The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 2/A Tale of a Tub/Section 10

by Jonathan Swift

SECT. X.

A FARTHER DIGRESSION.

IT is an unanswerable argument of a very refined age^[1], the wonderful civilities that have passed of late years between the nation of authors, and that of readers. There can hardly pop out a play, a pamphlet, or a poem, without a preface full of acknowledgement to the world for the general reception and applause they have given it, which the Lord knows where, or when, or how, or from whom it received. In due deference to so laudable a custom, I do here return my humble thanks to his majesty, and both houses of parliament; to the lords of the king's most honourable privy-council; to the reverend the judges; to the clergy, and gentry, and yeomanry of this land: but in a more especial manner, to my worthy brethren and friends at Will's coffee-house, and Gresham-college, and Warwick-lane, and Moorfields, and Scotland-yard, and Westminster-hall, and Guild-hall: in short, to all inhabitants and retainers whatsoever, either in court, or church, or camp, or city, or country; for their generous and universal acceptance of this divine treatise. I accept their approbation and good opinion with extreme gratitude, and, to the utmost of my poor capacity, shall take hold of all opportunities to return the obligation.

I am also happy, that fate has flung me into so blessed an age, for the mutual felicity of booksellers and authors, whom I may safely affirm to be at this day the two only satisfied parties in England. Ask an author how his last piece has succeeded; why, truly, he thanks his stars, the world has been very favourable, and he has not the least reason to complain: and yet, by G—, he writ it in a week, at bits and starts, when he could steal an hour from his urgent affairs; as it is a hundred to one, you may see farther in the preface, to which he refers you; and for the rest, to the bookseller. There you go as a customer, and make the same question: he blesses his God the thing takes wonderfully, he is just printing the second edition, and has but three left in his shop. You beat down the price: Sir, we shall not differ; and in hopes of your custom another time, lets you have it as reasonable as you please; and pray send as many of your acquaintance as you will, I shall, upon your account, furnish them all at the same rate.

Now, it is not well enough considered, to what accidents and occasions the world is indebted, for the greatest part of those noble writings, which hourly start up to entertain it. If it were not for a rainy day, a drunken vigil, a fit of the spleen, a course of physick, a sleepy sunday, an ill run at dice, a long tailor's bill, a beggar's purse, a factious head, a hot sun, costive diet, want of books, and a just contempt of learning: but for these events, I say, and some others too long to recite (especially a prudent neglect of taking brimstone inwardly) I doubt, the number of authors, and of writings, would dwindle away to a degree most woful to behold. To confirm this opinion, hear the words of the famous Troglodyte philosopher: It is certain (said he) some grains of folly are of course annexed, as part of the composition of human nature, only the choice is left us, whether we please to wear them inlaid, or embossed: and we need not go very far to seek how that is usually determined, when we remember, it is with human faculties, as with liquors, the lightest will be ever at the top.

There is in this famous island of Britain, a certain paltry scribbler, very voluminous, whose character the reader cannot wholly be a stranger to^[2]. He deals in a pernicious kind of writings, called second parts; and usually passes under the name of the author of the first. I easily foresee, that as soon as I lay down my pen, this nimble operator will have stolen it, and treat me as inhumanly as he has already done Dr. Blackmore, Lestrange, and many others, who shall here be nameless; I therefore fly for justice and relief, into the hands of that great rectifier of saddles^[3], and lover of mankind, Dr. Bentley; begging he will take this enormous grievance into his most modern consideration: and if it should so happen, that the furniture of an ass, in the shape of a second part, must, for my sins, be clapped by a mistake upon my back, that he will immediately please, in the presence of the world, to lighten me of the burden, and take it home to his own house, till the true beast thinks fit to call for it.

In the mean time I do here give this publick notice, that my resolutions are, to circumscribe within this discourse, the whole stock of matter, I have been so many years providing. Since my vein is once opened, I am content to exhaust it all at a running, for the peculiar advantage of my dear country, and for the universal benefit of mankind. Therefore hospitably considering the number of my guests, they shall have my whole entertainment at a meal; and I scorn to set up the leavings in the cupboard. What the guests cannot eat, may be given to the poor; and the dogs^[4] under the table may gnaw the bones. This I understand for a more generous proceeding, than to turn the company's stomach, by inviting them again to-morrow, to a scurvy meal of scraps.

If the reader fairly considers the strength of what I have advanced in the foregoing section, I am convinced it will produce a wonderful revolution in his notions and opinions; and he will be abundantly better prepared, to receive and to relish, the concluding part of this miraculous treatise. Readers may be divided into three classes, the superficial, the ignorant, and the learned: and I have, with much felicity, fitted my pen to the genius and advantage of each. The superficial reader, will be strangely provoked to laughter; which clears the breast and the lungs, is sovereign against the spleen, and the most innocent of all diureticks. The ignorant reader, between whom and the former, the distinction is extremely nice, will find himself disposed to stare; which is an admirable remedy for ill eyes, serves to raise and enliven the spirits, and wonderfully helps perspiration. But the reader truly learned, chiefly for whose benefit I wake when others sleep, and sleep when others wake, will here find sufficient matter to employ his speculations, for the rest of his life. It were much to be wished, and I do here humbly propose for an experiment, that every prince in Christendom will take seven of the deepest scholars in his dominions, and shut them up close for seven years, in seven chambers, with a command to write seven ample commentaries, on this comprehensive discourse. I shall venture to afiirm, that whatever difference may be found in their several conjectures, they will be all, without the least distortion, manifestly deducible from the text. Mean time, it is my earnest request, that so useful an undertaking may be entered upon, if their majesties please, with all convenient speed; because I have a strong inclination, before I leave the world, to taste a blessing, which we mysterious writers can seldom reach, till we have gotten into our graves: whether it is, that fame, being a fruit grafted on the body, can hardly grow, and much less ripen, till the stock is in the earth: or, whether she be a bird of prey, and is lured, among the rest, to pursue after the scent of a carcase: or whether she conceives her trumpet sounds best and farthest, when she stands on a tomb, by the advantage of a rising ground, and the echo of a hollow vault.

It is true, indeed, the republick of dark authors, after they once found out this excellent expedient of dying, have been peculiarly happy in the variety, as well as extent of their reputation. For, night being the universal mother of things, wise philosophers hold all writings to be fruitful, in the proportion^[5] they are dark; and therefore, the true illuminated^[6] (that is to say, the darkest of all) have met with such numberless commentators, whose scholastick midwifery has delivered them of meanings, that the authors themselves perhaps never conceived, and yet may very justly be allowed the lawful parents of them; the words of such writers being like seed, which, however scattered at random, when they light upon a fruitful ground, will multiply far beyond either the hopes or imagination of the sower.

And therefore in order to promote so useful a work, I will here take leave to glance a few innuendoes, that may be of great assistance to those sublime spirits, who shall be appointed to labour in a universal comment, upon this wonderful discourse. And first^[7], I have couched a very profound mystery in the number of Os multiplied by seven, and divided by nine. Also, if a devout brother of the rosy cross, will pray fervently for sixty-three mornings, with a lively faith, and then transpose certain letters and syllables, according to prescription in the second and fifth section; they will certainly reveal into a full receipt of the opus magnum. Lastly, whoever will be at the pains to calculate the whole number of each letter in this treatise, and sum up the difference exactly between the several numbers, assigning the true natural cause for every such difference; the discoveries in the product, will plentifully reward his labour. But then he must beware of Bythus and Sigé^[8], and be sure not to forget the qualities of Achamoth; à cujus lacrymis humecta prodit substantia, à risu lucida, à tristitia solida, et à timore mobilis; wherein Eugenius Philalethes^[9] hath committed an unpardonable mistake.

1. This first sentence is wholly ungrammatical; it may be thus amended. It is an unanswerable argument of the age's being very refined, that wonderful civilities have passed, &c.
2. This mode of placing the preposition at the end of the sentence, however sanctified by custom, and frequently used by our author, is yet very faulty, and offensive to a cultivated ear. It may easily be avoided by placing the preposition before the word to which it properly belongs. Thus, in the above instance, instead of saying, 'whose character the reader cannot wholly be a stranger to,'——if we transpose the particle thus, 'to whose character the reader cannot wholly be a stranger;' the sentence closes with an important word, in a manner satisfactory to the ear.
3. Alluding to the trite phrase, 'place the saddle on the right horse.'
4. By dogs, the author means common injudicious criticks, as he explains it himself before in his Digression upon Criticks.
5. It should be, 'in the proportion that they are dark:' or, 'in proportion as they are dark:' or, still better, 'in proportion to their darkness.'
6. A name of the Rosicrucians. These were Fanatick alchemists, who in search after the great secret had invented a means altogether proportioned to their end: it was a kind of theological philosophy, made up of almost equal mixtures of pagan platonism, Christian quietism, and the Jewish cabbala. Warburton on the Rape of the Lock.
7. This is what the cabbalists among the Jews have done with the Bible, and pretend to find wonderful mysteries by it.
8. I was told by an eminent divine, whom I consulted on this point that these two barbarous words, with that of Achamoth, and its qualities, as here set down, are quoted from Irenæus. This he discovered by searching that ancient writer for another quotation of our author, which he has placed in the title-page, and refers to the book and chapter; the curious were very inquisitive, whether those barbarous words, basyma cacabasa, &c. are really in Irenæus, and upon inquiry, it was found they were a sort of cant or jargon of certain hereticks, and therefore very properly prefixed to such a book as this of our author.
9. Vid. Anima magica abscondita.
   To the treatise mentioned above, p. 132, called Anthroposophia Theomagica, there is another annexed, called Anima magica abscondita, written by the same author, Vaughan, under the name of Eugenius Philalethes, but in neither of those treatises is there any mention of Achamoth, or its qualities, so that this is nothing but amusement, and a ridicule of dark, unintelligible writers; only the words, à cujus lacrymis, &c. are, as we have said, transcribed from Irenæus, though I know not from what part. I believe one of the author's designs was to set curious men a hunting through indexes, and inquiring for books out of the common road.