5 This is an occasional satire upon dress and fashion, in order to introduce what follows.
6 By this idol is meant a tailor.
7 The ®gyptians worshipped a monkey, which animal is very fond of eating lice, styled here creatures that feed on human gore.
8 Alluding to the word microcosm, or a little world. as man hath been called by philosophers.
9 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 nearly sewn, you would swear it had been 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.
10 By this is understood the first introducing of pageantry, and unnecessary ornaments in the Church, such as were neither for convenience nor edification, as a shoulder-knot, in which there is neither symmetry nor use.
11 When the Papists cannot find any thing which they want in Scripture, they go to oral tradition: thus Peter is introduced satisfied 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.
12 Quibusdam veteribus codicibus: some ancient manuscripts
13 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.
14 The next subject of our author’s wit is the glosses and interpretations of Scripture, very many absurd ones of which are allowed in the most authentic books of the Church of Rome W. WOTTON.
15 By this is meant tradition, allowed to have equal authority with the scripture, or rather greater.
16 This is purgatory, whereof he speaks more particularly hereafter, but here only to show how Scripture was perverted to prove it, which was done by giving equal authority with the Canon to Apocrypha, called .here a codicil annexed.
It is likely the author, in every one of these changes in the brothers’ dresses, refers to some particular error in the Church of Rome, though it is not easy I think to apply them all, but by this of flame-coloured satin, is manifestly intended purgatory; by gold lace may perhaps be understood the lofty ornaments and plate in the churches; the shoulder-knots and silver fringe are not so obvious, at least to me; but the Indian figures of men, women and children plainly relate to the pictures in the Romish churches, of God like an old man, of the Virgin Mary, and our Saviour as a child.
17 This shows the time the author writ, it being about fourteen years since those two persons were reckoned the fine gentlemen of the town.
18 That is, to take care of hell, and, in order to do that, to subdue and extinguish their lusts.
19 believe this refers to that part of the Apocrypha where mention is made of Tobit and his dog.
20 This is certainly the farther introducing the pomps of habit and ornament.
21 The images of saints, the blessed Virgin, and our Saviour an infant Ibid. Images in the Church of Rome give him but too fair a handle. The brothers remembered, &c. The allegory here is direct. W. WOTTON.
22 The Papists formerly forbade the people the use of scripture in a vulgar tongue, Peter therefore locks up his father’s will in a strong box, brought out of Greece or Italy. Those countries are named because the New Testament is written in Greek; and the vulgar Latin, which is the authentic edition of the Bible in the Church of Rome, is in the language of old Italy. W. WOTTON.
23 The popes in their decretals and bulls have given their sanction to very many gainful doctrines which are now received in the Church of Rome that are not mentioned in scripture, and are unknown to the primitive church; Peter accordingly pronounces ex cathedra, that points tagged with silver were absolutely jure paterno, and so they wore them in great numbers. W. WOTTON.
24 This was Constantine the Great, from whom the popes pretend a donation of St. Peter’s patrimony, which they have been never able to produce.
lbid. The bishops of Rome enjoyed their privileges in Rome at first by the favour of emperors, whom at last they shut out of their own capital city, and then forged a donation from Constantine the Great, the better to justify what they did. In imitation of this, Peter having run something behind-hand in the world, obtained leave of a certain lord, &c. W. WOTTON.
SECTION III. A DIGRESSION CONCERNING CRITICS
THO’ I have been hitherto as cautious as I could, upon all occasions, most nicely to follow the rules and methods of writing laid down by the example of our illustrious moderns; yet has the unhappy shortness of my memory led me into an error, from which I must immediately extricate myself, before I can decently pursue my principal subject. I confess with shame, it was an unpardonable omission to proceed so far as I have already done, before I had performed the due discourses, expostulatory, supplicatory, or deprecatory, with my good lords the critics. Towards some atonement for this grievous neglect, I do here make humbly bold to present them with a short account of themselves and their art, by looking into the original and pedigree of the word, as it is generally understood among us, and very briefly considering the ancient and present state thereof.
By the word critic, at this day so frequent in all conversations, there have sometimes been distinguished three very different species of mortal men, according as I have read in ancient books and pamphlets. For first, by this term was understood such persons as invented or drew up rules for themselves and the world, by observing which, a careful reader might be able to pronounce upon the productions of the learned, form his taste to a true relish of the sublime and the admirable, and divide every beauty of matter or of style from the corruption that apes it. In their common perusal of books, singling out the errors and defects, the nauseous, the fulsome, the dull, and the impertinent, with the caution of a man that walks through Edinburgh streets in a morning, who is indeed as careful as he can to watch diligently, and spy out the filth in his way; not that he is curious to observe the colour and complexion of the ordure, or take its dimensions, much less to be paddling in, or tasting it; but only with a design to come out as cleanly as he may. These men seem, though very erroneously, to have understood the appellation of critic in a literal sense; that one principal part of his office was to praise and acquit; and that a critic, who sets up to read only for an occasion of censure and reproof, is a creature as barbarous as a judge, who should take up a resolution to hang all men that came before him upon a trial.
Again, by the word critic have been meant the restorers of ancient learning from the worms, and graves, and dust of manuscripts. Now, the races of these two have been for some ages utterly extinct; and besides, to discourse any farther of them would not be at all to my purpose.
The third, and noblest sort, is that of the TRUE CRITIC, whose original is the most ancient of all. Every true critic is a hero born, descending in a direct line from a celestial stem by Momus and Hybris, who begat Zoilus, who begat Tigellius, who begat Etcaetera the Elder; who begat Bentley, and Rymer, and Wotton, and Perrault, and Dennis, who begat Etcaetera the Younger.
And these are the critics from whom the commonwealth of learning has in all ages received such immense benefits, that the gratitude of their admirers placed their origin in Heaven, among those of Hercules, Theseus, Perseus, and other great deservers of mankind. But heroic virtue itself hath not been exempt from the obloquy of evil tongues. For it hath been objected, that those ancient heroes, famous for their combating so many giants, and dragons, and robbers, were in their own persons a greater nuisance to mankind, than any of those monsters they subdued; and therefore to render their obligations more complete, when all other vermin were destroyed, should in conscience have concluded with the same justice upon themselves as Hercules most generously did, and hath upon that score procured to himself more temples and votaries than the best of his fellows. For these reasons, I suppose it is, why some have conceived it would be very expedient for the public good of learning that every true critic, as soon as he had finished his task assigned, should immediately deliver himself up to ratsbane, or hemp, or from some convenient altitude; and that no man’s pretensions to so illustrious a character should by any means be received, before that operation were performed.