are all in all, and all in every part. Besides, said they, separate these two, and you will find the body to be only a senseless unsavoury carcase. By all which it is manifest, that the outward dress must needs be the soul. To this system of religion, 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 after times and fashions. I have, with much pains and reading, collected out of ancient authors, this short summary of a body of philosophy and divinity, which seems to have been composed by a vein and race of thinking, very different from any other systems either ancient or modern. And it was not merely to entertain or satisfy the reader's curiosity, but rather to give him light into several circumstances of the following story; that knowing the state of dispositions and opinions in an age so remote, he may better comprehend those great events, which were the issue of them. I advise therefore the courteous reader to peruse with a world of application, again and again, whatever I have written upon this matter. And leaving these * Peruke.-Ed. 1. broken ends, I carefully gather up the chief thread of my story and proceed. These opinions, therefore, were so universal, as well as the practices of them, among the refined part of court and town, that our three brother-adventures, 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 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 to, 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 shoulderknots* came up:† straight all the world was shoulderknots; no approaching the ladies' ruelles without the quota of shoulder-knots. That fellow, cries one, has * Innovations.-BENTLEY. The first part of the Tale is the history of Peter; thereby Popery is exposed: everybody knows the Papists have made great additions to Christianity; that, indeed, is the great exception which the Church of England makes against them; accordingly Peter begins his pranks with adding a shoulder-knot to his coat. -W. WOTTON. His description of the cloth of which the coat was made, has a farther meaning than the words may seem to import: "The coats their father had left them were 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, with little or no ornament." This is the distinguishing character of the Christian religion: christiana religio absoluta et simplex, was Ammianus Marcellinus's description of it, who was himself a heathen.-W. WOTTON. no soul; where is his shoulder-knot? Our three brethren soon discovered their want by sad experience, meeting in their walks with forty mortifications and indignities. If they went to the play-house, the door-keeper shewed them into the twelve-penny 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 book-learned 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, 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, I 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 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 * The will.-Ed. 1. 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 anywhere to be found in ancient manuscripts. Calenda* hath in Q. V. C.t 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 farther difficulty vanished; shoulder-knots were made clearly out to be jure paterno: § 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. Shoulder-knots 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: || whoever durst peep abroad without his complement of gold lace, was as scandalous as a, and as ill received among the women: what should our three knights do in this momentous affair? they had sufficiently strained a point already in the affair of shoulderknots upon recourse to the will, nothing appeared * 'Tis true, said he.-Ed. 1. † Quibusdam veteribus codicibus; some ancient manuscripts. In this page the schoolmen are ridiculed, and the Romanists' corrupting and counterfeiting MSS. exposed.-BENTLEY. § Jure divino.-BENTLEY. I cannot tell whether the author means any new innovation by this word, or whether it be only to introduce the new methods of forcing and perverting scripture.-H. there but altum silentium. That of the shoulderknots was a loose, flying, circumstantial point; but this of gold lace seemed too considerable an alteration without better warrant; it did aliquo modo essentia adhærere, and therefore required a positive precept. But about this time it fell out, that the learned brother aforesaid had read Aristotelis dialectica, 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, 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, said the third.§ And so without more ado got the largest gold lace in the parish, and walked about as fine as lords. A while after there came up all in fashion a pretty By this is meant tradition, allowed by the Papists to have equal authority with the scripture, or rather greater.-H. In the first edition after this-that he heard my father say. When the Papists cannot find anything which they want in scripture, they go to oral tradition: thus Peter is introduced dissatisfied with the tedious way of looking for all the letters of any word which he has occasion for in the will; when neither the constituent syllables, nor much less the whole word, were there in terminis.-W. WOTTON. In this page, Popish traditions and processions are exposed. -BENTLEY. |