CHAP. XI *.

The apprehending, examination, and imprisonment of Jack for suspicion of poisoning.

THE attentive reader cannot have forgot, that the story of Yan Ptschirnsooker's powder was interrupted by a message from Frog. I have a natural compassion for curiosity, being much troubled with the distemper myself; therefore to gratify that uneasy itching sensation in my reader, I have procured the following account of that matter.

Yan Ptschirnsooker came off (as rogues usually do upon such occasions) by peaching his partner; and being extremely forward to bring him to the gallows. Jack was accused as the contriver of all the roguery †.

The receiving the holy sacrament as administered by the church of England once at least in every year, having been made a necessary qualification for places of trust and profit, many of the dissenters came to the altar merely for this purpose. A bill to prevent this practice had been three times brought into the house and rejected, under the title of "A bill to prevent Occasional Conformity." But the earl of Nottingham having brought it in a fourth time under another name, and with the addition of such clauses as were said to enlarge the toleration, and to be a farther security to the protestant succession, the whigs, whose cause the earl then appeared to espouse, were persuaded to concur: some, because they were indeed willing that the bill should pass, and others, because they believed the earl of Oxford would at last procure it to be thrown out. The four following chapters contain the history of this transaction.

+ All the misfortunes of the church charged upon the presbyterian party.

VOL. XVII.

And

And indeed it happened unfortunately for the poor fellow, that he was known to bear a most inveterate spite against the old gentlewoman; and consequently, that never any ill accident happened to her, but he . was suspected to be at the bottom of it. If she pricked her finger, Jack, to be sure, laid the pin in the way; if some noise in the street disturbed her rest, who could it be but Jack in some of his nocturnal rambles? If a servant ran away, Jack had debauched him every idle tittle tattle that went about, Jack was always suspected for the author of it: however, all was nothing to this last affair of the temperating, moderating powder.

The hue and cry went after Jack to apprehend him dead or alive, wherever he could be found. The constables looked out for him in all his usual haunts; but to no purpose. Where d'ye think they found him at last? Even smoking his pipe very quietly at his brother Martin's! from whence he was carried with a vast mob at his heels before the worshipful Mr. justice Overdo. Several of his neighbours made oath, that of late the prisoner had been observed to lead a very dissolute life, renouncing even his usual hypocrisy, and pretences to sobriety: that he frequented taverns and eatinghouses, and had been often guilty of drunkenness and gluttony at my lord mayor's table: that he had been seen in the company of lewd women: that he had transferred his usual care of the engrossed copy of his father's will, to bank-bills, orders for tallies, and debentures †: these he now affirmed, with more literal truth, to be meat, drink,

The manners of the dissenters changed from their former strictness.

+ Dealing much in stockjobbing.

and

and cloth, the philosopher's stone, and the universal medicine that he was so far from showing his customary reverence to the will, that he kept company with those, that called his father a cheating rogue, and his will a forgery: that he not only sat quietly and heard his father railed at, but often chimed in with the discourse, and hugged the authors as his bosom friends: That, instead of asking for blows at the corners of the streets, he now bestowed them as plentifully as he begged them before. In short, that he was grown a mere rake; and had nothing left in him of old Jack, except his spite to John Bull's mother.

Another witness made oath, That Jack had been overheard bragging of a trick || he had found out to manage the old formal jade, as he used to call her. "Damn this numbskull of mine," quoth he, "that I "could not light on it sooner. As long as I go in "this ragged tattered coat, I am so well known, that "I am hunted away from the old woman's door by "every barking cur about the house; they bid me "defiance. There's no doing mischief as an open "enemy; I must find some way or other of getting "within doors, and then I shall have better opportu"nities of playing my pranks, beside the benefit of good keeping."

Two witnesses swore §, that several years ago, there

Tale of a Tub.

+ Herding with deists and atheists.

Tale of a Tub.

Getting into places and church preferments by occasional conformity.

§ Betraying the interests of the church, when got into prefer

ments.

Q2

came

came to their mistress's door a young fellow in a tattered coat, that went by the name of Timothy Trim, whom they did in their conscience believe to be the very prisoner, resembling him in shape, stature, and the features of his countenance: that the said Timothy Trim being taken into the family, clapped their mistress's livery over his own tattered coat: that the said Timothy was extremely officious about their mistress's person, endeavouring by flattery and talebearing to set her against the rest of the servants: no body was so ready to fetch any thing that was wanted, to reach what was dropped: that he used to shove and elbow his fellow-servants to get near his mistress, especially when money was a paying or receiving; then he was never out of the way that he was extremely diligent about every body's business, but his own: that the said Timothy, while he was in the family, used to be playing roguish tricks; when his mistress's back was turned, he would loll out his tongue, make mouths, and laugh at her, walking behind her like Harelequin, ridiculing her motions and gestures; but if his mistre:s looked about, he put on a grave, demure countenance, as if he had been in a fit of devotion: that he used often to trip up stairs so smoothly, that you could not hear him tread, and put all things out of order that he would pinch the children and servants, when he met them in the dark, so hard, that he left the print of his forefinger and his thumb in black and blue, and then slink into a corner, as if no body had done it out of the same malicious design he used to lay chairs and jointstools in their way, that they might break their noses by falling over them: the more young and unexperienced he used to teach to talk saucily, and call names: during his stay in the family,

there

there was much plate missing; being caught with a couple of silver spoons in his pocket, with their handles wrenched off, he said, he was only going to carry them to the goldsmith's to be mended: that the said Timothy was hated by all the honest servant for his ill-condi ioned, splenetick tricks, but especially for his slanderous tongue; traducing them to their mistress, as drunkards, thieves, and whoremasters:, that the said Timothy by lying stories used to set all the family together by the ears, taking delight to make them fight and quarrel; particularly one day sitting at table, he spoke words to this effect: "I

am of opinion," quoth he, " that little short fellows, "such as we are, have better hearts, and could beat "the tall fellows: I wish it came to a fair trial; I "believe these long fellows, as sightly as they are, "should find their jackets well thwacked *.”

A parcel of tall fellows, who thought themselves. affronted by the discourse, took up the quarrel, and to't they went, the tall men and the low men, which continues still a faction in the family to the great disorder of our mistress's affairs: the said Timothy carried this frolick so far, that he proposed to his mistress, that she should entertain no servant, that was above four foot seven inches high; and for that purpose had prepared a gage, by which they were to be measured. The good old gentlewoman was not so simple, as to go into his project; she began to smell a rat. "This Trim," quoth she, "is an odd "sort of a fellow; methinks he makes a strange

figure with that ragged, tattered coat, appearing "under his livery; can't he go spruce and clean like

* The original of the distinction in the names of low churchmen and high churchmen.

93

"the