*

up: straight all the world was shoulder-knots; no approaching the ladies ruelles without the quota of shoulder-knots. That fellow, cries one, has 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 showed them into the twelvepenny 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

The first part of the Tale is the history of Peter; thereby popery is exposed: every body 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 be gins his pranks with adding a shoulder-knot to his coat. WOTTON.

W.

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 sown, 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 simpler, was Ammianus Marcellinus's description of it, who was himself a heathen. W. WOTTON.

will, totidem verbis, making mention of shoulderknots: 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 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 any where to be found in ancient manuscripts. Calendæ † hath in Q. V. C. ‡ 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

*The will. Ed. 1.

+ 'Tis true, said he, Ed. 1.

Quibusdam veteribus codicibus; some ancient manuscripts. § In this page the school-men are ridiculed, and the Romanists corrupting and counterfeiting MSS. exposed. BENTLEY.

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 shoulder-knots: upon recourse to the will, nothing appeared there, but altum silentium. That of the shoulder-knots was a loose, flying, circumstantial point; but this of gold-lace seemed too considerable an alteration without better warrant; it did aliquo modo essentiæ 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 every thing 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, nun

* 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.

*

cupatory 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, t 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 lar§ gest gold-lace in the parish, and walked about as fine as lords.

A while after there came up all in fashion a pretty sort of flame-coloured sattin || for linings;

* By this is meant tradition, allowed by the papists to have equal authority with the scripture, or rather greater.

In the first edition after this-that he heard my father say. When the papists cannot find any thing 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.

By the flame-coloured sattin is meant the fire of purgatory; and praying for the dead is set forth as linings.-BENTLEY.

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 sattin, 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, wo

*

and the mercer brought a pattern of it immediately to our three gentlemen: An please your worships, said he, my lord C- and sir J. W. had linings out of this very piece last night; it takes wonderfully, and I shall not have a remnant left, enough to make my wife a pin-cushion, by tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. Upon this they fell again to rummage the will, because the present case also required a positive precept, the lining being held by orthodox writers to be of the essence of the coat. After long search they could fix upon nothing to the matter in hand, except a short advice of their father in the will, to take care of fire, and put out their candles before they went to sleep. This, though a good deal for the purpose, and helping very far towards self-conviction, yet not seeming wholly of force to establish a command; (being resolved to avoid farther scruple, as well as future occasion for scandal,) says he that was the scholar, I remember to have read in wills of a codicil annexed, which is indeed a part of the will, and what it contains has equal authority with the rest. Now, I have been considering of this same will here before us, and I cannot reckon it to be complete for want of such a codicil: I will therefore fasten one in its proper place very dexterously: I have had it by me some time; it was written by a dog-keeper of my grand-father's, † and talks a great deal, as

men, 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.

* That is, to take care of hell; and, in order to do that, to subdue and extinguish their lusts.

I believe this refers to that part of the Apocrypha, where mention is made of Tobit and his dog.