he relates it only by
parcels, and won't give us the whole work. This forces me, who am only
the publisher, to bespeak the assistance of his friends and acquaintance
to engage him to lay aside that stingey humour and gratify the curiosity
of the public at once. He pleads in excuse that they are only private
memoirs, wrote for his own use in a loose style to serve as a help to
his ordinary conversation. I represented to him the good reception the
first part had met with; that, though calculated only for the meridian
of Grub Street, it was yet taken notice of by the better sort; that the
world was now sufficiently acquainted with John Bull, and interested
itself in his concerns. He answered with a smile, that he had, indeed,
some trifling things to impart that concerned John Bull's relations and
domestic affairs. If these would satisfy me he gave me free leave to
make use of them, because they would serve to make the history of the
lawsuit more intelligible. When I had looked over the manuscript I found
likewise some further account of the composition, which, perhaps, may
not be unacceptable to such as have read the former part.

CHAPTER I. The Character of John Bull's Mother.*

* The Church of England.

John had a mother whom he loved and honoured extremely, a discreet,
grave, sober, good-conditioned, cleanly old gentlewoman as ever lived.
She was none of your cross-grained, termagant, scolding jades that one
had as good be hanged as live in the house with, such as are always
censuring the conduct and telling scandalous stories of their
neighbours, extolling their own good qualities and undervaluing those
of others. On the contrary, she was of a meek spirit, and, as she was
strictly virtuous herself, so she always put the best construction
upon the words and actions of her neighbours, except where they were
irreconcileable to the rules of honesty and decency. She was neither
one of your precise prudes, nor one of your fantastical old belles that
dress themselves like girls of fifteen; as she neither wore a ruff,
forehead-cloth, nor high-crowned hat, so she had laid aside feathers,
flowers, and crimpt ribbons in her head-dress, furbelow-scarfs, and
hooped-petticoats. She scorned to patch and paint, yet she loved to
keep her hands and her face clean. Though she wore no flaunting laced
ruffles, she would not keep herself in a constant sweat with greasy
flannel. Though her hair was not stuck with jewels, she was n