Another very beneficial project of Lord Peter’s was an office of insurance[5] for tobacco-pipes, martyrs of the modern zeal, volumes of poetry, shadows, ——- and rivers: that these, nor any of these shall receive damage by fire. From whence our friendly societies may plainly find themselves to be only transcribers from this original; though the one and the other have been of great benefit to the undertakers, as well as of equal to the public. Lord Peter was also held the original author of puppets and raree-shows;[6] the great usefulness whereof being so generally known, I shall not enlarge farther upon this particular.
But another discovery for which he was much renowned was his famous universal pickle.[7] For having remarked how your common pickle[8] in use among housewives, was of no farther benefit than to preserve dead flesh, and certain kinds of vegetables, Peter, with great cost as well as art, had contrived a pickle proper for houses, gardens, towns, men, women, children, and cattle; wherein he could preserve them as sound as insects in amber. Now, this pickle to the taste, the smell, and the sight, appeared exactly the same with what is in common service for beef, and butter, and herring (and has been often that way applied with great success) but for its many sovereign virtues was a quite different thing. For Peter would put in a certain quantity of his powder pimperlim pimp,[9] after which it never failed of success. The operation was performed by spargefaction in a proper time of the moon. The patient who was to be pickled, if it were a house, would infallibly be preserved from all spiders, rats, and weasels; if the party affected were a dog, he should be exempt from mange, and madness, and hunger. It also infallibly took away all scabs and lice, and scalled heads from children, never hindering the patient from any duty, either at bed or board.
But of all Peter’s rarities, he most valued a certain set of bulls,[10] whose race was by great fortune preserved in a lineal descent from those that guarded the golden fleece. Though some who pretended to observe them curiously, doubted the breed had not been kept entirely chaste; because they had degenerated from their ancestors in some qualities, and had acquired others very extraordinary, but a foreign mixture. The bulls of Colchos are recorded to have brazen feet; but whether it happened by ill pasture and running, by an allay from intervention of other parents, from stolen intrigues; whether a weakness in their progenitors had impaired the seminal virtue, or by a decline necessary through a long course of time, the originals of nature being depraved in these latter sinful ages of the world; whatever was the cause, ’tis certain that Lord Peter’s bulls were extremely vitiated by the rust of time in the metal of their feet, which was now sunk into common lead. However, the terrible roaring, peculiar to their lineage was preserved; as likewise that faculty of breathing out fire from their nostrils; which notwithstanding many of their detractors took to be a feat of art; and to be nothing so terrible as it appeared; proceeding only from their usual course of diet, which was of squibs and crackers.[11] However, they had two peculiar marks which extremely distinguished them from the bulls of Jason, and which I have not met together in the description of any other monster, beside that in Horace:
Varias inducere plumas; and Atrum desinit in tiscem.
For these had fishes’ tails, yet upon occasion could outfly any bird in the air. Peter put these bulls upon several employs. Sometimes he would set them a-roaring to fright naughty boys,[12] and make them quiet. Sometimes he would send them out upon errands of great importance; where it is wonderful to recount, and perhaps the cautious reader may think much to believe it, an appetitus sensibilis, deriving itself through the whole family from their noble ancestors, guardians of the golden fleece, they continued so extremely fond of gold, that if Peter sent them abroad, though it were only upon a compliment, they would roar, and spit, and belch, and piss, and fart, and snivel out fire, and keep a perpetual coil, till you flung them a bit of gold; but then, pulveris exigui jactu, they would grow calm and quiet as lambs. In short, whether by secret connivance, or encouragement from their master, or out of their own liquorish affection to gold, or both, it is certain they were no better than a sort of sturdy, swaggering beggars; and where they could not prevail to get an alms, would make women miscarry, and children fall into fits, who to this very day, usually call sprites and hobgoblins by the name of bullbeggars. They grew at last so very troublesome to the neighbourhood, that some gentlemen of the north- west got a parcel of right English bull-dogs, and baited them so terribly, that they felt it ever after.
I must needs mention one more of Lord Peter’s projects, which was very extraordinary, and discovered him to be master of a high reach, and profound invention. Whenever it happened that any rogue of Newgate was condemned to be hanged, Peter would offer him a pardon for a certain sum of money which when the poor caitiff had made all shifts to scrape up and send, his lordship would return a piece of paper in this form.[14] and sometimes monarch of the universe. I have seen him (says my author) take three old high crowned hats,[15] and clap them all on his head three story high with a huge bunch of keys at his girdle,[16] and an angling rod in his hand. In which guise, whoever went to take him by the hand in the way of salutation, Peter with much grace, like a well-educated spaniel, would present them with his foot,[17] and if they refused his civility, then he would raise it as high as their chops, and give them a damned kick on the mouth, which hath ever since been called a salute. Whoever walked by without paying him their compliments, having a wonderful strong breath, he would blow their hats off into the dirt. Meantime, his affairs at home went upside down: and his two brothers had a wretched time- where his first boutade[18] was, to kick both their wives one morning out of doors, and his own too;[19] and in their stead, gave orders to pick up the first three strollers could be met with in the streets. A while after he nailed up the cellar-door, and would not allow his brothers a drop of drink to their victuals.[20] Dining one day at an alderman’s in the city, Peter observed him expatiating after the manner of his brethren, in the praises of his sirloin of beef. Beef, said the sage magistrate, is the king of meat; beef comprehends in it the quintessence of partridge, and quail, and venison, and pheasants, and plum-pudding, and custard. When Peter came home, he would needs take the fancy of cooking up this doctrine into use, and apply the precept in default of a sirloin, to his brown loaf: ‘Bread,’ says he, ‘dear brothers, is the staff of life; in which bread is contained, inclusive, the quintessence of beef, mutton, veal, venison, partridge, plum-pudding, and custard: and to render all complete, there is intermingled a due quantity of water, whose crudities are also corrected by yeast or barm, through which means it becomes a wholesome fermented liquor diffused through the mass of the bread.’ Upon the strength of these conclusions, next day at dinner was the brown loaf served up in all the formality of a city feast. ‘Come brothers,’ said Peter, ‘fall to, and spare not; here is excellent good mutton;[21] or hold, now my hand is in, I’ll help you.’ At which word, in much ceremony, with fork and knife, he carves out two good slices of a loaf, and presents each on a plate to his brothers. The elder of the two not suddenly entering into Lord Peter’s conceit, began with very civil language to examine the mystery. ‘My lord,’ said he, ‘I doubt, with great submission, there may be some mistake.’ ‘What,’ says Peter, ‘you are pleasant; come then, let us hear this jest your head is so big with.’ ‘None in the world, my lord; but unless I am very much deceived, your lordship was pleased a while ago to let fall a word about mutton, and I would be glad to see it with all my heart.’ ‘How,’ said Peter, appearing in great surprise, ‘I do not comprehend this at all.’ — Upon which, the younger interposing to set the business right, ‘My lord,’ said he, ‘my brother, I suppose, is hungry, and longs for the mutton your lordship hath promised us to dinner.’ ‘Pray,’ said Peter, ‘take me along with you; either you are both mad, or disposed to be merrier than I approve of; if you there do not like your piece, I will carve you another, though I should take that to be the choice bit of the whole shoulder.’ ‘What then, my lord,’ replied the first, ‘it seems this is a shoulder of mutton all this while.’ ‘Pray, sir,’ says Peter, ‘eat your victuals and leave off your impertinence, if you please, for I am not disposed to relish it at present’ But the other could not forbear, being over-provoked at the affected seriousness of Peter’s countenance. ‘By G__, my lord,’ said he, ‘I can only say, that to my eyes, and fingers, and teeth, and nose, it seems to be nothing but a crust of bread.’ Upon which the second put in his word: ‘I never saw a piece of mutton in my life so nearly resembling a slice from a twelve-penny loaf.’ ‘Look ye, gentlemen,’ cries Peter in a rage ‘to convince you what a couple of blind, positive, ignorant, willful puppies you are, I will use but this plain argument; by G__, it is true, good, natural mutton as any in Leadenhall market; and G__; confound you both eternally, if you offer to believe otherwise.’ Such a thundering proof as this left no farther room for objection: the two unbelievers began to gather and pocket up their mistake as hastily as they could. ‘Why, truly,’ said the first, upon more mature consideration’ — ‘Ay,’ says the other, interrupting him, ‘now I have thought better on the thing, your lordship seems to have a great deal of reason.’ ‘Very well,’ said Peter, ‘here boy, fill me a beer-glass of claret. Here’s to you both with all my heart.’ The two brethren much delighted to see him so readily appeased returned their most humble thanks, and said they would be glad to pledge his lordship. ‘That you shall,’ said Peter, ‘I am not a person to refuse you anything that is reasonable; wine moderately taken is a cordial; here is a glass a-piece for you; ’tis true natural juice from the grape, none of your damned vintners brewings.’ Having spoke thus, he presented to each of them another large dry crust, bidding them drink it off, and not be bashful, for it would do them no hurt. The two brothers, after having performed the usual office in such delicate conjunctures, of staring a sufficient period at Lord Peter and each other, and finding how matters were like to go, resolved not to enter on a new dispute, but let him carry the point as he pleased; for he was now got into one of his mad fits, and to argue or expostulate further, would only serve to render him a hundred times more untractable. I have chosen to relate this worthy matter in all its circumstances, because it gave a principal occasion to that great and famous rupture,[22] which happened about the same time among these brethren, and was never afterwards made up. But of that I shall treat at large in another section.