He made it a part of his religion, never to say grace to his meat,[5] nor could all the world persuade him, as the common phrase is, to eat his victuals like a Christian.[6]
He bore a strange kind of appetite to snap-dragon,[7] and to the livid snuffs of a burning candle, which he would catch and swallow with an agility wonderful to conceive; and by this procedure, maintained a perpetual flame in his belly, which issuing in a glowing steam from both his eyes, as well as his nostrils and his mouth, made his head appear in a dark night, like the skull of an ass, wherein a roguish boy had conveyed a farthing candle, to the terror of his Majesty’s liege subjects. Therefore, he made use of no other expedient to light himself home, but was wont to say, that a wise man was his own lanthorn.
He would shut his eyes as he walked along the streets, and if he happened to bounce his head against a post, or fall into the kennel (as he seldom missed either to do one or both) he would tell the gibing prentices, who looked on, that he submitted with entire resignation, as to a trip, or a blow of fate, with whom he found, by long experience, how vain it was either to wrestle or to cuff; and whoever durst undertake to do either, would be sure to come off with a swinging fall, or a bloody nose. ‘It was ordained,’ said he, ‘some few days before the creation, that my nose and this very post should have a rencounter; [8] and, therefore, providence thought fit to send us both into the world in the same age, and to make us countrymen and fellow-citizens. Now, had my eyes been open, it is very likely the business might have been a great deal worse; for how many a confounded slip is daily got by man with all his foresight about him? Besides, the eyes of the understanding see best, when those of the senses are out of the way; and therefore, blind men are observed to tread their steps with much more caution, and conduct, and judgment, than those who rely with too much confidence upon the virtue of the visual nerve, which every little accident shakes out of order, and a drop, or a film, can wholly disconcert; like a lanthorn among a pack of roaring bullies when they scour the streets, exposing its owner and itself to outward kicks and buffets, which both might have escaped, if the vanity of appearing would have suffered them to walk in the dark. But farther, if we examine the conduct of these boasted lights, it will prove yet a great deal worse than their fortune. ‘Tis true, I have broke my nose against this post, because providence either forgot, or did not think it convenient to twitch me by the elbow, and give me notice to avoid it. But let not this encourage either the present age or posterity to trust their noses into the keeping of their eyes, which may prove the fairest way of losing them for good and all. For, O ye eyes, ye blind guides, miserable guardians are ye of our frail noses; ye, I say, who fasten upon the first precipice in view, and then tow our wretched willing bodies after you, to the very brink of destruction; but, alas, that brink is rotten, our feet slip, and we tumble down prone into a gulf, without one hospitable shrub in the way to break the fall — a fall, to which not any nose of mortal make is equal, except that of the giant Laurcalco,[9] who was lord of the silver bridge. Most properly therefore, O eyes, and with great justice, may you be compared to those foolish lights, which conduct men through dirt and darkness, till they fall into a deep pit or a noisome bog.’
This I have produced as a scantling of Jack’s great eloquence, and the force of his reasoning upon such abstruse matters.
He was, besides, a person of great design and improvement in affairs of devotion, having introduced a new deity, who hath since met with a vast number of worshippers, by some called Babel, by others Chaos;[10] who had an ancient temple of Gothic structure upon Salisbury plain, famous for its shrine, and celebration by pilgrims.
When he had some roguish trick to play,[11] he would down with his knees, up with his eyes, and fall to prayers, though in the midst of the kennel. Then it was that those who understood his pranks, would be sure to get far enough out of his way; and whenever curiosity attracted strangers to laugh, or to listen, he would of a sudden with one hand out with his gear, and piss full in their eyes, and with the other, all to bespatter them with mud.
In winter he went always loose and unbuttoned,[12] and clad as thin as possible, to let in the ambient heat; and in summer lapped himself close and thick to keep it out.
In all revolutions of government,[13] he would make his court for the office of hangman general; and in the exercise of that dignity, wherein he was very dextrous, would make use of no other vizard[14] than a long prayer.
He had a tongue so musculous and subtile, that he could twist it up into his nose, and deliver a strange kind of speech from thence. He was also the first in these kingdoms, who began to improve the Spanish accomplishment of braying; and having large ears, perpetually exposed and arrect, he carried his art to such a perfection, that it was a point of great difficulty to distinguish either by the view or the sound between the original and the copy.
He was troubled with a disease, reverse to that called the stinging of the tarantula; and would run dog-mad at the noise of music,[15] especially a pair of bagpipes. But he would cure himself again, by taking two or three turns in Westminster Hall, or Billingsgate, or in a boarding-school, or the Royal-Exchange, or a state coffee-house. He was a person that feared no colours,[16] but mortally hated all, and upon that account bore a cruel aversion to painters; insomuch, that in his paroxysms, as he walked the streets, he would have his pockets loaden with stones to pelt at the signs.
Having from this manner of living, frequent occasion to wash himself, he would often leap over head and ears into the water,’ though it were in the midst of the winter, but was always observed to come out again much dirtier, if possible, than he went in. He was the first that ever found out the secret of contriving a soporiferous medicine to be conveyed in at the ears;[17] it was a compound of sulphur and balm of Gilead, with a little pilgrim’s salve.
He wore a large plaister of artificial caustics on his stomach, with the fervor of which, he could set himself a- groaning, like the famous board upon application of a red-hot iron.
He would stand in the turning of a street, and, calling to those who passed by, would cry to one, ‘Worthy sir, do me the honour of a good slap in the chaps’; [18] to another, ‘Honest friend, pray favour me with a handsome kick on the arse’; ‘Madam, shall I entreat a small box on the ear from your ladyship’s fair hands?’ ‘Noble captain, lend a reasonable thwack, for the love of God, with that cane of yours over these poor shoulders.’ And when he had by such earnest solicitations made a shift to procure a basting sufficient to swell up his fancy and his sides, he would return home extremely comforted, and full of terrible accounts of what he had undergone for the public good. ‘Observe this stroke’ (said he, showing his bare shoulders) ‘a plaguy janissary gave it me this very morning at seven o’clock, as, with much ado, I was driving off the great Turk. Neighbours mine, this broken head deserves a plaister; had poor Jack been tender of his noddle, you would have seen the Pope and the French king, long before this time of day, among your wives and your warehouses. Dear Christians, the great Mogul was come as far as White-chapel, and you may thank these poor sides that he hath not (God bless us) already swallowed up man, woman, and child.’
It was highly worth observing the singular effects of that aversion,[19] or antipathy, which Jack and his brother Peter seemed, even to an affectation, to bear toward each other. Peter had lately done some rogueries, that forced him to abscond; and he seldom ventured to stir out before night, for fear of bailiffs. Their lodgings were at the two most distant parts of the town from each other; and whenever their occasions or humours called them abroad, they would make choice of the oddest unlikely times and most uncouth rounds they could invent, that they might be sure to avoid one another: yet, after all this, it was their perpetual fortune to meet. The reason of which is easy enough to apprehend; for, the phrenzy and the spleen of both having the same foundation, we may look upon them as two pair of compasses, equally extended, and the fixed foot of each remaining in the same center; which, though moving contrary ways at first, will be sure to encounter somewhere or other in the circumference. Besides, it was among the great misfortunes of Jack, to bear a huge personal resemblance with his brother Peter. Their humours and dispositions were not only the same, but there was a close analogy in their shape and sizes and their mien. Insomuch as nothing was more frequent than for a bailiff to seize Jack by the shoulders, and cry, ‘Mr. Peter, you are the king’s prisoner.’ Or, at other times, for one of Peter’s nearest friends to accost Jack with open arms, ‘Dear Peter, I am glad to see thee, pray send me one of your best medicines for the worms.’ This we may suppose was a mortifying return of those pains and proceedings Jack had laboured in so long; and finding how directly opposite all his endeavours had answered to the sole end and intention which he had proposed to himself, how could it avoid having terrible effects upon a head and heart so furnished as his? However, the poor remainders of his coat bore all the punishment; the orient sun never entered upon his diurnal progress, without missing a piece of it. He hired a tailor to stitch up the collar so close, that it was ready to choke him, and squeezed out his eyes at such a rate, as one could see nothing but the white. What little was left of the main substance of the coat, he rubbed every day for two hours against a rough-cast wall, in order to grind away the remnants of lace and embroidery, but at the same time went on with so much violence, that he proceeded a heathen philosopher. Yet after all he could do of this kind, the success continued still to disappoint his expectation. For, as it is the nature of rags to bear a kind of mock resemblance to finery, there being a sort of fluttering appearance in both, which is not to be distinguished at a distance, in the dark, or by short-sighted eyes; so, in those junctures, it fared with Jack and his tatters, that they offered to the first view a ridiculous flaunting, which assisting the resemblance in person and air, thwarted all his projects of separation, and left so near a similitude between them, as frequently deceived the very disciples and followers of both.