THE HISTORY AND ADVENTURES OF AN ATOM.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON: Printed for ROBINSON and ROBERTS, No . 25, in Pater-noster Row. MDCCXLIX.
THE History and Adventures OF AN ATOM.
THE time was now come when Fortune, which had hitherto smiled upon the Chinese arms, resolved to turn tail to that vain-glorious nation; and precisely at the same instant Taycho undertook to display his whole capacity in the management of the war. But before he assumed this province, it was necessary that he should establish a despotism in the council of Twenty-eight, some members of which had still the presumption to offer their advice towards the; administration of affairs. This council being assembled by the Dairo's order, to deliberate upon the objects of the next campaign, the president began by asking the opinion of Taycho, who was the youngest member; upon which the orator made no articulate reply, but cried
"Ba-ba-ba-ba!"
The Dairo exclaimed
"Boh!"
The Fatzman ejaculated the interjection
"Pish!"
The Cuboy sat in silent astonishment. Gottomio swore the man was dumb, and hinted something of lunacy. Foksi-rokhu shook his head; and Soosan-sin-o shrugged up his shoulders. At length, Fika-kaka going round and kissing Taycho on the forehead,
"My dear boy (cried he)!—Gad's curse! what's the matter? Do but open the sluices of your eloquence once more, my dear orator;—let us have one simile—one dear simile; and then I shall die contented. —With respect to the operations of the campaign, don't you think"
—Here he was interrupted with
"Ka, ka, ka, ka!"
"Heighday!" (cried the Cuboy) Ba-ba-ba, ka-ka-ka! that's the language of children!"
"And children you shall be (exclaimed the orator). Here is a two-penny trumpet for the amusement of the illustrious Got-hama-baba; a sword of gingerbread covered with gold-leaf for the Fatzman; and a rattle for my lord Cuboy. I have, likewise, sugarplumbs for the rest of the council."
So saying, he, without ceremony, advanced to the Dairo, and tied a scarf round the eyes of his imperial majesty: then he produced a number of padlocks, and sealed up the lips of every Quo in council, before they could recollect themselves from their first astonishment. The assembly broke up abruptly; and the Dairo was conducted to his cabinet by the Fatzman and the Cuboy, which last endeavoured to divert the chagrin of his royal master, by blowing the trumpet and shaking the rattle in his ears: but Got-hama-ba-ba could not be so easily appeased. He growled like an enraged bear, at the indignity which had been offered to him, and kicked the Cuboy before as well as behind. Mr. Orator Taycho was fain to come to an explanation. He assured the Dairo, it was necessary that his imperial majesty should remain in the dark, and that the whole council should be muzzled for a season, otherwise he could not accomplish the great things he had projected in favour of the farm of Yesso. He declared, that while his majesty remained blindfold, he would enjoy all his other senses in greater perfection; that his ears would be every day regaled with the shouts of triumph, conveyed in notes of uncommon melody; and that the less quantity of animal spirits was expended in vision, the greater proportion would flow to his extremities; consequently, his pleasure would be more acute in his pedestrian exercitations upon the Cuboy and others whom he delighted to honour. He, therefore, exhorted him to undergo a total privation of eye-sight, which was at best a troublesome faculty, that exposed mankind to a great variety of disagreeable spectacles. This was a proposal which the Dairo did not relish: on the contrary, he waxed exceedingly wroth, and told the orator he would rather enjoy one transient glance of the farm of Yesso, than the most exquisite delights that could be procured for all the other senses.
"To gratify your majesty with that ineffable pleasure, (cried Taycho) I have devoted myself, soul and body, and even reconciled contradictions. I have renounced all my former principles without forfeiting the influence which, by professing those principles, I had gained. I have obtained the most astonishing victories over common sense, and even refuted mathematical demonstration. The many-headed Mob, which no former demagogue could ever tame, I have taught to fetch and to carry; to dance to my pipe; to bray to my tune; to swallow what I present without murmuring; to lick my feet when I am angry; and kiss the rod when I think proper to chastise it. I have done more, my liege; I have prepared a drench for it, which, like Lethe, washes away the remembrance of what is past, and takes away all sense of its own condition. I have swept away all the money of the empire; and persuaded the people not only to beggar themselves, but likewise to entail indigence upon their latest posterity; and all for the sake of Yesso. It is by dint of these efforts I have been able to subsidize Brut-an-tiffi, and raise an army of one hundred thousand men to defend your imperial majesty's farm, which, were the entire property of it brought to market, would not fetch one-third part of the sums which are now yearly expended in its defence. I shall strike but one great stroke in the country of Fatsisio, and then turn the whole stream of the war into the channel of Tartary, until the barren plains of Yesso are fertilized with human blood. In the mean time, I must insist upon your majesty's continuing in the dark, and amusing yourself in your cabinet with the trumpet and other gewgaws which I have provided for your diversion; otherwise I quit the reins of administration, and turn the monster out of my trammels; in which case, like the dog that returns to its vomit, it will not fail to take up its former prejudices against Yesso, which I have with such pains obliged it to resign."—"O my dear Taycho! (cried the affrighted Dairo) talk not of leaving me in such a dreadful dilemma. Rather than the dear farm should fall into the hands of the Chinese, I would be contented to be led about blindfold all the days of my life.—Proceed in your own way.—I invest you with full power and authority, not only to gag my whole council, but even to nail their ears to the pillory, should it be found necessary for the benefit of Yesso. In token of which delegation, present your posteriors, and I will bestow upon you a double portion of my favour."
Taycho humbly thanked his imperial majesty for the great honour he intended him; but begged leave to decline the ceremony, on account of the haemorrhoids, which at that time gave him great disturbance.
The orator having thus annihilated all opposition in the council of Twenty-eight, repaired to his own house, in order to plan the operations of the ensuing campaign. Tho' he had reinforced the army in Tartary with the flower of the Japonese soldiery, and destined a strong squadron of Fune, as usual, to parade on the coast of China; he foresaw it would be necessary to amuse the people with some new stroke on the side of Fatsisio, which indeed was the original, and the most natural scene of the war. He locked himself up in his closet, and in consulting the map of Fatsisio, he found that the principal Chinese settlement of that island, was a fortified town called Quib-quab, to which there was access by two different avenues; one by a broad, rapid, navigable river, on the banks of which the town was situated; and the other by an inland route over mountains, lakes, and dangerous torrents. He measured the map with his compass, and perceived that both routes were nearly of the same length; and therefore he resolved that the forces in Fatsisio, being divided into two equal bodies, should approach the place by the two different avenues, on the supposition that they would both arrive before the walls of Quib-quab at the same instant of time. The conduct of the inland expedition was given to Yaffray, who now commanded in chief in Fatsisio; and the rest of the troops were sent up the great river, under the auspices of Ya-loff, who had so eminently distinguished himself in the course of the preceding year.
Orator Taycho had received some articles of intelligence which embarrassed him a little at first; but these difficulties soon vanished before the vigour of his resolutions. He knew, that not only the town of Quib-quab was fortified by art, but also, that the whole adjacent country was almost impregnable by nature: that one Chinese general blocked up the passes with a strong body of forces, in the route which was to be followed by Yaff-rai; and that another commanded a separate corps in the neighbourhood of Quib-quab, equal, at least, in number to the detachment of Ya-loff, whom he might therefore either prevent from landing, or attack after he should be landed: or finally, should neither of these attempts succeed, he might reinforce the garrison of Quib-quab, so as to make it more numerous than the besieging army, which, according to the rules of war, ought to be ten times the number of the besieged. On the other hand, in order to invalidate these objections, he reflected that Fortune, which hath such a share in all military events, is inconstant and variable; that as the Chinese had been so long successful in Fatsisio, it was now their turn to be unfortunate. He reflected that the daemon of folly was capricious; and that as it had so long possessed the rulers and generals of Japan, it was high time it should shift its quarters, and occupy the brains of the enemy; in which case they would quit their advantageous posts, and commit some blunder that would lay them at the mercy of the Japonese.—With respect to the reduction of Quib-quab, he had heard, indeed, that the besiegers ought to be ten times the number of the garrison besieged; but as every Japonese was equivalent to ten subjects of China, he thought the match was pretty equal. He reflected, that even if this expedition should not succeed, it would be of little consequence to his reputation, as he could plead at home, that he neither conceived the original plan, nor appointed any of the officers concerned in the execution. It is true, he might have reinforced the army in Fatsisio, so as to leave very little to Fortune: but then he must have substracted something from the strength of the operations in Tartary, which was now become the favourite scene of the war; or he must have altogether suspended the execution of another darling scheme, which was literally his own conception. There was an island in the great Indian ocean, at a considerable distance from Fatsisio; and here the Chinese had a strong settlement. Taycho was inflamed with the ambition of reducing this island, which was called Thin-quo; and for this purpose he resolved to embark a body of forces which should co-operate with the squadron of Fune destined to cruize in those latitudes.—The only difficulty that remained was to choose a general to direct this enterprize.—He perused a list of all the military officers in Japan; and as they were all equal in point of reputation, he began to examine their names, in order to pitch upon that which should appear to be the most significant: and in this particular, Taycho was a little superstitious. Not but that surnames, when properly bestowed, might be rendered very useful terms of distinction: but I must tell thee, Peacock, nothing can be more preposterously absurd than the practice of inheriting
cognomina,
which ought ever to be purely personal. I would ask thee, for example, what propriety there was in giving the name
Xenophon,
which signifies
one that speaks a foreign language,
to the celebrated Greek who distinguished himself, not only as a consummate captain, but also as an elegant writer in his mother-tongue? What could be more ridiculous than to denominate the great philosopher of Crotona
Pythagoras,
which implies a
stinking speech?
Or what could be more misapplied than the name of the weeping philosopher
Heraclitus,
signifying
military glory?
The inheritance of surnames, among the Romans, produced still more ludicrous consequences. The best and noblest families in Rome derived their names from the coarsest employments, or else from the corporeal blemishes of their ancestors. The
Pisones
were millers: the
Cicerones
and the
Lentuli
were so called from the
vetches
and the
lentils
which their forefathers dealt in. The
Fabij
were so denominated from a dung-pit, in which the first of the family was begot by stealth in the way of fornication. A ploughman gave rise to the great family of the
Serrani,
the ladies of which always went without smocks. The
Suilli,
the
Bubulci,
and the
Porci,
were descended from a swine-herd, a cow-herd, and a hogbutcher.—What could be more disgraceful than to call the senator
Strabo, Squintum;
or a fine young lady of the house of
Poeti, Pigsnies?
or to distinguish a matron of the
Limi,
by the appellation of
Sheep's-eye?
—What could be more dishonourable than to give the surname of
Snub-nose
to
P. Silius,
the propraetor, because his great-great-great-grand-father had a nose of that make? Ovid, indeed, had a long nose, and therefore was justly denominated
Naso:
but why should Horace be called
Flaccus,
as if his ears had been stretched in the pillory: I need not mention the
Burrhi, Nigri, Rusi, Aquilij,
and
Rutilij,
because we have the same foolish surnames in England; and even the
Lappa;
for I myself know a very pretty miss called
Rough-head,
tho' in fact there is not a young lady in the Bills of Mortality, who takes more pains to dress her hair to the best advantage. The famous dictator whom the deputies of Rome found at the plough, was known by the name of
Cincinnatus,
or
Ragged-head.
Now I leave you to judge how it would found in these days, if a footman at the play-house should call out,
"
My Lady Ragged-head's coach. Room for my Lady Ragged-head.
"
I am doubtful whether the English name of
Hale
does not come from the Roman cognomen
Hala,
which signified
stinkingbreath.
What need I mention the
Plauti, Panci, Valgi, Vari, Vatiae,
and
Scauri;
the
Tuditani,
the
Malici, Cenestellae,
and
Leccae;
in other words, the
Splay-foots, Bandy-legs, Shamble-shins, Baker-knees, Clubfoots, Hammer-heads, Chubby-cheeks, Bald-heads,
and
Letchers.
—I shall not say a word of the
Buteo,
or
Buzzard,
that I may not be obliged to explain the meaning of the word
Triorchis,
from whence it takes its denomination; yet all those were great families in Rome. But I cannot help taking notice of some of the same improprieties, which have crept into the language and customs of this country. Let us suppose, for example, a foreigner reading an English news-paper in these terms:
"Last Tuesday the right honourable
Timothy Sillyman,
secretary of state for the Southern department, gave a grand entertainment to the nobility and gentry at his house in
Knavesacre.
The evening was concluded with a ball, which was opened by Sir
Samuel Hog
and Lady
Diana Rough-head.
—We hear there is purpose of marriage between Mr. Alderman
Small-cock
and Miss
Harriot Hair-stones,
a young lady of great fortune and superlative merit.—By the last mail from Germany we have certain advice of a compleat victory which General
Coward
has obtained over the enemy. On this occasion the general displayed all the intrepidity of the most renowned hero:—by the same canal we are informed that Lieutenant
Little-fear
has been broke by a court-martial for cowardice.—We hear that
Edward West,
Esq
will be elected president of the directors of the
East-India
company for the ensuing year. It is reported that Commodore
North
will be sent with a squadron into the
South-Sea.
—Captains
East
and
South
are appointed by the Lords of the Admiralty, commanders of two frigates to sail on the discovery of the
North-west
passage.—Yesterday morning Sir
John Summer,
bart. lay dangerously ill at his house in
Spring-garden:
he is attended by Dr.
Winter:
but there are no hopes of his recovery.—Saturday last
Philip Frost,
a dealer in
Gunpowder,
died at his house on
Snowhill,
of a high fever caught by overheating himself in walking for a wager from
No Man's Land
to the
World's End.
—Last week Mr.
John Fog,
teacher of astronomy in Rotherhith, was married to the widow
Fairweather
of
Puddledock.
—We hear from Bath, that on Thursday last a duel was fought on Lansdown, by Captain
Sparrow
and
Richard Hawke,
Esq
in which the latter was mortally wounded.—Friday last ended the sessions at the Old Bailey, when the following persons received sentence of death. Leonard
Lamb,
for the murder of
Julius Wolf;
and
Henry Grave,
for robbing and assaulting Dr.
Death,
whereby the said
Death
was put in fear of his life.
Giles Gosling,
for defrauding
Simon Fox
of four guineas and his watch, by subtle craft, was transported for seven years; and
David Drinkwater
was ordered to be set in the stocks, as an habitual drunkard. The trial of
Thomas Green,
whitster at Fulham, for a rape on the body of
Flora White,
a mulatto, was put off till next sessions, on account of the absence of two material evidences, viz.
Sarah Brown,
clear-starcher of
Pimlico,
and
Anthony Black,
scarletdyer of Wandsworth."
I ask thee, Peacock, whether a sensible foreigner, who understood the literal meaning of these names, which are all truly British, would not think ye were a nation of humorists, who delighted in cross-purposes and ludicrous singularity? But, indeed, ye are not more absurd in this particular, than some of your neighbours.—I know a Frenchman of the name of
Bouvier,
which signifies
Cow-keeper,
pique himself upon his noblesse; and a general called
Valavoir,
is said to have lost his life by the whimsical impropriety of his surname, which signifies
The general taking a solitary walk in the evening, was questioned by a sentinel, and answered
"
Va la voir.
"
The soldier taking the words in the literal sense, repeated the challenge: he was answered in the same manner; and being affronted, fired upon the general, who fell dead on the spot.
Go and see.
—You may remember an Italian minister called
Grossa-testa,
or
Great-head,
though in fact he had scarce any head at all. That nation has, likewise, its
Sforzas, Malatestas, Boccanigras, Porcinas,
Giudices;
its
Colonnas, Muratorios, Medicis,
and
Gozzi; Endeavours, Chuckle-heads, Black Muzzles, Hogs, Judges, Pillars, Masons, Leeches,
and
Chubby-chops.
Spain has its
Almohadas, Girones, Utreras, Ursinas,
and
Zapatas;
signifying
Cushions, Gores, Bullocks, Bears,
and
Slippers.
The Turks, in other respects a sensible people, fall into the same extravagance, with respect to the inheritance of surnames. An Armenian merchant, to whom I once belonged at Aleppo, used to dine at the house of a cook whose name was
Clockmaker;
and the handsomest Ichoglan in the Bashaw's seraglio was surnamed
Crook-back.
—If we may believe the historian
Buck,
there was the same impropriety in the same epithet bestowed upon Richard III. king of England, who, he says, was one of the best-made men of the age in which he lived: but here I must contradict the said
Buck,
from my own knowledge. Richard had, undoubtedly, one shoulder higher than the other, and his left arm was a little shrunk and contracted: but, notwithstanding the ungracious colours in which he has been drawn by the flatterers of the house of Lancaster, I can assure thee, Peacock, that Richard was a prince of a very agreeable aspect, and excelled in every personal accomplishment; neither was his heart a stranger to the softer passions of tenderness and pity. The very night that preceded the fatal battle of Bosworth, in which he lost his life, he went in disguise to the house of a farmer in the neighbourhood, to visit an infant son there boarded, who was the fruit of an amour between him and a young lady of the first condition. Upon this occasion, he embraced the child with all the marks of paternal affection, and doubtful of the issue of the approaching battle, shed a flood of tears at parting from him, after having recommended him to the particular care of his nurse, to whom he gave money and jewels to a considerable value. After the catastrophe of Richard this house was plundered, and the nurse with difficulty escaped to another part of the country; but as the enemies of Richard now prevailed, she never durst reveal the secret of the boy's birth; and he was bred up as her own son to the trade of brick-laying, in which character he lived and died in an advanced age at London.—Moreover, it is but justice in me, who constituted part of one of Richard's yeomen of the guard, to assure thee that this prince was not so wicked and cruel as he has been represented. The only share he had in the death of his brother Clarence, was his forbearing to interpose in the behalf of that prince with their elder brother king Edward IV. who, in fact, was the greatest brute of the whole family: neither did he poison his own wife; nor employ assassins to murder his two nephews in the Tower. Both the boys were given by Tyrrel in charge to a German Jew, with directions to breed them up as his own children, in a remote country; and the eldest died of a fever at Embden, and the other afterwards appeared as claimant of the English crown:—all the world knows how he finished his career under the name of Perkin Warbeck.—So much for the abuse of surnames, in the investigation of which I might have used thy own by way of illustration; for, if thou and all thy generation were put to the rack, they would not be able to give any tolerable reason why thou shouldest be called
Peacock
rather than
Crablouse.
—But it is now high time to return to the thread of our narration. Taycho, having considered the list of officers, without finding one name which implied any active virtue, resolved that the choice should depend upon accident. He hustled them all together in his cap, and putting in his hand at random, drew forth that of Hob-nob; a person who had grown old in obscurity, without ever having found an opportunity of being concerned in actual service. His very name was utterly unknown to Fika-kaka; and this circumstance the orator considered as a lucky omen; for the Cuboy had such a remarkable knack at finding out the least qualified subjects, and overlooking merit, his new collegue concluded (not without some shadow of reason) that Hob-nob's being unknown to the prime minister, was a sort of negative presumption in favour of his character. This officer was accordingly placed at the head of an armament, and sent against the island of Thin-quo, in the conquest of which he was to be supported by a squadron of Fune already in those latitudes, under the command of the chief He-Rhumn.
The voyage was performed without loss: the troops were landed without opposition. They had already advanced towards a rising-ground which commanded the principal town of the island, and He-Rhumn had offered to land and draw the artillery by the mariners of his squadron, when Hob-nob had a dream which disconcerted all his measures. He dreamed that he entertained all the islanders in the temple of the White Horse; and that his own grand-mother did the honours of the table.—Indeed he could not have performed a greater act of charity; for they were literally in danger of perishing by famine. Having consulted his interpreter on this extraordinary dream, he was given to understand that the omen was unlucky; that if he persisted in his hostilities, he himself would be taken prisoner, and offered up as a sacrifice to the idol of the place. While he ruminated on this unfavourable response, the principal inhabitants of the island assembled, in order to deliberate upon their own deplorable situation. They had neither troops, arms, fortifications, nor provision, and despaired of supplies, as the fleet of Japan surrounded the island. In this emergency, they determined to submit without opposition; and appointed a deputation to go and make a tender of the island to general Hob-nob. This deputation, preceded by white flags of truce, the Japonese commander no sooner descried, than he thought upon the interpretation of his dream. He mistook the deputies with their white flags for the Bonzas of the idol to which he was to be sacrificed; and, being sorely troubled in mind, ordered the troops to be immediately reimbarked, notwithstanding the exhortations of He-Rhumn, and the remonstrances of Rha-rin-tumm, the second in command, who used a number of arguments to dissuade him from his purpose. The deputies seeing the enemy in motion, made a halt, and, after they were fairly on board, returned to the town, singing hymns in praise of the idol Fo, who, they imagined, had confounded the understanding of the Japonese general.
The attempt upon Thin-quo having thus miscarried, Hob-nob declared he would return to Japan; but was with great difficulty persuaded by the commander of the Fune and his own second, to make a descent upon another island belonging to the Chinese, called
Qua-chu,
where they assured him he would meet with no opposition. As he had no dream to deter him from this attempt, he suffered himself to be persuaded, and actually made good his landing: but the horror occasioned by the apparition of his grand-mother, had made such an impression upon his mind, as affected the constitution of his body. Before he was visited by another such vision, he sickened and died; and in consequence of his death, Rha-rin-tumm and He-Rhumn made a conquest of the island of Qua-Chu, which was much more valuable than Thin-quo, the first and sole object of the expedition.—When the first news of this second descent arrived in Japan, the ministry were in the utmost confusion. Mr. Orator Taycho did not scruple to declare that general Hobnob had misbehaved; first, in relinquishing Thin-quo, upon such a frivolous-pretence as the supposed apparition of an old woman; secondly, in attempting the conquest of another place, which was not so much as mentioned in his instructions. The truth is, the importance of Qua-chu was not known to the cabinet of Japan. Fika-kaka believed it was some place on the continent of Tartary, and exclaimed in a violent passion,
"Rot the block-head, Hob-nob; he'll have an army of Chinese on his back in a twinkling!"
When the president Soo-san-sin-o assured him that Qua-chu was a rich island at an immense distance from the continent of Tartary, the Cuboy insisted upon kissing his excellency's posteriors for the agreeable information he had received. In a few weeks arrived the tidings of the island's being totally reduced by Rha-rin-tumm and He-Rhumn.—Then the conquest was published throughout the empire of Japan with every circumstance of exaggeration. The blatant beast brayed applause. The rites of Fakkubasi were celebrated with unusual solemnity; and hymns of triumph were sung to the glory of the great Taycho. Even the Cuboy arrogated to himself some share of the honour gained by this expedition; inasmuch as the general Rha-rin-tumm was the brother of his friend Mr. Secretary
No-bo-dy.
Fika-kaka gave a grand entertainment at his palace, where he appeared crowned with a garland of the
Tsikkburasiba,
or laurel of Japan; and eat so much of the soup of
Joniku
or famous
Swallow's-nest,
that he was for three days troubled with flatulencies and indigestion.
In the midst of all this festivity, the emperor still growled and grumbled about Yesso. His new ally Brut-an-tiffi had met with a variety of fortune, and even suffered some shocks, which orator Taycho, with all his art, could not keep from the knowledge of the Dairo.—He had been severely drubbed by the Mant-choux, who had advanced for that purpose even to his court-yard: but this was nothing in comparison to another disaster, from which he had a hair-breadth 'scape. The Great Khan had employed one of his most wily and enterprising chiefs to seize Brut-an-tiffi by surprize, that he might be brought to justice, and executed as a felon and perturbator of the public peace. Kunt-than, who was the partisan pitched upon for this service, practised a thousand stratagems to decoy Brut-an-tiffi into a careless security; but he was still baffled by the vigilance of Yam-a-Kheit, a famous soldier of fortune, who had engaged in the service of the outlawed Tartar. At length the opportunity offered, when this captain was sent out to lay the country under contribution. Then Kunt-than marching solely in the dead of night, caught Brut-an-tiffi napping. He might have slain him upon the spot; but his orders were to take him alive, that he might be made a public example; accordingly, his centinels being dispatched, he was pulled out of bed, and his hands were already tied with cords, like those of a common malefactor, when, by his roaring and bellowing, he gave the alarm to Yam-a-Kheit, who chanced to be in the neighbourhood, returning from his excursion.—He made all the haste he could, and came up in the very nick of time to save his master. He fell upon the party of Kunt-than with such fury, that they were fain to quit their prey: then he cut the fetters of Brut-an-tiffi, who took to his heels and fled with incredible expedition, leaving his preserver in the midst of his enemies, by whom he was overpowered, struck from his horse, and trampled to death. The grateful Tartar not only deserted this brave captain in such extremity, but he also took care to asperse his memory, by insinuating that Yam-a-Kheit had undertaken to watch him while he took his repose, and had himself fallen asleep upon his post, by which neglect of duty the Ostrog had been enabled to penetrate into his quarters. 'Tis an ill wind that blows no-body good:—the same disaster that deprived him of a good officer, afforded him an opportunity to shift the blame of neglect from his own shoulders to those of a person who could not answer for himself.—In the same manner, your general A—y acquitted himself of the charge of misconduct for the attack of T—a, by accusing his engineer, who, having fallen in the battle, could not contradict his assertion. In regard to the affair with the Mantchoux, Brut-an-tiffi was resolved to swear truth out of Tartary by meer dint of impudence. In the very article of running away, he began to propagate the report of the great victory he had obtained. He sent the Dairo a circumstantial detail of his own prowess, and expatiated upon the cowardice of the Mantchoux, who he said had vanished from him like quick-silver, at the very time when they were quietly possessed of the field of battle, and he himself was calling upon the mountains to cover him. It must have been in imitation of this great original, that the Inspector, of tympanitical memory, assured the public in one of his lucubrations, that a certain tall Hibernian was afraid of looking him in the face; because the said poltroon had kicked his breech the night before in presence of five hundred people.
Fortune had now abandoned the Chinese in good earnest. Two squadrons of their Fune had been successively taken, destroyed, or dispersed, by the Japonese commanders Or-nbos and Fas-khan; and they had lost such a number of single junks, that they were scarce able to keep the sea. On the coast of Africa they were driven from the settlement of Kho-rhé, by the commander Kha-fell. In the extremity of Asia, they had an army totally defeated by the Japonese captain Khutt-whang, and many of their settlements were taken. In Fatsisio, they lost another battle to Yan-oni, and divers strong holds. In the neighbourhood of Yesso, Bronxi-tic, who commanded the mercenary army of Japan on that continent, had been obliged to retreat before the Chinese from post to pillar, till at length he found it absolutely necessary to maintain his position, even at the risque of being attacked by the enemy, that outnumbered him greatly. He chose an advantageous post, where he thought himself secure, and went to sleep at his usual time of rest. The Chinese-general resolving to beat up his quarters in the night, selected a body of horse for that purpose, and put them in motion accordingly. It was happy for Bron-xi-tic that this detachment fell upon a quarter where there happened to be a kennel of Japonese dogs, which are as famous as the bull-dogs of England. These animals, ever on the watch, not only gave the alarm, but at the same time fell upon the Chinese horses with such impetuosity, that the enemy were disordered, and had actually fled before Bron-xi-tic could bring up his troops to action. All that he saw of the battle, when he came up, was a small number of killed and wounded, and the cavalry of the enemy scampering off in confusion, tho' at a great distance from the field. No matter;—he found means to paint this famous battle of Myn-than in such colours as dazzled the weak eye-sight of the Japonese monster, which bellowed hoarse applause through all its throats; and in its hymns of triumph equalled Bron-xi-tic even to the unconquerable Brut-an-tiffi, which last, about this time, received at his own door another beating from the Mantchoux, so severe that he lay for some time without exhibiting any signs of life; and, indeed, owed his safety to a very extraordinary circumstance. An Ostrog chief called Llha-dahn, who had reinforced the Mantchoux with a very considerable body of horse before the battle, insisted upon carrying off the carcase of Brut-an-tiffi, that it might be hung up on a gibbet
in terrorem,
before the pavilion of the great Khan. The general of the Mantchoux, on the other hand, declared he would have it flayed upon the spot, and the skin sent as a trophy to his sovereign. This dispute produced a great deal of abuse betwixt those barbarians; and it was with great difficulty some of their inferior chiefs, who were wiser than themselves, prevented them from going by the ears together. In a word, the confusion and anarchy that ensued, afforded an opportunity to one of Brut-an-tiffi's partisans to steal away the body of his master, whom the noise of the contest had just roused from his swoon. Llha-dahn perceiving he was gone, rode off in disgust with all his cavalry; and the Mantchoux, instead of following the blow, made a retrograde motion towards their own country, which allowed Brut-an-tiffi time to breathe. Three successive disasters of this kind would have been sufficient to lower the military character of any warrior, in the opinion of any public that judged from their own senses and reflexion: but, by this time, the Japonese had quietly resigned all their natural perceptions, and paid the most implicit faith to every article broached by their apostle Taycho. The more it seemed to contradict common reason and common evidence, the more greedily was it swallowed as a mysterious dogma of the political creed. Taycho then assured them that the whole army of the Mantchoux was put to the sword; and that Bron-xi-tic would carry the war within three weeks, into the heart of China; he gave them goblets of horseblood from Myn-than; and tickled their ears and their noses: they snorted approbation, licked his toes, and sunk into a profound lethargy.
From this, however, they were soon arroused by unwelcome tidings from Fatsisio. Yaff-rai had proceeded in his route until he was stopped by a vast lake, which he could not possibly traverse without boats, corkjackets, or some such expedient, which could not be supplied for that campaign. Ya-loff had sailed up the river to Quib-quab, which he found so strongly fortified by nature, that it seemed rashness even to attempt a landing, especially in the face of an enemy more numerous than his own detachment. Land, however, he did, and even attacked a fortified camp of the Chinese; but, in spite of all his efforts, he was repulsed with considerable slaughter. He sent an account of this miscarriage to Taycho, giving him to understand, at the same time, that he had received no intelligence of Yaff-rai's motions; that his troops were greatly diminished; that the season was too far advanced to keep the field much longer; and that nothing was left them but a choice of difficulties, every one of which seemed more insurmountable than another. Taycho having deliberated on this subject, thought it was necessary to prepare the monster for the worst that could happen, as he now expected to hear by the first opportunity, that the grand expedition of Fatsisio had totally miscarried. He resolved therefore to throw the blame upon the shoulders of Ya-loff and Yaff-rai, and stigmatize them as the creatures of Fika-kaka, who had neither ability to comprehend the instructions he had given, nor resolution to execute the plan he had projected. For this purpose he ascended the rostrum, and with a rueful length of face opened his harangue upon the defeat of Ya-loff. The Hydra no sooner understood that the troops of Japan had been discomfited, than it was seized with a kind of hysteric fit, and uttered a yell so loud and horrible, that the blind-fold Dairo trembled in the most internal recesses of his palace: the Cuboy Fika-kaka had such a profuse evacuation, that the discharge is said to have weighed five Boll-ah, equal to eight and forty pounds three ounces and two pennyweight averdupois of Great-Britain. Even Taycho himself was discomposed.—In vain he presented the draught of yeast, and the goblet of blood:—in vain his pipers soothed the ears, and his tall fellows tickled the nose of the blatant beast. It continued to howl and grin, and gnash its teeth, and writhe itself into a thousand contortions, as if it had been troubled with that twisting of the guts called the iliac passion. Taycho began to think its case desperate, and sent for the Dairo's chief physician, who prescribed a glyster of the distilled spirit analogous to your Geneva; but no apothecary nor old woman in Meaco would undertake to administer it on any consideration, the patient was such a filthy, aukward, lubberly, unmanageable beast.—
"If what comes from its mouths (said they) be so foul, virulent, and pestilential, how nauseous, poisonous, and intolerable must that be which takes the other course?"
—When Taycho's art and foresight were at a stand, accident came to his assistance. A courier arrived, preceded by twelve postilions blowing horns; and he brought the news that Quib-quab was taken. The orator commanded them to place their horns within as many of the monster's long ears, and blow with all their might, until it should exhibit some signs of hearing. The experiment succeeded. The Hydra waking from its trance, opened its eyes; and Taycho seizing this opportunity, hollowed in his loudest tone,
"Quib-quab is taken."
This note being repeated, the beast started up; then, raising itself on its hind legs, began to wag its tail, to frisk and fawn, to lick Taycho's sweaty socks: in fine, crouching on its belly, it took the orator on its back, and proceeding through the streets of Meaco, brayed aloud,
"Make way for the divine Taycho! Make way for the conqueror of Quib-quab!"
—But the gallant Ya-loff, the real conqueror of Quib-quab, was no more.—He fell in the battle by which the conquest was atchieved, yet not before he saw victory declare in his favour. He had made incredible efforts to surmount the difficulties that surrounded him. At length he found means to scale a perpendicular rock, which the enemy had left unguarded, on the supposition that nature had made it inaccessible. This exploit was performed in the night, and in the morning the Chinese saw his troops drawn up in order of battle on the plains of Quib-quab. As their numbers greatly exceeded the Japonese, they did not decline the trial; and in a little time both armies were engaged. The contest, however, was not of long duration, tho' it proved fatal to the general on each side.—Ya-loff being slain, the command devolved upon Tohn-syn, who pursued the enemy to the walls of Quib-quab, which was next day surrendered to him by capitulation. Nothing was now seen and heard in the capital but jubilee, triumph, and intoxication; and, indeed, the nation had not for some centuries, seen such an occasion for joy and satisfaction. The only person that did not heartily rejoice was the Dairo Got-hama-baba. By this time he was so Tartarised, that he grudged his subjects every advantage obtained in Fatsisio; and when Fika-kaka hobbled up to him with the news of the victory, instead of saluting him with the kick of approbation, he turned his back upon him, saying
"Boh! boh! What do you tell me of Quib-quab? The damned Chinese are still on the frontiers of Yesso."
As to the beast, it was doomed to undergo a variety of agitation. Its present gambols were interrupted by a fresh alarm from China. It was reported that two great armaments were equipped for a double descent upon the dominions of Japan: that one of these had already sailed north about for the island of Xicoco, to make a diversion in favour of the other, which, being the most considerable, was designed for the southern coast of Japan. These tidings, which were not without foundation, had such an effect upon the multitudinous monster, that it was first of all seized with an universal shivering. Its teeth chattered so loud, that the sound was heard at the distance of half a league; and for some time it was struck dumb. During this paroxysm it crawled silently on its belly to a sand-hill just without the walls of Meaco, and began to scratch the earth with great eagerness and perseverance. Some people imagined it was digging for gold: but the truth is, the beast was making a hole to hide itself from the enemy, whom it durst not look in the face; for, it must be observed of this beast, it was equally timorous and cruel; equally cowardly and insolent.—So hard it laboured at this cavern, that it had actually burrowed itself all but the tail, when its good angel Taycho whistled it out, with the news of another compleat victory gained over the Chinese at sea, by the Sey-seo-gun Phal-khan, who had sure enough discomfited or destroyed the great armament of the enemy. As for the other small squadron which had steered a northerly course to Xicoco, it was encountered, defeated, taken, and brought into the harbours of Japan, by three light Fune, under the command of a young chief called Hel-y-otte, who happened to be cruising on that part of the coast.—The beast hearing Taycho's auspicious whistle, crept out with its buttocks foremost, and having done him homage in the usual stile, began to react its former extravagances. It now considered this demagogue as the supreme giver of all good, and adored him accordingly. The apostle Bupo was no longer invoked. The temple of Fakkubasi was almost forgotten; and the Bonzas were universally despised. The praise of the prophet Taycho had swallowed up all other worship.—Let us enquire how far he merited this adoration: how justly the unparalleled success of this year was ascribed to his conduct and sagacity. Kho-rhé was taken by Kha-fell, and Quib-quab by Ya-loff and Thon-syn. By land, the Chinese were defeated in Fatsisio by Yan-o-ni; in the extremity of Asia, by Khutt-whang; and in Tartary, by the Japonese bull-dogs, without command or direction. At sea one of their squadrons had been destroyed by Or-nbos; a second by Fas-khan; a third was taken by Hel-y-otte; a fourth was worsted and put to flight in three successive engagements near the land of Kamtschatka, by the chief Bha-kakh; and their grand armament defeated by the Sey-seo-gun Phal-khan. But Kha-fell was a stranger to orator Taycho: Ya-loff he had never seen: the bull-dogs had been collected at random from the shambles of Meaco: he had never heard of Yan-o-ni's name, till he distinguished himself by his first victory; nor did he know there was any such person as Khutt-whang existing. As for Or-nbos, Fas-khan, Phal-khan, and Bha-kakh, they had been Sey-seo-guns in constant employment under the former administration; and the youth Hel-y-otte owed his promotion to the interest of his own family.—But it may be alledged, that Taycho projected in his closet those plans that were crowned with success.—We have seen how he mutilated and frittered the original scheme of the campaign in Fatsisio, so as to leave it at the caprice of Fortune. The reduction of Kho-rhé was part of the design formed by the Banyan Thum-khumm-qua, which Taycho did all that lay in his power to render abortive. The plan of operations in the extremity of Tartary, he did not pretend to meddle with;—it was the concern of the officers appointed by the trading company there settled: and as to the advantages obtained at sea, they naturally resulted from the disposition of cruises, made and regulated by the board of Sey-seo-gun-sealty, with which no minister ever interfered. He might, indeed, have recalled the chiefs and officers whom he found already appointed when he took the reins of administration, and filled their places with others of his own choosing. How far he was qualified to make such a choice, and plan new expeditions, appears from the adventures of the generals he did appoint; Moria-tanti, who was deterred from landing by a perspective view of whiskers; Hylib-bib, who left his rear in the lurch; and Hob-nob, who made such a masterly retreat from the supposed Bonzas of Thin-quo.—These three were literally commanders of his own creation, employed in executing schemes of his own projecting; and these three were the only generals he made, and the only military plans he projected, if we except the grand scheme of subsidizing Brut-an-tiffi, and forming an army of one hundred thousand men in Tartary, for the defence of the farm of Yesso.—Things being so circumstanced, it may be easily conceived that the Orator could ask nothing which the Mobile would venture to refuse; and indeed he tried his influence to the utmost stretch; he milked the dugs of the monster till the blood came. For the service of the ensuing year, he squeezed from them near twelve millions of obans, amounting to near twenty-four millions sterling, about four times as much as had ever been raised by the empire of Japan in any former war. But, by this time, Taycho was become not only a convert to the system of Tartary, which he had formerly persecuted, but also an enthusiast in love and admiration of Brut-an-tiffi, who had lately sent him his poetical works in a present. This, however, would have been of no use, as he could not read them, had not he discovered they were printed on a very fine, soft, smooth Chinese paper made of silk, which he happily converted to another fundamental purpose. In return for this compliment, the Orator sent him a bullock's horn bound with brass, value fifteen pence, which had long served him as a pitch-pipe when he made harangues to the Mobile;—it was the same kind of instrument which Horace describes;
Tibia vincta orichalco:
and pray take notice, Peacock, this was the only present Taycho ever bestowed on any man, woman, or child, through the whole course of his life, I mean out of his own pocket; for he was extremely liberal of the public money, in his subsidies to the Tartar chiefs, and in the prosecution of the war upon that continent. The Orator was a genius self-taught without the help of human institution. He affected to undervalue all men of literary talents; and the only book he ever read with any degree of pleasure, was a collection of rhapsodies preached by one Ab-ren-thi, an obscure fanatic Bonza, a native of the island Xicoco. Certain it is, Nature seemed to have produced him for the sole purpose of fascinating the mob, and endued him with faculties accordingly.
Notwithstanding all his efforts in behalf of the Tartarian scheme, the Chinese still lingered on the frontiers of Yesso. The views of the court of Pekin exactly coincided with the interest of Bron-xi-tic, the mercenary general of Japan. The Chinese, confounded at the unheard-of success of the Japonese in Fatsisio and other parts of the globe, and extremely mortified at the destruction of their fleets and the ruin of their commerce, saw no other way of distressing the enemy, but that of prolonging the war on the continent of Tartary, which they could support for little more than their ordinary expence; whereas Japan could not maintain it without contracting yearly immense loads of debt, which must have crushed it at the long-run. It was the business of the Chinese, therefore, not to finish the war in Tartary by taking the farm of Yesso, because, in that case, the annual expence of it would have been saved to Japan; but to keep it alive by forced marches, praedatory excursions, and undecisive actions; and this was precisely the interest of general Bron-xi-tic, who in the continuance of the war enjoyed the continuance of all his emoluments. All that he had to do, then, was to furnish Taycho from time to time with a cask of human blood, for the entertainment of the blatant beast; and to send over a few horse-tails, as trophies of pretended victories, to be waved before the monster in its holiday processions. He and the Chinese general seemed to act in concert. They advanced and retreated in their turns betwixt two given lines, and the campaign always ended on the same spot where it began. The only difference between them was in the motives of their conduct; the Chinese commander acted for the benefit of his sovereign, and Bron-xi-tic acted for his own.
The continual danger to which the farm of Yesso was exposed, produced such apprehensions and chagrin in the mind of the Dairo Got-hama-baba, that his health began to decline. He neglected his food and his rattle, and no longer took any pleasure in kicking the Cuboy. He frequently muttered ejaculations about the farm of Yesso: nay, once or twice in the transports of his impatience, he pulled the bandage from his eyes, and cursed Taycho in the Tartarian language. At length he fell into a lethargy, and even when roused a little by blisters and caustics, seemed insensible of every thing that was done about him. These blisters were raised by burning the moxa upon his scalp. The powder of
menoki
was also injected in a glyster; and the operation of acupuncture, called
Senkei,
performed without effect. His disorder was so stubborn, that the Cuboy began to think he was bewitched, and suspected Taycho of having practised sorcery on his sovereign. He communicated this suspicion to Muraclami, who shook his head, and advised that, with the Orator's good leave, the council should be consulted. Taycho, who had gained an absolute empire over the mind of the Dairo, and could not foresee how his interest might stand with his successor, was heartily disposed to concur in any seasible experiment for the recovery of Got-hama-baba: he therefore consented that the mouths of the council should be unpadlocked
pro hac vice,
and the members were assembled without delay; with this express proviso, however, that they were to confine their deliberations to the subject of the Dairo and his distemper. By this time the physicians had discovered the cause of the disorder, which was no other than his being stung by a poisonous insect produced in the land of Yesso, analogous to the tarantula, which is said to do so much mischief in some parts of Apuglia, as we are told by Aelian, Epiphanius Ferdinandus, and Baglivi. In both cases the only effectual remedy was music; and now the council was called to determine what sort of music should be administered. You must know, Peacock, the Japonese are but indifferently skilled in this art, tho', in general, they affect to be connoisseurs. They are utterly ignorant of the theory, and in the practice are excelled by all their neighbours, the Tartars not excepted. For my own part, I studied music under Pythagoras at Crotona. He found the scale of seven tones imperfect, and added the octave as a fixed, sensible, and intelligent termination of an interval, which included every possible division, and determined all the relative differences of sounds: besides, he taught us how to express the octave by ½, &c. &c. But why should I talk to thee of the antient digramma, the genera, &c. of music, which with their colours, were constructed by a division of the diatessaron. Thou art too dull and ignorant to comprehend the chromatic species, the construction of the tetrachord, the Phrygian, the Lydian, and other modes of the antient music: and for distinction of ear, thou mightest be justly ranked among the braying tribe that graze along the ditches of Tottenham-court or Hockley-i'the-hole. I know that nothing exhilarates thy spirits so much as a sonata on the salt-box, or a concert of marrow-bones and cleavers. The ears of the Japonese were much of the same texture; and their music was suited to their ears. They neither excelled in the melopoeia, and rythm or cadence; nor did they know any thing of the true science of harmony, compositions in parts, and those combinations of sounds, the invention of which, with the improvement of the scale, is erroneously ascribed to a Benedictine monk. The truth is, the antients understood composition perfectly well. Their scale was founded upon perfect consonances: they were remarkably nice in tempering sounds, and had reduced their intervals and concords to mathematical demonstration.
But, to return to the council of Twenty-eight, they convened in the same apartment where the Dairo lay; and as the business was to determine what kind of music was most likely to make an impression upon his organs, every member came provided with his expedient. First and foremost, Mr. Orator Taycho pronounced an oration upon the excellences of the land of Yesso, of energy (as the Cuboy said) sufficient to draw the moon from her sphere; it drew nothing, however, from the patient but a single groan: then the Fatzman caused a drum to beat, without producing any effect at all upon the Dairo; tho' it deprived the whole council of their hearing for some time. The third essay was made by Fika-kaka; first with a rattle, and then with tongs and gridiron, which last was his favourite music; but here it failed, to his great surprize and consternation. Stiphi-rum-poo brought the crier of his court to promulgate a decree against Yesso, in a voice that is wont to make the culprit tremble; but the Dairo was found Ignoramus. Nin-com-poo-po blew a blast with a kind of boatswain's whistle, which discomposed the whole audience without affecting the emperor. Fokh—si—rokhu said he would try his imperial majesty with a sound which he had always been known to prefer to every other species of music; and pulling out a huge purse of golden obans, began to chink them in his ear.—This experiment so far succeeded, that the Dairo was perceived to smile, and even to contract one hand: but further effect it had none. At last Gotto-mio starting up, threw a small quantity of
aurum fulminans
into the fire, which went off with such an explosion, that in the same instant Fika-kaha fell flat upon his face, and Got-hama-baba started upright in his bed. This, however, was no more than a convulsion that put an end to his life; for he fell back again, and expired in the twinkling of an eye.—As for the Cuboy, tho' he did not die, he underwent a surprising transformation or metamorphosis, which I shall record in due season.
Taycho was no sooner certified that Got-hama-baba had actually breathed his last, than he vanished from the council in the twinkling of an eye, and mounting the beast whose name is Legion, rode full speed to the habitation of
Gio-gio,
the successor and descendant of the deceased Dairo.—Gio-gio was a young prince who had been industriously sequestered from the public view, and excluded from all share in the affairs of state by the jealousy of the last emperor.—He lived retired under the wings of his grand-mother, and had divers preceptors to teach him the rudiments of every art but the art of reigning. Of all those who superintended his education, he who insinuated himself the farthest in his favour, was one
Yak-strot,
from the mountains of Ximo, who valued himself much upon the antient blood that ran in his veins, and still more upon his elevated ideas of patriotism. Yak-strot was honest at bottom, but proud, reserved, vain, and affected. He had a turn for nick-nacks and gim-cracks, and once made and mounted an iron jack and a wooden clock with his own hands. But it was his misfortune to set up for a connoisseur in painting and other liberal arts, and to announce himself an universal patron of genius. He did not fail to infuse his own notions and conceits into the tender mind of Gio-gio, who gradually imbibed his turn of thinking, and followed the studies which he recommended.—With respect to his lessons on the art of government, he reduced them to a very few simple principles.—His maxims were these: That the emperor of Japan ought to cherish the established religion, both by precept and example; that he ought to abolish corruption, discourage faction, and balance the two parties by admitting an equal number from each, to places and offices of trust in the administration: that he should make peace as soon as possible, even in despite of the public, which seemed insensible of the burthen it sustained, and was indeed growing delirious by the illusions of Taycho, and the cruel evacuations he had prescribed: that he should retrench all superfluous expence in his houshold and government, and detach himself intirely from the accursed farm of Yesso, which some evil genius had fixed upon the breech of Japan, as a cancerous ulcer thro' which all her blood and substance would be discharged. These maxims were generally just enough in speculation, but some of them were altogether impracticable;—for example, that of forming an administration equally composed of the two sactions, was as absurd as it would be to yoke two stone-horses and two jack-asses in the same carriage, which, instead of drawing one way, would do nothing but bite and kick one another, while the machine of government would stand stock-still, or perhaps be torn in pieces by their dragging in opposite directions.—The people of Japan had been long divided between two inveterate parties known by the names of
Shit-tilk-ums-heit,
and
She-it-kums-hi-til,
the first signifying
more fool than knave;
and the other,
more knave than fool.
Each had predominated in its turn, by securing a majority in the assemblies of the people; for the majority had always interest to force themselves into the administration; because the constitution being partly democratic, the Dairo was still obliged to truckle to the prevailing faction.—To obtain this majority, each side had employed every art of corruption, calumny, insinuation, and priest-craft; for nothing is such an effectual ferment in all popular commotions as religious fanaticism.—No sooner one party accomplished its aim than it reprobated the other, branding it with the epithets of traitors to their country, or traitors to their prince; while the minority retorted upon them the charge of corruption, rapaciousness, and abject servility. In short, both parties were equally abusive, rancorous, uncandid, and illiberal. Taycho had been of both factions more than once.—He made his first appearance as a
Shi-tilk-ums-heit
in the minority, and displayed his talent for scurrility against the Dairo to such advantage, that an old rich hag, who loved nothing so well as money, except the gratification of her revenge, made him a present of five thousand obans, on condition he should continue to revile the Dairo till his dyingday.—After her death, the ministry, intimidated by the boldness of his tropes, and the fame he began to acquire as a mal-content orator, made him such offers as he thought proper to accept; and then he turned
She-it-kums-hi-til.
—Being disgusted in the sequel, at his own want of importance in the council, he opened once more at the head of his old friends the
Shi-tilk-ums-hitites;
and once more he deserted them to rule the roast, as chief of the
She-it-kums-hi-tilites,
in which predicament he now stood. And, indeed, this was the most natural posture in which he could stand; for this party embraced all the scum of the people, constituting the blatant beast, which his talents were so peculiarly adapted to manage and govern. Another impracticable maxim of Yak-strot, was the abolition of corruption, the ordure of which is as necessary to anoint the wheels of government in Japan, as grease is to smear the axle-tree of a loaded waggon. His third impolitic (tho' not impracticable) maxim, was that of making peace while the populace were intoxicated with the steams of blood, and elated with the shews of triumph. Be that as it will, Giogio, attended by Yak-strot, was drawing plans of windmills, when Orator Taycho, opening the door, advanced towards him, and falling on his knees, addressed him in these words:
"The empire of Japan (magnanimous prince!) resembles at this instant, a benighted traveller, who by the light of the star Hesperus continued his journey without repining, until that glorious luminary setting, left him bewildered in darkness and consternation: but scarce had he time to bewail his fate, when the more glorious sun, the ruler of a fresh day, appearing on the tops of the Eastern hills, dispelled his terrors with the shades of night, and filled his soul with transports of pleasure and delight. The illustrious Got-hama-baba, of honoured memory, is the glorious star which hath set on our hemisphere.—His soul, which took wing about two hours ago, is now happily nestled in the bosom of the blessed Bupo; and you, my prince, are the more glorious rising sun, whose genial influence will chear the empire, and gladden the hearts of your faithful Japonese.—I therefore hail your succession to the throne, and cry aloud, Long live the ever-glorious Gio-gio, emperor of the three islands of Japan."
To this salutation the beast below brayed hoarse applause; and all present kissed the hand of the new emperor, who, kneeling before his venerable grandame, craved her blessing, desiring the benefit of her prayers, that God would make him a good king, and establish his throne in righteousness. Then he ascended his chariot, accompanied by the Orator and his beloved Yak-strot, and proceeding to the palace of Meaco, was proclaimed with the usual ceremonies, his relation the Fatz-man and other princes of the blood assisting on this occasion.
The first step he took after his elevation, was to publish a decree, or rather exhortation, to honour religion and the Bonzes; and this was no impolitic expedient: for it firmly attached that numerous and powerful tribe to his interest. His next measures did not seem to be directed by the same spirit of discretion. He admitted a parcel of raw boys, and even some individuals of the faction of
Shi-tilk-ums-heit
into his council; and though Taycho still continued to manage the reins of administration, Yak-strot was associated with him in office, to the great scandal and dissatisfaction of the Niphonites, who hate all the Ximians with a mixture of jealousy and contempt.
Fika-kaka was not the last who payed his respects to his new sovereign, by whom he was graciously received, altho' he did not seem quite satisfied; because when he presented himself in his usual attitude, he had not received the kick of approbation. New reigns, new customs: This Dairo never dreamed of kicking those whom he delighted to honour.—It was a secret of state which had not yet come to his knowledge; and Yak-strot had always assured him, that kicking the breech always and every-where implied disgrace, as kicking the parts before, betokens ungovernable passion. Yak-strot, however, in this particular, seems to have been too confined in his notions of the
etiquette:
for it had been the custom time immemorial for the Dairos of Japan to kick their favourites and prime ministers. Besides, there are at this day different sorts of kicks used even in England, without occasioning any dishonour to the
Kickee.
—It is sometimes a misfortune to be
kicked
out of place, but no dishonour. A man is often
kicked up
in the way of preferment, in order that his place may be given to a person of more interest. Then there is the amorous kick, called
Kick 'um, Jenny,
which every gallant undergoes with pleasure: hence the old English appellation of
Kicksy-wicksy,
bestowed on a wanton leman who knew all her paces. As for the familiar kick, it is no other than a mark of friendship: nor is it more dishonourable to be cuffed and cudgelled. Every body knows that the
alapa
or box o' the ear, among the Romans, was a particular mark of favour by which their slaves were made free; and the favourite gladiator, when he obtained his dismission from the service, was honoured with a found cudgelling; this being the true meaning of the phrase
rude donatus.
In the times of chivalry, the knight when dubbed, was well thwacked across the shoulders by his god-father in arms.—Indeed,
dubbing
is no other than a corruption of
drubbing.
It was the custom formerly here and elsewhere, for a man to drub his son or apprentice as a mark of his freedom, and of his being admitted to the exercise of arms. The Paraschistes, who practised
embalming
in Aegypt, which was counted a very honourable profession, was always severely drubbed after the operation, by the friends and relations of the defunct; and to this day, the patriarch of the Greeks once a year, on Easter-eve, when he carries out the sacred fire from the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem, is heartily cudgelled by the infidels, a certain number of whom he hires for that purpose; and he thinks himself very unhappy and much disgraced, if he is not beaten into all the colours of the rain-bow. You know the Quakers of this country think it no dishonour to receive a slap o' the face; but when you smite them on one cheek, they present the other, that it may have the same salutation. The venerable father Lactantius falls out with Cicero for saying,
"A good man hurts no-body, unless he is justly provoked;"
nisi lacessitur injuria. O,
(cries the good father)
quam simplicem veramque sententiam duorum verborum adjectione corrupit!—non minus enim mali est, referre injuriam, quam inferre.
The great philosopher Socrates thought it no disgrace to be kicked by his wife Xantippe; nay, he is said to have undergone the same discipline from other people, without making the least resistance, it being his opinion that it was more courageous, consequently more honourable, to bear a drubbing patiently, than to attempt any thing either in the way of self-defence or retaliation.—The judicious and learned Puffendorf, in his book
De Jure Gentium & Naturali,
declares, that a man's honour is not so fragile as to be hurt either by a box on the ear, or a kick on the breech, otherwise it would be in the power of every saucy fellow to diminish or infringe it.—It must be owned, indeed, Grotius
De Jure Belli & Pacis,
says, that charity does not of itself require our patiently suffering such an affront. The English have with a most servile imitation, borrowed their
punto,
as well as other modes, from the French nation. Now kicking and cuffing were counted infamous among those people for these reasons. A box on the ear destroys the whole oeconomy of their
frisure,
upon which they bestow the greatest part of their time and attention; and a kick on the breech is attended with great pain and danger, as they are generally subject to the piles. This is so truly the case, that they have no less than two saints to patronize and protect the individuals afflicted with this disease. One is St.
Fiacre,
who was a native of the kingdom of Ireland. He presides over the blind piles. The other is a female saint,
Hoemorrhoissa,
and she comforts those who are distressed with the bleeding piles. No wonder, therefore, that a Frenchman put to the torture by a kick on those tender parts, should be provoked to vengeance; and that this vengeance should gradually become an article in their system of punctilio.
But, to return to the thread of my narration.—Whatever inclination the Dairo and Yak-strot had to restore the blessings of peace, they did not think proper as yet to combat the disposition and schemes of Orator Taycho; in consequence of whose remonstrances, the tributary treaty was immediately renewed with Brut-an-tiffi, and Gio-gio declared in the assembly of the people, that he was determined to support that illustrious ally, and carry on the war with vigour.—By this time the Chinese were in a manner expelled from their chief settlements in Fatsisio, where they now retained nothing but an inconsiderable colony, which would have submitted on the first summons: but this Taycho left as a nest-egg to produce a new brood of disturbance to the Japonese settlements, that they might not rust with too much peace and security. To be plain with you, Peacock, his thoughts were entirely alienated from this Fatsisian war, in which the interest of his country was chiefly concerned, and converted wholly to the continent of Tartary, where all his cares centered in schemes for the success of his friend Brut-an-tiffi. This freebooter had lately undergone strange vicissitudes of fortune. He had seen his chief village possessed and plundered by the enemy; but he found means, by surprize, to beat up their quarters in the beginning of winter, which always proved his best ally, because then the Mantchoux Tartars were obliged to retire to their own country, at a vast distance from the seat of the war.—As for Bron-xitic, who commanded the Japonese army on that continent, he continued to play booty with the Chinese general, over whom he was allowed to obtain some petty advantages, which, with the trophies won by Brut-antiffi, were swelled up into mighty victories, to increase the infatuation of the blatant beast.—On the other hand, Bron-xi-tic obliged the generals of China with the like indulgences, by now and then sacrificing a detachment of his Japonese troops, to keep up the spirits of that nation.
Taycho had levied upon the people of Japan an immense sum of money for the equipment of a naval armament, the destination of which was kept a profound secret. Some politicians imagined it was designed for the conquest of Thin-quo, and all the other settlements which the Chinese possessed in the Indian ocean: others conjectured the intention was to attack the king of Corea, who had, since the beginning of this war, acted with a shameful partiality in favour of the emperor of China, his kinsman and ally. But the truth of the matter was this: Taycho kept the armament in the harbours of Japan ready for a descent upon the coast of China, in order to make a diversion in favour of his friend Brut-an-tiffi, in case he had run any risque of being oppressed by his enemies. However, the beast of many heads having growled and grumbled during the best part of the summer, at the inactivity of this expensive armament, it was now thought proper to send it to sea in the beginning of winter: but it was soon driven back in great distress, by contrary winds and storms;—and this was all the monster had for its ten millions of Obans.
While Taycho amused the Mobile with this winter expedition, Yak-strot resolved to plan the scheme of oeconomy which he had projected. He dismissed from the Dairo's service about a dozen of cooks andscullions; shut up one of the kitchens, after having sold the grates, hand-irons, spits and saucepans; deprived the servants and officers of the houshold of their breakfast; took away their usual allowance of oil and candles; retrenched their tables; reduced their proportion of drink; and persuaded his pupil the Dairo to put himself upon a diet of soupmeagre thickened with oat-meal. In a few days there was no smoke seen to ascend from the kitchens of the palace; nor did any fuel, torch, or taper blaze in the chimnies, courts, and apartments thereof, which now became the habitation of cold, darkness, and hunger. Gio-gio himself, who turned peripatetic philosopher merely to keep himself in heat, fell into a wash-tub as he groped his way in the dark through one of the lower galleries. Two of his body-guard had their whiskers gnawed off by the rats, as they slept in his antichamber; and their captain presented a petition declaring, that neither he nor his men could undertake the defence of his imperial majesty's person, unless their former allowance of provision should be restored. They and all the individuals of the household were not only punished in their bellies, but likewise curtailed in their clothing, and abridged in their stipends. The palace of Meaco, which used to be the temple of mirth, jollity, and good cheer, was now so dreary and deserted, that a certain wag fixed up a ticket on the outward gate with this inscription:
"This tenement to be lett, the proprietor having left off house-keeping."
Yak-strot, however, was resolved to shew, that if the new Dairo retrenched the superfluities of his domestic expence, he did not act from avarice or poorness of spirit, inasmuch as he should now display his liberality in patronizing genius and the arts. A general jubilee was now promised to all those who had distinguished themselves by their talents or erudition. The emissaries of Yakstrot declared that Maecenas was but a type of this Ximian mountaineer; and that he was determined to search for merit, even in the thickest shades of obscurity. All these researches, however, proved so unsuccessful, that not above four or five men of genius could be found in the whole empire of Japan, and these were gratified with pensions of about one hundred Obans each. One was a secularized Bonza from Ximo; another a malcontent poet of Niphon; a third, a reformed comedian of Xicoco; a fourth, an empiric, who had outlived his practice; and a fifth, a decayed apothecary, who was bard, quack, author, chymist, philosopher, and simpler by profession. The whole of the expence arising from the favour and protection granted by the Dairo to these men of genius, did not exceed seven or eight hundred Obans per annum, amounting to about fifteen hundred pounds sterling; whereas many a private Quo in Japan expended more money on a kennel of hounds. I do not mention those men of singular merit, whom Yak-strot fixed in established places under the government; such as architects, astronomers, painters, physicians, barbers, &c. because their salaries were included in the ordinary expence of the crown: I shall only observe, that a certain person who could not read, was appointed librarian to his imperial majesty.
These were all the men of superlative genius, that Yak-strot could find at this period in the empire of Japan.
Whilst this great patriot was thus employed in executing his schemes of oeconomy with more zeal than discretion, and in providing his poor relations with lucrative offices under the government, a negociation for peace was brought upon the carpet by the mediation of certain neutral powers; and Orator Taycho arrogated to himself the province of discussing the several articles of the treaty.—Upon this occasion he shewed himself surprizingly remiss and indifferent in whatever related to the interest of Japan, particularly in regulating and fixing the boundaries of the Chinese and Japonese settlements in Fatsisio, the uncertainty of which had given rise to the war: but when the business was to determine the claims and pretensions of his ally Brut-an-tiffi, on the continent of Tartary, he appeared stiff and immoveable as mount Athos. He actually broke off the negotiation, because the emperor of China would not engage to drive by force of arms the troops of his ally the princess of Ostrog, from a village or two belonging to the Tartarian free-booter, who, by the bye, had left them defenceless at the beginning of the war, on purpose that his enemies might, by taking possession of them, quicken the resolutions of the Dairo to send over an army for the protection of Yesso.
The court of Pekin perceiving that the Japonese were rendered intolerably insolent and overbearing by success, and that an equitable peace could not be obtained while Orator Taycho managed the reins of government at Meaco, and his friend Brut-an-tiffi found any thing to plunder in Tartary; resolved to fortify themselves with a new alliance. They actually entered into closer connections with the king of Corea, who was nearly related to the Chinese emperor, had some old scores to settle with Japan, and because he desired those disputes might be amicably compromised in the general pacification, had been grossly insulted by Taycho, in the person of his ambassador. He had for some time dreaded the ambition of the Japonese ministry, which seemed to aim at universal empire; and he was, moreover, stimulated by this outrage to conclude a defensive alliance with the emperor of China; a measure which all the caution of the two courts could not wholly conceal from the knowledge of the Japonese politicians.
Mean while a dreadful cloud big with ruin and disgrace seemed to gather round the head of Brut-an-tiffi. The Mantchoux Tartars, sensible of the inconvenience of their distant situation from the scene of action, which rendered it impossible for them to carry on their operations vigorously in conjunction with the Ostrog, resolved to secure winter-quarters in some part of the enemy's territories, from whence they should be able to take the field, and act against him early in the spring. With this view they besieged and took a frontier fortress belonging to Brut-an-tiffi, situated upon a great inland lake which extended as far as the capital of the Mantchoux, who were thus enabled to send thither by water-carriage all sorts of provisions and military stores for the use of their army, which took up their winter-quarters accordingly in and about this new acquisition. It was now that the ruin of Brut-an-tiffi seemed inevitable. Orator Taycho saw with horror the precipice to the brink of which his dear ally was driven. Not that his fears were actuated by sympathy or friendship. Such emotions had never possessed the heart of Taycho. No; he trembled because he saw his own popularity connected with the fate of the Tartar. It was the success and petty triumphs of this adventurer which had dazzled the eyes of the blatant beast, so as to disorder its judgment, and prepare it for the illusions of the Orator: but, now that Fortune seemed ready to turn tail to Brut-an-tiffi, and leave him a prey to his adversaries, Taycho knew the dispositions of the monster so well as to prognosticate that its applause and affection would be immediately turned into grumbling and disgust; and that he himself, who had led it blindfold into this unfortunate connexion, might possibly fall a sacrifice to its resentment, provided he could not immediately project some scheme to divert its attention, and transfer the blame from his own shoulders.
For this purpose he employed his invention, and succeeded to his wish. Having called a council of the Twenty-eight, at which the Dairo assisted in person, he proposed, and insisted upon it, that a strong squadron of Fune should be immediately ordered to scour the seas, and kidnap all the vessels and ships belonging to the king of Corea, who had acted during the whole war with the most scandalous partiality in favour of the Chinese emperor, and was now so intimately connected with that potentate, by means of a secret alliance, that he ought to be prosecuted with the same hostilities which the other had severely felt. The whole council were confounded at this proposal: the Dairo stood aghast: the Cuboy trembled: Yak-strot stared like a skewered pig. After some pause, the president Soosan-sin-o ventured to observe, that the measure seemed to be a little abrupt and premature: that the nation was already engaged in a very expensive war, which had absolutelutely drained it of its wealth, and even loaded it with enormous debts; therefore little able to sustain such additional burthens as would, in all probability, be occasioned by a rupture with a prince so rich and powerful. Gotto-mio swore the land holders were already so impoverished by the exactions of Taycho, that he himself, ere long, should be obliged to upon the parish. Fika-kaka got up to speak; but could only cackle. Sti-phi-rum-poo was for proceeding in form by citation. Nin-kom-poo-po declared he had good intelligence of a fleet of merchant-ships belonging to Corea, laden with treasure, who were then on their return from the Indian isles; and he gave it as his opinion, that they should be way-laid and brought into the harbours of Japan; not by way of declaring war, but only with a view to prevent the money's going into the coffers of the Chinese emperor. Fokh-si-rokhu started two objections to this expedient: first, the uncertainty of falling in with the Corean fleet at sea, alledging as an instance the disappointment and miscarriage of the squadron which the Sey-seo-gun had sent some years ago to intercept the Chinese Fune on the coast of Fat-sisio: secondly, the loss and hardship it would be to many subjects of Japan who dealt in commerce, and had great sums embarked in those very Corean bottoms. Indeed Fokh-si-rokhu himself was interested in this very commerce. The Fatz-man sat silent. Yak-strot, who had some romantic notions of honour and honesty, represented that the nation had already incurred the censure of all its neighbours, by seizing the merchantships of China, without any previous declaration of war: that the law of nature and nations, confirmed by repeated treaties, prescribed a more honourable method of proceeding, than that of plundering like robbers, the ships of pacific merchants, who trade on the faith of such laws and such treaties: he was, therefore, of opinion, that if the king of Corea had in any shape deviated from the neutrality which he professed, satisfaction should be demanded in the usual form; and when that should be refused, it might be found necessary to proceed to compulsive measures. The Dairo acquiesced in this advice, and assured Taycho that an ambassador should be forthwith dispatched to Corea, with instructions to demand an immediate and satisfactory explanation of that prince's conduct and designs with regard to the empire of Japan.
This regular method of practice would by no means suit the purposes of Taycho, who rejected it with great insolence and disdain. He bit his thumb at the president; forked out his fingers on his forehead at Gotto-mio; wagged his under-jaw at the Cuboy; snapt his fingers at Sti-phi-rum-poo; grinned at the Sey-seo-gun; made the sign of the cross or gallows to Fokh-si-rokhu; then turning to Yakstrot, he clapped his thumbs in his ears, and began to bray like an ass: finally, pulling out the badge of his office, he threw it at the Dairo, who in vain intreated him to be pacified; and wheeling to the right-about, stalked away, slapping the flat of his hand upon a certain part that shall be nameless. He was followed by his kinsman the Quo Lob-kob, who worshipped him with the most humble adoration. He now imitated this great original in the signal from behind at parting, and in him it was attended by a rumbling sound; but whether this was the effect of contempt or compunction, I could never learn.
Taycho having thus carried his point, which was to have a pretence for quitting the reins of government, made his next appeal to the blatant beast. He reminded the many-headed monster of the uninterrupted success which had attended his administration; of his having supported the glorious Brut-an-tiffi, the great bulwark of the religion of Bupo, who had kept the common enemy at bay, and filled all Asia with the fame of his victories. He told them, that for his own part, he pretended to have subdued Fatsisio in the heart of Tartary: that he despised honours, and had still a greater contempt for riches; and that all his endeavours had been solely exerted for the good of his country, which was now brought to the very verge of destruction. He then gave the beast to understand that he had formed a scheme against the king of Corea, which would not only have disabled that monarch from executing his hostile intentions with respect to Japan, but also have indemnified this nation for the whole expence of the war; but that his proposal having been rejected by the council of Twenty-eight, who were influencd by Yak-strot, a Ximian mountaineer without spirit or understanding, he had resigned his office with intention to retire to some solitude, where he should in silence deplore the misfortunes of his country, and the ruin of the Buponian religion, which must fall of course with its great protector Brutan-tiffi, whom he foresaw the new ministry would immediately abandon.
This address threw Legion into such a qnandary, that it rolled itself in the dirt, and yelled hideously. Mean while the Orator retreating to a cell in the neighbourhood of Meaco, hired the common crier to go round the streets and proclaim that Taycho, being no longer in a condition to afford any thing but the bare necessaries of life, would by public sale dispose of his ambling mule and furniture, together with an ermined robe of his wife, and the greater part of his kitchen utensils. At this time he was well known to be worth upwards of twenty thousand gold Obans; nevertheless, the Mobile discharging this circumstance entirely from their reflection, attended to nothing but the object which the Orator was pleased to present. They thought it was a piteous case, and a great scandal upon the government, that such a patriot, who had saved the nation from ruin and disgrace, should be reduced to the cruel necessity of selling his mule and his houshold furniture. Accordingly they raised a clamour that soon rung in the ears of Gio-gio and his favourite.
It was supposed that Mura-clami suggested on this occasion to his countryman Yak-strot, the hint of offering a pension to Taycho, by way of remuneration for his past services.
"If he refuses it, (said he) the offer will at least reflect some credit upon the Dairo and the administration; but, should he accept of it, (which is much more likely) it will either stop his mouth entirely, or expose him to the censure of the people, who now adore him as a mirrour of disinterested integrity."
The advice was instantly complied with: the Dairo signed a patent for a very ample pension to Taycho and his heirs; which patent Yak-strot delivered to him next day at his cell in the country. This miracle of patriotism received the bounty as a turnpike-man receives the toll, and then slapped his door full in the face of the favourite: yet, nothing of what Mura-clami had prognosticated, came to pass. The many-tailed monster, far from calling in question the Orator's disinterestedness, considered his acceptance of the pension as a proof of his moderation, in receiving such a trifling reward for the great services he had done his country; and the generosity of the Dairo, instead of exciting the least emotion of gratitude in Taycho's own breast, acted only as a golden key to unlock all the sluices of his virulence and abuse.
These, however, he kept within bounds until he should see what would be the fate of Brut-an-tiffi, who now seemed to be in the condition of a criminal at the foot of the ladder. In this dilemma, he obtained a very unexpected reprieve. Before the army of the Mantchoux could take the least advantage of the settlement they had made on his frontiers, their empress died, and was succeeded by a weak prince, who no sooner ascended the throne than he struck up a peace with the Tartar freebooter, and even ordered his troops to join him against the Ostrog, to whom they had hitherto-acted as auxiliaries. Such an accession of strength would have cast the balance greatly in his favour, had not Providence once more interposed, and brought matters again to an equilibrium.
Taycho no sooner perceived his ally thus unexpectedly delivered from the dangers that surrounded him, than he began to repent of his own resignation; and resolved once more, to force his way to the helm, by the same means he had so successfully used before. He was, indeed, of such a turbulent disposition as could not relish the repose of private life, and his spirit so corrosive, that it would have preyed upon himself, if he could not have found external food for it to devour. He therefore began to prepare his engines, and provide proper emissaries to bespatter, and raise a hue-and-cry against Yak-strot at a convenient season; not doubting but an occasion would soon present itself, considering the temper, inexperience, and prejudices of this Ximian politician, together with the pacific system he had adopted, so contrary to the present spirit of the blatant beast.
In these preparations he was much comforted and assisted by his kinsman and pupil Lob-kob, who entered into his measures with surprizing zeal; and had the good luck to light on such instruments as were admirably suited to the work in hand. Yak-strot was extremely pleased at the secession of Taycho, who had been a very troublesome collegue to him in the administration, and run counter to all the schemes he had projected for the good of the empire. He now found himself at liberty to follow his own inventions, and being naturally an enthusiast, believed himself born to be the saviour of Japan. Some efforts, however, he made to acquire popularity, proved fruitless. Perceiving the people were, by the Orator's instigations, exasperated against the king of Corea, he sent a peremptory message to that prince demanding a categorical answer; and this being denied, declared war against him, according to the practice of all civilized nations: but even this measure failed of obtaining that approbation for which it was taken. The monster, tutored by Taycho and his ministers, exclaimed, that the golden opportunity was lost, inasmuch as, during the observance of those useless forms, the treasures of Corea were safely brought home to that kingdom; treasures which, had they been interrupted by the Fune of Japan, would have payed off the debts of the nation, and enabled the inhabitants of Meaco to pave their streets with silver. By the bye, this treasure existed no where but in the fiction of Taycho and the imagination of the blatant beast, which never attempted to use the evidence of sense on reason to examine any assertion, how absurd and improbable soever it might be, which proceeded from the mouth of the Orator.
Yak-strot, having now taken upon himself the task of steering the political bark, resolved to shew the Japonese, that altho' he recommended peace, he was as well qualified as his predecessor for conducting the war. He therefore, with the assistance of the Fatzman, projected three naval enterprizes; the first against Thin-quo, the conquest of which had been unsuccessfully attempted by Taycho; the second was destined for the reduction of Fan-yah, one of the most considerable settlements belonging to the king of Corea, in the Indian ocean; and the third armament was sent to plunder and destroy a flourishing colony called Lli-nam, which the same prince had established almost as far to the southward as the Terra Australis Incognita. Now the only merit which either Yak-strot, or any other minister could justly claim from the success of such expeditions, is that of adopting the most feasible of those schemes which are presented by different projectors, and of appointing
such
commanders as are capable of conducting them with vigour and sagacity.
The next step which the favourite took was to provide a help-mate for the young Dairo; and a certain Tartar princess of the religion of Bupo, being pitched upon for this purpose, was formally demanded, brought over to Niphon, espoused by Gio-gio, and installed empress with the usual solemnities. But, lest the choice of a Tartarian princess should subject the Dairo to the imputation of inheriting his predecessor's predilection for the land of Yesso, which had given such sensible umbrage to all the sensible Japonese who made use of their own reason; he determined to detach his master gradually from those continental connexions, which had been the source of such enormous expence, and such continual vexation to the empire of Japan. In these sentiments, he with-held the annual tribute which had been lately payed to Brut-an-tiffi; by which means he saved a very considerable sum to the nation, and, at the same time, rescued it from the infamy of such a disgraceful imposition.—He expected the thanks of the public for this exertion of his influence in favour of his country; but he reckoned without his host. What he flattered himself would yield him an abundant harvest of honour and applause, produced nothing but odium and reproach, as we shall see in the sequel.
These measures, pursued with an eye to the advantage of the public, which seemed to argue a considerable share of spirit and capacity, were strangely chequered with others of a more domestic nature, which savoured strongly of childish vanity, rash ambition, littleness of mind, and lack of understanding. He purchased a vast ward-robe of tawdry cloaths, and fluttered in all the finery of Japan: he prevailed upon his master to vest him with the badges and trappings of all the honorary institutions of the empire, altho' this multiplication of orders in the person of one man, was altogether without precedent or prescription. This was only setting himself up as the more conspicuous mark for envy and detraction.
Not contented with engrossing the personal favour and confidence of his sovereign, and, in effect, directing the whole machine of government, he thought his fortune still imperfect, while the treasure of the empire passed through the hands of the Cuboy, enabling that minister to maintain a very extensive influence, which might one day interfere with his own. He therefore employed all his invention, together with that of his friends, to find out some specious pretext for removing the old Cuboy from his office; and in a little time accident afforded what all their intrigues had not been able to procure.
Ever since the demise of Got-hama-baba, poor Fika-kaka had been subject to a new set of vagaries. The death of his old master gave him a rude shock: then the new Dairo encroached upon his province, by preferring a Bonze without his consent or knowledge: finally, he was prevented by the express order of Gio-gio from touching a certain sum out of the treasury, which he had been accustomed to throw out of his windows at stated peperiods, in order to keep up an interest among the dregs of the people. All these mortifications had an effect upon the weak brain of the Cuboy. He began to loath his usual food, and sometimes even declined shewing himself to the Bonzes at his levee; symptoms that alarmed all his friends and dependants. Instead of frequenting the assemblies of the great, he now attended assiduously at all groanings and christenings, grew extremely fond of caudle, and held conferences with practitioners, both male and female, in the art of midwifry. When business or ceremony obliged him to visit any of the Quos or Quanbukus of Meaco; he, by a surprising instinct, ran directly to the nursery, where, if there happened to be a child in the cradle, he took it up, and if it was foul, wiped it with great care and seeming satisfaction. He, moreover, learned of the good women to sing lullabies, and practised them with uncommon success: but the most extravagant of all his whims, was what he exhibited one day in his own court-yard. Observing a nest with some eggs, which the goose had quitted, he forthwith dropped his trowsers, and squatting down in the attitude of incubation, began to stretch out his neck, to hiss and to cackle, as if he had been really metamorphosed into the animal whose place he now supplied.
It was on the back of this adventure that one of the Bonzes, as prying, and as great a gossip as the barber of Midas, in paying his morning worship to the Cuboy's posteriors, spied something, or rather nothing, and was exceedingly affrighted. He communicated his discovery and apprehension to divers others of the cloth; and they were all of opinion that some effectual inquisition should be held on this phaenomenon, lest the clergy of Japan should hereafter be scandalized, as having knowingly kissed the breech of an old woman, perhaps a monster or magician. Information was accordingly made to the Dairo, who gave orders for immediate inspection; and Fika-kaka was formally examined by a jury of matrons. Whether these were actuated by undue influence, I shall not at present explain; certain it is, they found their verdict, The Cuboy
non mas;
and among other evidences produced to attest his metamorphosis, a certain Ximian, who pretended to have the second sight, made oath that he had one evening seen the said Fika-kaka in a female dress, riding through the air on a broom-stick. The unhappy Cuboy being thus convicted, was divested of his office, and confined to his palace in the country; while Gio-gio, by the advice of his favourite, published a proclamation, declaring it was not for the honour of Japan that her treasury should be managed either by a witch or an old woman.
Fika-kaka being thus removed, Yak-strot was appointed treasurer and Cuboy in his place, and now ruled the roast with uncontrouled authority. On the very threshold of his greatness, however, he made a false step, which was one cause of his tottering, during the whole sequel of his administration. In order to refute the calumnies and defeat the intrigues of Taycho in the assemblies of the people, he chose as an associate in the ministry Fokh-sirokhu, who was at that instant the most unpopular man in the whole empire of Japan; and at the instigation of this collegue, deprived of bread a great number of poor families, who subsisted on petty places which had been bestowed upon them by the former Cuboy. Those were so many mouths opened to augment the clamour against his own person and administration.
It might be imagined, that while he thus set one part of the nation at defiance, he would endeavour to cultivate the other; and, in particular, strive to conciliate the good-will of the nobility, who did not see his exaltation without umbrage. But, instead of ingratiating himself with them by a liberal turn of demeanour; by treating them with frankness and affability; granting them favours with a good grace; making entertainments for them at his palace; and mixing in their social parties of pleasure; Yak-strot always appeared on the reserve, and under all his finery, continually wore a doublet of buckram, which gave an air of stiffness and constraint to his whole behaviour. He studied postures, and, in giving audience, generally stood in the attitude of the idol Fo; so that he sometimes was mistaken for an image of stone. He formed a scale of gesticulation in a great variety of divisions, comprehending the slightest inclination of the head, the front-nod, the side-nod, the bow, the half, the semi-demi-bow, with the shuffle, the slide, the circular, semi-circular, and quadrant sweep of the right foot. With equal care and precision did he model the oeconomy of his looks into the divisions and sub-divisions of the fullstare, the side-glance, the pensive look, the pouting look, the gay look, the vacant look, and the stolid look. To these different expressions of the eye he suited the corresponding features of the nose and mouth; such as the wrinkled nose, the retorted nose, the sneer, the grin, the simper, and the smile. All these postures and gesticulations he practised, and distributed occasionally, according to the difference of rank and importance of the various individuals with whom he had communication.
But these affected airs being assumed in despite of nature, he appeared as aukward as a native of Angola, when he is first hampered with cloaths; or a Highlander, obliged by act of parliament to wear breeches.—Indeed, the distance observed by Yakstrot in his behaviour to the nobles of Niphon, was imputed to his being conscious of a sulphureous smell which came from his own body; so that greater familiarity on his side might have bred contempt. He took delight in no other conversation but that of two or three obscure Ximians, his companions and counsellors, with whom he spent all his leisure time, in conferences upon politics, patriotism, philosophy, and the Belles Lettres. Those were the oracles he consulted in all the emergencies of state; and with these he spent many an Attic evening.
The gods, not yet tired of sporting with the farce of human government, were still resolved to shew by what inconsiderable springs a mighty empire may be moved. The new Cuboy was vastly well disposed to make his Ximian favourites great men. It was in his power to bestow places and pensions upon them; but it was not in his power to give them consequence in the eyes of the public. The administration of Yakstrot could not fail of being propitious to his own family, and poor relations, who were very numerous. Their naked backs and hungry bellies were now clothed with the richest stuffs, and fed with the fat things of Japan. Every department civil and military was filled with Ximians. Those islanders came over in shoals to Niphon, and swarmed in the streets of Meaco, where they were easily distinguished by their lank sides, gaunt looks, lanthornjaws, and long sharp teeth.—There was a fatality that attended the whole conduct of this unfortunate Cuboy. His very partiality to his own countrymen, brought upon him at last the curses of the whole clan.
Mr. Orator Taycho and his kinsman Lob-kob were not idle in the mean time. They provided their emissaries, and primed all their engines. Their understrappers filled every corner of Meaco with rumours, jealousies, and suspicions. Yak-strot was represented as a statesman without discernment, a minister without knowledge, and a man without humanity. He was taxed with insupportable pride, indiscretion, pusillanimity, rapacity, partiality, and breach of faith. It was affirmed that he had dishonoured the nation, and endangered the very existence of the Buponian religion, in withdrawing the annual subsidy from the great Brut-an-tiffi: that he wanted to starve the war, and betray the glory and advantage of the empire by a shameful peace: that he had avowedly shared his administration with the greatest knave in Japan: that he treated the nobles of Niphon with insolence and contempt: that he had suborned evidence against the antient Cuboy Fika-kaka, who had spent a long life and an immense fortune in supporting the temple of Fak-ku-basi: that he had cruelly turned adrift a great number of helpless families, in order to gratify his own worthless dependants with their spoils: that he had enriched his relations and countrymen with the plunder of Niphon: that his intention was to bring over the whole nation of Ximians, a savage race, who had been ever perfidious, greedy, and hostile towards the natives of the other Japonese islands. Nay, they were described as monsters in nature, with cloven feet, long tails, saucer eyes, iron fangs and claws, who would first devour the substance of the Niphonites, and then feed upon their blood.
Taycho had Legion's understanding so much in his power, that he actually made it believe Yak-strot had formed a treasonable scheme in favour of a foreign adventurer who pretended to the throne of Japan, and that the reigning Dairo was an accomplice in this project for his own deposition. Indeed, they did not scruple to say that Gio-gio was no more than a puppet moved by his own grandmother and this vile Ximian, between whom they hinted there was a secret correspondence which reflected very little honour on the family of the Dairo.
Mr. Orator Taycho and his associate Lob-kob left no stone unturned to disgrace the favourite, and drive him from the helm. They struck up an alliance with the old Cuboy Fika-kaka, and fetching him from his retirement, produced him to the beast as a martyr to loyalty and virtue. They had often before this period, exposed him to the derision of the populace; but now they set him up as the object of veneration and esteem; and every thing succeeded to their wish. Legion hoisted Fika-kaka on his back, and paraded through the streets of Meaco, braying hoarse encomiums on the great talents and great virtues of the antient Cuboy. His cause was now espoused by his old friends Stiphi-rum-poo and Nin-kom-poo-poo, who had been turned adrist along with him, and by several other Quos who had nestled themselves in warm places under the shadow of his protection: but it was remarkable, that not one of all the Bonzes who owed their preferment to his favour, had gratitude enough to sollow his fortune, or pay the least respect to him in the day of his disgrace.—Advantage was also taken of the disgust occasioned by Yak-strot's reserve among the nobles of Japan. Even the Fatz-man was estranged from the councils of his kinsman Giogio, and lent his name and countenance to the malcontents, who now formed themselves into a very formidable cabal, comprehending a great number of the first Quos in the empire.
In order to counterballance this confederacy, which was a strange coalition of jarring interests, the new Cuboy endeavoured to strengthen his administration, by admitting into a share of it Gotto-mio, who dreaded nothing so much as the continuation of the war, and divers other noblemen, whose alliance contributed very little to his interest or advantage. Gotto-mio was universally envied for his wealth, and detested for his avarice: the rest were either of the She-itkum-sheit-el faction, which had been long in disgrace with the Mobile; or men of desperate fortunes and loose morals, who attached themselves to the Ximian favourite solely on account of the posts and pensions he had to bestow.
During these domestic commotions, the arms of Japan continued to prosper in the Indian ocean. Thinquo was reduced almost without opposition; and news arrived that the conquest of Fan-yah was already more than half atchieved. At the same time, some considerable advantages were gained over the enemy on the continent of Tartary, by the Japonese forces under the command of Bron-xi-tic. It might be naturally supposed that these events would have, in some measure, reconciled the Niphonites to the new ministry: but they produced rather a contrary effect. The blatant beast was resolved to rejoice at no victories but those that were obtained under the auspices of its beloved Taycho; and now took it highly amiss that Yak-strot should presume to take any step which might redound to the glory of the empire. Nothing could have pleased the monster at this juncture so much as the miscarriage of both expeditions, and a certain information that all the troops and ships employed in them had miserably perished. The king of Corea, however, was so alarmed at the progress of the Japonese before Fan-yah, that he began to tremble for all his distant colonies, and earnestly craved the advice of the cabinet of Pekin touching some scheme to make a diversion in their favour.
The councils of Pekin have been ever fruitful of intrigues to embroil the rest of Asia. They suggested a plan to the king of Corea, which he forthwith put in execution. The land of Fumma, which borders on the Corean territories, was governed by a prince nearly allied to the king of Corea, although his subjects had very intimate connexions in the way of commerce with the empire of Japan, which, indeed, had entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with this country. The emperor of China and the king of Corea having sounded the sovereign of Fumma, and found him well disposed to enter into their measures, communicated their scheme, in which he immediately concurred. They called upon him in public, as their friend and ally, to join them against the Japonese, as the inveterate enemy of the religion of Fo, and as an insolent people, who affected a despotism at sea, to the detriment and destruction of all their neighbours; plainly declaring that he must either immediately break with the Dairo, or expect an invasion on the side of Corea. The prince of Fumma affected to complain loudly of this iniquitous proposal; he made a merit of rejecting the alternative; and immediately demanded of the court of Meaco, the succours stipulated in the treaty of alliance, in order to defend his dominions. In all appearance, indeed, there was no time to be lost; for the monarchs of China and Corea declared war against him without further hesitation; and uniting their forces on that side, ordered them to enter the land of Fumma, after having given satisfactory assurances in private, that the prince had nothing to fear from their hostilities.
Yak-strot was not much embarrassed on this occasion. Without suspecting the least collusion among the parties, he resolved to take the prince of Fumma under his protection, thereunto moved by divers considerations. First and foremost, he piqued himself upon his good faith: secondly, he knew that the trade with Fumma was of great consequence to Japan; and therefore concluded that his supporting the sovereign of it would be a popular measure: thirdly, he hoped that the multiplication of expence incurred by this new war, would make the blatant beast wince under its burden, and of consequence reconcile it to the thoughts of a general pacification, which he had very much at heart. Mean while he hastened the necessary succours to the land of Fumma, and sent thither an old general called Le-yaw-ter, in order to concert with the prince and his ministers the operations of the campaign.
This officer was counted one of the shrewdest politicians in Japan, and having resided many years as ambassador in Fumma, was well acquainted with the genius of that people. He immediately discovered the scene which had been acted behind the curtain. He found that the prince of Fumma, far from having made any preparations for his own defence, had actually withdrawn his garrisons from the frontier places, which were by this time peaceably occupied by the invading army of Chinese and Coreans: that the few troops he had, were without cloaths, arms, and discipline; and that he had amused the court of Meaco with false musters, and a specious account of levies and preparations which had been made. In a word, though he could not learn the particulars, he comprehended the whole mystery of the secret negotiations. He upbraided the minister of Fumma with persidy, refused to assume the command of the Japonese auxiliaries when they arrived, and returning to Meaco, communicated his discoveries and suspicions to the new Cuboy. But he did not meet with that reception which he thought he deserved for intelligence of such importance. Yak-strot affected to doubt; perhaps, he was not really convinced; or, if he was, thought proper to temporize; and he was in the right for so doing. A rupture with Fumma at this juncture, would have forced the prince to declare openly for the enemies of Japan; in which case the inhabitants of Niphon would have lost the benefit of a very advantageous trade. They had already been great sufferers in commerce by the breach with the king of Corea, whose subjects had been used to take off great quantities of the Japonese manufactures, for which they payed in gold and silver; and they could ill bear such an additional loss as an interruption of the trade with Fumma would have occasioned. The Cuboy, therefore, continued to treat the prince of that country as a staunch ally, who had sacrificed every other consideration to his good faith; and, far from restricting himself to the number of troops and Fune stipulated in the treaty, sent over a much more numerous body of sorces and ships of war; declaring, at the same time, he would support the people of Fumma with the whole power of Japan.
Such a considerable diversion of the Japonese strength could not fail to answer, in some measure, the expectation of the two sovereigns of China and Corea; but it did not prevent the success of the expeditions which were actually employed against their colonies in the Indian ocean. It was not in his power, however, to protect Fumma, had the invaders been in earnest: but the combined army of the Chinese and Coreans had orders to protract the war; and, instead of penetrating to the capital, at a time when the Fummians, tho' joined with the auxiliaries of Japan, were not numerous enough to look them in the face, they made a full-stop in the middle of their march, and quietly retired into summer quarters.
The additional incumbrance of a new continental war, redoubled the Cuboy's desire of peace; and his inclination being known to the enemy, who were also sick of the war, they had recourse to the good offices of a certain neutral power, called Sab-oi, sovereign of the mountains of Cambodia. This prince accordingly offered his mediation at the court of Meaco, and it was immediately accepted.—The negotiation for peace, which had been broke off in the ministry of Taycho, was now resumed; an ambassador plenipotentiary arrived from Pekin; and Gotto-mio was sent thither in the same capacity, in order to adjust the articles, and sign the preliminaries of peace.
While this new treaty was on the carpet, the armament equipped against Fan-yah under the command of the Quo Kep-marl, and the brave admiral, who had signalized himself in the sea of Kamtschatka, reduced that important place, where they became masters of a strong squadron of Fune belonging to the king of Corea, together with a very considerable treasure, sufficient to indemnify Japan for the expence of the expedition. This, though the most grievous, was not the only disaster which the war brought upon the Coreans. Their distant settlement of Lli-nam was likewise taken by general Tra-rep, and the inhabitants payed an immense sum in order to redeem their capital from plunder.
These successes did not at all retard the conclusion of the treaty, which was indeed become equally necessary to all the parties concerned. Japan, in particular, was in danger of being ruined by her conquests. The war had destroyed so many men, that the whole empire could not afford a sufficiency of recruits for the maintenance of the land-forces. All those who had conquered Fatsisio and Fan-yah, were already destroyed by hard duty and the diseases of those unhealthy climates: above two-thirds of the Fune were rotten in the course of service; and the complements of mariners reduced to less than one half of their original numbers. Troops were actually wanting to garrison the new conquests. The finances of Japan were by this time drained to the bottom. One of her chief resources was stopped by the rupture with Corea; while her expences were considerably augmented; and her national credit was stretched even to cracking. All these considerations stimulated more and more the Dairo and his Cuboy to conclude the work of peace.
Mean while the enemies of Yakstrot gave him no quarter nor respite. They vilified his parts, traduced his morals, endeavoured to intimidate him with threats which did not even respect the Dairo, and never failed to insult him whenever he appeared in public. It had been the custom, time immemorial, for the chief magistrate of Meaco to make an entertainment for the Dairo and his empress, immediately after their nuptials, and to this banquet all the great Quos in Japan were invited. The person who filled the chair at present, was Rhum-kikh, an half-witted politician, self-conceited, head-strong, turbulent, and ambitious; a professed worshipper of Taycho, whose oratorial talents he admired, and attempted to imitate in the assemblies of the people, where he generally excited the laughter of his audience. By dint of great wealth and extensive traffick he became a man of consequence among the mob, notwithstanding an illiberal turn of mind, and an ungracious address; and now he resolved to use this influence for the glory of Taycho and the disgrace of the Ximian favourite. Legion was tutored for the purpose, and moreover, well primed with a fiery caustic spirit in which Rhum-kikh was a considerable dealer. The Dairo and his young empress were received by him and his council with a sullen formality in profound silence. The Cuboy was pelted as he passed along, and his litter almost overturned by the monster, which yelled, and brayed, and hooted without ceasing, until he was housed in the city-hall, where he met with every sort of mortification from the entertainer as well as the spectators. At length Mr. Orator Taycho, with his cousin Lob-kob, appearing in a triumphal car at the city-gate, the blatant beast received them with loud huzzas, unharnessed their horses, and putting itself in the traces, drew them through the streets of Meaco, which resounded with acclamation. They were received with the same exultation within the hall of entertainment, where their sovereign and his consort sat altogether unhonoured and unnoticed.
A small squadron of Chinese Fune having taken possession of a defenceless fishery belonging to Japan, in the neighbourhood of Fatsisio, the emissaries of Taycho magnified this event into a terrible misfortune, arising from the maladministration of the new Cuboy: nay, they did not scruple to affirm, that he had left the fishing-town defenceless on purpose that it might be taken by the enemy. This clamour, however, was of short duration. The Quo Phyl-Kholl, who commanded a few Fune in one of the harbours of Fatsisio, no sooner received intelligence of what had happened, than he embarked what troops were at hand, and sailing directly to the place, obliged the enemy to abandon their conquest with precipitation and disgrace.
In the midst of these transactions, the peace was signed, ratified, and even approved in the great national council of the Quos, as well as in the assembly of the people. The truth is, the minister of Japan has it always in his power to secure a majority in both these conventions, by means that may be easily guessed; and those were not spared on this occasion. Yak-strot, in a speech, harangued the great council, who were not a little surprised to hear him speak with such propriety and extent of knowledge; for he had been represented as tongue-tied, and in point of elocution, little better than the palfrey he rode. He now vindicated all the steps he had taken since his accession to the helm: he demonstrated the necessity of a pacification; explained and descanted upon every article of the treaty; and finally, declared his conscience was so clear in this matter, that when he died, he should desire no other encomium to be engraved on his tomb, but that he was the author of this peace.
Nevertheless, the approbation of the council was not obtained without violent debate and altercation. The different articles were censured and inveighed against by the Fatzman, the late Cuboy Fika-kaka, Lob-kob, Sti-phi-rum-poo, Nin-kom-poo-poo, and many other Quos; but, at the long-run, the influence of the present ministry predominated. As for Taycho, he exerted himself in a very extraordinary effort to depreciate the peace in the assembly of the people. He had for some days pretended to be dangerously ill, that he might make a merit of his patriotism by shewing a contempt for his own life, when the good of his country was at stake. In order to excite the admiration of the public, and render his appearance in the assembly the more striking, he was carried thither on a kind of handbarrow, wrapped up in flannel, with three woollen night-caps on his head, efcorted by Legion, which yelled, and brayed, and whooped, and hollowed, with such vociferation, that every street of Meaco rung with hideous clamour. In this equipage did Taycho enter the assembly, where, being held up by two adherents, he, after a prelude of groans to rouse the attention of his audience, began to declaim against the peace as inadequate, shameful, and disadvantageous: nay, he ventured to stigmatize every separate article, though he knew it was in the power of each individual of his hearers, to confront him with the terms to which he had subscribed the preceding year, in all respects less honourable and advantageous to his country. Inconsistencies equally glaring and absurd he had often crammed down the throats of the multitude: but they would not go down with this assembly of the people, which, in spite of his flannel, his night-caps, his crutches, and his groans, confirmed the treaty of peace by a great majority. Not that they had any great reason to applaud the peace-makers, who might have dictated their own terms, had they proceeded with more sagacity and less precipitation. But Fokh-sirokhu and his brother undertakers, having the treasure of Japan at their command, had anointed the greatest part of the assembly with a certain precious salve, which preserved them effectually from the fascinating arts of Taycho.
This Orator, incensed at his bad success within doors, renewed and redoubled his operations without. He exasperated Legion aganst Yak-strot to such a pitch of rage, that the monster could not hear the Cuboy's name three times pronounced without falling into fits. His confederate Lob-kob, in the course of his researches, found out two originals admirably calculated for executing his vengeance against the Ximian favourite. One of them, called Llurchir, a profligate Bonze, degraded for his lewd life, possessed a wonderful talent of exciting different passions in the blatant beast, by dint of quaint rhimes, which were said to be inspirations of the daemon of obloquy, to whom he had sold his soul. These oracles not only commanded the passions, but even influenced the organs of the beast in such a manner, as to occasion an evacuation either upwards or downwards, at the pleasure of the operator. The other, known by the name of Jan-ki-dtzin, was counted the best marksman in Japan in the art and mystery of dirt-throwing. He possessed the art of making balls of filth, which were famous for sticking and stinking; and these he threw with such dexterity, that they very seldom missed their aim. Being reduced to a low ebb of fortune by his debaucheries, he had made advances to the new Cuboy, who had rejected his proffered services, on account of his immoral character: a prudish punctilio, which but ill became Yak-strot, who had payed very little regard to reputation in choosing some of the colleagues he had associated in his administration. Be that as it may, he no sooner understood that Mr. Orator Taycho was busy in preparing for an active campaign, than he likewise began to put himself in a posture of defence. He hired a body of mercenaries, and provided some dirt-men and rhymers. Then, taking the field, a sharp contest and pelting-match ensued: but the dispute was soon terminated. Yak-strot's versifiers turned out no great conjurers, on the trial. They were not such favourites of the daemon as Llur-chir. The rhimes they used, produced no other effect upon Legion, but that of setting it a-braying. The Cuboy's dirt-men, however, played their parts tolerably well. Though their balls were inferior in point of composition to those of Jan-ki-dtzin, they did not fail to discompose Orator Taycho and his friend Lob-kob, whose eyes were seen to water with the smart occasioned by those missiles: but these last had a great advantage over their adversaries, in the zeal and attachment of Legion, whose numerous tongues were always ready to lick off the ordure that stuck to any part of their leaders; and this they did with such signs of satisfaction, as seemed to indicate an appetite for all manner of filth.
Yak-strot having suffered wosully in his own person, and seeing his partisans in confusion, thought proper to retreat. Yet, although discomfited, he was not discouraged. On the contrary, having at bottom a fund of fanaticism which, like camomile, grows the faster for being trod upon, he became more obstinately bent than ever upon prosecuting his own schemes for the good of the people in their own despite. His vanity was likewise buoyed up by the flattery of his creatures, who extolled the passive courage he had shewn in the late engagement. Tho' every part of him still tingled and stunk from the balls of the enemy, he persuaded himself that not one of their missiles had taken place; and of consequence, that there was something of divinity in his person. Full of this notion, he discarded his rhymsters and his dirt-casters as unnecessary, and resolved to bear the brunt of the battle in his own individual.
Fokh-si-rokhu advised him, nevertheless, to fill his trowsers with gold Obans, which he might throw at Legion in case of necessity, assuring him that this was the only ammunition which the monster could not withstand. The advice was good; and the Cuboy might have followed it, without being obliged to the treasury of Japan; for he was by this time become immensely rich, in consequence of having found a hoard in digging his garden: but this was an expedient which Yak-strot could never be prevailed upon to use, either on this or any other occasion. Indeed, he was now so convinced of his own personal energy, that he persuaded his master Gio-gio to come forth and see it operate on the blatant beast. Accordingly the Dairo ascended his car of state, while the Cuboy, arrayed in all his trappings, stood before him with the reins in his own hand, and drove directly to the enemy, who waited for him without flinching. Being arrived within dung-shot of Jan-ki-dtzin, he made a halt, and putting himself in the attitude of the idol Fo, with a simper in his countenance, seemed to invite the warrior to make a full discharge of his artillery. He did not long wait in suspence. The balls soon began to whizz about his ears; and a great number took effect upon his person. At length, he received a shot upon his right temple which brought him to the ground. All his gewgaws fluttered, and his buckram doublet rattled as he fell. Llur-chir no sooner beheld him prostrate, than advancing with the monster, he began to repeat his rhymes, at which every mouth and every tail of Legion was opened and listed up; and such a torrent of filth squirted from these channels, that the unfortunate Cuboy was quite overwhelmed. Nay, he must have been actually suffocated where he lay, had not some of the Dairo's attendants interposed and rescued him from the vengeance of the monster. He was carried home in such an unsavoury pickle, that his family smelled his disaster long before he came in sight; and when he appeared in this woeful condition, covered with ordure, blinded with dirt, and even deprived of sense and motion, his wife was seized with
hysterica passio.
He was immediately stripped and washed, and other means being used for his recovery, he in a little time retrieved his recollection.
He was now pretty well undeceived, with respect to the divinity of his person: but his enthusiasm took a new turn. He aspired to the glory of martyrdom, and resolved to devote himself as a victim to patriotic virtue. While his attendants were employed in washing off the filth that stuck to his beard, he recited in a theatrical tone, the stanza of a famous Japonese bard, whose soul afterwards transmigrated into the body of the Roman poet Horatius Flaccus, and inspired him with the same sentiment in the Latin tongue.
Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae
Intaminatis fulget honoribus;
Nec sumit, aut ponit secures
Arbitrio popularis aurae.
His friends hearing him declare his resolution of dying for his country, began to fear that his understanding was disturbed. They advised him to yield to the torrent, which was become too impetuous to stem; to resign the Cuboyship quietly, and reserve his virtues for a more favourable occasion. In vain his friends remonstrated: in vain his wife and children employed their tears and intreaties to the same purpose. He lent a deaf ear to all their sollicitations, until they began to drop some hints that seemed to imply a suspicion of his insanity, which alarmed him exceedingly; and the Dairo himself signifying to him in private, that it was become absolutely necessary to temporize, he resigned the reins of government with a heavy heart, though not before he was assured that he should still continue to exert his influence behind the curtain,
Gio-gio's own person had not escaped untouched in the last skirmish. Jan-ki-dtzin was transported to such a pitch of insolence, that he aimed some balls at the Dairo, and one of them taking place exactly betwixt the eyes, defiled his whole visage. Had the laws of Japan been executed in all their severity against this audacious plebeian, he would have suffered crucifixion on the spot: but Gio-gio, being good-natured even to a fault, contented himself with ordering some of his attendants to apprehend and put him in the public stocks, after having seized the whole cargo of filth which he had collected at his habitation for the manufacture of his balls. Legion was no sooner informed of his disgrace, than it released him by force, being therein comforted and abetted by the declaration of a puny magistrate, called Praff-patt-phogg, who seized this, as the only opportunity he should ever find of giving himself any consequence in the commonwealth. Accordingly, the monster hoisting him and Jan-ki-dtzin on their shoulders, went in procession through the streets of Meaco, hollowing, huzzaing, and extolling this venerable pair of patriots as the
Palladia
of the liberty of Japan.
The monster's officious zeal on this occasion, was far from being agreeable to Mr. Orator Taycho, who took umbrage at this exaltation of his two understrappers, and from that moment devoted Jan-ki-dtzin to destruction. The Dairo finding it absolutely necessary for the support of his government, that this dirt-monger should be punished, gave directions for trying him according to the laws of the land. He was ignominiously expelled from the assembly of the people, where his old patron Taycho not only disclaimed him, but even represented him as a worthless atheist and sower of sedition: but he escaped the weight of a more severe sentence in another tribunal, by retreating without beat of drum, into the territories of China, where he found an asylum, from whence he made divers ineffectual appeals to the multitudinous beast at Niphon.
As for Yak-strot, he was every thing but a down-right martyr to the odium of the public, which produced a ferment all over the nation. His name was become a term of reproach. He was burnt or crucified in effigy in every city, town, village, and district of Niphon. Even his own countrymen, the Ximians, held him in abhorrence and execration. Notwithstanding his partiality to the
natale solum,
he had not been able to provide for all those adventurers who came from thence in consequence of his promotion. The whole number of the disappointed became his enemies of course; and the rest finding themselves exposed to the animosity and ill offices of their fellow-subjects of Niphon, who hated the whole community for his sake, inveighed against Yak-strot as the curse of their nation.
In the midst of all this detestation and disgrace, it must be owned for the sake of truth, that Yak-strot was one of the honestest men in Japan, and certainly the greatest benefactor to the empire. Just, upright, sincere, and charitable; his heart was susceptible of friendship and tenderness. He was a virtuous husband, a fond father, a kind master, and a zealous friend. In his public capacity he had nothing in view but the advantage of Japan, in the prosecution of which he flattered himself he should be able to display all the abilities of a profound statesman, and all the virtues of the most sublime patriotism. It was here he over-rated his own importance. His virtue became the dupe of his vanity. Nature had denied him shining talents, as well as that easiness of deportment, that affability, liberal turn, and versatile genius, without which no man can ever figure at the head of an administration. Nothing could be more absurd than his being charged with want of parts and understanding to guide the helm of government, considering how happily it had been conducted for many years by Fika-kaka, whose natural genius would have been found unequal even to the art and mystery of wool-combing. Besides, the war had prospered in his hands as much as it ever did under the auspices of his predecessor; though, as I have before observed, neither the one nor the other could justly claim any merit from its success.
But Yak-strot's services to the public, were much more important in another respect. He had the resolution to dissolve the shameful and pernicious engagements which the empire had contracted on the continent of Tartary. He lightened the intolerable burthens of the empire: he saved its credit when it was stretched even to bursting. He made a peace, which, if not the most glorious that might have been obtained, was, at least, the most solid and advantageous that ever Japan had concluded with any power whatsoever; and, in particular, much more honourable, useful, and ascertained, than that which Taycho had agreed to subscribe the preceding year; and, by this peace, he put an end to all the horrors of a cruel war, which had ravaged the best parts of Asia, and destroyed the lives of six hundred thousand men every year. On the whole, Yak-strot's good qualities were respectable. There was very little vicious in his composition; and as to his follies, they were rather the subjects of ridicule than of resentment.
Yak-strot's subalterns in the ministry, rejoiced in secret at his running so far into the north of Legion's displeasure. Nay, it was shrewdly suspected that some of their emissaries had been very active against him in the day of his discomfiture. They flattered themselves, that if he could be effectually driven from the presence of the Dairo, they would succeed to his influence; and in the mean time would acquire popularity by turning tail to, and kicking at, the Ximian favourite, who had associated them in the administration in consequence of their vowing eternal attachment to his interest, and constant submission to his will. Having held a secret conclave to concert their operations, they began to execute their plan, by seducing Yak-strot into certain odious measures of raising new impositions on the people, which did not fail, indeed, to increase the clamour of the blatant Beast, and promote its filthy discharge upwards and downwards; but then the torrents were divided, and many a tail was lifted up against the real projectors of the scheme which the favourite had adopted. They now resolved to make a merit with the Mobile, by picking a german quarrel with Strot, and insulting him in public. Gotto-mio caused a scrubbing-post to be set up in the night, at the Cuboy's door.—The scribe Zan-ti-fic presented him with a scheme for the importation of brimstone into the island of Ximo: the other scribe pretended he could not spell the barbarous names of the Cuboy's relations and countrymen, who were daily thrust into the most lucrative employments. As for Twitz-er the Financier, he never approached Yak-strot without clawing his knuckles in derision. At the council of Twenty-Eight, they thwarted every plan he proposed, and turned into ridicule every word he spoke. At length they bluntly told the Dairo, that as Yak-strot resigned the reins of administration in public, he must likewise give up his management behind the curtain; for they were not at all disposed to answer to the people for measures dictated by an invisible agent. This was but a reasonable demand, in which the emperor seemed to acquiesce. But the new ministers thought it was requisite that they should commit some overt act of contempt for the abdicated Cuboy. One of his nearest relations had obtained a profitable office in the island of Ximo; and of this, the new cabal insisted he should be immediately deprived. The Dairo remonstrated against the injustice of turning a man out of his place for no other reason but to satisfy their caprice; and plainly told them he could not do it without infringing his honour, as he had given his word that the possessor should enjoy the post for life. Far from being satisfied with this declaration, they urged their demand with redoubled importunity, mixed with menaces which equally embarrassed and incensed the goodnatured Dairo. At last Yak-strot, taking compassion upon his indulgent master, prevailed upon his kinsman to release him from the obligation of his word, by making a voluntary resignation of his office. The Dairo fell sick of vexation: his life was despaired of; and all Japan was filled with alarm and apprehension at the prospect of an infant's ascending the throne: for the heir apparent was still in the cradle.
Their fears, however, were happily disappointed by the recovery of the emperor, who, to prevent as much as possible the inconveniences that might attend his demise, during the minority of his son, resolved that a regency should be established and ratified by the states of the empire. The plan of this regency he concerted in private with the venerable princess his grandmother, and his friend Yak-strot; and then communicated the design to his ministers, who knowing the quarter from whence it had come, treated it with coldness and contempt. They were so elevated by their last triumph over the Ximian favourite, that they overlooked every obstacle to their ambition; and determined to render the Dairo dependant on them, and them only. With this view they threw cold water on the present measure; and to mark their hatred of the favourite more strongly in the eyes of Legion, they endeavoured to exclude the name of his patroness the Dairo's grandmother, from the deed of regency, though their malice was frustrated by the vigilance of Yak-strot, and the indignation of the states, who resented this affront offered to the family of their sovereign.
The tyranny of this junto became so intolerable to Gio-gio, that he resolved to shake off their yoke, whatever might be the consequence: but before any effectual step was taken for this purpose, Yak-strot, who understood mechanics, and had studied the art of puppet-playing, tried an experiment on the organs of the cabal, which he tempered with individually without success. Instead of uttering what he prompted, the sounds came out quite altered in their passage. Gotto-mio grunted; the Financier Twitz-er bleated, or rather brayed; one scribe mewed like a cat; the other yelped like a jackall. In short, they were found so perverse and refractory, that the master of the motion kicked them off the stage, and supplied the scene with a new set of puppets made of very extraordinary materials. They were the very figures through whose pipes the charge of mal-administration had been so loudly sounded against the Ximian favourite. They were now mustered by the Fatzman, and hung upon the pegs of the very same puppet-shew-man against whom they had so vehemently inveighed. Even the superannuated Fika-kaka appeared again upon the stage as an actor of some consequence; and insisted upon it, that his metamorphosis was a meer calumny. But Taycho and Lob-kob kept aloof, because Yak-strot had not yet touched them on the proper keys.
The first exhibition of the new puppets, was called
Topsy-turvy,
a farce in which they overthrew all the paper houses which their predecessors had built: but they performed their parts in such confusion, that Yak-strot interposing to keep them in order, received divers contusions and severe kicks on the shins, which made his eyes water; and, indeed, he had in a little time reason enough to repent of the revolution he had brought about. The new sticks of administration proved more stiff and unmanageable than the former; and those he had discarded, associating with the blatant Beast, bedaubed him with such a variety of filth, drained from all the sewers of scurrility, that he really became a public nuisance. Gotto-mio pretended remorse of conscience, and declared he would impeach Yak-strot for the peace which he himself had negotiated. Twitz-er snivelled and cried, and cast figures to prove that Yak-strot was born for the destruction of Japan; and Zan-ti-fic lured an incendiary Bonze called Toks, to throw fire-balls by night into the palace of the favourite.
In this distress Strot cast his eyes on Taycho the monstertamer, who alone seemed able to over-ballance the weight of all other opposition; and to him he made large advances accordingly; but his offers were still inadequate to the expectations of that Demagogue, who, nevertheless, put on a face of capitulation. He was even heard to say that Yak-strot was an honest man and a good minister: nay, he declared he would ascend the highest pinnacle of the highest pagod in Japan, and proclaim that Yak-strot had never, directly nor indirectly, meddled with administration since he resigned the public office of minister. Finding him, however, tardy and phlegmatic in his proposals, he thought proper to change his phrase, and in the next assembly of the people swore, with great vociferation, that the said Yak-strot was the greatest rogue that ever escaped the gallows. This was a necessary fillip to Yak-strot, and operated upon him so effectually, that he forthwith sent a charte blanche to the great Taycho, and a treaty was immediately ratified on the following conditions: That the said Taycho should be raised to the rank of Quanbuku, and be appointed conservator of the Dairo's signet: that no state measure should be taken without his express approbation: that his creature the lawyer Prafffog should be ennobled and preferred to the most eminent place in the tribunals of Japan; and that all his friends and dependants should be provided for at the public expence, in such a manner as he himself should propose. His kinsman Lob-kob, however, was not comprehended in this treaty, the articles of which he inveighed against with such acrimony, that a rupture ensued betwixt these two originals. The truth is, Lob-kob was now so full of his own importance, that nothing less than an equal share of administration would satisfy his ambition; and this was neither in Taycho's power nor inclination to grant.
The first consequence of this treaty was a new shift of hands, and a new dance of ministers. The chair of precedency was pulled from under the antiquated Fika-kaka, who fell upon his back; and his heels flying up, discovered but too plainly the melancholy truth of his metamorphosis. All his colleagues were discarded, except those who thought proper to temporize and join in dancing the hay, according as they were actuated by the new partners of the puppet-shew. This coalition was the greatest master-piece in politics that ever Yak-strot performed. Taycho, the formidable Taycho! whom in his single person he dreaded more than all his other enemies of Japan united, was now become his coadjutor, abettor, and advocate; and, which was still of more consequence to Strot, that Demagogue was forsaken of his good genius Legion.
The many-headed Monster would have swallowed down every other species of tergiversation in Taycho, except a coalition with the detested favourite, and the title of Quo, by which he formally renounced its society: but these were articles which the mongrel could not digest. The tidings of this union threw the Beast into a kind of stupor, from which it was roused by blisters and cauteries applied by Gotto-mio, Twitz-er, Zan-ti-fic, with his understrapper Toks, now reinforced by Fika-kaka, and his discarded associates: for their common hatred to Yak-strot, like the rod of Moses, swallowed up every distinction of party, and every suggestion of former animosity; and they concurred with incredible zeal, in rousing Legion to a due sense of Taycho's apostacy. The Beast, so stimulated, howled three days and three nights successively at Taycho's gate; then was seized with a convulsion, that went off with an evacuation upwards and downwards, so offensive, that the very air was infected.
The horrid sounds of the Beast's lamentation, the noxious effluvia of its filthy discharge, joined to the poignant remorse which Taycho felt at finding his power over Legion dissolved, occasioned a commotion in his brain; and this led him into certain extravagancies, which gave his enemies a handle to say he was actually insane. His former friends and partizans thought the best apology they could make for the inconsistency of his conduct, was to say he was
non compos;
and this report was far from being disagreeable to Yak-strot, because it would at any time furnish him with a plausible pretence to dissolve the partnership, at which he inwardly repined: for it was necessity alone that drove him to a partition of his power with a man so incapable of acting in concert with any collegue whatsoever.
In the mean time Gotto-mio and his associates left no stone unturned to acquire the same influence over Legion, which Taycho had so eminently possessed: but the Beast's faculties, slender as they were, seemed now greatly impaired, in consequence of that arch empiric's practices upon its constitution. In vain did Gotto-mio hoop and hollow: in vain did Twitz-er tickle its long ears: in vain did Zan-ti-fic apply sternutatories, and his Bonze administer inflammatory glysters; the monster could never be brought to a right understanding, or at all concur with their designs, except in one instance, which was its antipathy to the Ximian favourite. This had become so habitual, that it acted mechanically upon its organs, even after it had lost all other signs of recognition. As often as the name of Yak-strot was pronounced, the Beast began to yell; and all the usual consequences ensued: but whenever his new friends presumed to mount him, he threw himself on his back, and rolled them in the kennel at the hazard of their lives.
One would imagine there was some leaven in the nature of Yakstrot, that soured all his subalterns who were natives of Niphon; for howsoever they promised all submission to his will before they were admitted into his motion, they no sooner found themselves acting characters in his drama, than they began to thwart him in his measures; so that he was plagued by those he had taken in, and persecuted by those he had driven out. The two great props which he had been at so much pains to provide, now failed him. Taycho was grown crazy, and could no longer manage the monster; and Quam-bacundono the Fatzman, whose authority had kept several puppets in awe, died about this period. These two circumstances were the more alarming, as Gotto-mio and his crew began to gain ground, not only in their endeavours to rouse the Monster, but also in tampering with some of the acting puppets, to join their cabal and make head against their master. These exoterics grew so refractory, that when he tried to wheel them to the right, they turned to the left about; and, instead of joining hands in the dance of politics, rapped their heads against each other with such violence, that the noise of the collision was heard in the street; and if they had not been made of the hardest wood in Japan, some of them would certainly have been split in the encounter.
By this time Legionbegan to have some sense of its own miserable condition. The effects of the yeast potions which it had drank so liberally from the hands of Taycho, now wore off. The fumes dispersed; the illusion vanished; the flatulent tumor of its belly disappeared with innumerable explosions, leaving a hideous lankness and such a canine appetite as all the eatables of Japan could not satisfy. After having devoured the whole harvest, it yawned for more, and grew quite outrageous in its hunger, threatening to feed on human flesh, if not plentifully supplied with other viands. In this dilemma Yak-strot convened the council of Twenty-Eight, where, in consideration of the urgency of the case, it was resolved to suspend the law against the importation of foreign provisions, and open the ports of Japan for the relief of the blatant Beast.
As this was vesting the Dairo with a dispensing power unknown to the constitution of Japan, it was thought necessary at the next assembly of the Quos and Quanbukus that constitute the legislature, to obtain a legal sanction for that extraordinary exercise of prerogative, which nothing but the
salus populi
could excuse. Upon this occasion it was diverting to see with what effrontery individuals changed their principles with their places. Taycho the Quo, happening to be in one of his lucid intervals, went to the assembly, supported by his two creatures Praff-fog, and another limb of the law, called Lley-nah, surnamed Gurg-grog, or Curse-mother; and this triumvirate, who had raised themselves from nothing to the first rank in the state, by vilifying and insulting the kingly power, and affirming that the Dairo was the slave of the people, now had the impudence to declare in the face of day, that in some cases the emperor's power was absolute, and that he had an inherent right to suspend and supersede the laws and ordinances of the legislature.
Mura-clami, who had been for some time eclipsed in his judicial capacity by the popularity of Praff-fog, did not fail to seize this opportunity of exposing the character of his upstart rival. Though he had been all his life an humble retainer to the prerogative, he now made a parade of patriotism, and in a tide of eloquence bore down all the flimsy arguments which the triumvirate advanced. He demonstrated the futility of their reasoning, from the express laws and customs of the empire; he expatiated on the pernicious tendency of their doctrine, and exhibited the inconsistency of their conduct in such colours, that they must have hid their heads in confusion, had they not happily conquered all sense of shame, and been well convinced that the majority of the assembly were not a whit more honest than themselves. Mura-clami enjoyed a momentary triumph; but his words made a very slight impression; for it was his misfortune to be a Ximian; and if his virtues had been more numerous than the hairs in his beard, this very circumstance would have shaved them clean away from the consideration of the audience.
Taycho, opening the flood-gates of his abuse, bespattered all that opposed him. Lleynah, alias Curse-mother, swore that he had got into the wrongbox; then turning to Praff-fog,
"Brother Praff, (cried he) thou hast now let down thy trowsers, and every rascal in Japan will whip thy a—se!"
Praff was afraid of the Beast's resentment; but Taycho bestrid him like a Colossus, and he crept through between his legs into a place of safety. This was the last time that the Orator appeared in public. Immediately after this occurrence it was found necessary to confine him to a dark chamber, and Yak-strot was left to his own inventions.
In this dilemma he had recourse to the old expedient of changing hands; and as a prelude to this reform, made advances to Gotto-mio, whom he actually detached from the opposition, by providing his friends and dependants with lucrative offices, and promising to take no steps of consequence without his privity and approbation. A sop was at the same time thrown to Twitz-er; Zan-ti-fic, lulled with specious promises, discarded Toks the incendiary Bonze; Lob-kob signed a neutrality, and old Fika-kaka was deprived of the use of speech:—in a word, the ill-cemented confederacy of Strot's exoteric foes fell asunder; and Legion had now no rage but the rage of hunger to be appeased. But the Ximian favourite was still thwarted in his operations behind the curtain; for he had so often chopped and changed the figures that composed his motion, that they were all of different materials; so wretchedly sorted and so ill-toned, that when they came upon the scene, they produced nothing but discord and disorder.
The Japonese colony of Fatsisio had been settled above a century, and in the face of a thousand dangers and difficulties raised themselves to such consideration, that they consumed infinite quantities of the manufactures of Japan, for which they payed their mother-country in gold and silver, and precious drugs, the produce of their plantations. The advantages which Japan reaped from this traffic with her own colonists, almost equalled the amount of what she gained by her commerce with all the other parts of Asia. Twitz-er, when he managed the finances of Japan, had in his great wisdom planned, procured, and promulgated a law saddling the Fatsisians with a grievous tax to answer the occasions of the Japonese government; an imposition which struck at the very vitals of their constitution, by which they were exempt from all burthens but such as they fitted for their own shoulders. They raised a mighty clamour at this innovation, in which they were joined by Legion, at that time under the influence of Taycho, who, in the assembly of the people, bitterly inveighed against the authors and abettors of such an arbitrary and tyrannical measure. Their reproach and execreation did not stop at Twitz-er, but proceeded, as usual, to Yak-strot, who was the general butt at which all the arrows of slander, scurrility, and abuse, were levelled. The puppets with which he supplied the places of Twitz-er and his associates, in order to recommend themselves to Legion, and perhaps, with a view to mortify the favourite, who had patronized the Fatsisian tax, insisted upon withdrawing this imposition, which was accordingly abrogated, to the no small disgrace and contempt of the law-givers: but when these new ministers were turned out, to make way for Taycho and his friends, the interest of the Fatsisians was again abandoned. Even the Orator himself declaimed against them with an unembarrassed countenance, after they had raised statues to him as their friend and patron; and measures were taken to make them feel all the severity of an abject dependance upon the legislature of Japan. Finally, Gotto-mio acceded to this system, which he had formerly approved in conjunction with Twitz-er; and preparations were made for using compulsory measures, should the colonists refuse to submit with a good grace.
The Fatsisians, far from acquiescing in these proceedings, resolved to defend to the last extremity those liberties which they had hitherto preserved; and, as a proof of their independence, agreed among themselves to renounce all the superfluities with which they had so long been furnished, at a vast expence, from the manufactures of Japan, since that nation had begun to act towards them with all the cruelty of a step-mother. It was amazing to see and to hear how Legion raved, and slabbered, and snapped its multitudinous jaws in the streets of Meaco, when it understood that the Fatsisians were determined to live on what their own country afforded. They were represented and reviled as ruffians, barbarians, and unnatural monsters, who clapped the dagger to the breast of their indulgent mother, in presuming to save themselves the expence of those superfluities, which, by the bye, her cruel impositions had left them no money to purchase. Nothing was heard in Japan but threats of punishing those ungrateful colonists with whips and scorpions. For this purpose troops were assembled and fleets equipped; and the blatant Beast yawned with impatient expectation of being drenched with the blood of its fellow-subjects.
Yak-strot was seized with horror at the prospect of such extremities; for, to give the devil his due, his disposition was neither arbitrary nor cruel; but he had been hurried by evil counsellors into a train of false politics, the consequences of which he did not foresee. He now summoned council after council to deliberate upon conciliatory expedients; but found the motley crew so divided by selfinterest, faction, and mutual rancour, that no consistent plan could be formed: all was nonsense, clamour, and contradiction. The Ximian favourite now wished all his puppets at the devil, and secretly cursed the hour in which he first undertook the motion. He even fell sick of chagrin, and resolved, in good earnest, to withdraw himself intirely from the political helm, which he was now convinced he had no talents to guide. In the mean time, he tried to find some temporary alleviation to the evils occasioned by the monstrous incongruity of the members and materials that composed his administration. But before any effectual measures could be taken, his evil genius, ever active, brewed up a new storm in another quarter, which had well-nigh swept him and all his projects into the gulph of perdition.
FINIS.