CHARACTER WRITINGS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

CHARACTER WRITINGS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
EDITED BY

HENRY MORLEY, LL.D.

EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

1891

Intro
_Character writing, as a distinct form of Literature, had its origin

more than two thousand years ago in the [ Greek: aethichoi

Chadaaedes ] ---Ethic Characters--of Tyrtamus of Lesbos, a disciple of

Plato, who gave him for his eloquence the name of Divine

Speaker--Theophrastus. Aristotle left him his library and all his MSS.,

and named him his successor in the schools of the Lyceum. Nicomachus,

the son of Aristotle, was among his pupils. He followed in the steps of

Aristotle. Diogenes Laertius ascribed to Theophrastus two hundred and

twenty books. He founded, by a History of Plants, the science of Botany;

and he is now best known by the little contribution to Moral Philosophy,

in which he gave twenty-eight short chapters to concise description of

twenty-eight differing qualities in men. The description in each chapter

was not of a man, but of a quality. The method of Theophrastus, as

Casaubon said, was between the philosophical and the poetical. He

described a quality, but he described it by personification, and his aim

was the amending of men ’ s manners. The twenty-eight chapters that have

come down to us are probably no more than a fragment of a larger work.

They describe vices, and not all of them. Another part, now lost, may

have described the virtues. In a short proem the writer speaks of

himself as ninety-nine years old. Probably those two nines were only a

poetical suggestion of long experience from which these pictures of the

constituents of human life and action had been drawn. He had wondered,

he said, before he thought of writing such a book, at the diversities of

manners among Greeks all born under one sky and trained alike. For many

years he had considered and compared the ways of men; he had lived to be

ninety-nine. Our children may be the better for a knowledge of our ways

of daily life, that they may grow into the best. Observe and see whether

I describe them rightly. I will begin, he says, with Dissimulation. I

will first define the vice, and then describe the quality and manners of

the man who dissembles. After that I will endeavour to describe also the

other qualities of mind, each in its kind. Then follow the Characters of

these twenty-eight qualities: Dissimulation, Adulation, Garrulity,

Rusticity, Blandishment, Senselessness, Loquacity, Newsmongering,

Impudence, Sordid Parsimony, Impurity, Ill-timed Approach, Inept

Sedulity, Stupidity, Contumacy, Superstition, Querulousness, Distrust,

Dirtiness, Tediousness, Sordid or Frivolous Desire for Praise,

Illiberality, Ostentation, Pride, Timidity, Oligarchy, or the vehement

desire for honour, without greed for money, Insolence, and Evil

Speaking. One of these Characters may serve as an example of their

method, and show their place in the ancestry of Characters as they were

written in England in the Seventeenth Century._

STUPIDITY.
You may define Stupidity as a slowness of mind in word or deed. But the

Stupid Man is one who, sitting at his counters, and having made all his

calculations and worked out his sum, asks one who sits by him how much

it comes to. When any one has a suit against him, and he has come to the

day when the cause must be decided, he forgets it and walks out into his

field. Often also when he sits to see a play, the rest go out and he is

left, fallen asleep in the theatre. The same man, having eaten too much,

will go out in the night to relieve himself, and fall over the

neighbour ’ s dog, who bites him. The same man, having hidden away what he

has received, is always searching for it, and never finds it. And when

it is announced to him that one of his intimate friends is dead, and he

is asked to the funeral, then, with a face set to sadness and tears, he

says, "Good luck to it!" When he receives money owing to him he calls in

witnesses, and in midwinter he scolds his man for not having gathered

cucumbers. To train his boys for wrestling he makes them race till they

are tired. Cooking his own lentils in the field, he throws salt twice

into the pot and makes them uneatable. When it rains he says, "How sweet

I find this water of the stars." And when some one asks, "How many have

passed the gates of death?" [ proverbial phrase for a great number ]

answers, "As many, I hope, as will be enough for you and me."

_The first and the best sequence of "Characters" in English Literature

is the series of sketches of the Pilgrims in the Prologue to Chaucer ’ s

"Canterbury Tales" The Characters are so varied as to unite in

representing the whole character of English life in Chaucer ’ s day; and

they are, written upon one plan, each with suggestion of the outward

body and its dress as well as of the mind within. But Chaucer owed

nothing to Theophrastus. In his Character Writing he drew all from

nature with his own good wit. La Bruyere in France translated the

characters of Theophrastus, and his own writing of Characters in the

seventeenth century followed a fashion that had its origin in admiration

of the wit of those Greek Ethical Characters. La Bruyere was born in

1639 and died in 1696. Our Joseph Hall, whose "Characters of Vices and

Virtues" were written in 1608, and translated into French twenty years

before La Bruyere was born, said, in his Preface to them, "I have done

as I could, following that ancient Master of Morality who thought this

the fittest task for the ninety-ninth year of his age, and the

profitablest Monument that he could leave for a farewell to his

Grecians."

There was some aim at short and witty sketches of character in

descriptions of the ingenuity of horse-coursers and coney-catchers who

used quick wit for beguiling the unwary in those bright days of

Elizabeth, when the very tailors and cooks worked fantasies in silk and

velvet, sugar and paste. Thomas Harman, whose grandfather had been Clerk

of the Crown under Henry VII., and who himself inherited estates in

Kent, became greatly interested in the vagrant beggars who came to his

door. He made a study of them, came to London to publish his book, and

lodged at Whitefriars, within the Cloister, for convenience of nearness

to them, and more thorough knowledge of their ways. He first published

his book in 1567 as A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors, vulgarly

called Vagabonds--"A Caveat or Warening for common cursetors, Vulgarely

called Vagabones, set forth by Thomas Harman, Esquiere, for the utilite

and proffyt of his naturall Cuntrey" and he dedicated it to Elizabeth,

Countess of Shrewsbury. It contained twenty-four character sketches,

gave the names of the chief tramps then living in England, and a

vocabulary of their cant words. This is Harman ’ s first character_:--

A RUFFLER.
The Ruffler, because he is first in degree of this odious order, and is

so called in a statute made for the punishment of Vagabonds in the

twenty-seventh year of King Henry VIII, late of most famous memory, he

shall be first placed as the worthiest of this unruly rabblement. And he

is so called when he goeth first abroad. Either he hath served in the

wars, or else he hath been a serving-man, and weary of well-doing,

shaking off all pain, doth choose him this idle life; and wretchedly

wanders about the most shires of this realm, and with stout audacity

demandeth, where he thinketh he may be bold, and circumspect enough

where he seeth cause, to ask charity ruefully and lamentably, that it

would make a flinty heart to relent and pity his miserable estate, how

he hath been maimed and bruised in the wars. Peradventure one will show

you some outward wound which he got at some drunken fray, either halting

of some privy wound festered with a filthy fiery flankard [ brand ]. For

be well assured that the hardiest soldiers be either slain or maimed,

either and [ or if ] they escape all hazards and return home again, if

they be without relief of their friends they will surely desperately rob

and steal, and either shortly be hanged or miserably die in prison. For

they be so much ashamed and disdain to beg or ask charity, that rather

they will as desperately fight for to live and maintain themselves, as

manfully and valiantly they ventured themselves in the Prince ’ s quarrel.

Now these Rufflers, the outcasts of serving-men, when begging or craving

fails them, they pick and pilfer from other inferior beggars that they

meet by the way, as rogues, palliards, morts, and doxes. Yea, if they

meet with a woman alone riding to the market, either old man or boy,

that he kneweth well will not resist, such they fetch and spoil. These

Rufflers, after a year or two at the farthest, become upright men [ lusty

vagrants who beg and take only money, who rob hen roosts, filch from

stalls or pockets, and have dens of their own for drinking and receipt

of stolen goods ], unless they be prevented by twined hemp.

I had of late years an old man to my tenant who customably a great time

went twice in the week to London, either with fruit or with peascods,

when time served therefor. And as he was coming homeward, on Blackheath,

at the end thereof next to Shooter ’ s Hill, he overtook two Rufflers, the

one mannerly waiting on the other, as one had been the master and the

other his man or servant, carrying his master ’ s cloak. This old man was

very glad that he might have their company over the hill, because that

day he had made a good market. For he had seven shillings in his purse

and an old angel, which this poor man had thought had not been in his

purse; for he willed his wife overnight to take out the same angel and

lay it up until his coming home again, and he verily thought his wife

had so done, which indeed forgot to do it. Thus, after salutations had,

this Master Ruffler entered into communication with this simple old man,

who, riding softly beside them, communed of many matters. Thus feeding

this old man with pleasant talk until they were on the top of the hill,

where these Rufflers might well behold the coast about them clear,

quickly steps unto this poor man and taketh hold of his horse bridle and

leadeth him into the wood, and demandeth of him what and how much money

he had in his purse. "Now, by my troth," quoth this old man, "you are a

merry gentleman! I know you mean not to take anything from me, but

rather to give me some, if I should ask it of you."

By and by [ immediately ] this servant thief casteth the cloak that he

carried on his arm about this poor man ’ s face that he should not mark or

view them, with sharp words to deliver quickly that he had, and to

confess truly what was in his purse. This poor man then all abashed

yielded, and confessed that he had seven shillings in his purse; and the

truth is, he knew of no more. This old angel was fallen out of a little

purse into the bottom of a great purse. Now this seven shillings in

white money they quickly found, thinking indeed that there had been no

more; yet farther groping and searching, found this old angel. And with

great admiration this gentleman thief began to bless him, saying--

"Good Lord, what a world is this! How may," quoth he, "a man believe or

trust in the same? See you not," quoth he, "this old knave told me that

he had but seven shillings, and here is more by an angel! What an old

knave and a false knave have we here!" quoth this Ruffler. "Our Lord

have mercy on us, will this world never be better?" and therewith went

their way and left the old man in the wood, doing him no more harm.

But sorrowfully sighing this old man, returning home, declared his

misadventure with all the words and circumstances above showed. Whereat

for the time was great laughing, and this poor man, for his losses,

among his loving neighbours well considered in the end.

_Such character-painting simply came of the keen interest in life that

was at the same time developing an energetic drama. But at the end of

Elizabeth ’ s reign a writing of brief witty characters appears to have

come into fashion as one of the many forms of ingenuity that pleased

society, and might be distantly related to the Euphuism of the day.

Ben Jonson ’ s "Cynthia ’ s Revels," first acted in 1600, two or three years

before the end of Elizabeth ’ s reign, has little character sketches set

into the text. Here are two of them_:--

A TRAVELLER.
One so made out of the mixture of shreds and forms that himself is truly

deformed. He walks most commonly with a clove or pick-tooth in his

mouth, he is the very mint of compliment, all his behaviours are

printed, his face is another volume of essays, and his beard is an

Aristarchus. He speaks all cream skimmed, and more affected than a dozen

waiting-women. He is his own promoter in every place. The wife of the

ordinary gives him his diet to maintain her table in discourse; which,

indeed, is a mere tyranny over her other guests, for he will usurp all

the talk; ten constables are not so tedious. He is no great shifter;

once a year his apparel is ready to revolt. He doth use much to

arbitrate quarrels, and fights himself, exceeding well, out at a window.

He will lie cheaper than any beggar, and louder than most clocks; for

which he is right properly accommodated to the whetstone, his page. The

other gallant is his zany, and doth most of these tricks after him;

sweats to imitate him in everything to a hair, except a beard, which is

not yet extant. He doth learn to make strange sauces, to eat anchovies,

maccaroni, bovoli, fagioli, and caviare, because he loves them; speaks

as he speaks, looks, walks, goes so in clothes and fashion: is in all as

if he were moulded of him. Marry, before they met, he had other very

pretty sufficiencies, which yet he retains some light impression of; as

frequenting a dancing-school, and grievously torturing strangers with

inquisition after his grace in his galliard. He buys a fresh

acquaintance at any rate. His eyes and his raiment confer much together

as he goes in the street. He treads nicely, like the fellow that walks

upon ropes, especially the first Sunday of his silk stockings; and when

he is most neat and new, you shall strip him with commendations.

THE TRUE CRITIC.
A creature of a most perfect and divine temper: one in whom the humours

and elements are peaceably met, without emulation of precedency. He is

neither too fantastically melancholy, too slowly phlegmatic, too lightly

sanguine, nor too rashly choleric; but in all so composed and ordered,

as it is clear Nature went about some full work, she did more than make

a man when she made him. His discourse is like his behaviour, uncommon,

but not unpleasing; he is prodigal of neither. He strives rather to be

that which men call judicious, than to be thought so; and is so truly

learned, that he affects not to show it. He will think and speak his

thought both freely; but as distant from depraving another man ’ s merit,

as proclaiming his own. For his valour, ’ tis such that he dares as

little to offer any injury as receive one. In sum, he hath a most

ingenuous and sweet spirit, a sharp and seasoned wit, a straight

judgment and a strong mind. Fortune could never break him, nor make him

less. He counts it his pleasure to despise pleasures, and is more

delighted with good deeds than goods. It is a competency to him that he

can be virtuous. He doth neither covet nor fear; he hath too much reason

to do either; and that commends all things to him.

_The play that preceded "Cynthia ’ s Revels" was "Every Man Out of his

Humour." It was first printed in 1600, and Ben Jonson amused himself by

adding to its list of Dramatis Personae this piece of Character

Writing_:--

THE CHARACTER OF THE PERSONS.
_Asper_. He is of an ingenious and free spirit, eager and constant in

reproof, without fear controlling the world ’ s abuses. One whom no

servile hope of gain, or frosty apprehension of danger, can make to be a

parasite, either to time, place, or opinion.

_Macilente_. A man well parted, a sufficient scholar, and travelled;

who, wanting that place in the world ’ s account which he thinks his merit

capable of, falls into such an envious apoplexy, with which his judgment

is so dazzled and distasted, that he grows violently impatient of any

opposite happiness in another.

_Puntarvolo_. A vainglorious knight, over-Englishing his travels, and

wholly consecrated to singularity; the very Jacob ’ s staff of compliment;

a sir that hath lived to see the revolution of time in most of his

apparel. Of presence good enough, but so palpably affected to his own

praise, that for want of flatterers he commends himself, to the floutage

of his own family. He deals upon returns, and strange performances,

resolving, in despite of public derision, to stick to his own particular

fashion, phrase, and gesture.

_Carlo Buffone_. A public, scurrilous, and profane jester, that more

swift than Circe, with absurd similes, will transform any person into

deformity. A good feast-hound or banquet-beagle, that will scent you out

a supper some three miles off, and swear to his patrons, damn him! he

came in oars, when he was but wafted over in a sculler. A slave that

hath an extraordinary gift in pleasing his palate, and will swill up

more sack at a sitting than would make all the guard a posset. His

religion is railing, and his discourse ribaldry. They stand highest in

his respect whom he studies most to reproach.

_Fastidious Brisk_. A neat, spruce, affecting courtier, one that wears

clothes well, and in fashion; practiseth by his glass how to salute;

speaks good remnants, notwithstanding the base viol and tobacco; swears

tersely, and with variety; cares not what lady ’ s favour he belies, or

great man ’ s familiarity; a good property to perfume the boot of a coach.

He will borrow another man ’ s horse to praise, and backs him as his own.

Or, for a need, on foot can post himself into credit with his merchant,

only with the jingle of his spur, and the jerk of his wand.

_Deliro_. A good doting citizen, who, it is thought, might be of the

common-council for his wealth; a fellow sincerely besotted on his own

wife, and so wrapt with a conceit of her perfections, that he simply

holds himself unworthy of her. And, in that hoodwinked humour, lives

more like a suitor than a husband; standing in as true dread of her

displeasure, as when he first made love to her. He doth sacrifice

twopence in juniper to her every morning before she rises, and wakes her

with villainous out-of-tune music, which she out of her contempt (though

not out of her judgment) is sure to dislike.

_Fallace_. Deliro ’ s wife, and idol; a proud mincing peat, and as

perverse as he is officious. She dotes as perfectly upon the courtier,

as her husband doth on her, and only wants the face to be dishonest.

_Saviolina_. A court-lady, whose weightiest praise is a light wit,

admired by herself, and one more, her servant Brisk.

_Sordido_. A wretched hobnailed chuff, whose recreation is reading of

almanacks; and felicity, foul weather. One that never prayed but for a

lean dearth, and ever wept in a fat harvest.

_Fungoso_. The son of Sordido, and a student; one that has revelled in

his time, and follows the fashion afar off, like a spy. He makes it the

whole bent of his endeavours to wring sufficient means from his wretched

father, to put him in the courtiers ’ cut; at which he earnestly aims,

but so unluckily, that he still lights short a suit.

_Sogliardo_. An essential clown, brother to Sordido, yet so enamoured of

the name of a gentleman, that he will have it though he buys it. He

comes up every term to learn to take tobacco, and see new motions. He is

in his kingdom when he can get himself into company where he may be well

laughed at.

_Shift_. A threadbare shark; one that never was a soldier, yet lives

upon lendings. His profession is skeldring and odling, his bank Paul ’ s,

and his warehouse Picthatch. Takes up single testons upon oath, till

doomsday. Falls under executions of three shillings, and enters into

five-groat bonds. He waylays the reports of services, and cons them

without book, damning himself he came new from them, when all the while

he was taking the diet in the bawdy-house, or lay pawned in his chamber

for rent and victuals. He is of that admirable and happy memory, that he

will salute one for an old acquaintance that he never saw in his life

before. He usurps upon cheats, quarrels, and robberies, which he never

did, only to get him a name. His chief exercises are, taking the whiff,

squiring a cockatrice, and making privy searches for imparters.

_Clove_ and _Orange_. An inseparable case of coxcombs, city born; the

Gemini, or twins of foppery; that, like a pair of wooden foils, are fit

for nothing but to be practised upon. Being well flattered they ’ ll lend

money, and repent when they have done. Their glory is to invite players,

and make suppers. And in company of better rank, to avoid the suspect of

insufficiency, will enforce their ignorance most desperately, to set

upon the understanding of anything. Orange is the most humorous of the

two, whose small portion of juice being squeezed out, Clove serves to

stick him with commendations.

_Cordatus_. The author ’ s friend; a man inly acquainted with the scope

and drift of his plot; of a discreet and understanding judgment; and has

the place of a moderator.

_Mitis_. Is a person of no action, and therefore we have reason to

afford him no character.

_Of this kind are the

Sir THOMAS OVERBURY
CHARACTERS

BY

SIR THOMAS OVERBURY,

which were not published until_ 1614, _the year after their writer ’ s

death, at the age of thirty-two; but they may have been written earlier

than the "Characters of Virtues and Vices"--ethical characters--written

by Joseph Hall, which were first published in_ 1609.

_Sir Thomas Overbury died poisoned in the Tower on the_ 15_th of

September_ 1613. _On the_ 5_th of January_ 1606, _by desire of James the

First, the young Earl of Essex, aged fourteen, had been married to the

Lady Frances Howard, aged thirteen, the younger daughter of the Earl of

Suffolk. Ben Jonson ’ s "Masque of Hymen" was produced at Court in

celebration of that union. The young Robert Devereux, third Earl of

Essex, had good qualities too solid for the taste of a frivolous girl;

and when, after travel abroad, the husband of eighteen claimed the wife

of seventeen, he found her happy in flirtation with the King ’ s

favourite, Sir Robert Carr. Though compelled to live with her husband,

she repelled all his advances, and after three years of this repugnance

tried for a divorce. The King ’ s Scotch favourite, Carr, had been made,

in March 1611, an English peer, as Viscount Rochester, when the age of

the young Countess of Essex was nineteen. He was the man highest in King

James ’ s favour. If the divorce sought by the Countess early in 1613 were

obtained for her, it was understood that Carr would marry her, and that

support of the divorce would be a way to future benefit through his good

offices. Thus she obtained the support of her father and uncle, the

Earls of Suffolk and Northampton. The King ’ s influence went with the

wishes of the favourite. The trial, in 1613, ending in a decree of

nullity of marriage, was a four months ’ scandal in the land. Among the

familiar friends of Robert Carr, Lord Rochester, was Sir Thomas

Overbury, born in Warwickshire in 1581, and knighted by King James in

1608. He strongly opposed the policy of a divorce obtained on false

pretences followed by his patron ’ s marriage to the divorced wife. The

grounds of his opposition may have been part private, part political.

His opposition was determined, and if he offered himself as witness

before the Commission, he probably knew enough about the lady ’ s secret

practisings to give such evidence as would frustrate her designs. It was

thought desirable, therefore, to get Overbury out of the way. The King

offered him a post abroad. He was unwilling to accept it, and at last

was driven to an explicit refusal. The King was angry, and caused his

Council to commit Sir Thomas Overbury to the Tower for contempt of His

Majesty ’ s commands. He was to be seen by no one, and to have no servant

with him. Sir William Wood, the Lieutenant of the Tower, was superseded,

and Sir Gervase Helwys was put in his place with secret understandings,

of which the design may only have been to prevent Sir Thomas Overbury

from saying anything that could come to the ears of the world until the

divorce was granted. But Lady Essex wished Sir Thomas Overbury to be

more effectually silenced. She had tried and failed to get him

assassinated. Now she resolved to get him poisoned. She obtained the

employment of a creature of her own, named Weston, as his immediate

keeper. Weston falsely professed to Lady Essex that he had administered

the poison she had given him, and that the result had been not death but

loss of health. There is much uncertainty about the evidence of detail

and of the privity of others in the designs of Lady Essex, who seems at

last to have completed her work by the agency of an apothecary ’ s

assistant. He gave the fatal dose in an injection, by which Overbury was

killed ten days before the Commission gave judgment in favour of the

divorce. At Christmas the favourite married the divorced wife, having

been created Earl of Somerset, that as his wife she might be Countess

still. In the following year, 1614, Sir Thomas Overbury ’ s "Characters"

were published, together with his Character in verse of A Wife, who was

described as "A Wife, now a Widow." This had been published a little

earlier in the same year separately, without any added "Characters."

When the Characters appeared they were described as "Many Witty

Characters and conceited Newes written by himselfe and other learned

Gentlemen his Friends." The twenty-one Characters in that edition were,

therefore, not all from one hand. Their popularity is indicated by the

fact that in the next year, 1615, they reached a sixth edition. Three

more editions were published in 1616. This was because interest in the

book had been heightened by the Great Oyer of Poisoning, the trial in

May 1616 of the Earl and Countess of Somerset for Overbury ’ s murder, of

which both were found guilty, though the Countess took all guilt upon

herself. Then followed a tenth edition in 1618, an eleventh in 1622, a

twelfth in 1627, a thirteenth in 1628, a fourteenth in 1630, a fifteenth

in 1632, a sixteenth in 1638; and then a pause, the seventeenth being in

1664, two years before the fire of London. By this time the original set

of twenty-one Characters had been considerably increased, "with

additions of New Characters and many other Witty Conceits never before

Printed;" so that Overbury ’ s Characters, which had from the first

included a few pieces written by his friends, became a name for the most

popular miscellany of pieces of Character Writing current in the

Seventeenth Century, and shows how wit was exercised in this way by

half-a-dozen or more of the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease. These

are the pieces thus at last made current as_

SIR THOMAS OVERBURY ’ S CHARACTERS;

OR,

WITTY DESCRIPTIONS OF THE PROPERTIES OF SUNDRY PERSONS.



A GOOD WOMAN.
A Good Woman is a comfort, like a man. She lacks of him nothing but

heat. Thence is her sweetness of disposition, which meets his stoutness

more pleasingly; so wool meets iron easier than iron, and turns

resisting into embracing. Her greatest learning is religion, and her

thoughts are on her own sex, or on men, without casting the difference.

Dishonesty never comes nearer than her ears, and then wonder stops it

out, and saves virtue the labour. She leaves the neat youth telling his

luscious tales, and puts back the serving-man ’ s putting forward with a

frown: yet her kindness is free enough to be seen, for it hath no guilt

about it; and her mirth is clear, that you may look through it into

virtue, but not beyond. She hath not behaviour at a certain, but makes

it to her occasion. She hath so much knowledge as to love it; and if she

have it not at home, she will fetch it, for this sometimes in a pleasant

discontent she dares chide her sex, though she use it never the worse.

She is much within, and frames outward things to her mind, not her mind

to them. She wears good clothes, but never better; for she finds no

degree beyond decency. She hath a content of her own, and so seeks not

an husband, but finds him. She is indeed most, but not much of

description, for she is direct and one, and hath not the variety of ill.

Now she is given fresh and alive to a husband, and she doth nothing more

than love him, for she takes him to that purpose. So his good becomes

the business of her actions, and she doth herself kindness upon him.

After his, her chiefest virtue is a good husband. For she is he.

A VERY WOMAN.
A Very Woman is a dough-baked man, or a She meant well towards man, but

fell two bows short, strength and understanding. Her virtue is the

hedge, modesty, that keeps a man from climbing over into her faults. She

simpers as if she had no teeth but lips; and she divides her eyes, and

keeps half for herself, and gives the other to her neat youth. Being set

down, she casts her face into a platform, which dureth the meal, and is

taken away with the voider. Her draught reacheth to good manners, not to

thirst, and it is a part of their mystery not to profess hunger; but

nature takes her in private and stretcheth her upon meat. She is

marriageable and fourteen at once, and after she doth not live but

tarry. She reads over her face every morning, and sometimes blots out

pale and writes red. She thinks she is fair, though many times her

opinion goes alone, and she loves her glass and the knight of the sun

for lying. She is hid away all but her face, and that ’ s hanged about

with toys and devices, like the sign of a tavern, to draw strangers. If

she show more she prevents desire, and by too free giving leaves no

gift. She may escape from the serving-man, but not from the chambermaid.

Her philosophy is a seeming neglect of those that be too good for her.

She ’ s a younger brother for her portion, but not for her portion for

wit--that comes from her in treble, which is still too big for it; yet

her vanity seldom matcheth her with one of her own degree, for then she

will beget another creature a beggar, and commonly, if she marry better

she marries worse. She gets much by the simplicity of her suitor, and

for a jest laughs at him without one. Thus she dresses a husband for

herself, and after takes him for his patience, and the land adjoining,

ye may see it, in a serving-man ’ s fresh napery, and his leg steps into

an unknown stocking. I need not speak of his garters, the tassel shows

itself. If she love, she loves not the man, but the best of him. She is

Salomon ’ s cruel creature, and a man ’ s walking consumption; every caudle

she gives him is a purge. Her chief commendation is, she brings a man to

repentance.

HER NEXT PART.
Her lightness gets her to swim at top of the table, where her wry little

finger bewrays carving; her neighbours at the latter end know they are

welcome, and for that purpose she quencheth her thirst. She travels to

and among, and so becomes a woman of good entertainment, for all the

folly in the country comes in clean linen to visit her; she breaks to

them her grief in sugar cakes, and receives from their mouths in

exchange many stories that conclude to no purpose. Her eldest son is

like her howsoever, and that dispraiseth him best; her utmost drift is

to turn him fool, which commonly she obtains at the years of discretion.

She takes a journey sometimes to her niece ’ s house, but never thinks

beyond London. Her devotion is good clothes--they carry her to church,

express their stuff and fashion, and are silent if she be more devout;

she lifts up a certain number of eyes instead of prayers, and takes the

sermon, and measures out a nap by it, just as long. She sends religion

afore to sixty, where she never overtakes it, or drives it before her

again. Her most necessary instruments are a waiting gentlewoman and a

chambermaid; she wears her gentlewoman still, but most often leaves the

other in her chamber window. She hath a little kennel in her lap, and

she smells the sweeter for it. The utmost reach of her providence is the

fatness of a capon, and her greatest envy is the next gentlewoman ’ s

better gown. Her most commendable skill is to make her husband ’ s fustian

bear her velvet. This she doth many times over, and then is delivered to

old age and a chair, where everybody leaves her.

A DISSEMBLER
Is an essence needing a double definition, for he is not that he

appears. Unto the eye he is pleasing, unto the ear he is harsh, but unto

the understanding intricate and full of windings; he is the _prima

materia_, and his intents give him form; he dyeth his means and his

meaning into two colours; he baits craft with humility, and his

countenance is the picture of the present disposition. He wins not by

battery but undermining, and his rack is smoothing. He allures, is not

allured by his affections, for they are the breakers of his observation.

He knows passion only by sufferance, and resisteth by obeying. He makes

his time an accountant to his memory, and of the humours of men weaves a

net for occasion; the inquisitor must look through his judgment, for to

the eye only he is not visible.

A COURTIER,
To all men ’ s thinking, is a man, and to most men the finest; all things

else are defined by the understanding, but this by the senses; but his

surest mark is, that he is to be found only about princes. He smells,

and putteth away much of his judgment about the situation of his

clothes. He knows no man that is not generally known. His wit, like the

marigold, openeth with the sun, and therefore he riseth not before ten

of the clock. He puts more confidence in his words than meaning, and

more in his pronunciation than his words. Occasion is his Cupid, and he

hath but one receipt of making love. He follows nothing but inconstancy,

admires nothing but beauty, honours nothing but fortune: Loves nothing.

The sustenance of his discourse is news, and his censure, like a shot,

depends upon the charging. He is not, if he be out of court, but

fish-like breathes destruction if out of his element. Neither his motion

or aspect are regular, but he moves by the upper spheres, and is the

reflection of higher substances.

If you find him not here, you shall in Paul ’ s, with a pick-tooth in his

hat, cape-cloak, and a long stocking.

A GOLDEN ASS
Is a young thing, whose father went to the devil; he is followed like a

salt bitch, and limbed by him that gets up first; his disposition is

cut, and knaves rend him like tenter-hooks; he is as blind as his

mother, and swallows flatterers for friends. He is high in his own

imagination, but that imagination is as a stone that is raised by

violence, descends naturally. When he goes, he looks who looks; if he

find not good store of vailers, he comes home stiff and sere, until he

be new oiled and watered by his husbandmen. Wheresoever he eats he hath

an officer to warn men not to talk out of his element, and his own is

exceeding sensible, because it is sensual; but he cannot exchange a

piece of reason, though he can a piece of gold. He is not plucked, for

his feathers are his beauty, and more than his beauty, they are his

discretion, his countenance, his all. He is now at an end, for he hath

had the wolf of vainglory, which he fed until himself became the food.

A FLATTERER
Is the shadow of a fool. He is a good woodman, for he singleth out none

but the wealthy. His carriage is ever of the colour of his patient; and

for his sake he will halt or wear a wry neck. He dispraiseth nothing but

poverty and small drink, and praiseth his Grace of making water. He

selleth himself with reckoning his great friends, and teacheth the

present how to win his praises by reciting the other gifts; he is ready

for all employments, but especially before dinner, for his courage and

his stomach go together. He will play any upon his countenance, and

where he cannot be admitted for a counsellor he will serve as a fool. He

frequents the Court of Wards and Ordinaries, and fits these guests of

_Togae viriles_ with wives or worse. He entereth young men into

aquaintance with debt-books. In a word, he is the impression of the last

term, and will be so until the coming of a new term or termer.

AN IGNORANT GLORY-HUNTER
Is an _insectum_ animal, for he is the maggot of opinion; his behaviour

is another thing from himself, and is glued and but set on. He

entertains men with repetitions, and returns them their own words. He is

ignorant of nothing, no not of those things where ignorance is the

lesser shame. He gets the names of good wits, and utters them for his

companions. He confesseth vices that he is guiltless of, if they be in

fashion; and dares not salute a man in old clothes, or out of fashion.

There is not a public assembly without him, and he will take any pains

for an acquaintance there. In any show he will be one, though he be but

a whiffler or a torch-bearer, and bears down strangers with the story of

his actions. He handles nothing that is not rare, and defends his

wardrobe, diet, and all customs, with intituling their beginnings from

princes, great soldiers, and strange nations. He dare speak more than he

understands, and adventures his words without the relief of any seconds.

He relates battles and skirmishes as from an eyewitness, when his eyes

thievishly beguiled a ballad of them. In a word, to make sure of

admiration, he will not let himself understand himself, but hopes fame

and opinion will be the readers of his riddles.

A TIMIST
Is a noun adjective of the present tense. He hath no more of a

conscience than fear, and his religion is not his but the prince ’ s. He

reverenceth a courtier ’ s servant ’ s servant; is first his own slave, and

then whosesoever looketh big. When he gives he curseth, and when he

sells he worships. He reads the statutes in his chamber, and wears the

Bible in the streets; he never praiseth any, but before themselves or

friends; and mislikes no great man ’ s actions during his life. His New

Year ’ s gifts are ready at Allhallowmas, and the suit he meant to

meditate before them. He pleaseth the children of great men, and

promiseth to adopt them, and his courtesy extends itself even to the

stable. He strains to talk wisely, and his modesty would serve a bride.

He is gravity from the head to the foot, but not from the head to the

heart. You may find what place he affecteth, for he creeps as near it as

may be, and as passionately courts it; if at any time his hopes be

affected, he swelleth with them, and they burst out too good for the

vessel. In a word, he danceth to the tune of Fortune, and studies for

nothing but to keep time.

AN AMORIST
Is a man blasted or planet-stricken, and is the dog that leads blind

Cupid; when he is at the best his fashion exceeds the worth of his

weight. He is never without verses and musk confects, and sighs to the

hazard of his buttons. His eyes are all white, either to wear the livery

of his mistress ’ complexion or to keep Cupid from hitting the black. He

fights with passion, and loseth much of his blood by his weapon; dreams,

thence his paleness. His arms are carelessly used, as if their best use

was nothing but embracements. He is untrussed, unbuttoned, and

ungartered, not out of carelessness, but care; his farthest end being

but going to bed. Sometimes he wraps his petition in neatness, but he

goeth not alone; for then he makes some other quality moralise his

affection, and his trimness is the grace of that grace. Her favour lifts

him up as the sun moisture; when she disfavours, unable to hold that

happiness, it falls down in tears. His fingers are his orators, and he

expresseth much of himself upon some instrument. He answers not, or not

to the purpose, and no marvel, for he is not at home. He scotcheth time

with dancing with his mistress, taking up of her glove, and wearing her

feather; he is confined to her colour, and dares not pass out of the

circuit of her memory. His imagination is a fool, and it goeth in a pied

coat of red and white. Shortly, he is translated out of a man into

folly; his imagination is the glass of lust, and himself the traitor to

his own discretion.

AN AFFECTED TRAVELLER
Is a speaking fashion; he hath taken pains to be ridiculous, and hath

seen more than he hath perceived. His attire speaks French or Italian,

and his gait cries, Behold me. He censures all things by countenances

and shrugs, and speaks his own language with shame and lisping; he will

choke rather than confess beer good drink, and his pick-tooth is a main

part of his behaviour. He chooseth rather to be counted a spy than not a

politician, and maintains his reputation by naming great men familiarly.

He chooseth rather to tell lies than not wonders, and talks with men

singly; his discourse sounds big, but means nothing; and his boy is

bound to admire him howsoever. He comes still from great personages, but

goes with mean. He takes occasion to show jewels given him in regard of

his virtue, that were bought in St. Martin ’ s; and not long after having

with a mountebank ’ s method pronounced them worth thousands, impawneth

them for a few shillings. Upon festival days he goes to court, and

salutes without resaluting; at night in an ordinary he canvasseth the

business in hand, and seems as conversant with all intents and plots as

if he begot them. His extraordinary account of men is, first to tell

them the ends of all matters of consequence, and then to borrow money of

them; he offers courtesies to show them, rather than himself, humble. He

disdains all things above his reach, and preferreth all countries before

his own. He imputeth his want and poverty to the ignorance of the time,

not his own unworthiness; and concludes his discourse with half a

period, or a word, and leaves the rest to imagination. In a word, his

religion is fashion, and both body and soul are governed by fame; he

loves most voices above truth.

A WISE MAN
Is the truth of the true definition of man, that is, a reasonable

creature. His disposition alters; he alters not. He hides himself with

the attire of the vulgar; and in indifferent things is content to be

governed by them. He looks according to nature; so goes his behaviour.

His mind enjoys a continual smoothness; so cometh it that his

consideration is always at home. He endures the faults of all men

silently, except his friends, and to them he is the mirror of their

actions; by this means, his peace cometh not from fortune, but himself.

He is cunning in men, not to surprise, but keep his own, and beats off

their ill-affected humours no otherwise than if they were flies. He

chooseth not friends by the Subsidy-book, and is not luxurious after

acquaintance. He maintains the strength of his body, not by delicates

but temperance; and his mind, by giving it pre-eminence over his body.

He understands things, not by their form, but qualities; and his

comparisons intend not to excuse but to provoke him higher. He is not

subject to casualties, for fortune hath nothing to do with the mind,

except those drowned in the body; but he hath divided his soul from the

case of his soul, whose weakness he assists no otherwise than

commiseratively--not that it is his, but that it is. He is thus, and

will be thus; and lives subject neither to time nor his frailties, the

servant of virtue, and by virtue the friend of the highest.

A NOBLE SPIRIT
Hath surveyed and fortified his disposition, and converts all occurrents

into experience, between which experience and his reason there is

marriage; the issue are his actions. He circuits his intents, and seeth

the end before he shoot. Men are the instruments of his art, and there

is no man without his use. Occasion incites him, none enticeth him; and

he moves by affection, not for affection. He loves glory, scorns shame,

and governeth and obeyeth with one countenance, for it comes from one

consideration. He calls not the variety of the world chances, for his

meditation hath travelled over them, and his eye, mounted upon his

understanding, seeth them as things underneath. He covers not his body

with delicacies, nor excuseth these delicacies by his body, but teacheth

it, since it is not able to defend its own imbecility, to show or

suffer. He licenseth not his weakness to wear fate, but knowing reason

to be no idle gift of nature, he is the steersman of his own destiny.

Truth is the goddess, and he takes pains to get her, not to look like

her. He knows the condition of the world, that he must act one thing

like another, and then another. To these he carries his desires, and not

his desires him, and sticks not fast by the way (for that contentment is

repentance), but knowing the circle of all courses, of all intents, of

all things, to have but one centre or period, without all distraction,

he hasteth thither and ends there, as his true and natural element. He

doth not contemn Fortune, but not confess her. He is no gamester of the

world (which only complain and praise her), but being only sensible of

the honesty of actions, contemns a particular profit as the excrement of

scum. Unto the society of men he is a sun, whose clearness directs their

steps in a regular motion. When he is more particular, he is the wise

man ’ s friend, the example of the indifferent, the medicine of the

vicious. Thus time goeth not from him, but with him; and he feels age

more by the strength of his soul than the weakness of his body. Thus

feels he no pain, but esteems all such things as friends that desire to

file off his fetters, and help him out of prison.

AN OLD MAN
Is a thing that hath been a man in his days. Old men are to be known

blindfolded, for their talk is as terrible as their resemblance. They

praise their own times as vehemently as if they would sell them. They

become wrinkled with frowning and facing youth; they admire their old

customs, even to the eating of red herring and going wetshod. They cast

the thumb under the girdle, gravity; and because they can hardly smell

at all their posies are under their girdles. They count it an ornament

of speech to close the period with a cough; and it is venerable (they

say) to spend time in wiping their drivelled beards. Their discourse is

unanswerable, by reason of their obstinacy; their speech is much, though

little to the purpose. Truths and lies pass with an unequal affirmation;

for their memories several are won into one receptacle, and so they come

out with one sense. They teach their servants their duties with as much

scorn and tyranny as some people teach their dogs to fetch. Their envy

is one of their diseases. They put off and on their clothes with that

certainty, as if they knew their heads would not direct them, and

therefore custom should. They take a pride in halting and going stiffly,

and therefore their staves are carved and tipped; they trust their

attire with much of their gravity; and they dare not go without a gown

in summer. Their hats are brushed, to draw men ’ s eyes off from their

faces; but of all, their pomanders are worn to most purpose, for their

putrified breath ought not to want either a smell to defend or a dog

to excuse.

A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN
Is a thing, out of whose corruption the generation of a Justice of Peace

is produced. He speaks statutes and husbandry well enough to make his

neighbours think him a wise man; he is well skilled in arithmetic or

rates, and hath eloquence enough to save twopence. His conversation

amongst his tenants is desperate, but amongst his equals full of doubt.

His travel is seldom farther than the next market town, and his

inquisition is about the price of corn. When he travelleth he will go

ten miles out of the way to a cousin ’ s house of his to save charges; he

rewards the servant by taking him by the hand when he departs. Nothing

under a subpoena can draw him to London; and when he is there he sticks

fast upon every object, casts his eyes away upon gazing, and becomes the

prey of every cutpurse. When he comes home, those wonders serve him for

his holiday talk. If he go to court it is in yellow stockings; and if it

be in winter, in a slight taffety cloak, and pumps and pantofles. He is

chained that woos the usher for his coming into the presence, where he

becomes troublesome with the ill-managing of his rapier, and the wearing

of his girdle of one fashion, and the hangers of another. By this time

he hath learned to kiss his hand, and make a leg both together, and the

names of lords and councillors. He hath thus much toward entertainment

and courtesy, but of the last he makes more use, for, by the recital of

my lord, he conjures his poor countrymen. But this is not his element;

he must home again, being like a dor, that ends his flight in

a dunghill.

A FINE GENTLEMAN
Is the cinnamon tree, whose bark is more worth than his body. He hath

read the book of good manners, and by this time each of his limbs may

read it. He alloweth of no judge but the eye: painting, bolstering, and

bombasting are his orators. By these also he proves his industry, for he

hath purchased legs, hair, beauty, and straightness, more than nature

left him. He unlocks maidenheads with his language, and speaks Euphues,

not so gracefully as heartily. His discourse makes not his behaviour;

but he buys it at court, as countrymen their clothes in Birchin Lane. He

is somewhat like the salamander, and lives in the flame of love, which

pains he expresseth comically. And nothing grieves him so much as the

want of a poet to make an issue in his love. Yet he sighs sweetly and

speaks lamentably, for his breath is perfumed and his words are wind. He

is best in season at Christmas, for the boar ’ s head and reveller come

together. His hopes are laden in his quality; and, lest fiddlers should

take him unprovided, he wears pumps in his pocket; and, lest he should

take fiddlers unprovided, he whistles his own galliard. He is a calendar

of ten years, and marriage rusts him. Afterwards he maintains himself an

implement of household, by carving and ushering. For all this, he is

judicial only in tailors and barbers; but his opinion is ever ready, and

ever idle. If you will know more of his acts, the broker ’ s shop is the

witness of his valour, where lies wounded, dead rent, and out of

fashion, many a spruce suit, overthrown by his fantasticness.

AN ELDER BROTHER
Is a creature born to the best advantage of things without him; that

hath the start at the beginning, but loiters it away before the ending.

He looks like his land, as heavily and dirtily, as stubbornly. He dares

do anything but fight, and fears nothing but his father ’ s life, and

minority. The first thing he makes known is his estate, and the

loadstone that draws him is the upper end of the table. He wooeth by a

particular, and his strongest argument is all about the jointure. His

observation is all about the fashion, and he commends partlets for a

rare device. He speaks no language, but smells of dogs or hawks, and his

ambition flies justice-height. He loves to be commended; and he will go

into the kitchen but he ’ ll have it. He loves glory, but is so lazy as he

is content with flattery. He speaks most of the precedency of age, and

protests fortune the greatest virtue. He summoneth the old servants, and

tells what strange acts he will do when he reigns. He verily believes

housekeepers the best commonwealths-men, and therefore studies baking,

brewing, greasing, and such, as the limbs of goodness. He judgeth it no

small sign of wisdom to talk much; his tongue therefore goes continually

his errand, but never speeds. If his understanding were not honester

than his will, no man should keep good conceit by him, for he thinks it

no theft to sell all he can to opinion. His pedigree and his father ’ s

seal-ring are the stilts of his crazed disposition. He had rather keep

company with the dregs of men than not to be the best man. His

insinuation is the inviting of men to his house; and he thinks it a

great modesty to comprehend his cheer under a piece of mutton and a

rabbit. If he by this time be not known, he will go home again, for he

can no more abide to have himself concealed than his land. Yet he is (as

you see) good for nothing, except to make a stallion to maintain

the race.

A BRAGGADOCIO WELSHMAN
Is the oyster that the pearl is in, for a man may be picked out of him.

He hath the abilities of the mind in _potentia_, and _actu_ nothing but

boldness. His clothes are in fashion before his body, and he accounts

boldness the chiefest virtue. Above all men he loves an herald, and

speaks pedigrees naturally. He accounts none well descended that call

him not cousin, and prefers Owen Glendower before any of the Nine

Worthies. The first note of his familiarity is the confession of his

valour, and so he prevents quarrels. He voucheth Welsh a pure and

unconquered language, and courts ladies with the story of their

chronicle. To conclude, he is precious in his own conceit, and upon St.

David ’ s Day without comparison.

A PEDANT.
He treads in a rule, and one hand scans verses, and the other holds his

sceptre. He dares not think a thought that the nominative case governs

not the verb; and he never had meaning in his life, for he travelled

only for words. His ambition is criticism, and his example Tully. He

values phrases, and elects them by the sound, and the eight parts of

speech are his servants. To be brief, he is a Heteroclite, for he wants

the plural number, having only the single quality of words.

A SERVING-MAN
Is a creature, which, though he be not drunk, yet is not his own man. He

tells without asking who owns him, by the superscription of his livery.

His life is for ease and leisure, much about gentleman-like. His wealth

enough to suffice nature, and sufficient to make him happy, if he were

sure of it, for he hath little, and wants nothing; he values himself

higher or lower as his master is. He hates or loves the men as his

master doth the master. He is commonly proud of his master ’ s horses or

his Christmas; he sleeps when he is sleepy, is of his religion, only the

clock of his stomach is set to go an hour after his. He seldom breaks

his own clothes. He never drinks but double, for he must be pledged; nor

commonly without some short sentence nothing to the purpose, and seldom

abstains till he comes to a thirst. His discretion is to be careful for

his master ’ s credit, and his sufficiency to marshal dishes at a table,

and to carve well; his neatness consists much in his hair and outward

linen; his courting language, visible coarse jests; and against his

matter fail, he is always ready furnished with a song. His inheritance

is the chambermaid, but often purchaseth his master ’ s daughter, by

reason of opportunity, or for want of a better, he always cuckolds

himself, and never marries but his own widow. His master being appeased,

he becomes a retainer, and entails himself and his posterity upon his

heir-males for ever.

AN HOST
Is the kernel of a sign; or the sign is the shell, and mine host is the

snail. He consists of double beer and fellowship, and his vices are the

bawds of his thirst. He entertains humbly, and gives his guests power,

as well of himself as house. He answers all men ’ s expectations to his

power, save in the reckoning; and hath gotten the trick of greatness, to

lay all mislikes upon his servants. His wife is the common seed of his

dove-house; and to be a good guest is a warrant for her liberty. He

traffics for guests by men-friends ’ friends ’ friends, and is sensible

only of his purse. In a word, he is none of his own; for he neither

eats, drinks, or thinks, but at other men ’ s charges and appointments.

AN OSTLER
Is a thing that scrubbeth unreasonably his horse, reasonably himself. He

consists of travellers, though he be none himself. His highest ambition

is to be host, and the invention of his sign is his greatest wit, for

the expressing whereof he sends away the painters for want of

understanding. He hath certain charms for a horse mouth, that he should

not eat his hay; and behind your back he will cozen your horse to his

face. His curry-comb is one of his best parts, for he expresseth much by

the jingling; and his mane-comb is a spinner ’ s card turned out of

service. He puffs and blows over your horse, to the hazard of a double

jug, and leaves much of the dressing to the proverb of _muli mutuo

scabient_, one horse rubs another. He comes to him that calls loudest,

not first; he takes a broken head patiently, but the knave he feels it

not; utmost honesty is good fellowship, and he speaks northern, what

countryman soever. He hath a pension of ale from the next smith and

saddler for intelligence; he loves to see you ride, and hold your

stirrup in expectation.

THE TRUE CHARACTER OF A DUNCE.
He hath a soul drowned in a lump of flesh, or is a piece of earth that

Prometheus put not half his proportion of fire into. A thing that hath

neither edge of desire nor feeling of affection in it; the most

dangerous creature for confirming an atheist, who would swear his soul

were nothing but the bare temperature of his body. He sleeps as he goes,

and his thoughts seldom reach an inch further than his eyes. The most

part of the faculties of his soul lie fallow, or are like the restive

jades that no spur can drive forward towards the pursuit of any worthy

designs. One of the most unprofitable of God ’ s creatures, being as he is

a thing put clean beside the right use; made fit for the cart and the

flail, and by mischance entangled amongst books and papers. A man cannot

tell possibly what he is now good for, save to move up and down and fill

room, or to serve as _animatum instrumentum_, for others to work withal

in base employments, or to be foil for better wits, or to serve (as they

say monsters do) to set out the variety of nature, and ornament of the

universe. He is mere nothing of himself, neither eats, nor drinks, nor

goes, nor spits, but by imitation, for all which he hath set forms and

fashions, which he never varies, but sticks to with the like plodding

constancy that a mill-horse follows his trace. But the Muses and the

Graces are his hard mistresses; though he daily invocate them, though he

sacrifice hecatombs, they still look asquint. You shall note him

(besides his dull eye, and lowering head, and a certain clammy benumbed

pace) by a fair displayed beard, a night-cap, and a gown, whose very

wrinkles proclaim him the true genius of familiarity. But of all others,

his discourse and compositions best speak him, both of them are much of

one stuff and fashion. He speaks just what his books or last company

said unto him, without varying one whit, and very seldom understands

himself. You may know by his discourse where he was last; for what he

heard or read yesterday, he now dischargeth his memory or note-book

of--not his understanding, for it never came there. What he hath he

flings abroad at all adventures, without accommodating it to time,

place, or persons, or occasions. He commonly loseth himself in his tale,

and flutters up and down windless without recovery, and whatsoever next

presents itself, his heavy conceit seizeth upon, and goeth along with,

however heterogeneal to his matter in hand. His jests are either old

fled proverbs, or lean-starved hackney apophthegms, or poor verbal

quips, outworn by serving-men, tapsters, and milkmaids, even laid aside

by balladers. He assents to all men that bring any shadow of reason, and

you may make him when he speaks most dogmatically even with one breath,

to aver poor contradictions. His compositions differ only _terminorum

positione_ from dreams; nothing but rude heaps of immaterial,

incoherent, drossy, rubbishy stuff, promiscuously thrust up together;

enough to infuse dulness and barrenness in conceit into him that is so

prodigal of his ears as to give the hearing; enough to make a man ’ s

memory ache with suffering such dirty stuff cast into it. As unwelcome

to any true conceit, as sluttish morsels or wallowish potions to a nice

stomach, which whiles he empties himself, it sticks in his teeth, nor

can he be delivered without sweat, and sighs, and hems, and coughs

enough to shake his grandam ’ s teeth out of her head. He spits, and

scratches, and spawls, and turns like sick men from one elbow to

another, and deserves as much pity during his torture as men in fits of

tertian fevers, or self-lashing penitentiaries. In a word, rip him quite

asunder, and examine every shred of him, you shall find of him to be

just nothing but the subject of nothing; the object of contempt; yet

such as he is you must take him, for there is no hope he should ever

become better.

A GOOD WIFE
Is a man ’ s best movable, a scion incorporate with the stock, bringing

sweet fruit; one that to her husband is more than a friend, less than

trouble; an equal with him in the yoke. Calamities and troubles she

shares alike, nothing pleaseth her that doth not him. She is relative in

all, and he without her but half himself. She is his absent hands, eyes,

ears, and mouth; his present and absent all. She frames her nature unto

his howsoever; the hyacinth follows not the sun more willingly.

Stubbornness and obstinacy are herbs that grow not in her garden. She

leaves tattling to the gossips of the town, and is more seen than heard.

Her household is her charge; her care to that makes her seldom

non-resident. Her pride is but to be cleanly, and her thrift not to be

prodigal. By her discretion she hath children not wantons; a husband

without her is a misery to man ’ s apparel: none but she hath an aged

husband, to whom she is both a staff and a chair. To conclude, she is

both wise and religious, which makes her all this.

A MELANCHOLY MAN
Is a strayer from the drove: one that Nature made a sociable, because

she made him man, and a crazed disposition hath altered. Unpleasing to

all, as all to him; straggling thoughts are his content, they make him

dream waking, there ’ s his pleasure. His imagination is never idle, it

keeps his mind in a continual motion, as the poise the clock: he winds

up his thoughts often, and as often unwinds them; Penelope ’ s web thrives

faster. He ’ ll seldom be found without the shade of some grove, in whose

bottom a river dwells. He carries a cloud in his face, never fair

weather; his outside is framed to his inside, in that he keeps a

decorum, both unseemly. Speak to him; he hears with his eyes, ears

follow his mind, and that ’ s not at leisure. He thinks business, but

never does any; he is all contemplation, no action. He hews and fashions

his thoughts, as if he meant them to some purpose, but they prove

unprofitable, as a piece of wrought timber to no use. His spirits and

the sun are enemies: the sun bright and warm, his humour black and cold;

variety of foolish apparitions people his head, they suffer him not to

breathe according to the necessities of nature, which makes him sup up a

draught of as much air at once as would serve at thrice. He denies

nature her due in sleep, and nothing pleaseth him long, but that which

pleaseth his own fantasies; they are the consuming evils, and evil

consumptions that consume him alive. Lastly, he is a man only in show;

but comes short of the better part, a whole reasonable soul, which is

man ’ s chief pre-eminence and sole mark from creatures sensible.

A SAILOR
Is a pitched piece of reason caulked and tackled, and only studied to

dispute with tempests. He is part of his own provision, for he lives

ever pickled. A fore-wind is the substance of his creed, and fresh water

the burden of his prayers. He is naturally ambitious, for he is ever

climbing; out of which as naturally he fears, for he is ever flying.

Time and he are everywhere ever contending who shall arrive first; he is

well-winded, for he tires the day, and outruns darkness. His life is

like a hawk ’ s, the best part mewed; and if he live till three coats, is

a master. He sees God ’ s wonders in the deep, but so as rather they

appear his playfellows than stirrers of his zeal. Nothing but hunger and

hard rocks can convert him, and then but his upper deck neither; for his

hold neither fears nor hopes, his sleeps are but reprievals of his

dangers, and when he wakes ’ tis but next stage to dying. His wisdom is

the coldest part about him, for it ever points to the north, and it lies

lowest, which makes his valour every tide overflow it. In a storm it is

disputable whether the noise be more his or the elements, and which will

first leave scolding; on which side of the ship he may be saved best,

whether his faith be starboard faith or larboard, or the helm at that

time not all his hope of heaven. His keel is the emblem of his

conscience, till it be split he never repents, then no farther than the

land allows him, and his language is a new confusion, and all his

thoughts new nations. His body and his ship are both one burden, nor is

it known who stows most wine or rolls most; only the ship is guided, he

has no stern. A barnacle and he are bred together, both of one nature,

and it is feared one reason. Upon any but a wooden horse he cannot ride,

and if the wind blow against him he dare not. He swerves up to his seat

as to a sail-yard, and cannot sit unless he bear a flagstaff. If ever he

be broken to the saddle, it is but a voyage still, for he mistakes the

bridle for a bowline, and is ever turning his horse-tail. He can pray,

but it is by rote, not faith, and when he would he dares not, for his

brackish belief hath made that ominous. A rock or a quicksand plucks him

before he be ripe, else he is gathered to his friends at Wapping.

A SOLDIER
Is the husbandman of valour; his sword is his plough, which honour and

_aqua vita_, two fiery-metalled jades, are ever drawing. A younger

brother best becomes arms, an elder the thanks for them. Every heat

makes him a harvest, and discontents abroad are his sowers. He is

actively his prince ’ s, but passively his anger ’ s servant. He is often a

desirer of learning, which once arrived at, proves his strongest armour.

He is a lover at all points, and a true defender of the faith of women.

More wealth than makes him seem a handsome foe, lightly he covets not,

less is below him. He never truly wants but in much having, for then his

ease and lechery afflict him. The word peace, though in prayer, makes

him start, and God he best considers by His power. Hunger and cold rank

in the same file with him, and hold him to a man; his honour else, and

the desire of doing things beyond him, would blow him greater than the

sons of Anak. His religion is, commonly, as his cause is, doubtful, and

that the best devotion keeps best quarter. He seldom sees grey hairs,

some none at all, for where the sword fails, there the flesh gives fire.

In charity he goes beyond the clergy, for he loves his greatest enemy

best, much drinking. He seems a full student, for he is a great desirer

of controversies; he argues sharply, and carries his conclusion in his

scabbard. In the first refining of mankind this was the gold, his

actions are his amel. His alloy (for else you cannot work him perfectly)

continual duties, heavy and weary marches, lodgings as full of need as

cold diseases. No time to argue, but to execute. Line him with these,

and link him to his squadrons, and he appears a most rich chain

for princes.

A TAILOR
Is a creature made up of threads that were pared off from Adam, when he

was rough cast; the end of his being differeth from that of others, and

is not to serve God, but to cover sin. Other men ’ s pride is the best

patron, and their negligence a main passage to his profit. He is a thing

of more than ordinary judgment: for by virtue of that he buyeth land,

buildeth houses, and raiseth the set roof of his cross-legged fortune.

His actions are strong encounters, and for their notoriousness always

upon record. It is neither Amadis de Gaul, nor the Knight of the Sun,

that is able to resist them. A ten-groat fee setteth them on foot, and a

brace of officers bringeth them to execution. He handleth the Spanish

pike to the hazard of many poor Egyptian vermin; and in show of his

valour, scorneth a greater gauntlet than will cover the top of his

middle finger. Of all weapons he most affecteth the long bill; and this

he will manage to the great prejudice of a customer ’ s estate. His

spirit, notwithstanding, is not so much as to make you think him man;

like a true mongrel, he neither bites nor barks but when your back is

towards him. His heart is a lump of congealed snow: Prometheus was

asleep while it was making. He differeth altogether from God; for with

him the best pieces are still marked out for damnation, and, without

hope of recovery, shall be cast down into hell. He is partly an

alchemist; for he extracteth his own apparel out of other men ’ s clothes;

and when occasion serveth, making a broker ’ s shop his alembic, can turn

your silks into gold, and having furnished his necessities, after a

month or two, if he be urged unto it, reduce them again to their proper

subsistence. He is in part likewise an arithmetician, cunning enough for

multiplication and addition, but cannot abide subtraction: _summa

totalis_ is the language of his Canaan, and _usque ad ultimum

quadrantem_ the period of all his charity. For any skill in geometry I

dare not commend him, for he could never yet find out the dimensions of

his own conscience; notwithstanding he hath many bottoms, it seemeth

this is always bottomless. And so with a _libera nos a malo_ I leave

you, promising to amend whatsoever is amiss at his next setting.

A PURITAN
Is a diseased piece of apocalypse: bind him to the Bible, and he

corrupts the whole text. ’ Ignorance and fat feed are his founders; his

nurses, railing, rabies, and round breeches. His life is but a borrowed

blast of wind: for between two religions, as between two doors, he is

ever whistling. Truly, whose child he is is yet unknown; for, willingly,

his faith allows no father: only thus far his pedigree is found, Bragger

and he flourished about a time first. His fiery zeal keeps him

continually costive, which withers him into his own translation; and

till he eat a schoolman he is hide-bound. He ever prays against

non-residents, but is himself the greatest discontinuer, for he never

keeps near his text. Anything that the law allows, but marriage and

March beer, he murmurs at; what it disallows and holds dangerous, makes

him a discipline. Where the gate stands open, he is ever seeking a

stile; and where his learning ought to climb, he creeps through. Give

him advice, you run into traditions; and urge a modest course, he cries

out counsel. His greatest care is to contemn obedience; his last care to

serve God handsomely and cleanly. He is now become so cross a kind of

teaching, that should the Church enjoin clean shirts, he were lousy.

More sense than single prayers is not his; nor more in those than still

the same petitions: from which he either fears a learned faith, or

doubts God understands not at first hearing. Show him a ring, he runs

back like a bear; and hates square dealing as allied to caps. A pair of

organs blow him out of the parish, and are the only glyster-pipes to

cool him. Where the meat is best, there he confutes most, for his

arguing is but the efficacy of his eating: good bits he holds breed good

positions, and the Pope he best concludes against in plum-broth. He is

often drunk, but not as we are, temporally; nor can his sleep then cure

him, for the fumes of his ambition make his very soul reel, and that

small beer that should allay him (silence) keeps him more surfeited, and

makes his heat break out in private houses. Women and lawyers are his

best disciples; the one, next fruit, longs for forbidden doctrine, the

other to maintain forbidden titles, both which he sows amongst them.

Honest he dare not be, for that loves order; yet, if he can be brought

to ceremony and made but master of it, he is converted.

A MERE COMMON LAWYER
Is the best shadow to make a discreet one show the fairer. He is a

_materia prima_ informed by reports, actuated by statutes, and hath his

motion by the favourable intelligence of the Court. His law is always

furnished with a commission to arraign his conscience; but, upon

judgment given, he usually sets it at large. He thinks no language worth

knowing but his Barragouin: only for that point he hath been a long time

at wars with Priscian for a northern province. He imagines that by sure

excellency his profession only is learning, and that it is a profanation

of the Temple to his Themis dedicated, if any of the liberal arts be

there admitted to offer strange incense to her. For, indeed, he is all

for money. Seven or eight years squires him out, some of his nation less

standing; and ever since the night of his call, he forgot much what he

was at dinner. The next morning his man (in _actu_ or _potentia_) enjoys

his pickadels. His laundress is then shrewdly troubled in fitting him a

ruff, his perpetual badge. His love-letters of the last year of his

gentlemanship are stuffed with discontinuances, remitters, and uncore

priests; but, now being enabled to speak in proper person, he talks of a

French hood instead of a jointure, wags his law, and joins issue. Then

he begins to stick his letters in his ground chamber-window, that so the

superscription may make his squireship transparent. His heraldry gives

him place before the minister, because the Law was before the Gospel.

Next term he walks his hoopsleeve gown to the hall; there it proclaims

him. He feeds fat in the reading, and till it chance to his turn,

dislikes no house order so much as that the month is so contracted to a

fortnight. Amongst his country neighbours he arrogates as much honour

for being reader of an Inn of Chancery, as if it had been of his own

house; for they, poor souls, take law and conscience, Court and

Chancery, for all one. He learned to frame his case from putting riddles

and imitating Merlin ’ s prophecies, and to set all the Cross Row together

by the ears; yet his whole law is not able to decide Lucan ’ s one old

controversy betwixt Tau and Sigma. He accounts no man of his cap and

coat idle, but who trots not the circuit. He affects no life or quality

for itself, but for gain; and that, at least, to the stating him in a

Justice of Peace-ship, which is the first quickening soul superadded to

the elementary and inanimate form of his new tide. His terms are his

wife ’ s vacations; yet she then may usurp divers Court-days, and has her

returns in _mensem_ for writs of entry--often shorter. His vacations are

her termers; but in assize time (the circuit being long) he may have a

trial at home against him by _nisi prius_. No way to heaven, he thinks,

so wise as through Westminster Hall; and his clerks commonly through it

visit both heaven and hell. Yet then he oft forgets his journey ’ s end,

although he look on the Star-Chamber. Neither is he wholly destitute of

the arts. Grammar he has enough to make termination of those words which

his authority hath endenizoned rhetoric-some; but so little that it is

thought a concealment. Logic, enough to wrangle. Arithmetic, enough for

the ordinals of his year-books and number-rolls; but he goes not to

multiplication, there is a statute against it. So much geometry, that he

can advise in a _perambulatione fadenda_, or a _rationalibus divisis_.

In astronomy and astrology he is so far seen, that by the Dominical

letter he knows the holy-days, and finds by calculation that Michaelmas

term will be long and dirty. Marry, he knows so much in music that he

affects only the most and cunningest discords; rarely a perfect concord,

especially song, except _in fine_. His skill in perspective endeavours

much to deceive the eye of the law, and gives many false colours. He is

specially practised in necromancy (such a kind as is out of the Statute

of Primo), by raising many dead questions. What sufficiency he hath in

criticism, the foul copies of his special pleas will tell you. Many of

the same coat, which are much to be honoured, partake of divers of his

indifferent qualities; but so that discretion, virtue, and sometimes

other good learning, concurring and distinguishing ornaments to them,

make them as foils to set their work on.

A MERE SCHOLAR.
A mere scholar is an intelligible ass, or a silly fellow in black that

speaks sentences more familiarly than sense. The antiquity of his

University is his creed, and the excellency of his college (though but

for a match at football) an article of his faith. He speaks Latin better

than his mother-tongue, and is a stranger in no part of the world but

his own country. He does usually tell great stories of himself to small

purpose, for they are commonly ridiculous, be they true or false. His

ambition is that he either is or shall be a graduate; but if ever he get

a fellowship, he has then no fellow. In spite of all logic he dares

swear and maintain it, that a cuckold and a town ’ s-man are _termini

convertibles_, though his mother ’ s husband be an alderman. He was never

begotten (as it seems) without much wrangling, for his whole life is

spent in _pro et contra_. His tongue goes always before his wit, like

gentleman-usher, but somewhat faster. That he be a complete gallant in

all points, _cap-a-pie_, witness his horsemanship and the wearing of his

weapons. He is commonly long-winded, able to speak more with ease than

any man can endure to hear with patience. University jests are his

universal discourse, and his news the demeanour of the proctors. His

phrase, the apparel of his mind, is made of divers shreds, like a

cushion, and when it goes plainest it hath a rash outside and fustian

linings. The current of his speech is closed with an _ergo_; and,

whatever be the question, the truth is on his side. It is a wrong to his

reputation to be ignorant of anything; and yet he knows not that he

knows nothing. He gives directions for husbandry, from Virgil ’ s

"Georgics;" for cattle, from his "Bucolics;" for warlike stratagems,

from his "AEneids" or Caesar ’ s "Commentaries." He orders all things and

thrives in none; skilful in all trades and thrives in none. He is led

more by his ears than his understanding, taking the sound of words for

their true sense, and does therefore confidently believe that Erra Pater

was the father of heretics, Radulphus Agricola a substantial farmer, and

will not stick to aver that Systemo ’ s Logic doth excel Keckerman ’ s. His

ill-luck is not so much in being a fool, as in being put to such pains

to express it to the world, for what in others is natural, in him (with

much ado) is artificial. His poverty is his happiness, for it makes some

men believe that he is none of fortune ’ s favourites. That learning which

he hath was in non age put in backward like a glyster, and it ’ s now like

ware mislaid in a pedlar ’ s pack; a has it, but knows not where it is. In

a word, his is the index of a man and the title-page of a scholar, or a

puritan in morality--much in profession, nothing in practice.

A TINKER
Is a movable, for he hath no abiding-place; by his motion he gathers

heat, thence his choleric nature. He seems to be very devout, for his

life is a continual pilgrimage, and sometimes in humility goes barefoot,

thereon making necessity a virtue. His house is as ancient as Tubal

Cain ’ s, and so is a renegade by antiquity: yet he proves himself a

gallant, for he carries all his wealth upon his back; or a philosopher,

for he bears all his substance about him. From his art was music first

invented, and therefore he is always furnished with a song, to which his

hammer keeping tune, proves that he was the first founder for the

kettledrum. Note, that where the best ale is, there stands his music

most upon crochets. The companion of his travels is some foul sun-burnt

quean, that, since the terrible statute, recanted gipseyism and is

turned pedlaress. So marches he all over England with his bag and

baggage. His conversation is unreprovable, for he is ever mending. He

observes truly the statutes, and therefore he can rather steal than beg,

in which he is unremovably constant in spite of whip or imprisonment;

and so a strong enemy to idleness, that in mending one hole he had

rather make three than want work, and when he hath done, he throws the

wallet of his faults behind him. He embraceth naturally ancient custom,

conversing in open fields and lowly cottages. If he visit cities or

towns, ’ tis but to deal upon the imperfections of our weaker vessels.

His tongue is very voluble, which with canting proves him a linguist. He

is entertained in every place, but enters no further than the door, to

avoid suspicion. Some will take him to be a coward, but believe it, he

is a lad of metal; his valour is commonly three or four yards long,

fastened to a pike in the end for flying off. He is provident, for he

will fight but with one at once, and then also he had rather submit than

be counted obstinate. To conclude, if he escape Tyburn and Banbury, he

dies a beggar.

AN APPARITOR
Is a chick of the egg abuse, hatched by the warmth of authority; he is a

bird of rapine, and begins to prey and feather together. He croaks like

a raven against the death of rich men, and so gets a legacy

unbequeathed. His happiness is in the multitude of children, for their

increase is his wealth, and to that end he himself yearly adds one. He

is a cunning hunter, uncoupling his intelligencing hounds under hedges,

in thickets and cornfields, who follow the chase to city suburbs, where

often his game is at covert; his quiver hangs by his side stuffed with

silver arrows, which he shoots against church-gates and private men ’ s

doors, to the hazard of their purses and credit. There went but a pair

of shears between him and the pursuivant of hell, for they both delight

in sin, grow richer by it, and are by justice appointed to punish it;

only the devil is more cunning, for he picks a living out of others ’

gains. His living lieth in his eye, which (like spirits) he sends

through chinks and keyholes to survey the places of darkness; for which

purpose he studieth the optics, but can discover no colour but black,

for the pure white of chastity dazzleth his eyes. He is a Catholic, for

he is everywhere; and with a politic, for he transforms himself into all

shapes. He travels on foot to avoid idleness, and loves the Church

entirely, because it is the place of his edification. He accounts not

all sins mortal, for fornication with him is a venial sin, and to take

bribes a matter of charity; he is collector for burnings and losses at

sea, and in casting account readily subtracts the lesser from the

greater sum. Thus lives he in a golden age, till death by a process

summons him to appear.

AN ALMANAC-MAKER
Is the worst part of an astronomer; a certain compact of figures,

characters, and ciphers, out of which he scores the fortune of a year,

not so profitably as doubtfully. He is tenant by custom to the planets,

of whom he holds the twelve houses by lease parol; to them he pays

yearly rent, his study and time, yet lets them out again with all his

heart for 40s. per annum. His life is merely contemplative; for his

practice, ’ tis worth nothing, at least not worthy of credit, and if by

chance he purchase any, he loseth it again at the year ’ s end, for time

brings truth to light. Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe are his patrons, whose

volumes he understands not but admires, and the rather because they are

strangers, and so easier to be credited than controlled. His life is

upright, for he is always looking upward, yet dares believe nothing

above _primum mobile_, for ’ tis out of the reach of his Jacob ’ s staff.

His charity extends no further than to mountebanks and sow-gelders, to

whom he bequeaths the seasons of the year to kill or torture by. The

verses of his book have a worse pace than ever had Rochester hackney;

for his prose, ’ tis dappled with ink-horn terms, and may serve for an

almanac; but for his judging at the uncertainty of weather, any old

shepherd shall make a dunce of him. He would be thought the devil ’ s

intelligencer for stolen goods, if ever he steal out of that quality. As

a fly turns to a maggot, so the corruption of the cunning man is the

generation of an empiric; his works fly forth in small volumes, yet not

all, for many ride post to chandlers and tobacco shops in folio. To be

brief, he falls three degrees short of his promises, yet is he the key

to unlock terms and law days, a dumb mercury to point out highways, and

a bailiff of all marts and fairs in England. The rest of him you shall

know next year, for what he will be then he himself knows not.

A HYPOCRITE
Is a gilded pill, composed of two virtuous ingredients, natural

dishonesty and artificial dissimulation. Simple fruit, plant, or drug he

is none, but a deformed mixture bred betwixt evil nature and false art

by a monstrous generation, and may well be put into the reckoning of

those creatures that God never made. In Church or commonwealth (for in

both these this mongrel weed will shoot) it is hard to say whether he be

physic or a disease, for he is both in divers respects.

As he is gilt with an outside of seeming purity, or as he offereth

himself to you to be taken down in a cup or taste of golden zeal and

simplicity, you may call him physic. Nay, and never let potion give

patient good stool if, being truly tasted and relished, he be not as

loathsome to the stomach of any honest man.

He is also physic in being as commodious for use as he is odious in

taste, if the body of the company into which he is taken can make true

use of him. For the malice of his nature makes him so

informer-like-dangerous, in taking advantage of anything done or said,

yea, even to the ruin of his makers, if he may have benefit, that such a

creature in a society makes men as careful of their speeches and actions

as the sight of a known cut-purse in a throng makes them watchful over

their purses and pockets. He is also in this respect profitable physic,

that his conversation being once truly tasted and discovered, the

hateful foulness of it will make those that are not fully like him to

purge all such diseases as are rank in him out of their own lives, as

the sight of some citizens on horseback make a judicious man amend his

own faults in horsemanship. If one of these uses can be made of him, let

him not long offend the stomach of your company; your best way is to

spue him out. That he is a disease in the body where he liveth were as

strange a thing to doubt as whether there be knavery in horse-coursers.

For if among sheep, the rot; amongst dogs, the mange; amongst horses,

the glanders; amongst men and women, the Northern itch and the French

ache, be diseases, an hypocrite cannot but be the like in all States and

societies that breed him. If he be a clergy hypocrite, then all manner

of vice is for the most part so proper to him as he will grudge any man

the practice of it but himself; like that grave burgess, who being

desired to lend his clothes to represent a part in a comedy, answered:

No, by his leave, he would have nobody play the fool in his clothes but

himself. Hence are his so austere reprehensions of drinking healths,

lascivious talk, usury, and unconscionable dealing; whenas himself,

hating the profane mixture of malt and water, will, by his good will,

let nothing come within him but the purity of the grape, when he can get

it of another ’ s cost. But this must not be done neither without a

preface of seeming soothness, turning up the eyes, moving the head,

laying hand on the breast, and protesting that he would not do it but to

strengthen his body, being even consumed with dissembled zeal, and

tedious and thankless babbling to God and his auditors. And for the

other vices, do but venture the making yourself private with him or

trusting of him, and if you come off without a savour of the air which

his soul is infected with you have great fortune. The fardel of all this

ware that is in him you shall commonly see carried upon the back of

these two beasts that live within him, Ignorance and Imperiousness, and

they may well serve to carry other vices, for of themselves they are

insupportable. His Ignorance acquits him of all science, human or

divine, and of all language but his mother ’ s; holding nothing pure,

holy, or sincere but the senseless recollections of his own crazed

brain, the zealous fumes of his inflamed spirit, and the endless labours

of his eternal tongue, the motions whereof, when matter and words fail

(as they often do), must be patched up to accomplish his four hours in a

day at the least with long and fervent hums. Anything else, either for

language or matter, he cannot abide, but thus censureth: Latin, the

language of the beast; Greek, the tongue wherein the heathen poets wrote

their fictions; Hebrew, the speech of the Jews that crucified Christ;

controversies do not edify; logic and philosophy are the subtilties of

Satan to deceive the simple; human stories profane, and not savouring of

the Spirit; in a word, all decent and sensible form of speech and

persuasion (though in his own tongue) vain ostentation. And all this is

the burden of his Ignorance, saving that sometimes idleness will put in

also to bear a part of the baggage. His other beast, Imperiousness, is

yet more proudly laden; it carrieth a burden that no cords of authority,

spiritual nor temporal, should bind if it might have the full swing. No

Pilate, no prince should command him, nay, he will command them, and at

his pleasure censure them if they will not suffer their ears to be

fettered with the long chains of his tedious collations, their purses to

be emptied with the inundations of his unsatiable humour, and their

judgments to be blinded with the muffler of his zealous ignorance; for

this doth he familiarly insult over his maintainer that breeds him, his

patron that feeds him, and in time over all them that will suffer him to

set a foot within their doors or put a finger in their purses. All this

and much more is in him; that abhorring degrees and universities as

reliques of superstition, hath leapt from a shop-board or a cloak-bag to

a desk or pulpit; and that, like a sea-god in a pageant, hath the rotten

laths of his culpable life and palpable ignorance covered over with the

painted-cloth of a pure gown and a night-cap, and with a false trumpet

of feigned zeal draweth after him some poor nymphs and madmen that

delight more to resort to dark caves and secret places than to open and

public assemblies. The lay-hypocrite is to the other a champion,

disciple, and subject, and will not acknowledge the tithe of the

subjection to any mitre, no, not to any sceptre, that he will do to the

hook and crook of his zeal-blind shepherd. No Jesuits demand more blind

and absolute obedience from their vassals, no magistrates of the canting

society more slavish subjection from the members of that travelling

State, than the clerk hypocrites expect from these lay pulpits. Nay,

they must not only be obeyed, fed, and defended, but admired too; and

that their lay-followers do sincerely, as a shirtless fellow with a

cudgel under his arm doth a face-wringing ballad-singer, a water-bearer

on the floor of a playhouse, a wide-mouthed poet that speaks nothing but

blathers and bombast. Otherwise, for life and profession, nature and

art, inward and outward, they agree in all; like canters and gypsies,

they are all zeal no knowledge, all purity no humanity, all simplicity

no honesty, and if you never trust them they will never deceive you.

A CHAMBERMAID.
She is her mistress ’ s she secretary, and keeps the box of her teeth, her

hair, and her painting very private. Her industry is upstairs and

downstairs, like a drawer; and by her dry hand you may know she is a

sore starcher. If she lie at her master ’ s bed ’ s feet, she is quit of the

green sickness for ever, for she hath terrible dreams when she ’ s awake,

as if she were troubled with the nightmare. She hath a good liking to

dwell in the country, but she holds London the goodliest forest in

England to shelter a great belly. She reads Greene ’ s works over and

over, but is so carried away with the "Mirror of Knighthood," she is

many times resolved to run out of her self and become a lady-errant. The

pedant of the house, though he promise her marriage, cannot grow further

inward with her; she hath paid for her credulity often, and now grows

weary. She likes the form of our marriage very well, in that a woman is

not tied to answer to any articles concerning questions of virginity.

Her mind, her body, and clothes are parcels loosely tacked together, and

for want of good utterance she perpetually laughs out her meaning. Her

mistress and she help to make away time to the idlest purpose that can

be, either for love or money. In brief, these chambermaids are like

lotteries: you may draw twenty ere one worth anything.

A PRECISIAN.
To speak no otherwise of this varnished rottenness than in truth and

verity he is, I must define him to be a demure creature, full of oral

sanctity and mental impiety; a fair object to the eye, but stark naught

for the understanding, or else a violent thing much given to

contradiction. He will be sure to be in opposition with the Papist,

though it be sometimes accompanied with an absurdity, like the islanders

near adjoining unto China, who salute by putting off their shoes,

because the men of China do it by their hats. If at any time he fast, it

is upon Sunday, and he is sure to feast upon Friday. He can better

afford you ten lies than one oath, and dare commit any sin gilded with a

pretence of sanctity. He will not stick to commit fornication or

adultery so it be done in the fear of God and for the propagation of the

godly, and can find in his heart to lie with any whore save the whore of

Babylon. To steal he holds it lawful, so it be from the wicked and

Egyptians. He had rather see Antichrist than a picture in the church

window, and chooseth sooner to be half hanged than see a leg at the name

of Jesus or one stand at the Creed. He conceives his prayer in the

kitchen rather than in the church, and is of so good discourse that he

dares challenge the Almighty to talk with him extempore. He thinks every

organist is in the state of damnation, and had rather hear one of Robert

Wisdom ’ s psalms than the best hymn a cherubim can sing. He will not

break wind without an apology or asking forgiveness, nor kiss a

gentlewoman for fear of lusting after her. He hath nicknamed all the

prophets and apostles with his sons, and begets nothing but virtues for

daughters. Finally, he is so sure of his salvation, that he will not

change places in heaven with the Virgin Mary, without boot.

AN INNS OF COURT MAN.
He is distinguished from a scholar by a pair of silk stockings and a

beaver hat, which makes him condemn a scholar as much as a scholar doth

a schoolmaster. By that he hath heard one mooting and seen two plays, he

thinks as basely of the university as a young sophister doth of the

grammar-school. He talks of the university with that state as if he were

her chancellor; finds fault with alterations and the fall of discipline

with an "It was not so when I was a student," although that was within

this half year. He will talk ends of Latin, though it be false, with as

great confidence as ever Cicero could pronounce an oration, though his

best authors for it be taverns and ordinaries. He is as far behind a

courtier in his fashion as a scholar is behind him, and the best grace

in his behaviour is to forget his acquaintance.

He laughs at every man whose band fits not well, or that hath not a fair

shoe-tie, and he is ashamed to be seen in any man ’ s company that wears

not his clothes well. His very essence he placeth in his outside, and

his chiefest prayer is, that his revenues may hold out for taffety

cloaks in the summer and velvet in the winter. To his acquaintance he

offers two quarts of wine for one he gives. You shall never see him

melancholy but when he wants a new suit or fears a sergeant, at which

times he only betakes himself to Ploydon. By that he hath read

Littleton, he can call Solon, Lycurgus, and Justinian fools, and dares

compare his law to a lord chief-justice ’ s.

A MERE FELLOW OF AN HOUSE.
He is one whose hopes commonly exceed his fortunes and whose mind soars

above his purse. If he hath read Tacitus Guicciardine or Gallo-Belgicus,

he condemns the late Lord-Treasurer for all the state policy he had, and

laughs to think what a fool he could make of Solomon if he were now

alive. He never wears new clothes but against a commencement or a good

time, and is commonly a degree behind the fashion. He hath sworn to see

London once a year, though all his business be to see a play, walk a

turn in Paul ’ s, and observe the fashion. He thinks it a discredit to be

out of debt, which he never likely clears without resignation money. He

will not leave his part he hath in the privilege over young gentlemen in

going bare to him, for the empire of Germany. He prays as heartily for a

sealing as a cormorant doth for a dear year, yet commonly he spends that

revenue before he receives it.

At meals he sits in as great state over his penny commons as ever

Vitellius did at his greatest banquet, and takes great delight in

comparing his fare to my Lord Mayor ’ s.

If he be a leader of a faction, he thinks himself greater than ever

Caesar was or the Turk at this day is. And he had rather lose an

inheritance than an office when he stands for it.

If he be to travel, he is longer furnishing himself for a five miles ’

journey than a ship is rigging for a seven years ’ voyage. He is never

more troubled than when he has to maintain talk with a gentlewoman,

wherein he commits more absurdities than a clown in eating of an egg.

He thinks himself as fine when he is in a clean band and a new pair of

shoes, as any courtier doth when he is first in a new fashion.

Lastly, he is one that respects no man in the university, and is

respected by no man out of it.

A WORTHY COMMANDER IN THE WARS
Is one that accounts learning the nourishment of military virtue, and

lays that as his first foundation. He never bloodies his sword but in

heat of battle, and had rather save one of his own soldiers than kill

ten of his enemies. He accounts it an idle, vainglorious, and suspected

bounty to be full of good words; his rewarding, therefore, of the

deserver arrives so timely, that his liberality can never be said to be

gouty-handed. He holds it next his creed that no coward can be an honest

man, and dare die in it. He doth not think, his body yields a more

spreading shadow after a victory than before; and when he looks upon his

enemy ’ s dead body ’ tis a kind of noble heaviness--no insultation. He is

so honourably merciful to women in surprisal, that only that makes him

an excellent courtier. He knows the hazard of battles, not the pomp of

ceremonies, are soldiers ’ best theatres, and strives to gain reputation,

not by the multitude but by the greatness of his actions. He is the

first in giving the charge and the last in retiring his foot. Equal toil

he endures with the common soldier; from his examples they all take

fire, as one torch lights many. He understands in war there is no mean

to err twice, the first and last fault being sufficient to ruin an army:

faults, therefore, he pardons none; they that are precedents of disorder

or mutiny repair it by being examples of his justice. Besiege him never

so strictly, so long as the air is not cut from him, his heart faints

not. He hath learned as well to make use of a victory as to get it, and

pursuing his enemies like a whirlwind, carries all before him; being

assured if ever a man will benefit himself upon his foe, then is the

time when they have lost force, wisdom, courage, and reputation. The

goodness of his cause is the special motive to his valour; never is he

known to slight the weakest enemy that comes armed against him in the

band of justice. Hasty and overmuch heat he accounts the step-dame to

all great actions that will not suffer them to drive; if he cannot

overcome his enemy by force, he does it by time. If ever he shake hands

with war, he can die more calmly than most courtiers, for his continual

dangers have been, as it were, so many meditations of death. He thinks

not out of his own calling when he accounts life a continual warfare,

and his prayers then best become him when armed _cap-a-fie_. He utters

them like the great Hebrew general, on horseback. He casts a smiling

contempt upon calumny; it meets him as if glass should encounter

adamant. He thinks war is never to be given o ’ er, but on one of these

three conditions: an assured peace, absolute victory, or an honest

death. Lastly, when peace folds him up, his silver head should lean near

the golden sceptre and die in his prince ’ s bosom.

A VAINGLORIOUS COWARD IN COMMAND
Is one that hath bought his place, or come to it by some nobleman ’ s

letter. He loves alive dead pays, yet wishes they may rather happen in

his company by the scurvy than by a battle. View him at a muster, and he

goes with such a nose as if his body were the wheelbarrow that carried

his judgment rumbling to drill his soldiers. No man can worse design

between pride and noble courtesy. He that salutes him not, so far as a

pistol carries level, gives him the disgust or affront, choose you

whether. He trains by the book, and reckons so many postures of the pike

and musket as if he were counting at noddy. When he comes at first upon

a camisado, he looks, like the four winds in painting, as if he would

blow away the enemy; but at the very first onset suffers fear and

trembling to dress themselves in his face apparently. He scorns any man

should take place before him, yet at the entering of a breach he hath

been so humble-minded as to let his lieutenant lead his troops for him.

He is so sure armed for taking hurt that he seldom does any; and while

he is putting on his arms, he is thinking what sum he can make to

satisfy his ransom. He will rail openly against all the great commanders

of the adverse party, yet in his own conscience allows them for better

men. Such is the nature of his fear that, contrary to all other filthy

qualities, it makes him think better of another man than himself. The

first part of him that is set a running is his eye-sight; when that is

once struck with terror all the costive physic in the world cannot stay

him. If ever he do anything beyond his own heart ’ tis for a knighthood,

and he is the first kneels for it without bidding.

A PIRATE,
Truly defined, is a bold traitor, for he fortifies a castle against the

king. Give him sea-room in never so small a vessel, and like a witch in

a sieve, you would think he were going to make merry with the devil. Of

all callings his is the most desperate, for he will not leave off his

thieving, though he be in a narrow prison, and look every day, by

tempest or fight, for execution. He is one plague the devil hath added

to make the sea more terrible than a storm, and his heart is so hardened

in that rugged element that he cannot repent, though he view his grave

before him continually open. He hath so little of his own that the house

he sleeps in is stolen: all the necessities of life he filches but one;

he cannot steal a sound sleep for his troubled conscience. He is very

gentle to those under him, yet his rule is the horriblest tyranny in the

world, for he gives licence to all rape, murder, and cruelty in his own

example. What he gets is small use to him, only lives by it somewhat the

longer to do a little more service to his belly, for he throws away his

treasure upon the shore in riot, as if he cast it into the sea. He is a

cruel hawk that flies at all but his own kind; and as a whale never

comes ashore but when she is wounded, so he very seldom but for his

necessities. He is the merchant ’ s book that serves only to reckon up his

losses, a perpetual plague to noble traffic, the hurricane of the sea,

and the earthquake of the exchange. Yet for all this give him but his

pardon and forgive him restitution, he may live to know the inside of a

church, and die on this side Wapping.

AN ORDINARY FENCER
Is a fellow that, beside shaving of cudgels, hath a good insight into

the world, for he hath long been beaten to it. Flesh and blood he is

like other men, but surely nature meant him stockfish. His and a

dancing-school are inseparable adjuncts, and are bound, though both

stink of sweat most abominable, neither shall complain of annoyance.

Three large bavins set up his trade, with a bench, which, in the

vacation of the afternoon, he used for his day-bed. When he comes on the

stage at his prize he makes a leg seven several ways, and scrambles for

money, as if he had been born at the Bath in Somersetshire. At his

challenge he shows his metal, for, contrary to all rules of physic, he

dares bleed, though it be in the dog-days. He teaches devilish play in

his school, but when he fights himself he doth it in the fear of a good

Christian; he compounds quarrels among his scholars, and when he hath

brought the business to a good upshot he makes the reckoning. His wounds

are seldom above skin deep; for an inward bruise lamb-stones and

sweetbreads are his only spermaceti, which he eats at night next his

heart fasting. Strange schoolmasters they are that every day set a man

as far backward as he went forward, and throwing him into a strange

posture, teach him to thresh satisfaction out of injury. One sign of a

good nature is that he is still open-breasted to his friends; for his

foil and his doublet wear not out above two buttons, and resolute he is,

for he so much scorns to take blows that he never wears cuffs; and he

lives better contented with a little than other men, for if he have two

eyes in his head he thinks nature hath overdone him. The Lord Mayor ’ s

triumph makes him a man, for that ’ s his best time to flourish. Lastly,

these fencers are such things that care not if all the world were

ignorant of more letters than only to read their patent.

A PUNY CLERK.
He is taken from grammar-school half coddled, and can hardly shake off

his dreams of breeching in a twelvemonth. He is a farmer ’ s son, and his

father ’ s utmost ambition is to make him an attorney. He doth itch

towards a poet, and greases his breeches extremely with feeding without

a napkin. He studies false dice to cheat costermongers. He eats

gingerbread at a playhouse, and is so saucy that he ventures fairly for

a broken pate at the banqueting-house, and hath it. He would never come

to have any wit but for a long vacation, for that makes him bethink him

how he shall shift another day. He prays hotly against fasting, and so

he may sup well on Friday nights, he cares not though his master be a

puritan. He practices to make the words in his declaration spread as a

sewer doth the dishes of a niggard ’ s table; a clerk of a swooping dash

is as commendable as a Flanders horse of a large tail. Though you be

never so much delayed you must not call his master knave, that makes him

go beyond himself, and write a challenge in court hand, for it may be

his own another day These are some certain of his liberal faculties; but

in the term time his clog is a buckram bag. Lastly, which is great pity,

he never comes to his full growth, with bearing on his shoulder the

sinful burden of his master at several courts in Westminster.

A FOOTMAN.
Let him be never so well made, yet his legs are not matches, for he is

still setting the best foot forward. He will never be a staid man, for

he has had a running head of his own ever since his childhood. His

mother, which out of question was a light-heeled wench, knew it, yet let

him run his race thinking age would reclaim him from his wild courses.

He is very long-winded, and without doubt but that he hates naturally to

serve on horseback, he had proved an excellent trumpet. He has one

happiness above all the rest of the serving-men, for when he most

overreaches his master he is best thought of. He lives more by his own

heat than the warmth of clothes, and the waiting-woman hath the greatest

fancy to him when he is in his close trouses. Guards he wears none,

which makes him live more upright than any cross-gartered

gentleman-usher. ’ Tis impossible to draw his picture to the life,

because a man must take it as he ’ s running, only this, horses are

usually let blood on St. Steven ’ s Day. On St. Patrick ’ s he takes rest,

and is drenched for all the year after.

A NOBLE AND RETIRED HOUSEKEEPER
Is one whose bounty is limited by reason, not ostentation; and to make

it last he deals it discreetly, as we sow the furrow, not by the sack,

but by the handful. His word and his meaning never shake hands and part,

but always go together. He can survey good and love it, and loves to do

it himself for its own sake, not for thanks. He knows there is no such

misery as to outlive good name, nor no such folly as to put it in

practice. His mind is so secure that thunder rocks him asleep, which

breaks other men ’ s slumbers; nobility lightens in his eyes, and in his

face and gesture is painted the god of hospitality. His great houses

bear in their front more durance than state, unless this add the greater

state to them, that they promise to outlast much of our new fantastical

buildings. His heart never grows old, no more than his memory, whether

at his book or on horseback. He passeth his time in such noble exercise,

a man cannot say any time is lost by him; nor hath he only years to

approve he hath lived till he be old, but virtues. His thoughts have a

high aim, though their dwelling be in the vale of an humble heart,

whence, as by an engine (that raises water to fall that it may rise the

higher), he is heightened in his humility. The adamant serves not for

all seas, but this doth; for he hath, as it were, put a gird about the

whole world and found all her quicksands. He hath this hand over

fortune, that her injuries, how violent or sudden soever, they do not

daunt him; for whether his time call him to live or die, he can do both

nobly; if to fall, his descent is breast to breast with virtue; and even

then, like the sun near his set, he shows unto the world his clearest

countenance.

AN INTRUDER INTO FAVOUR
Is one that builds his reputation on others ’ infamy, for slander is most

commonly his morning prayer. His passions are guided by pride and

followed by injustice. An inflexible anger against some poor tutor he

falsely calls a courageous constancy, and thinks the best part of

gravity to consist in a ruffled forehead. He is the most slavishly

submissive, though envious to those that are in better place than

himself; and knows the art of words so well that (for shrouding

dishonesty under a fair pretext) he seems to preserve mud in crystal.

Like a man of a kind nature, he is the first good to himself, in the

next file to his French tailor, that gives him all his perfection; for

indeed, like an estridge, or bird of paradise, his feathers are more

worth than his body. If ever he do good deed (which is very seldom) his

own mouth is the chronicle of it, lest it should die forgotten. His

whole body goes all upon screws, and his face is the vice that moves

them. If his patron be given to music, he opens his chops and sings, or

with a wry neck falls to tuning his instrument; if that fail, he takes

the height of his lord with a hawking pole. He follows the man ’ s

fortune, not the man, seeking thereby to increase his own. He pretends

he is most undeservedly envied, and cries out, remembering the game,

chess, that a pawn before a king is most played on. Debts he owns none

but shrewd turns, and those he pays ere he be sued. He is a flattering

glass to conceal age and wrinkles. He is mountain ’ s monkey that,

climbing a tree and skipping from bough to bough, gives you back his

face; but come once to the top, he holds his nose up into the wind and

shows you his tail. Yet all this gay glitter shows on him as if the sun

shone in a puddle, for he is a small wine that will not last; and when

he is falling, he goes of himself faster than misery can drive him.

A FAIR AND HAPPY MILKMAID
Is a country wench, that is so far from making herself beautiful by art,

that one look of hers is able to put all face physic out of countenance.

She knows a fair look is but a dumb orator to commend virtue, therefore

minds it not. All her excellences stand in her so silently, as if they

had stolen upon her without her knowledge. The lining of her apparel

(which is herself) is far better than outsides of tissue; for though she

be not arrayed in the spoil of the silk-worm, she is decked in

innocency, a far better wearing. She doth not, with lying long a-bed,

spoil both her complexion and conditions; Nature hath taught her too

immoderate sleep is rust to the soul; she rises therefore with

chanticleer, her dame ’ s cock, and at night makes lamb her curfew. In

milking a cow and straining the teats through her fingers, it seems that

so sweet a milk-press makes the milk the whiter or sweeter; for never

came almond glove or aromatic ointment off her palm to taint it. The

golden ears of corn fall and kiss her feet when she reaps them, as if

they wished to be bound and led prisoners by the same hand that felled

them. Her breath is her own, which scents all the year long of June,

like a new made haycock. She makes her hand hard with labour, and her

heart soft with pity; and when winter ’ s evenings fall early (sitting at

her merry wheel) she sings a defiance to the giddy wheel of fortune. She

doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not

suffer her to do ill, because her mind is to do well. She bestows her

year ’ s wages at next fair; and, in choosing her garments, counts no

bravery in the world like decency. The garden and beehive are all her

physic and chirurgery, and she lives the longer for it. She dares go

alone and unfold sheep in the night, and fears no manner of ill because

she means none; yet, to say truth, she is never alone, for she is still

accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short

ones; yet they have their efficacy, in that they are not palled with

ensuing idle cogitations. Lastly, her dreams are so chaste that she dare

tell them: only a Friday ’ s dream is all her superstition; that she

conceals for fear of anger. Thus lives she, and all her care is that she

may die in the spring-time, to have store of flowers stuck upon her

winding-sheet.

AN ARRANT HORSE-COURSER
Hath the trick to blow up horse-flesh, as the butcher doth veal, which

shall wash out again in twice riding betwixt Waltham and London. The

trade of spur-making had decayed long since, but for this ungodly

tireman. He is cursed all over the four ancient highways of England;

none but the blind men that sell switches in the road are beholding to

him. His stable is filled with so many diseases, one would think most

part about Smithfield was an hospital for horses, or a slaughter-house

of the common hunt. Let him furnish you with a hackney, it is as much as

if the King ’ s warrant overtook you within ten miles to stay your

journey. And though a man cannot say he cozens you directly, yet any

hostler within ten miles, should he be brought upon his book-oath, will

affirm he hath laid a bait for you. Resolve when you first stretch

yourself in the stirrups, you are put as it were upon some usurer that

will never bear with you past his day. He were good to make one that had

the colic alight often, and, if example will cause him, make urine; let

him only for that say, Grammercy horse. For his sale of horses, he hath

false covers for all manner of diseases, only comes short of one thing

(which he despairs not utterly to bring to perfection), to make a horse

go on a wooden leg and two crutches. For powdering his ears with

quicksilver, and giving him suppositories of live eels, he is expert.

All the while you are cheapening, he fears you will not bite; but he

laughs in his sleeve when he hath cozened you in earnest. Frenchmen are

his best chapmen; he keeps amblers for them on purpose, and knows he can

deceive them very easily. He is so constant to his trade that, while he

is awake, he tries any man he talks with, and when he is asleep he

dreams very fearfully of the paving of Smithfield, for he knows it would

founder his occupation.

A ROARING BOY.
His life is a mere counterfeit patent, which, nevertheless, makes many a

country justice tremble. Don Quixote ’ s water-mills are still Scotch

bagpipes to him. He sends challenges by word of mouth, for he protests

(as he is a gentleman and a brother of the sword) he can neither write

nor read. He hath run through divers parcels of land, and great houses,

beside both the counters. If any private quarrel happen among our great

courtiers, he proclaims the business--that ’ s the word, the business--as

if the united force of the Romish Catholics were making up for Germany.

He cheats young gulls that are newly come to town; and when the keeper

of the ordinary blames him for it he answers him in his own profession,

that a woodcock must be plucked ere he be dressed. He is a supervisor to

brothels, and in them is a more unlawful reformer of vice than prentices

on Shrove-Tuesday. He loves his friend as a counsellor at law loves the

velvet breeches he was first made barrister in, he will be sure to wear

him threadbare ere he forsake him. He sleeps with a tobacco-pipe in his

mouth; and his first prayer in the morning is he may remember whom he

fell out with over night. Soldier he is none, for he cannot distinguish

between onion-seed and gunpowder; if he have worn it in his hollow tooth

for the toothache and so come to the knowledge of it, that is all. The

tenure by which he holds his means is an estate at will, and that ’ s

borrowing. Landlords have but four quarter-days, but he three hundred

and odd. He keeps very good company, yet is a man of no reckoning; and

when he goes not drunk to bed he is very sick next morning. He commonly

dies like Anacreon, with a grape in his throat; or Hercules, with fire

in his marrow. And I have heard of some that have escaped hanging begged

for anatomies, only to deter man from taking tobacco.

A DRUNKEN DUTCHMAN RESIDENT IN ENGLAND
Is but a quarter-master with his wife. He stinks of butter as if he were

anointed all over for the itch. Let him come over never so lean, and

plant him but one month near the brew-houses in St Catherine ’ s, and he

will be puffed up to your hand like a bloat herring. Of all places of

pleasure he loves a common garden, and with the swine of the parish had

need be ringed for rooting. Next to these he affects lotteries

naturally, and bequeaths the best prize in his will aforehand; when his

hopes fall he ’ s blank. They swarm in great tenements like flies; six

households will live in a garret. He was wont, only to make us fools, to

buy the fox skin for threepence, and sell the tail for a shilling. Now

his new trade of brewing strong waters makes a number of madmen. He

loves a Welshman extremely for his diet and orthography; that is, for

plurality of consonants, and cheese. Like a horse, he is only guided by

the mouth; when he ’ s drunk you may thrust your hand into him like an

eel ’ s-skin, and strip him, his inside outwards. He hoards up fair gold,

and pretends ’ tis to seethe in his wife ’ s broth for consumption; and

loves the memory of King Henry the Eighth, most especially for his old

sovereigns. He says we are unwise to lament the decay of timber in

England; for all manner of buildings or fortification whatsoever, he

desires no other thing in the world than barrels and hop-poles. To

conclude, the only two plagues he trembles at is small beer and the

Spanish Inquisition.

A PHANTASTIQUE: AN IMPROVIDENT YOUNG GALLANT,
There is a confederacy between him and his clothes, to be made a puppy:

view him well and you will say his gentry sits as ill upon him as if he

had bought it with his penny. He hath more places to send money to than

the devil hath to send his spirits; and to furnish each mistress would

make him run besides his wits, if he had any to lose. He accounts

bashfulness the wickedest thing in the world, and therefore studies

impudence. If all men were of his mind all honesty would be out of

fashion. He withers his clothes on a stage, as a saleman is forced to do

his suits in Birchin Lane; and when the play is done, if you mark his

rising, ’ tis with a kind of walking epilogue between the two candles, to

know if his suit may pass for current. He studies by the discretion of

his barber, to frizzle like a baboon; three such would keep three the

nimblest barbers in the town from ever having leisure to wear

net-garters, for when they have to do with him, they have many irons in

the fire. He is travelled, but to little purpose; only went over for a

squirt and came back again, yet never the more mended in his conditions,

because he carried himself along with him. A scholar he pretends

himself, and says he hath sweat for it, but the truth is he knows

Cornelius far better than Tacitus. His ordinary sports are cock-fights,

but the most frequent, horse-races, from whence he comes home

dry-foundered. Thus when his purse hath cast her calf he goes down into

the country, where he is brought to milk and white cheese like

the Switzers.

A BUTTON-MAKER OF AMSTERDAM
Is one that is fled over for his conscience, and left his wife and

children upon the parish. For his knowledge he is merely a Horn-book

without a Christ-cross before it; and his zeal consists much in hanging

his Bible in a Dutch button. He cozens men in the purity of his clothes;

and ’ twas his only joy when he was on this side, to be in prison. He

cries out, ’ tis impossible for any man to be damned that lives in his

religion, and his equivocation is true--as long as a man lives in it, he

cannot; but if he die in it, there ’ s the question. Of all feasts in the

year he accounts St. George ’ s feast the profanest, because of St.

George ’ s cross, yet sometimes he doth sacrifice to his own belly,

provided that he put off the wake of his own nativity or wedding till

Good Friday. If there be a great feast in the town, though most of the

wicked (as he calls them) be there, he will be sure to be a guest, and

to out-eat six of the fattest burghers. He thinks, though he may not

pray with a Jew, he may eat with a Jew. He winks when he prays, and

thinks he knows the way so now to heaven, that he can find it blindfold.

Latin he accounts the language of the beast with seven heads; and when

he speaks of his own country, cries, he is fled out of Babel. Lastly,

his devotion is obstinacy; the only solace of his heart, contradiction;

and his main end, hypocrisy.

A DISTASTER OF THE TIME
Is a winter grasshopper all the year long that looks back upon harvest

with a lean pair of cheeks, never sets forward to meet it; his malice

sucks up the greatest part of his own venom, and therewith impoisoneth

himself: and this sickness rises rather of self-opinion or over-great

expedition; so in the conceit of his own over-worthiness, like a

coistrel he strives to fill himself with wind, and flies against it. Any

man ’ s advancement is the most capital offence that can be to his malice,

yet this envy, like Phalaris ’ bull, makes that a torment first for

himself he prepared for others. He is a day-bed for the devil to slumber

on. His blood is of a yellowish colour, like those that have been bitten

by vipers, and his gall flows as thick in him as oil in a poisoned

stomach. He infects all society, as thunder sours wine: war or peace,

dearth or plenty, makes him equally discontented. And where he finds no

cause to tax the State, he descends to rail against the rate of

salt-butter. His wishes are whirlwinds, which breathed forth return into

himself, and make him a most giddy and tottering vessel. When he is

awake, and goes abroad, he doth but walk in his sleep, for his

visitation is directed to none, his business is nothing. He is often

dumb-mad, and goes fettered in his own entrails. Religion is commonly

his pretence of discontent, though he can be of all religions, therefore

truly of none. Thus by naturalising himself some would think him a very

dangerous fellow to the State; but he is not greatly to be feared, for

this dejection of his is only like a rogue that goes on his knees and

elbows in the mire to further his cogging.

A MERE FELLOW OF AN HOUSE
Examines all men ’ s carriage but his own, and is so kind-natured to

himself, he finds fault with all men ’ s but his own. He wears his apparel

much after the fashion; his means will not suffer him to come too nigh.

They afford him mock-velvet or satinisco, but not without the college ’ s

next lease ’ s acquaintance. His inside is of the self-same fashion, not

rich; but as it reflects from the glass of self-liking, there Croesus is

Irus to him. He is a pedant in show, though his title be tutor, and his

pupils in a broader phrase are schoolboys. On these he spends the false

gallop of his tongue, and with senseless discourse tows them alone, not

out of ignorance. He shows them the rind, conceals the sap; by this

means he keeps them the longer, himself the better. He hath learnt to

cough and spit and blow his nose at every period, to recover his memory,

and studies chiefly to set his eyes and beard to a new form of learning.

His religion lies in wait for the inclination of his patron, neither

ebbs nor flows, but just standing water, between Protestant and Puritan.

His dreams are of plurality of benefices and non-residency, and when he

rises acts a long grace to his looking-glass. Against he comes to be

some great man ’ s chaplain he hath a habit of boldness, though a very

coward. He speaks swords, fights ergos. His peace on foot is a measure,

on horseback a gallop, for his legs are his own, though horse and spurs

are borrowed. He hath less use than possession of books. He is not so

proud but he will call the meanest author by his name; nor so unskilled

in the heraldry of a study but he knows each man ’ s place. So ends that

fellowship and begins another.

A MERE PETTIFOGGER
Is one of Samson ’ s foxes; he sets men together by the ears, more

shamefully than pillories, and in a long vacation his sport is to go a

fishing with the penal statutes. He cannot err before judgment, and then

you see it, only writs of error are the tariers that keep his client

undoing somewhat the longer. He is a vestryman in his parish, and easily

sets his neighbour at variance with the vicar, when his wicked counsel

on both sides is like weapons put into men ’ s hands by a fencer, whereby

they get blows, he money. His honesty and learning bring him to

Under-Shrieveship, which, having thrice run through, he does not fear

the Lieutenant of the Shire; nay more, he fears not God. Cowardice holds

him a good commonwealth ’ s-man; his pen is the plough and parchment the

soil whence he reaps both coin and curses. He is an earthquake that

willingly will let no ground lie in quiet. Broken titles makes him

whole; to have half in the country break their bonds were the only

liberty of conscience. He would wish, though he be a Brownist, no

neighbour of his should pay his tithes duly, if such suits held

continual plea at Westminster. He cannot away with the reverend service

in our Church, because it ends with the peace of God. He loves blows

extremely, and hath his chirurgeon ’ s bill of rates, from head to foot,

incense the fury; he would not give away his yearly beatings for a good

piece of money. He makes his will in form of a law-case, full of

quiddits, that his friends after his death (if for nothing else, yet)

for the vexation of the law, may have cause to remember him. And if he

thought the ghost of men did walk again (as they report in the time of

Popery), sure he would hide some single money in Westminster Hall that

his spirit might haunt there. Only with this I will pitch him over the

bar and leave him: that his fingers itch after a bribe ever since his

first practising of court-hand.

AN INGROSSER OF CORN.
There is no vermin in the land like him: he slanders both heaven and

earth with pretended dearths when there is no cause of scarcity. He

hoarding in a dear year, is like Erysicthon ’ s bowels in Ovid: _Quodque

urbibus esset, quodque satis poterat populo, non sufficit uni_. He prays

daily for more inclosures, and knows no reason in his religion why we

should call our forefathers ’ days the time of ignorance, but only

because they sold wheat for twelve pence a bushel. He wishes that

Dantzig were at the Moluccas, and had rather be certain of some foreign

invasion than of the setting up of the steelyard. When his barns and

garners are full, if it be a time of dearth, he will buy half a bushel

in the market to serve his household, and winnows his corn in the night,

lest, as the chaff thrown upon the water showed plenty in Egypt, so his

carried by the wind should proclaim his abundance. No painting pleases

him so well as Pharaoh ’ s dream of the seven lean kine that ate up the

fat ones, that he has in his parlour, which he will describe to you like

a motion, and his comment ends with a smothered prayer for a like

scarcity. He cannot away with tobacco, for he is persuaded (and not much

amiss), that ’ tis a sparer of bread-corn, which he could find in his

heart to transport without license; but, weighing the penalty, he grows

mealy-mouthed, and dares not. Sweet smells he cannot abide; wishes that

the pure air were generally corrupted; nay, that the spring had lost her

fragrancy for ever, or we our superfluous sense of smelling (as he terms

it), that his corn might not be found musty. The poor he accounts the

Justices ’ intelligencers, and cannot abide them. He complains of our

negligence of discovering new parts of the world, only to rid them from

our climate. His son, by a certain kind of instinct, he binds prentice

to a tailor, who, all the term of his indenture, hath a dear year in his

belly, and ravens bread exceedingly. When he comes to be a freeman, if

it be a dearth, he marries him to a baker ’ s daughter.

A DEVILISH USURER
Is sowed as cummin or hempseed, with curses, and he thinks he thrives

the better. He is far better read in the penal statutes than in the

Bible, and his evil angel persuades him he shall sooner be saved by

them. He can be no man ’ s friend, for all men he hath most interest in he

undoes. And a double dealer he is certainly, for by his good will he

ever takes the forfeit. He puts his money to the unnatural act of

generation, and his scrivener is the supervisor bawd to it. Good deeds

he loves none, but sealed and delivered; nor doth he wish anything to

thrive in the country but beehives, for they make him wax rich. He hates

all but law-Latin, yet thinks he might be drawn to love a scholar, could

he reduce the year to a shorter compass, that his use money might come

in the faster. He seems to be the son of a jailor, for all his estate is

in most heavy and cruel bonds. He doth not give, but sell, days of

payment, and those at the rate of a man ’ s undoing. He doth only fear the

Day of Judgment should fall sooner than the payment of some great sum of

money due to him. He removes his lodging when a subsidy comes; and if he

be found out, and pay it, he grumbles treason: but ’ tis in such a

deformed silence as witches raise their spirits in. Gravity he pretends

in all things but in his private vice, for he will not in a hundred

pound take one light sixpence. And it seems he was at Tilbury Camp, for

you must not tell him of a Spaniard. He is a man of no conscience, for

(like the Jakes-farmer that swooned with going into Bucklersbury) he

falls into a cold sweat if he but look into the Chancery; thinks, in his

religion, we are in the right for everything, if that were abolished. He

hides his money as if he thought to find it again at the last day, and

then begin ’ s old trade with it. His clothes plead prescription, and

whether they or his body are more rotten is a question. Yet, should he

live to be hanged in them, this good they would do him: the very hangman

would pity his case. The table he keeps is able to starve twenty tall

men. His servants have not their living, but their dying from him, and

that ’ s of hunger. A spare diet he commends in all men but himself. He

comes to cathedrals only for love of the singing-boys, because they look

hungry. He likes our religion best because ’ tis best cheap, yet would

fain allow of purgatory, cause ’ twas of his trade, and brought in so

much money. His heart goes with the same snaphance his purse doth: ’ tis

seldom open to any man. Friendship he accounts but a word without any

signification; nay, he loves all the world so little, that an it were

possible he would make himself his own executor. For certain, he is made

administrator to his own good name while he is in perfect memory, for

that dies long before him; but he is so far from being at the charge of

a funeral for it, that he lets it stink above-ground. In conclusion, for

neighbourhood you were better dwell by a contentious lawyer. And for his

death, ’ tis either surfeit, the pox, or despair; for seldom such as he

die of God ’ s making, as honest men should do.

A WATERMAN
Is one that hath learnt to speak well of himself, for always he names

himself "the first man." If he had betaken himself to some richer trade,

he could not have choosed but done well; for in this, though a mean one,

he is still plying it, and putting himself forward. He is evermore

telling strange news, most commonly lies. If he be a sculler, ask him if

he be married: he ’ ll equivocate, and swear he ’ s a single man. Little

trust is to be given to him, for he thinks that day he does best when he

fetches most men over. His daily labour teaches him the art of

dissembling, for, like a fellow that rides to the pillory, he goes not

that way he looks. He keeps such a bawling at Westminster, that, if the

lawyers were not acquainted with it, an order would be taken with him.

When he is upon the water he is fair company; when he comes ashore he

mutinies, and, contrary to all other trades, is most surly to gentlemen

when they tender payment. The playhouses only keep him sober, and, as it

doth many other gallants, make him an afternoon ’ s man. London Bridge is

the most terrible eyesore to him that can be. And, to conclude, nothing

but a great press makes him fly from the river, nor anything but a great

frost can teach him any good manners.

A REVEREND JUDGE
Is one that desires to have his greatness only measured by his goodness.

His care is to appear such to the people as he would have them be, and

to be himself such as he appears; for virtue cannot seem one thing and

be another. He knows that the hill of greatness yields a most delightful

prospect; but, withal, that it is most subject to lightning and thunder,

and that the people, as in ancient tragedies, sit and censure the

actions of those in authority. He squares his own, therefore, that they

may far be above their pity. He wishes fewer laws, so they were better

observed; and for those are mulctuary, he understands their institution

not to be like briers or springs, to catch everything they lay hold of,

but, like sea-marks on our dangerous Goodwin, to avoid the shipwreck of

innocent passengers. He hates to wrong any man: neither hope nor despair

of preferment can draw him to such an exigent. He thinks himself most

honourably seated when he gives mercy the upper hand. He rather strives

to purchase good name than land; and of all rich stuffs forbidden by the

statute, loathes to have his followers wear their clothes cut out of

bribes and extortions. If his Prince call him to higher place, there he

delivers his mind plainly and freely, knowing for truth there is no

place wherein dissembling ought to have less credit than in a prince ’ s

council. Thus honour keeps peace with him to the grave, and doth not (as

with many) there forsake him, and go back with the heralds; but fairly

sits over him, and broods out of his memory many right excellent

commonwealth ’ s-men.

A VIRTUOUS WIDOW
Is the palm-tree, that thrives not after the supplanting of her husband.

For her children ’ s sake she first marries; for she married that she

might have children; and for their sakes she marries no more. She is

like the purest gold, only employed for princes ’ medals: she never

receives but one man ’ s impression. The largest jointure moves her not,

titles of honour cannot sway her. To change her name were (she thinks)

to commit a sin should make her ashamed of her husband ’ s calling. She

thinks she hath travelled all the world in one man; the rest of her

time, therefore, she directs to heaven. Her main superstition is, she

thinks her husband ’ s ghost would walk, should she not perform his will.

She would do it were there no Prerogative Court. She gives much to pious

uses, without any hope to merit by them; and as one diamond fashions

another, so is she wrought into works of charity, with the dust or ashes

of her husband. She lives to see herself full of time; being so

necessary for earth, God calls her not to heaven till she be very aged,

and even then, though her natural strength fail her, she stands like an

ancient pyramid, which, the less it grows to man ’ s eye, the nearer it

reaches to heaven. This latter chastity of hers is more grave and

reverend than that ere she was married, for in it is neither hope, nor

longing, nor fear, nor jealousy. She ought to be a mirror for our

youngest dames to dress themselves by, when she is fullest of wrinkles.

No calamity can now come near her, for in suffering the loss of her

husband she accounts all the rest trifles. She hath laid his dead body

in the worthiest monument that can be: she hath buried it in her one

heart. To conclude, she is a relic, that, without any superstition in

the world, though she will not be kissed, yet may be reverenced.

AN ORDINARY WIDOW
Is like the herald ’ s hearse-cloth; she serves to many funerals, with a

very little altering the colour. The end of her husband begins in tears,

and the end of her tears begins in a husband. She uses to cunning women

to know how many husbands she shall have, and never marries without the

consent of six midwives. Her chiefest pride is in the multitude of her

suitors, and by them she gains; for one serves to draw on another, and

with one at last she shoots out another, as boys do pellets in eldern

guns. She commends to them a single life, as horse-coursers do their

jades, to put them away. Her fancy is to one of the biggest of the

Guard, but knighthood makes her draw in in a weaker bow. Her servants or

kinsfolk are the trumpeters that summon any to his combat. By them she

gains much credit, but loseth it again in the old proverb, _Fama est

mendax_. If she live to be thrice married, she seldom fails to cozen her

second husband ’ s creditors. A churchman she dare not venture upon, for

she hath heard widows complain of dilapidations; nor a soldier, though

he have candle-rents in the city, for his estate may be subject to fire;

very seldom a lawyer, without he shows his exceeding great practice, and

can make her case the better; but a knight with the old rent may do

much, for a great coming in is all in all with a widow, ever provided

that most part of her plate and jewels (before the wedding) be concealed

with her scrivener. Thus, like a too-ripe apple, she falls off herself;

but he that hath her is lord but of a filthy purchase, for the title is

cracked. Lastly, while she is a widow, observe her, she is no morning

woman; the evening, a good fire and sack may make her listen to a

husband, and if ever she be made sure, ’ tis upon a full stomach

to bedward.

A QUACK-SALVER
Is a mountebank of a larger bill than a tailor: if he can but come by

names enough of diseases to stuff it with, ’ tis all the skill he studies

for. He took his first beginning from a cunning woman, and stole this

black art from her, while he made her sea-coal fire. All the diseases

ever sin brought upon man doth he pretend to be a curer of, when the

truth is, his main cunning is corn-cutting. A great plague makes him,

what with railing against such as leave their cures for fear of

infection, and in friendly breaking cake-bread with the fishwives at

funerals. He utters a most abominable deal of carduus water, and the

conduits cry out, All the learned doctors may cast their caps at him. He

parts stakes witn some apothecary in the suburbs, at whose house he

lies; and though he be never so familiar with his wife, the apothecary

dares not (for the richest horn in his shop) displease him. All the

midwives in the town are his intelligencers; but nurses and young

merchants ’ wives that would fain conceive with child, these are his

idolaters. He is a more unjust bone-setter than a dice-maker. He hath

put out more eyes than the small-pox; more deaf than the cataracts of

Nilus; lamed more than the gout; shrunk more sinews than one that makes

bowstrings, and killed more idly than tobacco. A magistrate that had

any-way so noble a spirit as but to love a good horse well, would not

suffer him to be a farrier. His discourse is vomit, and his ignorance

the strongest purgation in the world. To one that would be speedily

cured, he hath more delays and doubles than a hare or a lawsuit. He

seeks to set us at variance with nature, and rather than he shall want

diseases, he ’ ll beget them. His especial practice (as I said before) is

upon women; labours to make their minds sick, ere their bodies feel it,

and then there ’ s work for the dog-leech. He pretends the cure of madmen;

and sure he gets most by them, for no man in his perfect wit would

meddle with him. Lastly, he is such a juggler with urinals, so

dangerously unskilful, that if ever the city will have recourse to him

for diseases that need purgation, let them employ him in scouring

Moorditch.

A CANTING ROGUE.
’ Tis not unlikely but he was begot by some intelligencer under a hedge,

for his mind is wholly given to travel. He is not troubled with making

of jointures; he can divorce himself without the fee of a proctor, nor

fears he the cruelty of overseers of his will. He leaves his children

all the world to cant in, and all the people to their fathers. His

language is a constant tongue; the northern speech differs from the

south, Welsh from the Cornish; but canting is general, nor ever could be

altered by conquest of the Saxon, Dane, or Norman. He will not beg out

of his limit though he starve, nor break his oath, if he swear by his

Solomon, though you hang him; and he pays his custom as truly to his

grand rogue as tribute is paid to the great Turk. The March sun breeds

agues in others, but he adores it like the Indians, for then begins his

progress after a hard winter. Ostlers cannot endure him, for he is of

the infantry, and serves best on foot. He offends not the statute

against the excess of apparel, for he will go naked, and counts it a

voluntary penance. Forty of them lie together in a barn, yet are never

sued upon the Statute of Inmates. If he were learned no man could make a

better description of England, for he hath travelled it over and over.

Lastly, he brags that his great houses are repaired to his hands when

churches go to ruin, and those are prisons.

A FRENCH COOK.
He learnt his trade in a town of garrison near famished, where he

practised to make a little go far. Some derive it from more antiquity,

and say, Adam, when he picked salads, was of his occupation. He doth not

feed the belly, but the palate; and though his command lie in the

kitchen, which is but an inferior place, yet shall you find him a very

saucy companion. Ever since the wars in Naples, he hath so minced the

ancient and bountiful allowance as if his nation should keep a perpetual

diet. The serving-men call him the last relic of popery, that makes men

fast against their conscience. He can be truly said to be no man ’ s

fellow but his master ’ s, for the rest of the servants are starved by

him. He is the prime cause why noblemen build their houses so great, for

the smallness of their kitchen makes the house the bigger; and the lord

calls him his alchemist, that can extract gold out of herbs, mushrooms,

or anything. That which he dresses we may rather call a drinking than a

meal, yet he is so full of variety that he brags, and truly, that he

gives you but a taste of what he can do. He dares not for his life come

among the butchers, for sure they would quarter and bake him after the

English fashion, he ’ s such an enemy to beef and mutton. To conclude, he

were only fit to make, a funeral feast, where men should eat their

victuals in mourning.

A SEXTON
Is an ill-wilier to human nature. Of all proverbs he cannot endure to

hear that which says, We ought to live by the quick, not by the dead. He

could willingly all his lifetime be confined to the churchyard; at

least, within five foot on ’ t, for at every church stile commonly there ’ s

an alehouse, where, let him be found never so idle-pated, he is still a

grave drunkard. He breaks his fast heartiest while he is making a grave,

and says the opening of the ground makes him hungry. Though one would

take him to be a sloven, yet he loves clean linen extremely, and for

that reason takes an order that fine Holland sheets be not made

worms ’ -meat. Like a nation called the Cusani, he weeps when any are born

and laughs when they die; the reason, he gets by burials not

christenings. He will hold an argument in a tavern over sack till the

dial and himself be both at a stand; he never observes any time but

sermon-time, and there he sleeps by the hour-glass. The ropemaker pays

him a pension, and he pays tribute to the physician; for the physician

makes work for the sexton, as the ropemaker for the hangman. Lastly, he

wishes the dog-days would last all year long; and a great plague is his

year of jubilee.

A JESUIT
Is a larger spoon for a traitor to feed with the devil than any other

order; unclasp him, and he ’ s a grey wolf with a golden star in the

forehead; so superstitiously he follows the pope that he forsakes Christ

in not giving Caesar his due. His vows seem heavenly, but in meddling

with state business he seems to mix heaven and earth together. His best

elements are confession and penance: by the first he finds out men ’ s

inclinations, and by the latter heaps wealth to his seminary. He sprang

from Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish soldier; and though he were found out

long since the invention of the cannon, ’ tis thought he hath not done

less mischief. He is a half-key to open princes ’ cabinets and pry in

their councils; and where the pope ’ s excommunication thunders, he holds

it no more sin the decrowning of kings than our Puritans do the

suppression of bishops. His order is full of irregularity and

disobedience, ambitious above all measure; for of late days, in Portugal

and the Indies, he rejected the name of Jesuit, and would be called

disciple. In Rome and other countries that give him freedom, he wears a

mask upon his heart; in England he shifts it, and puts it upon his face.

No place in our climate holds him so securely as a lady ’ s chamber; the

modesty of the pursuivant hath only forborne the bed, and so missed him.

There is no disease in Christendom that may so properly be called the

King ’ s evil. To conclude, would you know him beyond sea? In his seminary

he ’ s a fox, but in the inquisition a lion rampant.

AN EXCELLENT ACTOR.
Whatsoever is commendable to the grave orator is most exquisitely

perfect in him, for by a full and significant action of body he charms

our attention. Sit in a full theatre and you will think you see so many

lines drawn from the circumference of so many ears, while the actor is

the centre. He doth not strive to make nature monstrous; she is often

seen in the same scene with him, but neither on stilts nor crutches; and

for his voice, ’ tis not lower than the prompter, nor louder than the

foil or target. By his action he fortifies moral precepts with examples,

for what we see him personate we think truly done before us: a man of a

deep thought might apprehend the ghost of our ancient heroes walked

again, and take him at several times for many of them. He is much

affected to painting, and ’ tis a question whether that make him an

excellent player, or his playing an exquisite painter. He adds grace to

the poet ’ s labours, for what in the poet is but ditty, in him is both

ditty and music. He entertains us in the best leisure of our life--that

is, between meals; the most unfit time for study or bodily exercise. The

flight of hawks and chase of wild beasts, either of them are delights

noble; but some think this sport of men the worthier, despite all

calumny. All men have been of his occupation; and indeed, what he doth

feignedly, that do others essentially. This day one plays a monarch, the

next a private person; here one acts a tyrant, on the morrow an exile; a

parasite this man tonight, tomorrow a precisian; and so of divers

others. I observe, of all men living, a worthy actor in one kind is the

strongest motive of affection that can be; for, when he dies, we cannot

be persuaded any man can do his parts like him. But, to conclude, I

value a worthy actor by the corruption of some few of the quality as I

would do gold in the ore--I should not mind the dross, but the purity of

the metal.

A FRANKLIN.
His outside is an ancient yeoman of England, though his inside may give

arms with the best gentleman and never see the herald. There is no truer

servant in the house than himself. Though he be master, he says not to

his servants, "Go to field," but "Let us go;" and with his own eye doth

both fatten his flock and set forward all manner of husbandry. He is

taught by nature to be contented with a little; his own fold yields him

both food and raiment; he is pleased with any nourishment God sends,

whilst curious gluttony ransacks, as it were, Noah ’ s ark for food only

to feed the riot of one meal. He is never known to go to law;

understanding, to be law-bound among men is to be hide-bound among his

beasts; they thrive not under it, and that such men sleep as unquietly

as if their pillows were stuffed with lawyers ’ penknives. When he builds

no poor tenant ’ s cottage hinders his prospect: they are indeed his

almshouses, though there be painted on them no such superscription. He

never sits up late but when he hunts the badger, the vowed foe of his

lambs; nor uses he any cruelty but when he hunts the hare; nor subtilty

but when he setteth snares for the snipe or pitfalls for the blackbird;

nor oppression but when, in the month of July, he goes to the next river

and shears his sheep. He allows of honest pastime, and thinks not the

bones of the dead anything bruised or the worse for it though the

country lasses dance in the churchyard after evensong. Rock Monday and

the wake in summer, Shrovings, the wakeful catches on Christmas Eve, the

hockey or seed-cake, these he yearly keeps, yet holds them no relics of

popery. He is not so inquisitive after news derived from the privy

closet, when the finding an eyry of hawks in his own ground, or the

foaling of a colt come of a good strain, are tidings more pleasant, more

profitable. He is lord paramount within himself, though he hold by never

so mean a tenure, and dies the more contentedly, though he leave his

heir young, in regard he leaves him not liable to a covetous garden.

Lastly, to end him, he cares not when his end comes; he needs not fear

his audit, for his quietus is in heaven.

A RHYMER
Is a fellow whose face is hatched all over with impudence, and should he

be hanged or pilloried, ’ tis armed for it. He is a juggler with words,

yet practises the art of most uncleanly conveyance. He doth boggle very

often, and because himself winks at it, thinks ’ tis not perceived. The

main thing that ever he did was the tune he sang to. There is nothing in

the earth so pitiful--no, not an ape-carrier; he is not worth thinking

of, and, therefore, I must leave him as nature left him--a dunghill not

well laid together.

A COVETOUS MAN.
This man would love, honour, and adore God if there were an _I_ more in

his name. He hath coffined up his soul in his chests before his body: he

could wish he were in Midas his taking for hunger, on condition he had

his chemical quality. At the grant of a new subsidy he would gladly hang

himself, were it not for the charge of buying a rope, and begins to take

money upon use when he hears of a privy seal. His morning prayer is to

overlook his bags, whose every parcel begets his adoration. Then to his

studies, which are how to cozen this tenant, beggar that widow, or to

undo some orphan. Then his bonds are viewed, the well-known days of

payment conned by heart; and if he ever pray, it is some one may break

his day that the beloved forfeiture may be obtained. His use is doubled,

and no one sixpence begot or born but presently, by an untimely thrift,

it is getting more. His chimney must not be acquainted with fire for

fear of mischance; but if extremity of cold pinch him, he gets him heat

with looking on, and sometime removing his aged wood-pile, which he

means to leave to many descents, till it hath outlived all the woods of

that country. He never spends candle but at Christmas (when he has them

for New Year ’ s gifts), in hope that his servants will break glasses for

want of light, which they double pay for in their wages. His actions are

guilty of more crimes than any other men ’ s, thoughts; and he conceives

no sin which he dare not act save only lust, from which he abstains for

fear he should be charged with keeping bastards. Once a year he feasts,

the relics of which meal shall serve him the next quarter. In his talk

he rails against eating of breakfasts, drinking betwixt meals, and

swears he is impoverished with paying of tithes. He had rather have the

frame of the fall than the price of corn. If he chance to travel he

curses his fortune that his place binds him to ride, and his faithful

cloak-bag is sure to take care for his provision. His nights are as

troublesome as his days; every rat awakes him out of his unquiet sleeps.

If he have a daughter to marry, he wishes he were in Hungary, or might

follow the custom of that country, that all her portion might be a

wedding-gown. If he fall sick, he had rather die a thousand deaths than

pay for any physic; and if he might have his choice, he would not go to

heaven but on condition he may put money to use there. In fine, he lives

a drudge, dies a wretch that leaves a heap of pelf, which so many

careful hands had scraped together, to haste after him to hell, and by

the way it lodges in a lawyer ’ s purse.

THE PROUD MAN
Is one in whom pride is a quality that condemns every one besides his

master, who, when he wears new clothes, thinks himself wronged if they

be not observed, imitated, and his discretion in the choice of his

fashion and stuff applauded. When he vouchsafes to bless the air with

his presence, he goes as near the wall as his satin suit will give him

leave, and every passenger he views under the eyebrows, to observe

whether he vails his bonnet low enough, which he returns with an

imperious nod. He never salutes first, but his farewell is perpetual. In

his attire he is effeminate; every hair knows his own station, which if

it chance to lose it is checked in again with his pocket-comb. He had

rather have the whole commonwealth out of order than the least member of

his muchato, and chooses rather to lose his patrimony than to have his

band ruffled. At a feast, if he be not placed in the highest seat, he

eats nothing howsoever; he drinks to no man, talks with no man for fear

of familiarity. He professeth to keep his stomach for the pheasant or

the quail, and when they come he can eat little; he hath been so cloyed

with them that year, although they be the first he saw. In his discourse

he talks of none but privy councillors, and is as prone to belie their

acquaintance as he is a lady ’ s favours. If he have but twelve pence in

his purse, he will give it for the best room in a playhouse. He goes to

sermons only to show his gay clothes, and if on other inferior days he

chance to meet his friend, he is sorry he sees him not in his best suit.

A PRISON.
It should be Christ ’ s Hospital, for most of your wealthy citizens are

good benefactors to it; and yet it can hardly be so, because so few in

it are kept upon alms. Charity ’ s house and this are built many miles

asunder. One thing notwithstanding is here praiseworthy, for men in this

persecution cannot choose but prove good Christians, in that they are a

kind of martyrs, and suffer for the truth. And yet it is so cursed a

piece of land that the son is ashamed to be his father ’ s heir in it. It

is an infected pest-house all the year long; the plague-sores of the law

are the diseases here hotly reigning. The surgeons are atomies and

pettifoggers, who kill more than they cure. Lord have mercy upon us, may

well stand over these doors, for debt is a most dangerous and catching

city pestilence. Some take this place for the walks in Moorfields (by

reason the madmen are so near), but the crosses here and there are not

alike. No, it is not half so sweet an air. For it is the dunghill of the

law, upon which are thrown the ruins of gentry, and the nasty heaps of

voluntary decayed bankrupts, by which means it comes to be a perfect

medal of the iron age, since nothing but jingling of keys, rattling of

shackles, bolts, and grates are here to be heard. It is the horse of

Troy, in whose womb are shut up all the mad Greeks that were men of

action. The _nullum vacuum_ (unless in prisoners ’ bellies) is here truly

to be proved. One excellent effect is wrought by the place itself, for

the arrantest coward breathing, being posted hither, comes in three days

to an admirable stomach. Does any man desire to learn music; every man

here sings "Lachrymse" at first sight, and is hardly out. He runs

division upon every note, and yet (to their commendations be it spoken)

none of them for all that division do trouble the Church. They are no

Anabaptists; if you ask under what horizon this climate lies, the

Bermudas and it are both under one and the same height. And whereas some

suppose that this island like that is haunted with devils, it is not so.

For those devils so talked of and feared are none else but hoggish

jailors. Hither you need not sail, for it is a ship of itself; the

master ’ s side is the upper deck. They in the common jail lie under

hatches, and help to ballast it. Intricate cases are the tacklings,

executions the anchors, capiases the cables, chancery bills the huge

sails, a long term the mast, law the helm, a judge the pilot, a counsel

the purser, an attorney the boatswain, his Setting clerk the swabber,

bonds the waves, outlawries gust, the verdict of juries rough wind,

extents the knocks that split all in pieces. Or if it be not a ship, yet

this and a ship differ not much in the building; the one is moving

misery, the other a standing. The first is seated on a spring, the

second on piles. Either this place is an emblem of a bawdy house, or a

bawdy house of it; for nothing is to be seen in any room but scurvy beds

and bare walls. But (not so much to dishonour it) it is an university of

poor scholars, in which three arts are chiefly studied: to pray, to

curse, and to write letters.

A PRISONER
Is one that hath been a monied man, and is still a very close fellow;

whosoever is of his acquaintance, let them make much of him, for they

shall find him as fast a friend as any in England: he is a sure man, and

you know where to find him. The corruption of a bankrupt is commonly the

generation of this creature. He dwells on the back side of the world, or

in the suburbs of society, and lives in a tenement which he is sure none

will go about to take over his head. To a man that walks abroad, he is

one of the antipodes, that goes on the top of the world, and this under

it. At his first coming in, he is a piece of new coin, all sharking old

prisoners lie sucking at his purse. An old man and he are much alike,

neither of them both go far. They are still angry and peevish, and they

sleep little. He was born at the fall of Babel, the confusion of

languages is only in his mouth. All the vacations he speaks as good

English as any man in England, but in term times he breaks out of that

hopping one-legged pace into a racking trot of issues, bills,

replications, rejoinders, demures, querelles, subpoenas, &c., able to

fright a simple country fellow, and make him believe he conjures.

Whatsoever his complexion was before, it turns in this place to choler

or deep melancholy, so that he needs every hour to take physic to loose

his body; for that, like his estate, is very foul and corrupt, and

extremely hard bound. The taking of an execution off his stomach give

him five or six stools, and leaves his body very soluble. The

withdrawing of an action is a vomit. He is no sound man, and yet an

utter barrister, nay, a sergeant of the case, will feed heartily upon

him; he is very good picking meat for a lawyer. The barber-surgeons may,

if they will, beg him for an anatomy after he hath suffered an

execution. An excellent lecture may be made upon his body; for he is a

kind of dead carcase--creditors, lawyers, and jailors devour it:

creditors peck out his eyes with his own tears; lawyers flay off his own

skin, and lap him in parchment; and jailors are the Promethean vultures

that gnaw his very heart. He is a bond-slave to the law, and, albeit he

were a shopkeeper in London, yet he cannot with safe conscience write

himself a freeman. His religion is of five or six colours: this day he

prays that God would turn the hearts of his creditors, and to-morrow he

curseth the time that ever he saw them. His apparel is daubed commonly

with statute lace, the suit itself of durance, and the hose full of long

pains. He hath many other lasting suits which he himself is never able

to wear out, for they wear out him. The zodiac of his life is like that

of the sun, marry not half so glorious. It begins in Aries and ends in

Pisces. Both head and feet are, all the year long, in troublesome and

laborious motions, and Westminster Hall is his sphere. He lives between

the two tropics Cancer and Capricorn, and by that means is in double

danger of crabbed creditors for his purse, and horns for his head, if

his wife ’ s heels be light. If he be a gentleman, he alters his arms so

soon as he comes in. Few here carry fields or argent, but whatsoever

they bear before, here they give only sables. Whiles he lies by it, he

is travelling over the Alps, and the hearts of his creditors are the

snows that lie unmelted in the middle of summer. He is an almanac out of

date; none of his days speak of fair weather. Of all the files of men,

he marcheth in the last, and comes limping, for he is shot, and is no

man of this world. He hath lost his way, and being benighted, strayed

into a wood full of wolves, and nothing so hard as to get away without

being devoured. He that walks from six to six in Paul ’ s goes still but a

quoit ’ s cast before this man.

A CREDITOR
Is a fellow that torments men for their good conditions. He is one of

Deucalion ’ s sons, begotten of a stone. The marble images in the Temple

Church that lie cross-legged do much resemble him, saving that this is a

little more cross. He wears a forfeited bond under that part of his

girdle where his thumb sticks, with as much pride as a Welshman does a

leek on St. David ’ s Day, and quarrels more and longer about it. He is a

catchpole ’ s morning ’ s draught, for the news that such a gallant has come

yesternight to town, draws out of him both muscadel and money too. He

says the Lord ’ s Prayer backwards, or, to speak better of him, he hath a

Paternoster by himself, and that particle, Forgive us our debts, as we

forgive others, &c., he either quite leaves out, or else leaps over it.

It is a dangerous rub in the alley of his conscience. He is the

bloodhound of the law, and hunts counter, very swiftly and with great

judgment. He hath a quick scent to smell out his game, and a good deep

mouth to pursue it, yet never opens till he bites, and bites not till he

kills, or at least draws blood, and then he pincheth most doggedly. He

is a lawyer ’ s mule, and the only beast upon which he ambles so often to

Westminster. And a lawyer is his God Almighty, in him only he trusts. To

him he flies in all his troubles; from him he seeks succour. To him he

prays, that he may by his means overcome his enemies. Him does he

worship both in the temple and abroad, and hopes by him and good angels

to prosper in all his actions. A scrivener is his farrier, and helps to

recover all his diseased and maimed obligations. Every term he sets up a

tenters in Westminster Hall, upon which he racks and stretches gentlemen

like English broadcloth, beyond the staple of the wool, till the threads

crack, and that causeth them with the least wet to shrink, and presently

to wear bars. Marry, he handles a citizen (at least if himself be one)

like a piece of Spanish cloth, gives him only a twitch, and strains him

not too hard, knowing how apt he is to break of himself, and then he can

cut nothing out of him but threads. To the one he comes like Tamburlain,

with his black and bloody flag; but to the other his white one hangs

out, and, upon the parley, rather than fail, he takes ten groats in the

pound for his ransom, and so lets him march away with bag and baggage.

From the beginning of Hilary to the end of Michaelmas his purse is full

of quicksilver, and that sets him running from sunrise to sunset up

Fleet Street, and so to the Chancery, from thence to Westminster, then

back to one court, after that to another. Then to an attorney, then to a

councillor, and in every of these places he melts some of his fat (his

money). In the vacation he goes to grass, and gets up his flesh again,

which he baits as you heard. If he were to be hanged unless he could be

saved by his book, he cannot for his heart call for a psalm of mercy. He

is a law-trap baited with parchment and wax. The fearful mice he catches

are debtors, with whom scratching attorneys, like cats, play a good

while, and then mouse them. The bally is an insatiable creditor, but

man worse.

A SERGEANT
Was once taken, when he bare office in his parish, for an honest man.

The spawn of a decayed shopkeeper begets this fry; out of that dunghill

is this serpent ’ s egg hatched. It is a devil made sometime out of one of

the twelve companies, and does but study the part and rehearse it on

earth, to be perfect when he comes to act it in hell; that is his stage.

The hangman and he are twins; only the hangman is the elder brother, and

he dying without issue, as commonly he does, for none but a ropemaker ’ s

widow will marry him, this then inherits. His habit is a long gown, made

at first to cover his knavery, but that growing too monstrous, he now

goes in buff; his conscience and that being both cut out of one hide,

and are of one toughness. The Counter-gate is his kennel, the whole city

his Paris gardens; the misery of a poor man, but especially a bad liver,

is the offals on which he feeds. The devil calls him his white son; he

is so like him that he is the worse for it, and he takes after his

father, for the one torments bodies as fast as the other tortures souls.

Money is the crust he leaps at; cry, "a duck! a duck!" and he plunges

not so eagerly as at this. The dog ’ s chaps water to fetch nothing else;

he hath his name for the same quality. For sergeant is _quasi See

argent_, look you, rogue, here is money. He goes muffled like a thief,

and carries still the marks of one; for he steals upon man cowardly,

plucks him by the throat, makes him stand, and fleeces him. In this they

differ, the thief is more valiant and more honest. His walks in term

times are up Fleet Street, at the end of the term up Holborn, and so to

Tyburn; the gallows are his purlieus, in which the hangman and he are

quarter rangers--the one turns off, and the other cuts down. All the

vacation he lies imbogued behind the lattice of some blind drunken,

bawdy ale-house, and if he spy his prey, out he leaps like a freebooter,

and rifles, or like a ban-dog worries. No officer to the city keeps his

oath so uprightly; he never is forsworn, for he swears to be true varlet

to the city, and he continues so to his dying day. Mace, which is so

comfortable to the stomach in all kind of meats, turns in his hand to

mortal poison. This raven pecks not out men ’ s eyes as others do; all his

spite is at their shoulders, and you were better to have the nightmare

ride you than this incubus. When any of the furies of hell die, this

Cacodeemon hath the reversion of his place. The city is (by the custom)

to feed him with good meat, as they send dead horses to their hounds,

only to keep them both in good heart, for not only those curs at the

doghouse, but these within the walls, are to serve in their paces in

their several huntings. He is a citizen ’ s birdlime, and where he

holds he hangs.

HIS YEOMAN
Is the hanger that a sergeant wears by his side; it is a false die of

the same ball but not the same cut, for it runs somewhat higher and does

more mischief. It is a tumbler to drive in the conies. He is yet but a

bungler, and knows not how to cut up a man without tearing, but by a

pattern. One term fleshes him, or a Fleet Street breakfast. The devil is

but his father-in-law, and yet for the love he bears him will leave him

as much as if he were his own child. And for that cause (instead of

prayers) he does every morning at the Counter-gate ask him blessing, and

thrives the better in his actions all the day after. This is the hook

that hangs under water to choke the fish, and his sergeant is the quill

above water, which pops down so soon as ever the bait is swallowed. It

is indeed an otter, and the more terrible destroyer of the two. This

counter-rat hath a tail as long as his fellows, but his teeth are more

sharp and he more hungry, because he does but snap, and hath not his

full half-share of the booty. The eye of this wolf is as quick in his

head as a cutpurse ’ s in a throng, and as nimble is he at his business as

an hangman at an execution. His office is as the dogs do worry the sheep

first, or drive him to the shambles; the butcher that cuts his throat

steps out afterwards, and that ’ s his sergeant. His living lies within

the city, but his conscience lies bed-rid in one of the holes of a

counter. This eel is bred too out of the mud of a bankrupt, and dies

commonly with his guts ripped up, or else a sudden stab sends him of his

last errand. He will very greedily take a cut with a sword, and suck

more silver out of the wound than his surgeon shall. His beginning is

detestable, his courses desperate, and his end damnable.

A COMMON CRUEL JAILOR
Is a creature mistaken in the making, for he should be a tiger; but the

shape being thought too terrible, it is covered, and he wears the vizor

of a man, yet retains the qualities of his former fierceness,

currishness, and ravening. Of that red earth of which man was fashioned

this piece was the basest, of the rubbish which was left and thrown by

came this jailor; his descent is then more ancient, but more ignoble,

for he comes of the race of those angels that fell with Lucifer from

heaven, whither he never (or very hardly) returns. Of all his bunches of

keys not one hath wards to open that door, for this jailor ’ s soul stands

not upon those two pillars that support heaven (justice and mercy), it

rather sits upon those two footstools of hell, wrong and cruelty. He is

a judge ’ s slave, and a prisoner ’ s his. In this they differ; he is a

voluntary one, the other compelled. He is the hangman of the law with a

lame hand, and if the law gave him all his limbs perfect he would strike

those on whom he is glad to fawn. In fighting against a debtor he is a

creditor ’ s second, but observes not the laws of the _duello_; his play

is foul, and on all base advantages. His conscience and his shackles

hang up together, and are made very near of the same metal, saving that

the one is harder than the other and hath one property above iron, for

that never melts. He distils money out of the poor men ’ s tears, and

grows fat by their curses. No man coming to the practical part of hell

can discharge it better, because here he does nothing but study the

theory of it. His house is the picture of hell in little, and the

original of the letters patent of his office stands exemplified there. A

chamber of lousy beds is better worth to him than the best acre of

corn-land in England. Two things are hard to him (nay, almost

impossible), viz., to save all his prisoners that none ever escape, and

to be saved himself. His ears are stopped to the cries of others, and

God ’ s to his; and good reason, for lay the life of a man in one scale

and his fees on the other, he will lose the first to find the second. He

must look for no mercy if he desires justice to be done to him, for he

shows none; and I think he cares the less, because he knows heaven hath

no need of such tenants--the doors there want no porters, for they stand

ever open. If it were possible for all creatures in the world to sleep

every night, he only and a tyrant cannot. That blessing is taken from

them, and this curse comes in the stead, to be ever in fear and ever

hated: what estate can be worse?

WHAT A CHARACTER IS.
If I must speak the schoolmaster ’ s language, I will confess that

character comes of this infinitive mood, [ Greek: charassen ], which

signifies to engrave, or make a deep impression. And for that cause a

letter (as A, B) is called a character: those elements which we learn

first, leaving a strong seal in our memories.

Character is also taken for an Egyptian hieroglyphic, for an impress or

short emblem; in little comprehending much.

To square out a character by our English level, it is a picture (real or

personal) quaintly drawn in various colours, all of them heightened by

one shadowing.

It is a quick and soft touch of many strings, all shutting up in one

musical close; it is wit ’ s descant on any plain song.

THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE.
BY SIR H. W. [ 1 ]

How happy is he born or taught

That serveth not another ’ s will;

Whose armour is his honest thought,

And silly truth his highest skill!

Whose passions not his masters are,

Whose soul is still prepared for death;

Untied unto the world with care

Of princely love or vulgar breath.

Who hath his life from rumours freed,

Whose conscience is his strong retreat;

Whose state can neither flatterers feed,

Nor ruin make accusers great.

Who envieth none whom chance doth raise

Or vice, who never understood

How deepest wounds are given with praise;

Not rules of State, but rules of good.

Who God doth late and early pray

More of His grace than gifts to lend;

Who entertains the harmless day

With a well-chosen book or friend.

This man is free from servile bands,

Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;

Lord of himself, though not of lands,

And having nothing he hath all.

AN ESSAY OF VALOUR.
I am of opinion that nothing is so potent either to procure or merit

love as valour, and I am glad I am so, for thereby I shall do myself

much ease, because valour never needs much wit to maintain it. To speak

of it in itself, it is a quality which he that hath shall have least

need of; so the best league between princes is a mutual fear of each

other. It teacheth a man to value his reputation as his life, and

chiefly to hold the lie insufferable, though being alone he finds no

hurt it doth him. It leaves itself to other ’ s censures; for he that

brags of his own, dissuades others from believing it. It feareth a sword

no more than an ague. It always makes good the owner; for though he be

generally held a fool, he shall seldom hear so much by word of mouth,

and that enlargeth him more than any spectacles, for it makes a little

fellow to be called a tall man. It yields the wall to none but a woman,

whose weakness is her prerogative; or a man seconded with a woman, as an

usher which always goes before his betters. It makes a man become the

witness of his own words, to stand to whatever he hath said, and

thinketh it a reproach to commit his reviling unto the law. It

furnisheth youth with action, and age with discourse, and both by

futures; for a man must never boast himself in the present tense. And to

come nearer home, nothing draws a woman like to it, for valour towards

men is an emblem of an ability towards women, a good quality signifies a

better. Nothing is more behoveful for that sex, for from it they receive

protection, and we free from the danger of it; nothing makes a shorter

cut to obtaining, for a man of arms is always void of ceremony, which is

the wall that stands betwixt Pyramus and Thisbe, that is, man and woman,

for there is no pride in women but that which rebounds from our own

baseness, as cowards grow valiant upon those that are more cowards, so

that only by our pale asking we teach them to deny. And by our

shamefacedness we put them in mind to be modest, whereas indeed, it is

cunning rhetoric to persuade the hearers that they are that already

which we would have them to be. This kind of bashfulness is far from men

of valour, and especially from soldiers, for such are ever men without

doubt forward and confident, losing no time lest they should lose

opportunity, which is the best factor for a lover. And because they know

women are given to dissemble, they will never believe them when they

deny. Whilom before this age of wit and wearing black broke in upon us,

there was no way known to win a lady but by tilting, tourneying, and

riding through forests, in which time these slender striplings with

little legs were held but of strength enough to marry their widows. And

even in our days there can be given no reason of the inundation of

serving-men upon their mistresses, but only that usually they carry

their mistresses ’ weapons and his valour. To be counted handsome, just,

learned, or well-favoured, all this carries no danger with it, but it is

to be admitted to the title of valiant acts, at least the venturing of

his mortality, and all women take delight to hold him safe in their arms

who hath escaped thither through many dangers. To speak at once, man

hath a privilege in valour; in clothes and good faces we but imitate

women, and many of that sex will not think much, as far as an answer

goes, to dissemble wit too. So then these neat youths, these women in

men ’ s apparel, are too near a woman to be beloved of her, they be both

of a trade; but he of grim aspect, and such a one a glass dares take,

and she will desire him for newness and variety. A scar in a man ’ s face

is the same that a mole in a woman ’ s, is a jewel set in white to make it

seem more white, for a scar in a man is a mark of honour and no blemish,

for ’ tis a scar and a blemish in a soldier to be without one. Now, as

for all things else which are to procure love, as a good face, wit

clothes, or a good body, each of them, I confess, may work somewhat for

want of a better, that is, if valour be not their rival. A good face

avails nothing if it be in a coward that is bashful, the utmost of it is

to be kissed, which rather increaseth than quencheth appetite. He that

sends her gifts sends her word also that he is a man of small gifts

otherwise, for wooing by signs and tokens employs the author dumb; and

if Ovid, who writ the law of love, were alive (as he is extant), he

would allow it as good a diversity that gifts should be sent as

gratuities, not as bribes. Wit getteth rather promise than love. Wit is

not to be seen, and no woman takes advice of any in her loving but of

her own eyes and her waiting-woman ’ s; nay, which is worse, wit is not to

be felt, and so no good bedfellow. Wit applied to a woman makes her

dissolve her simpering and discover her teeth with laughter, and this is

surely a purge of love, for the beginning of love is a kind of foolish

melancholy. As for the man that makes his tailor his means, and hopes to

inveigle his love with such a coloured suit, surely the same deeply

hazards the loss of her favour upon every change of his clothes. So

likewise for the other that courts her silently with a good body, let me

certify him, that his clothes depend upon the comeliness of his body,

and so both upon opinion. She that hath been seduced by apparel let me

give her to wit, that men always put off their clothes before they go to

bed. And let her that hath been enamoured of her servant ’ s body

understand, that if she saw him in a skin of cloth, that is, in a suit

made of the pattern of his body, she would see slender cause to love him

ever after. There is no clothes sit so well in a woman ’ s eye as a suit

of steel, though not of the fashion, and no man so soon surpriseth a

woman ’ s affections as he that is the subject of all whispering, and hath

always twenty stories of his own deeds depending upon him. Mistake me

not; I understand not by valour one that never fights but when he is

backed with drink or anger, or hissed on with beholders, nor one that is

desperate, nor one that takes away a serving-man ’ s weapons when

perchance it cost him his quarter ’ s wages, nor yet one that wears a

privy coat of defence and therein is confident, for then such as made

bucklers would be counted the Catilines of the commonwealth. I intend

one of an even resolution grounded upon reason, which is always even,

having his power restrained by the law of not doing wrong. But now I

remember I am for valour, and therefore must be a man of few words.

JOSEPH HALL
JOSEPH HALL ’ S

CHARACTERS OF VICES AND VIRTUES

_were published four years earlier than Overbury ’ s, but Overbury ’ s were

posthumous, and in actual time of writing there can have been no very

material difference. Hall ’ s age was thirty-four when he first published

his Characters. He was born on the 1st July 1574, at Ashby de la Zouch,

in Leicestershire. His father was governor of this town under the Earl

of Huntingdon, when he was President of the North. His mother, Winifred,

was a devout Puritan, and he was from infancy intended for the Church.

In 1589, at the age of fifteen, Joseph Hall was sent to Emmanuel

College, Cambridge, where he was maintained at the cost of an uncle. He

passed all his degrees with applause, obtained a Fellowship of his

college in 1595, and proceeded to M.A. in 1596, and having already

obtained credit at Cambridge as an English poet, he published in 1597

"Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes, First Three Books of Toothlesse Satyrs,

Poetical, Academical, Moral, followed in the next year by Three last

Bookes of Byting Satyres." Of these Satires he said in their Prologue--_

"I first adventure, with foolhardy might,

To tread the steps of perilous despite.

I first adventure, follow me who list,

And be the second English satirist."

_He could only have meant by this to claim that he was the first in

England to write Satires in the manner of the Latins. He would not

bend, he said, to Lady or to Patron--_

"Rather had I, albe in careless rhymes,

Check the misordered world and lawless times."

_Some of these Satires were, of course, of the nature of Characters, and

I quote two or three in passing._

A DOMESTIC CHAPLAIN.
A gentle squire would gladly entertain

Into his house some trencher-chaplain;

Some willing man that might instruct his sons,

And that would stand to good conditions.

First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,

Whilst his young master lieth o ’ er his head.

Secondly, that he do, on no default,

Ever presume to sit above the salt.

Third, that he never change his trencher twice.

Fourth, that he use all common courtesies;

Sit bare at meals, and one half rise and wait.

Last, that he never his young master beat

But he must ask his mother to define

How many jerks she would his breech should line.

All these observed, he could contented be,

To give five marks and winter livery.

THE WITLESS GALLANT.
Seest thou how gaily my young master goes,

Vaunting himself upon his rising toes;

And pranks his hand upon his dagger ’ s side;

And picks his glutted teeth since late noon-tide?

’ Tis Ruffio: Trow ’ st thou where he dined to-day?

In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humfray.

Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer,

Keeps he for every straggling cavalier.

An open house, haunted with great resort;

Long service mixed with musical disport.

Many fair younker with a feathered crest,

Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest,

To fare so freely with so little cost,

Than stake his twelve-pence to a meaner host.

Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say

He touched no meat of all this live-long day.

For sure methought, yet that was but a guess,

His eyes seem sunk for very hollowness,

But could he have (as I did it mistake)

So little in his purse, so much upon his back?

So nothing in his maw? yet seemeth by his belt,

That his gaunt gut not too much stuffing felt.

Seest thou how side it hangs beneath his hip?

Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip.

Yet for all that, how stiffly struts he by,

All trapped in the new-found bravery.

The nuns of new-won Cales his bonnet lent,

In lieu of their so kind a conquerment.

What needed he fetch that from farthest Spain,

His grandam could have lent with lesser pain?

Tho ’ he perhaps ne ’ er passed the English shore,

Yet fain would counted be a conqueror.

His hair, French-like, stares on his frightened head,

One lock amazon-like dishevelled,

As if he meant to wear a native cord,

If chance his fates should him that bane afford.

All British bare upon the bristled skin,

Close notched is his beard both lip and chin;

His linen collar labyrinthian set,

Whose thousand double turnings never met:

His sleeves half hid with elbow pinionings,

As if he meant to fly with linen wings.

But when I look, and cast mine eyes below,

What monster meets mine eyes in human show?

So slender waist with such an abbot ’ s loin,

Did never sober nature sure conjoin.

Lik ’ st a strawn scare-crow in the new-sown field,

Reared on some stick, the tender corn to shield.

Or if that semblance suit not every dale,

Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel

Despised nature suit them once aright,

Their body to their coat, both now misdight.

Their body to their clothes might shapen be,

That nil their clothes shape to their body.

Meanwhile I wonder at so proud a back,

Whilst, the empty guts loud rumbling for long lack,

The belly envieth the back ’ s bright glee,

And murmurs at such inequality.

The back appears unto the partial eyne,

The plaintive belly pleads they bribed been;

And he, for want of better advocate,

Doth to the ear his injury relate.

The back, insulting o ’ er the belly ’ s need,

Says, thou thyself, I others ’ eyes must feed.

The maw, the guts, all inward parts complain

The back ’ s great pride, and their own secret pain.

Ye witless gallants, I beshrew your hearts,

That sets such discord ’ twixt agreeing parts,

Which never can be set at onement more,

Until the maw ’ s wide mouth be stopped with store.

_Joseph Hall obtained in 1601 the living of Halsted in Suffolk, and

married in 1603. In an autobiographical sketch of "Some Specialities in

the Life of Joseph Hall," he thus tells us himself the manner of his

marrying_:--

"Being now, therefore, settled in that sweet and civil country of

Suffolk, near to St. Edmundsbury, my first work was to build up my

house, which was extremely ruinous; which done, the uncouth solitariness

of my life, and the extreme incommodity of that single housekeeping,

drew my thoughts, after two years, to condescend to the necessity of a

married estate, which God no less strangely provided for me; for,

walking from the church on Monday in the Whitsun-week, with a grave and

reverend minister, Mr. Grandidge, I saw a comely and modest gentlewoman

standing at the door of that house where we were invited to a wedding

dinner, and inquiring of that worthy friend whether he knew her. Yes

(quoth he), I know her well, and have bespoken her for your wife. When I

farther demanded an account of that answer, he told me she was the

daughter of a gentleman whom he much respected, Mr. George Winniff, of

Bretenham; that out of an opinion had of the fitness of that match for

me, he had already treated with her father about it, whom he found very

apt to entertain it, advising me not to neglect the opportunity, and not

concealing the just praises of modesty, piety, good disposition, and

other virtues that were lodged in that seemly presence. I listened to

the motion as sent from God, and at last, upon due prosecution, happily

prevailed, enjoying the comfortable society of that meet help for the

space of forty-nine years."

_In 1605 Joseph Hall published at Frankfort in Latin a witty satire on

the weak side of the world, which had been written several years

earlier, entitled "Mundus Alter et Idem." Of this book I have given a

description in the volume of "Ideal Commonwealths," which forms one of

the series of the "Universal Library." Hall had obtained reputation as a

divine, by publishing two centuries of religious "Meditations," which

united wit with piety. Prince Henry, having sought an opportunity of

hearing him preach, made Hall his chaplain, and the Earl of Norwich gave

him the living of Waltham in Essex. At the same time, 1608, a

translation of Hall ’ s Latin Satire, printed twice abroad, was published

in London as "The Discovery of a New World;" he himself published also

two volumes of Epistles, and this book of "Characters." There was a long

career before him as a leader among churchmen fallen upon troubled days.

He became Bishop of Exeter and was translated to Norwich. He was

committed to the Tower, released, and ejected from his see, and after

ten years of retirement, living upon narrow means at the village of

Higham near Norwich, he died in the Commonwealth time at the age of

eighty-two, on the 8th of September 1656. He took a conspicuous part in

the controversy of 1641 about the bishops, but twenty years before that

date a collection of his earlier works had formed a substantial folio of

more than eleven hundred pages. His "Characters of Virtues and Vices,"

written in early manhood, follow next in our collection._

CHARACTERS OF VIRTUES AND VICES.
_IN TWO BOOKS._

BY JOSEPH HALL.

A PREMONITION or THE TITLE AND USE OF CHARACTERS.

Reader,--The divines of the old heathens were their moral philosophers.

These received the acts of an inbred law, in the Sinai of nature, and

delivered them with many expositions to the multitude. These were the

overseers of manners, correctors of vices, directors of lives, doctors

of virtue, which yet taught their people the body of their natural

divinity, not after one manner: while some spent themselves in deep

discourses of human felicity and the way to it in common, others thought

it best to apply the general precepts of goodness or decency to

particular conditions and persons. A third sort in a mean course betwixt

the two other, and compounded of them both, bestowed their time in

drawing out the true lineaments of every virtue and vice, so lively,

that who saw the medals might know the face; which art they

significantly termed Charactery. Their papers were so many tables, their

writings so many speaking pictures, or living images, whereby the ruder

multitude might even by their sense learn to know virtue and discern

what to detest. I am deceived if any course could be more likely to

prevail, for herein the gross conceit is led on with pleasure, and

informed while it feels nothing but delight; and if pictures have been

accounted the books of idiots, behold here the benefit of an image

without the offence. It is no shame for us to learn wit of heathens,

neither is it material in whose school we take out a good lesson. Yea,

it is more shame not to follow their good than not to lead them better.

As one, therefore, that in worthy examples hold imitation better than

invention, I have trod in their paths, but with an higher and wider

step, and out of their tablets have drawn these larger portraitures of

both sorts. More might be said, I deny not, of every virtue, of every

vice; I desired not to say all but enough. If thou do but read or like

these I have spent good hours ill; but if thou shalt hence abjure those

vices, which before thou thoughtest not ill-favoured, or fall in love

with any of these goodly faces of virtue, or shalt hence find where thou

hast any little touch of these evils, to clear thyself, or where any

defect in these graces to supply it, neither of us shall need to repent

of our labour.

THE FIRST BOOK.

_CHARACTERISMS OF VIRTUES._
THE PROEM.

Virtue is not loved enough, because she is not seen; and vice loseth

much detestation, because her ugliness is secret. Certainly, my lords,

there are so many beauties, and so many graces in the face of goodness,

that no eye can possibly see it without affection, without ravishment;

and the visage of evil is so monstrous through loathsome deformities,

that if her lovers were not ignorant they would be mad with disdain and

astonishment. What need we more than to discover these two to the world?

This work shall save the labour of exhorting and dissuasion. I have here

done it as I could, following that ancient master of morality, who

thought this the fittest task for the ninety and ninth year of his age,

and the profitablest monument that he could leave for a farewell visit

to his Grecians. Lo here then virtue and vice stripped naked to the open

view, and despoiled, one of her rags the other of her ornaments, and

nothing left them but bare presence to plead for affection: see now

whether shall find more suitors. And if still the vain minds of lewd men

shall dote upon their old mistress, it will appear to be, not because

she is not foul, but for that they are blind and bewitched. And first

behold the goodly features of wisdom, an amiable virtue, and worthy to

lead this stage; which as she extends herself to all the following

graces, so amongst the rest is for her largeness most conspicuous.

CHARACTER OF THE WISE MAN.
There is nothing that he desires not to know, but most and first

himself, and not so much his own strength as his weaknesses; neither is

his knowledge reduced to discourse, but practice. He is a skilful

logician, not by nature so much as use; his working mind doth nothing

all his time but make syllogisms and draw out conclusions; everything

that he sees and hears serves for one of the premisses; with these he

cares first to inform himself, then to direct others. Both his eyes are

never at once from home, but one keeps house while the other roves

abroad for intelligence. In material and weighty points he abides not

his mind suspended in uncertainties, but hates doubting where he may,

where he should be resolute: and first he makes sure work for his soul,

accounting it no safety to be unsettled in the foreknowledge of his

small estate. The best is first regarded; and vain is that regard which

endeth not in security. Every care hath his just order; neither is there

any one either neglected or misplaced. He is seldom ever seen with

credulity; for, knowing the falseness of the world, he hath learned to

trust himself always, others so far as he may not be damaged by their

disappointment. He seeks his quietness in secrecy, and is wont both to

hide himself in retiredness, and his tongue in himself. He loves to be

guessed at, not known; and to see the world unseen; and when he is

forced into the light, shows by his actions that his obscurity was

neither from affectation nor weakness. His purposes are neither so

variable as may argue inconstancy, nor obstinately unchangeable, but

framed according to his after-wits, or the strength of new occasions. He

is both an apt scholar and an excellent master; for both everything he

sees informs him, and his mind, enriched with plentiful observation, can

give the best precepts. His free discourse runs back to the ages past,

and recovers events out of memory, and then preventeth time in flying

forward to future things; and comparing one with the other, can give a

verdict well near prophetical, wherein his conjectures are better than

another ’ s judgments. His passions are so many good servants, which stand

in a diligent attendance ready to be commanded by reason, by religion;

and if at any time forgetting their duty, they be miscarried to rebel,

he can first conceal their mutiny, then suppress it. In all his just and

worthy designs he is never at a loss, but hath so projected all his

courses that a second begins where the first failed, and fetcheth

strength from that which succeeded not. There be wrongs which he will

not see, neither doth he always look that way which he meaneth, nor take

notice of his secret smarts, when they come from great ones. In good

turns he loves not to owe more than he must; in evil, to owe and not

pay. Just censures he deserves not, for he lives without the compass of

an adversary; unjust he contemneth, and had rather suffer false infamy

to die alone than lay hands upon it in an open violence. He confineth

himself in the circle of his own affairs, and lists not to thrust his

finger into a needless fire. He stands like a centre unmoved, while the

circumference of his estate is drawn above, beneath, about him. Finally,

his wit hath cost him much, and he can both keep, and value, and employ

it. He is his own lawyer, the treasury of knowledge, the oracle of

counsel; blind in no man ’ s cause, best sighted in his own.

OF AN HONEST MAN.
He looks not to what he might do, but what he should. Justice is his

first guide, the second law of his actions is expedience. He had rather

complain than offend, and hates sin more for the indignity of it than

the danger. His simple uprightness works in him that confidence which

ofttimes wrongs him, and gives advantage to the subtle, when he rather

pities their faithlessness than repents of his credulity. He hath but

one heart, and that lies open to sight; and were it not for discretion,

he never thinks aught whereof he would avoid a witness. His word is his

parchment, and his yea his oath, which he will not violate for fear or

for loss. The mishaps of following events may cause him to blame his

providence, can never cause him to eat his promise: neither saith he,

This I saw not; but, This I said. When he is made his friend ’ s executor,

he defrays debts, pays legacies, and scorneth to gain by orphans, or to

ransack graves, and therefore will be true to a dead friend, because he

sees him not. All his dealings are square and above the board; he

bewrays the fault of what he sells, and restores the overseen gain of a

false reckoning. He esteems a bribe venomous, though it come gilded over

with the colour of gratuity. His cheeks are never stained with the

blushes of recantation, neither doth his tongue falter to make good a

lie with the secret glosses of double or reserved senses, and when his

name is traduced his innocency bears him out with courage: then, lo, he

goes on the plain way of truth, and will either triumph in his integrity

or suffer with it. His conscience overrules his providence; so as in all

things good or ill, he respects the nature of the actions, not the

sequel. If he see what he must do, let God see what shall follow. He

never loadeth himself with burdens above his strength, beyond his will;

and once bound, what he can he will do, neither doth he will but what he

can do. His ear is the sanctuary of his absent friend ’ s name, of his

present friend ’ s secret; neither of them can miscarry in his trust. He

remembers the wrongs of his youth, and repays them with that usury which

he himself would not take. He would rather want than borrow, and beg

than not to pay: his fair conditions are without dissembling, and he

loves actions above words. Finally, he hates falsehood worse than death:

he is a faithful client of truth, no man ’ s enemy, and it is a question

whether more another man ’ s friend or his own; and if there were no

heaven, yet he would be virtuous.

OF THE FAITHFUL MAN.
His eyes have no other objects but absent and invisible, which they see

so clearly as that to them sense is blind. That which is present they

see not; if I may not rather say, that what is past or future is present

to them. Herein he exceeds all others, that to him nothing is

impossible, nothing difficult, whether to bear or undertake. He walks

every day with his Maker, and talks with Him familiarly, and lives ever

in heaven, and sees all earthly things beneath him. When he goes in to

converse with God, he wears not his own clothes, but takes them still

out of the rich wardrobe of his Redeemer, and then dares boldly press in

and challenge a blessing. The celestial spirits do not scorn his

company; yea, his service. He deals in these worldly affairs as a

stranger, and hath his heart ever at home. Without a written warrant he

dare do nothing, and with it anything. His war is perpetual, without

truce, without intermission, and his victory certain; he meets with the

infernal powers, and tramples them under feet. The shield that he ever

bears before him can neither be missed nor pierced; if his hand be

wounded, yet his heart is safe. He is often tripped, seldom foiled, and,

if sometimes foiled, never vanquished. He hath white hands, and a clean

soul fit to lodge God in, all the rooms whereof are set apart for His

holiness. Iniquity hath oft called at the door and craved entertainment,

but with a repulse; or, if sin of force will be his tenant, his Lord he

cannot. His faults are few, and those he hath God will not see. He is

allied so high, that he dare call God father, his Saviour brother,

heaven his patrimony, and thinks it no presumption to trust to the

attendance of angels. His understanding is enlightened with the beams of

divine truth. God hath acquainted him with His will; and what he knows

he dare confess: there is not more love in his heart than liberty in his

tongue. If torments stand betwixt him and Christ, if death, he contemns

them; and if his own parents lie in his way to God, his holy

carelessness makes them his footsteps. His experiments have drawn forth

rules of confidence, which he dares oppose against all the fears of

distrust; wherein he thinks it safe to charge God with what he hath

done, with what he hath promised. Examples are his proofs, and instances

his demonstrations. What hath God given which he cannot give? What have

others suffered which he may not be enabled to endure? Is he threatened

banishment? there he sees the dear Evangelist in Patmos. Cutting in

pieces? he sees Esai under the saw. Drowning? he sees Jonah diving into

the living gulf? Burning? he sees the three children in the hot walk of

the furnace. Devouring? he sees Daniel in the sealed den amidst his

terrible companions. Stoning? he sees the first martyr under his heap of

many gravestones. Heading? lo, there the Baptist ’ s neck bleeding in

Herodias ’ platter. He emulates their pain, their strength, their glory.

He wearies not himself with cares; for he knows he lives not of his own

cost, not idly omitting means, but not using them with diffidence. In

the midst of ill rumours and amazements his countenance changeth not;

for he knows both whom he hath trusted, and whither death can lead him.

He is not so sure he shall die as that he shall be restored, and

outfaceth his death with resurrection. Finally, he is rich in works,

busy in obedience, cheerful and unmoved in expectation, better with

evils, in common opinion miserable, but in true judgment more than

a man.

OF THE HUMBLE MAN.
He is a friendly enemy to himself; for, though he be not out of his own

favour, no man sets so low a value of his worth as himself--not out of

ignorance or carelessness, but of a voluntary and meek dejectedness. He

admires everything in another, while the same or better in himself he

thinks not unworthily contemned. His eyes are full of his own wants, and

others ’ perfections. He loves rather to give than take honour; not in a

fashion of complimental courtesy, but in simplicity of his judgment.

Neither doth he fret at those on whom he forceth precedence, as one that

hoped their modesty would have refused; but holds his mind unfeignedly

below his place, and is ready to go lower (if need be) without

discontent. When he hath his due, he magnifieth courtesy, and disclaims

his deserts. He can be more ashamed of honour than grieved with

contempt; because he thinks that causeless, this deserved. His face, his

carriage, his habit, savour of lowliness without affectation, and yet he

is much under that he seemeth. His words are few and soft, never either

peremptory or censorious; because he thinks both each man more wise, and

none more faulty than himself. And, when he approacheth to the throne of

God, he is so taken up with the Divine greatness that, in his own eyes,

he is either vile or nothing. Places of public charge are fain to sue to

him, and hail him out of his chosen obscurity; which he holds ofif, not

cunningly, to cause importunity, but sincerely, in the conscience of his

defects. He frequenteth not the stages of common resorts, and then alone

thinks himself in his natural element when he is shrouded within his own

walls. He is ever jealous over himself, and still suspecteth that which

others applaud. There is no better object of beneficence; for what he

receives he ascribes merely to the bounty of the giver, nothing to

merit. He emulates no man in anything but goodness, and that with more

desire than hope to overtake. No man is so contented with his little,

and so patient under miseries; because he knows the greatest evils are

below his sins, and the least favours above his deservings. He walks

ever in awe, and dare not but subject every word and action to an high

and just censure. He is a lowly valley, sweetly planted and well

watered; the proud man ’ s earth, whereon he trampleth; but secretly full

of wealthy mines, more worth than he that walks over them; a rich stone

set in lead; and, lastly, a true temple of God built with a low roof.

OF A VALIANT MAN.
He undertakes without rashness, and performs without fear; he seeks not

for dangers, but, when they find him, he bears them over with courage,

with success. He hath ofttimes looked death in the face, and passed by

it with a smile; and when he sees he must yield, doth at once welcome

and contemn it. He forecasts the worst of all events, and encounters

them before they come in a secret and mental war. And if the suddenness

of an unexpected evil have surprised his thoughts, and infected his

cheeks with paleness, he hath no sooner digested it in his conceit than

he gathers up himself, and insults over mischief. He is the master of

himself, and subdues his passions to reason, and by this inward victory

works his own peace. He is afraid of nothing but the displeasure of the

Highest, and runs away from nothing but sin: he looks not on his hands,

but his cause; not how strong he is, but how innocent: and, where

goodness is his warrant, he may be over-mastered; he cannot be foiled.

The sword is to him the last of all trials, which he draws forth still

as defendant, not as challenger, with a willing kind of unwillingness:

no man can better manage it, with more safety, with more favour; he had

rather have his blood seen than his back, and disdains life upon base

conditions. No man is more mild to a relenting or vanquished adversary,

or more hates to set his foot on a carcase. He had rather smother an

injury than revenge himself of the impotent, and I know not whether he

more detests cowardliness or cruelty. He talks little, and brags less;

and loves rather the silent language of the hand, to be seen than heard.

He lies ever close within himself, armed with wise resolution, and will

not be discovered but by death or danger. He is neither prodigal of

blood to misspend it idly, nor niggardly to grudge it, when either God

calls for it, or his country; neither is he more liberal of his own life

than of others. His power is limited by his will, and he holds it the

noblest revenge, that he might hurt and doth not. He commands without

tyranny and imperiousness, obeys without servility, and changes not his

mind with his estate. The height of his spirits overlooks all

casualties, and his boldness proceeds neither from ignorance nor

senselessness; but first he values evils, and then despises them. He is

so balanced with wisdom that he floats steadily in the midst of all

tempests. Deliberate in his purposes, firm in resolution, bold in

enterprising, unwearied in achieving, and howsoever happy in success;

and if ever he be overcome, his heart yields last.

OF A PATIENT MAN.
The patient man is made of a metal, not so hard as flexible: his

shoulders are large, fit for a load of injuries; which he bears not out

of baseness and cowardliness, because he dare not revenge, but out of

Christian fortitude, because he may not: he has so conquered himself

that wrongs cannot conquer him; and herein alone finds that victory

consists in yielding. He is above nature, while he seems below himself.

The vilest creature knows how to turn again; but to command himself not

to resist being urged is more than heroical. His constructions are ever

full of charity and favour; either this wrong was not done, or not with

intent of wrong; or if that, upon mis-information; or if none of these,

rashness (though a fault) shall serve for an excuse. Himself craves the

offender ’ s pardon before his confession; and a slight answer contents

where the offended desires to forgive. He is God ’ s best witness; and

when he stands before the bar for truth his tongue is calmly free, his

forehead firm, and he with erect and settled countenance hears his just

sentence, and rejoices in it. The jailors that attend him are to him his

pages of honour; his dungeon, the lower part of the vault of heaven; his

rack or wheel, the stairs of his ascent to glory: he challenges his

executioners, and encounters the fiercest pains with strength of

resolution; and while he suffers the beholders pity him, the tormentors

complain of weariness, and both of them wonder. No anguish can master

him, whether by violence or by lingering. He accounts expectation no

punishment, and can abide to have his hopes adjourned till a new day.

Good laws serve for his protection, not for his revenge; and his own

power, to avoid indignities, not to return them. His hopes are so strong

that they can insult over the greatest discouragements; and his

apprehensions so deep that, when he hath once fastened, he sooner

leaveth his life than his hold. Neither time nor perverseness can make

him cast off his charitable endeavours and despair of prevailing; but in

spite of all crosses and all denials, he redoubleth his beneficial

offers of love. He trieth the sea after many shipwrecks, and beats still

at that door which he never saw opened. Contrariety of events doth but

exercise, not dismay him; and when crosses afflict him, he sees a divine

hand invisibly striking with these sensible scourges, against which he

dares not rebel nor murmur. Hence all things befall him alike; and he

goes with the same mind to the shambles and to the fold. His recreations

are calm and gentle, and not more full of relaxation than void of fury.

This man only can turn necessity into virtue, and put evil to good use.

He is the surest friend, the latest and easiest enemy, the greatest

conqueror, and so much more happy than others, by how much he could

abide to be more miserable.

OF THE TRUE FRIEND.
His affections are both united and divided; united to him he loveth,

divided betwixt another and himself; and his one heart is so parted,

that whilst he has some his friend hath all. His choice is led by

virtue, or by the best of virtues, religion; not by gain, not by

pleasure; yet not without respect of equal condition, of disposition not

unlike; which, once made, admits of no change, except he whom he loveth

be changed quite from himself; nor that suddenly, but after long

expectation. Extremity doth but fasten him, whilst he, like a

well-wrought vault, lies the stronger, by how much more weight he bears.

When necessity calls him to it, he can be a servant to his equal, with

the same will wherewith he can command his inferior; and though he rise

to honour, forgets not his familiarity, nor suffers inequality of estate

to work strangeness of countenance; on the other side, he lifts up his

friend to advancement with a willing hand, without envy, without

dissimulation. When his mate is dead, he accounts himself but half

alive; then his love, not dissolved by death, derives itself to those

orphans which never knew the price of their father; they become the

heirs of his affection, and the burden of his cares. He embraces a free

community of all things, save those which either honesty reserves

proper, or nature; and hates to enjoy that which would do his friend

more good. His charity serves to cloak noted infirmities, not by

untruth, not by flattery, but by discreet secrecy; neither is he more

favourable in concealment, than round in his private reprehensions; and

when another ’ s simple fidelity shows itself in his reproof, he loves his

monitor so much the more, by how much more he smarteth. His bosom is his

friend ’ s closet, where he may safely lay up his complaints, his doubts,

his cares; and look how he leaves, so he finds them; save for some

addition of seasonable counsel for redress. If some unhappy suggestion

shall either disjoint his affection or break it, it soon knits again,

and grows the stronger by that stress. He is so sensible of another ’ s

injuries, that when his friend is stricken he cries out and equally

smarteth untouched, as one affected not with sympathy, but with a real

feeling of pain: and in what mischief may be prevented, he interposeth

his aid, and offers to redeem his friend with himself. No hour can be

unseasonable, no business difficult, nor pain grievous in condition of

his ease: and what either he doth or suffers, he neither cares nor

desires to have known, lest he should seem to look for thanks. If he can

therefore steal the performance of a good office unseen, the conscience

of his faithfulness herein is so much sweeter as it is more secret. In

favours done, his memory is frail; in benefits received, eternal: he

scorneth either to regard recompense or not to offer it. He is the

comfort of miseries, the guide of difficulties, the joy of life, the

treasure of earth, and no other than a good angel clothed in flesh.

OF THE TRULY NOBLE.
He stands not upon what he borrowed of his ancestors, but thinks he must

work out his own honour: and if he cannot reach the virtue of them that

gave him outward glory by inheritance, he is more abashed of his

impotency than transported with a great name. Greatness doth not make

him scornful and imperious, but rather like the fixed stars; the higher

he is, the less he desires to seem. Neither cares he so much for pomp

and frothy ostentation as for the solid truth of nobleness. Courtesy and

sweet affability can be no more severed from him than life from his

soul; not out of a base and servile popularity, and desire of ambitious

insinuation, but of a native gentleness of disposition, and true value

of himself. His hand is open and bounteous, yet not so as that he should

rather respect his glory than his estate; wherein his wisdom can

distinguish betwixt parasites and friends, betwixt changing of favours

and expending them. He scorneth to make his height a privilege of

looseness, but accounts his titles vain if he be inferior to others in

goodness: and thinks he should be more strict the more eminent he is,

because he is more observed, and now his offences are become more

exemplar. There is no virtue that he holds unfit for ornament, for use;

nor any vice which he condemns not as sordid, and a fit companion of

baseness; and whereof he doth not more hate the blemish, than affect the

pleasure. He so studies as one that knows ignorance can neither purchase

honour nor wield it; and that knowledge must both guide and grace, him.

His exercises are from his childhood ingenious, manly, decent, and such

as tend still to wit, valour, activity: and if (as seldom) he descend to

disports of chance, his games shall never make him either pale with fear

or hot with desire of gain. He doth not so use his followers, as if he

thought they were made for nothing but his servitude, whose felicity

were only to be commanded and please: wearing them to the back, and then

either finding or framing excuses to discard them empty; but upon all

opportunities lets them feel the sweetness of their own serviceableness

and his bounty. Silence in officious service is the best oratory to

plead for his respect: all diligence is but lent to him, none lost. His

wealth stands in receiving, his honour in giving. He cares not either

how many hold of his goodness, or to how few he is beholden: and if he

have cast away favours, he hates either to upbraid them to his enemy, or

to challenge restitution. None can be more pitiful to the distressed, or

more prone to succour; and then most where is least means to solicit,

least possibility of requital. He is equally addressed to war and peace;

and knows not more how to command others, than how to be his country ’ s

servant in both. He is more careful to give true honour to his Maker

than to receive civil honour from men. He knows that this service is

free and noble, and ever loaded with sincere glory; and how vain it is

to hunt after applause from the world till he be sure of Him that

mouldeth all hearts, and poureth contempt on princes; and shortly, so

demeans himself as one that accounts the body of nobility to consist in

blood, the soul in the eminence of virtue.

OF THE GOOD MAGISTRATE.
He is the faithful deputy of his Maker, whose obedience is the rule

whereby he ruleth. His breast is the ocean, whereinto all the cares of

private men empty themselves; which, as he receives without complaint

and overflowing, so he sends them forth again by a wise conveyance in

the streams of justice. His doors, his ears, are ever open to suitors;

and not who comes first speeds well, but whose cause is best. His

nights, his meals, are short and interrupted; all which he bears well,

because he knows himself made for a public servant of peace and justice.

He sits quietly at the stern, and commands one to the topsail, another

to the main, a third to the plummet, a fourth to the anchor, as he sees

the needs of their course and weather requires; and doth no less by his

tongue than all the mariners with their hands. On the bench he is

another from himself at home; now all private respects of blood,

alliance, amity are forgotten; and if his own son come under trial he

knows him not. Pity, which in all others is wont to be the best praise

of humanity and the fruit of Christian love, is by him thrown over the

bar for corruption. As for Favour, the false advocate of the gracious,

he allows him not to appear in the court; there only causes are heard

speak, not persons. Eloquence is then only not dis-couraged when she

serves for a client of truth. Mere narrations are allowed in this

oratory, not proems, not excursions, not glosses. Truth must strip

herself and come in naked to his bar, without false bodies or colours,

without disguises. A bribe in his closet, or a letter on the bench, or

the whispering and winks of a great neighbour, are answered with an

angry and courageous repulse. Displeasure, Revenge, Recompense stand on

both sides the bench, but he scorns to turn his eye towards them,

looking only right forward at Equity, which stands full before him. His

sentence is ever deliberate and guided with ripe wisdom, yet his hand is

slower than his tongue; but when he is urged by occasion either to doom

or execution, he shows how much he hateth merciful injustice. Neither

can his resolution or act be reversed with partial importunity. His

forehead is rugged and severe, able to discountenance villainy, yet his

words are more awful than his brow, and his hand than his words. I know

not whether he be more feared or loved, both affections are so sweetly

contempered in all hearts. The good fear him lovingly, the middle sort

love him fearfully, and only the wicked man fears him slavishly without

love. He hates to pay private wrongs with the advantage of his office;

and if ever he be partial, it is to his enemy. He is not more sage in

his gown than valorous in arms, and increaseth in the rigour of

discipline as the times in danger. His sword hath neither rusted for

want of use, nor surfeiteth of blood; but after many threats is

unsheathed, as the dreadful instrument of divine revenge. He is the

guard of good laws, the refuge of innocence, the comet of the guilty,

the paymaster of good deserts, the champion of justice, the patron of

peace, the tutor of the Church, the father of his country, and as it

were another God upon earth.

OF THE PENITENT.
He has a wounded heart and a sad face, yet not so much for fear as for

unkindness. The wrong of his sin troubles him more than the danger. None

but he is the better for his sorrow; neither is any passion more hurtful

to others than this is gainful to him: the more he seeks to hide his

grief, the less it will be hid; every man may read it not only in his

eyes, but in his bones. Whilst he is in charity with all others, he is

so fallen out with himself that none but God can reconcile him. He hath

sued himself in all courts, accuseth, arraigneth, sentenceth, punisheth

himself impartially, and sooner may find mercy at any hand than at his

own. He only hath pulled off the fair visor of sin; so as that which

appears not but masked unto others, is seen of him barefaced, and

bewrays that fearful ugliness, which none can conceive but he that hath

viewed it. He hath looked into the depth of the bottomless pit, and hath

seen his own offence tormented in others, and the same brands shaken at

him. He hath seen the change of faces in that cool one, as a tempter, as

a tormentor; and hath heard the noise of a conscience, and is so

frightened with all these, that he can never have rest till he have run

out of himself to God, in whose face at first he find rigour, but

afterwards sweetness in his bosom; he bleeds first from the hand that

heals him. The law of God hath made work for mercy, which he hath no

sooner apprehended than he forgets his wounds, and looks carelessly upon

all these terrors of guiltiness. When he casts his eye back upon

himself, he wonders where he was and how he came there; and grants that

if there were not some witchcraft in sin, he could not have been so

sottishly graceless. And now, in the issue, Satan finds (not without

indignation and repentance) that he hath done him a good turn in

tempting him: for he had never been so good if he had not sinned; he had

never fought with such courage, if he had not seen his blood and been

ashamed of his folly. Now he is seen and felt in the front of the

spiritual battle; and can teach others how to fight, and encourage them

in fighting. His heart was never more taken up with the pleasure of sin,

than now with care of avoiding it: the very sight of that cup, wherein

such a fulsome portion was brought him, turns his stomach: the first

offers of sin make him tremble more now than he did before at the

judgments of his sin; neither dares he so much as look towards Sodom.

All the powers and craft of hell cannot fetch him in for a customer to

evil; his infirmity may yield once, his resolution never. There is none

of his senses or parts, which he hath not within covenants for their

good behaviour, which they cannot ever break with impunity. The wrongs

of his sin he repays to men with recompense, as hating it should be said

he owes anything to his offence; to God (what in him lies) with sighs,

tears, vows, and endeavours of amendment. No heart is more waxen to the

impressions of forgiveness, neither are his hands more open to receive

than to give pardon. All the injuries which are offered to him are

swallowed up in his wrongs to his Maker and Redeemer; neither can he

call for the arrearages of his farthings, when he looks upon the

millions forgiven him: he feels not what he suffers from men, when he

thinks of what he hath done and should have suffered. He is a thankful

herald of the mercies of his God; which if all the world hear not from

his mouth it is no fault of his. Neither did he so burn with the evil

fires or concupiscence as now with the holy flames of zeal to that glory

which he hath blemished; and his eyes are as full of moisture as his

heart of heat. The gates of heaven are not so knocked at by any suitor,

whether for frequency or importunity. You shall find his cheeks

furrowed, his knees hard, his lips sealed up, save when he must accuse

himself or glorify God, his eyes humbly dejected, and sometimes you

shall take him breaking of a sigh in the midst, as one that would steal

an humiliation unknown, and would be offended with any part that should

not keep his counsel. When he finds his soul oppressed with the heavy

guilt of a sin, he gives it vent through his mouth into the ear of his

spiritual physician, from whom he receives cordials answerable to his

complaint. He is a severe exactor of discipline: first upon himself, on

whom he imposes more than one Lent; then upon others, as one that vowed

to be revenged on sin wheresoever he finds it; and though but one hath

offended him, yet his detestation is universal. He is his own taskmaster

for devotion; and if Christianity have any work more difficult or

perilous than other, that he enjoins himself, and resolves contentment

even in miscarriage. It is no marvel if the acquaintance of his wilder

times know him not, for he is quite another from himself; and if his

mind could have had any intermission of dwelling within his breast, it

could not have known this was the lodging. Nothing but an outside is the

same it was, and that altered more with regeneration than with age. None

but he can relish the promises of the gospel, which he finds so sweet

that he complains not, his thirst after them is unsatiable; and now that

he hath found his Saviour, he hugs Him so fast and holds Him so dear

that he feels not when his life is fetched away from him for his

martyrdom. The latter part of his life is so led as if he desired to

unlive his youth, and his last testament is full of restitutions and

legacies of piety. In sum, he hath so lived and died as that Satan hath

no such match, sin hath no such enemy, God hath no such servant as he.

HE IS A HAPPY MAN
That hath learned to read himself more than all books, and hath so taken

out this lesson that he can never forget it; that knows the world, and

cares not for it; that, after many traverses of thoughts, is grown to

know what he may trust to, and stands now equally armed for all events;

that hath got the mastery at home, so as he can cross his will without a

mutiny, and so please it that he makes it not a wanton; that in earthly

things wishes no more than nature, in spiritual is ever graciously

ambitious; that for his condition stands on his own feet, not needing to

lean upon the great, and can so frame his thoughts to his estate that

when he hath least he cannot want, because he is as free from desire as

superfluity; that hath seasonably broken the headstrong restiness of

prosperity, and can now manage it at pleasure; upon whom all smaller

crosses light as hailstones upon a roof; and for the greater calamities,

he can take them as tributes of life and tokens of love; and if his ship

be tossed, yet he is sure his anchor is fast. If all the world were his,

he could be no other than he is, no whit gladder of himself, no whit

higher in his carriage, because he knows contentment lies not in the

things he hath, but in the mind that values them. The powers of his

resolution can either multiply or subtract at pleasure. He can make his

cottage a manor or a palace when he lists, and his home-close a large

dominion, his stained cloth arras, his earth plate, and can see state in

the attendance of one servant, as one that hath learned a man ’ s

greatness or baseness is in himself; and in this he may even contest

with the proud, that he thinks his own the best. Or if he must be

outwardly great, he can but turn the other end of the glass, and make

his stately manor a low and straight cottage, and in all his costly

furniture he can see not richness but use; he can see dross in the best

metal and earth through the best clothes, and in all his troupe he can

see himself his own servant. He lives quietly at home out of the noise

of the world, and loves to enjoy himself always, and sometimes his

friend, and hath as full scope to his thought as to his eyes. He walks

ever even in the midway betwixt hopes and fears, resolved to fear

nothing but God, to hope for nothing but what which he must have. He

hath a wise and virtuous mind in a serviceable body, which that better

part affects as a present servant and a future companion, so cherishing

his flesh as one that would scorn to be all flesh. He hath no enemies;

not for that all love him, but because he knows to make a gain of

malice. He is not so engaged to any earthly thing that they two cannot

part on even terms; there is neither laughter in their meeting, nor in

their shaking of hands tears. He keeps ever the best company, the God of

Spirits and the spirits of that God, whom he entertains continually in

an awful familiarity, not being hindered either with too much light or

with none at all. His conscience and his hand are friends, and (what

devil soever tempt him) will not fall out. That divine part goes ever

uprightly and freely, not stooping under the burden of a willing sin,

not fettered with the gyves of unjust scruples. He would not, if he

could, run away from himself or from God; not caring from whom he lies

hid, so he may look these two in the face. Censures and applauses are

passengers to him, not guests; his ear is their thoroughfare, not their

harbour; he hath learned to fetch both his counsel and his sentence from

his own breast. He doth not lay weight upon his own shoulders, as one

that loves to torment himself with the honour of much employment; but as

he makes work his game, so doth he not list to make himself work. His

strife is ever to redeem and not to spend time. It is his trade to do

good, and to think of it his recreation. He hath hands enough for

himself and others, which are ever stretched forth for beneficence, not

for need. He walks cheerfully in the way that God hath chalked, and

never wishes it more wide or more smooth. Those very temptations whereby

he is foiled strengthen him; he comes forth crowned and triumphing out

of the spiritual battles, and those scars that he hath make him

beautiful. His soul is every day dilated to receive that God, in whom he

is; and hath attained to love himself for God, and God for His own sake.

His eyes stick so fast in heaven that no earthly object can remove them;

yea, his whole self is there before his time, and sees with Stephen, and

hears with Paul, and enjoys with Lazarus, the glory that he shall have,

and takes possession beforehand of his room amongst the saints; and

these heavenly contentments have so taken him up that now he looks down

displeasedly upon the earth as the region of his sorrow and banishment,

yet joying more in hope than troubled with the sense of evils. He holds

it no great matter to live, and his greatest business to die; and is so

well acquainted with his last guest that he fears no unkindness from

him: neither makes he any other of dying than of walking home when he is

abroad, or of going to bed when he is weary of the day. He is well

provided for both worlds, and is sure of peace here, of glory hereafter;

and therefore hath a light heart and a cheerful face. All his

fellow-creatures rejoice to serve him; his betters, the angels, love to

observe him; God Himself takes pleasure to converse with him, and hath

sainted him before his death, and in his death crowned him.

THE SECOND BOOK.

CHARACTERISMS OF VICES.
THE PROEM.

I have showed you many fair virtues: I speak not for them; if their

sight cannot command affection let them lose it. They shall please yet

better after you have troubled your eyes a little with the view of

deformities; and by how much more they please, so much more odious and

like themselves shall these deformities appear. This light contraries

give to each other in the midst of their enmity, that one makes the

other seem more good or ill. Perhaps in some of these (which thing I do

at once fear and hate) my style shall seem to some less grave, more

satirical: if you find me, not without cause, jealous, let it please you

to impute it to the nature of those vices which will not be otherwise

handled. The fashions of some evils are, besides the odiousness,

ridiculous, which to repeat is to seem bitterly merry. I abhor to make

sport with wickedness, and forbid any laughter here but of disdain.

Hypocrisy shall lead this ring worthily, I think, because both she

cometh nearest to virtue and is the worst of vices.

CHARACTER OF THE HYPOCRITE.
An hypocrite is the worst kind of player, by so much as he acts the

better part, which hath always two faces, ofttimes two hearts; that can

compose his forehead to sadness and gravity, while he bids his heart be

wanton and careless within, and in the meantime laughs within himself to

think how smoothly he hath cozened the beholder. In whose silent face

are written the characters of religion, which his tongue and gestures

pronounce but his hands recant. That hath a clean face and garment with

a foul soul, whose mouth belies his heart, and his fingers belie his

mouth. Walking early up into the city, he turns into the great church,

and salutes one of the pillars on one knee, worshipping that God which

at home he cares not for, while his eye is fixed on some window, on some

passenger, and his heart knows not whither his lips go. He rises, and

looking about with admiration, complains on our frozen charity, commends

the ancient. At church he will ever sit where he may be seen best, and

in the midst of the sermon pulls out his tables in haste, as if he

feared to lose that note; when he writes either his forgotten errand or

nothing. Then he turns his Bible with a noise to seek an omitted

quotation, and folds the leaf as if he had found it, and asks aloud the

name of the preacher, and repeats it, whom he publicly salutes, thanks,

praises, invites, entertains with tedious good counsel, with good

discourse, if it had come from an honester mouth. He can command tears

when he speaks of his youth, indeed because it is past, not because it

was sinful; himself is now better, but the times are worse. All other

sins he reckons up with detestation, while he loves and hides his

darling in his bosom. All his speech returns to himself, and every

occurrence draws in a story to his own praise. When he should give, he

looks about him and says, "Who sees me?" No alms, no prayers, fall from

him without a witness, belike lest God should deny that He hath received

them; and when he hath done (lest the world should not know it) his own

mouth is his trumpet to proclaim it. With the superfluity of his usury

he builds an hospital, and harbours them whom his extortion hath

spoiled; so while he makes many beggars he keeps some. He turneth all

gnats into camels, and cares not to undo the world for a circumstance.

Flesh on a Friday is more abomination to him than his neighbour ’ s bed:

he more abhors not to uncover at the name of Jesus than to swear by the

name of God. When a rhymer reads his poem to him he begs a copy, and

persuades the press there is nothing that he dislikes in presence that

in absence he censures not. He comes to the sick-bed of his stepmother,

and weeps when he secretly fears her recovery. He greets his friend in

the street with so clear a countenance, so fast a closure, that the

other thinks he reads his heart in his face, and shakes hands with an

indefinite invitation of "When will you come?" and when his back is

turned, joys that he is so well rid of a guest; yet if that guest visit

him unfeared, he counterfeits a smiling welcome, and excuses his cheer,

when closely he frowns on his wife for too much. He shows well, and says

well, and himself is the worst thing he hath. In brief, he is the

stranger ’ s saint, the neighbour ’ s disease, the blot of goodness, a

rotten stick in a dark night, a poppy in a corn-field, an ill-tempered

candle with a great snuff that in going out smells ill; and an angel

abroad, a devil at home, and worse when an angel than when a devil.

OF THE BUSYBODY.
His estate is too narrow for his mind, and therefore he is fain to make

himself room in others ’ affairs, yet ever in pretence of love. No news

can stir but by his door, neither can he know that which he must not

tell. What every man ventures in Guiana voyage, and what they gained, he

knows to a hair. Whether Holland will have peace he knows, and on what

conditions, and with what success, is familiar to him ere it be

concluded. No post can pass him without a question, and rather than he

will lose the news, he rides back with him to apprise him of tidings;

and then to the next man he meets he supplies the wants of his hasty

intelligence and makes up a perfect tale, wherewith he so haunteth the

patient auditor, that after many excuses he is fain to endure rather the

censure of his manners in running away than the tediousness of an

impertinent discourse. His speech is oft broken off with a succession of

long parentheses, which he ever vows to fill up ere the conclusion, and

perhaps would effect it if the other ’ s ear were as umveariable as his

tongue. If he see but two men talk and read a letter in the street, he

runs to them and asks if he may not be partner of that secret relation;

and if they deny it, he offers to tell, since he may not hear, wonders,

and then falls upon the report of the Scottish mine, or of the great

fish taken up at Lynne, or of the freezing of the Thames, and after many

thanks and admissions is hardly entreated silence. He undertakes as much

as he performs little; this man will thrust himself forward to be the

guide of the way he knows not, and calls at his neighbour ’ s window and

asks why his servants are not at work. The market hath no commodity

which he prizeth not, and which the next table shall not hear recited.

His tongue, like the tail of Samson ’ s foxes, carries firebrands, and is

enough to set the whole field of the world on a flame. Himself begins

table-talk of his neighbour at another ’ s board, to whom he bears the

first news, and adjures him to conceal the reporter, whose choleric

answer he returns to his first host enlarged with a second edition; so

as it uses to be done in the sight of unwilling mastiffs, he claps each

on the side apart, and provokes them to an eager conflict. There can no

act pass without his comment, which is ever far-fetched, rash,

suspicious, dilatory. His ears are long and his eyes quick, but most of

all to imperfections, which as he easily sees, so he increases with

intermeddling. He harbours another man ’ s servant, and amidst his

entertainment asks what fare is usual at home, what hours are kept, what

talk passeth their meals, what his master ’ s disposition is, what his

government, what his guests? and when he hath by curious inquiries

extracted all the juice and spirit of hoped intelligence, turns him off

whence he came, and works on anew. He hates constancy as an earthen

dulness, unfit for men of spirit, and loves to change his work and his

place: neither yet can he be so soon weary of any place as every place

is weary of him, for as he sets himself on work, so others pay him with

hatred; and look how many masters he hath, so many enemies: neither is

it possible that any should not hate him but who know him not. So then

he labours without thanks, talks without credit, lives without love,

dies without tears, without pity, save that some say it was pity he died

no sooner.

OF THE SUPERSTITIOUS.
Superstition is godless religion, devout impiety. The superstitious is

fond in observation, servile in fear; he worships God but as he lists;

he gives God what He asks not more than He asks, and all but what he

should give; and makes more sins than the Ten Commandments. This man

dares not stir forth till his breast be crossed and his face sprinkled:

if but an hare cross him the way, he returns; or if his journey began

unawares on the dismal day, or if he stumble at the threshold. If he see

a snake unkilled, he fears a mischief; if the salt fall towards him, he

looks pale and red, and is not quiet till one of the waiters have poured

wine on his lap; and when he sneezeth, thinks them not his friends that

uncover not. In the morning he listens whether the crow crieth even or

odd, and by that token presages of the weather. If he hear but a raven

croak from the next roof he makes his will, or if a bittern fly over his

head by night; but if his troubled fancy shall second his thoughts with

the dream of a fair garden, or green rushes, or the salutation of a dead

friend, he takes leave of the world and says he cannot live. He will

never set to sea but on a Sunday, neither ever goes without an _Erra

Pater_ in his pocket. Saint Paul ’ s Day and Saint Swithin ’ s with the

Twelve are his oracles, which he dares believe against the almanack.

When he lies sick on his deathbed no sin troubles him so much as that he

did once eat flesh on a Friday; no repentance can expiate that, the rest

need none. There is no dream of his without an interpretation, without a

prediction; and if the event answer not his exposition, he expounds it

according to the event. Every dark grove and pictured wall strikes him

with an awful but carnal devotion. Old wives and stars are his

counsellors, his night-spell is his guard, and charms his physicians. He

wears Paracelsian characters for the toothache, and a little hallowed

wax is his antidote for all evils. This man is strangely credulous, and

calls impossible things miraculous. If he hear that some sacred block

speaks, moves, weeps, smiles, his bare feet carry him thither with an

offering; and if a danger miss him in the way, his saint hath the

thanks. Some ways he will not go, and some he dares not; either there

are bugs, or he feigneth them; every lantern is a ghost, and every noise

is of chains. He knows not why, but his custom is to go a little about,

and to leave the cross still on the right hand. One event is enough to

make a rule; out of these he concludes fashions proper to himself; and

nothing can turn him out of his own course. If he have done his task he

is safe, it matters not with what affection. Finally, if God would let

him be the carver of his own obedience, He could not have a better

subject; as he is, He cannot have a worse.

OF THE PROFANE.
The superstitious hath too many gods; the profane man hath none at all,

unless perhaps himself be his own deity, and the world his heaven. To

matter of religion his heart is a piece of dead flesh, without feeling

of love, of fear, of care, or of pain from the deaf strokes of a

revenging conscience. Custom of sin hath wrought this senselessness,

which now hath so long entertained that it pleads prescription and knows

not to be altered. This is no sudden evil; we are born sinful, but have

made ourselves profane; through many degrees we climb to this height of

impiety. At first he sinned and cared not, now he sinneth and knoweth

not. Appetite is his lord, and reason his servant, and religion his

drudge. Sense is the rule of his belief; and if piety may be an

advantage, he can at once counterfeit and deride it. When aught

succeedeth to him he sacrifices to his net, and thanks either his

fortune or his wit; and will rather make a false God than acknowledge

the truth; if contrary, he cried out of destiny, and blames him to whom

he will not be beholden. His conscience would fain speak with him, but

he will not hear it; sets the day, but he disappoints it; and when it

cries loud for audience, he drowns the noise with good fellowship. He

never names God but in his oaths; never thinks of Him but in extremity;

and then he knows not how to think of Him, because he begins but then.

He quarrels for the hard conditions of his pleasure for his future

damnation, and from himself lays all the fault upon his Maker; and from

His decree fetcheth excuses of his wickedness. The inevitable necessity

of God ’ s counsel makes him desperately careless; so with good food he

poisons himself. Goodness is his minstrel; neither is any mirth so

cordial to him, as his sport with God ’ s fools. Every virtue hath his

slander, and his jest to laugh it out of fashion; every vice his colour.

His usualest theme is the boast of his young sins, which he can still

joy in, though he cannot commit; and (if it may be) his speech makes him

worse than he is. He cannot think of death with patience, without

terror, which he therefore fears worse than hell, because this he is

sure of, the other he but doubts of. He comes to church as to the

theatre, saving that not so willingly, for company, for custom, for

recreation, perhaps for sleep, or to feed his eyes or his ears; as for

his soul, he cares no more than if he had none. He loves none but

himself, and that not enough to seek his true good; neither cares he on

whom he treads that he may rise. His life is full of license, and his

practice of outrage. He is hated of God as much as he hateth goodness;

and differs little from a devil, but that he hath a body.

OF THE MALCONTENT.
He is neither well full nor fasting; and though he abound with

complaints, yet nothing dislikes him but the present; for what he

condemned while it was, once past he magnifies, and strives to recall it

out of the jaws of time. What he hath he seeth not, his eyes are so

taken up with what he wants; and what he sees he cares not for, because

he cares so much for that which is not. When his friend carves him the

best morsel, he murmurs that it is an happy feast wherein each one may

cut for himself. When a present is sent him he asks, Is this all? and,

What, no better? and so accepts it, as if he would have his friend know

how much he is bound to him for vouchsafing to receive it. It is hard to

entertain him with a proportionable gift. If nothing, he cries out of

unthankfulness; if little, that he is basely regarded; if much, he

exclaims of flattery, and expectation of a large requital. Every

blessing hath somewhat to disparage and distaste it; children bring

cares, single life is wild and solitary, eminency is envious,

retiredness obscure, fasting painful, satiety unwieldy, religion nicely

severe, liberty is lawless, wealth burdensome, mediocrity contemptible.

Everything faulteth, either in too much or too little. This man is ever

headstrong and self-willed, neither is he always tied to esteem or

pronounce according to reason; some things he must dislike he knows not

wherefore, but he likes them not; and otherwhere, rather than not

censure, he will accuse a man of virtue. Everything he meddleth with he

either findeth imperfect or maketh so; neither is there anything that

soundeth so harsh in his ear as the commendation of another; whereto yet

perhaps he fashionably and coldly assenteth, but with such an

after-clause of exception as doth more than mar his former allowance;

and if he list not to give a verbal disgrace, yet he shakes his head and

smiles, as if his silence should say, I could and will not. And when

himself is praised without excess, he complains that such imperfect

kindness hath not done him right. If but an unseasonable shower cross

his recreation, he is ready to fall out with heaven, and thinks he is

wronged if God will not take his times when to rain, when to shine. He

is a slave to envy, and loseth flesh with fretting--not so much at his

own infelicity as at others ’ good; neither hath he leisure to joy in his

own blessings whilst another prospereth. Fain would he see some

mutinies, but dares not raise them; and suffers his lawless tongue to

walk through the dangerous paths of conceited alterations; but so, as in

good manners he had rather thrust every man before him when it comes to

acting. Nothing but fear keeps him from conspiracies, and no man is more

cruel when he is not manacled with danger. He speaks nothing but satires

and libels, and lodgeth no guests in his heart but rebels. The

inconstant and he agree well in their felicity, which both place in

change; but herein they differ--the inconstant man affects that which

will be, the malcontent commonly that which was. Finally, he is a

querulous cur, whom no horse can pass by without barking at; yea, in the

deep silence of night the very moonshine openeth his clamorous mouth. He

is the wheel of a well-couched firework, that flies out on all sides,

not without scorching itself. Every ear is long ago weary of him, and he

is now almost weary of himself. Give him but a little respite, and he

will die alone, of no other death than other ’ s welfare.

OF THE INCONSTANT.
The inconstant man treads upon a moving earth and keeps no pace. His

proceedings are ever heady and peremptory, for he hath not the patience

to consult with reason, but determines merely upon fancy. No man is so

hot in the pursuit of what he liketh, no man sooner wearies. He is fiery

in his passions, which yet are not more violent than momentary; it is a

wonder if his love or hatred last so many days as a wonder. His heart is

the inn of all good motions, wherein, if they lodge for a night, it is

well; by morning they are gone, and take no leave; and if they come that

way again they are entertained as guests, not as friends. At first, like

another Ecebolius, he loved simple truth; thence, diverting his eyes, he

fell in love with idolatry. Those heathenish shrines had never any more

doting and besotted client; and now of late he is leapt from Rome to

Munster, and is grown to giddy Anabaptism. What he will be next as yet

he knoweth not; but ere he hath wintered his opinion it will be

manifest. He is good to make an enemy of, ill for a friend; because, as

there is no trust in his affection, so no rancour in his displeasure.

The multitude of his changed purposes brings with it forgetfulness, and

not of others more than of himself. He says, swears, renounces, because

what he promised he meant not long enough to make an impression. Herein

alone he is good for a commonwealth, that he sets many on work with

building, ruining, altering, and makes more business than time itself;

neither is he a greater enemy to thrift than to idleness. Propriety is

to him enough cause of dislike; each thing pleases him better that is

not his own. Even in the best things long continuance is a just quarrel;

manna itself grows tedious with age, and novelty is the highest style of

commendation to the meanest offers; neither doth he in books and

fashions ask, How good? but, How new? Variety carries him away with

delight, and no uniform pleasure can be without an irksome fulness. He

is so transformable into all opinions, manners, qualities, that he seems

rather made immediately of the first matter than of well-tempered

elements; and therefore is in possibility anything or everything,

nothing in present substance. Finally, he is servile in imitation, waxy

to persuasions, witty to wrong himself, a guest in his own house, an ape

of others, and, in a word, anything rather than himself.

OF THE FLATTERER.
Flattery is nothing but false friendship, fawning hypocrisy, dishonest

civility, base merchandise of words, a plausible discord of the heart

and lips. The flatterer is blear-eyed to ill, and cannot see vices; and

his tongue walks ever in one track of unjust praises, and can no more

tell how to discommend than to speak true. His speeches are full of

wondering interjections, and all his titles are superlative, and both of

them seldom ever but in presence. His base mind is well matched with a

mercenary tongue, which is a willing slave to another man ’ s ear; neither

regardeth he how true, but how pleasing. His art is nothing but

delightful cozenage, whose rules are smoothing and guarded with perjury;

whose scope is to make men fools in teaching them to overvalue

themselves, and to tickle his friends to death. This man is a porter of

all good tales, and mends them in the carriage; one of Fame ’ s best

friends and his own, that helps to furnish her with those rumours that

may advantage himself. Conscience hath no greater adversary, for when

she is about to play her just part of accusation, he stops her mouth

with good terms, and well-near strangleth her with shifts. Like that

subtle fish, he turns himself into the colour of every stone for a

booty. In himself he is nothing but what pleaseth his great one, whose

virtues he cannot more extol than imitate his imperfections, that he may

think his worst graceful. Let him say it is hot, he wipes his forehead

and unbraceth himself; if cold, he shivers and calls for a warmer

garment. When he walks with his friend he swears to him that no man else

is looked at, no man talked of, and that whomsoever he vouchsafes to

look on and nod to is graced enough; that he knows not his own worth,

lest he should be too happy; and when he tells what others say in his

praise, he interrupts himself modestly and dares not speak the rest; so

his concealment is more insinuating than his speech. He hangs upon the

lips which he admireth, as if they could let fall nothing but oracles,

and finds occasion to cite some approved sentence under the name he

honoureth; and when aught is nobly spoken, both his hands are little

enough to bless him. Sometimes even in absence he extolleth his patron,

where he may presume of safe conveyance to his ears; and in presence so

whispereth his commendation to a common friend, that it may not be

unheard where he meant it. He hath salves for every sore, to hide them,

not to heal them; complexion for every face; sin hath not any more

artificial broker or more impudent bawd. There is no vice that hath not

from him his colour, his allurement; and his best service is either to

further guiltiness or smother it. If he grant evil things inexpedient or

crimes errors, he hath yielded much; either thy estate gives privilege

of liberty or thy youth; or if neither, what if it be ill? yet it is

pleasant. Honesty to him is nice singularity, repentance superstitious

melancholy, gravity dulness, and all virtue an innocent conceit of the

base-minded. In short, he is the moth of liberal men ’ s coats, the earwig

of the mighty, the bane of courts, a friend and a slave to the trencher,

and good for nothing but to be a factor for the devil.

OF THE SLOTHFUL.
He is a religious man, and wears the time in his cloister, and, as the

cloak of his doing nothing, pleads contemplation; yet is he no whit the

leaner for his thoughts, no whit learneder. He takes no less care how to

spend time than others how to gain by the expense; and when business

importunes him, is more troubled to forethink what he must do, than

another to effect it. Summer is out of his favour for nothing but long

days that make no haste to their even. He loves still to have the sun

witness of his rising, and lies long, more for lothness to dress him

than will to sleep; and after some streaking and yawning, calls for

dinner unwashed, which having digested with a sleep in his chair, he

walks forth to the bench in the market-place, and looks for companions.

Whomsoever he meets he stays with idle questions, and lingering

discourse; how the days are lengthened, how kindly the weather is, how

false the clock, how forward the spring, and ends ever with, What shall

we do? It pleases him no less to hinder others than not to work himself.

When all the people are gone from church, he is left sleeping in his

seat alone. He enters bonds, and forfeits them by forgetting the day;

and asks his neighbour when his own field was fallowed, whether the next

piece of ground belong not to himself. His care is either none or too

late. When winter is come, after some sharp visitations, he looks on his

pile of wood, and asks how much was cropped the last spring. Necessity

drives him to every action, and what he cannot avoid he will yet defer.

Every change troubles him, although to the better, and his dulness

counterfeits a kind of contentment. When he is warned on a jury, he had

rather pay the mulct than appear. All but that which Nature will not

permit he doth by a deputy, and counts it troublesome to do nothing, but

to do anything yet more. He is witty in nothing but framing excuses to

sit still, which if the occasion yield not he coineth with ease. There

is no work that is not either dangerous or thankless, and whereof he

foresees not the inconvenience and gainlessness before he enters; which

if it be verified in event, his next idleness hath found a reason to

patronize it. He had rather freeze than fetch wood, and chooses rather

to steal than work; to beg than take pains to steal, and in many things

to want than beg. He is so loth to leave his neighbour ’ s fire, that he

is fain to walk home in the dark; and if he be not looked to, wears out

the night in the chimney-corner, or if not that, lies down in his

clothes, to save two labours. He eats and prays himself asleep, and

dreams of no other torment but work. This man is a standing pool, and

cannot choose but gather corruption. He is descried amongst a thousand

neighbours by a dry and nasty hand, that still savours of the sheet, a

beard uncut, unkempt, an eye and ear yellow with their excretions, a

coat shaken on, ragged, unbrushed, by linen and face striving whether

shall excel in uncleanness. For body, he hath a swollen leg, a dusky and

swinish eye, a blown cheek, a drawling tongue, an heavy foot, and is

nothing but a colder earth moulded with standing water. To conclude, is

a man in nothing but in speech and shape.

OF THE COVETOUS.
He is a servant to himself, yea, to his servant; and doth base homage to

that which should be the worst drudge. A lifeless piece of earth is his

master, yea his god, which he shrines in his coffer, and to which he

sacrifices his heart. Every face of his coin is a new image, which he

adores with the highest veneration; yet takes upon him to be protector

of that he worshippeth, which he fears to keep and abhors to lose, not

daring to trust either any other god or his own. Like a true chemist, he

turns everything into silver, both what he should eat, and what he

should wear; and that he keeps to look on, not to use. When he returns

from his field, he asks, not without much rage, what became of the loose

crust in his cupboard, and who hath rioted among his leeks. He never

eats good meal but on his neighbour ’ s trencher, and there he makes

amends to his complaining stomach for his former and future fasts. He

bids his neighbours to dinner, and when they have done, sends in a

trencher for the shot. Once in a year, perhaps, he gives himself leave

to feast, and for the time thinks no man more lavish; wherein he lists

not to fetch his dishes from far, nor will be beholden to the shambles;

his own provision shall furnish his board with an insensible cost, and

when his guests are parted, talks how much every man devoured, and how

many cups were emptied, and feeds his family with the mouldy remnants a

month after. If his servant break but an earthen dish for want of light,

he abates it out of his quarter ’ s wages. He chips his bread, and sends

it back to exchange for staler. He lets money, and sells time for a

price, and will not be importuned either to prevent or defer his day;

and in the meantime looks for secret gratuities, besides the main

interest, which he sells and returns into the stock. He breeds of money

to the third generation, neither hath it sooner any being, than he sets

it to beget more. In all things he affects secrecy and propriety; he

grudgeth his neighbour the water of his well, and next to stealing he

hates borrowing. In his short and unquiet sleeps he dreams of thieves,

and runs to the door and names more men than he hath. The least sheaf he

ever culls out for tithe, and to rob God holds it the best pastime, the

clearest gain. This man cries out above others of the prodigality of our

times, and tells of the thrift of our forefathers: how that great prince

thought himself royally attired, when he bestowed thirteen shillings and

fourpence on half a suit. How one wedding gown served our grandmothers

till they exchanged it for a winding-sheet; and praises plainness, not

for less sin, but for less cost. For himself, he is still known by his

forefather ’ s coat, which he means with his blessing to bequeath to the

many descents of his heirs. He neither would be poor, nor be accounted

rich. No man complains so much of want, to avoid a subsidy; no man is so

importunate in begging, so cruel in exaction; and when he most complains

of want, he fears that which he complains to have. No way is indirect to

wealth, whether of fraud or violence. Gain is his godliness, which if

conscience go about to prejudice, and grow troublesome by exclaiming

against, he is condemned for a common barretor. Like another Ahab, he is

sick of the next field, and thinks he is ill-seated, while he dwells by

neighbours. Shortly, his neighbours do not much more hate him, than he

himself. He cares not (for no great advantage) to lose his friend, pine

his body, damn his soul; and would despatch himself when corn falls, but

that he is loth to cast away money on a cord.

OF THE VAINGLORIOUS.
All his humour rises up into the froth of ostentation, which if it once

settle falls down into a narrow room. If the excess be in the

understanding part, all his wit is in print; the press hath left his

head empty, yea, not only what he had, but what he could borrow without

leave. If his glory be in his devotion, he gives not an alms but on

record; and if he have once done well, God hears of it often, for upon

every unkindness he is ready to upbraid Him with merits. Over and above

his own discharge, he hath some satisfactions to spare for the common

treasure. He can fulfil the law with ease, and earn God with

superfluity. If he hath bestowed but a little sum in the glazing,

paving, parieting of God ’ s house, you shall find it in the church

window. Or if a more gallant humour possess him, he wears all his land

on his back, and walking high, looks over his left shoulder, to see if

the point of his rapier follow him with a grace. He is proud of another

man ’ s horse, and well mounted, thinks every man wrongs him that looks

not at him. A bare head in the street doth him more good than a meal ’ s

meat. He swears big at an ordinary, and talks of the court with a sharp

accent; neither vouchsafes to name any not honourable, nor those without

some term of familiarity, and likes well to see the hearer look upon him

amazedly, as if he said, How happy is this man that is so great with

great ones! Under pretence of seeking for a scroll of news, he draws out

an handful of letters endorsed with his own style to the height, and

half reading every title, passes over the latter part with a murmur, not

without signifying what lord sent this, what great lady the other, and

for what suits; the last paper (as it happens) is his news from his

honourable friend in the French court. In the midst of dinner, his

lackey comes sweating in with a sealed note from his creditor, who now

threatens a speedy arrest, and whispers the ill news in his master ’ s

ear, when he aloud names a counsellor of state, and professes to know

the employment. The same messenger he calls with an imperious nod, and

after expostulation, where he hath left his fellows, in his ear, sends

him for some new spur-leathers or stockings by this time footed; and

when he is gone half the room, recalls him, and sayeth aloud, It is no

matter, let the greater bag alone till I come. And yet again calling him

closer, whispers (so that all the table may hear), that if his crimson

suit be ready against the day, the rest need no haste. He picks his

teeth when his stomach is empty, and calls for pheasants at a common

inn. You shall find him prizing the richest jewels and fairest horses,

when his purse yields not money enough for earnest. He thrusts himself

into the press before some great ladies, and loves to be seen near the

head of a great train. His talk is how many mourners he furnished with

gowns at his father ’ s funeral, how many messes, how rich his coat is,

and how ancient, how great his alliance; what challenges he hath made

and answered; what exploits he did at Calais or Newport; and when he

hath commended others ’ buildings, furnitures, suits, compares them with

his own. When he hath undertaken to be the broker for some rich diamond,

he wears it, and pulling off his glove to stroke up his hair, thinks no

eye should have any other object. Entertaining his friend, he chides his

cook for no better cheer, and names the dishes he meant and wants. To

conclude, he is ever on the stage, and acts still a glorious part

abroad, when no man carries a baser heart, no man is more sordid and

careless at home. He is a Spanish soldier on an Italian theatre, a

bladder full of wind, a skinful of words, a fool ’ s wonder and a wise

man ’ s fool.

OF THE PRESUMPTUOUS.
Presumption is nothing but hope out of his wits, an high house upon weak

pillars. The presumptuous man loves to attempt great things, only

because they are hard and rare. His actions are bold and venturous, and

more full of hazard than use. He hoisteth sail in a tempest, and sayeth

never any of his ancestors were drowned. He goes into an infected house,

and says the plague dares not seize on noble blood. He runs on high

battlements, gallops down steep hills, rides over narrow bridges, walks

on weak ice, and never thinks, What if I fall? but, What if I run over

and fall not? He is a confident alchemist, and braggeth that the womb of

his furnace hath conceived a burden that will do all the world good;

which yet he desires secretly borne, for fear of his own bondage. In the

meantime his glass breaks, yet he upon better luting lays wagers of the

success, and promiseth wedges beforehand to his friend. He saith, I will

sin, and be sorry, and escape; either God will not see, or not be angry,

or not punish it, or remit the measure. If I do well, He is just to

reward; if ill, He is merciful to forgive. Thus his praises wrong God no

less than his offence, and hurt himself no less than they wrong God. Any

pattern is enough to encourage him. Show him the way where any foot hath

trod, he dare follow, although he see no steps returning; what if a

thousand have attempted, and miscarried, if but one hath prevailed it

sufficeth. He suggests to himself false hopes of never too late, as if

he could command either time or repentance, and dare defer the

expectation of mercy, till betwixt the bridge and the water. Give him

but where to set his foot, and he will remove the earth. He foreknows

the mutations of states, the events of war, the temper of the seasons;

either his old prophecy tells it him, or his stars. Yea, he is no

stranger to the records of God ’ s secret counsel, but he turns them over,

and copies them out at pleasure. I know not whether in all his

enterprises he show less fear or wisdom; no man promises himself more,

no man more believes himself. I will go and sell, and return and

purchase, and spend and leave my sons such estates: all which, if it

succeed, he thanks himself; if not, he blames not himself. His purposes

are measured, not by his ability, but his will; and his actions by his

purposes. Lastly, he is ever credulous in assent, rash in undertaking,

peremptory in resolving, witless in proceeding, and in his ending

miserable, which is never other than either the laughter of the wise or

the pity of fools.

OF THE DISTRUSTFUL.
The distrustful man hath his heart in his eyes or in his hand; nothing

is sure to him but what he sees, what he handles. He is either very

simple or very false, and therefore believes not others, because he

knows how little himself is worthy of belief. In spiritual things,

either God must leave a pawn with him or seek some other creditor. All

absent things and unusual have no other but a conditional entertainment;

they are strange, if true. If he see two neighbours whisper in his

presence, he bids them speak out, and charges them to say no more than

they can justify. When he hath committed a message to his servant, he

sends a second after him to listen how it is delivered. He is his own

secretary, and of his own counsel for what he hath, for what he

purposeth. And when he tells over his bags, looks through the keyhole to

see if he have any hidden witness, and asks aloud, Who is there? when no

man hears him. He borrows money when he needs not, for fear lest others

should borrow of him. He is ever timorous and cowardly, and asks every

man ’ s errand at the door ere he opens. After his first sleep he starts

up and asks if the furthest gate were barred, and out of a fearful sweat

calls up his servant and bolts the door after him, and then studies

whether it were better to lie still and believe, or rise and see.

Neither is his heart fuller of fears than his head of strange projects

and far-fetched constructions. What means the state, think you, in such

an action, and whither tends this course? Learn of me (if you know not)

the ways of deep policies are secret, and full of unknown windings; that

is their act, this will be their issue: so casting beyond the moon, he

makes wise and just proceedings suspected. In all his predictions and

imaginations he ever lights upon the worst; not what is most likely will

fall out, but what is most ill. There is nothing that he takes not with

the left hand; no text which his gloss corrupts not. Words, oaths,

parchments, seals, are but broken reeds; these shall never deceive him,

he loves no payments but real. If but one in an age have miscarried by a

rare casualty, he misdoubts the same event. If but a tile fallen from an

high roof have brained a passenger, or the breaking of a coach-wheel

have endangered the burden, he swears he will keep home, or take him to

his horse. He dares not come to church for fear of the crowd, nor spare

the Sabbath ’ s labour for fear of the want, nor come near the Parliament

house, because it should have been blown up. What might have been

affects him as much as what will be. Argue, vow, protest, swear, he

hears thee, and believes himself. He is a sceptic, and dare hardly give

credit to his senses, which he hath often arraigned of false

intelligence. He so lives, as if he thought all the world were thieves,

and were not sure whether himself were one. He is uncharitable in his

censures, unquiet in his fears, bad enough always, but in his own

opinion much worse than he is.

OF THE AMBITIOUS.
Ambition is a proud covetousness, a dry thirst of honour, the longing

disease of reason, an aspiring and gallant madness. The ambitious climbs

up high and perilous stairs, and never cares how to come down; the

desire of rising hath swallowed up his fear of a fall. Having once

cleaved like a burr to some great man ’ s coat, he resolves not to be

shaken off with any small indignities, and, finding his hold thoroughly

fast, casts how to insinuate yet nearer. And therefore he is busy and

servile in his endeavours to please, and all his officious respects turn

home to himself. He can be at once a slave to command, an intelligencer

to inform, a parasite to soothe and flatter, a champion to defend, an

executioner to revenge anything for an advantage of favour. He hath

projected a plot to rise, and woe be to the friend that stands in his

way. He still haunteth the court, and his unquiet spirit haunteth him,

which, having fetched him from the secure peace of his country rest,

sets him new and impossible tasks, and, after many disappointments,

encourages him to try the same sea in spite of his shipwrecks, and

promise better success. A small hope gives him heart against great

difficulties, and draws on new expense, new servility, persuading him

like foolish boys to shoot away a second shaft, that he may find the

first. He yieldeth, and now secure of the issue, applauds himself in

that honour, which he still affecteth, still misseth; and, for the last

of all trials, will rather bribe for a troublesome preferment than

return void of a title. But now, when he finds himself desperately

crossed, and at once spoiled both of advancement and hope, both of

fruition and possibility, all his desire is turned into rage, his thirst

is now only of revenge, his tongue sounds of nothing but detraction and

slander. Now the place he fought for is base, his rival unworthy, his

adversary injurious, officers corrupt, court infectious; and how well is

he that may be his own man, his own master, that may live safely in a

mean distance, at pleasure, free from starving, free from burning? But

if his designs speed well, ere he be warm in that feat, his mind is

possessed of an higher. What he hath is but a degree to what he would

have. Now he scorneth what he formerly aspired to. His success doth not

give him so much contentment as provocation; neither can he be at rest

so long as he hath one, either to overlook, or to match, or to emulate

him. When his country friend comes to visit him, he carries him up to

the awful presence, and now in his sight, crowding nearer to the chair

of state, desires to be looked on, desires to be spoken to by the

greatest, and studies how to offer an occasion, lest he should seem

unknown, unregarded; and if any gesture of the least grace fall happily

upon him, he looks back upon his friend, lest he should carelessly let

it pass, without a note; and what he wanteth in sense he supplies in

history. His disposition is never but shamefully unthankful, for unless

he have all he hath nothing. It must be a large draught, whereof he will

not say that those few drops do not slake but inflame him. So still he

thinks himself the worse for small favours. His wit so contrives the

likely plots of his promotion, as if he would steal it away without

God ’ s knowledge, besides His will. Neither doth he ever look up, and

consult in his forecasts with the supreme Moderator of all things, as

one that thinks honour is ruled by fortune, and that heaven meddleth not

with the disposing of these earthly lots; and therefore it is just with

that wise God to defeat his fairest hopes, and to bring him to a loss in

the hottest of his chase, and to cause honour to fly away so much the

faster, by how much it is more eagerly pursued. Finally, he is an

importunate suitor, a corrupt client, a violent undertaker, a smooth

factor, but untrusty, a restless master of his own, a bladder puffed up

with the wind of hope and self-love. He is in the common body as a mole

in the earth, ever unquietly casting; and, in one word, is nothing but a

confused heap of envy, pride, covetousness.

OF THE UNTHRIFT.
He ranges beyond his pale, and lives without compass. His expense is

measured, not by ability, but will. His pleasures are immoderate, and

not honest. A wanton eye, a liquorish tongue, a gamesome hand, have

impoverished him. The vulgar sort call him bountiful, and applaud him

when he spends; and recompense him with wishes when he gives, with pity

when he wants. Neither can it be denied that he raught true liberality,

but overwent it. No man could have lived more laudably, if, when he was

at the best, he had stayed there. While he is present, none of the

wealthier guests may pay aught to the shot without much vehemence,

without danger of unkindness. Use hath made it unpleasant to him not to

spend. He is in all things more ambitious of the title of good

fellowship than of wisdom. When he looks into the wealthy chest of his

father, his conceit suggests that it cannot be emptied; and while he

takes out some deal every day, he perceives not any diminution; and when

the heap is sensibly abated, yet still flatters himself with enough. One

hand cozens the other, and the belly deceives both. He doth not so much

bestow benefits as scatter them. True merit doth not carry them, but

smoothness of adulation. His senses are too much his guides and his

purveyors, and appetite is his steward. He is an impotent servant to his

lusts, and knows not to govern either his mind or his purse.

Improvidence is ever the companion of unthriftiness. This man cannot

look beyond the present, and neither thinks nor cares what shall be,

much less suspects what may be; and while he lavishes out his substance

in superfluities, thinks he only knows what the world is worth, and that

others overprize it. He feels poverty before he sees it, never complains

till he be pinched with wants; never spares till the bottom, when it is

too late either to spend or recover. He is every man ’ s friend save his

own, and then wrongs himself most when he courteth himself with most

kindness. He vies time with the slothful, and it is a hard match whether

chases away good hours to worse purpose, the one by doing nothing, or

the other by idle pastime. He hath so dilated himself with the beams of

prosperity that he lies open to all dangers, and cannot gather up

himself, on just warning, to avoid a mischief. He were good for an

almoner, ill for a steward. Finally, he is the living tomb of his

forefathers, of his posterity; and when he hath swallowed both, is more

empty than before he devoured them.

OF THE ENVIOUS.
He feeds on others ’ evils, and hath no disease but his neighbour ’ s

welfare. Whatsoever God do for him, he cannot be happy with company; and

if he were put to choose whether he would rather have equals in a common

felicity, or superiors in misery, he would demur upon the election. His

eye casts out too much, and never returns home, but to make comparisons

with another ’ s good. He is an ill prizer of foreign commodity; worse of

his own, for that he rates too high, this under value. You shall have

him ever inquiring into the estates of his equals and betters, wherein

he is not more desirous to hear all than loth to hear anything over

good; and if just report relate aught better than he would, he redoubles

the question, as being hard to believe what he likes not, and hopes yet,

if that be averred again to his grief, that there is somewhat concealed

in the relation, which, if it were known, would argue the commended

party miserable, and blemish him with secret shame. He is ready to

quarrel with God, because the next field is fairer grown, and angrily

calculates his cost, and time, and tillage. Whom he dares not openly

backbite, nor wound with a direct censure, he strikes smoothly with an

over cold praise; and when he sees that he must either maliciously

impugn the just praise of another (which were unsafe), or approve it by

assent, he yieldeth; but shows withal that his means were such, both by

nature and education, that he could not, without much neglect, be less

commendable. So his happiness shall be made the colour of detraction.

When an wholesome law is propounded, he crosseth it either by open or

close opposition, not for any incommodity or inexpedience, but because

it proceeded from any mouth besides his own. And it must be a cause

rarely plausible that will not admit some probable contradiction. When

his equal should rise to honour, he strives against it unseen, and

rather with much cost suborneth great adversaries; and when he sees his

resistance vain, he can give an hollow gratulation in presence, but in

secret disparages that advancement. Either the man is unfit for the

place, or the place for the man; or if fit, yet less gainful, or more

common than opinion; whereto he adds that himself might have had the

same dignity upon better terms, and refused it. He is witty in devising

suggestions to bring his rival out of love into suspicion. If he be

courteous, he is seditiously popular; if bountiful, he binds over his

clients to a faction; if successful in war, he is dangerous in peace; if

wealthy, he lays up for a day; if powerful, nothing wants but

opportunity of rebellion. His submission is ambitious hypocrisy; his

religion, politic insinuation; no action is safe from a jealous

construction. When he receives a good report of him whom he emulates, he

saith, "Fame is partial, and is wont to blanche mischiefs;" and pleaseth

himself with hope to find it worse; and if ill-will have dispersed any

more spiteful narration, he lays hold on that, against all witnesses,

and broacheth that rumour for truest because worst; and when he sees him

perfectly miserable, he can at once pity him, and rejoice. What himself

cannot do, others shall not; he hath gained well if he have hindered the

success of what he would have done, and could not. He conceals his best

skill, not so as it may not be known that he knows it, but so as it may

not be learned, because he would have the world miss him. He attained to

a foreign medicine by the secret legacy of a dying empiric, whereof he

will leave no heir lest the praise shall be divided. Finally, he is an

enemy to God ’ s favours, if they fall beside himself; the best nurse of

ill-fame, a man of the worst diet, for he consumes himself, and delights

in pining; a thorn-hedge covered with nettles, a peevish interpreter of

good things, and no other than a lean and pale carcase quickened with

a fiend.



JOHN STEPHENS,
_The younger, a lawyer of Lincoln ’ s Inn, published in 1615 "Satyrical

Essayes, Characters, and others, or accurate and quick Descriptions

fitted to the life of their Subjects." He had published two years before

a play called "Cinthia ’ s Revenge, or Maenander ’ s Extasie," which

Langbaine described as one of the longest he had ever read, and the most

tedious. Somebody seems to have attacked him and his Characters. A

second edition, in 1631, was entitled "New Essays and Characters, with a

new Satyre in defence of the Common Law, and Lawyers: mixt with Reproofe

against their enemy Ignoramus."_

JOHN EARLE
_Is the next of our Character writers. His "Microcosmography, or a Piece

of the World discovered, in Essays and Characters" was first printed in

1628. John Earle was born in the city of York, at the beginning of the

seventeenth century, probably in the year 1601. His father, who was

Registrar of the Archbishop ’ s Court, sent him to Oxford in 1619, and he

was said to be eighteen years old when he matriculated, that year, as a

commoner at Christchurch. He graduated as Master of Arts in 1624. He was

a Fellow of Merton, and wrote in his younger days several occasional

poems that won credit before he published anonymously, still as an

Oxford man, when he was about twenty-seven years old, his famous

Characters. But he remembered York when adding to their title that they

were "newly composed for the northern part of this Kingdom." This first

edition contained fifty-four characters, which precede the others in the

following collection. In the next year, 1629, the book reached a fifth

edition, printed for Robert Allot, in which the number of the characters

was increased to seventy-six. Two more characters--a Herald, and a

Suspicious or Jealous Man--were added in the sixth edition, which was

printed for Allot in 1633. The seventh edition was printed for Andrew

Coolie in 1638, the eighth in 1650. Other editions followed in 1669,

1676, 1732, and at Salisbury in 1786. In 1811 the little book was edited

carefully by Dr. Philip Bliss, and it was edited again by Professor

Edward Arber in 1868, in his valuable series of English Reprints.

John Earle, after the production of his "Microcosmography," wrote in

April 1630 a short poem upon the death of William, third Earl of

Pembroke, son of Sidney ’ s sister. The third Earl ’ s younger brother

Philip succeeded as fourth Earl, and was Chancellor of the University of

Oxford. He was then, or thereafter became, Earle ’ s patron, and made him

his chaplain. About the same time, in 1631, Earle acted as proctor of

the University. In 1639 the Earl of Pembroke presented John Earle to the

living of Bishopston in Wiltshire, as successor to Chillingworth.

Pembroke being Lord Chamberlain was entitled also to a residence at

Court for his chaplain, and thus Earle was brought under the immediate

notice of Charles I., who appointed him to be his own chaplain, and made

him tutor to Prince Charles in 1641, when Dr. Brian Duppa, the preceding

tutor, had been made Bishop of Salisbury. In 1642 Earle proceeded to the

degree of D.D. In 1643 he was elected Chancellor of the Cathedral at

Salisbury, but he was presently deprived by the Parliament of that

office, and of his living at Bishopston. He then lived in retirement

abroad, made a translation into Latin of Hooker ’ s "Ecclesiastical

Polity" which his servants negligently used, after his death, as waste

paper, and of the "Eikon Basilike" which was published in 1649. After

the Restoration, Dr. Earle was made Dean of Westminster; then, in 1662,

Bishop of Worcester. He was translated to Salisbury in 1663, died in

November 1665, and was buried near the altar in Merton College Church.

Earle was a man so gentle and liberal, that while Clarendon described

him as "among the few excellent men who never had and never could have

an enemy," Baxter wrote in the margin of a kindly letter from him, "O,

that they were all such!" and Calamy described him as "a man that could

do good against evil, forgive much out of a charitable heart." The

Parliament, even just before depriving him as a malignant, had put him

to the trouble of declining its nomination as one of the Westminster

Assembly of Divines. As a Bishop in the early days of Charles the Second

he did all he could to oppose the persecuting spirit of the first

Conventicle Act and of the Five Mile Act.

Dr. Philip Bliss, who died in 1857, after a life marked by many services

to English Literature, chose Bishop Earle ’ s "Characters" for one of his

earlier studies, published in 1811, when his own age was twenty-four.

His book [ 2 ] included an account of Bishop Earle himself, a list of his

writings, publication for the first time of some of his early verses,

his correspondence with Baxter, and a Chronological List of Books of

Characters from 1567 to 1700, which was the first contribution to a

study of this feature in our Seventeenth Century Literature. Bliss took

his text of Earle from the edition of 1732, collated with the first

impression in 1628. As the Characters which now follow are given with

Bliss ’ s text and notes, I add what the editor himself says of his

method. The variations of the 1732 text from the first impressions in

1628 are thus distinguished: "Those words or passages which have been

added since the first edition are contained between brackets_ [ and

printed in the common type ] ; _those which have received some alteration

are printed in italic; and the passages, as they stand in the first

edition, are always given in a note."_

MICROCOSMOGRAPHY;

OR,

A PIECE OF THE WORLD CHARACTERIZED.

A CHILD
Is a man in a small letter, yet the best copy of Adam before he tasted

of Eve or the apple; and he is happy whose small practice in the world

can only write this character. He is nature ’ s fresh picture newly drawn

in oil, which time, and much handling, dims and defaces. His soul is yet

a white paper [ 3 ] unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith,

at length, it becomes a blurred note-book. He is purely happy, because

he knows no evil, nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted with

misery. He arrives not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures evils

to come, by foreseeing them. He kisses and loves all, and, when the

smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater. Nature and his parents

alike dandle him, and tice him on with a bait of sugar to a draught of

wormwood. He plays yet, like a young prentice the first day, and is not

come to his task of melancholy. [ 4 ][ All the language he speaks yet is

tears, and they serve him well enough to express his necessity. ] His

hardest labour is his tongue, as if he were loath to use so deceitful an

organ; and he is best company with it when he can but prattle. We laugh

at his foolish sports, but his game is our earnest; and his drums,

rattles, and hobby-horses, but the emblems and mocking of man ’ s

business. His father hath writ him as his own little story, wherein he

reads those days of his life that he cannot remember, and sighs to see

what innocence he hath out-lived. The elder he grows, he is a stair

lower from God; and, like his first father, much worse in his

breeches. [ 5 ] He is the Christian ’ s example, and the old man ’ s relapse;

the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his simplicity.

Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got eternity

without a burden, and exchanged but one heaven for another.

A YOUNG RAW PREACHER
Is a bird not yet fledged, that hath hopped out of his nest to be

chirping on a hedge, and will be straggling abroad at what peril soever.

His backwardness in the university hath set him thus forward; for had he

not truanted there, he had not been so hasty a divine. His small

standing, and time, hath made him a proficient only in boldness, out of

which, and his table-book, he is furnished for a preacher. His

collections of study are the notes of sermons, which, taken up at St.

Mary ’ s, [ 6 ] he utters in the country: and if he write brachigraphy, [ 7 ]

his stock is so much the better. His writing is more than his reading,

for he reads only what he gets without book. Thus accomplished he comes

down to his friends, and his first salutation is grace and peace out of

the pulpit. His prayer is conceited, and no man remembers his college

more at large, [ 8 ] The pace of his sermon is a full career, and he runs

wildly over hill and dale, till the clock stop him. The labour of it is

chiefly in his lungs; and the only thing he has made _in_ [ 9 ] it himself,

is the faces. He takes on against the pope without mercy, and has a jest

still in lavender for Bellarmine: yet he preaches heresy, if it comes in

his way, though with a mind, I must needs say, very orthodox. His action

is all passion, and his speech interjections. He has an excellent

faculty in bemoaning the people, and spits with a very good grace. [ His

stile is compounded of twenty several men ’ s, only his body imitates some

one extraordinary. ] He will not draw his handkercher out of his place,

nor blow his nose without discretion. His commendation is, that he never

looks upon book; and indeed he was never used to it. He preaches but

once a year, though twice on Sunday; for the stuff is still the same,

only the dressing a little altered: he has more tricks with a sermon,

than a tailor with an old cloak, to turn it, and piece it, and at last

quite disguise it with a new preface. If he have waded farther in his

profession, and would show reading of his own, his authors are postils,

and his school-divinity a catechism. His fashion and demure habit gets

him in with some town-precisian, and makes him a guest on Friday nights.

You shall know him by his narrow velvet cape, and serge facing; and his

ruff, next his hair the shortest thing about him. The companion of his

walk is some zealous tradesman, whom he astonishes with strange points,

which they both understand alike. His friends and much painfulness may

prefer him to thirty pounds a year, and this means to a chambermaid;

with whom we leave him now in the bonds of wedlock:--next Sunday you

shall have him again.

A GRAVE DIVINE
Is one that knows the burthen of his calling, and hath studied to make

his shoulders sufficient; for which he hath not been hasty to launch

forth of his port, the university, but expected the ballast of learning,

and the wind of opportunity. Divinity is not the beginning but the end

of his studies; to which he takes the ordinary stair, and makes the arts

his way. He counts it not profaneness to be polished with human reading,

or to smooth his way by Aristotle to school-divinity. He has sounded

both religions, and anchored in the best, and is a protestant out of

judgment, not faction; not because his country, but his reason is on

this side. The ministry is his choice, not refuge, and yet the pulpit

not his itch, but fear. His discourse is substance, not all rhetoric,

and he utters more things than words. His speech is not helped with

inforced action, but the matter acts itself. He shoots all his

meditations at one butt; and beats upon his text, not the cushion;

making his hearers, not the pulpit, groan. In citing of popish errors,

he cuts them with arguments, not cudgels them with barren invectives;

and labours more to shew the truth of his cause than the spleen. His

sermon is limited by the method, not the hourglass; and his devotion

goes along with him out of the pulpit. He comes not up thrice a week,

because he would not be idle; nor talks three hours together, because he

would not talk nothing: but his tongue preaches at fit times, and his

conversation is the every day ’ s exercise. In matters of ceremony, he is

not ceremonious, but thinks he owes that reverence to the Church to bow

his judgment to it, and make more conscience of schism, than a surplice.

He esteems the Church hierarchy as the Church ’ s glory, and however we

jar with Rome, would not have our confusion distinguish us. In

simoniacal purchases he thinks his soul goes in the bargain, and is

loath to come by promotion so dear: yet his worth at length advances

him, and the price of his own merit buys him a living. He is no base

grater of his tithes, and will not wrangle for the odd egg. The lawyer

is the only man he hinders, by whom he is spited for taking up quarrels.

He is a main pillar of our church, though not yet dean or canon, and his

life our religion ’ s best apology. His death is the last sermon, where,

in the pulpit of his bed, he instructs men to die by his example. [ 10 ]

A MERE DULL PHYSICIAN.
His practice is some business at bedsides, and his speculation an

urinal: he is distinguished from an empiric, by a round velvet cap and

doctor ’ s gown, yet no man takes degrees more superfluously, for he is

doctor howsoever. He is sworn to Galen and Hippocrates, as university

men to their statutes, though they never saw them; and his discourse is

all aphorisms, though his reading be only Alexis of Piedmont, [ 11 ] or the

Regiment of Health. [ 12 ] The best cure he has done is upon his own purse,

which from a lean sickliness he hath made lusty, and in flesh. His

learning consists much in reckoning up the hard names of diseases, and

the superscriptions of gallipots in his apothecary ’ s shop, which are

ranked in his shelves and the doctor ’ s memory. He is, indeed, only

languaged in diseases, and speaks Greek many times when he knows not. If

he have been but a bystander at some desperate recovery, he is slandered

with it though he be guiltless; and this breeds his reputation, and that

his practice, for his skill is merely opinion. Of all odours he likes

best the smell of urine, and holds Vespasian ’ s [ 13 ] rule, that no gain is

unsavory. If you send this once to him you must resolve to be sick

howsoever, for he will never leave examining your water, till he has

shaked it into disease: [ l4 ] then follows a writ to his drugger in a

strange tongue, which he understands, though he cannot construe. If he

see you himself, his presence is the worst visitation: for if he cannot

heal your sickness, he will be sure to help it. He translates his

apothecary ’ s shop into your chamber, and the very windows and benches

must take physic. He tells you your malady in Greek, though it be but a

cold, or head-ache; which by good endeavour and diligence he may bring

to some moment indeed. His most unfaithful act is, that he leaves a man

gasping, and his pretence is, death and he have a quarrel and must not

meet; but his fear is, lest the carcase should bleed. [ 15 ] Anatomies, and

other spectacles of mortality, have hardened him, and he is no more

struck with a funeral than a grave-maker. Noblemen use him for a

director of their stomach, and the ladies for wantonness, [ 16 ] especially

if he be a proper man. If he be single, he is in league with his

she-apothecary; and because it is the physician, the husband is patient.

If he have leisure to be idle (that is to study), he has a smatch at

alchemy, and is sick of the philosopher ’ s stone; a disease uncurable,

but by an abundant phlebotomy of the purse. His two main opposites are a

mountebank and a good woman, and he never shews his learning so much as

in an invective against them and their boxes. In conclusion, he is a

sucking consumption, and a very brother to the worms, for they are both

ingendered out of man ’ s corruption.

AN ALDERMAN.
He is venerable in his gown, more in his beard, wherewith he sets not

forth so much his own, as the face of a city. You must look on him as

one of the town gates, and consider him not as a body, but a

corporation. His eminency above others hath made him a man of worship,

for he had never been preferred, but that he was worth thousands. He

over-sees the commonwealth, as his shop, and it is an argument of his

policy, that he has thriven by his craft. He is a rigorous magistrate in

his ward; yet his scale of justice is suspected, lest it be like the

balances in his warehouse. A ponderous man he is, and substantial, for

his weight is commonly extraordinary, and in his preferment nothing

rises so much as his belly. His head is of no great depth, yet well

furnished; and when it is in conjunction with his brethren, may bring

forth a city apophthegm, or some such sage matter. He is one that will

not hastily run into error, for he treads with great deliberation, and

his judgment consists much as his pace. His discourse is commonly the

annals of his mayoralty, and what good government there was in the days

of his gold chain, though the door posts were the only things that

suffered reformation. He seems most sincerely religious, especially on

solemn days; for he comes often to church to make a shew, [ and is a part

of the quire hangings. ] He is the highest star of his profession, and an

example to his trade, what in time they may come to. He makes very much

of his authority, but more of his satin doublet, which, though of good

years, bears its age very well, and looks fresh every Sunday: but his

scarlet gown is a monument, and lasts from generation to generation.

A DISCONTENTED MAN
Is one that is fallen out with the world, and will be revenged on

himself. Fortune has denied him in something, and he now takes pet, and

will be miserable in spite. The root of his disease is a self-humouring

pride, and an accustomed tenderness not to be crossed in his fancy; and

the occasion commonly of one of these three, a hard father, a peevish

wench, or his ambition thwarted. He considered not the nature of the

world till he felt it, and all blows fall on him heavier, because they

light not first on his expectation. He has now foregone all but his

pride, and is yet vain-glorious in the ostentation of his melancholy.

His composure of himself is a studied carelessness, with his arms

across, and a neglected hanging of his head and cloak; and he is as

great an enemy to a hat-band, as fortune. He quarrels at the time and

up-starts, and sighs at the neglect of men of parts, that is, such as

himself. His life is a perpetual satire, and he is still girding the

age ’ s vanity, when this very anger shews he too much esteems it. He is

much displeased to see men merry, and wonders what they can find to

laugh at. He never draws his own lips higher than a smile, and frowns

wrinkle him before forty. He at last falls into that deadly melancholy

to be a bitter hater of men, and is the most apt companion for any

mischief. He is the spark that kindles the commonwealth, and the bellows

himself to blow it: and if he turn any thing, it is commonly one of

these, either friar, traitor, or mad-man.

AN ANTIQUARY.
He is a man strangely thrifty of time past, and an enemy indeed to his

maw, whence he fetches out many things when they are now all rotten and

stinking. He is one that hath that unnatural disease to be enamoured of

old age and wrinkles, and loves all things (as Dutchmen do cheese), the

better for being mouldy and worm-eaten. He is of our religion, because

we say it is most antient; and yet a broken statue would almost make him

an idolater. A great admirer he is of the rust of old monuments, and

reads only those characters, where time hath eaten out the letters. He

will go you forty miles to see a saint ’ s well or a ruined abbey; an

there be but a cross or stone foot-stool in the way, he ’ ll be

considering it so long, till he forget his journey. His estate consists

much in shekels, and Roman coins; and he hath more pictures of Caesar,

than James or Elizabeth. Beggars cozen him with musty things which they

have raked from dung-hills, and he preserves their rags for precious

relics. He loves no library, but where there are more spiders ’ volumes

than authors ’, and looks with great admiration on the antique work of

cobwebs. Printed books he contemns, as a novelty of this latter age, but

a manuscript he pores on everlastingly, especially if the cover be all

moth-eaten, and the dust make a parenthesis between every syllable. He

would give all the books in his study (which are rarities all), for one

of the old Roman binding, or six-lines of Tully in his own hand. His

chamber is hung commonly with strange beasts ’ skins, and is a kind of

charnel-house of bones extraordinary; and his discourse upon them, if

you will hear him, shall last longer. His very attire is that which is

the eldest out of fashion, [[ 17 ] _and you may pick a criticism out of

his breeches_. ] He never looks upon himself till he is grey-haired, and

then he is pleased with his own antiquity. His grave does not fright

him, for he has been used to sepulchres, and he likes death the better,

because it gathers him to his fathers.

A YOUNGER BROTHER.
His elder brother was the Esau, that came out first and left him like

Jacob at his heels. His father has done with him as Pharaoh to the

children of Israel, that would have them make brick and give them no

straw, so he tasks him to be a gentleman, and leaves him nothing to

maintain it. The pride of his house has undone him, which the elder ’ s

knighthood must sustain, and his beggary that knighthood. His birth and

bringing up will not suffer him to descend to the means to get wealth;

but he stands at the mercy of the world, and which is worse, of his

brother. He is something better than the serving-men; yet they more

saucy with him than he bold with the master, who beholds him with a

countenance of stern awe, and checks him oftener than his liveries. His

brother ’ s old suits and he are much alike in request, and cast off now

and then one to the other. Nature hath furnished him with a little more

wit upon compassion, for it is like to be his best revenue. If his

annuity stretch so far, he is sent to the university, and with great

heart-burning takes upon him the ministry, as a profession he is

condemned to by his ill fortune. Others take a more crooked path yet,

the king ’ s high-way; where at length their vizard is plucked off, and

they strike fair for Tyburn: but their brother ’ s pride, not love, gets

them a pardon. His last refuge is the Low-countries, [ 18 ] where rags and

lice are no scandal, where he lives a poor gentleman of a company, and

dies without a shirt. The only thing that may better his fortunes is an

art he has to make a gentlewoman, wherewith he baits now and then some

rich widow that is hungry after his blood. He is commonly discontented

and desperate, and the form of his exclamation is, _that churl my

brother_. He loves not his country for this unnatural custom, and would

have long since revolted to the Spaniard, but for Kent [ 19 ] only, which

he holds in admiration.

A MERE FORMAL MAN
Is somewhat more than the shape of a man, for he has his length,

breadth, and colour. When you have seen his outside, you have looked

through him, and need employ your discovery no farther. His reason is

merely example, and his action is not guided by his understanding, but

he sees other men do thus, and he follows them. He is a negative, for we

cannot call him a wise man, but not a fool; nor an honest man, but not a

knave; nor a protestant, but not a papist. The chief burden of his brain

is the carriage of his body and the setting of his face in a good frame;

which he performs the better, because he is not disjointed with other

meditations. His religion is a good quiet subject, and he prays as he

swears, in the phrase of the land. He is a fair guest, and a fair

inviter, and can excuse his good cheer in the accustomed apology. He has

some faculty in the mangling of a rabbit, and the distribution of his

morsel to a neighbour ’ s trencher. He apprehends a jest by seeing men

smile, and laughs orderly himself, when it comes to his turn. His

businesses with his friends are to visit them, and whilst the business

is no more, he can perform this well enough. His discourse is the news

that he hath gathered in his walk, and for other matters his discretion

is, that he will only what he can, that is, say nothing. His life is

like one that runs to the church-walk, [ 20 ] to take a turn or two, and so

passes. He hath staid in the world to fill a number; and when he is

gone, there wants one, and there ’ s an end.

A CHURCH-PAPIST
Is one that parts his religion betwixt his conscience and his purse, and

comes to church not to serve God but the king. The face of the law makes

him wear the mask of the gospel, which he uses not as a means to save

his soul, but charges. He loves Popery well, but is loth to lose by it;

and though he be something scared with the bulls of Rome, yet they are

far off, and he is struck with more terror at the apparitor. Once a

month he presents himself at the church, to keep off the church-warden,

and brings in his body to save his bail. He kneels with the

congregation, but prays by himself, and asks God forgiveness for coming

thither. If he be forced to stay out a sermon, he pulls his hat over his

eyes, and frowns out the hour; and when he comes home, thinks to make

amends for this fault by abusing the preacher. His main policy is to

shift off the communion, for which he is never unfurnished of a quarrel,

and will be sure to be out of charity at Easter; and indeed he lies not,

for he has a quarrel to the sacrament. He would make a bad martyr and

good traveller, for his conscience is so large he could never wander out

of it; and in Constantinople would be circumcised with a reservation.

His wife is more zealous and therefore more costly, and he bates her in

tires what she stands him in religion. But we leave him hatching plots

against the state, and expecting Spinola. [ 21 ]

A SELF-CONCEITED MAN
Is one that knows himself so well, that he does not know himself. Two

excellent well-dones have undone him, and he is guilty of it that first

commended him to madness. He is now become his own book, which he pores

on continually, yet like a truant reader skips over the harsh places,

and surveys only that which is pleasant. In the speculation of his own

good parts, his eyes, like a drunkard ’ s, see all double, and his fancy,

like an old man ’ s spectacles, make a great letter in a small print. He

imagines every place where he comes his theatre, and not a look stirring

but his spectator; and conceives men ’ s thoughts to be very idle, that

is, [ only ] busy about him. His walk is still in the fashion of a march,

and like his opinion unaccompanied, with his eyes most fixed upon his

own person, or on others with reflection to himself. If he have done any

thing that has passed with applause, he is always re-acting it alone,

and conceits the extasy his hearers were in at every period. His

discourse is all positions and definitive decrees, with _thus it must

be_ and _thus it is_, and he will not humble his authority to prove it.

His tenet is always singular and aloof from the vulgar as he can, from

which you must not hope to wrest him. He has an excellent humour for an

heretic, and in these days made the first Arminian. He prefers Ramus

before Aristotle, and Paracelsus before Galen, [ 22 ] [ _and whosoever with

most paradox is commended._ ] He much pities the world that has no more

insight in his parts, when he is too well discovered even to this very

thought. A flatterer is a dunce to him, for he can tell him nothing but

what he knows before: and yet he loves him too, because he is like

himself. Men are merciful to him, and let him alone, for if he be once

driven from his humour, he is like two inward friends fallen out: his

own bitter enemy and discontent presently makes a murder. In sum, he is

a bladder blown up with wind, which the least flaw crushes to nothing.

A TOO IDLY RESERVED MAN
Is one that is a fool with discretion, or a strange piece of politician,

that manages the state of himself. His actions are his privy-council,

wherein no man must partake beside. He speaks under rule and

prescription, and dare not show his teeth without Machiavel. He

converses with his neighbours as he would in Spain, and fears an

inquisitive man as much as the inquisition. He suspects all questions

for examinations, and thinks you would pick something out of him, and

avoids you. His breast is like a gentlewoman ’ s closet, which locks up

every toy or trifle, or some bragging mountebank that makes every

stinking thing a secret. He delivers you common matters with great

conjuration of silence, and whispers you in the ear acts of parliament.

You may as soon wrest a tooth from him as a paper, and whatsoever he

reads is letters. He dares not talk of great men for fear of bad

comments, and _he knows not how his words may be misapplied_. Ask his

opinion, and he tells you his doubt; and he never hears any thing more

astonishedly than what he knows before. His words are like the cards at

primivist, [ 23 ] where 6 is 18, and 7, 21; for they never signify what

they sound; but if he tell you he will do a thing, it is as much as if

he swore he would not. He is one, indeed, that takes all men to be

craftier than they are, and puts himself to a great deal of affliction

to hinder their plots and designs, where they mean freely. He has been

long a riddle himself, but at last finds OEdipuses; for his over-acted

dissimulation discovers him, and men do with him as they would with

Hebrew letters, spell him backwards and read him.

A TAVERN
Is a degree, or (if you will,) a pair of stairs above an ale-house,

where men are drunk with more credit and apology. If the vintner ’ s

nose [ 24 ] be at door, it is a sign sufficient, but the absence of this is

supplied by the ivy-bush: the rooms are ill breathed like the drinkers

that have been washed well over night, and are smelt-to fasting next

morning; not furnished with beds apt to be defiled, but more necessary

implements, stools, table, and a chamber-pot. It is a broacher of more

news than hogsheads, and more jests than news, which are sucked up here

by some spungy brain, and from thence squeezed into a comedy. Men come

here to make merry, but indeed make a noise, and this musick above is

answered with the clinking below. The drawers are the civilest people in

it, men of good bringing up, and howsoever we esteem of them, none can

boast more justly of their high calling. ’ Tis the best theatre of

natures, where they are truly acted, not played, and the business as in

the rest of the world up and down, to wit, from the bottom of the cellar

to the great chamber. A melancholy man would find here matter to work

upon, to see heads as brittle as glasses, and often broken; men come

hither to quarrel, and come hither to be made friends: and if Plutarch

will lend me his simile, it is even Telephus ’ s sword that makes wounds

and cures them. It is the common consumption of the afternoon, and the

murderer or maker-away of a rainy day. It is the torrid zone that

scorches _the_ [ 25 ] face, and tobacco the gun-powder that blows it up.

Much harm would be done, if the charitable vintner had not water ready

for these flames. A house of sin you may call it, but not a house of

darkness, for the candles are never out; and it is like those countries

far in the North, where it is as clear at mid-night as at mid-day. After

a long sitting, it becomes like a street in a dashing shower, where the

spouts are flushing above, and the conduits running below, while the

Jordans like swelling rivers overflow their banks. To give you the total

reckoning of it; it is the busy man ’ s recreation, the idle man ’ s

business, the melancholy man ’ s sanctuary, the stranger ’ s welcome, the

inns-of-court man ’ s entertainment, the scholar ’ s kindness, and the

citizen ’ s courtesy. It is the study of sparkling wits, and a cup of

canary [ 26 ] their book, whence we leave them.

A SHARK
Is one whom all other means have failed, and he now lives of himself. He

is some needy cashiered fellow, whom the world hath oft flung off, yet

still clasps again, and is like one a drowning, fastens upon any thing

that is next at hand. Amongst other of his shipwrecks he has happily

lost shame, and this want supplies him. No man puts his brain to more

use than he, for his life is a daily invention, and each meal a new

stratagem. He has an excellent memory for his acquaintance, though there

passed but _how do you_ betwixt them seven years ago, it shall suffice

for an embrace, and that for money. He offers you a pottle of sack out

of joy to see you, and in requital of his courtesy you can do no less

than pay for it. He is fumbling with his purse-strings, as a school-boy

with his points, when he is going to be whipped, ’ till the master, weary

with long stay, forgives him. When the reckoning is paid, he says, It

must not be so, yet is straight pacified, and cries, What remedy? His

borrowings are like subsidies, each man a shilling or two, as he can

well dispend; which they lend him, not with a hope to be repaid, but

that he will come no more. He holds a strange tyranny over men, for he

is their debtor, and they fear him as a creditor. He is proud of any

employment, though it be but to carry commendations, which he will be

sure to deliver at eleven of the clock [ 27 ]. They in courtesy bid him

stay, and he in manners cannot deny them. If he find but a good look to

assure his welcome, he becomes their half-boarder, and haunts the

threshold so long ’ till he forces good nature to the necessity of a

quarrel. Publick invitations he will not wrong with his absence, and is

the best witness of the sheriff ’ s hospitality [ 28 ]. Men shun him at

length as they would do an infection, and he is never crossed in his way

if there be but a lane to escape him. He has done with the age as his

clothes to him, hung on as long as he could, and at last drops off.

A CARRIER
Is his own hackney-man; for he lets himself out to travel as well as his

horses. He is the ordinary embassador between friend and friend, the

father and the son, and brings rich presents to the one, but never

returns any back again. He is no unlettered man, though in show simple;

for questionless, he has much in his budget, which he can utter too in

fit time and place. He is [ like ] the vault in [ 29 ] Gloster church, that

conveys whispers at a distance, for he takes the sound out of your mouth

at York, and makes it be heard as far as London. He is the young

student ’ s joy and expectation, and the most accepted guest, to whom they

lend a willing hand to discharge him of his burden. His first greeting

is commonly, _Your friends are well; [ and to prove it [ 30 ]] _ in a piece

of gold delivers their blessing. You would think him a churlish blunt

fellow, but they find in him many tokens of humanity. He is a great

afflicter of the high-ways, and beats them out of measure; which injury

is sometimes revenged by the purse-taker, and then the voyage

miscarries. No man domineers more in his inn, nor calls his host

unreverently with more presumption, and this arrogance proceeds out of

the strength of his horses. He forgets not his load where he takes his

ease, for he is drunk commonly before he goes to bed. He is like the

prodigal child, still packing away and still returning again. But

let him pass.

A YOUNG MAN.
He is now out of nature ’ s protection, though not yet able to guide

himself; but left loose to the world and fortune, from which the

weakness of his childhood preserved him; and now his strength exposes

him. He is, indeed, just of age to be miserable, yet in his own conceit

first begins to be happy; and he is happier in this imagination, and his

misery not felt is less. He sees yet but the outside of the world and

men, and conceives them, according to their appearing, glister, and out

of this ignorance believes them. He pursues all vanities for happiness,

and [ 31 ] [ _enjoys them best in this fancy._ ] His reason serves, not to

curb but understand his appetite, and prosecute the motions thereof with

a more eager earnestness. Himself is his own temptation, and needs not

Satan, and the world will come hereafter. He leaves repentance for grey

hairs, and performs it in being covetous. He is mingled with the vices

of the age as the fashion and custom, with which he longs to be

acquainted, and sins to better his understanding. He conceives his youth

as the season of his lust, and the hour wherein he ought to be bad; and

because he would not lose his time, spends it. He distastes religion as

a sad thing, and is six years elder for a thought of heaven. He scorns

and fears, and yet hopes for old age, but dare not imagine it with

wrinkles. He loves and hates with the same inflammation, and when the

heat is over is cool alike to friends and enemies. His friendship is

seldom so steadfast, but that lust, drink, or anger may overturn it. He

offers you his blood to-day in kindness, and is ready to take yours

to-morrow. He does seldom any thing which he wishes not to do again, and

is only wise after a misfortune. He suffers much for his knowledge, and

a great deal of folly it is makes him a wise man. He is free from many

vices, by being not grown to the performance, and is only more virtuous

out of weakness. Every action is his danger, and every man his ambush.

He is a ship without pilot or tackling, and only good fortune may steer

him. If he scape this age, he has scaped a tempest, and may live to be

a man.

AN OLD COLLEGE BUTLER
Is none of the worst students in the house, for he keeps the set hours

at his book more duly than any. His authority is great over men ’ s good

names, which he charges many times with shrewd aspersions, which they

hardly wipe off without payment. [ His box and counters prove him to be a

man of reckoning, yet ] he is stricter in his accounts than a usurer, and

delivers not a farthing without writing. He doubles the pains of

Gallobelgicus [ 32 ], for his books go out once a quarter, and they are

much in the same nature, brief notes and sums of affairs, and are out of

request as soon. His comings in are like a taylor ’ s, from the shreds of

bread, [ the ] chippings and remnants of a broken crust; excepting his

vails from the barrel, which poor folks buy for their hogs but drink

themselves. He divides an halfpenny loaf with more subtlety than

Keckerman [ 33 ], and sub-divides the _a prima ortum_ so nicely, that a

stomach of great capacity can hardly apprehend it. He is a very sober

man, considering his manifold temptations of drink and strangers; and if

he be overseen, ’ tis within his own liberties, and no man ought to take

exception. He is never so well pleased with his place as when a

gentleman is beholden to him for showing him the buttery, whom he greets

with a cup of single beer and sliced manchet [ 34 ], and tells him it is

the fashion of the college. He domineers over freshmen when they first

come to the hatch, and puzzles them with strange language of cues and

cees, and some broken Latin which he has learned at his bin. His

faculties extraordinary are the warming of a pair of cards, and telling

out a dozen of counters for post and pair, and no man is more methodical

in these businesses. Thus he spends his age till the tap of it is run

out, and then a fresh one is set abroach.

AN UPSTART COUNTRY KNIGHT
[ _Is a holiday clown, and differs only in the stuff of his clothes, not

the stuff of himself_, [ 35 ]] for he bare the king ’ s sword before he had

arms to wield it; yet being once laid o ’ er the shoulder with a

knighthood, he finds the herald his friend. His father was a man of good

stock, though but a tanner or usurer; he purchased the land, and his son

the title. He has doffed off the name of a [ _country fellow_, [ 36 ]] but

the look not so easy, and his face still bears a relish of churn-milk.

He is guarded with more gold lace than all the gentlemen of the country,

yet his body makes his clothes still out of fashion. His house-keeping

is seen much in the distinct families of dogs, and serving-men attendant

on their kennels, and the deepness of their throats is the depth of his

discourse. A hawk he esteems the true burden of nobility, [ 37 ] and is

exceeding ambitious to seem delighted in the sport, and have his fist

gloved with his jesses. [ 38 ] A justice of peace he is to domineer in his

parish, and do his neighbour wrong with more right. [ 39 ] He will be drunk

with his hunters for company, and stain, his gentility with droppings of

ale. He is fearful of being sheriff of the shire by instinct, and dreads

the assize-week as much as the prisoner. In sum, he ’ s but a clod of his

own earth, or his land is the dunghill and he the cock that crows over

it: and commonly his race is quickly run, and his children ’ s children,

though they scape hanging, return to the place from whence they came.

AN IDLE GALLANT
Is one that was born and shaped for his cloaths; and, if Adam had not

fallen, had lived to no purpose. He gratulates therefore the first sin,

and fig-leaves that were an occasion of [ his ] bravery. His first care is

his dress, the next his body, and in the uniting of these two lies his

soul and its faculties. He observes London trulier then the terms, and

his business is the street, the stage, the court, and those places where

a proper man is best shown. If he be qualified in gaming extraordinary,

he is so much the more genteel and compleat, and he learns the best

oaths for the purpose. These are a great part of his discourse, and he

is as curious in their newness as the fashion. His other talk is ladies

and such pretty things, or some jest at a play. His pick-tooth bears a

great part in his discourse, so does his body, the upper parts whereof

are as starched as his linen, and perchance use the same laundress. He

has learned to ruffle his face from his boot, and takes great delight in

his walk to hear his spurs gingle. Though his life pass somewhat

slidingly, yet he seems very careful of the time, for he is still

drawing his watch out of his pocket, and spends part of his hours in

numbering them. He is one never serious but with his tailor, when he is

in conspiracy for the next device. He is furnished with his jests, as

some wanderer with sermons, some three for all congregations, one

especially against the scholar, a man to him much ridiculous, whom he

knows by no other definition but a silly fellow in black. He is a kind

of walking mercer ’ s shop, and shews you one stuff to-day and another

to-morrow; an ornament to the room he comes in as the fair bed and

hangings be; and is merely ratable accordingly, fifty or an hundred

pounds as his suit is. His main ambition is to get a knighthood, and

then an old lady, which if he be happy in, he fills the stage and a

coach so much longer: Otherwise, himself and his clothes grow stale

together, and he is buried commonly ere he dies, in the gaol or

the country.

A CONSTABLE
Is a viceroy in the street, and no man stands more upon ’ t that he is the

king ’ s officer. His jurisdiction extends to the next stocks, where he

has commission for the heels only, and sets the rest of the body at

liberty. He is a scarecrow to that ale-house, where he drinks not his

morning draught, and apprehends a drunkard for not standing in the

king ’ s name. Beggars fear him more than the justice, and as much as the

whip-stock, whom he delivers over to his subordinate magistrates, the

bridewell-man and the beadle. He is a great stickler in the tumults of

double jugs, and ventures his head by his place, which is broke many

times to keep whole the peace. He is never so much in his majesty as in

his night-watch, where he sits in his chair of state, a shop-stall, and

environed with a guard of halberts, examines all passengers. He is a

very careful man in his office, but if he stay up after midnight you

shall take him napping.

A DOWN-RIGHT SCHOLAR
Is one that has much learning in the ore, unwrought and untried, which

time and experience fashions and refines. He is good metal in the

inside, though rough and unsecured without, and therefore hated of the

courtier, that is quite contrary. The time has got a vein of making him

ridiculous, and men laugh at him by tradition, and no unlucky absurdity

but is put upon his profession, and done like a scholar. But his fault

is only this, that his mind is [ somewhat ] too much taken up with his

mind, and his thoughts not loaden with any carriage besides. He has not

put on the quaint garb of the age, which is now a man ’ s [ _Imprimis and

all the Item_. [ 40 ]] He has not humbled his meditations to the industry

of compliment, nor afflicted his brain in an elaborate leg. His body is

not set upon nice pins, to be turning and flexible for every motion, but

his scrape is homely and his nod worse. He cannot kiss his hand and cry,

madam, nor talk idle enough to bear her company. His smacking of a

gentlewoman is somewhat too savoury, and he mistakes her nose for her

lips. A very woodcock would puzzle him in carving, and he wants the

logick of a capon. He has not the glib faculty of sliding over a tale,

but his words come squeamishly out of his mouth, and the laughter

commonly before the jest. He names this word college too often, and his

discourse beats too much on the university. The perplexity of

mannerliness will not let him feed, and he is sharp set at an argument

when he should cut his meat. He is discarded for a gamester at all games

but one and thirty [ 41 ], and at tables he reaches not beyond doublets.

His fingers are not long and drawn out to handle a fiddle, but his fist

clunched with the habit of disputing. He ascends a horse somewhat

sinisterly, though not on the left side, and they both go jogging in

grief together. He is exceedingly censured by the inns-of-court men, for

that heinous vice, being out of fashion. He cannot speak to a dog in his

own dialect, and understands Greek better than the language of a

falconer. He has been used to a dark room, and dark clothes, and his

eyes dazzle at a sattin suit. The hermitage of his study has made him

somewhat uncouth in the world, and men make him worse by staring on him.

Thus is he [ silly and ] ridiculous, and it continues with him for some

quarter of a year out of the university. But practise him a little in

men, and brush him over with good company, and he shall out-balance

those glisterers, as far as a solid substance does a feather, or gold,

gold-lace.

A PLAIN COUNTRY FELLOW
Is one that manures his ground well, but lets himself lie fallow and

untilled. He has reason enough to do his business, and not enough to be

idle or melancholy. He seems to have the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar,

for his conversation is among beasts, and his talons none of the

shortest, only he eats not grass, because he loves not salads. His hand

guides the plough, and the plough his thoughts, and his ditch and

land-mark is the very mound of his meditations. He expostulates with his

oxen very understandingly, and speaks gee, and ree, better than English.

His mind is not much distracted with objects, but if a good fat cow come

in his way, he stands dumb and astonished, and though his haste be never

so great, will fix here half an hour ’ s contemplation. His habitation is

some poor thatched roof, distinguished from his barn by the loop-holes

that let out smoke, which the rain had long since washed through, but

for the double ceiling of bacon on the inside, which has hung there from

his grandsire ’ s time, and is yet to make rashers for posterity. His

dinner is his other work, for he sweats at it as much as at his labour;

he is a terrible fastener on a piece of beef, and you may hope to stave

the guard off sooner. His religion is a part of his copyhold, which he

takes from his landlord, and refers it wholly to his discretion: Yet if

he give him leave he is a good Christian to his power, (that is,) comes

to church in his best clothes, and sits there with his neighbours, where

he is capable only of two prayers, for rain, and fair weather. He

apprehends God ’ s blessings only in a good year, or a fat pasture, and

never praises him but on _good ground_. Sunday he esteems a day to make

merry in, and thinks a bag-pipe as essential to it as evening-prayer,

where he walks very solemnly after service with his hands coupled behind

him, and censures the dancing of his parish. [ His compliment with his

neighbour is a good thump on the back, and his salutation commonly some

blunt curse. ] He thinks nothing to be vices, but pride and

ill-husbandry, from which he will gravely dissuade the youth, and has

some thrifty hob-nail proverbs to clout his discourse. He is a niggard

all the week, except only market-day, where, if his corn sell well, he

thinks he may be drunk with a good conscience. His feet never stink so

unbecomingly as when he trots after a lawyer in Westminster-hall, and

even cleaves the ground with hard scraping in beseeching his worship to

take his money. He is sensible of no calamity but the burning a stack of

corn or the overflowing of a meadow, and thinks Noah ’ s flood the

greatest plague that ever was, not because it drowned the world, but

spoiled the grass. For death he is never troubled, and if he get in but

his harvest before, let it come when it will, he cares not.

A PLAYER.
He knows the right use of the world, wherein he comes to play a part and

so away. His life is not idle, for it is all action, and no man need be

more wary in his doings, for the eyes of all men are upon him. His

profession has in it a kind of contradiction, for none is more disliked,

and yet none more applauded; and he has the misfortune of some scholar,

too much wit makes him a fool. He is like our painting gentlewomen,

seldom in his own face, seldomer in his clothes; and he pleases, the

better he counterfeits, except only when he is disguised with straw for

gold lace. He does not only personate on the stage, but sometimes in the

street, for he is masked still in the habit of a gentleman. His parts

find him oaths and good words, which he keeps for his use and discourse,

and makes shew with them of a fashionable companion. He is tragical on

the stage, but rampant in the tiring-house, [ 42 ] and swears oaths there

which he never conned. The waiting women spectators are over-ears in

love with him, and ladies send for him to act in their chambers. Your

inns-of-court men were undone but for him, he is their chief guest and

employment, and the sole business that makes them afternoon ’ s-men. The

poet only is his tyrant, and he is bound to make his friend ’ s friend

drunk at his charge. Shrove-Tuesday he fears as much as the banns, and

Lent [ 43 ] is more damage to him than the butcher. He was never so much

discredited as in one act, and that was of parliament, which gives

hostlers privilege before him, for which he abhors it more than a

corrupt judge. But to give him his due, one well-furnished actor has

enough in him for five common gentlemen, and, if he have a good body,

[ for six, and ] for resolution he shall challenge any Cato, for it has

been his practice to die bravely.

A DETRACTOR
Is one of a more cunning and active envy, wherewith he gnaws not

foolishly himself, but throws it abroad and would have it blister

others. He is commonly some weak parted fellow, and worse minded, yet is

strangely ambitious to match others, not by mounting their worth, but

bringing them down with his tongue to his own poorness. He is indeed

like the red dragon that pursued the woman, for when he cannot

over-reach another, he opens his mouth and throws a flood after to drown

him. You cannot anger him worse than to do well, and he hates you more

bitterly for this, than if you had cheated him of his patrimony with

your own discredit. He is always slighting the general opinion, and

wondering why such and such men should be applauded. Commend a good

divine, he cries postilling; a philologer, pedantry; a poet, rhiming; a

school-man, dull wrangling; a sharp conceit, boyishness; an honest man,

plausibility. He comes to publick things not to learn, but to catch, and

if there be but one solecism, that is all he carries away. He looks on

all things with a prepared sourness, and is still furnished with a pish

beforehand, or some musty proverb that disrelishes all things

whatsoever. If fear of the company make him second a commendation, it is

like a law-writ, always with a clause of exception, or to smooth his way

to some greater scandal. He will grant you something, and bate more; and

this bating shall in conclusion take away all he granted. His speech

concludes still with an Oh! but,--and I could wish one thing amended;

and this one thing shall be enough to deface all his former

commendations. He will be very inward with a man to fish some bad out of

him, and make his slanders hereafter more authentic, when it is said a

friend reported it. He will inveigle you to naughtiness to get your good

name into his clutches; he will be your pandar to have you on the hip

for a whore-master, and make you drunk to shew you reeling. He passes

the more plausibly because all men have a smatch of his humour, and it

is thought freeness which is malice. If he can say nothing of a man, he

will seem to speak riddles, as if he could tell strange stories if he

would; and when he has racked his invention to the utmost, he ends;--but

I wish him well, and therefore must hold my peace. He is always

listening and enquiring after men, and suffers not a cloak to pass by

him unexamined. In brief, he is one that has lost all good himself, and

is loth to find it in another.

A YOUNG GENTLEMAN OF THE UNIVERSITY
Is one that comes there to wear a gown, and to say hereafter, he has

been at the university. His father sent him thither because he heard

there were the best fencing and dancing-schools; from these he has his

education, from his tutor the over-sight. The first element of his

knowledge is to be shewn the colleges, and initiated in a tavern by the

way, which hereafter he will learn of himself. The two marks of his

seniority, is the bare velvet of his gown, and his proficiency at

tennis, where when he can once play a set, he is a freshman no more. His

study has commonly handsome shelves, his books neat silk strings, which

he shews to his father ’ s man, and is loth to untie [ 44 ] or take down for

fear of misplacing. Upon foul days for recreation he retires thither,

and looks over the pretty book his tutor reads to him, which is commonly

some short history, or a piece of Euphormio; for which his tutor gives

him money to spend next day. His main loytering is at the library, where

he studies arms and books of honour, and turns a gentleman critic in

pedigrees. Of all things he endures not to be mistaken for a scholar,

and hates a black suit though it be made of sattin. His companion is

ordinarily some stale fellow, that has been notorious for an ingle to

gold hatbands, [ 45 ] whom he admires at first, afterwards scorns. If he

have spirit or wit he may light of better company, and may learn some

flashes of wit, which may do him knight ’ s service in the country

hereafter. But he is now gone to the inns-of-court, where he studies to

forget what he learned before, his acquaintance and the fashion.

A WEAK MAN
Is a child at man ’ s estate, one whom nature huddled up in haste, and

left his best part unfinished. The rest of him is grown to be a man,

only his brain stays behind. He is one that has not improved his first

rudiments, nor attained any proficiency by his stay in the world: but we

may speak of him yet as when he was in the bud, a good harmless nature,

a well meaning mind [ 46 ] [ _and no more_ ] It is his misery that he now

wants a tutor, and is too old to have one. He is two steps above a fool,

and a great many more below a wise man: yet the fool is oft given him,

and by those whom he esteems most. Some tokens of him are,--he loves men

better upon relation than experience, for he is exceedingly enamoured of

strangers, and none quicklier aweary of his friend. He charges you at

first meeting with all his secrets, and on better acquaintance grows

more reserved. Indeed he is one that mistakes much his abusers for

friends, and his friends for enemies, and he apprehends your hate in

nothing so much as in good counsel. One that is flexible with any thing

but reason, and then only perverse. [ A servant to every tale and

flatterer, and whom the last man still works over. ] A great affecter of

wits and such prettinesses; and his company is costly to him, for he

seldom has it but invited. His friendship commonly is begun in a supper,

and lost in lending money. The tavern is a dangerous place to him, for

to drink and be drunk is with him all one, and his brain is sooner

quenched than his thirst. He is drawn into naughtiness with company, but

suffers alone, and the bastard commonly laid to his charge. One that

will be patiently abused, and take exception a month after when he

understands it, and then be abused again into a reconcilement; and you

cannot endear him more than by cozening him, and it is a temptation to

those that would not. One discoverable in all silliness to all men but

himself, and you may take any man ’ s knowledge of him better than his

own. He will promise the same thing to twenty, and rather than deny one

break with all. One that has no power over himself, over his business,

over his friends, but a prey and pity to all; and if his fortunes once

sink, men quickly cry, Alas!--and forget him.

A TOBACCO-SELLER
Is the only man that finds good in it which others brag of but do not;

for it is meat, drink, and clothes to him. No man opens his ware with

greater seriousness, or challenges your judgment more in the

approbation. His shop is the rendezvous of spitting, where men dialogue

with their noses, and their communication is smoke. [ 47 ] It is the place

only where Spain is commended and preferred before England itself. He

should be well experienced in the world, for he has daily trial of men ’ s

nostrils, and none is better acquainted with humours. He is the piecing

commonly of some other trade, which is bawd to his tobacco, and that to

his wife, which is the flame that follows this smoke.

A POT-POET
Is the dregs of wit, yet mingled with good drink may have some relish.

His inspirations are more real than others, for they do but feign a God,

but he has his by him. His verse runs like the tap, and his invention as

the barrel, ebbs and flows at the mercy of the spigot. In thin drink he

aspires not above a ballad, but a cup of sack inflames him, and sets his

muse and nose a-fire together. The press is his mint, and stamps him now

and then a sixpence or two in reward of the baser coin his pamphlet. His

works would scarce sell for three half-pence, though they are given oft

for three shillings, but for the pretty title that allures the country

gentleman; for which the printer maintains him in ale a fortnight. His

verses are like his clothes miserable centoes [ 48 ] and patches, yet their

pace is not altogether so hobbling as an almanack ’ s. The death of a

great man or the _burning_ [ 49 ] of a house furnish him with an argument,

and the nine Muses are out strait in mourning gowns, and Melpomene cries

fire! fire! [ His other poems are but briefs in rhyme, and like the poor

Greeks collections to redeem from captivity. ] He is a man now much

employed in commendations of our navy, and a bitter inveigher against

the Spaniard. His frequentest works go out in single sheets, and are

chanted from market to market to a vile tune and a worse throat; whilst

the poor country wench melts like her butter to hear them: and these are

the stories of some men of Tyburn, or a strange monster out of

Germany; [ 50 ] or, sitting in a bawdy-house, he writes God ’ s judgments. He

drops away at last in some obscure painted cloth, to which himself made

the verses, [ 51 ] and his life, like a can too full, spills upon the

bench. He leaves twenty shillings on the score, which my hostess loses.

A PLAUSIBLE MAN
Is one that would fain run an even path in the world, and jut against no

man. His endeavour is not to offend, and his aim the general opinion.

His conversation is a kind of continued compliment, and his life a

practice of manners. The relation he bears to others, a kind of

fashionable respect, not friendship but friendliness, which is equal to

all and general, and his kindnesses seldom exceed courtesies. He loves

not deeper mutualities, because he would not take sides, nor hazard

himself on displeasures, which he principally avoids. At your first

acquaintance with him he is exceedingly kind and friendly, and at your

twentieth meeting after but friendly still. He has an excellent command

over his patience and tongue, especially the last, which he accommodates

always to the times and persons, and speaks seldom what is sincere, but

what is civil. He is one that uses all companies, drinks all healths,

and is reasonable cool in all religions. [ He considers who are friends

to the company, and speaks well where he is sure to hear of it again. ]

He can listen to a foolish discourse with an applausive attention, and

conceal his laughter at nonsense. Silly men much honour and esteem him,

because by his fair reasoning with them as with men of understanding, he

puts them into an erroneous opinion of themselves, and makes them

forwarder hereafter to their own discovery. He is one _rather well_ [ 52 ]

thought on than beloved, and that love he has is more of whole companies

together than any one in particular. Men gratify him notwithstanding

with a good report, and whatever vices he has besides, yet having no

enemies, he is sure to be an honest fellow.

A BOWL-ALLEY
Is the place where there are three things thrown away beside bowls, to

wit, time, money, and curses, and the last ten for one. The best sport

in it is the gamesters, and he enjoys it that looks on and bets not. It

is the school of wrangling, and worse than the schools, for men will

cavil here for a hair ’ s breadth, and make a stir where a straw would end

the controversy. No antick screws men ’ s bodies into such strange

flexures, and you would think them here senseless, to speak sense to

their bowl, and put their trust in entreaties for a good cast. The

betters are the factious noise of the alley, or the gamesters bedesmen

that pray for them. They are somewhat like those that are cheated by

great men, for they lose their money and must say nothing. It is the

best discovery of humours, especially in the losers, where you have fine

variety of impatience, whilst some fret, some rail, some swear, and

others more ridiculously comfort themselves with philosophy. To give you

the moral of it; it is the emblem of the world, or the world ’ s ambition:

where most are short, or over, or wide or wrong-biassed, and some few

justle in to the mistress Fortune. And it is here as in the court, where

the nearest are most spited, and all blows aimed at the toucher.

THE WORLD ’ S WISE MAN
Is an able and sufficient wicked man: It is a proof of his sufficiency

that he is not called wicked, but wise. A man wholly determined in

himself and his own ends, and his instruments herein any thing that will

do it. His friends are a part of his engines, and as they serve to his

works, used or laid by: Indeed he knows not this thing of friend, but if

he give you the name, it is a sign he has a plot on you. Never more

active in his businesses, than when they are mixed with some harm to

others; and it is his best play in this game to strike off and lie in

the place. Successful commonly in these undertakings, because he passes

smoothly those rubs which others stumble at, as conscience and the like;

and gratulates himself much in this advantage. Oaths and falsehood he

counts the nearest way, and loves not by any means to go about. He has

many fine quips at this folly of plain dealing, but his "tush!" is

greatest at religion; yet he uses this too, and virtue and good words,

but is less dangerously a devil than a saint. He ascribes all honesty to

an unpractisedness in the world, and conscience a thing merely for

children. He scorns all that are so silly to _trust_ [ 53 ] him, and only

not scorns his enemy, especially if as bad as himself: he fears him as a

man well armed and provided, but sets boldly on good natures, as the

most vanquishable. One that seriously admires those worst princes, as

Sforza, Borgia, and Richard the Third; and calls matters of deep villany

things of difficulty. To whom murders are but resolute acts, and treason

a business of great consequence. One whom two or three countries make up

to this completeness, and he has travelled for the purpose. His deepest

endearment is a communication of mischief, and then only you have him

fast. His conclusion is commonly one of these two, either a great man,

or hanged.

A SURGEON
Is one that has some business about this building or little house of

man, whereof nature is as it were the tiler, and he the plaisterer. It

is ofter out of reparations than an old parsonage, and then he is set on

work to patch it again. He deals most with broken commodities, as a

broken head or a mangled face, and his gains are very ill got, for he

lives by the hurts of the commonwealth. He differs from a physician as a

sore does from a disease, or the sick from those that are not whole, the

one distempers you within, the other blisters you without. He complains

of the decay of valour in these days, and sighs for that slashing age of

sword and buckler; and thinks the law against duels was made merely to

wound his vocation. He had been long since undone if the charity of the

stews had not relieved him, from whom he has his tribute as duly as the

pope; or a wind-fall sometimes from a tavern, if a quart pot hit right.

The rareness of his custom makes him pitiless when it comes, and he

holds a patient longer than our [ spiritual ] courts a cause. He tells you

what danger you had been in if he had staid but a minute longer, and

though it be but a pricked finger, he makes of it much matter. He is a

reasonable cleanly man, considering the scabs he has to deal with, and

your finest ladies are now and then beholden to him for their best

dressings. He curses old gentlewomen and their charity that makes his

trade their alms; but his envy is never stirred so much as when

gentlemen go over to fight upon Calais sands, [ 54 ] whom he wishes drowned

ere they come there, rather than the French shall get his custom.

A CONTEMPLATIVE MAN
Is a scholar in this great university the world; and the same his book

and study. He cloisters not his meditations in the narrow darkness of a

room, but sends them abroad with his eyes, and his brain travels with

his feet. He looks upon man from a high tower, and sees him trulier at

this distance in his infirmities and poorness. He scorns to mix himself

in men ’ s actions, as he would to act upon a stage; but sits aloft on the

scaffold a censuring spectator. [ He will not lose his time by being

busy, or make so poor a use of the world as to hug and embrace it. ]

Nature admits him as a partaker of her sports, and asks his approbation,

as it were, of her own works and variety. He comes not in company,

because he would not be solitary; but finds discourse enough with

himself, and his own thoughts are his excellent play-fellows. He looks

not upon a thing as a yawning stranger at novelties, but his search is

more mysterious and inward, and he spells heaven out of earth. He knits

his observations together, and makes a ladder of them all to climb to

God. He is free from vice, because he has no occasion to employ it, and

is above those ends that make man wicked. He has learnt all that can

here be taught him, and comes now to heaven to see more.

A SHE PRECISE HYPOCRITE
Is one in whom good women suffer, and have their truth misinterpreted by

her folly. She is one, she knows not what herself if you ask her, but

she is indeed one that has taken a toy at the fashion of religion, and

is enamoured of the new fangle. She is a nonconformist in a close

stomacher and ruff of Geneva print, [ 55 ] and her purity consists much in

her linen. She has heard of the rag of Rome, and thinks it a very

sluttish religion, and rails at the whore of Babylon for a very naughty

woman. She has left her virginity as a relick of popery, and marries in

her tribe without a ring. Her devotion at the church is much in the

turning up of her eye; and turning down the leaf in her book, when she

hears named chapter and verse. When she comes home, she commends the

sermon for the Scripture, and two hours. She loves preaching better than

praying, and of preachers, lecturers; and thinks the week day ’ s exercise

far more edifying than the Sunday ’ s. Her oftest gossipings are

sabbath-day ’ s journeys, where (though an enemy to superstition), she

will go in pilgrimage five mile to a silenced minister, when there is a

better sermon in her own parish. She doubts of the virgin Mary ’ s

salvation, and dares not saint her, but knows her own place in heaven as

perfectly as the pew she has a key to. She is so taken up with faith she

has no room for charity, and understands no good works but what are

wrought on the sampler. She accounts nothing vices but superstition and

an oath, and thinks adultery a less sin than to swear _by my truly._ She

rails at other women by the names of Jezebel and Delilah; and calls her

own daughters Rebecca and Abigail, and not Ann but Hannah. She suffers

them not to learn on the virginals, [ 56 ] because of their affinity with

organs, but is reconciled to the bells for the chimes ’ sake, since they

were reformed to the tune of a psalm. She overflows so with the Bible,

that she spills it upon every occasion, and will not cudgel her maids

without Scripture. It is a question whether she is more troubled with

the Devil, or the Devil with her: she is always challenging and daring

him, and her weapon [ 57 ] [ is The Practice of Piety. ] Nothing angers her

so much as that women cannot preach, and in this point only thinks the

Brownist erroneous; but what she cannot at the church she does at the

table, where she prattles more than any against sense and Antichrist,

’ till a capon ’ s wing silence her. She expounds the priests of Baal,

reading ministers, and thinks the salvation of that parish as desperate

as the Turk ’ s. She is a main derider to her capacity of those that are

not her preachers, and censures all sermons but bad ones. If her husband

be a tradesman, she helps him to customers, howsoever to good cheer, and

they are a most faithful couple at these meetings, for they never fail.

Her conscience is like others ’ lust, never satisfied, and you might

better answer Scotus than her scruples. She is one that thinks she

performs all her duties to God in hearing, and shows the fruits of it in

talking. She is more fiery against the maypole than her husband, and

thinks she might do a Phineas ’ act to break the pate of the fiddler. She

is an everlasting argument, but I am weary of her.

A SCEPTIC IN RELIGION
Is one that hangs in the balance with all sorts of opinions, whereof not

one but stirs him and none sways him. A man guiltier of credulity than

he is taken to be; for it is out of his belief of everything, that he

fully believes nothing. Each religion scares him from its contrary: none

persuades him to itself. He would be wholly a Christian, but that he is

something of an atheist, and wholly an atheist, but that he is partly a

Christian; and a perfect heretic, but that there are so many to distract

him. He finds reason in all opinions, truth in none: indeed the least

reason perplexes him, and the best will not satisfy him. He is at most a

confused and wild Christian, not specialized by any form, but capable of

all. He uses the land ’ s religion, because it is next him, yet he sees

not why he may not take the other, but he chuses this, not as better,

but because there is not a pin to choose. He finds doubts and scruples

better than resolves them, and is always too hard for himself. His

learning is too much for his brain, and his judgment too little for his

learning, and his over-opinion of both, spoils all. Pity it was his

mischance of being a scholar; for it does only distract and irregulate

him, and the world by him. He hammers much in general upon our opinion ’ s

uncertainty, and the possibility of erring makes him not venture on what

is true. He is troubled at this naturalness of religion to countries,

that protestantism should be born so in England and popery abroad, and

that fortune and the stars should so much share in it. He likes not this

connection with the commonweal and divinity, and fears it may be an

arch-practice of state. In our differences with Rome he is strangely

unfixed, and a new man every new day, as his last discourse-book ’ s

meditations transport him. He could like the gray hairs of popery, did

not some dotages there stagger him: he would come to us sooner, but our

new name affrights him. He is taken with their miracles, but doubts an

imposture; he conceives of our doctrine better, but it seems too empty

and naked. He cannot drive into his fancy the circumscription of truth

to our corner, and is as hardly persuaded to think their old legends

true. He approves well of our faith, and more of their works, and is

sometimes much affected at the zeal of Amsterdam. His conscience

interposes itself betwixt duellers, and whilst it would part both, is by

both wounded. He will sometimes propend much to us upon the reading a

good writer, and at Bellarmine [ 58 ] recalls as far back again; and the

fathers justle him from one side to another. Now Socinus [ 59 ] and

Vorstius [ 60 ] afresh torture him, and he agrees with none worse than

himself. He puts his foot into heresies tenderly, as a cat in the water,

and pulls it out again, and still something unanswered delays him; yet

he bears away some parcel of each, and you may sooner pick all religions

out of him than one. He cannot think so many wise men should be in

error, nor so many honest men out of the way, and his wonder is double

when he sees these oppose one another. He hates authority as the tyrant

of reason, and you cannot anger him worse than with a father ’ s _dixit,_

and yet that many are not persuaded with reason, shall authorise his

doubt. In sum, his whole life is a question, and his salvation a

greater, which death only concludes, and then he is resolved.

AN ATTORNEY.
His antient beginning was a blue coat, since a livery, and his hatching

under a lawyer; whence, though but pen-feathered, he hath now nested for

himself, and with his hoarded pence purchased an office. Two desks and a

quire of paper set him up, where he now sits in state for all comers. We

can call him no great author, yet he writes very much and with the

infamy of the court is maintained in his libels [ 61 ]. He has some smatch

of a scholar, and yet uses Latin very hardly; and lest it should accuse

him, cuts it off in the midst, and will not let it speak out. He is,

contrary to great men, maintained by his followers, that is, his poor

country clients, that worship him more than their landlord, and be they

never such churls, he looks for their courtesy. He first racks them

soundly himself, and then delivers them to the lawyer for execution. His

looks are very solicitous, importing much haste and dispatch: he is

never without his hands full of business, that is--of paper. His skin

becomes at last as dry as his parchment, and his face as intricate as

the most winding cause. He talks statutes as fiercely as if he had

mooted [ 62 ] seven years in the inns of court, when all his skill is stuck

in his girdle, or in his office-window. Strife and wrangling have made

him rich, and he is thankful to his benefactor, and nourishes it. If he

live in a country village, he makes all his neighbours good subjects;

for there shall be nothing done but what there is law for. His business

gives him not leave to think of his conscience, and when the time, or

term, of his life is going out, for doomsday he is secure; for he hopes

he has a trick to reverse judgment.

A PARTIAL MAN
Is the opposite extreme to a defamer, for the one speaks ill falsely,

and the other well, and both slander the truth. He is one that is still

weighing men in the scale of comparisons, and puts his affections, in

the one balance, and that sways. His friend always shall do best, and

you shall rarely hear good of his enemy. He considers first the man and

then the thing, and restrains all merit to what they deserve of him.

Commendations he esteems not the debt of worth, but the requital of

kindness; and if you ask his reason, shows his interest, and tells you

how much he is beholden to that man. He is one that ties his judgment to

the wheel of fortune, and they determine giddily both alike. He prefers

England before other countries because he was born there, and Oxford

before other universities, because he was brought up there, and the best

scholar there is one of his own college, and the best scholar there is

one of his friends. He is a great favourer of great persons, and his

argument is still that which should be antecedent; as,--he is in high

place, therefore virtuous;--he is preferred, therefore worthy. Never ask

his opinion, for you shall hear but his faction, and he is indifferent

in nothing but conscience. Men esteem him for this a zealous

affectionate, but they mistake him many times, for he does it but to be

esteemed so. Of all men he is worst to write an history, for he will

praise a Sejanus or Tiberius, and for some petty respect of his all

posterity shall be cozened.

A TRUMPETER
Is the elephant with the great trunk, for he eats nothing but what comes

through this way. His profession is not so worthy as to occasion

insolence, and yet no man so much puffed up. His face is as brazen as

his trumpet, and (which is worse) as a fiddler ’ s, from whom he differeth

only in this, that his impudence is dearer. The sea of drink and much

wind make a storm perpetually in his cheeks, and his look is like his

noise, blustering and tempestuous. He was whilom the sound of war, but

now of peace; yet as terrible as ever, for wheresoever he comes they are

sure to pay for it. He is the common attendant of glittering folks,

whether in the court or stage, where he is always the prologue ’ s

prologue. [ 63 ] He is somewhat in the nature of a hogshead, shrillest when

he is empty; when his belly is full he is quiet enough. No man proves

life more to be a blast, or himself a bubble, and he is like a

counterfeit bankrupt, thrives best when he is blown up.

A VULGAR-SPIRITED MAN
Is one of the herd of the world. One that follows merely the common cry,

and makes it louder by one. A man that loves none but who are publickly

affected, and he will not be wiser than the rest of the town. That never

owns a friend after an ill name, or some general imputation, though he

knows it most unworthy. That opposes to reason, "thus men say;" and

"thus most do;" and "thus the world goes;" and thinks this enough to

poise the other. That worships men in place, and those only; and thinks

all a great man speaks oracles. Much taken with my lord ’ s jest, and

repeats you it all to a syllable. One that justifies nothing out of

fashion, nor any opinion out of the applauded way. That thinks certainly

all Spaniards and Jesuits very villains, and is still cursing the pope

and Spinola. One that thinks the gravest cassock the best scholar; and

the best clothes the finest man. That is taken only with broad and

obscene wit, and hisses any thing too deep for him. That cries, Chaucer

for his money above all our English poets, because the voice has gone

so, and he has read none. That is much ravished with such a nobleman ’ s

courtesy, and would venture his life for him, because he put off his

hat. One that is foremost still to kiss the king ’ s hand, and cries, "God

bless his majesty!" loudest. That rails on all men condemned and out of

favour, and the first that says "away with the traitors!"--yet struck

with much ruth at executions, and for pity to see a man die, could kill

the hangman. That comes to London to see it, and the pretty things in

it, and, the chief cause of his journey, the bears. That measures the

happiness of the kingdom by the cheapness of corn, and conceives no harm

of state, but ill trading. Within this compass too, come those that are

too much wedged into the world, and have no lifting thoughts above those

things; that call to thrive, to do well; and preferment only the grace

of God. That aim all studies at this mark, and show you poor scholars as

an example to take heed by. That think the prison and want a judgment

for some sin, and never like well hereafter of a jail-bird. That know no

other content but wealth, bravery, and the town-pleasures; that think

all else but idle speculation, and the philosophers madmen. In short,

men that are carried away with all outwardnesses, shows, appearances,

the stream, the people; for there is no man of worth but has a piece of

singularity, and scorns something.

A PLODDING STUDENT
Is a kind of alchymist or persecutor of nature, that would change the

dull lead of his brain into finer metal, with success many times as

unprosperous, or at least not quitting the cost, to wit, of his own oil

and candles. He has a strange forced appetite to learning, and to

achieve it brings nothing but patience and a body. His study is not

great but continual, and consists much in the sitting up till after

midnight in a rug-gown and a nightcap, to the vanquishing perhaps of

some six lines; yet what he has, he has perfect, for he reads it so long

to understand it, till he gets it without book. He may with much

industry make a breach into logic, and arrive at some ability in an

argument; but for politer studies he dare not skirmish with them, and

for poetry accounts it impregnable. His invention is no more than the

finding out of his papers, and his few gleanings there; and his

disposition of them is as just as the book-binder ’ s, a setting or gluing

of them together. He is a great discomforter of young students, by

telling them what travel it has cost him, and how often his brain turned

at philosophy, and makes others fear studying as a cause of duncery. He

is a man much given to apophthegms, which serve him for wit, and seldom

breaks any jest but which belonged to some Lacedemonian or Roman in

Lycosthenes. He is like a dull carrier ’ s horse, that will go a whole

week together, but never out of a foot pace; and he that sets forth on

the Saturday shall overtake him.

PAUL ’ S WALK
Is the land ’ s epitome, or you may call it the lesser isle of Great

Britain. It is more than this, the whole world ’ s map, which you may here

discern in its perfectest motion, justling and turning. It is a heap of

stones and men, with a vast confusion of languages; and were the steeple

not sanctified, nothing liker Babel. The noise in it is like that of

bees, a strange humming or buzz mixed of walking tongues and feet: it is

a kind of still roar or loud whisper. It is the great exchange of all

discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and a-foot.

It is the synod of all pates politick, jointed and laid together in most

serious posture, and they are not half so busy at the parliament. It is

the antic of tails to tails, and backs to backs, and for vizards you

need go no farther than faces. It is the market of young lecturers, whom

you may cheapen here at all rates and sizes. It is the general mint of

all famous lies, which are here like the legends of popery, first coined

and stamped in the church. All inventions are emptied here, and not few

pockets. The best sign of a temple in it is, that it is the thieves ’

sanctuary, which rob more safely in the crowd than a wilderness, whilst

every searcher is a bush to hide them. It is the other expence of the

day, after plays and tavern; and men have still some oaths left to swear

here. The visitants are all men without exceptions, but the principal

inhabitants and possessors are stale knights and captains [ 65 ] out of

service; men of long rapiers and breeches, which after all turn

merchants here and traffic for news. Some make it a preface to their

dinner, and travel for a stomach: but thriftier men make it their

ordinary, and board here very cheap [ 66 ]. Of all such places it is least

haunted with hobgoblins, for if a ghost would walk more, he could not.

A COOK.
The kitchen is his hell, and he the devil in it, where his meat and he

fry together. His revenues are showered down from the fat of the land,

and he interlards his own grease among, to help the drippings. Choleric

he is not by nature so much as his art, and it is a shrewd temptation

that the chopping-knife is so near. His weapons ofter offensive are a

mess of hot broth and scalding water, and woe be to him that comes in

his way. In the kitchen he will domineer and rule the roast in spite of

his master, and curses in the very dialect of his calling. His labour is

mere blustering and fury, and his speech like that of sailors in a

storm, a thousand businesses at once; yet, in all this tumult, he does

not love combustion, but will be the first man that shall go and quench

it. He is never a good Christian till a hissing pot of ale has slacked

him, like water cast on a firebrand, and for that time he is tame and

dispossessed. His cunning is not small in architecture, for he builds

strange fabrics in paste, towers and castles, which are offered to the

assault of valiant teeth, and like Darius ’ palace in one banquet

demolished. He is a pitiless murderer of innocents, and he mangles poor

fowls with unheard-of tortures; and it is thought the martyrs ’

persecutions were devised from hence: sure we are, St. Lawrence ’ s

gridiron came out of his kitchen. His best faculty is at the dresser,

where he seems to have great skill in the tactics, ranging his dishes in

order military, and placing with great discretion in the fore-front

meats more strong and hardy, and the more cold and cowardly in the rear;

as quaking tarts and quivering custards, and such milk-sop dishes, which

scape many times the fury of the encounter. But now the second course is

gone up and he down in the cellar, where he drinks and sleeps till four

o ’ clock [ 67 ] in the afternoon, and then returns again to his regiment.

A BOLD FORWARD MAN
Is a lusty fellow in a crowd, that is beholden more to his elbow than

his legs, for he does not go, but thrusts well. He is a good shuffler in

the world, wherein he is so oft putting forth, that at length he puts

on. He can do some things, but dare do much more, and is like a

desperate soldier, who will assault any thing where he is sure not to

enter. He is not so well opinioned of himself, as industrious to make

others, and thinks no vice so prejudicial as blushing. He is still

citing for himself, that a candle should not be hid under a bushel; and

for his part he will be sure not to hide his, though his candle be but a

snuff or rush-candle. Those few good parts he has, he is no niggard in

displaying, and is like some needy flaunting goldsmith, nothing in the

inner room, but all on the cupboard. If he be a scholar, he has commonly

stepped into the pulpit before a degree, yet into that too before he

deserved it. He never defers St. Mary ’ s beyond his regency, and his next

sermon is at Paul ’ s cross, [ 68 ] [ and that printed. ] He loves publick

things alive; and for any solemn entertainment he will find a mouth,

find a speech who will. He is greedy of great acquaintance and many, and

thinks it no small advancement to rise to be known. [ He is one that has

all the great names at court at his fingers ’ ends, and their lodgings;

and with a saucy, "my lord," will salute the best of them. ] His talk at

the table is like Benjamin ’ s mess, five times to his part, and no

argument shuts him out for a quarreller. Of all disgraces he endures not

to be nonplussed, and had rather fly for sanctuary to nonsense which few

descry, than to nothing, which all. His boldness is beholden to other

men ’ s modesty, which rescues him many times from a baffle; yet his face

is good armour, and he is dashed out of anything sooner than

countenance. Grosser conceits are puzzled in him for a rare man; and

wiser men, though they know him, [ yet ] take him [ in ] for their pleasure,

or as they would do a sculler for being next at hand. Thus preferment at

last stumbles on him, because he is still in the way. His companions

that flouted him before, now envy him, when they see him come ready for

scarlet, whilst themselves lie musty in their old clothes and colleges.

A BAKER.
No man verifies the proverb more, that it is an alms-deed to punish him;

for his penalty is a dole, [ 69 ] and does the beggars as much good as

their dinner. He abhors, therefore, works of charity, and thinks his

bread cast away when it is given to the poor. He loves not justice

neither, for the weigh-scale ’ s sake, and hates the clerk of the market

as his executioner; yet he finds mercy in his offences, and his basket

only is sent to prison. [ 70 ] Marry, a pillory is his deadly enemy, and he

never hears well after.

A PRETENDER TO LEARNING
Is one that would make all others more fools than himself, for though he

knew nothing, he would not have the world know so much. He conceits

nothing in learning but the opinion, which he seeks to purchase without

it, though he might with less labour cure his ignorance than hide it. He

is indeed a kind of scholar-mountebank, and his art our delusion. He is

tricked out in all the accoutrements of learning, and at the first

encounter none passes better. He is oftener in his study than at his

book, and you cannot pleasure him better than to deprehend him: yet he

hears you not till the third knock, and then comes out very angry as

interrupted. You find him in his _slippers_ [ 71 ] and a pen in his ear, in

which formality he was asleep. His table is spread wide with some

classick folio, which is as constant to it as the carpet, and hath laid

open in the same page this half year. His candle is always a longer

sitter up than himself, and the _boast_ [ 72 ] of his window at midnight.

He walks much alone in the posture of meditation, and has a book still

before his face in the fields. His pocket is seldom without a Greek

testament or Hebrew Bible, which he opens only in the church, and that

when some stander-by looks over. He has sentences for company, some

scatterings of Seneca and Tacitus, which are good upon all occasions. If

he reads any thing in the morning, it comes up all at dinner; and as

long as that lasts, the discourse is his. He is a great plagiary of

tavern wit, and comes to sermons only that he may talk of Austin. His

parcels are the mere scrapings from company, yet he complains at parting

what time he has lost. He is wondrously capricious to seem a judgment,

and listens with a sour attention to what he understands not. He talks

much of Scaliger, and Casaubon, and the Jesuits, and prefers some

unheard of Dutch name before them all. He has verses to bring in upon

these and these hints, and it shall go hard but he will wind in his

opportunity. He is critical in a language he cannot construe, and speaks

seldom under Arminius in divinity. His business and retirement and

caller away is his study, and he protests no delight to it comparable.

He is a great nomenclator of authors, which he has read in general in

the catalogue, and in particular in the title, and goes seldom so far as

the dedication. He never talks of anything but learning, and learns all

from talking. Three encounters with the same men pump him, and then he

only puts in or gravely says nothing. He has taken pains to be an ass,

though not to be a scholar, and is at length discovered and laughed at.

A HERALD
Is the spawn or indeed but the resultancy of nobility, and to the making

of him went not a generation but a genealogy. His trade is honour, and

he sells it and gives arms himself, though he be no gentleman. His

bribes are like those of a corrupt judge, for they are the prices of

blood. He seems very rich in discourse, for he tells you of whole fields

of gold and silver, or, and argent, worth much in French but in English

nothing. He is a great diver in the streams or issues of gentry, and hot

a by-channel or bastard escapes him; yea he does with them like some

shameless quean, fathers more children on them than ever they begot. His

traffick is a kind of pedlary-ware, scutchions, and pennons, and little

daggers and lions, such as children esteem and gentlemen; but his

pennyworths are rampant, for you may buy three whole brawns cheaper than

three boar ’ s heads of him painted. He was sometimes the terrible coat of

Mars, but is now for more merciful battles in the tilt-yard, where

whosoever is victorious, the spoils are his. He is an art in England but

in Wales nature, where they are born with heraldry in their mouths, and

each name is a pedigree.

THE COMMON SINGING-MEN IN CATHEDRAL CHURCHES
Are a bad society, and yet a company of good fellows, that roar deep in

the quire, deeper in the tavern. They are the eight parts of speech

which go to the syntaxis of service, and are distinguished by their

noises much like bells, for they make not a concert but a peal. Their

pastime or recreation is prayers, their exercise drinking, yet herein so

religiously addicted that they serve God oftest when they are drunk.

Their humanity is a leg to the residencer, their learning a chapter, for

they learn it commonly before they read it; yet the old Hebrew names are

little beholden to them, for they miscall them worse than one another.

Though they never expound the scripture, they handle it much, and

pollute the gospel with two things, their conversation and their thumbs.

Upon worky-days, they behave themselves at prayers as at their pots, for

they swallow them down in an instant. Their gowns are laced commonly

with streamings of ale, superfluities of a cup or throat above measure.

Their skill in melody makes them the better companions abroad, and their

anthems abler to sing catches. Long lived for the most part they are

not, especially the bass, they overflow their bank so oft to drown the

organs. Briefly, if they escape arresting, they die constantly in God ’ s

service; and to take their death with more patience, they have wine and

cakes at their funeral, and now they keep [ 73 ] the church a great deal

better and help to fill it with their bones as before with their noise.

A SHOPKEEPER.
His shop is his well stuft book, and himself the title-page of it, or

index. He utters much to all men, though he sells but to a few, and

intreats for his own necessities, by asking others what they lack. No

man speaks more and no more, for his words are like his wares, twenty of

one sort, and he goes over them alike to all comers. He is an arrogant

commender of his own things; for whatsoever he shows you is the best in

the town, though the worst in his shop. His conscience was a thing that

would have laid upon his hands, and he was forced to put it off, and

makes great use of honesty to profess upon. He tells you lies by rote,

and not minding, as the phrase to sell in and the language he spent most

of his years to learn. He never speaks so truly as when he says he would

use you as his brother; for he would abuse his brother, and in his shop

thinks it lawful. His religion is much in the nature of his customer ’ s,

and indeed the pander to it: and by a mis-interpreted sense of scripture

makes a gain of his godliness. He is your slave while you pay him ready

money, but if he once befriend you, your tyrant, and you had better

deserve his hate than his trust.

A BLUNT MAN
Is one whose wit is better pointed than his behaviour, and that coarse

and unpolished, not out of ignorance so much as humour. He is a great

enemy to the fine gentleman, and these things of compliment, and hates

ceremony in conversation, as the Puritan in religion. He distinguishes

not betwixt fair and double dealing, and suspects all smoothness for the

dress of knavery. He starts at the encounter of a salutation as an

assault, and beseeches you in choler to forbear your courtesy. He loves

not any thing in discourse that comes before the purpose, and is always

suspicious of a preface. Himself falls rudely still on his matter

without any circumstance, except he use an old proverb for an

introduction. He swears old out-of date innocent oaths, as, by the mass!

by our lady! and such like, and though there be lords present, he cries,

my masters! He is exceedingly in love with his humour, which makes him

always profess and proclaim it, and you must take what he says

patiently, because he is a plain man. His nature is his excuse still,

and other men ’ s tyrant; for he must speak his mind, and that is his

worst, and craves your pardon most injuriously for not pardoning you.

His jests best become him, because they come from him rudely and

unaffected; and he has the luck commonly to have them famous. He is one

that will do more than he will speak, and yet speak more than he will

hear; for though he love to touch others, he is touchy himself, and

seldom to his own abuses replies but with his fists. He is as

squeazy [ 74 ] of his commendations, as his courtesy, and his good word is

like an eulogy in a satire. He is generally better favoured than he

favours, as being commonly well expounded in his bitterness, and no man

speaks treason more securely. He chides great men with most boldness,

and is counted for it an honest fellow. He is grumbling much in behalf

of the commonwealth, and is in prison oft for it with credit. He is

generally honest, but more generally thought so, and his downrightness

credits him, as a man not well bended and crookened to the times. In

conclusion, he is not easily bad in whom this quality is nature, but the

counterfeit is most dangerous, since he is disguised in a humour that

professes not to disguise.

A HANDSOME HOSTESS
Is the fairer commendation of an inn, above the fair sign, or fair

lodgings. She is the loadstone that attracts men of iron, gallants and

roarers, where they cleave sometimes long, and are not easily got off.

Her lips are your welcome, and your entertainment her company, which is

put into the reckoning too, and is the dearest parcel in it. No

citizen ’ s wife is demurer than she at the first greeting, nor draws in

her mouth with a chaster simper; but you may be more familiar without

distaste, and she does not startle at anything. She is the confusion of

a pottle of sack more than would have been spent elsewhere, and her

little jugs are accepted to have her kiss excuse them. She may be an

honest woman, but is not believed so in her parish, and no man is a

greater infidel in it than her husband.

A CRITIC
Is one that has spelled over a great many books, and his observation is

the orthography. He is the surgeon of old authors, and heals the wounds

of dust and ignorance. He converses much in fragments and _desunt

multa ’ s_, and if he piece it up with two lines he is more proud of that

book than the author. He runs over all sciences to peruse their

syntaxis, and thinks all learning com-prised in writing Latin. He tastes

styles as some discreeter palates do wine; and tells you which is

genuine, which sophisticate and bastard. His own phrase is a miscellany

of old words, deceased long before the Caesars, and entombed by Varro,

and the modernest man he follows is Plautus. He writes _omneis_ at

length, and _quidquid_, and his gerund is most inconformable. He is a

troublesome vexer of the dead, which after so long sparing must rise up

to the judgment of his castigations. He is one that makes all books sell

dearer, whilst he swells them into folios with his comments.

A SERGEANT, OR CATCH-POLE
Is one of God ’ s judgments; and which our roarers do only conceive

terrible. He is the properest shape wherein they fancy Satan; for he is

at most but an arrester, and hell a dungeon. He is the creditors ’ hawk,

wherewith they seize upon flying birds, and fetch them again in his

talons. He is the period of young gentlemen, or their full stop, for

when he meets with them they can go no farther. His ambush is a

shop-stall, or close lane, and his assault is cowardly at your back. He

respites you in no place but a tavern, where he sells his minutes dearer

than a clockmaker. The common way to run from him is through him, which

is often attempted and atchieved, [[ 75 ] _and no man is more beaten out of

charity._ ] He is one makes the street more dangerous than the highways,

and men go better provided in their walks than their journey. He is the

first handsel of the young rapiers of the templers; and they are as

proud of his repulse as an Hungarian of killing a Turk. He is a moveable

prison, and his hands two manacles hard to be filed off. He is an

occasioner of disloyal thoughts in the commonwealth, for he makes men

hate the king ’ s name worse than the devil ’ s.

A UNIVERSITY DUN
Is a gentleman ’ s follower cheaply purchased, for his own money has hired

him. He is an inferior creditor of some ten shillings downwards,

contracted for horse-hire, or perchance for drink, too weak to be put in

suit, and he arrests your modesty. He is now very expensive of his time,

for he will wait upon your stairs a whole afternoon, and dance

attendance with more patience than a gentleman-usher. He is a sore

beleaguerer of chambers, and assaults them sometimes with furious

knocks; yet finds strong resistance commonly, and is kept out. He is a

great complainer of scholars loitering, for he is sure never to find

them within, and yet he is the chief cause many times that makes them

study. He grumbles at the ingratitude of men that shun him for his

kindness, but indeed it is his own fault, for he is too great an

upbraider. No man puts them more to their brain than he; and by shifting

him off they learn to shift in the world. Some chuse their rooms on

purpose to avoid his surprisals, and think the best commodity in them

his prospect. He is like a rejected acquaintance, hunts those that care

not for his company, and he knows it well enough, and yet will not keep

away. The sole place to supple him is the buttery, where he takes

grievous use upon your name, [ 76 ] and he is one much wrought with good

beer and rhetoric. He is a man of most unfortunate voyages, and no

gallant walks the streets to less purpose.

A STAID MAN
Is a man: one that has taken order with himself, and sets a rule to

those lawlessnesses within him: whose life is distinct and in method,

and his actions, as it were, cast up before: not loosed into the world ’ s

vanities, but gathered up and contracted in his station: not scattered

into many pieces of business, but that one course he takes, goes through

with. A man firm and standing in his purposes, not heaved off with each

wind and passion: that squares his expense to his coffers, and makes the

total first, and then the items. One that thinks what he does, and does

what he says, and foresees what he may do before he purposes. One whose

"if I can" is more than another ’ s assurance; and his doubtful tale

before some men ’ s protestations:--that is confident of nothing in

futurity, yet his conjectures oft true prophecies:--that makes a pause

still betwixt his ear and belief, and is not too hasty to say after

others. One whose tongue is strung up like a clock till the time, and

then strikes, and says much when he talks little:--that can see the

truth betwixt two wranglers, and sees them agree even in that they fall

out upon:--that speaks no rebellion in a bravery, or talks big from the

spirit of sack. A man cool and temperate in his passions, not easily

betrayed by his choler:--that vies not oath with oath, nor heat with

heat, but replies calmly to an angry man, and is too hard for him

too:--that can come fairly off from captains ’ companies, and neither

drink nor quarrel. One whom no ill hunting sends home discontented, and

makes him swear at his dogs and family. One not hasty to pursue the new

fashion, nor yet affectedly true to his old round breeches; but gravely

handsome, and to his place, which suits him better than his tailor:

active in the world without disquiet, and careful without misery; yet

neither engulfed in his pleasures, nor a seeker of business, but has his

hour for both. A man that seldom laughs violently, but his mirth is a

cheerful look: of a composed and settled countenance, not set, nor much

alterable with sadness of joy. He affects nothing so wholly, that he

must be a miserable man when he loses it; but fore-thinks what will come

hereafter, and spares fortune his thanks and curses. One that loves his

credit, not this word reputation; yet can save both without a duel.

Whose entertainments to greater men are respectful, not complimentary;

and to his friends plain, not rude. A good husband, father, master; that

is, without doting, pampering, familiarity. A man well poised in all

humours, in whom nature shewed most geometry, and he has not spoiled the

work. A man of more wisdom than wittiness, and brain than fancy; and

abler to any thing than to make verses.

A MODEST MAN
Is a far finer man than he knows of, one that shews better to all men

than himself, and so much the better to all men, as less to himself; [ 77 ]

for no quality sets a man off like this, and commends him more against

his will: and he can put up any injury sooner than this (as he calls it)

your irony. You shall hear him confute his commenders, and giving

reasons how much they are mistaken, and is angry almost if they do not

believe him. Nothing threatens him so much as great expectation, which

he thinks more prejudicial than your under-opinion, because it is easier

to make that false, than this true. He is one that sneaks from a good

action, as one that had pilfered, and dare not justify it; and is more

blushingly reprehended in this, than others in sin: that counts all

publick declarings of himself, but so many penances before the people;

and the more you applaud him the more you abash him, and he recovers not

his face a month after. One that is easy to like any thing of another

man ’ s, and thinks all he knows not of him better than that he knows. He

excuses that to you, which another would impute; and if you pardon him,

is satisfied. One that stands in no opinion because it is his own, but

suspects it rather, because it is his own, and is confuted and thanks

you. He sees nothing more willingly than his errors, and it is his error

sometimes to be too soon persuaded. He is content to be auditor where he

only can speak, and content to go away and think himself instructed. No

man is so weak that he is ashamed to learn of, and is less ashamed to

confess it; and he finds many times even in the dust, what others

overlook and lose. Every man ’ s presence is a kind of bridle to him, to

stop the roving of his tongue and passions: and even impudent men look

for this reverence from him, and distaste that in him which they suffer

in themselves, as one in whom vice is ill-favoured and shews more

scurvily than another. An unclean jest shall shame him more than a

bastard another man, and he that got it shall censure him among the

rest. He is coward to nothing more than an ill tongue, and whosoever

dare lie on him hath power over him; and if you take him by his look, he

is guilty. The main ambition of his life is not to be discredited; and

for other things, his desires are more limited than his fortunes, which

he thinks preferment though never so mean, and that he is to do

something to deserve this. He is too tender to venture on great places,

and would not hurt a dignity to help himself: If he do, it was the

violence of his friends constrained him, how hardly soever he obtain it

he was harder persuaded to seek it.

A MERE EMPTY WIT
Is like one that spends on the stock without any revenues coming in, and

will shortly be no wit at all; for learning is the fuel to the fire of

wit, which, if it wants this feeding, eats out itself. A good conceit or

two bates of such a man, and makes a sensible weakening in him; and his

brain recovers it not a year after. The rest of him are bubbles and

flashes, darted out on a sudden, which, if you take them while they are

warm, may be laughed at; if they are cool, are nothing. He speaks best

on the present apprehension, for meditation stupefies him, and the more

he is in travail, the less he brings forth. His things come off then, as

in a nauseateing stomach, where there is nothing to cast up, strains and

convulsions, and some astonishing bombast, which men only, till they

understand, are scared with. A verse or some such work he may sometimes

get up to, but seldom above the stature of an epigram, and that with

some relief out of Martial, which is the ordinary companion of his

pocket, and he reads him as he were inspired. Such men are commonly the

trifling things of the world, good to make merry the company, and whom

only men have to do withal when they have nothing to do, and none are

less their friends than who are most their company. Here they vent

themselves over a cup somewhat more lastingly; all their words go for

jests, and all their jests for nothing. They are nimble in the fancy of

some ridiculous thing, and reasonable good in the expression. Nothing

stops a jest when it ’ s coming, neither friends, nor danger, but it must

out howsoever, though their blood come out after, and then they

emphatically rail, and are emphatically beaten, and commonly are men

reasonable familiar to this. Briefly they are such whose life is but to

laugh and be laughed at; and only wits in jest and fools in earnest.

A DRUNKARD
Is one that will be a man to-morrow morning, but is now what you will

make him, for he is in the power of the next man, and if a friend the

better. One that hath let go himself from the hold and stay of reason,

and lies open to the mercy of all temptations. No lust but finds him

disarmed and fenceless, and with the least assault enters. If any

mischief escape him, it was not his fault, for he was laid as fair for

it as he could. Every man sees him, as Cham saw his father the first of

this sin, an uncovered man, and though his garment be on, uncovered; the

secretest parts of his soul lying in the nakedest manner visible: all

his passions come out now, all his vanities, and those shamefuller

humours which discretion clothes. His body becomes at last like a miry

way, where the spirits are beclogged and cannot pass: all his members

are out of office, and his heels do but trip up one another. He is a

blind man with eyes, and a cripple with legs on. All the use he has of

this vessel himself, is to hold thus much; for his drinking is but a

scooping in of so many quarts, which are filled out into his body, and

that filled out again into the room, which is commonly as drunk as he.

Tobacco serves to air him after a washing, and is his only breath and

breathing while. He is the greatest enemy to himself, and the next to

his friend, and then most in the act of his kindness, for his kindness

is but trying a mastery, who shall sink down first: and men come from

him as a battle, wounded and bound up. Nothing takes a man off more from

his credit, and business, and makes him more recklessly careless what

becomes of all. Indeed he dares not enter on a serious thought, or if he

do, it is such melancholy that it sends him to be drunk again.

A PRISON
Is the grave of the living, [ 78 ] where they are shut up from the world

and their friends; and the worms that gnaw upon them their own thoughts

and the jailor. A house of meagre looks and ill smells, for lice, drink,

and tobacco are the compound. Plato ’ s court was expressed from this

fancy; and the persons are much about the same parity that is there. You

may ask, as Menippus in Lucian, which is Nireus, which Thersites, which

the beggar, which the knight;--for they are all suited in the same form

of a kind of nasty poverty. Only to be out at elbows is in fashion here,

and a great indecorum not to be thread-bare. Every man shews here like

so many wrecks upon the sea, here the ribs of a thousand pound, here the

relicks of so many manors, a doublet without buttons; and ’ tis a

spectacle of more pity than executions are. The company one with the

other is but a vying of complaints, and the causes they have to rail on

fortune and fool themselves, and there is a great deal of good

fellowship in this. They are commonly, next their creditors, most bitter

against the lawyers, as men that have had a great stroke in assisting

them hither. Mirth here is stupidity or hardheartedness, yet they feign

it sometimes to slip melancholy, and keep off themselves from

themselves, and the torment of thinking what they have been. Men huddle

up their life here as a thing of no use, and wear it out like an old

suit, the faster the better; and he that deceives the time best, best

spends it. It is the place where new comers are most welcomed, and, next

them, ill news, as that which extends their fellowship in misery, and

leaves few to insult:--and they breath their discontents more securely

here, and have their tongues at more liberty than abroad. Men see here

much sin and much calamity; and where the last does not mortify, the

other hardens; as those that are worse here, are desperately worse, and

those from whom the horror of sin is taken off and the punishment

familiar: and commonly a hard thought passes on all that come from this

school; which though it teach much wisdom, it is too late, and with

danger: and it is better be a fool than come here to learn it.

A SERVING MAN
Is one of the makings up of a gentleman as well as his clothes, and

somewhat in the same nature, for he is cast behind his master as

fashionably as his sword and cloak are, and he is but _in querpo_ [ 79 ]

without him. His properness [ 80 ] qualifies him, and of that a good leg;

for his head he has little use but to keep it bare. A good dull wit best

suits with him to comprehend commonsense and a trencher; for any greater

store of brain it makes him but tumultuous, and seldom thrives with him.

He follows his master ’ s steps, as well in conditions as the street: if

he wench or drink, he comes him in an under kind, and thinks it a part

of his duty to be like him. He is indeed wholly his master ’ s; of his

faction,--of his cut,--of his pleasures:--he is handsome for his credit,

and drunk for his credit, and if he have power in the cellar, commands

the parish. He is one that keeps the best company, and is none of it;

for he knows all the gentlemen his master knows, and picks from thence

some hawking and horse-race terms, [ 81 ] which he swaggers with in the

ale-house, where he is only called master. His mirth is evil jests with

the wenches, and, behind the door, evil earnest. The best work he does

is his marrying, for it makes an honest woman, and if he follows in it

his master ’ s direction, it is commonly the best service he does him.

AN INSOLENT MAN
Is a fellow newly great and newly proud; one that hath put himself into

another face upon his preferment, for his own was not bred to it; one

whom fortune hath shot up to some office or authority, and he shoots up

his neck to his fortune, and will not bate you an inch of either. His

very countenance and gesture bespeak how much he is, and if you

understand him not, he tells you, and concludes every period with his

place, which you must and shall know. He is one that looks on all men as

if he were angry, but especially on those of his acquaintance, whom he

beats off with a surlier distance, as men apt to mistake him, because

they have known him: and for this cause he knows not you ’ till you have

told him your name, which he thinks he has heard, but forgot, and with

much ado seems to recover. If you have any thing to use him in, you are

his vassal for that time, and must give him the patience of any injury,

which he does only to shew what he may do. He snaps you up bitterly,

because he will be offended, and tells you, you are saucy and

troublesome, and sometimes takes your money in this language. His very

courtesies are intolerable, they are done with such an arrogance and

imputation; and he is the only man you may hate after a good turn, and

not be ungrateful; and men reckon it among their calamities to be

beholden unto him. No vice draws with it a more general hostility, and

makes men readier to search into his faults, and of them, his beginning;

and no tale so unlikely but is willingly heard of him and believed. And

commonly such men are of no merit at all, but make out in pride what

they want in worth, and fence themselves with a stately kind of

behaviour from that contempt which would pursue them. They are men whose

preferment does us a great deal of wrong, and when they are down, we may

laugh at them without breach of good-nature.

ACQUAINTANCE
Is the first draught of a friend, whom we must lay down oft thus, as the

foul copy, before we can write him perfect and true: for from hence, as

from a probation, men take a degree in our respect, till at last they

wholly possess us: for acquaintance is the hoard, and friendship the

pair chosen out of it; by which at last we begin to impropriate and

inclose to ourselves what before lay in common with others. And commonly

where it grows not up to this, it falls as low as may be; and no poorer

relation than old acquaintance, of whom we only ask how they do for

fashion ’ s sake, and care not. The ordinary use of acquaintance is but

somewhat a more boldness of society, a sharing of talk, news, drink,

mirth together; but sorrow is the right of a friend, as a thing nearer

our heart, and to be delivered with it. Nothing easier than to create

acquaintance, the mere being in company once does it; whereas

friendship, like children, is engendered by a more inward mixture and

coupling together; when we are acquainted not with their virtues only,

but their faults, their passions, their fears, their shame.--and are

bold on both sides to make their discovery. And as it is in the love of

the body, which is then at the height and full when it has power and

admittance into the hidden and worst parts of it; so it is in friendship

with the mind, when those _verenda_ of the soul, and those things which

we dare not shew the world, are bare and detected one to another.

Some men are familiar with all, and those commonly friends to none; for

friendship is a sullener thing, is a contractor and taker up of our

affections to some few, and suffers them not loosely to be scattered on

all men. The poorest tie of acquaintance is that of place and country,

which are shifted as the place, and missed but while the fancy of that

continues. These are only then gladdest of other, when they meet in some

foreign region, where the encompassing of strangers unites them closer,

till at last they get new, and throw off one another. Men of parts and

eminency, as their acquaintance is more sought for, so they are

generally more staunch of it, not out of pride only, but fear to let too

many in too near them: for it is with men as with pictures, the best

show better afar off and at distance, and the closer you come to them

the coarser they are. The best judgment of a man is taken from his

acquaintance, for friends and enemies are both partial; whereas these

see him truest because calmest, and are no way so engaged to lie for

him. And men that grow strange after acquaintance seldom piece together

again, as those that have tasted meat and dislike it, out of a mutual

experience disrelishing one another.

A MERE COMPLIMENTAL MAN
Is one to be held off still at the same distance you are now; for you

shall have him but thus, and if you enter on him farther you lose him.

Methinks Virgil well expresses him in those well-behaved ghosts that

AEneas met with, that were friends to talk with, and men to look on, but

if he grasped them, but air. [ 82 ] He is one that lies kindly to you, and

for good fashion ’ s sake, and ’ tis discourtesy in you to believe him. His

words are so many fine phrases set together, which serve equally for all

men, and are equally to no purpose. Each fresh encounter with a man puts

him to the same part again, and he goes over to you what he said to him

was last with him: he kisses your hands as he kissed his before, and is

your servant to be commanded, but you shall intreat of him nothing. His

proffers are universal and general, with exceptions against all

particulars. He will do any thing for you, but if you urge him to this,

he cannot, or to that, he is engaged; but he will do any thing. Promises

he accounts but a kind of mannerly words, and in the expectation of your

manners not to exact them: if you do, he wonders at your ill breeding,

that cannot distinguish betwixt what is spoken and what is meant. No man

gives better satisfaction at the first, and comes off more with the

elegy of a kind gentleman, till you know him better, and then you know

him for nothing. And commonly those most rail at him, that have before

most commended him. The best is, he cozens you in a fair manner, and

abuses you with great respect.

A POOR FIDDLER
Is a man and a fiddle out of case, and he in worse case than his fiddle.

One that rubs two sticks together (as the Indians strike fire), and rubs

a poor living out of it; partly from this, and partly from your charity,

which is more in the hearing than giving him, for he sells nothing

dearer than to be gone. He is just so many strings above a beggar,

though he have but two; and yet he begs too, only not in the downright

’ for God ’ s sake, ’ but with a shrugging ’ God bless you, ’ and his face is

more pined than the blind man ’ s. Hunger is the greatest pain he takes,

except a broken head sometimes, and the labouring John Dory. [ 83 ]

Otherwise his life is so many fits of mirth, and ’ tis some mirth to see

him. A good feast shall draw him five miles by the nose, and you shall

track him again by the scent. His other pilgrimages are fairs and good

houses, where his devotion is great to the Christmas; and no man loves

good times better. He is in league with the tapsters for the worshipful

of the inn, whom he torments next morning with his art, and has their

names more perfect than their men. A new song is better to him than a

new jacket, especially if bawdy, which he calls merry; and hates

naturally the puritan, as an enemy to this mirth. A country wedding and

Whitsun-ale are the two main places he domineers in, where he goes for a

musician, and overlooks the bag-pipe. The rest of him is drunk, and in

the stocks.

A MEDDLING MAN
Is one that has nothing to do with his business, and yet no man busier

than he, and his business is most in his face. He is one thrusts himself

violently into all employments, unsent for, unfeed, and many times

unthanked; and his part in it is only an eager bustling, that rather

keeps ado than does any thing. He will take you aside, and question you

of your affair, and listen with both ears, and look earnestly, and then

it is nothing so much yours as his. He snatches what you are doing out

of your hands, and cries "give it me," and does it worse, and lays an

engagement upon you too, and you must thank him for this pains. He lays

you down an hundred wild plots, all impossible things, which you must be

ruled by perforce, and he delivers them with a serious and counselling

forehead; and there is a great deal more wisdom in this forehead than

his head. He will woo for you, solicit for you, and woo you to suffer

him; and scarce any thing done, wherein his letter, or his journey, or

at least himself is not seen: if he have no task in it else, he will

rail yet on some side, and is often beaten when he need not. Such men

never thoroughly weigh any business, but are forward only to shew their

zeal, when many times this forwardness spoils it, and then they cry they

have done what they can, that is, as much hurt. Wise men still deprecate

these men ’ s kindnesses, and are beholden to them rather to let them

alone; as being one trouble more in all business, and which a man shall

be hardest rid of.

A GOOD OLD MAN
Is the best antiquity, and which we may with least vanity admire. One

whom time hath been thus long a working, and like winter fruit, ripened

when others are shaken down. He hath taken out as many lessons of the

world as days, and learnt the best thing in it; the vanity of it. He

looks over his former life as a danger well past, and would not hazard

himself to begin again. His lust was long broken before his body, yet he

is glad this temptation is broke too, and that he is fortified from it

by this weakness. The next door of death sads him not, but he expects it

calmly as his turn in nature; and fears more his recoiling back to

childishness than dust. All men look on him as a common father, and on

old age, for his sake, as a reverent thing. His very presence and face

puts vice out of countenance, and makes it an indecorum in a vicious

man. He practises his experience on youth without the harshness of

reproof, and in his counsel is good company. He has some old stories

still of his own seeing to confirm what he says, and makes them better

in the telling; yet is not troublesome neither with the same tale again,

but remembers with them how oft he has told them. His old sayings and

morals seem proper to his beard; and the poetry of Cato does well out of

his mouth, and he speaks it as if he were the author. He is not apt to

put the boy on a younger man, nor the fool on a boy, but can distinguish

gravity from a sour look; and the less testy he is, the more regarded.

You must pardon him if he like his own times better than these, because

those things are follies to him now that were wisdom then; yet he makes

us of that opinion too when we see him, and conjecture those times by so

good a relic. He is a man capable of a dearness with the youngest men,

yet he not youthfuller for them, but they older for him; and no man

credits more his acquaintance. He goes away at last too soon whensoever,

with all men ’ s sorrow but his own; and his memory is fresh, when it is

twice as old.

A FLATTERER
Is the picture of a friend, and as pictures flatter many times, so he

oft shews fairer than the true substance: his look, conversation,

company, and all the outwardness of friendship more pleasing by odds,

for a true friend dare take the liberty to be sometimes offensive,

whereas he is a great deal more cowardly, and will not let the least

hold go, for fear of losing you. Your mere sour look affrights him, and

makes him doubt his cashiering. And this is one sure mark of him, that

he is never first angry, but ready though upon his own wrong to make

satisfaction. Therefore he is never yoked with a poor man, or any that

stands on the lower ground, but whose fortunes may tempt his pains to

deceive him. Him he learns first, and learns well, and grows perfecter

in his humours than himself, and by this door enters upon his soul, of

which he is able at last to take the very print and mark, and fashion

his own by it, like a false key to open all your secrets. All his

affections jump [ 84 ] even with yours; he is before-hand with your

thoughts, and able to suggest them unto you. He will commend to you

first what he knows you like, and has always some absurd story or other

of your enemy, and then wonders how your two opinions should jump in

that man. He will ask your counsel sometimes as a man of deep judgment,

and has a secret of purpose to disclose to you, and, whatsoever you say,

is persuaded. He listens to your words with great attention, and

sometimes will object that you may confute him, and then protests he

never heard so much before. A piece of wit bursts him with an

overflowing laughter, and he remembers it for you to all companies, and

laughs again in the telling. He is one never chides you but for your

virtues, as, _you are too good, too honest, too religious_, when his

chiding may seem but the earnester commendation, and yet would fain

chide you out of them too; for your vice is the thing he has use of, and

wherein you may best use him; and he is never more active than in the

worst diligences. Thus, at last, he possesses you from yourself, and

then expects but his hire to betray you: and it is a happiness not to

discover him; for as long as you are happy, you shall not.

A HIGH-SPIRITED MAN
Is one that looks like a proud man, but is not: you may forgive him his

looks for his worth ’ s sake, for they are only too proud to be base. One

whom no rate can buy off from the least piece of his freedom, and make

him digest an unworthy thought an hour. He cannot crouch to a great man

to possess him, nor fall low to the earth to rebound never so high

again. He stands taller on his own bottom, than others on the advantage

ground of fortune, as having solidly that honour of which title is but

the pomp. He does homage to no man for his great style ’ s sake, but is

strictly just in the exaction of respect again, and will not bate you a

compliment. He is more sensible of a neglect than an undoing, and scorns

no man so much as his surly threatener. A man quickly fired, and quickly

laid down with satisfaction, but remits any injury sooner than words:

only to himself he is irreconcileable, whom he never forgives a

disgrace, but is still stabbing himself with the thought of it, and no

disease that he dies of sooner. He is one had rather perish than be

beholden for his life, and strives more to quit with his friend than his

enemy. Fortune may kill him but not deject him, nor make him fall into

an humbler key than before, but he is now loftier than ever in his own

defence; you shall hear him talk still after thousands, and he becomes

it better than those that have it. One that is above the world and its

drudgery, and cannot pull down his thoughts to the pelting businesses of

life. He would sooner accept the gallows than a mean trade, or anything

that might disparage the height of man in him, and yet thinks no death

comparably base to hanging neither. One that will do nothing upon

command, though he would do it otherwise; and if ever he do evil, it is

when he is dared to it. He is one that if fortune equal his worth puts a

lustre in all preferment; but if otherwise he be too much crossed, turns

desperately melancholy, and scorns mankind.

A MERE GULL CITIZEN
Is one much about the same model and pitch of brain that the clown is,

only of somewhat a more polite and finical ignorance, and as sillily

scorns him as he is sillily admired by him. The quality of the city hath

afforded him some better dress of clothes and language, which he uses to

the best advantage, and is so much the more ridiculous. His chief

education is the visits of his shop, where if courtiers and fine ladies

resort, he is infected with so much more eloquence, and if he catch one

word extraordinary, wears it forever. You shall hear him mince a

compliment sometimes that was never made for him; and no man pays dearer

for good words,--for he is oft paid with them. He is suited rather fine

than in the fashion, and has still something to distinguish him from a

gentleman, though his doublet cost more; especially on Sundays,

bridegroom-like, where he carries the state of a very solemn man, and

keeps his pew as his shop; and it is a great part of his devotion to

feast the minister. But his chiefest guest is a customer, which is the

greatest relation he acknowledges, especially if you be an honest

gentleman, that is trust him to cozen you enough. His friendships are a

kind of gossiping friendships, and those commonly within the circle of

his trade, wherein he is careful principally to avoid two things, that

is poor men and suretyships. He is a man will spend his sixpence with a

great deal of imputation, [ 85 ] and no man makes more of a pint of wine

than he. He is one bears a pretty kind of foolish love to scholars, and

to Cambridge especially for Sturbridge [ 86 ] fair ’ s sake; and of these all

are truants to him that are not preachers, and of these the loudest the

best; and he is much ravished with the noise of a rolling tongue. He

loves to hear discourses out of his element, and the less he understands

the better pleased, which he expresses in a smile and some fond

protestation. One that does nothing without his chuck, [ 87 ] that is his

wife, with whom he is billing still in conspiracy, and the wantoner she

is, the more power she has over him; and she never stoops so low after

him, but is the only woman goes better of a widow than a maid. In the

education of his child no man fearfuller, and the danger he fears is a

harsh school-master, to whom he is alledging still the weakness of the

boy, and pays a fine extraordinary for his mercy. The first whipping

rids him to the university, and from thence rids him again for fear of

starving, and the best he makes of him is some gull in plush. He is one

loves to hear the famous acts of citizens, whereof the gilding of the

cross [ 88 ] he counts the glory of this age, and the four [ 89 ] prentices of

London above all the nine [ 90 ] worthies. He intitles himself to all the

merits of his company, whether schools, hospitals, or exhibitions, in

which he is joint benefactor, though four hundred years ago, and

upbraids them far more than those that gave them: yet with all this

folly he has wit enough to get wealth, and in that a sufficienter man

than he that is wiser.

A LASCIVIOUS MAN
Is the servant he says of many mistresses, but all are but his lust, to

which only he is faithful, and none besides, and spends his best blood

and spirits in the service. His soul is the bawd to his body, and those

that assist him in this nature the nearest to it. No man abuses more the

name of love, or those whom he applies this name to; for his love is

like his stomach to feed on what he loves, and the end of it to surfeit

and loath, till a fresh appetite rekindle him; and it kindles on any

sooner than who deserve best of him. There is a great deal of malignity

in this vice, for it loves still to spoil the best things, and a virgin

sometimes rather than beauty, because the undoing here is greater, and

consequently his glory. No man laughs more at his sin than he, or is so

extremely tickled with the remembrance of it; and he is more violence to

a modest ear than to her he defloured. An unclean jest enters deep into

him, and whatsoever you speak he will draw to lust, and his wit is never

so good as here. His unchastest part is his tongue, for that commits

always what he must act seldomer; and that commits with all what he acts

with few; for he is his own worst reporter, and men believe as bad of

him, and yet do not believe him. Nothing harder to his persuasion than a

chaste man; and makes a scoffing miracle at it, if you tell him of a

maid. And from this mistrust it is that such men fear marriage, or at

least marry such as are of bodies to be trusted, to whom only they sell

that lust which they buy of others, and make their wife a revenue to

their mistress. They are men not easily reformed, because they are so

little ill-persuaded of their illness, and have such pleas from man and

nature. Besides it is a jeering and flouting vice, and apt to put jests

on the reprover. Their disease only converts them, and that only when it

kills them.

A RASH MAN
Is a man too quick for himself; one whose actions put a leg still before

his judgement, and out-run it. Every hot fancy or passion is the signal

that sets him forward, and his reason comes still in the rear. One that

has brain enough, but not patience to digest a business, and stay the

leisure of a second thought. All deliberation is to him a kind of sloth

and freezing of action, and it shall burn him rather than take cold. He

is always resolved at first thinking, and the ground he goes upon is,

_hap what may_. Thus he enters not, but throws himself violently upon

all things, and for the most part is as violently upon all off again;

and as an obstinate _"I will"_ was the preface to his undertaking, so

his conclusion is commonly _"I would I had not;"_ for such men seldom do

anything that they are not forced to take in pieces again, and are so

much farther off from doing it, as they have done already. His friends

are with him as his physician, sought to only in his sickness and

extremity, and to help him out of that mire he has plunged himself into;

for in the suddenness of his passions he would hear nothing, and now his

ill success has allayed him he hears too late. He is a man still swayed

with the first reports, and no man more in the power of a pick-thank

than he. He is one will fight first, and then expostulate, condemn

first, and then examine. He loses his friend in a fit of quarrelling,

and in a fit of kindness undoes himself; and then curses the occasion

drew this mischief upon him, and cries God mercy for it, and curses

again. His repentance is merely a rage against himself, and he does

something in itself to be repented again. He is a man whom fortune must

go against much to make him happy, for had he been suffered his own way,

he had been undone.

AN AFFECTED MAN
Is an extraordinary man in ordinary things. One that would go a strain

beyond himself, and is taken in it. A man that overdoes all things with

great solemnity of circumstance; and whereas with more negligence he

might pass better, makes himself with a great deal of endeavour

ridiculous. The fancy of some odd quaintnesses have put him clean beside

his nature; he cannot be that he would, and hath lost what he was. He is

one must be point-blank in every trifle, as if his credit and opinion

hung upon it; the very space of his arms in an embrace studied before

and premeditated, and the figure of his countenance of a fortnight ’ s

contriving; he will not curse you without-book and extempore, but in

some choice way, and perhaps as some great man curses. Every action of

his cries,--"_Do ye mark me?_" and men do mark him how absurd he is: for

affectation is the most betraying humour, and nothing that puzzles a man

less to find out than this. All the actions of his life are like so many

things bodged in without any natural cadence or connection at all. You

shall track him all through like a school-boy ’ s theme, one piece from

one author and this from another, and join all in this general, that

they are none of his own. You shall observe his mouth not made for that

tone, nor his face for that simper; and it is his luck that his finest

things most misbecome him. If he affect the gentleman as the humour most

commonly lies that way, not the least punctilio of a fine man, but he is

strict in to a hair, even to their very negligences, which he cons as

rules. He will not carry a knife with him to wound reputation, and pay

double a reckoning, rather than ignobly question it: and he is full of

this--ignobly--and nobly--and genteely; and this mere fear to trespass

against the genteel way puts him out most of all. It is a humour runs

through many things besides, but is an ill-favoured ostentation in all,

and thrives not:--and the best use of such men is, they are good parts

in a play.

A PROFANE MAN
Is one that denies God as far as the law gives him leave; that is, only

does not say so in downright terms, for so far he may go. A man that

does the greatest sins calmly, and as the ordinary actions of life, and

as calmly discourses of it again. He will tell you his business is to

break such a commandment, and the breaking of the commandment shall

tempt him to it. His words are but so many vomitings cast up to the

loathsomeness of the hearers, only those of his company [ 91 ] loath it

not. He will take upon him with oaths to pelt some tenderer man out of

his company, and makes good sport at his conquest over the puritan fool.

The Scripture supplies him for jests, and he reads it on purpose to be

thus merry: he will prove you his sin out of the Bible, and then ask if

you will not take that authority. He never sees the church but of

purpose to sleep in it, or when some silly man preaches, with whom he

means to make sport, and is most jocund in the church. One that

nick-names clergymen with all the terms of reproach, as "_rat,

black-coat_" and the like; which he will be sure to keep up, and never

calls them by other: that sings psalms when he is drunk, and cries "_God

mercy_" in mockery, for he must do it. He is one seems to dare God in

all his actions, but indeed would out-dare the opinion of Him, which

would else turn him desperate; for atheism is the refuge of such

sinners, whose repentance would be only to hang themselves.

A COWARD
Is the man that is commonly most fierce against the coward, and

labouring to take off this suspicion from himself; for the opinion of

valour is a good protection to those that dare not use it. No man is

valianter than he is in civil company, and where he thinks no danger may

come on it, and is the readiest man to fall upon a drawer and those that

must not strike again: wonderful exceptious and cholerick where he sees

men are loth to give him occasion, and you cannot pacify him better than

by quarrelling with him. The hotter you grow, the more temperate man is

he; he protests he always honoured you, and the more you rail upon him,

the more he honours you, and you threaten him at last into a very honest

quiet man. The sight of a sword wounds him more sensibly than the

stroke, for before that come he is dead already. Every man is his master

that dare beat him, and every man dares that knows him. And he that dare

do this is the only man can do much with him; for his friend he cares

not for, as a man that carries no such terror as his enemy, which for

this cause only is more potent with him of the two: and men fall out

with him of purpose to get courtesies from him, and be bribed again to a

reconcilement. A man in whom no secret can be bound up, for the

apprehension of each danger loosens him, and makes him bewray both the

room and it. He is a Christian merely for fear of hell-fire; and if any

religion could fright him more, would be of that.

A SORDID RICH MAN
Is a beggar of a fair estate, of whose wealth we may say as of other

men ’ s unthriftiness, that it has brought him to this: when he had

nothing he lived in another kind of fashion. He is a man whom men hate

in his own behalf for using himself thus, and yet, being upon himself,

it is but justice, for he deserves it. Every accession of a fresh heap

bates him so much of his allowance, and brings him a degree nearer

starving. His body had been long since desperate, but for the reparation

of other men ’ s tables, where he hoards meats in his belly for a month,

to maintain him in hunger so long. His clothes were never young in our

memory; you might make long epochas from them, and put them into the

almanack with the dear year [ 92 ] and the great frost, [ 93 ] and he is known

by them longer than his face. He is one never gave alms in his life, and

yet is as charitable to his neighbour as himself. He will redeem a penny

with his reputation, and lose all his friends to boot; and his reason

is, he will not be undone. He never pays anything but with strictness of

law, for fear of which only he steals not. He loves to pay short a

shilling or two in a great sum, and is glad to gain that when he can no

more. He never sees friend but in a journey to save the charges of an

inn, and then only is not sick; and his friends never see him but to

abuse him. He is a fellow indeed of a kind of frantic thrift, and one of

the strangest things that wealth can work.

A MERE GREAT MAN
Is so much heraldry without honour, himself less real than his title.

His virtue is, that he was his father ’ s son, and all the expectation of

him to beget another. A man that lives merely to preserve another ’ s

memory, and let us know who died so many years ago. One of just as much

use as his images, only he differs in this, that he can speak himself,

and save the fellow of Westminster [ 94 ] a labour: and he remembers

nothing better than what was out of his life. His grandfathers and their

acts are his discourse, and he tells them with more glory than they did

them; and it is well they did enough, or else he had wanted matter. His

other studies are his sports and those vices that are fit for great men.

Every vanity of his has his officer, and is a serious employment for his

servants. He talks loud, and uncleanly, and scurvily as a part of state,

and they hear him with reverence. All good qualities are below him, and

especially learning, except some parcels of the chronicle and the

writing of his name, which he learns to write not to be read. He is

merely of his servants ’ faction, and their instrument for their friends

and enemies, and is always least thanked for his own courtesies. They

that fool him most do most with him, and he little thinks how many laugh

at him bare-head. No man is kept in ignorance more of himself and men,

for he hears naught but flattery; and what is fit to be spoken, truth,

with so much preface that it loses itself. Thus he lives till his tomb

be made ready, and is then a grave statue to posterity.

A POOR MAN
Is the most impotent man, though neither blind nor lame, as wanting the

more necessary limbs of life, without which limbs are a burden. A man

unfenced and unsheltered from the gusts of the world, which blow all in

upon him, like an unroofed house; and the bitterest thing he suffers is

his neighbours. All men put on to him a kind of churlisher fashion, and

even more plausible natures are churlish to him, as who are nothing

advantaged by his opinion. Men fall out with him before-hand to prevent

friendship, and his friends too to prevent engagements, or if they own

him ’ tis in private and a by-room, and on condition not to know them

before company. All vice put together is not half so scandalous, nor

sets off our acquaintance farther; and even those that are not friends

for ends do not love any dearness with such men. The least courtesies

are upbraided to him, and himself thanked for none, but his best

services suspected as handsome sharking and tricks to get money. And we

shall observe it in knaves themselves, that your beggarliest knaves are

the greatest, or thought so at least, for those that have wit to thrive

by it have art not to seem so. Now a poor man has not vizard enough to

mask his vices, nor ornament enough to set forth his virtues, but both

are naked and unhandsome; and though no man is necessitated to more ill,

yet no man ’ s ill is less excused, but it is thought a kind of impudence

in him to be vicious, and a presumption above his fortune. His good

parts lie dead upon his hands, for want of matter to employ them, and at

the best are not commended but pitied, as virtues ill placed, and we may

say of him, "Tis an honest man, but tis pity;" and yet those that call

him so will trust a knave before him. He is a man that has the truest

speculation of the world, because all men shew to him in their plainest

and worst, as a man they have no plot on, by appearing good to; whereas

rich men are entertained with a more holiday behaviour, and see only the

best we can dissemble. He is the only he that tries the true strength of

wisdom, what it can do of itself without the help of fortune; that with

a great deal of virtue conquers extremities; and with a great deal more;

his own impatience, and obtains of himself not to hate men.

AN ORDINARY HONEST MAN
Is one whom it concerns to be called honest, for if he were not this, he

were nothing: and yet he is not this neither, but a good dull vicious

fellow, that complies well with the debauchments of the time, and is fit

for it. One that has no good part in him to offend his company, or make

him to be suspected a proud fellow; but is sociably a dunce, and

sociably a drinker. That does it fair and above-board without legermain,

and neither sharks for a cup or a reckoning: that is kind over his beer,

and protests he loves you, and begins to you again, and loves you again.

One that quarrels with no man, but for not pledging him, but takes all

absurdities and commits as many, and is no tell-tale next morning,

though he remember it. One that will fight for his friend if he hear him

abused, and his friend commonly is he that is most likely, and he lifts

up many a jug in his defence. He rails against none but censurers,

against whom he thinks he rails lawfully, and censurers are all those

that are better than himself. These good properties qualify him for

honesty enough, and raise him high in the ale-house commendation, who,

if he had any other good quality, would be named by that. But now for

refuge he is an honest man, and hereafter a sot: only those that commend

him think him not so, and those that commend him are honest fellows.

A SUSPICIOUS OR JEALOUS MAN
Is one that watches himself a mischief, and keeps a lear eye still, for

fear it should escape him. A man that sees a great deal more in every

thing than is to be seen, and yet he thinks he sees nothing: his own eye

stands in his light. He is a fellow commonly guilty of some weaknesses,

which he might conceal if he were careless:--now his over-diligence to

hide them makes men pry the more. Howsoever he imagines you have found

him, and it shall go hard but you must abuse him whether you will or no.

Not a word can be spoke but nips him somewhere; not a jest thrown out

but he will make it hit him. You shall have him go fretting out of

company, with some twenty quarrels to every man, stung and galled, and

no man knows less the occasion than they that have given it. To laugh

before him is a dangerous matter, for it cannot be at any thing but at

him, and to whisper in his company plain conspiracy. He bids you speak

out, and he will answer you, when you thought not of him. He

expostulates with you in passion, why you should abuse him, and explains

to your ignorance wherein, and gives you very good reason at last to

laugh at him hereafter. He is one still accusing others when they are

not guilty, and defending himself when he is not accused: and no man is

undone more with apologies, wherein he is so elaborately excessive, that

none will believe him; and he is never thought worse of, than when he

has given satisfaction. Such men can never have friends, because they

cannot trust so far; and this humour hath this infection with it, it

makes all men to them suspicious. In conclusion, they are men always in

offence and vexation with themselves and their neighbours, wronging

others in thinking they would wrong them, and themselves most of all in

thinking they deserve it.

NICHOLAS BRETON
_Published in 1615 "Characters upon Essays, Moral and Divine" and in

1616 a set of Characters called "The Good and the Bad." He was of a good

Essex family, second son of William Breton of Redcross Street, in the

parish of St. Giles without Cripplegate. His father was well-to-do, and

died in January 1559 (new style) when Nicholas was a boy. His mother

took for second husband George Gascoigne the poet. Only a chance note in

a diary informs us that Nicholas Breton was once of Oriel College,

Oxford. In 1577, when his stepfather Gascoigne died, Breton was living

in London, and he then published the first of his many books. He married

Ann Sutton in the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, on the 14th of

January 1593 (new style), had a son Henry, born in 1603, a son Edward in

1606, and a daughter Matilda in 1607, who died in her nineteenth year.

He was from 1577 onward an active writer both of prose and verse, and a

poet of real mark in the days of Elizabeth and James the First, though

it was left to Dr. A. B. Grosart to be, in 1875-79, the first editor of

his collected works in an edition limited to a hundred copies. The date

of Breton ’ s last publication, "Fantastics," is 1626, but of the time of

his death there is no record, Nicholas Breton ’ s "Characters upon

Essaies" published in 1615, were entitled in full "Characters upon

Essaies Morall and Divine, written for those good spirits that will take

them ’ in good part, and make use of them to good purpose." In

recognition of the kinship between Bacon ’ s Essays and Character

writings, they were dedicated_

To the Honourable, and my much worthy honoured,

truly learned, and Judicious Knight, SIR FRANCIS BACON,

his Maties. Attorney General,

_Increase of honour, health, and eternal happiness_.

Worthy knight, I have read of many essays and a kind of charactering of

them, by such, as when I looked unto the form or nature of their writing

I have been of the conceit that they were but imitators of your breaking

the ice to their inventions, which, how short they fall of your worth, I

had rather think than speak, though truth need not blush at her blame.

Now, for myself, unworthy to touch near the rock of those diamonds, or

to speak in their praise, who so far exceed the power of my capacity,

vouchsafe me leave yet, I beseech you, among those apes that would

counterfeit the actions of men, to play the like part with learning, and

as a monkey that would make a face like a man and cannot, so to write

like a scholar and am not; and thus not daring to adventure the print

under your patronage, without your favourable allowance in the devoted

service of my bounden duty, I leave these poor travails of my spirit to

the perusing of your pleasing leisure, with the further fruits of my

humble affection, to the happy employment of your honourable

pleasure.--At your service in all humbleness,

NICH. BRETON.

_Breton prefixed also this address_--

TO THE READER.

Read what you list, and understand what you can. Characters are not

every man ’ s construction, though they be writ in our mother tongue; and

what I have written, being of no other nature, if they fit not your

humour they may please a better. I make no comparison, because I know

you not, but if you will vouchsafe to look into them, it may be you may

find something in them; their natures are diverse, as you may see, if

your eyes be open, and if you can make use of them to good purpose, your

wits may prove the better. In brief, fearing the fool will be put upon

me for being too busy with matters too far above my understanding, I

will leave my imperfection to pardon or correction, and my labour to

their liking that will not think ill of a well-meaning, and so

rest,--Your well-willing friend,

N.B.

CHARACTERS UPON ESSAYS, MORAL AND DIVINE.
BY NICHOLAS BRETON.

WISDOM.
Wisdom is a working grace in the souls of the elect, by whom the spirit

is made capable of those secrets that neither nature nor reason is able

to comprehend; who, by a powerful virtue she hath from the Divine

Essence, worketh in all things according to the will of the Almighty,

and, being before beginning, shall exceed time in an eternal proceeding.

She is a light in the intellectual part, by which reason is led to

direct the senses in their due course, and nature is preserved from

subjecting herself to imperfection. In the Creation she was of counsel

with the Trinity in the pleasing of the Deity; in the Redemption the

inventor of mercy for the preservation of the elect; and in the

Glorification the treasurer of life for the reward of the faithful, who,

having committed to her care the carriage of the whole motion, finding

the disposition of earth in all the children of her womb, by such a

measure as she finds fitting their quality, she gives them either the

grace of nature or the glory of reason. While being the mother of the

graces, she gives them that holy instruction that, in the knowledge of

the highest love, through the paths of virtue, makes a passage to

heaven. Learning hath from her that knowledge without the which all

knowledge is mere ignorance, while only in the grace of truth is seen

the glory of understanding. Knowledge hath from her that learning

whereby she is taught the direction of her love in the way of life.

Understanding hath from her that knowledge that keeps conceit always in

the spirit ’ s comfort; and judgment from understanding, that rule of

justice that by the even weight of impartiality shows the hand of Heaven

in the heart of humanity. In the heavens she keeps the angels in their

orders, teacheth them the natures of their offices, and employs them in

the service of their Creator. In the firmament she walks among the

stars, sets and keeps them in their places, courses, and operations, at

her pleasure. She eclipseth the light, and in a moment leaves not a

cloud in the sky. In her thunders and lightnings she shows the terror of

the Highest wrath, and in her temperate calms, the patience of His

mercy. In her frosty winters she shows the weakness of nature, and in

her sunny springs the recovery of her health. In the lovers of this

world lives no part of her pureness, but with her beloved she makes a

heaven upon earth. In the king she shows grace, in his council her care,

and in his state her strength. In the soldier she shows virtue the

truest valour; in the lawyer, truth the honour of his plea; in the

merchant, conscience the wealth of his soul; and in the churchman,

charity the true fruit of his devotion. She lives in the world but not

the world ’ s love, for the world ’ s unworthiness is not capable of her

worth. She receiveth Mammon as a gift from his Maker, and makes him

serve her use to His glory. She gives honour, grace in bounty, and

manageth wit by the care of discretion. She shows the necessity of

difference, and wherein is the happiness of unity. She puts her labour

to providence, her hope to patience, her life to her love, and her love

to her Lord; with whom, as chief secretary of His secrets, she writes

His will to the world, and as high steward of His courts she keeps

account of all His tenants. In sum, so great is her grace in the heavens

as gives her glory above the earth, and so infinite are her excellencies

in all the course of her action; and so glorious are the notes of her

incomprehensible nature, that I will thus only conclude, far short of

her commendation:--She is God ’ s love, and His angels ’ light, His

servants ’ grace, and His beloved ’ s glory.

LEARNING.
Learning is the life of reason and the light of nature, where time,

order, and measure square out the true course of knowledge; where

discretion in the temper of passion brings experience to the best fruit

of affection; while both the Theory and Practice labour in the life of

judgment, till the perfection of art show the honour of understanding.

She is the key of knowledge that unlocketh the cabinet of conceit,

wherein are laid up the labours of virtue for the use of the scholars of

wisdom; where every gracious spirit may find matter enough worthy of the

record of the best memory. She is the nurse of nature, with that milk of

reason that would make a child of grace never lie from the dug. She is

the schoolmistress of wit and the gentle governor of will, when the

delight of understanding gives the comfort of study. She is unpleasing

to none that knows her, and unprofitable to none that loves her. She

fears not to wet her feet, to wade through the waters of comfort, but

comes not near the seas of iniquity, where folly drowns affection in the

delight of vanity. She opens her treasures to the travellers in virtue,

but keeps them close from the eyes of idleness. She makes the king

gracious and his council judicious, his clergy devout and his kingdom

prosperous. She gives honour to virtue, grace to honour, reward to

labour, and love to truth. She is the messenger of wisdom to the minds

of the virtuous, and the way to honour in the spirits of the gracious.

She is the storehouse of understanding, where the affection of grace

cannot want instruction of goodness, while, in the rules of her

directions, reason is never out of square. She is the exercise of wit in

the application of knowledge, and the preserver of the understanding in

the practice of memory. In brief, she makes age honourable and youth

admirable, the virtuous wise and the wise gracious. Her libraries are

infinite, her lessons without number, her instruction without

comparison, and her scholars without equality. In brief, finding it a

labyrinth to go through the grounds of her praise, let this suffice,

that in all ages she hath been and ever will be the darling of wisdom,

the delight of wit, the study of virtue, and the stay of knowledge.

KNOWLEDGE.
Knowledge is a collection of understanding gathered in the grounds of

learning by the instruction of wisdom. She is the exercise of memory in

the actions of the mind, and the employer of the senses in the will of

the spirit: she is the notary of time and the trier of truth, and the

labour of the spirit in the love of virtue: she is the pleasure of wit

and the paradise of reason, where conceit gathereth the sweet of

understanding. She is the king ’ s counsellor and the council ’ s grace,

youth ’ s guard and age ’ s glory. It is free from doubts and fears no

danger, while the care of Providence cuts off the cause of repentance.

She is the enemy of idleness and the maintainer of labour in the care of

credit and pleasure of profit: she needs no advice in the resolution of

action, while experience in observation finds perfection infallible. It

clears errors and cannot be deceived, corrects impurity and will not be

corrupted. She hath a wide ear and a close mouth, a pure eye and a

perfect heart. It is begotten by grace, bred by virtue, brought up by

learning, and maintained by love. She converseth with the best

capacities and communicates with the soundest judgments, dwells with the

divinest natures and loves the most patient dispositions. Her hope is a

kind of assurance, her faith a continual expectation, her love an

apprehension of joy, and her life the light of eternity. Her labours are

infinite, her ways are unsearchable, her graces incomparable, and her

excellencies inexplicable; and therefore, being so little acquainted

with her worth as makes me blush at my unworthiness to speak in the

least of her praise, I will only leave her advancement to virtue, her

honour to wisdom, her grace to truth, and to eternity her glory.

PRACTICE.
Practice is the motion of the spirit, where the senses are all set to

work in their natures, where, in the fittest employment of time, reason

maketh the best use of understanding. She is the continuance of

knowledge in the ease of memory, and the honour of resolution in the

effect of judgment. She plants the spring and reaps the harvest, makes

labour sweet and patience comfortable. She hath a foot on the earth but

an eye at heaven, where the prayer of faith finds the felicity of the

soul. In the fruit of charity she shows the nature of devotion, and in

the mercy of justice the glory of government. She gives time honour in

the fruit of action, and reason grace in the application of knowledge.

She takes the height of the sun, walks about the world, sounds the depth

of the sea, and makes her passage through the waters. She is ready for

all occasions, attendeth all persons, works with all instruments, and

finisheth all actions. She takes invention for her teacher, makes time

her servant, method her direction, and place her habitation. She hath a

wakeful eye and a working brain, which fits the members of the body to

the service of the spirit. She is the physician ’ s agent and the

apothecary ’ s benefactor, the chirurgeon ’ s wealth and the patient ’ s

patience. She brings time to labour and care to contentment, learning to

knowledge and virtue to honour: in idleness she hath no pleasure, nor

acquaintance with ignorance, but in industry is her delight and in

understanding her grace. She hath a passage through all the

predicaments, she hath a hand in all the arts, a property in all

professions, and a quality in all conditions. In brief, so many are the

varieties of the manners of her proceedings as makes me fearful to

follow her too far in observation, lest being never able to come near

the height of her commendation, I be enforced as I am to leave her

wholly to admiration.

PATIENCE.
Patience is a kind of heavenly tenure, whereby the soul is held in

possession, and a sweet temper in the spirit, which restraineth nature

from exceeding reason in passion. Her hand keeps time in his right

course, and her eye passeth into the depth of understanding. She

attendeth wisdom in all her works, and proportioneth time to the

necessity of matter. She is the poison of sorrow in the hope of comfort,

and the paradise of conceit in the joy of peace. Her tongue speaks

seldom but to purpose, and her foot goeth slowly but surely. She is the

imitator of the Incomprehensible in His passage to perfection, and a

servant of His will in the map of His workmanship: in confusion she hath

no operation, while she only aireth her conceit with the consideration

of experience. She travels far and is never weary, and gives over no

work but to better a beginning. She makes the king merciful and the

subject loyal, honour gracious and wisdom glorious. She pacifieth wrath

and puts off revenge, and in the humility of charity shows the nature of

grace. She is beloved of the highest and embraced of the wisest,

honoured with the worthiest and graced with the best. She makes

imprisonment liberty when the mind goeth through the world, and in

sickness finds health where death is the way to life. She is an enemy to

passion, and knows no purgatory; thinks fortune a fiction, and builds

only upon providence. She is the sick man ’ s salve and the whole man ’ s

preserver, the wise man ’ s staff and the good man ’ s guide. In sum, not to

wade too far in her worthiness, lest I be drowned in the depth of

wonder, I will thus end in her endless honour:--She is the grace of

Christ and the virtue of Christianity, the praise of goodness and the

preserver of the world.

LOVE.
Love is the life of Nature and the joy of reason in the spirit of grace;

where virtue drawing affection, the concord of sense makes an union

inseparable in the divine apprehension of the joy of election. It is a

ravishment of the soul in the delight of the spirit, which, being

carried above itself into inexplicable comfort, feels that heavenly

sickness that is better than the world ’ s health, when the wisest of men

in the swounding delight of his sacred inspiration could thus utter the

sweetness of his passion, "My soul is sick of love." It is a healthful

sickness in the soul, a pleasing passion in the heart, a contentive

labour in the mind, and a peaceful trouble of the senses. It alters

natures in contrarieties, when difficulty is made easy; pain made a

pleasure; poverty, riches; and imprisonment, liberty; for the content of

conceit, which regards not to be an abject, in being subject but to an

object. It rejoiceth in truth, and knows no inconstancy: it is free from

jealousy, and feareth no fortune: it breaks the rule of arithmetic by

confounding of number, where the conjunction of thoughts makes one mind

in two bodies, where neither figure nor cipher can make division of

union. It sympathises with life, and participates with light, when the

eye of the mind sees the joy of the heart. It is a predominant power

which endures no equality, and yet communicates with reason in the rules

of concord: it breeds safety in a king and peace in a kingdom, nation ’ s

unity, and Nature ’ s gladness. It sings in labour, in the joy of hope;

and makes a paradise in reward of desert. It pleads but mercy in the

justice of the Almighty, and but mutual amity in the nature of humanity.

In sum, having no eagle ’ s eye to look upon the sun, and fearing to look

too high, for fear of a chip in mine eye, I will in these few words

speak in praise of this peerless virtue:--Love is the grace of Nature

and the glory of reason, the blessing of God and the comfort of

the world.

PEACE.
Peace is a calm in conceit, where the senses take pleasure in the rest

of the spirit. It is Nature ’ s holiday after reason ’ s labour, and

wisdom ’ s music in the concords of the mind. It is a blessing of grace, a

bounty of mercy, a proof of love, and a preserver of life. It holds no

arguments, knows no quarrels, is an enemy to sedition, and a continuance

of amity. It is the root of plenty, the tree of pleasure, the fruit of

love, and the sweetness of life. It is like the still night, where all

things are at rest, and the quiet sleep, where dreams are not

troublesome; or the resolved point, in the perfection of knowledge,

where no cares nor doubts make controversies in opinion. It needs no

watch where is no fear of enemy, nor solicitor of causes where

agreements are concluded. It is the intent of law and the fruit of

justice, the end of war and the beginning of wealth. It is a grace in a

court, and a glory in a kingdom, a blessing in a family, and a happiness

in a commonwealth. It fills the rich man ’ s coffers, and feeds the poor

man ’ s labour. It is the wise man ’ s study, and the good man ’ s joy: who

love it are gracious, who make it are blessed, who keep it are happy,

and who break it are miserable. It hath no dwelling with idolatry, nor

friendship with falsehood; for her life is in truth, and in her all is

Amen. But lest in the justice of peace I may rather be reproved for my

ignorance of her work than thought worthy to speak in her praise, with

this only conclusion in the commendation of peace I will draw to an end

and hold my peace:--It was a message of joy at the birth of Christ, a

song of joy at the embracement of Christ, an assurance of joy at the

death of Christ, and shall be the fulness of joy at the coming

of Christ.

WAR.
War is a scourge of the wrath of God, which by famine, fire, or sword

humbleth the spirits of the repentant, trieth the patience of the

faithful, and hardeneth the hearts of the ungodly. It is the misery of

time and the terror of Nature, the dispeopling of the earth and the ruin

of her beauty. Her life is action, her food blood, her honour valour,

and her joy conquest. She is valour ’ s exercise and honour ’ s adventure,

reason ’ s trouble and peace ’ s enemy: she is the stout man ’ s love and the

weak man ’ s fear, the poor man ’ s toil and the rich man ’ s plague: she is

the armourer ’ s benefactor and the chirurgeon ’ s agent, the coward ’ s ague

and the desperate ’ s overthrow. She is the wish of envy, the plague of

them that wish her, the shipwreck of life, and the agent for death. The

best of her is, that she is the seasoner of the body and the manager of

the mind for the enduring of labour in the resolution of action. She

thunders in the air, rips up the earth, cuts through the seas, and

consumes with the fire: she is indeed the invention of malice, the work

of mischief, the music of hell, and the dance of the devil. She makes

the end of youth untimely and of age wretched, the city ’ s sack and the

country ’ s beggary: she is the captain ’ s pride and the captive ’ s sorrow,

the throat of blood and the grave of flesh. She is the woe of the world,

the punishment of sin, the passage of danger, and the messenger of

destruction. She is the wise man ’ s warning and the fool ’ s payment, the

godly man ’ s grief and the wicked man ’ s game. In sum, so many are her

wounds, so mortal her cures, so dangerous her course, and so devilish

her devices, that I will wade no further in her rivers of blood, but

only thus conclude in her description:--She is God ’ s curse and man ’ s

misery, hell ’ s practice and earth ’ s hell.

VALOUR.
Valour is a ’ virtue in the spirit which keeps the flesh in subjection,

resolves without fear, and travails without fainting: she vows no

villainy nor breaks her fidelity: she is patient in captivity and

pitiful in conquest. Her gain is honour and desert her mean, fortune her

scorn and folly her hate; wisdom is her guide and conquest her grace,

clemency her praise and humility her glory: she is youth ’ s ornament and

age ’ s honour, nature ’ s blessing and virtue ’ s love. Her life is

resolution and her love victory, her triumph truth, and her fame virtue.

Her arms are from antiquity and her coat full of honour, where the title

of grace hath her heraldry from heaven. She makes a walk of war and a

sport of danger, an ease of labour and a jest of death: she makes famine

but abstinence, want but a patience, sickness but a purge, and death a

puff. She is the maintainer of war, the general of an army, the terror

of an enemy, and the glory of a camp. She is the nobleness of the mind

and the strength of the body, the life of hope and the death of fear.

With a handful of men she overthrows a multitude, and with a sudden

amazement she discomfits a camp. She is the revenge of wrong and the

defence of right, religion ’ s champion and virtue ’ s choice. In brief, let

this suffice in her commendation:--She strengthened David and conquered

Goliath, she overthrows her enemies and conquers herself.

RESOLUTION.
Resolution is the honour of valour, in the quarrel of virtue, for the

defence of right and redress of wrong. She beats the march, pitcheth the

battle, plants the ordnance, and maintains the fight. Her ear is stopped

for dissuasions, her eye aims only at honour, her hand takes the sword

of valour, and her heart thinks of nothing but victory. She gives the

charge, makes the stand, assaults the fort, and enters the breach. She

breaks the pikes, faceth the shot, damps the soldier, and defeats the

army. She loseth no time, slips no occasion, dreads no danger, and cares

for no force. She is valour ’ s life and virtue ’ s love, justice ’ s honour

and mercy ’ s glory. She beats down castles, fires ships, wades through

the sea, and walks through the world. She makes wisdom her guide and

will her servant, reason her companion and honour her mistress. She is a

blessing in Nature and a beauty in reason, a grace in invention and a

glory in action. She studies no plots when her platform is set down, and

defers no time when her hour is prefixed. She stands upon no helps when

she knows her own force, and in the execution of her will she is a rock

irremovable. She is the king ’ s will without contradiction, and the

judge ’ s doom without exception, the scholar ’ s profession without

alteration, and the soldier ’ s honour without comparison. In sum, so many

are the grounds of her grace and the just causes of her commendation,

that, leaving her worth to the description of better wits, I will in

these few words conclude my conceit of her:--She is the stoutness of the

heart and the strength of the mind, a gift of God and the glory of

the world.

HONOUR.
Honour is a title or grace given by the spirit of virtue to the desert

of valour in the defence of truth; it is wronged in baseness and abused

in unworthiness, and endangered in wantonness and lost in wickedness. It

nourisheth art and crowneth wit, graceth learning and glorifieth wisdom;

in the heraldry of heaven it hath the richest coat, being in nature

allied unto all the houses of grace, which in the heaven of heavens

attend the King of kings. Her escutcheon is a heart, in which in the

shield of faith she bears on the anchor of hope the helmet of salvation:

she quarters with wisdom in the resolution of valour, and in the line of

charity she is the house of justice. Her supporters are time and

patience, her mantle truth, and her crest Christ treading upon the globe

of the world, her impress _Corona mea Christus_. In brief, finding her

state so high that I am not able to climb unto the praise of her

perfection, I will leave her royalty to the register of most princely

spirits, and in my humble heart thus only deliver my opinion of

her:--She is virtue ’ s due and grace ’ s gift, valour ’ s wealth and

reason ’ s joy.

TRUTH.
Truth is the glory of time and the daughter of eternity, a title of the

highest grace, and a note of a divine nature. She is the life of

religion, the light of love, the grace of wit, and the crown of wisdom:

she is the beauty of valour, the brightness of honour, the blessing of

reason, and the joy of faith. Her truth is pure gold, her time is right

precious, her word is most gracious, and her will is most glorious. Her

essence is in God and her dwelling with His servants, her will in His

wisdom and her work to His glory. She is honoured in love and graced in

constancy, in patience admired and in charity beloved. She is the

angel ’ s worship, the virgin ’ s fame, the saint ’ s bliss, and the martyr ’ s

crown: she is the king ’ s greatness and his counsel ’ s goodness, his

subject ’ s peace and his kingdom ’ s praise: she is the life of learning

and the light of law, the honour of trade and the grace of labour. She

hath a pure eye, a plain hand, a piercing wit, and a perfect heart. She

is wisdom ’ s walk in the way of holiness, and takes up her rest but in

the resolution of goodness. Her tongue never trips, her heart never

faints, her hand never fails, and her faith never fears. Her church is

without schism, her city without fraud, her court without vanity, and

her kingdom without villainy. In sum, so infinite is her excellence in

the construction of all sense, that I will thus only conclude in the

wonder of her worth:--She is the nature of perfection in the perfection

of Nature, where God in Christ shows the glory of Christianity.

TIME.
Time is a continual motion, which from the highest Mover hath his

operation in all the subjects of Nature, according to their quality or

disposition. He is in proportion like a circle, wherein he walketh with

an even passage to the point of his prefixed place. He attendeth none,

and yet is a servant to all; he is best employed by wisdom, and most

abused by folly. He carrieth both the sword and the sceptre, for the use

both of justice and mercy. He is present in all inventions, and cannot

be spared from action. He is the treasury of graces in the memory of the

wise, and brings them forth to the world upon necessity of their use. He

openeth the windows of heaven to give light unto the earth, and spreads

the cloak of the night to cover the rest of labour. He closeth the eye

of Nature and waketh the spirit of reason; he travelleth through the

mind, and is visible but to the eye of understanding. He is swifter than

the wind, and yet is still as a stone; precious in his right use, but

perilous in the contrary. He is soon found of the careful soul, and

quickly missed in the want of his comfort: he is soon lost in the lack

of employment, and not to be recovered without a world of endeavour. He

is the true man ’ s peace and the thief ’ s perdition, the good man ’ s

blessing and the wicked man ’ s curse. He is known to be, but his being

unknown, but only in his being in a being above knowledge. He is a

riddle not to be read but in the circumstance of description, his name

better known than his nature, and he that maketh best use of him hath

the best understanding of him. He is like the study of the philosopher ’ s

stone, where a man may see wonders and yet short of his expectation. He

is at the invention of war, arms the soldier, maintains the quarrel, and

makes the peace. He is the courtier ’ s playfellow and the soldier ’ s

schoolmaster, the lawyer ’ s gain and the merchant ’ s hope. His life is

motion and his love action, his honour patience and his glory

perfection. He masketh modesty and blusheth virginity, honoureth

humility and graceth charity. In sum, finding it a world to walk through

the wonder of his worth, I will thus briefly deliver what I find truly

of him:--He is the agent of the living and the register of the dead, the

direction of God and a great work-master in the world.

DEATH.

Death is an ordinance of God for the subjecting of the world, which is

limited to his time for the correction of pride: in his substance he is

nothing, being but only ii deprivation, and in his true description a

name without a nature. He is seen but in a picture, heard but in a tale,

feared but in a passion, and felt but in a pinch. He is a terror but to

the wicked, and a scarecrow but to the foolish; but to the wise a way of

comfort, and to the godly the gate to life. He is the ease of pain and

the end of sorrow, the liberty of the imprisoned and the joy of the

faithful; it is both the wound of sin and the wages of sin, the sinner ’ s

fear and the sinner ’ s doom. He is the sexton ’ s agent and the hangman ’ s

revenue, the rich man ’ s dirge and the mourner ’ s merry-day. He is a

course of time but uncertain till he come, and welcome but to such as

are weary of their lives. It is a message from the physician when the

patient is past cure, and if the writ be well made, it is a

_supersedeas_ for all diseases. It is the heaven ’ s stroke and the

earth ’ s steward, the follower of sickness and the forerunner to hell In

sum, having no pleasure to ponder too much of the power of it, I will

thus conclude my opinion of it:--It is a sting of sin and the terror of

the wicked, the crown of the godly, the stair of vengeance, and a

stratagem of the devil.

FAITH.
Faith is the hand of the soul which layeth hold of the promises of

Christ in the mercy of the Almighty. She hath a bright eye and a holy

ear, a clear heart and sure foot: she is the strength of hope, the trust

of truth, the honour of amity, and the joy of love. She is rare among

the sons of men and hardly found among the daughters of women; but among

the sons of God she is a conveyance of their inheritance, and among the

daughters of grace she is the assurance of their portions. Her dwelling

is in the Church of God, her conversation with the saints of God, her

delight with the beloved of God, and her life is in the love of God. She

knows no falsehood, distrusts no truth, breaks no promise, and coins no

excuse; but as bright as the sun, as swift as the wind, as sure as the

rock, and as pure as the gold, she looks toward heaven but lives in the

world, in the souls of the elect to the glory of election. She was

wounded in Paradise by a dart of the devil, and healed of her hurt by

the death of Christ Jesus. She is the poor man ’ s credit and the rich

man ’ s praise, the wise man ’ s care and the good man ’ s cognisance. In sum,

finding her worth in words hardly to be expressed, I will in these few

words only deliver my opinion of her:--She is God ’ s blessing and man ’ s

bliss, reason ’ s comfort and virtue ’ s glory.

FEAR.
Fear is a fruit of sin, which drove the first father of our flesh from

the presence of God, and hath bred an imperfection in a number of the

worse part of his posterity. It is the disgrace of nature, the foil of

reason, the maim of wit, and the slur of understanding. It is the palsy

of the spirit where the soul wanteth faith, and the badge of a coward

that cannot abide the sight of a sword. It is weakness in nature and a

wound in patience, the death of hope and the entrance into despair. It

is children ’ s awe and fools ’ amazement, a worm in conscience and a curse

to wickedness. In brief, it makes the coward stagger, the liar stammer,

the thief stumble, and the traitor start. It is a blot in arms, a blur

in honour, the shame of a soldier, and the defeat of an army.



_Breton ’ s next little prose book, published in the following year,

1616--year of the death of Shakespeare--was a set of Characters, "The

Good and the Bad," without suggestion that they were built upon the

lines of Bacon ’ s Essays. Bacon ’ s Essays first appeared as a set of ten

in 1597, became a set of forty in the revised edition of 1612, and of

fifty-eight in the edition of 1625, published a year before their

author ’ s death. In their sententious brevity Bacon ’ s Essays have, of

course, a style more nearly allied to the English Character Writing of

the Seventeenth Century than to the Sixteenth Century Essays of

Montaigne, which were altogether different in style, matter, and aim.

This, for example, was Bacon ’ s first Essay in the 1597 edition:--_

OF STUDIES.

Studies serve for pastimes, for ornaments, for abilities; their chief

use for pastimes is in privateness and retiring, for ornaments in

discourse, and for ability in judgment; for expert men can execute, but

learned men are more fit to judge and censure. To spend too much time in

them is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make

judgment wholly by their rules is the humour of a scholar; they perfect

nature, and are themselves perfected by experience; crafty men contemn

them, wise men use them, simple men admire them; for they teach not

their own use, but that there is a wisdom without them and above them

won by observation. Read not to contradict nor to believe, but to weigh

and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and

some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some are to be read only in

parts, others to be read but curiously, and some few to be read wholly

with diligence and attention. Reading maketh a full man, conference a

ready, and writing an exact man; therefore, if a man write little, he

had need of a great memory; if he confer little, he had need of a

present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to

seem to know that he doth not know. Histories make men wise; poets

witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave;

logic and rhetoric able to contend.

THE GOOD AND THE BAD;
OR,

DESCRIPTIONS OF THE WORTHIES AND

UNWORTHIES OF THIS AGE.

BY NICHOLAS BRETON.

A WORTHY KING.
A worthy king is a figure of God, in the nature of government. He is the

chief of men and the Church ’ s champion, Nature ’ s honour and earth ’ s

majesty: is the director of law and the strength of the same, the sword

of justice and the sceptre of mercy, the glass of grace and the eye of

honour, the terror of treason and the life of loyalty. His command is

general and his power absolute, his frown a death and his favour a life:

his charge is his subjects, his care their safety, his pleasure their

peace, and his joy their love. He is not to be paralleled, because he is

without equality, and the prerogative of his crown must not be

contradicted. He is the Lord ’ s anointed, and therefore must not be

touched, and the head of a public body, and therefore must be preserved.

He is a scourge of sin and a blessing of grace, God ’ s vicegerent over

His people, and under Him supreme governor. His safety must be his

council ’ s care, his health his subjects ’ prayer, his pleasure his peers ’

comfort, and his content his kingdom ’ s gladness. His presence must be

reverenced, his person attended, his court adorned, and his state

maintained. His bosom must not be searched, his will not disobeyed, his

wants not unsupplied, nor his place unregarded. In sum, he is more than

a man, though not a god, and next under God to be honoured above man.

AN UNWORTHY KING.
An unworthy king is the usurper of power, where tyranny in authority

loseth the glory of majesty, while the fear of terror frighteneth love

from obedience; for when the lion plays with the wolf, the lamb dies

with the ewe. He is a messenger of wrath to be the scourge of sin, or

the trial of patience in the hearts of the religious. He is a warrant of

woe in the execution of his fury, and in his best temper a doubt of

grace. He is a dispeopler of his kingdom and a prey to his enemies, an

undelightful friend and a tormentor of himself. He knows no God, but

makes an idol of Nature, and useth reason but to the ruin of sense. His

care is but his will, his pleasure but his ease, his exercise but sin,

and his delight but inhuman. His heaven is his pleasure, and his gold is

his god. His presence is terrible, his countenance horrible, his words

uncomfortable, and his actions intolerable. In sum, he is the foil of a

crown, the disgrace of a court, the trouble of a council, and the plague

of a kingdom.

A WORTHY QUEEN.
A worthy queen is the figure of a king who, under God in His grace, hath

a great power over His people. She is the chief of women, the beauty of

her court, and the grace of her sex in the royalty of her spirit. She is

like the moon, that giveth light among the stars, and, but unto the sun,

gives none place in her brightness. She is the pure diamond upon the

king ’ s finger, and the orient pearl unprizeable in his eye, the joy of

the court in the comfort of the king, and the wealth of the kingdom in

the fruit of her love. She is reason ’ s honour in nature ’ s grace, and

wisdom ’ s love in virtue ’ s beauty. In sum, she is the handmaid of God,

and the king ’ s second self, and in his grace, the beauty of a kingdom.

A WORTHY PRINCE.
A worthy prince is the hope of a kingdom, the richest jewel in a king ’ s

crown, and the fairest flower in the queen ’ s garden. He is the joy of

nature in the hope of honour, and the love of wisdom in the life of

worthiness. In the secret carriage of his heart ’ s intention, till his

designs come to action, he is a dumb show to the world ’ s imagination. In

his wisdom he startles the spirits of expectation in his valour, he

subjects the hearts of ambition in his virtue, he wins the love of the

noblest, and in his bounty binds the service of the most sufficient. He

is the crystal glass, where nature may see her comfort, and the book of

reason, where virtue may read her honour. He is the morning star that

hath light from the sun, and the blessed fruit of the tree of earth ’ s

paradise. He is the study of the wise in the state of honour, and is the

subject of learning, the history of admiration. In sum, he is the note

of wisdom, the aim of honour, and in the honour of virtue the hope of

a kingdom.

AN UNWORTHY PRINCE.
An unworthy prince is the fear of a kingdom. When will and power carry

pride in impatience, in the close carriage of ambitious intention, he is

like a fearful dream to a troubled spirit. In his passionate humours he

frighteneth the hearts of the prudent, in the delight of vanities he

loseth the love of the wise, and in the misery of avarice is served only

with the needy. He is like a little mist before the rising of the sun,

which, the more it grows, the less good it doth. He is the king ’ s grief

and the queen ’ s sorrow, the court ’ s trouble and the kingdom ’ s curse. In

sum, he is the seed of unhappiness, the fruit of ungodliness, the taste

of bitterness, and the digestion of heaviness.

A WORTHY PRIVY COUNCILLOR.
A worthy privy councillor is the pillar of a realm, in whose wisdom and

care, under God and the king, stands the safety of a kingdom. He is the

watch-tower to give warning of the enemy, and a hand of provision for

the preservation of the state. He is an oracle in the king ’ s ear, and a

sword in the king ’ s hand; an even weight in the balance of justice, and

a light of grace in the love of truth. He is an eye of care in the

course of law, a heart of love in his service to his sovereign, a mind

of honour in the order of his service, and a brain of invention for the

good of the commonwealth. His place is powerful while his service is

faithful, and his honour due in the desert of his employment. In sum, he

is as a fixed planet among the stars of the firmament, which through the

clouds in the air shows the nature of his light.

AN UNWORTHY COUNCILLOR.
An unworthy councillor is the hurt of a king and the danger of a state,

when the weakness of judgment may commit an error, or the lack of care

may give way to unhappiness. He is a wicked charm in the king ’ s ear, a

sword of terror in the advice of tyranny. His power is perilous in the

partiality of will, and his heart full of hollowness in the protestation

of love. Hypocrisy is the cover of his counterfeit religion, and

traitorous invention is the agent of his ambition. He is the cloud of

darkness that threateneth foul weather; and if it grow to a storm, it is

fearful where it falls. He is an enemy to God in the hate of grace, and

worthy of death in disloyalty to his sovereign. In sum, he is an unfit

person for the place of a councillor and an unworthy subject to look a

king in the face.

A NOBLEMAN.
A nobleman is a mark of honour, where the eye of wisdom in the

observation of desert sees the fruit of grace. He is the orient pearl

that reason polisheth for the beauty of nature, and the diamond spark

where divine grace gives virtue honour. He is the notebook of moral

discipline, where the conceit of care may find the true courtier. He is

the nurse of hospitality, the relief of necessity, the love of charity,

and the life of bounty. He is learning ’ s grace and valour ’ s fame,

wisdom ’ s fruit and kindness ’ love. He is the true falcon that feeds on

no carrion, the true horse that will be no hackney, the true dolphin

that fears not the whale, and the true man of God that fears not the

devil. In sum, he is the darling of nature in reason ’ s philosophy, the

loadstar of light in love ’ s astronomy, the ravishing sweet in the music

of honour, and the golden number in grace ’ s arithmetic.

AN UNNOBLE MAN.
An unnoble man is the grief of reason, when the title of honour is put

upon the subject of disgrace; when either the imperfection of wit or the

folly of will shows an unfitness in nature for the virtue of

advancement. He is the eye of baseness and spirit of grossness, and in

the demean of rudeness the scorn of nobleness. He is a suspicion of a

right generation in the nature of his disposition, and a miserable

plague to a feminine patience. Wisdom knows him not, learning bred him

not, virtue loves him not, and honour fits him not. Prodigality or

avarice are the notes of his inclination, and folly or mischief are the

fruits of his invention. In sum, he is the shame of his name, the

disgrace of his place, the blot of his title, and the ruin of his house.

A WORTHY BISHOP.
A worthy bishop is an ambassador from God unto man, in the midst of war

to make a treaty of peace; who with a general pardon upon confession of

sin, upon the fruit of repentance gives assurance of comfort. He brings

tidings from heaven of happiness to the world, where the patience of

mercy calls nature to grace. He is the silver trumpet in the music of

love, where faith hath a life that never fails the beloved. He is the

director of life in the laws of God, and the chirurgeon of the soul in

lancing the sores of sin; the terror of the reprobate in pronouncing

their damnation, and the joy of the faithful in the assurance of their

salvation. In sum, he is in the nature of grace, worthy of honour; and

in the message of life, worthy of love; a continual agent betwixt God

and man, in the preaching of His Word and prayer for His people.

AN UNWORTHY BISHOP.
An unworthy bishop is the disgrace of learning, when the want of reading

or the abuse of understanding, in the speech of error may beget

idolatry. He is God ’ s enemy, in the hurt of His people, and his own woe

in abuse of the Word of God. He is the shadow of a candle that gives no

light, or, if it be any, it is but to lead into darkness. The sheep are

unhappy that live in his fold, when they shall either starve or feed on

ill ground. He breeds a war in the wits of his audience when his life is

contrary to the nature of his instruction. He lives in a room where he

troubles a world, and in the shadow of a saint is little better than a

devil. He makes religion a cloak of sin, and with counterfeit humility

covereth incomparable pride. He robs the rich to relieve the poor, and

makes fools of the wise with the imagination of his worth. He is all for

the Church but nothing for God, and for the ease of nature loseth the

joy of reason. In sum, he is the picture of hypocrisy, the spirit of

heresy, a wound in the Church, and a woe in the world.

A WORTHY JUDGE.
A judge is a doom, whose breath is mortal upon the breach of law, where

criminal offences must be cut off from a commonwealth. He is a sword of

justice in the hand of a king, and an eye of wisdom in the walk of a

kingdom. His study is a square for the keeping of proportion betwixt

command and obedience, that the king may keep his crown on his head, and

the subject his head on his shoulders. He is feared but of the foolish,

and cursed but of the wicked; but of the wise honoured, and of the

gracious beloved. He is a surveyor of rights and revenger of wrongs, and

in the judgment of truth the honour of justice. In sum, his word is law,

his power grace, his labour peace, and his desert honour.

AN UNWORTHY JUDGE.
An unworthy judge is the grief of justice in the error of judgment, when

through ignorance or will the death of innocency lies upon the breath of

opinion. He is the disgrace of law in the desert of knowledge, and the

plague of power in the misery of oppression. He is more moral than

divine in the nature of policy, and more judicious than just in the

carriage of his conceit. His charity is cold when partiality is

resolved; when the doom of life lies on the verdict of a jury, with a

stern look he frighteth an offender and gives little comfort to a poor

man ’ s cause. The golden weight overweighs his grace, when angels play

the devils in the hearts of his people. In sum, where Christ is preached

he hath no place in His Church; and in this kingdom out of doubt God

will not suffer any such devil to bear sway.

A WORTHY KNIGHT.
A worthy knight is a spirit of proof in the advancement of virtue, by

the desert of honour, in the eye of majesty. In the field he gives

courage to his soldiers, in the court grace to his followers, in the

city reputation to his person, and in the country honour to his house.

His sword and his horse make his way to his house, and his armour of

best proof is an undaunted spirit. The music of his delight is the

trumpet and the drum, and the paradise of his eye is an army defeated;

the relief of the oppressed makes his conquest honourable, and the

pardon of the submissive makes him famous in mercy. He is in nature mild

and in spirit stout, in reason judicious, and in all honourable. In sum,

he is a yeoman ’ s commander and a gentleman ’ s superior, a nobleman ’ s

companion and a prince ’ s worthy favourite.

AN UNWORTHY KNIGHT.
An unworthy knight is the defect of nature in the title of honour, when

to maintain valour his spurs have no rowels nor his sword a point. His

apparel is of proof, that may wear like his armour, or like an old

ensign that hath his honour in rags. It may be he is the tailor ’ s

trouble in fitting an ill shape, or a mercer ’ s wonder in wearing of

silk. In the court he stands for a cipher, and among ladies like an owl

among birds. He is worshipped only for his wealth, and if he be of the

first head, he shall be valued by his wit, when, if his pride go beyond

his purse, his title will be a trouble to him. In sum, he is the child

of folly and the man of Gotham, the blind man of pride and the fool of

imagination. But in the court of honour are no such apes, and I hope

that this kingdom will breed no such asses.

A WORTHY GENTLEMAN.
A worthy gentleman is a branch of the tree of honour, whose fruits are

the actions of virtue, as pleasing to the eye of judgment as tasteful to

the spirit of understanding. Whatsoever he doeth it is not forced,

except it be evil, which either through ignorance unwillingly, or

through compulsion unwillingly, he falls upon. He is in nature kind, in

demeanour courteous, in allegiance loyal, and in religion zealous; in

service faithful, and in reward bountiful. He is made of no baggage

stuff, nor for the wearing of base people; but it is woven by the spirit

of wisdom to adorn the court of honour. His apparel is more comely than

costly, and his diet more wholesome than excessive; his exercise more

healthful than painful, and his study more for knowledge than pride; his

love not wanton nor common, his gifts not niggardly nor prodigal, and

his carriage neither apish nor sullen. In sum, he is an approver of his

pedigree by the nobleness of his passage, and in the course of his life

an example to his posterity.

AN UNWORTHY GENTLEMAN.
An unworthy gentleman is the scoff of wit and the scorn of honour, where

more wealth than wit is worshipped of simplicity; who spends more in

idleness than would maintain thrift, or hides more in misery than might

purchase honour; whose delights are vanities and whose pleasures

fopperies, whose studies fables and whose exercise worse than follies.

His conversation is base, and his conference ridiculous; his affections

ungracious, and his actions ignominious; his apparel out of fashion, and

his diet out of order; his carriage out of square, and his company out

of request. In sum, he is like a mongrel dog with a velvet collar, a

cart-horse with a golden saddle, a buzzard kite with a falcon ’ s bells,

or a baboon with a pied jerkin.

A WORTHY LAWYER.
A worthy lawyer is the student of knowledge how to bring controversies

into a conclusion of peace, and out of ignorance to gain understanding.

He divides time into uses, and cases into constructions. He lays open

obscurities, and is praised for the speech of truth; and in the court of

conscience pleads much _in forma pauperis_, for small fees. He is a mean

for the preservation of titles and the holding of possessions, and a

great instrument of peace in the judgment of impartiality. He is the

client ’ s hope in his case ’ s pleading, and his heart ’ s comfort in a happy

issue. He is the finder out of tricks in the craft of ill conscience,

and the joy of the distressed in the relief of justice. In sum, he is a

maker of peace among spirits of contention, and a continuer of quiet in

the execution of the law.

AN UNWORTHY LAWYER.
An unlearned and unworthily called a lawyer, is the figure of a

foot-post, who carries letters but knows not what is in them, only can

read the superscriptions to direct them to their right owners. So

trudgeth this simple clerk, that can scarce read a case when it is

written, with his handful of papers from one court to another, and from

one counsellor ’ s chamber to another, when by his good payment for his

pains he will be so saucy as to call himself a solicitor. But what a

taking are poor clients in when this too much trusted cunning companion,

better read in Piers Plowman than in Plowden, and in the play of

"Richard the Third" than in the pleas of Edward the Fourth, persuades

them all is sure when he is sure of all! and in what a misery are the

poor men when upon a _Nihil dicit_, because indeed this poor fellow

_Nihil potest dicere_, they are in danger of an execution before they

know wherefore they are condemned. But I wish all such more wicked than

witty unlearned in the law and abusers of the same, to look a little

better into their consciences, and to leave their crafty courses, lest

when the law indeed lays them open, instead of carrying papers in their

hands, they wear not papers on their heads; and instead of giving ear to

their client ’ s causes or rather eyes into their purses, they have never

an ear left to hear withal, nor good eye to see withal, or at least

honest face to look out withal; but as the grasshoppers of Egypt, be

counted the caterpillars of England, and not the fox that stole the

goose, but the great fox that stole the farm from the gander.

A WORTHY SOLDIER.
A worthy soldier is the child of valour, who was born for the service of

necessity, and to bear the ensign of honour in the actions of worth. He

is the dyer of the earth with blood, and the ruin of the erections of

pride. He is the watch of wit, the advantage of time, and the

executioner of wrath upon the wilful offender. He disputes questions

with the point of a sword, and prefers death to indignities. He is a

lion to ambition, and a lamb to submission; he hath hope fast by the

hand, and treads upon the head of fear. He is the king ’ s champion, and

the kingdom ’ s guard; peace ’ s preserver, and rebellion ’ s terror. He makes

the horse trample at the sound of a trumpet, and leads on to a battle as

if he were going to a breakfast. He knows not the nature of cowardice,

for his rest is set up upon resolution; his strongest fortification is

his mind, which beats off the assaults of idle humours, and his life is

the passage of danger, where an undaunted spirit stoops to no fortune.

With his arms he wins his arms, and by his desert in the field his

honour in the court. In sum, in the truest manhood he is the true man,

and in the creation of honour a most worthy creature.

AN UNTRAINED SOLDIER.
An untrained soldier is like a young hound, that when he first falls to

hunt, he knows not how to lay his nose to the earth; who, having his

name but in a book, and marched twice about a market-place, when he

comes to a piece of service knows not how to bestow himself. He marches

as if he were at plough, carries his pike like a pike-staff, and his

sword before him for fear of losing from his side. If he be a shot, he

will be rather ready to say a grace over his piece, and so to discharge

his hands of it, than to learn how to discharge it with a grace. He puts

on his armour over his ears, like a waistcoat, and wears his morion like

a nightcap. When he is quartered in the field, he looks for his bed, and

when he sees his provant, he is ready to cry for his victuals; and ere

he know well where he is, wish heartily he were at home again, with his

head hanging down as if his heart were in his hose. He will sleep till a

drum or a deadly bullet awake him; and so carry himself in all companies

that, till martial discipline have seasoned his understanding, he is

like a cipher among figures, an owl among birds, a wise man among fools,

and a shadow among men.

A WORTHY PHYSICIAN.
A worthy physician is the enemy of sickness, in purging nature from

corruption. His action is most in feeling of pulses, and his discourses

chiefly of the natures of diseases. He is a great searcher out of

simples, and accordingly makes his composition. He persuades abstinence

and patience for the benefit of health, while purging and bleeding are

the chief courses of his counsel. The apothecary and the chirurgeon are

his two chief attendants, with whom conferring upon time, he grows

temperate in his cures. Surfeits and wantonness are great agents for his

employment, when by the secret of his skill out of others ’ weakness he

gathers his own strength. In sum, he is a necessary member for an

unnecessary malady, to find a disease and to cure the diseased.

AN UNWORTHY PHYSICIAN.
An unlearned and so unworthy physician is a kind of horse-leech, whose

cure is most in drawing of blood, and a desperate purge, either to cure

or kill, as it hits. His discourse is most of the cures that he hath

done, and them afar of; and not a receipt under a hundred pounds, though

it be not worth three halfpence. Upon the market-day he is much haunted

with urinals, where if he find anything (though he know nothing), yet he

will say somewhat, which if it hit to some purpose, with a few fustian

words he will seem a piece of strange stuff. He is never without old

merry tales and stale jests to make old folks laugh, and comfits or

plums in his pocket to please little children; yea, and he will be

talking of complexions, though he know nothing of their dispositions;

and if his medicine do a feat, he is a made man among fools; but being

wholly unlearned, and ofttimes unhonest, let me thus briefly describe

him:--He is a plain kind of mountebank and a true quack-salver, a danger

for the sick to deal withal, and a dizzard in the world to talk withal.

A WORTHY MERCHANT.
A worthy merchant is the heir of adventure, whose hopes hang much upon

wind. Upon a wooden horse he rides through the world, and in a merry

gale he makes a path through the seas. He is a discoverer of countries,

and a finder out of commodities, resolute in his attempts, and royal in

his expenses. He is the life of traffic and the maintainer of trade, the

sailor ’ s master and the soldier ’ s friend. He is the exercise of the

exchange, the honour of credit, the observation of time, and the

understanding of thrift. His study is number, his care his accounts, his

comfort his conscience, and his wealth his good name. He fears not

Scylla, and sails close by Charybdis, and having beaten out a storm,

rides at rest in a harbour. By his sea-gain he makes his land purchase,

and by the knowledge of trade finds the key of treasure. Out of his

travels he makes his discourses, and from his eye observations brings

the models of architectures. He plants the earth with foreign fruits,

and knows at home what is good abroad. He is neat in apparel, modest in

demeanour, dainty in diet, and civil in his carriage. In sum, he is the

pillar of a city, the enricher of a country, the furnisher of a court,

and the worthy servant of a king.

AN UNWORTHY MERCHANT.
An unworthy merchant is a kind of pedlar, who (with the help of a

broker) gets more by his wit than by his honesty. He doth sometime use

to give out money to gamesters, be paid in post, upon a hand at dice.

Sometime he gains more by baubles than better stuffs, and rather than

fail will adventure a false oath for a fraudulent gain. He deals with no

wholesale, but all his honesty is at one word; as for wares and weights,

he knows how to hold the balance, and for his conscience he is not

ignorant what to do with it. His travel is most by land, for he fears to

be too busy with the water, and whatever his ware may be, he will be

sure of his money. The most of his wealth is in a pack of trifles, and

for his honesty I dare not pass my word for him. If he be rich, it is

ten to one of his pride; and if he be poor, he breaks without his fast.

In sum, he is the disgrace of a merchant, the dishonour of a city, the

discredit of his parish, and the dislike of all.

A GOOD MAN.
A good man is an image of God, lord over all His creatures, and created

only for His service. He is made capable of reason to know the

properties of nature, and by the inspiration of grace to know things

supernatural. He hath a face always to look upward, and a soul that

gives life to all the senses. He lives in the world as a stranger, while

heaven is the home of his spirit. His life is but the labour of sense,

and his death the way to his rest. His study is the Word of truth, and

his delight is in the law of love. His provision is but to serve

necessity, and his care the exercise of charity. He is more conversant

with the divine prophets than the world ’ s profits, and makes the joy of

his soul in the tidings of his salvation. He is wise in the best wit,

and wealthy in the richest treasure. His hope is but the comfort of

mercy, and his fear but the hurt of sin. Pride is the hate of his soul,

and patience the worker of his peace. His guide is the wisdom of grace,

and his travel but to the Heavenly Jerusalem. In sum, he is the elect of

God, the blessing of grace, the seed of love, and the fruit of life.

AN ATHEIST OR MOST BAD MAN.
An atheist is a figure of desperation, who dare do anything even to his

soul ’ s damnation. He is in nature a dog, in wit an ass, in passion a

bedlam, and in action a devil. He makes sin a jest, grace a humour,

truth a fable, and peace a cowardice. His horse is his pride, his sword

is his castle, his apparel his riches, and his punk his paradise. He

makes robbery his purchase, lechery his solace, mirth his exercise, and

drunkenness his glory. He is the danger of society, the love of vanity,

the hate of charity, and the shame of humanity. He is God ’ s enemy, his

parents ’ grief, his country ’ s plague, and his own confusion. He spoils

that is necessary and spends that is needless. He spits at the gracious

and spurns the godly. The tavern is his palace and his belly is his god;

a whore is his mistress and the devil is his master. Oaths are his

graces, wounds his badges, shifts are his practices, and beggary his

payments. He knows not God, nor thinks of heaven, but walks through the

world as a devil towards hell. Virtue knows him not, honesty finds him

not, wisdom loves him not, and honour regards him not. He is but the

cutler ’ s friend and the chirurgeon ’ s agent, the thief ’ s companion and

the hangman ’ s benefactor. He was begotten untimely and born unhappily,

lives ungraciously and dies unchristianly. He is of no religion nor good

fashion; hardly good complexion, and most vile in condition. In sum, he

is a monster among men, a Jew among Christians, a fool among wise men,

and a devil among saints.

A WISE MAN.
A wise man is a clock that never strikes but at his home, or rather like

a dial that, being set right with the sun, keeps his true course in his

compass. So the heart of a wise man, set in the course of virtue by the

spirit of grace, runs the course of life in the compass of eternal

comfort. He measureth time and tempereth nature, employeth reason and

commandeth sense. He hath a deaf ear to the charmer, a close mouth to

the slanderer, an open hand to charity, and an humble mind to piety.

Observation and experience are his reason ’ s labours, and patience with

conscience are the lines of his love ’ s measure; contemplation and

meditation are his spirit ’ s exercise, and God and His Word are the joy

of his soul. He knows not the pride of prosperity nor the misery of

adversity, but takes the one as the day, the other as the night. He

knows no fortune, but builds all upon providence, and through the hope

of faith hath a fair aim at heaven. His words are weighed with judgment,

and his actions are the examples of honour. He is fit for the seat of

authority, and deserves the reverence of subjection. He is precious in

the counsel of a king, and mighty in the sway of a kingdom. In sum, he

is God ’ s servant and the world ’ s master, a stranger upon earth, and a

citizen in heaven.

A FOOL.
A fool is the abortive of wit, where nature had more power than reason

in bringing forth the fruit of imperfection. His actions are most in

extremes, and the scope of his brain is but ignorance. Only nature hath

taught him to feed, and use to labour without knowledge. He is a kind of

a shadow of a better substance, or like the vision of a dream that

yields nothing awake. He is commonly known by one or two special names,

derived from their qualities, as from wilful Will-fool, and Hodge from

hodge-podge; all meats are alike, all are one to a fool. His exercises

are commonly divided into four parts, eating and drinking, sleeping and

laughing; four things are his chief loves, a bauble and a bell, a

coxcomb and a pied-coat. He was begotten in unhappiness, born to no

goodness, lives but in beastliness, and dies but in forgetfulness. In

sum, he is the shame of nature, the trouble of wit, the charge of

charity, and the loss of liberality.

AN HONEST MAN.
An honest man is like a plain coat, which, without welt or guard,

keepeth the body from wind and weather, and being well made, fits him

best that wears it; and where the stuff is more regarded than the

fashion, there is not much ado in the putting of it on. So the mind of

an honest man, without trick or compliments, keeps the credit of a good

conscience from the scandal of the world and the worm of iniquity,

which, being wrought by the workman of heaven, fits him best that wears

it to his service; and where virtue is more esteemed than vanity, it is

put on and worn with that ease that shows the excellency of the workman.

His study is virtue, his word truth, his life the passage of patience,

and his death the rest of his spirit. His travail is a pilgrimage, his

way is plainness, his pleasure peace, and his delight is love. His care

is his conscience, his wealth is his credit, his charge is his chanty,

and his content is his kingdom. In sum, he is a diamond among jewels, a

phrenix among birds, an unicorn among beasts, and a saint among men.

A KNAVE.
A knave is the scum of wit and the scorn of reason, the hate of wisdom

and the dishonour of humanity. He is the danger of society and the hurt

of amity, the infection of youth and the corruption of age. He is a

traitor to affiance and abuse to employment, and a rule of villainy in a

plot of mischief. He hath a cat ’ s eye and a bear ’ s paw, a siren ’ s tongue

and a serpent ’ s sting. His words are lies, his oaths perjuries, his

studies subtilties, and his practices villainies; his wealth is his wit,

his honour is his wealth, his glory is his gain, and his god is his

gold. He is no man ’ s friend and his own enemy; cursed on earth and

banished from heaven. He was begotten ungraciously, born untimely, lives

dishonestly, and dies shamefully. His heart is a puddle of poison, his

tongue a sting of iniquity, his brain a distiller of deceit, and his

conscience a compass of hell. In sum, he is a dog in disposition, a fox

in wit, a wolf in his prey, and a devil in his pride.

AN USURER.
An usurer is a figure of misery, who hath made himself a slave to his

money. His eye is closed from pity, and his hand from charity; his ear

from compassion, and his heart from piety. While he lives he is the hate

of a Christian, and when he dies he goes with horror to hell. His study

is sparing, and his care is getting; his fear is wanting, and his death

is losing. His diet is either fasting or poor fare, his clothing the

hangman ’ s wardrobe, his house the receptacle of thievery, and his music

the clinking of his money. He is a kind of cancer that with the teeth of

interest eats the hearts of the poor, and a venomous fly that sucks out

the blood of any flesh that he lights on. In sum, he is a servant of

dross, a slave to misery, an agent for hell, and a devil in the world.

A BEGGAR.
A beggar is the child of idleness, whose life is a resolution of ease.

His travail is most in the highways, and his rendezvous is commonly in

an ale-house. His study is to counterfeit impotency, and his practice to

cozen simplicity of charity. The juice of the malt is the liquor of his

life, and at bed and at board a louse is his companion. He fears no such

enemy as a constable, and being acquainted with the stocks, must visit

them as he goes by them. He is a drone that feeds upon the labours of

the bee, and unhappily begotten that is born for no goodness. His staff

and his scrip are his walking furniture, and what he lacks in meat he

will have out in drink. He is a kind of caterpillar that spoils much

good fruit, and an unprofitable creature to live in a commonwealth. He

is seldom handsome and often noisome, always troublesome and never

welcome. He prays for all and preys upon all; begins with blessing but

ends often with cursing. If he have a licence he shows it with a grace,

but if he have none he is submissive to the ground. Sometime he is a

thief, but always a rogue, and in the nature of his profession the shame

of humanity. In sum, he is commonly begot in a bush, born in a barn,

lives in a highway, and dies in a ditch.

A VIRGIN.
A virgin is the beauty of nature, where the spirit gracious makes the

creature glorious. She is the love of virtue, the honour of reason, the

grace of youth, and the comfort of age. Her study is holiness, her

exercise goodness, her grace humility, and her love is charity. Her

countenance is modesty, her speech is truth, her wealth grace, and her

fame constancy. Her virtue continence, her labour patience, her diet

abstinence, and her care conscience. Her conversation heavenly, her

meditations angel-like, her prayers devout, and her hopes divine: her

parents ’ joy, her kindred ’ s honour, her country ’ s fame, and her own

felicity. She is the blessed of the highest, the praise of the

worthiest, the love of the noblest, and the nearest to the best. She is

of creatures the rarest, of women the chiefest, of nature the purest,

and of wisdom the choicest. Her life is a pilgrimage, her death but a

passage, her description a wonder, and her name an honour. In sum, she

is the daughter of glory, the mother of grace, the sister of love, and

the beloved of life.

A WANTON WOMAN.
A wanton woman is the figure of imperfection; in nature an ape, in

quality a wagtail, in countenance a witch, and in condition a kind of

devil. Her beck is a net, her word a charm, her look an illusion, and

her company a confusion. Her life is the play of idleness, her diet the

excess of dainties, her love the change of vanities, and her exercise

the invention of follies. Her pleasures are fancies, her studies

fashions, her delight colours, and her wealth her clothes. Her care is

to deceive, her comfort her company, her house is vanity, and her bed is

ruin. Her discourses are fables, her vows dissimulations, her conceits

subtleties, and her contents varieties. She would she knows not what,

and spends she cares not what, she spoils she sees not what, and doth

she thinks not what. She is youth ’ s plague and age ’ s purgatory, time ’ s

abuse and reason ’ s trouble. In sum, she is a spice of madness, a spark

of mischief, a touch of poison, and a fear of destruction.

A QUIET WOMAN.
A quiet woman is like a still wind, which neither chills the body nor

blows dust in the face. Her patience is a virtue that wins the heart of

love, and her wisdom makes her will well worthy regard. She fears God

and flieth sin, showeth kindness and loveth peace. Her tongue is tied to

discretion, and her heart is the harbour of goodness. She is a comfort

of calamity and in prosperity a companion, a physician in sickness and a

musician in help. Her ways are the walk toward heaven, and her guide is

the grace of the Almighty. She is her husband ’ s down-bed, where his

heart lies at rest, and her children ’ s glass in the notes of her grace;

her servants ’ honour in the keeping of her house, and her neighbours ’

example in the notes of a good nature. She scorns fortune and loves

virtue, and out of thrift gathereth charity. She is a turtle in her

love, a lamb in her meekness, a saint in her heart, and an angel in her

soul. In sum, she is a jewel unprizeable and a joy unspeakable, a

comfort in nature incomparable, and a wife in the world unmatchable.

AN UNQUIET WOMAN.
An unquiet woman is the misery of man, whose demeanour is not to be

described but in extremities. Her voice is the screeching of an owl, her

eye the poison of a cockatrice, her hand the claw of a crocodile, and

her heart a cabinet of horror. She is the grief of nature, the wound of

wit, the trouble of reason, and the abuse of time. Her pride is

unsupportable, her anger unquenchable, her will unsatiable, and her

malice unmatchable. She fears no colours, she cares for no counsel, she

spares no persons, nor respects any time. Her command is _must_, her

reason _will_, her resolution _shall_, and her satisfaction _so_. She

looks at no law and thinks of no lord, admits no command and keeps no

good order. She is a cross but not of Christ, and a word but not of

grace; a creature but not of wisdom, and a servant but not of God. In

sum, she is the seed of trouble, the fruit of travail, the taste of

bitterness, and the digestion of death.

A GOOD WIFE.
A good wife is a world of wealth, where just cause of content makes a

kingdom in conceit. She is the eye of wariness, the tongue of silence,

the hand of labour, and the heart of love; a companion of kindness, a

mistress of passion, an exercise of patience, and an example of

experience. She is the kitchen physician, the chamber comfort, the

hall ’ s care, and the parlour ’ s grace. She is the dairy ’ s neatness, the

brew-house ’ s wholesomeness, the garner ’ s provision and the garden ’ s

plantation. Her voice is music, her countenance meekness, her mind

virtuous, and her soul gracious. She is her husband ’ s jewel, her

children ’ s joy, her neighbour ’ s love, and her servant ’ s honour. She is

poverty ’ s prayer and charity ’ s praise, religion ’ s love and devotion ’ s

zeal. She is a care of necessity and a course of thrift, a book of

housewifery and a mirror of modesty. In sum, she is God ’ s blessing and

man ’ s happiness, earth ’ s honour and heaven ’ s creature.

AN EFFEMINATE FOOL.
An effeminate fool is the figure of a baby. He loves nothing but gay, to

look in a glass, to keep among wenches, and to play with trifles; to

feed on sweetmeats and to be danced in laps, to be embraced in arms, and

to be kissed on the cheek; to talk idly, to look demurely, to go nicely,

and to laugh continually; to be his mistress ’ servant, and her maid ’ s

master, his father ’ s love and his mother ’ s none-child; to play on a

fiddle and sing a love-song; to wear sweet gloves and look on fine

things; to make purposes and write verses, devise riddles and tell lies;

to follow plays and study dances, to hear news and buy trifles; to sigh

for love and weep for kindness, and mourn for company and be sick for

fashion; to ride in a coach and gallop a hackney, to watch all night and

sleep out the morning; to lie on a bed and take tobacco, and to send his

page of an idle message to his mistress; to go upon gigs, to have his

ruffs set in print, to pick his teeth, and play with a puppet. In sum,

he is a man-child and a woman ’ s man, a gaze of folly, and

wisdom ’ s grief.

A PARASITE.
A parasite is the image of iniquity, who for the gain of dross is

devoted to all villainy. He is a kind of thief in committing of

burglary, when he breaks into houses with his tongue and picks pockets

with his flattery. His face is brazen that he cannot blush, and his

hands are limed to catch hold what he can light on. His tongue is a bell

(but not of the church, except it be the devil ’ s) to call his parish to

his service. He is sometimes a pander to carry messages of ill meetings,

and perhaps hath some eloquence to persuade sweetness in sin. He is like

a dog at a door while the devils dance in the chamber, or like a spider

in the house-top that lives on the poison below. He is the hate of

honesty and the abuse of beauty, the spoil of youth and the misery of

age. In sum, he is a danger in a court, a cheater in a city, a jester in

the country, and a jackanapes in all.

A DRUNKARD.
A drunkard is a known adjective, for he cannot stand alone by himself;

yet in his greatest weakness a great trier of strength, whether health

or sickness will have the upper hand in a surfeit. He is a spectacle of

deformity and a shame of humanity, a view of sin and a grief of nature.

He is the annoyance of modesty and the trouble of civility, the spoil of

wealth and the spite of reason. He is only the brewer ’ s agent and the

alehouse benefactor, the beggar ’ s companion and the constable ’ s trouble.

He is his wife ’ s woe, his children ’ s sorrow, his neighbours ’ scoff, and

his own shame. In sum, he is a tub of swill, a spirit of sleep, a

picture of a beast, and a monster of a man.

A COWARD.
A coward is the child of fear. He was begotten in cold blood, when

Nature had much ado to make up a creature like a man. His life is a kind

of sickness, which breeds a kind of palsy in the joints, and his death

the terror of his conscience, with the extreme weakness of his faith. He

loves peace as his life, for he fears a sword in his soul. If he cut his

finger he looketh presently for the sign, and if his head ache he is

ready to make his will. A report of a cannon strikes him flat on his

face, and a clap of thunder makes him a strange metamorphosis. Rather

than he will fight he will be beaten, and if his legs will help him he

will put his arms to no trouble. He makes love commonly with his purse,

and brags most of his maidenhead. He will not marry but into a quiet

family, and not too fair a wife, to avoid quarrels. If his wife frown

upon him he sighs, and if she give him an unkind word he weeps. He loves

not the horns of a bull nor the paws of a bear, and if a dog bark he

will not come near the house. If he be rich he is afraid of thieves, and

if he be poor he will be slave to a beggar. In sum, he is the shame of

manhood, the disgrace of nature, the scorn of reason, and the hate

of honour.

AN HONEST POOR MAN.
An honest poor man is the proof of misery, where patience is put to the

trial of her strength to endure grief without passion, in starving with

concealed necessity, or standing in the adventures of charity. If he be

married, want rings in his ears and woe watereth his eyes. If single, he

droppeth with the shame of beggary, or dies with the passion of penury.

Of the rich he is shunned like infection, and of the poor learns but a

heart-breaking profession. His bed is the earth and the heaven is his

canopy, the sun is his summer ’ s comfort and the moon is his winter

candle. His sighs are the notes of his music, and his song is like the

swan before her death. His study, his patience; and his exercise,

prayer: his diet the herbs of the earth, and his drink the water of the

river. His travel is the walk of the woful and his horse Bayard of ten

toes: his apparel but the clothing of nakedness, and his wealth but the

hope of heaven. He is a stranger in the world, for no man craves his

acquaintance; and his funeral is without ceremony, when there is no

mourning for the miss of him: yet may he be in the state of election and

in the life of love, and more rich in grace than the greatest of the

world. In sum, he is the grief of Nature, the sorrow of reason, the pity

of wisdom, and the charge of charity.

A JUST MAN.
A just man is the child of truth, begotten by virtue and kindness; when

Nature in the temper of the spirit made even the balance of

indifference. His eye is clear from blindness and his hand from bribery,

his will from wilfulness and his heart from wickedness; his word and

deed are all one; his life shows the nature of his love, his care is the

charge of his conscience, and his comfort the assurance of his

salvation. In the seat of justice he is the grace of the law, and in the

judgment of right the honour of reason. He fears not the power of

authority to equal justice with mercy, and joys but in the judgment of

grace, to see the execution of justice. His judgment is worthy of

honour, and his wisdom is gracious in truth. His honour is famous in

virtue, and his virtue is precious in example. In sum, he is a spirit of

understanding, a brain of knowledge, a heart of wisdom, and a soul of

blessedness.

A REPENTANT SINNER.
A repentant sinner is the child of grace, who, being born for service of

God, makes no reckoning of the mastership of the world, yet doth he

glorify God in the beholding of His creatures, and in giving praise to

His holy name in the admiration of His workmanship. He is much of the

nature of an angel who, being sent into the world but to do the will of

his Master, is ever longing to be at home with his fellows. He desires

nothing but that is necessary, and delighteth in nothing that is

transitory; but contemplates more than he can conceive, and meditates

only upon the word of the Almighty. His senses are the tirers of his

spirit, while in the course of nature his soul can find no rest. He

shakes off the rags of sin, and is clothed with the robe of virtue. He

puts off Adam, and puts on Christ. His heart is the anvil of truth,

where the brain of his wisdom beats the thoughts of his mind till they

be fit for the service of his Maker. His labour is the travail of love,

by the rule of grace to find the highway to heaven. His fear is greater

than his love of the world, and his love is greater than his fear of

God. In sum, he is in the election of love, in the books of life, an

angel incarnate and a blessed creature.

A REPROBATE.
A reprobate is the child of sin who, being born for the service of the

devil, cares not what villainy he does in the world. His wit is always

in a maze, for his courses are ever out of order; and while his will

stands for his wisdom, the best that falls out of him is a fool. He

betrays the trust of the simple, and sucks out the blood of the

innocent. His breath is the fume of blasphemy, and his tongue the

firebrand of hell His desires are the destruction of the virtuous, and

his delights are the traps to damnation. He bathes in the blood of

murder, and sups up the broth of iniquity. He frighteth the eyes of the

godly, and disturbeth the hearts of the religious. He marreth the wits

of the wise, and is hateful to the souls of the gracious. In sum, he is

an inhuman creature, a fearful companion, a man-monster, and a devil

incarnate.

AN OLD MAN.
An old man is the declaration of time in the defect of Nature, and the

imperfection of sense in the use of reason. He is in the observation of

Time, a calendar of experience; but in the power of action, he is a

blank among lots. He is the subject of weakness, the agent of sickness,

the displeasure of life, and the forerunner of death. He is twice a

child and half a man, a living picture, and a dying creature. He is a

blown bladder that is only stuffed with wind, and a withered tree that

hath lost the sap of the root, or an old lute with strings all broken,

or a ruined castle that is ready to fall. He is the eyesore of youth and

the jest of love, and in the fulness of infirmity the mirror of misery.

Yet in the honour of wisdom he may be gracious in gravity, and in the

government of justice deserve the honour of reverence. Yea, his word may

be notes for the use of reason, and his actions examples for the

imitation of discretion. In sum, in whatsoever estate he is but as the

snuff of a candle, that pink it ever so long it will out at last.

A YOUNG MAN.
A young man is the spring of time, when nature in her pride shows her

beauty to the world. He is the delight of the eye and the study of the

mind, the labour of instruction and the pupil of reason. His wit is in

making or marring, his wealth in gaining or losing, his honour in

advancing or declining, and his life in abridging or increasing. He is a

bloom that either is blasted in the bud or grows to a good fruit, or a

bird that dies in the nest or lives to make use of her wings. He is a

colt that must have a bridle ere he be well managed, and a falcon that

must be well maned or he will never be reclaimed. He is the darling of

nature and the charge of reason, the exercise of patience and the hope

of charity. His exercise is either study or action, and his study either

knowledge or pleasure. His disposition gives a great note of his

generation, and yet his breeding may either better or worse him, though

to wish a blackamoor white be the loss of labour, and what is bred in

the bone will never out of the flesh. In sum, till experience have

seasoned his understanding, he is rather a child than a man, a prey of

flattery or a praise of providence, in the way of grace to prove a

saint, or in the way of sin to grow a devil.

A HOLY MAN.
A holy man is the chiefest creature in the workmanship of the world. He

is the highest in the election of love, and the nearest to the image of

the human nature of his Maker. He is served of all the creatures in the

earth, and created but for the service of his Creator. He is capable of

the course of nature, and by the rule of observation finds the art of

reason. His senses are but servants to his spirit, which is guided by a

power above himself. His time is only known to the eye of the Almighty,

and what he is in his most greatness is as nothing but in His mercy. He

makes law by the direction of life, and lives but in the mercy of love.

He treads upon the face of the earth till in the same substance he be

trod upon, though his soul that gave life to his senses live in heaven

till the resurrection of his flesh. He hath an eye to look upward

towards grace, while labour is only the punishment of sin. His faith is

the hand of his soul, which layeth hold on the promise of mercy. His

patience is the tenure of the possession of his soul, his charity the

rule of his life, and his hope the anchor of his salvation. His study is

the state of obedience, and his exercise the continuance of prayer; his

life but a passage to a better, and his death the rest of his labours.

His heart is a watch to his eye, his wit a door to his mouth, his soul a

guard to his spirit, and his limbs are but labourers for his body. In

sum, he is ravished with divine love, hateful to the nature of sin,

troubled with the vanities of the world, and longing for his joy but

in heaven.

GEOFFREY MINSHULL.
_After "The Good and the Bad" published in 1616, came, in 1618, "Essays

and Characters of a Prison and Prisoners, by G. M. of Grayes Inn, Gent."

G.M. signed his name in full--Geffray Minshul--after the Dedication to

his uncle, Mr. Matthew Mainwaring of Nantwich, Cheshire, and he dates

from the King ’ s Bench Prison. Philip Bliss found record in a History of

Nantwich of a monument there in St. Mary ’ s Church, erected by Geoffrey

Minshull of Stoke, Esq., to the memory of his ancestors. He quotes also

from Geoffrey Minshull ’ s Characters the folloiuing passage from the

Dedication, and the Character of a Prisoner._

FROM THE DEDICATION OF "ESSAYS AND CHARACTERS OF A PRISON AND

PRISONERS."

"Since my coming into this prison, what with the strangeness of the

place and strictness of my liberty, I am so transported that I could not

follow that study wherein I took great delight and chief pleasure, and

to spend my time idly would but add more discontentments to my troubled

breast, and being in this chaos of discontentments, fantasies must

arise, which will bring forth the fruits of an idle brain, for _e malis

minimum_. It is far better to give some account of time, though to

little purpose, than none at all. To which end I gathered a handful of

essays, and few characters of such things as by my own experience I

could say _Probatum est:_ not that thereby I should either please the

reader, or show exquisiteness of invention, or curious style; seeing

what I write of is but the child of sorrow, bred by discontentments and

nourished up with misfortunes, to whose help melancholy Saturn gave his

judgment, the night-bird her invention, and the ominous raven brought a

quill taken from his own wing, dipped in the ink of misery, as chief

aiders in this architect of sorrow."

A CHARACTER OF A PRISONER.
A prisoner is an impatient patient, lingering under the rough hands of a

cruel physician: his creditor having cast his water knows his disease,

and hath power to cure him, but takes more pleasure to kill him. He is

like Tantalus, who hath freedom running by his door, yet cannot enjoy

the least benefit thereof. His greatest grief is that his credit was so

good and now no better. His land is drawn within the compass of a

sheep ’ s skin, and his own hand the fornication that bars him of

entrance: he is fortune ’ s tossing-ball, an object that would make mirth

melancholy: to his friends an abject, and a subject of nine days ’ wonder

in every barber ’ s shop, and a mouthful of pity (that he had no better

fortune) to midwives and talkative gossips; and all the content that

this transitory life can give him seems but to flout him, in respect the

restraint of liberty bars the true use. To his familiars he is like a

plague, whom they dare scarce come nigh for fear of infection; he is a

monument ruined by those which raised him, he spends the day with a _hei

mihi! vae miserum!_ and the night with a _nullis est medicabilis herbis._

HENRY PARROT
_In 1626--year of the death of Francis Bacon--appeared "Cures for the

Itch; Characters, Epigrams, Epitaphs by H. P." with the motto "Scalpat

qui Tangitur." H. P. was read by Philip Bliss into Henry Parrot, who

published a collection of epigrams in 1613, as "Laquei Ridiculosi, or

Springes for Woodcocks." The Characters in this little volume are of a

Ballad Maker, a Tapster, a Drunkard, a Rectified Young Man, a Young

Novice ’ s New Younger Wife, a Common Fiddler, a Broker, a Jovial Good

Fellow, a Humourist, a Malapert Young Upstart, a Scold, a Good Wife, and

a Self-Conceited Parcel-Witted Old Dotard._

A SCOLD
Is a much more heard of, than least desired to be seen or known,

she-kind of serpent; the venomed sting of whose poisonous tongue, worse

than the biting of a scorpion, proves more infectious far than can be

cured. She ’ s of all other creatures most untameablest, and covets more

the last word in scolding than doth a combater the last stroke for

victory. She loudest lifts it standing at her door, bidding, with

exclamation, flat defiance to any one says black ’ s her eye. She dares

appear before any justice, nor is least daunted with the sight of

constable, nor at worst threatenings of a cucking-stool. There ’ s nothing

mads or moves her more to outrage than but the very naming of a wisp, or

if you sing or whistle when she is scolding. If any in the interim

chance to come within her reach, twenty to one she scratcheth him by the

face; or do but offer to hold her hands, she ’ ll presently begin to cry

out murder. There ’ s nothing pacifies her but a cup of sack, which taking

in full measure of digestion, she presently forgets all wrongs that ’ s

done her, and thereupon falls straight a-weeping. Do but entreat her

with fair words, or flatter her, she then confesseth all her

imperfections, and lays the guilt upon her maid. Her manner is to talk

much in her sleep, what wrongs she hath endured of that rogue her

husband, whose hap may be in time to die a martyr; and so I leave them.

A GOOD WIFE
Is a world of happiness, that brings with it a kingdom in conceit, and

makes a perfect adjunct in society; she ’ s such a comfort as exceeds

content, and proves so precious as cannot be paralleled, yea more

inestimable than may be valued. She ’ s any good man ’ s better second self,

the very mirror of true constant modesty, the careful housewife of

frugality, and dearest object of man ’ s heart ’ s felicity. She commands

with mildness, rules with discretion, lives in repute, and ordereth all

things that are good or necessary. She ’ s her husband ’ s solace, her

house ’ s ornament, her children ’ s succour, and her servant ’ s comfort.

She ’ s (to be brief) the eye of wariness, the tongue of silence, the hand

of labour, and the heart of love. Her voice is music, her countenance

meekness, her mind virtuous, and her soul gracious. She ’ s a blessing

given from God to man, a sweet companion in his affliction, and

joint-copartner upon all occasions. She ’ s (to conclude) earth ’ s chiefest

paragon, and will be, when she dies, heaven ’ s dearest creature.



R. M.
_In_ 1629_ appeared sixteen pieces in fifty-six pages entitled

"Micrologia, Characters or Essayes, of Persons, Trades, and Places,

offered to the City and Country, by R. M." There was an "R. M." who

wrote from the coast of Guiana in November 1817 "Newes of Sir W.

Raleigh. With the true Description of Guiana: as also relation of the

excellent Government, and much hope of the prosperity of the Voyage.

Sent from a gentleman of his Fleet (R. M.) to a most especiall Friend of

his in London. From the River of Caliana on the Coast of Guiana,

Novemb._ 17, 1617," _published in 1618. The Characters of Persons and

Trades in "Micrologia" are: a Fantastic Tailor, a Player, a Shoemaker, a

Ropemaker, a Smith, a Tobacconist, a Cunning Woman, a Cobbler, a

Tooth-drawer, a Tinker, a Fiddler, a Cunning Horse-Courser; and of

Places, Bethlem, Ludgate, Bridewell, Newgate.

This is R. M. ’ s character of a Player--_

PLAYER
Is a volume of various conceits or epitome of time, who by his

representation and appearance makes things long past seem present. He is

much like the counters in arithmetic, and may stand one while for a

king, another while a beggar, many times as a mute or cipher. Sometimes

he represents that which in his life he scarce practises--to be an

honest man. To the point, he oft personates a rover, and therein conies

nearest to himself. If his action prefigure passion, he raves, rages,

and protests much by his painted heavens, and seems in the height of

this fit ready to pull Jove out of the garret where perchance he lies

leaning on his elbows, or is employed to make squibs and crackers to

grace the play. His audience are oftentimes judicious, but his chief

admirers are commonly young wanton chambermaids, who are so taken with

his posture and gay clothes, they never come to be their own women

after. He exasperates men ’ s enormities in public view, and tells them

their faults on the stage, not as being sorry for them, but rather

wishes still he might find more occasions to work on. He is the general

corrupter of spirits yet untainted, inducing them by gradation to much

lascivious depravity. He is a perspicuity of vanity in variety, and

suggests youth to perpetrate such vices as otherwise they had haply

ne ’ er heard of. He is (for the most part) a notable hypocrite, seeming

what he is not, and is indeed what he seems not. And if he lose one of

his fellow strolls, in the summer he turns king of the gipsies; if not,

some great man ’ s protection is a sufficient warrant for his

peregrination, and a means to procure him the town-hall, where he may

long exercise his qualities with clown-claps of great admiration, in a

tone suitable to the large ears of his illiterate auditory. He is one

seldom takes care for old age, because ill diet and disorder, together

with a consumption or some worse disease taken up in his full career,

have only chalked out his catastrophe but to a colon; and he scarcely

survives to his natural period of days.



WHIMZIES
_In_ 1631 _"Whimzies, or, A new Cast of Characters" inscribed to Sir

Alexander Radcliffe by one who signed his dedication Clitus

Alexandrinus, gave twenty-four Characters, of which this of the maker of

a Courant or news sheet is one:--_

A CORRANTO-COINER
Is a state newsmonger; and his own genius is his intelligencer. His mint

goes weekly, and he coins money by it. Howsoever, the more intelligent

merchants do jeer him, the vulgar do admire him, holding his novels

oracular; and these are usually sent for tokens or intermissive

courtesies betwixt city and country. He holds most constantly one form

or method of discourse. He retains some military words of art, which he

shoots at random; no matter where they hit they cannot wound any. He

ever leaves some passages doubtful, as if they were some more intimate

secrecies of state, closing his sentence abruptly with--_hereafter you

shall hear more._ Which words, I conceive, he only useth as baits, to

make the appetite of the reader more eager in his next week ’ s pursuit

fora more satisfying labour. Some general-erring relations he picks up,

as crumbs or fragments, from a frequented ordinary; of which shreds he

shapes a coat to fit any credulous fool that will wear it. You shall

never observe him make any reply in places of public concourse; he

ingenuously acknowledges himself to be more bounden to the happiness of

a retentive memory, than either ability of tongue or pregnancy of

conceit. He carries his table-book still about with him, but dares not

pull it out publicly. Yet no sooner is the table drawn than he turns

notary, by which means he recovers the charge of his ordinary. Paul ’ s is

his walk in winter, Moorfields in summer, where the whole discipline,

designs, projects, and exploits of the States, Netherlands, Poland,

Switzer, Crimchan and all, are within the compass of one quadrangle walk

most judiciously and punctually discovered. But long he must not walk,

lest he make his news-press stand. Thanks to his good invention, he can

collect much out of a very little; no matter though more experienced

judgments disprove him, he is anonymous, and that will secure him. To

make his reports more credible or (which he and his stationer only aims

at) more vendible, in the relation of every occurrence he renders you

the day of the month; and to approve himself a scholar, he annexeth

these Latin parcels, or parcel-gilt sentences, _veteri stylo, novo

stylo_. Palisados, parapets, counter-scarps, forts, fortresses,

rampiers, bulwarks, are his usual dialect. He writes as if he would do

some mischief, yet the charge of his shot is but paper. He will

sometimes start in his sleep, as one affrighted with visions, which I

can impute to no other cause but to the terrible skirmishes which he

discoursed of in the daytime. He has now tied himself apprentice to the

trade of minting, and must weekly perform his task, or (beside the loss

which accrues to himself) he disappoints a number of no small fools,

whose discourse, discipline, and discretion is drilled from his

state-service. These you shall know by their Monday ’ s mornings question,

a little before exchange time: Stationer, have you any news? Which they

no sooner purchase than peruse; and, early by next morning (lest their

country friend should be deprived of the benefit of so rich a prize),

they freely vent the substance of it, with some illustrations, if their

understanding can furnish them that way. He would make you believe that

he were known to some foreign intelligence, but I hold him the wisest

man that hath the least faith to believe him. For his relations he

stands resolute, whether they become approved or evinced for untruths;

which if they be, he has contracted with his face never to blush for the

matter. He holds especial concurrence with two philosophical sects,

though he be ignorant of the tenets of either: in the collection of his

observations he is peripatetical, for he walks circularly; in the

digestion of his relations he is stoical, and sits regularly. He has an

alphabetical table of all the chief commanders, generals, leaders,

provincial towns, rivers, ports, creeks, with other fitting materials to

furnish his imaginary building. Whisperings, mutterings, and bare

suppositions are sufficient grounds for the authority of his relations.

It is strange to see with what greediness this airy chameleon, being all

lungs and wind, will swallow a receipt of news, as if it were physical;

yea, with what frontless insinuation he will screw himself into the

acquaintance of some knowing intelligencers, who, trying the cask by his

hollow sound, do familiarly gull him. I am of opinion, were all his

voluminous centuries of fabulous relations compiled, they would vie in

number with the Iliads of many fore-running ages. You shall many times

find in his gazettas, pasquils, and corrantos miserable distractions:

here a city taken by force long before it be besieged; there a country

laid waste before ever the enemy entered. He many times tortures his

readers with impertinencies, yet are these the tolerablest passages

throughout all his discourse. He is the very landscape of our age. He is

all air; his ear always open to all reports, which, how incredible

soever, must pass for current and find vent, purposely to get him

current money and delude the vulgar. Yet our best comfort is, his

chimeras live not long; a week is the longest in the city, and after

their arrival, little longer in the country, which past they melt like

butter, or match a pipe, and so burn. But indeed, most commonly it is

the height of their ambition to aspire to the employment of stopping

mustard-pots, or wrapping up pepper, powder, staves-aker, &c., which

done, they expire. Now for his habit, Wapping and Long Lane will give

him his character. He honours nothing with a more endeared observance,

nor hugs ought with more intimacy, than antiquity, which he expresseth

even in his clothes. I have known some love fish best that smelled of

the pannier; and the like humour reigns in him, for he loves that

apparel best that has a taste of the broker. Some have held him for a

scholar, but trust me such are in a palpable error, for he never yet

understood so much Latin as to construe _Gallo-Belgicus_. For his

library (his own continuations excepted), it consists of very few or no

books. He holds himself highly engaged to his invention if it can

purchase him victuals; for authors, he never converseth with them,

unless they walk in Paul ’ s. For his discourse it is ordinary, yet he

will make you a terrible repetition of desperate commanders, unheard-of

exploits, intermixing withal his own personal service. But this is not

in all companies, for his experience hath sufficiently informed him in

this principle--that as nothing works more on the simple than things

strange and incredibly rare, so nothing discovers his weakness more

among the knowing and judicious than to insist, by way of discourse, on

reports above conceit. Amongst these, therefore, he is as mute as a

fish. But now imagine his lamp (if he be worth one) to be nearly burnt

out, his inventing genius wearied and footsore with ranging over so many

unknown regions, and himself wasted with the fruitless expense of much

paper, resigning his place of weekly collections to another, whom, in

hope of some little share, he has to his stationer recommended, while he

lives either poorly respected or dies miserably suspended. The rest I

end with his own close:--Next week you shall hear more.

_The other characters in "Whimzies" were an Almanac-maker, a

Ballad-monger, a Decoy, an Exchange-man, a Forester, a Gamester, an

Hospital-man, a Jailer, a Keeper, a Launderer, a Metal-man, a Neater, an

Ostler, a Postmaster, a Quest-man, a Ruffian, a Sailor, a Traveller, an

Under-Sheriff, a Wine-Soaker, a Xantippean, a Jealous Neighbour, a

Zealous Brother. The collection was enlarged by addition under separate

title-page of "A Cater-Character, thrown out of a box by an Experienced

Gamester"-which gave Characters of an Apparitor, a Painter, a Pedlar,

and a Piper. The author added also some lines "upon the Birthday of his

sonne Iohn," beginning--

"God blesse thee, Iohn,

And make thee such an one

That I may joy

In calling thee my son.

Thou art my ninth,

And by it I divine

That thou shalt live

To love the Muses Nine."_

JOHN MILTON
_when he was at college, ventured down among the Character-writers in

his two pieces on the University Carrier. Thomas Hobson had been for

sixty years carrier between Cambridge and the Bull Inn, Bishopsgate

Street, London. He was a very well-known Cambridge character. Steele, in

No. 509 of the "Spectator" ascribed to him the origin of the proverbial

phrase, Hobson ’ s Choice. "Being a man of great ability and invention,

and one that saw where there might good profit arise, though the duller

men overlooked it, this ingenious man was the first in this island who

let out hackney-horses. ’ " [ That is a mistake, but never mind. ] "He lived

in Cambridge; and, observing that the scholars rid hard, his manner was

to keep a large stable of horses, with boots, bridles, and whips, to

furnish the gentlemen at once, without going from college to college to

borrow. I say, Mr. Hobson kept a stable of forty good cattle, always

ready and fit for travelling; but, when a man came for a horse, he was

led into the stable, where there was great choice; but he obliged him to

take the horse which stood next the stable door; so that every customer

was alike well served according to his chance, and every horse ridden

with the same justice--from whence it became a proverb, when what ought

to be your election was forced upon you, to say ’ Hobson ’ s Choice! ’ "

In the spring of 1630 the Plague in Cambridge caused colleges to be

closed, and among other precautions against spread of infection, Hobson

the Carrier was forbidden to go to and fro between Cambridge and London.

At the end of the year, after six or seven, months of forced inaction,

Hobson sickened; and he died on the first of January, at the age of

eighty-six, leaving his family amply provided for, and money for the

maintenance of the town conduit. At the Bull Inn in London there used to

be a portrait of him with a money-bag under his arm.

Character-writing being in fashion many a character of the University

Carrier was written, no doubt, by Cambridge men after Hobson ’ s death at

the beginning of the year_ 1631 _(new style). And these were Milton ’ s.

Their unlikeness to other work of his lies in their likeness to a form

of literature which was but fashion of the day, and having travelled out

of sight of its old starting-point and forgotten where its true goal

lay, had gone astray, and often by idolatry of wit sinned

against wisdom._

ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER,
_Who sickened in the time of his Vacancy, being forbid to go to London

by reason of the Plague._

Here lies old Hobson. Death hath broke his girt,

And here, alas, hath laid him in the dirt;

Or else, the ways being foul, twenty to one

He ’ s here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.

’ Twas such a shifter that, if truth were known,

Death was half glad when he had got him down;

For he had any time this ten years full

Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and _The Bull_,

And surely Death could never have prevailed

Had not his weekly course of carriage failed:

But lately, finding him so long at home,

And thinking now his journey ’ s end was come,

And that he had ta ’ en up his latest inn,

In the kind office of a chamberlin

Showed him his room where he must lodge that night,

Pulled off his boots, and took away the light.

If any ask for him, it shall be said,

"Hobson has supped, and ’ s newly gone to bed."

ANOTHER ON THE SAME.

Here lieth one that did most truly prove

That he could never die while he could move;

So hung his destiny, never to rot

While he might still jog on and keep his trot;

Made of sphere-metal, never to decay

Until his revolution was at stay.

Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime

’ Gainst old truth) motion numbered out his time;

And, like an engine moved with wheel and weight,

His principles being ceased, he ended straight.

Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,

And too much breathing put him out of breath;

Nor were it contradiction to affirm

Too long vacation hastened on his term.

Merely to drive the time away he sickened,

Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quickened.

"Nay," quoth he, on his swooning-bed outstretched,

"If I mayn ’ t carry, sure I ’ ll ne ’ er be fetched,

But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers,

For one carrier put down to make six bearers."

Ease was his chief disease; and, to judge right,

He died for heaviness that his cart went light.

His leisure told him that his time was come,

And lack of load made his life burdensome,

That even to his last breath (there be that say ’ t)

As he were pressed to death, he cried. "More weight!"

But, had his doings lasted as they were,

He had been an immortal carrier.

Obedient to the moon he spent his date

In course reciprocal, and had his fate

Linked to the mutual flowing of the seas;

Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase.

His letters are delivered all and gone,

Only remains the superscription.

_How very sure we should all be that Milton did not write these pieces,

if he had not given them a place among his published works! Returning to

the crowd of Character-writers we find in 1631, the year of Milton ’ s

writing upon Hobson,_

WYE SALTONSTALL,
_author of "Pictures Loquentes, or Pictures drawn forth in Characters.

With a Poeme of a Maid" The poem of a Maid was, of course, suggested by

the fact that Sir Thomas Overbury ’ s Characters had joined to them the

poem of a Wife. There was a second edition in 1635. Saltonstall ’ s

Characters were the World, an Old Man, a Woman, a Widow, a True Lover, a

Country Bride, a Ploughman, a Melancholy Man, a Young Heir, a Scholar in

the University, a Lawyers Clerk, a Townsman in Oxford, an Usurer, a

Wandering Rogue, a Waterman, a Shepherd, a Jealous Man, a Chamberlain, a

Maid, a Bailey, a Country Fair, a Country Ale-house, a Horse Race, a

Farmer ’ s Daughter, a Keeper, a Gentleman ’ s House in the Country; to

which he added in the second edition, a Fine Dame, a Country Dame, a

Gardener, a Captain, a Poor Village, a Merry Man, a Scrivener, the Term,

a Mower, a Happy Man, an Arrant Knave, and an Old Waiting Gentlewoman.

This is one of his Characters as quoted by Philip Bliss in the Appendix

to his edition of Earle_--

THE TERM
Is a time when Justice keeps open court for all comers, while her sister

Equity strives to mitigate the rigour of her positive sentence. It is

called the term, because it does end and terminate business, or else

because it is the _Terminus ad quem_, that is, the end of the

countryman ’ s journey, who comes up to the term, and with his hobnail

shoes grinds the faces of the poor stones, and so returns again. It is

the soul of the year, and makes it quick, which before was dead.

Innkeepers gape for it as earnestly as shell-fish do for salt water

after a low ebb. It sends forth new books into the world, and

replenishes Paul ’ s Walk with fresh company, where _Quid novi_? is their

first salutation, and the weekly news their chief discourse. The taverns

are painted against the term, and many a cause is argued there and tried

at that bar, where you are adjudged to pay the costs and charges, and so

dismissed with "welcome, gentlemen." Now the city puts her best side

outward, and a new play at the Blackfriars is attended on with coaches.

It keeps watermen from sinking, and helps them with many a fare voyage

to Westminster. Tour choice beauties come up to it only to see and be

seen, and to learn the newest fashion, and for some other recreations.

Now many that have been long sick and crazy begins to stir and walk

abroad, especially if some young prodigals come to town, who bring more

money than wit. Lastly, the term is the joy of the city, a dear friend

to countrymen, and is never more welcome than after a long vacation.

_We have also, in 1632, "London and Country Carbonadoed and Quartered

into Several Characters" by Donald Lupton; in 1633, the "Character of a

Gentleman" appended to Brathwaif ’ s "English Gentleman;" in 1634, "A

strange Metamorphosis of Man, transformed into a Wilderness, Deciphered

in Characters" of which this is a specimen_:--

THE HORSE
Is a creature made, as it were, in wax. When Nature first framed him,

she took a secret complacence in her work. He is even her masterpiece in

irrational things, borrowing somewhat of all things to set him forth.

For example, his slick bay coat he took from the chestnut; his neck from

the rainbow, which perhaps make him rain so well. His mane belike he

took from Pegasus, making him a hobby to make this a complete jennet,

which mane he wears so curled, much after the women ’ s fashions

now-a-days;--this I am sure of, howsoever, it becomes them, [ and ] it

sets forth our jennet well. His legs he borrowed of the hart, with his

swiftness, which makes him a true courser indeed. The stars in his

forehead he fetched from heaven, which will not be much missed, there

being so many. The little head he hath, broad breast, fat buttock, and

thick tail are properly his own, for he knew not where to get him

better. If you tell him of the horns he wants to make him most complete,

he scorns the motion, and sets them at his heel. He is well shod,

especially in the upper leather, for as for his soles, they are much at

reparation, and often fain to be removed. Nature seems to have spent an

apprenticeship of years to make you such a one, for it is full seven

years ere he comes to this perfection, and be fit for the saddle: for

then (as we), it seems to come to the years of discretion, when he will

show a kind of rational judgment with him, and if you set an expert

rider on his back, you shall see how sensible they will talk together,

as master and scholar. When he shall be no sooner mounted and planted in

the seat, with the reins in one hand, a switch in the other, and

speaking with his spurs in the horse ’ s flanks, a language he well

understands, but he shall prance, curvet, and dance the canaries half an

hour together in compass of a bushel, and yet still, as he thinks, get

some ground, shaking the goodly plume on his head with a comely pride.

This will our Bucephalus do in the lists: but when he comes abroad into

the fields, he will play the country gentleman as truly, as before the

knight in tournament. If the game be up once, and the hounds in chase,

you shall see how he will prick up his ears straight, and tickle at the

sport as much as his rider shall, and laugh so loud, that if there be

many of them, they will even drown the rural harmony of the dogs. When

he travels, of all inns he loves best the sign of the silver bell,

because likely there he fares best, especially if he come the first and

get the prize. He carries his ears upright, nor seldom ever lets them

fall till they be cropped off, and after that, as in despite, will never

wear them more. His tail is so essential to him, that if he lose it once

he is no longer a horse, but ever styled a curtali. To conclude, he is a

blade of Vulcan ’ s forging, made for Mars of the best metal, and the post

of Fame to carry her tidings through the world, who, if he knew his own

strength, would shrewdly put for the monarchy of our wilderness.



SIR FRANCIS WORTLEY, T. FORD
_Then there-were separate Characters, as "of a Projector" (1642); "of an

Oxford Incendiary" (1645); and in 1664, "A New Anatomic, or Character of

a Christian or Roundhead, expressing his Description, Excellenrie,

Happiness, and Innocencie. Wherein may appear how far this blind World

is mistaken in their unjust Censures of him." Several Characters were

included in Lord North ’ s "Forest of Varieties" published in 1645.

Fourteen Characters, some of individual persons, were in the "Characters

and Elegies, by Sir Francis Wortley, Knight and Baronet" published in

1646. The author was son of Sir Richard Wortley of Wortley in Yorkshire.

He was a good royalist, was taken prisoner in the civil wars, and wrote

his Characters in the Tower. They were these:--The Character of his Roy

all Majestie; the Character of the Queene ’ s Majestie; the Hopeful

Prince; a true Character of the illustrious James, Duke of York; the

Character of a Noble General; a true English Protestant; an Antinomian,

or Anabaptistical Independent; a Jesuit; the true Character of a

Northern Lady, as she is Wife, Mother, and Sister; the Politique Neuter;

the Citie Paragon; a Sharking Committee-man; Britannicus his Pedigree

--afatall Prediction of his end; and last, the Phoenix of the Court.

In 1646, T. F., who is named by interlineation on his title-page among

the King ’ s Pamphlets, T. Ford, servant to Mr. Sam. Man, produced the

"Times Anatomized, in several Characters." These were: A Good King,

Rebellion, an Honest Subject, an Hypocritical Convert of the Times, a

Soldier of Fortune, a Discontented Person, an Ambitious Man, the Vulgar,

Error, Truth, a Self-seeker, Pamphlets, an Envious Man, True Valour,

Time, a Neuter, a Turn-Coat, a Moderate Man, a Corrupt Committee-man, a

Sectary, War, Peace, a Drunkard, a Novice, Preacher, a Scandalous

Preacher, a Grave Divine, a Self-Conceited Man, Religion, Death. This is

T. Ford ’ s Character of Pamphlets--_

PAMPHLETS

Are the weekly almanacs, showing what weather is in the state, which,

like the doves of Aleppo, carry news to every part of the kingdom. They

are the silent traitors that affront majesty, and abuse all authority,

under the colour of an imprimatur. Ubiquitary flies that have of late so

blistered the ears of all men, that they cannot endure the solid truth.

The echoes, whereby what is done in part of the kingdom, is heard all

over. They are like the mushrooms, sprung up in a night, and dead in a

day; and such is the greediness of men ’ s natures (in these Athenian

days) of new, that they will rather feign than want it.

_So the tide ran on. In_ 1647 _there was "The Character of an Agitator,"

and also John Cleveland ’ s Character of a London Diurnal._

JOHN CLEVELAND,
_The Cavalier poet, born at Loitghborough in Leicestershire in_ 1613,

_son of an usher in a free school there, was sent to Milton ’ s College,

Christ ’ s, at Cambridge in_ 1627, _when he was fifteen years old. Milton

had gone to Christ ’ s two years before, but at the age of seventeen.

Cleveland left Christ ’ s College in_ 1631, _when he took his B.A. degree,

and went to St. John ’ s, of which he was elected a Fellow in March_ 1634.

_He proceeded M.A. in_ 1634, _and studied afterwards both law and

physics, living for nine years at Cambridge. John Cleveland was ejected

from his position as Fellow and Tutor by the Parliamentary visitors in

February_ 1645 _(new style), and was sent to Newark as judge advocate

under Sir Richard Willis, the Governor. After the surrender at Newark,

Cleveland depended upon friendship of cavaliers who gave him hospitality

for his witty companionship, and the good scholarship that made him

valuable as a tutor to their sons, Cleveland, who lives among our poets,

wrote in the first days of his trouble these three prose Characters:--_

THE CHARACTER OF

A COUNTRY COMMITTEE-MAN,
WITH THE EAR-MARK. OF A SEQUESTRATOR.

A committee-man by his name should be one that is possessed, there is

number enough in it to make an epithet for legion. He is _persona in

concreto_ (to borrow the solecism of a modern statesman). You may

translate it by the Red Bull phrase, and speak as properly, Enter seven

devils _solus_. It is a well-trussed title that contains both the number

and the beast; for a committee-man is a noun of multitude, he must be

spelled with figures, like Antichrist wrapped in a pair-royal of sixes.

Thus the name is as monstrous as the man, a complex notion of the same

lineage with accumulative treason. For his office it is the Heptarchy,

or England ’ s fritters; it is the broken meat of a crumbling prince, only

the royalty is greater; for it is here, as in the miracle of loaves, the

voider exceeds the bill of fare. The Pope and he ring the changes; here

is the plurality of crowns to one head, join them together and there is

a harmony in discord. The triple-headed turnkey of heaven with the

triple-headed porter of hell. A committee-man is the relics of regal

government, but, like holy relics, he outbulks the substance whereof he

is a remnant. There is a score of kings in a committee, as in the relics

of the cross there is the number of twenty. This is the giant with the

hundred hands that wields the sceptre; the tyrannical bead-roll by which

the kingdom prays backward, and at every curse drops a committee-man.

Let Charles be waived whose condescending clemency aggravates the

defection, and make Nero the question, better a Nero than a committee.

There is less execution by a single bullet than by case-shot.

Now a committee-man is a parti-coloured officer. He must be drawn like

Janus with cross and pile in his countenance, as he relates to the

soldiers or faces about to his fleecing the country. Look upon him

martially, and he is a justice of war, one that hath bound his Dalton up

in buff, and will needs be of the Quorum to the best commanders. He is

one of Mars his lay-elders; he shares in the government, though a

Nonconformist to his bleeding rubric. He is the like sectary in arms, as

the Platonic is in love, keeps a fluttering in discourse, but proves a

haggard in the action. He is not of the soldiers and yet of his flock.

It is an emblem of the golden age (and such indeed he makes it to him)

when so tame a pigeon may converse with vultures. Methinks a committee

hanging about a governor, and bandileers dangling about a furred

alderman, have an anagram resemblance. There is no syntax between a cap

of maintenance and a helmet. Who ever knew an enemy routed by a grand

jury and a _Billa vera?_ It is a left-handed garrison where their

authority perches; but the more preposterous the more in fashion, the

right hand fights while the left rules the reins. The truth is, the

soldier and the gentleman are like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, one

fights at all adventures to purchase the other the government of the

island. A committee-man properly should be the governor ’ s mattress to

fit his truckle, and to new string him with sinews of war; for his chief

use is to raise assessments in the neighbouring wapentake.

The country people being like an Irish cow that will not give down her

milk unless she see her calf before her, hence it is he is the

garrison ’ s dry nurse; he chews their contribution before he feeds them,

so the poor soldiers live like Trochilus by picking the teeth of this

sacred crocodile.

So much for his warlike or ammunition face, which is so preter-natural

that it is rather a vizard than a face; Mars in him hath but a blinking

aspect, his face of arms is like his coat, _partie per pale_, soldier

and gentleman much of a scantling.

Now enter his taxing and deglubing face, a squeezing look like that of

Vespasianus, as if he were bleeding over a close stool.

Take him thus and he is in the inquisition of the purse an authentic

gypsy, that nips your bong with a canting ordinance; not a murdered

fortune in all the country but bleeds at the touch of this malefactor.

He is the spleen of the body politic that swells itself to the

consumption of the whole. At first, indeed, he ferreted for the

parliament, but since he hath got off his cope he set up for himself. He

lives upon the sins of the people, and that is a good standing dish too.

He verifies the axiom, _lisdem nutritur ex quibus componitur_; his diet

is suitable to his constitution. I have wondered often why the plundered

countrymen should repair to him for succour, certainly it is under the

same notion, as one whose pockets are picked goes to Moll Cutpurse, as

the predominant in that faculty.

He outdives a Dutchman, gets a noble of him that was never worth

sixpence; for the poorest do not escape, but Dutch-like he will be

draining even in the driest ground. He aliens a delinquent ’ s estate with

as little remorse as his other holiness gives away an heretic ’ s kingdom,

and for the truth of the delinquency, both chapmen have as little share

of infallibility. Lye is the grand salad of arbitrary government,

executor to the star-chamber and the high commission; for those courts

are not extinct, they survive in him like dollars changed into single

money. To speak the truth, he is the universal tribunal; for since these

times all causes fall to his cognisance, as in a great infection all

diseases turn oft to the plague. It concerns our masters the parliament

to look about them; if he proceedeth at this rate the jack may come to

swallow the pike, as the interest often eats out the principal. As his

commands are great, so he looks for a reverence accordingly. He is

punctual in exacting your hat, and to say right his due, but by the same

title as the upper garment is the vails of the executioner. There was a

time when such cattle would hardly have been taken upon suspicion for

men in office, unless the old proverb were renewed, that the beggars

make a free company, and those their wardens. You may see what it is to

hang together. Look upon them severally, and you cannot but fumble for

some threads of charity. But oh, they are termagants in conjunction!

like fiddlers who are rogues when they go single, and joined in consort,

gentlemen musicianers. I care not much if I untwist my committee-man,

and so give him the receipt of this grand Catholicon.

Take a state martyr, one that for his good behaviour hath paid the

excise of his ears, so suffered captivity by the land-piracy of

ship-money; next a primitive freeholder, one that hates the king because

he is a gentleman transgressing the Magna Charta of delving Adam. Add to

these a mortified bankrupt that helps out his false weights with some

scruples of conscience, and with his peremptory scales can doom his

prince with a _mene tekel_. These with a new blue-stockinged justice,

lately made of a good basket-hilted yeoman, with a short-handed clerk

tacked to the rear of him to carry the knapsack of his understanding,

together with two or three equivocal sirs whose religion, like their

gentility, is the extract of their acres; being therefore spiritual

because they are earthly; not forgetting the man of the law, whose

corruption gives the Hogan to the sincere Juncto. These are the simples

of this precious compound; a kind of Dutch hotch-potch, the Hogan Mogan

committee-man.

The Committee-man hath a sideman, or rather a setter, hight a

Sequestrator, of whom you may say, as of the great Sultan ’ s horse, where

he treads the grass grows no more. He is the State ’ s cormorant, one that

fishes for the public but feeds himself; the misery is he fishes without

the cormorant ’ s property, a rope to strengthen the gullet and to make

him disgorge. A sequestrator! He is the devil ’ s nut-hook, the sign with

him is always in the clutches. There are more monsters retain to him

than to all the limbs in anatomy. It is strange physicians do not apply

him to the soles of the feet in a desperate fever, he draws far beyond

pigeons. I hope some mountebank will slice him and make the experiment.

He is a tooth-drawer once removed; here is the difference, one applauds

the grinder the other the grist. Never till now could I verify the

poet ’ s description, that the ravenous harpy had a human visage. Death

himself cannot quit scores with him; like the demoniac in the gospel, he

lives among tombs, nor is all the holy water shed by widows and orphans

a sufficient exorcism to dispossess him. Thus the cat sucks your breath

and the fiend your blood; nor can the brotherhood of witchfinders, so

sagely instituted with all their terror, wean the familiars.

But once more to single out my embossed committee-man; his fate (for I

know you would fain see an end of him) is either a whipping audit, when

he is wrung in the withers by a committee of examinations, and so the

sponge weeps out the moisture which he had soaked before; or else he

meets his passing peal in the clamorous mutiny of a gut-foundered

garrison, for the hedge-sparrow will be feeding the cuckoo till he

mistake his commons and bites off her head. Whatever it is, it is within

his desert, for what is observed of some creatures that at the same time

they trade in productions three stories high, suckling the first, big

with the second, and clicketing for the third: a committee-man is the

counterpoint, his mischief is superfoetation, a certain scale of

destruction, for he ruins the father, beggars the son, and strangles the

hope of all posterity.

THE CHARACTER OF A DIURNAL-MAKER.
A diurnal-maker is the sub-almoner of history, Queen Mab ’ s register, one

whom, by the same figure that a north country pedlar is a merchantman,

you may style an author. It is like overreach of language, when every

thin tinder-cloaked quack must be called a doctor; when a clumsy cobbler

usurps the attribute of our English peers, and is vamped a translator.

List him a writer and you smother Geoffrey in swabber-slops; the very

name of dabbler oversets him; he is swallowed up in the phrase, like Sir

S.L. [ Samuel Luke ] in a great saddle, nothing to be seen but the giddy

feather in his crown. They call him a Mercury, but he becomes the

epithet like the little negro mounted upon an elephant, just such

another blot rampant. He has not stuffings sufficient for the reproach

of a scribbler, but it hangs about him like an old wife ’ s skin when the

flesh hath forsaken her, lank and loose. He defames a good title as well

as most of our modern noblemen; those wens of greatness, the body

politic ’ s most peccant humours blistered into lords. He hath so

raw-boned a being that however you render him he rubs it out and makes

rags of the expression. The silly countryman who, seeing an ape in a

scarlet coat, blessed his young worship, and gave his landlord joy of

the hopes of his house, did not slander his complement with worse

application than he that names this shred an historian. To call him an

historian is to knight a mandrake; ’ tis to view him through a

perspective, and by that gross hyperbole to give the reputation of an

engineer to a maker of mousetraps. Such an historian would hardly pass

muster with a Scotch stationer in a sieveful of ballads and godly books.

He would not serve for the breast-plate of a begging Grecian. The most

cramped compendium that the age hath seen since all learning hath been

almost torn into ends, outstrips him by the head. I have heard of

puppets that could prattle in a play, but never saw of their writings

before. There goes a report of the Holland women that together with

their children they are delivered of a Sooterkin, not unlike to a rat,

which some imagine to be the offspring of the stoves. I know not what

_Ignis fatuus_ adulterates the press, but it seems much after that

fashion, else how could this vermin think to be a twin to a legitimate

writer; when those weekly fragments shall pass for history, let the poor

man ’ s box be entitled the exchequer, and the alms-basket a magazine. Not

a worm that gnaws on the dull scalp of voluminous Holinshed, but at

every meal devoured more chronicle than his tribe amounts to. A marginal

note of W. P. would serve for a winding-sheet for that man ’ s works, like

thick-skinned fruits are all rind, fit for nothing but the author ’ s

fate, to be pared in a pillory.

The cook who served up the dwarf in a pie (to continue the frolic) might

have lapped up such an historian as this in the bill of fare. He is the

first tincture and rudiment of a writer, dipped as yet in the

preparative blue, like an almanac well-willer. He is the cadet of a

pamphleteer, the pedee of a romancer; he is the embryo of a history

slinked before maturity. How should he record the issues of time who is

himself an abortive? I will not say but that he may pass for an

historian in Garbier ’ s academy; he is much of the size of those

knotgrass professors. What a pitiful seminary was there projected; yet

suitable enough to the present universities, those dry nurses which the

providence of the age has so fully reformed that they are turned

reformadoes. But that ’ s no matter, the meaner the better. It is a maxim

observable in these days, that the only way to win the game is to play

petty Johns. Of this number is the esquire of the quill, for he hath the

grudging of history and some yawnings accordingly. Writing is a disease

in him and holds like a quotidian, so ’ tis his infirmity that makes him

an author, as Mahomet was beholding to the falling sickness to vouch him

a prophet. That nice artificer who filed a chain so thin and light that

a flea could trail it (as if he had worked shorthand, and taught his

tools to cypher), did but contrive an emblem for this skipjack and his

slight productions.

Methinks the Turk should licence diurnals because he prohibits learning

and books. A library of diurnals is a wardrobe of frippery; ’ tis a just

idea of a Limbo of the infants. I saw one once that could write with his

toes, by the same token I could have wished he had worn his copies for

socks; ’ tis he without doubt from whom the diurnals derive their

pedigree, and they have a birthright accordingly, being shuffled out at

the bed ’ s feet of history. To what infinite numbers an historian would

multiply should he crumble into elves of this profession? To supply this

smallness they are fain to join forces, so they are not singly but as

the custom is in a croaking committee. They tug at the pen like slaves

at the oar, a whole bank together; they write in the posture that the

Swedes gave fire in, over one another ’ s heads. It is said there is more

of them go to a suit of clothes than to a _Britannicus;_ in this

polygamy the clothes breed and cannot determine whose issue is

lawfully begotten.

And here I think it were not amiss to take a particular how he is

accoutred, and so do by him as he in his Siquis for the wall-eyed mare,

or the crop flea-bitten, give you the marks of the beast. I begin with

his head, which is ever in clouts, as if the nightcap should make

affidavit that the brain was pregnant. To what purpose doth the _Pia

Mater_ lie in so dully in her white formalities; sure she hath had hard

labour, for the brows have squeezed for it, as you may perceive by his

buttered bon-grace that film of a demicastor; ’ tis so thin and unctuous

that the sunbeams mistake it for a vapour, and are like to cap him; so

it is right heliotrope, it creaks in the shine and flaps in the shade;

whatever it be I wish it were able to call in his ears. There ’ s no

proportion between that head and appurtenances; those of all lungs are

no more fit for that small noddle of the circumcision than brass bosses

for a Geneva Bible. In what a puzzling neutrality is the poor soul that

moves betwixt two such ponderous biases? His collar is edged with a

piece of peeping linen, by which he means a band; ’ tis the forlorn of

his shirt crawling out of his neck; indeed it were time that his shirt

were jogging, for it has served an apprenticeship, and (as apprentices

use) it hath learned its trade too, to which effect ’ tis marching to the

papermill, and the next week sets up for itself in the shape of a

pamphlet. His gloves are the shavings of his hands, for he casts his

skin like a cancelled parchment. The itch represents the broken seals.

His boots are the legacies of two black jacks, and till he pawned the

silver that the jacks were tipped with it was a pretty mode of

boot-hose-tops. For the rest of his habit he is a perfect seaman, a kind

of tarpaulin, he being hanged about with his coarse composition, those

pole-davie papers.

But I must draw to an end, for every character is an anatomy lecture,

and it fares with me in this of the diurnal-maker, as with him that

reads on a begged malefactor, my subject smells before I have gone

through with him; for a parting blow then. The word historian imports a

sage and solemn author, one that curls his brow with a sullen gravity,

like a bull-necked Presbyter since the army hath got him off his

jurisdiction, who, Presbyter like, sweeps his breast with a reverend

beard, full of native moss-troopers; not such a squirting scribe as this

that ’ s troubled with the rickets, and makes pennyworths of history. The

college-treasury that never had in bank above a Harry-groat, shut up

there in a melancholy solitude, like one that is kept to keep

possession, had as good evidence to show for his title as he for an

historian; so, if he will needs be an historian, he is not cited in the

sterling acceptation, but after the rate of bluecaps ’ reckoning, an

historian Scot. Now a Scotchman ’ s tongue runs high fullams. There is a

cheat in his idiom, for the sense ebbs from the bold expression, like

the citizen ’ s gallon, which the drawer interprets but half a pint. In

sum, a diurnal-maker is the anti-mark of an historian, he differs from

him as a drill from a man, or (if you had rather have it in the saints ’

gibberish) as a hinter doth from a holder-forth.

THE CHARACTER OF A LONDON DIURNAL.
A diurnal is a puny chronicle, scarce pin-feathered with the wings of

time. It is a history in sippets: the English Iliads in a nutshell: the

apocryphal Parliament ’ s book of Maccabees in single sheets. It would

tire a Welshman to reckon up how many aps ’ tis removed from an annal;

for it is of that extract, only of the younger house, like a shrimp to a

lobster. The original sinner in this kind was Dutch, Gallo-Belgicus the

protoplast, and the modern Mercuries but Hans-en-kelders. The Countess

of Zealand was brought to bed of an almanac, as many children as days in

the year. It may be the legislative lady is of that lineage, so she

spawns the diurnals, and they at Westminster take them in adoption by

the names of _Scoticus_, _Civicus_, _Britannicus_. In the frontispiece

of the old Beldam diurnal, like the contents of the chapter, sitteth the

House of Commons judging the twelve tribes of Israel. You may call them

the kingdom ’ s anatomy before the weekly calendar; for such is a diurnal,

the day of the month with what weather in the commonwealth. It is taken

for the pulse of the body politic, and the empiric divines of the

assembly, those spiritual dragooners, thumb it accordingly. Indeed it is

a pretty synopsis, and those grave rabbis (though in the point of

Divinity) trade in no larger authors. The country-carrier, when he buys

it for the vicar, miscalls it the urinal; yet properly enough, for it

casts the water of the state ever since it staled blood. It differs from

an Aulicus, as the devil and his exorcist, or as a black witch doth from

a white one, whose office is to unravel her enchantments.

It begins usually with an Ordinance, which is a law still born, dropped

before quickened by the royal assent. ’ Tis one of the parliament ’ s

bye-blows, acts only being legitimate, and hath no more sire than a

Spanish jennet that is begotten by the wind.

Thus their militia, like its patron Mars, is the issue only of the

mother, without the concourse of royal Jupiter: yet law it is, if they

vote it, in defiance to their fundamentals; like the old sexton, who

swore his clock went true, whatever the sun said to the contrary.

The next ingredient of a diurnal is plots, horrible plots, which with

wonderful sagacity it hunts dry-Coot, while they are yet in their

causes, before _materia prima_ can put on her smock. How many such fits

of the mother have troubled the kingdom; and for all Sir W.E. [ William

Earle ] looks like a man-midwife, not yet delivered of so much as a

cushion? But actors must have properties; and since the stages were

voted down the only playhouse is at Westminster.

Suitable to their plots are their informers, skippers, and tailors,

spaniels both for the land and water. Good conscionable intelligence!

For however Pym ’ s bill may inflame the reckoning, the honest vermin have

not so much for lying as the public faith.

Thus a zealous botcher in Moorfields, while he was contriving some

quirpocut of Church-Government, by the help of his outlying ears and the

Otacousticon of the spirit, discovered such a plot, that Selden intends

to combat antiquity, and maintain it was a tailor ’ s goose that preserved

the capital.

I wonder my Lord of Canterbury is not once more all to be traitored, for

dealing with the lions to settle the Commission of Array in the Tower.

It would do well to cramp the articles dormant, besides the opportunity

of reforming these beasts of the prerogative, and changing their

profaner names of Harry and Charles into Nehemiah and Eleazar.

Suppose a corn-cutter being to give little Isaac a cast of his office

should fall to paring his brows (mistaking the one end for the other,

because he branches at both), this would be a plot, and the next diurnal

would furnish you with this scale of votes:--

_Resolved_ upon the question, That this act of the corn-cutter was an

absolute invasion of the city ’ s charter in the representative

forehead of Isaac.

_Resolved_, That the evil counsellors about the corn-cutter are popishly

affected and enemies to the State.

_Resolved_, That there be a public thanksgiving for the great

deliverance of Isaac ’ s brow-antlers; and a solemn covenant drawn up to

defy the corn-cutter and all his works.

Thus the Quixotes of this age fight with the windmills of their own

heads, quell monsters of their own creation, make plots, and then

discover them; as who fitter to unkennel the fox than the terrier that

is part of him?

In the third place march their adventures; the Roundheads ’ legends, the

rebels ’ romance; stories of a larger size than the ears of their sect,

able to strangle the belief of a Solifidian.

I ’ ll present them in their order. And first as a whiffler before the

show enter Stamford, one that trod the stage with the first, traversed

the ground, made a leg and exit. The country people took him for one

that by order of the Houses was to dance a morrice through the west of

England. Well, he ’ s a nimble gentleman; set him upon Banks his horse in

a saddle rampant, and it is a great question which part of the Centaur

shows better tricks.

There was a vote passing to translate him with all his equipage into

monumental gingerbread; but it was crossed by the female committee

alleging that the valour of his image would bite their children by

the tongues.

This cubit and half of commander, by the help of a diurnal, routed his

enemies fifty miles off. It ’ s strange you ’ ll say, and yet ’ tis generally

believed he would as soon do it at that distance as nearer hand. Sure it

was his sword for which the weapon-salve was invented; that so wounding

and healing (like loving correlates) might both work at the same

removes. But the squib is run to the end of the rope: room for the

prodigy of valour. Madam Atropos in breeches, Waller ’ s knight-errantry;

and because every mountebank must have his zany, throw him in Hazelrig

to set off his story. These two, like Bel and the Dragon, are always

worshipped in the same chapter; they hunt in couples, what one doth at

the head, the other scores up at the heels.

Thus they kill a man over and over, as Hopkins and Sternhold murder the

psalms with another of the same; one chimes all in, and then the other

strikes up as the saints-bell.

I wonder for how many lives my Lord Hopton took the lease of his body.

First Stamford slew him, then Waller outkilled that half a bar; and yet

it is thought the sullen corpse would scarce bleed were both these

manslayers never so near it.

The same goes of a Dutch headsman, that he would do his office with so

much ease and dexterity, that the head after execution should stand upon

the shoulders. Pray God Sir William be not probationer for the place;

for as if he had the like knack too, most of those whom the diurnal hath

slain for him, to us poor mortals seem untouched.

Thus these artificers of death can kill the man without wounding the

body, like lightning, that melts the sword and never singes

the scabbard.

This is the William whose lady is the conqueror; this is the city ’ s

champion and the diurnal ’ s delight; he that cuckolds the general in his

commission; for he stalks with Essex, and shoots under his belly,

because his Excellency himself is not charged there: yet in all this

triumph there is a whip and bell; translate but the scene to Roundway

Down, there Hazelrig ’ s lobsters turned crabs and crawled backwards,

there poor Sir William ran to his lady for an use of consolation.

But the diurnal is weary of the arm of flesh, and now begins an hosanna

to Cromwell; one that hath beat up his drums clean through the Old

Testament; you may learn the genealogy of our Saviour by the names in

his regiment; the muster-master uses no other list but the first chapter

of Matthew.

With what face can they object to the king the bringing in of

foreigners, when themselves entertain such an army of Hebrews? This

Cromwell is never so valorous as when he is making speeches for the

association, which nevertheless he doth somewhat ominously with his neck

awry, holding up his ear as if he expected Mahomet ’ s pigeon to come and

prompt him. He should be a bird of prey too by his bloody beak; his nose

is able to try a young eagle, whether she be lawfully begotten. But all

is not gold that glitters. What we wonder at in the rest of them is

natural to him to kill without bloodshed, for the most of his trophies

are in a church window, when a looking-glass would show him more

superstition. He is so perfect a hater of images that he hath defaced

God ’ s in his own countenance. If he deals with men, ’ tis when he takes

them napping in an old monument; then down goes dust and ashes, and the

stoutest cavalier is no better. O brave Oliver! Time ’ s voider, subsizer

to the worms, in whom death, who formerly devoured our ancestors, now

chews the cud. He said grace once as if he would have fallen aboard with

the Marquis of Newcastle; nay, and the diurnal gave you his bill of

fare; but it proved a running banquet, as appears by the story. Believe

him as he whistles to his Cambridge team of committee-men, and he doth

wonders. But holy men, like the holy language, must be read backwards.

They rifle colleges to promote learning, and pull down churches for

edification. But sacrilege is entailed upon him. There must be a

Cromwell for cathedrals as well as abbeys; a secure sin, whose offence

carries its pardon in its mouth; for how shall he be hanged for

church-robbery, that gives himself the benefit of the clergy?

But for all Cromwell ’ s nose wears the dominical letter, compared to

Manchester he is but like the vigils to an holy-day. This, this is the

man of God, so sanctified a thunderbolt, that Burroughs (in a

proportionable blasphemy to his Lord of Hosts) would style him the

archangel giving battle to the devil.

Indeed, as the angels each of them makes a several species, so every one

of his soldiers makes a distinct church. Had these beasts been to enter

into the ark it would have puzzled Noah to have sorted them into pairs.

If ever there were a rope of sand it was so many sects twisted into an

association.

They agree in nothing but that they are all Adamites in understanding.

It is a sign of a coward to wink and fight, yet all their valour

proceeds from their ignorance.

But I wonder whence their general ’ s purity proceeds; it is not by

traduction; if he was begotten a saint it was by equivocal generation,

for the devil in the father is turned monk in the son, so his godliness

is of the same parentage with good laws, both extracted out of bad

manners, and would he alter the Scripture as he hath attempted the

creed, he might vary the text and say to corruption, Thou art my Father.

This is he that put out one of the kingdom ’ s eyes by clouding our mother

university; and (if this Scotch mist farther prevail) he will extinguish

the other. He hath the like quarrel to both, because both are strung

with the same optic nerve, knowing loyalty.

Barbarous rebel! who will be revenged upon all learning, because his

treason is beyond the mercy of the book.

The diurnal as yet hath not talked much of his victories, but there is

the more behind, for the knight must always beat the giant,

that ’ s resolved.

If anything fall out amiss which cannot be smothered, the diurnal hath a

help at maw. It is but putting to sea and taking a Danish fleet, or

brewing it with some success out of Ireland, and then it goes

down merrily.

There are more puppets that move by the wire of a diurnal, as Brereton

and Cell, two of Mars his petty-toes, such snivelling cowards that it is

a favour to call them so. Was Brereton to fight with his teeth (as in

all other things he resembles the beast) he would have odds of any man

at the weapon. Oh, he ’ s a terrible slaughterman at a Thanksgiving

dinner. Had he been cannibal to have eaten those that he vanquished, his

gut would have made him valiant.

The greatest wonder is at Fairfax, how he comes to be a babe of grace,

certainly it is not in his personal, but (as the State-sophies

distinguish) in his politic capacity; degenerate _ab extra_ by the zeal

of the house he sat in, as chickens are hatched at Grand Cairo by the

adoption of an oven.

There is the woodmonger too, a feeble crutch to a declining cause, a new

branch of the old oak of reformation.

And now I speak of reformation, _vous avez_, Fox the tinker, the

liveliest emblem of it that may be; for what did this parliament ever go

about to reform, but, tinkerwise, in mending one hole they made three?

But I have not ink enough to cure all the tetters and ring-worms of the

State.

I will close up all thus. The victories of the rebels are like the

magical combat of Apuleius, who thinking he had slain three of his

enemies, found them at last but a triumvirate of bladders. Such, and so

empty are the triumphs of a diurnal, but so many impostumated fancies,

so many bladders of their own blowing.



RICHARD FLECKNOE
_The "Surfeit to A.B.C." in 1656, was a look of Characters. "Naps upon

Parnassus ’ " in 1658 contained Characters of a Temporizer and an

Antiquary. In the same year appeared "Satyrical Characters and Handsome

Descriptions, in Letters." In 1659 there was a third edition of a satire

on the English, published as "A Character of England, as it was lately

presented in a Letter to a Nobleman of France" replied to in that year

by "A Character of France." These suggested the production in 1659 of "A

Perfect Description of the People and Country of Scotland" and, also in

1659, "A Brief Character of the Low Countries under the States, being

Three Weeks ’ Observation of the Vices and Virtues of the Inhabitants."

This was written by Owen Feltham, and added to several editions of his

"Resolves." In 1660 appeared "The Character of Italy" and "The Character

of Spain;" in 1661, "Essays and Characters by L. G.;" in 1662-63, "The

Assembly-Man" a Character that had been written by Sir John Birkenhead

in 1647. Then came, in 1665, Richard Flecknoe, to whom Dryden ascribed

sovereignty as one who

"In prose and verse was owned without dispute,

Through all the realms of Nonsense absolute."

As he was equally ready in all forms of writing that his neighbours

followed he, of course, wrote Characters. They were "Fifty-five

Enigmatical Characters, all very exactly drawn to the Life, from several

Persons, Humours, Dispositions. Pleasant and full of Delight. By R. F.,

Esq." The Duke of Newcastle admired, and wrote, in lines prefixed to

the book--_

"Flecknoe, thy characters are so full of wit

And fancy, as each word is throng ’ d with it.

Each line ’ s a volume, and who reads would swear

Whole libraries were in each character.

Nor arrows in a quiver stuck, nor yet

Lights in the starry skies are thicker set,

Nor quills upon the armed porcupine,

Than wit and fancy in this work of thine."

_This is one of Flecknoe ’ s Characters:--_

THE VALIANT MAN.
He is only a man; your coward and rash being but tame and savage beasts.

His courage is still the same, and drink cannot make him more valiant,

nor danger less. His valour is enough to leaven whole armies; he is an

army himself, worth an army of other men. His sword is not always out

like children ’ s daggers, but he is always last in beginning quarrels,

though first in ending them. He holds honour, though delicate as

crystal, yet not so slight and brittle to be broke and cracked with

every touch; therefore, though most wary of it, is not querulous nor

punctilious. He is never troubled with passion, as knowing no degree

beyond clear courage; and is always valiant, but never furious. He is

the more gentle in the chamber, more fierce he ’ s in the field, holding

boast (the coward ’ s valour), and cruelty (the beast ’ s), unworthy a

valiant man. He is only coward in this, that he dares not do an

unhandsome action. In fine, he can only be overcome by discourtesy, and

has but one defect--he cannot talk much--to recompense which he does

the more.

_In 1673 there was published "The Character of a Coffee House, with the

symptoms of a Town Wit;" and in the same year, "Essays of Love and

Marriage ... with some Characters and other Passages of Wit;" in 1675,

"The Character of a Fanatick. By a Person of Quality;" a set of eleven

Characters appeared in 1675; "A Whip for a Jockey, or a Character of an

Horse-Courser," in 1677; "Four for a Penny, or Poor Robin ’ s Character of

an unconscionable Pawnbroker and Ear-mark of an oppressing Tally-man,

with a friendly description of a Bum-bailey, and his merciless setting

cur or Follower," appeared in 1678; and in the same year the Duke of

Buckingham ’ s "Character of an Ugly Woman." In 1681 appeared the

"Character of a Disbanded Courtier," and in 1684 Oldham ’ s "Character of

a certain ugly old P." In 1686 followed "Twelve ingenious

Characters, or pleasant Descriptions of the Properties of sundry Persons

and Things." Sir William Coventry ’ s "Character of a Trimmer," published

in 1689, had been written before 1659, when it had been answered by a

"Character of a Tory," not printed at the time, but included (1721) in

the works of George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham. In 1689

appeared "Characters addressed to Ladies of Age," and also "The

Ceremony-Monger his Character, in Six Chapters, by E. Hickeringill,

Rector of All Saints, Colchester." Ohe! Enough, enough!_

SAMUEL BUTLER,
_Author of "Hudibras," who died in 1680, also exercised his wit in

Character writing. When Butler ’ s "Remains" were published in two volumes

in 1759 by R. Thyer, Keeper of the Public Library of Manchester, 460

pages of the second volume, (all the volume except forty or fifty pages

of "Thoughts on Various Subjects,") was occupied by a collection of 120

Characters that he had written. I close this volume of "Character

Writings of the Seventeenth Century" with as many of Samuel Butler ’ s

Characters as the book has room for,--none are wittier--space being left

for one Character by a poet of our own century, Wordsworth ’ s "Character

of the Happy Warrior" to bring us to a happy close._

CHARACTERS.

BY SAMUEL BUTLER.

A DEGENERATE NOBLE
; OR, ONE THAT IS PROUD OF HIS BIRTH,

Is like a turnip, there is nothing good of him but that which is

underground; or rhubarb, a contemptible shrub that springs from a noble

root. He has no more title to the worth and virtue of his ancestors than

the worms that were engendered in their dead bodies, and yet he believes

he has enough to exempt himself and his posterity from all things of

that nature for ever. This makes him glory in the antiquity of his

family, as if his nobility were the better the further off it is, in

time as well as desert, from that of his predecessors. He believes the

honour that was left him as well as the estate is sufficient to support

his quality without troubling himself to purchase any more of his own;

and he meddles us little with the management of the one as the other,

but trusts both to the government of his servants, by whom he is equally

cheated in both. He supposes the empty title of honour sufficient to

serve his turn, though he has spent the substance and reality of it,

like the fellow that sold his ass but would not part with the shadow of

it; or Apicius, that sold his house, and kept only the balcony to see

and be seen in. And because he is privileged from being arrested for his

debts, supposes he has the same freedom from all obligations he owes

humanity and his country, because he is not punishable for his ignorance

and want of honour, no more than poverty or unskilfulness is in other

professions, which the law supposes to be punishment enough to itself.

He is like a fanatic, that contents himself with the mere title of a

saint, and makes that his privilege to act all manner of wickedness; or

the ruins of a noble structure, of which there is nothing left but the

foundation, and that obscured and buried under the rubbish of the

superstructure. The living honour of his ancestors is long ago departed,

dead and gone, and his is but the ghost and shadow of it, that haunts

the house with horror and disquiet where once it lived. His nobility is

truly descended from the glory of his forefathers, and may be rightly

said to fall to him, for it will never rise again to the height it was

in them by his means, and he succeeds them as candles do the office of

the sun. The confidence of nobility has rendered him ignoble, as the

opinion of wealth makes some men poor, and as those that are born to

estates neglect industry and have no business but to spend, so he being

born to honour believes he is no further concerned than to consume and

waste it. He is but a copy, and so ill done that there is no line of the

original in him but the sin only. He is like a word that by ill-custom

and mistake has utterly lost the sense of that from which it was

derived, and now signifies quite contrary; for the glory of noble

ancestors will not permit the good or bad of their posterity to be

obscure. He values himself only upon his title, which being only verbal

gives him a wrong account of his natural capacity, for the same words

signify more or less, according as they are applied to things, as

ordinary and extraordinary do at court; and sometimes the greater sound

has the less sense, as in accounts, though four be more than three, yet

a third in proportion is more than a fourth.

A HUFFING COURTIER
Is a cipher, that has no value himself but from the place he stands in.

All his happiness consists in the opinion he believes others have of it.

This is his faith, but as it is heretical and erroneous, though he

suffer much tribulation for it, he continues obstinate, and not to be

convinced. He flutters up and down like a butterfly in a garden, and

while he is pruning of his peruke takes occasion to contemplate his legs

and the symmetry of his breeches. He is part of the furniture of the

rooms, and serves for a walking picture, a moving piece of arras. His

business is only to be seen, and he performs it with admirable industry,

placing himself always in the best light, looking wonderfully politic,

and cautious whom he mixes withal. His occupation is to show his

clothes, and if they could but walk themselves they would save him the

labour and do his work as well as himself. His immunity from varlets is

his freehold, and he were a lost man without it. His clothes are but his

tailor ’ s livery, which he gives him, for ’ tis ten to one he never pays

for them. He is very careful to discover the lining of his coat, that

you may not suspect any want of integrity or flaw in him from the skin

outwards. His tailor is his creator, and makes him of nothing; and

though he lives by faith in him, he is perpetually committing iniquities

against him. His soul dwells in the outside of him, like that of a

hollow tree, and if you do but peel the bark off him he deceases

immediately. His carriage of himself is the wearing of his clothes, and,

like the cinnamon tree, his bark is better than his body. His looking

big is rather a tumour than greatness. He is an idol that has just so

much value as other men give him that believe in him, but none of his

own. He makes his ignorance pass for reserve, and, like a hunting-nag,

leaps over what he cannot get through. He has just so much of politics

as hostlers in the university have Latin. He is as humble as a Jesuit to

his superior, but repays himself again in insolence over those that are

below him, and with a generous scorn despises those that can neither do

him good nor hurt. He adores those that may do him good, though he knows

they never will, and despises those that would not hurt him if they

could. The court is his church, and he believes as that believes, and

cries up and down everything as he finds it pass there. It is a great

comfort to him to think that some who do not know him may perhaps take

him for a lord, and while that thought lasts he looks bigger than usual

and forgets his acquaintance, and that ’ s the reason why he will

sometimes know you and sometimes not. Nothing but want of money or

credit puts him in mind that he is mortal, but then he trusts Providence

that somebody will trust him, and in expectation of that hopes for a

better life, and that his debts will never rise up in judgment against

him. To get in debt is to labour in his vocation, but to pay is to

forfeit his protection, for what ’ s that worth to one that owes nothing?

His employment being only to wear his clothes, the whole account of his

life and actions is recorded in shopkeepers ’ books, that are his

faithful historiographers to their own posterity; and he believes he

loses so much reputation as he pays off his debts, and that no man wears

his clothes in fashion that pays for them, for nothing is further from

the mode. He believes that he that runs in debt is beforehand with those

that trust him, and only those that pay are behind. His brains are

turned giddy, like one that walks on the top of a house, and that ’ s the

reason it is so troublesome to him to look downwards. He is a kind of

spectrum, and his clothes are the shape he takes to appear and walk in,

and when he puts them off he vanishes. He runs as busily out of one room

into another as a great practiser does in Westminster Hall from one

court to another. When he accosts a lady he puts both ends of his

microcosm in motion, by making legs at one end and combing his peruke at

the other. His garniture is the sauce to his clothes, and he walks in

his portcannons like one that stalks in long grass. Every motion of him

cries "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, quoth the preacher." He rides

himself like a well-managed horse, reins in his neck, and walks

_terra-terra_. He carries his elbows backward, as if he were pinioned

like a trussed-up fowl, and moves as stiff as if he was upon the spit.

His legs are stuck in his great voluminous breeches like the whistles in

a bagpipe, those abundant breeches in which his nether parts are not

clothed but packed up. His hat has been long in a consumption of the

fashion, and is now almost worn to nothing; if it do not recover quickly

it will grow too little for a head of garlic. He wears garniture on the

toes of his shoes to justify his pretensions to the gout, or such other

malady that for the time being is most in fashion or request. When he

salutes a friend he pulls off his hat, as women do their vizard-masks.

His ribbons are of the true complexion of his mind, a kind of painted

cloud or gaudy rainbow, that has no colour of itself but what it borrows

from reflection. He is as tender of his clothes as a coward is of his

flesh, and as loth to have them disordered. His bravery is all his

happiness, and, like Atlas, he carries his heaven on his back. He is

like the golden fleece, a fine outside on a sheep ’ s back. He is a

monster or an Indian creature, that is good for nothing in the world but

to be seen. He puts himself up into a sedan, like a fiddle in a case,

and is taken out again for the ladies to play upon, who, when they have

done with him, let down his treble-string till they are in the humour

again. His cook and _valet de chambre_ conspire to dress dinner and him

so punctually together that the one may not be ready before the other.

As peacocks and ostriches have the gaudiest and finest feathers, yet

cannot fly, so all his bravery is to flutter only. The beggars call him

"my lord," and he takes them at their words and pays them for it. If you

praise him, he is so true and faithful to the mode that he never fails

to make you a present of himself, and will not be refused, though you

know not what to do with him when you have him.

A COURT BEGGAR
Waits at Court, as a dog does under a table, to catch what falls, or

force it from his fellows if he can. When a man is in a fair way to be

hanged that is richly worth it, or has hanged himself, he puts in to be

his heir and succeed him, and pretends as much merit as another, as no

doubt he has great reason to do if all things were rightly considered.

He thinks it vain to deserve well of his Prince as long as he can do his

business more easily by begging, for the same idle laziness possesses

him that does the rest of his fraternity, that had rather take an alms

than work for their livings, and therefore he accounts merit a more

uncertain and tedious way of rising, and sometimes dangerous. He values

himself and his place not upon the honour or allowances of it, but the

convenient opportunity of begging, as King Clause ’ s courtiers do when

they have obtained of the superior powers a good station where three

ways meet to exercise the function in. The more ignorant, foolish, and

undeserving he is, provided he be but impudent enough, which all such

seldom fail to be, the better he thrives in his calling, as others in

the same way gain more by their sores and broken limbs than those that

are sound and in health. He always undervalues what he gains, because he

comes easily by it; and, how rich soever he proves, is resolved never to

be satisfied, as being, like a Friar Minor, bound by his order to be

always a beggar. He is, like King Agrippa, almost a Christian; for

though he never begs anything of God, yet he does very much of his

vicegerent the King, that is next Him. He spends lavishly what he gets,

because it costs him so little pains to get more, but pays nothing; for

if he should, his privilege would be of no use at all to him, and he

does not care to part with anything of his right. He finds it his best

way to be always craving, because he lights many times upon things that

are disposed of or not beggable; but if one hit, it pays for twenty that

miscarry; even as those virtuosos of his profession at large ask as well

of those that give them nothing as those few that, out of charity, give

them something. When he has passed almost all offices, as other beggars

do from constable to constable, and after meets with a stop, it does but

encourage him to be more industrious in watching the next opportunity,

to repair the charge he has been at to no purpose. He has his

emissaries, that are always hunting out for discoveries, and when they

bring him in anything that he judges too heavy far his own interest to

carry, he takes in others to join with him (like blind men and cripples

that beg in consort), and if they prosper they share, and give the

jackal some small snip for his pains in questing; that is, if he has any

further use of him; otherwise he leaves him, like virtue, to reward

himself; and because he deserves well, which he does by no means approve

of, gives him, that which he believes to be the fittest recompense of

all merit, just nothing. He believes that the King ’ s restoration being

upon his birthday, he is bound to observe it all the days of his life,

and grant, as some other kings have done upon the same occasion,

whatever is demanded of him, though it were the one-half of his kingdom.

A BUMPKIN OR COUNTRY SQUIRE
Is a clown of rank and degree. He is the growth of his own land, a kind

of Autocthonus, like the Athenians that sprang out of their own ground,

or barnacles that grow upon trees in Scotland. His homely education has

rendered him a native only of his own soil and a foreigner to all other

places, from which he differs in language, manner of living, and

behaviour, which are as rugged as the coat of a colt that has been bred

upon a common. The custom of being the best man in his own territories

has made him the worst everywhere else. He assumes the upper end of the

table at an ale-house as his birthright, receives the homage of his

company, which are always subordinate, and dispenses ale and

communication like a self-conforming teacher in a conventicle. The chief

points he treats on are the memoirs of his dogs and horses, which he

repeats as often as a holder-forth that has but two sermons, to which if

he adds the history of his hawks and fishing he is very painful and

laborious. He does his endeavour to appear a droll, but his wit being,

like his estate, within the compass of a hedge, is so profound and

obscure to a stranger that it requires a commentary, and is not to be

understood without a perfect knowledge of all circumstances of persons

and the particular idiom of the place. He has no ambition to appear a

person of civil prudence or understanding more than in putting off a

lame, infirm jade for sound wind and limb, to which purpose he brings

his squirehood and groom to vouch, and, rather than fail, will outswear

an affidavit-man. The top of his entertainment is horrible strong beer,

which he pours into his guests (as the Dutch did water into our

merchants when they tortured them at Amboyna) till they confess they can

drink no more, and then he triumphs over them as subdued and vanquished,

no less by the strength of his brain than his drink. When he salutes a

man he lays violent hands upon him, and grips and shakes him like a fit

of an ague; and when he accosts a lady he stamps with his foot, like a

French fencer, and makes a lunge at her, in which he always misses his

aim, too high or too low, and hits her on the nose or chin. He is never

without some rough-handed flatterer, that rubs him, like a horse, with a

curry-comb till he kicks and grunts with the pleasure of it. He has old

family stories and jests, that fell to him with the estate, and have

been left from heir to heir time out of mind. With these he entertains

all comers over and over, and has added some of his own times, which he

intends to transmit over to posterity. He has but one way of making all

men welcome that come to his house, and that is by making himself and

them drunk; while his servants take the same course with theirs, which

he approves of as good and faithful service, and the rather because, if

he has occasion to tell a strange, improbable story, they may be in a

readiness to vouch with the more impudence, and make it a case of

conscience to lie as well as drink for his credit. All the heroical

glory he aspires to is but to be reputed a most potent and victorious

stealer of deer and beater-up of parks, to which purpose he has compiled

commentaries of his own great actions that treat of his dreadful

adventures in the night, of giving battle in the dark, discomfiting of

keepers, horsing the deer on his own back, and making off with equal

resolution and success.

AN ANTIQUARY
Is one that has his being in this age, but his life and conversation is

in the days of old. He despises the present age as an innovation and

slights the future, but has a great value for that which is past and

gone, like the madman that fell in love with Cleopatra. He is an old

frippery-philosopher, that has so strange a natural affection to

worm-eaten speculation that it is apparent he has a worm in his skull.

He honours his forefathers and foremothers, but condemns his parents as

too modern and no better than upstarts. He neglects himself because he

was born in his own time and so far off antiquity, which he so much

admires, and repines, like a younger brother, because he came so late

into the world. He spends the one-half of his time in collecting old

insignificant trifles, and the other in showing them, which he takes

singular delight in, because the oftener he does it the farther they are

from being new to him. All his curiosities take place of one another

according to their seniority, and he values them not by their abilities,

but their standing. He has a great veneration for words that are

stricken in years, and are grown so aged that they have outlived their

employments. These he uses with a respect agreeable to their antiquity

and the good services they have done. He throws away his time in

inquiring after that which is past and gone so many ages since, like one

that shoots away an arrow to find out another that was lost before. He

fetches things out of dust and ruins, like the fable of the chemical

plant raised out of its own ashes. He values one old invention, that is

lost and never to be recovered, before all the new ones in the world,

though never so useful. The whole business of his life is the same with

his that shows the tombs at Westminster, only the one does it for his

pleasure, and the other for money. As every man has but one father, but

two grandfathers and a world of ancestors, so he has a proportional

value for things that are ancient, and the farther off the greater.

He is a great time-server, but it is of time out of mind to which he

conforms exactly, but is wholly retired from the present. His days were

spent and gone long before he came into the world, and since his only

business is to collect what he can out of the ruins of them. He has so

strong a natural affection to anything that is old, that he may truly

say to dust and worms, "You are my father;" and to rottenness, "Thou art

my mother." He has no providence nor foresight, for all his

contemplations look backward upon the days of old; and his brains are

turned with them, as if he walked backwards. He had rather interpret one

obscure word in any old senseless discourse than be author of the most

ingenious new one, and, with Scaliger, would sell the Empire of Germany

(if it were in his power) for an old song. He devours an old manuscript

with greater relish than worms and moths do, and, though there be

nothing in it, values it above anything printed, which he accounts but a

novelty. When he happens to cure a small botch in an old author, he is

as proud of it as if he had got the philosopher ’ s stone and could cure

all the diseases of mankind. He values things wrongfully upon their

antiquity, forgetting that the most modern are really the most ancient

of all things in the world, like those that reckon their pounds before

their shillings and pence of which they are made up. He esteems no

customs but such as have outlived themselves and are long since out of

use, as the Catholics allow of no saints but such as are dead, and the

fanatics, in opposition, of none but the living.

A PROUD MAN
Is a fool in fermentation, that swells and boils over like a

porridge-pot. He sets out his feathers like an owl, to swell and seem

bigger than he is. He is troubled with a tumour and inflammation of

self-conceit, that renders every part of him stiff and uneasy. He has

given himself sympathetic love-powder, that works upon him to dotage and

has transformed him into his own mistress. He is his own gallant, and

makes most passionate addresses to his own dear perfections. He commits

idolatry to himself, and worships his own image; though there is no soul

living of his Church but himself, yet he believes as the Church

believes, and maintains his faith with the obstinacy of a fanatic. He is

his own favourite, and advances himself not only above his merit, but

all mankind; is both Damon and Pythias to his own dear self, and values

his crony above his soul. He gives place to no man but himself, and that

with very great distance to all others, whom he esteems not worthy to

approach him. He believes whatsoever he has receives a value in being

his, as a horse in a nobleman ’ s stable will bear a greater price than in

a common market. He is so proud that he is as hard to be acquainted with

himself as with others, for he is very apt to forget who he is, and

knows himself only superficially; therefore he treats himself civilly as

a stranger with ceremony and compliment, but admits of no privacy. He

strives to look bigger than himself as well as others, and is no better

than his own parasite and flatterer. A little flood will make a shallow

torrent swell above its banks, and rage and foam and yield a roaring

noise, while a deep, silent stream glides quietly on. So a

vain-glorious, insolent, proud man swells with a little frail

prosperity, grows big and loud, and overflows his bounds, and when he

sinks, leaves mud and dirt behind him. His carriage is as glorious and

haughty as if he were advanced upon men ’ s shoulders or tumbled over

their heads like knipperdolling. He fancies himself a Colosse, and so he

is, for his head holds no proportion to his body, and his foundation is

lesser than his upper storeys. We can naturally take no view of

ourselves unless we look downwards, to teach us how humble admirers we

ought to be of our own values. The slighter and less solid his materials

are the more room they take up and make him swell the bigger, as

feathers and cotton will stuff cushions better than things of more close

and solid parts.

A SMALL POET
Is one that would fain make himself that which Nature never meant him,

like a fanatic that inspires himself with his own whimsies. He sets up

haberdasher of small poetry, with a very small stock and no credit. He

believes it is invention enough to find out other men ’ s wit, and

whatsoever he lights upon, either in books or company, he makes bold

with as his own. This he puts together so untowardly, that you may

perceive his own wit has the rickets by the swelling disproportion of

the joints. Imitation is the whole sum of him, and his vein is but an

itch that he has catched of others, and his flame like that of charcoals

that were burnt before. But as he wants judgment to understand what is

best, he naturally takes the worst, as being most agreeable to his own

talent. You may know his wit not to be natural, ’ tis so unquiet and

troublesome in him; for as those that have money but seldom are always

shaking their pockets when they have it, so does he when he thinks he

has got something that will make him appear. He is a perpetual talker,

and you may know by the freedom of his discourse that he came lightly by

it, as thieves spend freely what they get. He measures other men ’ s wit

by their modesty, and his own by his confidence. He makes nothing of

writing plays, because he has not wit enough to understand the

difficulty. This makes him venture to talk and scribble, as chouses do

to play with cunning gamesters until they are cheated and laughed at. He

is always talking of wit, as those that have bad voices are always

singing out of tune, and those that cannot play delight to fumble on

instruments. He grows the unwiser by other men ’ s harms, for the worse

others write, he finds the more encouragement to do so too. His

greediness of praise is so eager that he swallows anything that comes in

the likeness of it, how notorious and palpable soever, and is as

shot-free against anything that may lessen his good opinion of himself.

This renders him incurable, like diseases that grow insensible.

If you dislike him, it is at your own peril; he is sure to put in a

caveat beforehand against your understanding, and, like a malefactor in

wit, is always furnished with exceptions against his judges. This puts

him upon perpetual apologies, excuses, and defences, but still by way of

defiance, in a kind of whiffling strain, without regard of any man that

stands in the way of his pageant. Where he thinks he may do it safely,

he will confidently own other men ’ s writings; and where he fears the

truth may be discovered, he will, by feeble denials and feigned

insinuations, give men occasion to suppose it.

If he understands Latin or Greek he ranks himself among the learned,

despises the ignorant, talks criticisms out of Scaliger, and repeats

Martial ’ s bawdy epigrams, and sets up his rest wholly upon pedantry. But

if he be not so well qualified, he cries down all learning as pedantic,

disclaims study, and professes to write with as great facility as if his

Muse was sliding down Parnassus. Whatsoever he hears well said he seizes

upon by poetical license, and one way makes it his own; that is, by

ill-repeating of it. This he believes to be no more theft than it is to

take that which others throw away. By this means his writings are, like

a tailor ’ s cushion of mosaic work, made up of several scraps sewed

together. He calls a slovenly, nasty description great Nature, and dull

flatness strange easiness. He writes down all that comes in his head,

and makes no choice, because he has nothing to do it with that is

judgment. He is always repealing the old laws of comedy, and, like the

Long Parliament, making ordinances in their stead, although they are

perpetually thrown out of coffee-houses and come to nothing. He is like

an Italian thief, that never robs but he murders, to prevent discovery;

so sure is he to cry down the man from whom he purloins, that his petty

larceny of wit may pass unsuspected. He is but a copier at best, and

will never arrive to practise by the life; for bar him the imitation of

something he has read, and he has no image in his thoughts. Observation

and fancy, the matter and form of just wit, are above his philosophy. He

appears so over-concerned in all men ’ s wits as if they were but

disparagements of his own, and cries down all they do as if they were

encroachments upon him. He takes jests from the owners and breaks them,

as justices do false weights and pots that want measure. When he meets

with anything that is very good he changes it into small money, like

three groats for a shilling, to serve several occasions. He disclaims

study, pretends to take things in motion, and to shoot flying, which

appears to be very true by his often missing of his mark. His wit is

much troubled with obstructions, and he has fits as painful as those of

the spleen. He fancies himself a dainty, spruce shepherd, with a flock

and a fine silken shepherdess, that follow his pipe as rats did the

conjurers in Germany.

As for epithets, he always avoids those that are near akin to the sense.

Such matches are unlawful, and not fit to be made by a Christian poet,

and therefore all his care is to choose out such as will serve, like a

wooden leg, to piece out a maimed verse that wants a foot or two; and if

they will but rhyme now and then into the bargain, or run upon a letter,

it is a work of supererogation.

For similitudes, he likes the hardest and most obscure best; for as

ladies wear black patches to make their complexions seem fairer than

they are, so when an illustration is more obscure than the sense that

went before it, it must of necessity make it appear clearer than it did,

for contraries are best set off with contraries.

He has found out a way to save the expense of much wit and sense; for he

will make less than some have prodigally laid out upon five or six words

serve forty or fifty lines. This is a thrifty invention, and very easy,

and, if it were commonly known, would much increase the trade of wit and

maintain a multitude of small poets in constant employment. He has found

out a new sort of poetical Georgics, a trick of sowing wit like

clover-grass on barren subjects which would yield nothing before. This

is very useful for the times, wherein, some men say, there is no room

left for new invention. He will take three grains of wit like the

elixir, and projecting it upon the iron age, turn it immediately into

gold. All the business of mankind has presently vanished; the whole

world has kept holiday; there have been no men but heroes and poets, no

women but nymphs and shepherdesses; trees have borne fritters, and

rivers flowed plum-porridge.

We read that Virgil used to make fifty or sixty verses in a morning, and

afterwards reduce them to ten. This was an unthrifty vanity, and argues

him as well ignorant in the husbandry of his own poetry as Seneca says

he was in that of a farm; for, in plain English, it was no better than

bringing a noble to nine-pence. And as such courses brought the prodigal

son to eat with hogs, so they did him to feed with horses, which were

not much better company, and may teach us to avoid doing the like. For

certainly it is more noble to take four or five grains of sense, and,

like a gold-beater, hammer them into so many leaves as will fill a whole

book, than to write nothing but epitomes, which many wise men believe

will be the bane and calamity of learning. When he writes he commonly

steers the sense of his lines by the rhyme that is at the end of them,

as butchers do calves by the tail. For when he has made one line, which

is easy enough, and has found out some sturdy hard word that will but

rhyme, he will hammer the sense upon it, like a piece of hot iron upon

an anvil, into what form he pleases.

There is no art in the world so rich in terms as poetry; a whole

dictionary is scarce able to contain them, for there is hardly a pond, a

sheep-walk, or a gravel-pit in all Greece but the ancient name of it is

become a term of art in poetry. By this means small poets have such a

stock of able hard words lying by them, as dryads, hamadryads, Aonides,

fauni, nymphae, sylvani, &c., that signify nothing at all, and such a

world of pedantic terms of the same kind, as may serve to furnish all

the new inventions and thorough reformations that can happen between

this and Plato ’ s great year.

When he writes he never proposes any scope or purpose to himself, but

gives his genius all freedom; for as he that rides abroad for his

pleasure can hardly be out of his way, so he that writes for his

pleasure can seldom be beside his subject. It is an ungrateful thing to

a noble wit to be confined to anything. To what purpose did the ancients

feign Pegasus to have wings if he must be confined to the road and

stages like a pack-horse, or be forced to be obedient to hedges and

ditches? Therefore he has no respect to decorum and propriety of

circumstance, for the regard of persons, times, and places is a

restraint too servile to be imposed upon poetical license, like him that

made Plato confess Juvenal to be a philosopher, or Persius, that calls

the Athenians Quirites.

For metaphors, he uses to choose the hardest and most far-set that he

can light upon. These are the jewels of eloquence, and therefore the

harder they are the more precious they must be.

He ’ ll take a scant piece of coarse sense and stretch it on the

tenterhooks of half-a-score rhymes, until it crack that you may see

through it and it rattle like a drumhead. When you see his verses hanged

up in tobacco-shops, you may say, in defiance of the proverb, "that the

weakest does not always go to the wall;" for ’ tis well known the lines

are strong enough, and in that sense may justly take the wall of any

that have been written in our language. He seldom makes a conscience of

his rhymes, but will often take the liberty to make "preach" rhyme with

"cheat," "vote" with "rogue," and "committee-man" with "hang."

He ’ ll make one word of as many joints as the tin-pudding that a juggler

pulls out of his throat and chops in again. What think you of

_glud-fum-flam-hasta-minantes?_ Some of the old Latin poets bragged that

their verses were tougher than brass and harder than marble; what would

they have done if they had seen these? Verily they would have had more

reason to wish themselves an hundred throats than they then had to

pronounce them.

There are some that drive a trade in writing in praise of other writers

(like rooks, that bet on gamesters ’ hands), not at all to celebrate the

learned author ’ s merits, as they would show but their own wits, of which

he is but the subject. The lechery of this vanity has spawned more

writers than the civil law. For those whose modesty must not endure to

hear their own praises spoken may yet publish of themselves the most

notorious vapours imaginable. For if the privilege of love be

allowed--_Dicere quiz puduit, scribere jussit amor_--why should it not

be so in self-love too? For if it be wisdom to conceal our

imperfections, what is it to discover our virtues? It is not likely that

Nature gave men great parts upon such terms as the fairies used to give

money, to pinch and leave them if they speak of it. They say--Praise is

but the shadow of virtue, and sure that virtue is very foolish that is

afraid of its own shadow.

When he writes anagrams he uses to lay the outsides of his verses even

(like a bricklayer) by a line of rhyme and acrostic, and fill the middle

with rubbish. In this he imitates Ben Jonson, but in nothing else.

There was one that lined a hatcase with a paper of Benlowes ’ poetry;

Prynne bought it by chance and put a new demi-castor into it. The first

time he wore it he felt only a singing in his head, which within two

days turned to a vertigo. He was let blood in the ear by one of the

State physicians, and recovered; but before he went abroad he wrote a

poem of rocks and seas, in a style so proper and natural that it was

hard to determine which was ruggeder.

There is no feat of activity nor gambol of wit that ever was performed

by man, from him that vaults on Pegasus to him that tumbles through the

hoop of an anagram, but Benlowes has got the mastery in it, whether it

be high-rope wit or low-rope wit. He has all sorts of echoes, rebuses,

chronograms, &c., besides carwitchets, clenches, and quibbles. As for

altars and pyramids in poetry, he has outdone all men that way; for he

has made a gridiron and a frying-pan in verse, that, beside the likeness

in shape, the very tone and sound of the words did perfectly represent

the noise that is made by those utensils, such as the old poet called

_sartago loquendi_. When he was a captain he made all the furniture of

his horse, from the bit to the crupper, in beaten poetry, every verse

being fitted to the proportion of the thing, with a moral allusion of

the sense to the thing; as the bridle of moderation, the saddle of

content, and the crupper of constancy; so that the same thing was both

epigram and emblem, even as a mule is both horse and ass.

Some critics are of opinion that poets ought to apply themselves to the

imitation of Nature, and make a conscience of digressing from her; but

he is none of these. The ancient magicians could charm down the moon and

force rivers back to their springs by the power of poetry only, and the

moderns will undertake to turn the inside of the earth outward (like a

juggler ’ s pocket) and shake the chaos out of it, make Nature show tricks

like an ape, and the stars run on errands; but still it is by dint of

poetry. And if poets can do such noble feats, they were unwise to

descend to mean and vulgar. For where the rarest and most common things

are of a price (as they are all one to poets), it argues disease in

judgment not to choose the most curious. Hence some infer that the

account they give of things deserves no regard, because they never

receive anything as they find it into their compositions, unless it

agree both with the measure of their own fancies and the measure of

their lines, which can very seldom happen. And therefore, when they give

a character of any thing or person, it does commonly bear no more

proportion to the subject than the fishes and ships in a map do to the

scale. But let such know that poets as well as kings ought rather to

consider what is fit for them to give than others to receive; that they

are fain to have regard to the exchange of language, and write high or

low according as that runs. For in this age, when the smallest poet

seldom goes below more the most, it were a shame for a greater and more

noble poet not to outthrow that cut a bar.

There was a tobacco-man that wrapped Spanish tobacco in a paper of

verses which Benlowes had written against the Pope, which, by a natural

antipathy that his wit has to anything that ’ s Catholic, spoiled the

tobacco, for it presently turned mundungus. This author will take an

English word, and, like the Frenchman that swallowed water and spit it

out wine, with a little heaving and straining would turn it immediately

into Latin, as _plunderat ilie domos, mille hocopokiana_, and a

thousand such.

There was a young practitioner in poetry that found there was no good to

be done without a mistress; for he that writes of love before he hath

tried it doth but travel by the map, and he that makes love without a

dame does like a gamester that plays for nothing. He thought it

convenient, therefore, first to furnish himself with a name for his

mistress beforehand, that he might not be to seek when his merit or good

fortune should bestow her upon him; for every poet is his mistress ’ s

godfather, and gives her a new name, like a nun that takes orders. He

was very curious to fit himself with a handsome word of a tunable sound,

but could light upon none that some poet or other had not made use of

before. He was therefore forced to fall to coining, and was several

months before he could light on one that pleased him perfectly. But

after he had overcome that difficulty he found a greater remaining, to

get a lady to own him. He accosted some of all sorts, and gave them to

understand, both in prose and verse, how incomparably happy it was in

his power to make his mistress, but could never convert any of them. At

length he was fain to make his laundress supply that place as a proxy

until his good fortune or somebody of better quality would be more kind

to him, which after a while he neither hoped nor cared for; for how mean

soever her condition was before, when he had once pretended to her she

was sure to be a nymph and a goddess. For what greater honour can a

woman be capable of than to be translated into precious stones and

stars? No herald in the world can go higher. Besides, he found no man

can use that freedom of hyperbole in the character of a person commonly

known (as great ladies are) which we can in describing one so obscure

and unknown that nobody can disprove him. For he that writes but one

sonnet upon any of the public persons shall be sure to have his reader

at every third word cry out, "What an ass is this to call Spanish paper

and ceruse lilies and roses, or claps influences; to say the Graces are

her waiting-women, when they are known to be no better than her bawds;

that day breaks from her eyes when she looks asquint; or that her breath

perfumes the Arabian winds when she puffs tobacco!"

It is no mean art to improve a language, and find out words that are not

only removed from common use, but rich in consonants, the nerves and

sinews of speech; to raise a soft and feeble language like ours to the

pitch of High-Dutch, as he did that writ--

"Arts rattling foreskins shrilling bagpipes quell."

This is not only the most elegant but most politic way of writing that a

poet can use, for I know no defence like it to preserve a poem from the

torture of those that lisp and stammer. He that wants teeth may as well

venture upon a piece of tough horny brawn as such a line, for he will

look like an ass eating thistles.

He never begins a work without an invocation of his Muse; for it is not

fit that she should appear in public to show her skill before she is

entreated, as gentlewomen do not use to sing until they are applied to

and often desired.

I shall not need to say anything of the excellence of poetry, since it

has been already performed by many excellent persons, among whom some

have lately undertaken to prove that the civil government cannot

possibly subsist without it, which, for my part, I believe to be true in

a poetical sense, and more probable to be received of it than those

strange feats of building walls and making trees dance which antiquity

ascribes to verse. And though philosophers are of a contrary opinion and

will not allow poets fit to live in a commonwealth, their partiality is

plainer than their reasons, for they have no other way to pretend to

this prerogative themselves, as they do, but by removing poets whom they

know to have a fairer title; and this they do so unjustly that Plato,

who first banished poets his republic, forgot that that very

commonwealth was poetical. I shall say nothing to them, but only desire

the world to consider how happily it is like to be governed by those

that are at so perpetual a civil war among themselves, that if we should

submit ourselves to their own resolution of this question, and be

content to allow them only fit to rule if they could but conclude it so

themselves, they would never agree upon it. Meanwhile there is no less

certainty and agreement in poetry than the mathematics, for they all

submit to the same rules without dispute or controversy. But whosoever

shall please to look into the records of antiquity shall find their

title so unquestioned that the greatest princes in the whole world have

been glad to derive their pedigrees, and their power too, from poets.

Alexander the Great had no wiser a way to secure that Empire to himself

by right which he had gotten by force than by declaring himself the son

of Jupiter; and who was Jupiter but the son of a poet? So Caesar and all

Rome was transported with joy when a poet made Jupiter his colleague in

the Empire; and when Jupiter governed, what did the poets that

governed Jupiter?

A PHILOSOPHER
Seats himself as spectator and critic on the great theatre of the world,

and gives sentence on the plots, language, and action of whatsoever he

sees represented, according to his own fancy. He will pretend to know

what is done behind the scene, but so seldom is in the right that he

discovers nothing more than his own mistakes. When his profession was in

credit in the world, and money was to be gotten by it, it divided itself

into multitudes of sects, that maintained themselves and their opinions

by fierce and hot contests with one another; but since the trade decayed

and would not turn to account, they all fell of themselves, and now the

world is so unconcerned in their controversies, that three Reformado

sects joined in one, like Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana, will not serve

to maintain one pedant. He makes his hypotheses himself, as a tailor

does a doublet without measure; no matter whether they fit Nature, he

can make Nature fit them, and, whether they are too straight or wide,

pinch or stuff out the body accordingly. He judges of the works of

Nature just as the rabble do of State affairs; they see things done, and

every man according to his capacity guesses at the reasons of them, but

knowing nothing of the arcana or secret movements of either, they seldom

or never are in the right. Howsoever, they please themselves and some

others with their fancies, and the farther they are off truth, the more

confident they are they are near it, as those that are out of their way

believe the farther they have gone they are the nearer their journey ’ s

end, when they are farthest of all from it. He is confident of

immaterial substances, and his reasons are very pertinent; that is,

substantial as he thinks, and immaterial as others do. Heretofore his

beard was the badge of his profession, and the length of that in all his

polemics was ever accounted the length of his weapon; but when the trade

fell, that fell too. In Lucius ’ s time they were commonly called

beard-wearers, for all the strength of their wits lay in their beards,

as Samson ’ s did in his locks; but since the world began to see the

vanity of that hare-brained cheat, they left it off to save

their credit.

A MELANCHOLY MAN
Is one that keeps the worst company in the world; that is, his own; and

though he be always falling out and quarrelling with himself, yet he has

not power to endure any other conversation. His head is haunted, like a

house, with evil spirits and apparitions, that terrify and fright him

out of himself, till he stands empty and forsaken. His sleeps and his

wakings are so much the same that he knows not how to distinguish them,

and many times when he dreams he believes he is broad awake and sees

visions. The fumes and vapours that rise from his spleen and

hypochondrias have so smutched and sullied his brain (like a room that

smokes) that his understanding is blear-eyed and has no right perception

of anything. His soul lives in his body, like a mole in the earth that

labours in the dark, and casts up doubts and scruples of his own

imaginations, to make that rugged and uneasy that was plain and open

before. His brain is so cracked that he fancies himself to be glass, and

is afraid that everything he comes near should break him in pieces.

Whatsoever makes an impression in his imagination works itself in like a

screw, and the more he turns and winds it the deeper it sticks, till it

is never to be got out again. The temper of his brain, being earthy,

cold, and dry, is apt to breed worms, that sink so deep into it no

medicine in art or nature is able to reach them. He leads his life as

one leads a dog in a slip that will not follow, but is dragged along

until he is almost hanged, as he has it often under consideration to

treat himself in convenient time and place, if he can but catch himself

alone. After a long and mortal feud between his inward and his outward

man, they at length agree to meet without seconds and decide the

quarrel, in which the one drops and the other slinks out of the way and

makes his escape into some foreign world, from whence it is never after

heard of. He converses with nothing so much as his own imagination,

which, being apt to misrepresent things to him, makes him believe that

it is something else than it is, and that he holds intelligence with

spirits that reveal whatsoever he fancies to him, as the ancient rude

people that first heard their own voices repeated by echoes in the woods

concluded it must proceed from some invisible inhabitants of those

solitary places, which they after believed to be gods, and called them

sylvans, fauns, and dryads. He makes the infirmity of his temper pass

for revelations, as Mahomet did by his falling sickness, and inspires

himself with the wind of his own hypochondrias. He laments, like

Heraclitus, the maudlin philosopher, at other men ’ s mirth, and takes

pleasure in nothing but his own unsober sadness. His mind is full of

thoughts, but they are all empty, like a nest of boxes. He sleeps

little, but dreams much, and soundest when he is waking. He sees visions

farther off than a second-sighted man in Scotland, and dreams upon a

hard point with admirable judgment. He is just so much worse than a

madman as he is below him in degree of frenzy, for among madmen the most

mad govern all the rest, and receive a natural obedience from their

inferiors.

A TRAVELLER
Is a native of all countries and an alien at home. He flies from the

place where he was hatched, like a wild goose, and prefers all others

before it. He has no quarrel to it but because he was born in it, and,

like a bastard, he is ashamed of his mother, because she is of him. He

is a merchant that makes voyages into foreign nations to drive a trade

in wisdom and politics, and it is not for his credit to have it thought

he has made an ill return, which must be if he should allow of any of

the growth of his own country. This makes him quack and blow up himself

with admiration of foreign parts and a generous contempt of home, that

all men may admire at least the means he has had of improvement and

deplore their own defects. His observations are like a sieve, that lets

the finer flour pass and retains only the bran of things, for his whole

return of wisdom proves to be but affectation, a perishable commodity,

which he will never be able to put off. He believes all men ’ s wits are

at a stand that stay at home, and only those advanced that travel, as if

change of pasture did make great politicians as well as fat calves. He

pities the little knowledge of truth which those have that have not seen

the world abroad, forgetting that at the same time he tells us how

little credit is to be given to his own relations and those of others

that speak and write of their travels. He has worn his own language to

rags, and patched it up with scraps and ends of foreign. This serves him

for wit; for when he meets with any of his foreign acquaintances, all

they smatter passes for wit, and they applaud one another accordingly.

He believes this raggedness of his discourse a great demonstration of

the improvement of his knowledge, as Inns-of-Court men intimate their

proficiency in the law by the tatters of their gowns. All the wit he

brought home with him is like foreign coin, of a baser alloy than our

own, and so will not pass here without great loss. All noble creatures

that are famous in any one country degenerate by being transplanted, and

those of mean value only improve. If it hold with men, he falls among

the number of the latter, and his improvements are little to his credit.

All he can say for himself is, his mind was sick of a consumption, and

change of air has cured him; for all his other improvements have only

been to eat in ... and talk with those he did not understand, to hold

intelligence with all _Gazettes_, and from the sight of statesmen in the

street unriddle the intrigues of all their Councils, to make a wondrous

progress into knowledge by riding with a messenger, and advance in

politics by mounting of a mule, run through all sorts of learning in a

waggon, and sound all depths of arts in a felucca, ride post into the

secrets of all states, and grow acquainted with their close designs in

inns and hostelries; for certainly there is great virtue in highways and

hedges to make an able man, and a good prospect cannot but let him see

far into things.

A CURIOUS MAN
Values things not by their use or worth, but scarcity. He is very tender

and scrupulous of his humour, as fanatics are of their consciences, and

both for the most part in trifles. He cares not how unuseful anything

be, so it be but unuseful and rare. He collects all the curiosities he

can light upon in art or nature, not to inform his own judgment, but to

catch the admiration of others, which he believes he has a right to

because the rarities are his own. That which other men neglect he

believes they oversee, and stores up trifles as rare discoveries, at

least of his own wit and sagacity. He admires subtleties above all

things, because the more subtle they are the nearer they are to nothing,

and values no art but that which is spun so thin that it is of no use at

all. He had rather have an iron chain hung about the neck of a flea than

an alderman ’ s of gold, and Homer ’ s Iliads in a nutshell than Alexander ’ s

cabinet. He had rather have the twelve apostles on a cherry-stone than

those on St. Peter ’ s portico, and would willingly sell Christ again for

that numerical piece of coin that Judas took for Him. His perpetual

dotage upon curiosities at length renders him one of them, and he shows

himself as none of the meanest of his rarities. He so much affects

singularity that, rather than follow the fashion that is used by the

rest of the world, he will wear dissenting clothes with odd fantastic

devices to distinguish himself from others, like marks set upon cattle.

He cares not what pains he throws away upon the meanest trifle so it be

but strange, while some pity and others laugh at his ill-employed

industry. He is one of those that valued Epictetus ’ s lamp above the

excellent book he wrote by it. If he be a book-man, he spends all his

time and study upon things that are never to be known. The philosopher ’ s

stone and universal medicine cannot possibly miss him, though he is sure

to do them. He is wonderfully taken with abstruse knowledge, and had

rather handle truth with a pair of tongs wrapped up in mysteries and

hieroglyphics than touch it with his hands or see it plainly

demonstrated to his senses.

A HERALD
Calls himself a king because he has power and authority to hang, draw,

and quarter arms. For assuming a jurisdiction over the distributive

justice of titles of honour, as far as words extend, he gives himself as

great a latitude that way as other magistrates use to do where they have

authority and would enlarge it as far as they can. ’ Tis true he can make

no lords nor knights of himself, but as many squires and gentlemen as he

pleases, and adopt them into what family they have a mind. His dominions

abound with all sorts of cattle, fish, and fowl, and all manner of

manufactures, besides whole fields of gold and silver, which he

magnificently bestows upon his followers or sells as cheap as lands in

Jamaica. The language they use is barbarous, as being but a dialect of

pedlar ’ s French or the Egyptian, though of a loftier sound, and in the

propriety affecting brevity, as the other does verbosity. His business

is like that of all the schools, to make plain things hard with

perplexed methods and insignificant terms, and then appear learned in

making them plain again. He professes arms not for use, but ornament

only, and yet makes the basest things in the world, as dogs ’ turds and

women ’ s spindles, weapons of good and worshipful bearings. He is wiser

than the fellow that sold his ass, but kept the shadow for his own use;

for he sells only the shadow (that is, the picture) and keeps the ass

himself. He makes pedigrees as apothecaries do medicines when they put

in one ingredient for another that they have not by them; by this means

he often makes incestuous matches, and causes the son to many the

mother. His chief province is at funerals, where he commands in chief,

marshals the _tristitiae irritamenta_, and, like a gentleman-sower to

the worms, serves up the feast with all punctual formality. He will join

as many shields together as would make a Roman _testudo_ or Macedonian

phalanx, to fortify the nobility of a new-made lord that will pay for

the impressing of them and allow him coat and conduct money. He is a

kind of a necromancer, and can raise the dead out of their graves to

make them marry and beget those they never heard of in their lifetime.

His coat is, like the King of Spain ’ s dominions, all skirts, and hangs

as loose about him; and his neck is the waist, like the picture of

Nobody with his breeches fastened to his collar. He will sell the head

or a single joint of a beast or fowl as dear as the whole body, like a

pig ’ s head in Bartholomew Fair, and after put off the rest to his

customers at the same rate. His arms, being utterly out of use in war

since guns came up, have been translated to dishes and cups, as the

ancients used their precious stones, according to the poet, _Gemmas ad

pocula transfert a gladiis, &c._; and since are like to decay every day

more and more, for since he gave citizens coats-of-arms, gentlemen have

made bold to take their letters of mark by way of reprisal. The hangman

has a receipt to mar all his work in a moment, for by nailing the wrong

end of a scutcheon upwards upon a gibbet all the honour and gentility

extinguishes of itself, like a candle that ’ s held with the flame

downwards. Other arms are made for the spilling of blood, but his only

purify and cleanse it like scurvy-grass; for a small dose taken by his

prescription will refine that which is as base and gross as bull ’ s blood

(which the Athenians used to poison withal) to any degree of purity.

A VIRTUOSO
Is a well-willer to the mathematics; he pursues knowledge rather out of

humour than ingenuity, and endeavours rather to seem than to be. He has

nothing of nature but an inclination, which he strives to improve with

industry; but as no art can make a fountain run higher than its own

head, so nothing can raise him above the elevation of his own pole. He

seldom converses but with men of his own tendency, and wheresoever he

comes treats with all men as such; for as country gentlemen use to talk

of their dogs to those that hate hunting because they love it

themselves, so will he of his arts and sciences to those that neither

know nor care to know anything of them. His industry were admirable if

it did not attempt the greatest difficulties with the feeblest means;

for he commonly slights anything that is plain and easy, how useful and

ingenious soever, and bends all his forces against the hardest and most

improbable, though to no purpose if attained to; for neither knowing how

to measure his own abilities nor the weight of what he attempts, he

spends his little strength in vain and grows only weaker by it; and as

men use to blind horses that draw in a mill, his ignorance of himself

and his undertakings makes him believe he has advanced when he is no

nearer to his end than when he set out first. The bravery of

difficulties does so dazzle his eyes that he prosecutes them with as

little success as the tailor did his amours to Queen Elizabeth. He

differs from a pedant as things do from words, for he uses the same

affectation in his operations and experiments as the other does in

language. He is a haberdasher of small arts and sciences, and deals in

as many several operations as a baby artificer does in engines. He will

serve well enough for an index to tell what is handled in the world, but

no further. He is wonderfully delighted with rarities, and they continue

still so to him though he has shown them a thousand times, for every new

admirer that gapes upon them sets him a-gaping too. Next these he loves

strange natural histories; and as those that read romances, though they

know them to be fictions, are as much affected as if they were true, so

is he, and will make hard shift to tempt himself to believe them first

to be possible, and then he ’ s sure to believe them to be true,

forgetting that belief upon belief is false heraldry. He keeps a

catalogue of the names of all famous men in any profession, whom he

often takes occasion to mention as his very good friends and old

acquaintances. Nothing is more pedantic than to seem too much concerned

about wit or knowledge, to talk much of it, and appear too critical in

it. All he can possibly arrive to is but like the monkeys dancing on the

rope, to make men wonder how ’ tis possible for art to put nature so much

out of her play.

His learning is like those letters on a coach, where, many being writ

together, no one appears plain. When the King happens to be at the

university and degrees run like wine in conduits at public triumphs, he

is sure to have his share; and though he be as free to choose his

learning as his faculty, yet, like St. Austin ’ s soul, _Creando

infunditur, infundendo creatur_. Nero was the first emperor of his

calling, though it be not much for his credit. He is like an elephant

that, though he cannot swim, yet of all creatures most delights to walk

along a river ’ s side; and as, in law, things that appear not and things

that are not are all one, so he had rather not be than not appear. The

top of his ambition is to have his picture graved in brass and published

upon walls, if he has no work of his own to face with it. His want of

judgment inclines him naturally to the most extravagant undertakings,

like that of making old dogs young, telling how many persons there are

in a room by knocking at a door, stopping up of words in bottles, &c. He

is like his books, that contain much knowledge, but know nothing

themselves. He is but an index of things and words, that can direct

where they are to be spoken with, but no farther. He appears a great man

among the ignorant, and, like a figure in arithmetic, is so much the

more as it stands before ciphers that are nothing of themselves. He

calls himself an antisocordist, a name unknown to former ages, but

spawned by the pedantry of the present. He delights most in attempting

things beyond his reach, and the greater distance he shoots at, the

farther he is sure to be off his mark. He shows his parts as drawers do

a room at a tavern, to entertain them at the expense of their time and

patience. He inverts the moral of that fable of him that caressed his

dog for fawning and leaping up upon him and beat his ass for doing the

same thing, for it is all one to him whether he be applauded by an ass

or a wiser creature, so he be but applauded.

AN INTELLIGENCER
Would give a penny for any statesman ’ s thought at any time. He travels

abroad to guess what princes are designing by seeing them at church or

dinner, and will undertake to unriddle a government at first sight, and

tell what plots she goes with, male or female; and discover, like a

mountebank, only by seeing the public face of affairs, what private

marks there are in the most secret parts of the body politic. He is so

ready at reasons of State, that he has them, like a lesson, by rote; but

as charlatans make diseases fit their medicines, and not their medicines

diseases, so he makes all public affairs conform to his own established

reason of State, and not his reason, though the case alter ever so much,

comply with them. He thinks to obtain a great insight into State affairs

by observing only the outside pretences and appearances of things, which

are seldom or never true, and may be resolved several ways, all equally

probable; and therefore his penetrations into these matters are like the

penetrations of cold into natural bodies, without any sense of itself or

the thing it works upon. For all his discoveries in the end amount only

to entries and equipages, addresses, audiences, and visits, with other

such politic speculations as the rabble in the streets is wont to

entertain itself withal. Nevertheless he is very cautious not to omit

his cipher, though he writes nothing but what every one does or may

safely know, for otherwise it would appear to be no secret. He

endeavours to reduce all his politics into maxims, as being most easily

portable for a travelling head, though, as they are for the most part of

slight matters, they are but like spirits drawn out of water, insipid

and good for nothing. His letters are a kind of bills of exchange, in

which he draws news and politics upon all his correspondents, who place

it to account, and draw it back again upon him; and though it be false,

neither cheats the other, for it passes between both for good and

sufficient pay. If he drives an inland trade, he is factor to certain

remote country virtuosos, who, finding themselves unsatisfied with the

brevity of the _Gazette_, desire to have exceedings of news besides

their ordinary commons. To furnish those, he frequents clubs and

coffee-houses, the markets of news, where he engrosses all he can light

upon; and if that do not prove sufficient, he is forced to add a lie or

two of his own making, which does him double service; for it does not

only supply his occasions for the present, but furnishes him with matter

to fill up gaps in the next letter with retracting what he wrote before,

and in the meantime has served for as good news as the best; and when

the novelty is over it is no matter what becomes of it, for he is better

paid for it than if it were true.

A QUIBBLER
Is a juggler of words, that shows tricks with them, to make them appear

what they were not meant for and serve two senses at once, like one that

plays on two Jew ’ s trumps. He is a fencer of language, that falsifies

his blow and hits where he did not aim. He has a foolish sleight of wit

that catches at words only and lets the sense go, like the young thief

in the farce that took a purse, but gave the owner his money back again.

He is so well versed in all cases of quibble, that he knows when there

will be a blot upon a word as soon as it is out. He packs his quibbles

like a stock of cards; let him but shuffle, and cut where you will, he

will be sure to have it. He dances on a rope of sand, does the

somersault, strappado, and half-strappado with words, plays at all

manner of games with clinches, carwickets, and quibbles, and talks

under-leg. His wit is left-handed, and therefore what others mean for

right he apprehends quite contrary. All his conceptions are produced by

equivocal generation, which makes them justly esteemed but maggots. He

rings the changes upon words, and is so expert that he can tell at first

sight how many variations any number of words will bear. He talks with a

trillo, and gives his words a double relish. He had rather have them

bear two senses in vain and impertinently than one to the purpose, and

never speaks without a leer-sense. He talks nothing but equivocation and

mental reservation, and mightily affects to give a word a double stroke,

like a tennis-ball against two walls at one blow, to defeat the

expectation of his antagonist. He commonly slurs every fourth or fifth

word, and seldom fails to throw doublets. There are two sorts of

quibbling, the one with words and the other with sense, like the

rhetorician ’ s _figurae dictionis et figurae sententiae_--the first is

already cried down, and the other as yet prevails, and is the only

elegance of our modern poets, which easy judges call easiness; but

having nothing in it but easiness, and being never used by any lasting

wit, will in wiser times fall to nothing of itself.

A TIME-SERVER
Wears his religion, reason, and understanding always in the mode, and

endeavours as far as he can to be one of the first in the fashion, let

it change as oft as it can. He makes it his business, like a politic

epicure, to entertain his opinion, faith, and judgment with nothing but

what he finds to be most in season, and is as careful to make his

understanding ready according to the present humour of affairs as the

gentleman was that used every morning to put on his clothes by the

weather-glass. He has the same reverend esteem of the modern age as an

antiquary has for venerable antiquity, and, like a glass, receives

readily any present object, but takes no notice of that which is past or

to come. He is always ready to become anything as the times shall please

to dispose of him, but is really nothing of himself; for he that sails

before every wind can be bound for no port. He accounts it blasphemy to

speak against anything in present vogue, how vain or ridiculous soever,

and arch-heresy to approve of anything, though ever so good and wise,

that is laid by; and therefore casts his judgment and understanding upon

occasion, as bucks do their horns, when the season arrives to breed new

against the next, to be cast again. He is very zealous to show himself,

upon all occasions, a true member of the Church for the time being, that

has not the least scruple in his conscience against the doctrine or

discipline of it, as it stands at present, or shall do hereafter,

unsight unseen; for he is resolved to be always for the truth, which he

believes is never so plainly demonstrated as in that character that says

it is great and prevails, and in that sense only fit to be adhered to by

a prudent man, who will never be kinder to Truth than she is to him; for

suffering is a very evil effect, and not like to proceed from a good

cause. He is a man of a right public spirit, for he resigns himself

wholly to the will and pleasure of the times, and, like a zealous

implicit patriot, believes as the State believes, though he neither

knows nor cares to know what that is.

A PRATER
Is a common nuisance, and as great a grievance to those that come near

him as a pewterer is to his neighbours. His discourse is like the

braying of a mortar, the more impertinent the more voluble and loud, as

a pestle makes more noise when it is rung on the sides of a mortar than

when it stamps downright and hits upon the business. A dog that opens

upon a wrong scent will do it oftener than one that never opens but upon

a right. He is as long-winded as a ventiduct that fills as fast as it

empties, or a trade-wind that blows one way for half-a-year together,

and another as long, as if it drew in its breath for six months, and

blew it out again for six more. He has no mercy on any man ’ s ears or

patience that he can get within his sphere of activity, but tortures

him, as they correct boys in Scotland, by stretching their lugs without

remorse. He is like an earwig; when he gets within a man ’ s ear he is not

easily to be got out again. He will stretch a story as unmercifully as

he does the ears of those he tells it to, and draw it out in length like

a breast of mutton at the Hercules pillars, or a piece of cloth set on

the tenters, till it is quite spoiled and good for nothing. If he be an

orator that speaks _distincte et ornate_, though not _apte_, he delivers

his circumstances with the same mature deliberation that one that drinks

with a gusto swallows his wine, as if he were loth to part with it

sooner than he must of necessity; or a gamester that pulls the cards

that are dealt him one by one, to enjoy the pleasure more distinctly of

seeing what game he has in his hand. He takes so much pleasure to hear

himself speak, that he does not perceive with what uneasiness other men

endure him, though they express it ever so plainly; for he is so

diverted with his own entertainment of himself, that he is not at

leisure to take notice of any else. He is a siren to himself, and has no

way to escape shipwreck but by having his mouth stopped instead of his

ears. He plays with his tongue as a cat does with her tail, and is

transported with the delight he gives himself of his own making. He

understands no happiness like that of having an opportunity to show his

abilities in public, and will venture to break his neck to show the

activity of his eloquence; for the tongue is not only the worst part of

a bad servant, but of an ill master that does not know how to govern it;

for then it is like Guzman ’ s wife, very headstrong and not sure of foot.

A DISPUTANT
Is a holder of arguments, and wagers too, when he cannot make them good.

He takes naturally to controversy, like fishes in India that are said to

have worms in their heads and swim always against the stream. The

greatest mastery of his art consists in turning and winding the state of

the question, by which means he can easily defeat whatsoever has been

said by his adversary, though excellently to the purpose, like a bowler

that knocks away the jack when he sees another man ’ s bowl lie nearer to

it than his own. Another of his faculties is with a multitude of words

to render what he says so difficult to be recollected that his adversary

may not easily know what he means, and consequently not understand what

to answer, to which he secretly reserves an advantage to reply by

interpreting what he said before otherwise than he at first intended it,

according as he finds it serve his purpose to evade whatsoever shall be

objected. Next to this, to pretend not to understand, or misinterpret

what his antagonist says, though plain enough, only to divert him from

the purpose, and to take occasion from his exposition of what he said to

start new cavils on the bye and run quite away from the question; but

when he finds himself pressed home and beaten from all his guards, to

amuse the foe with some senseless distinction, like a falsified blow

that never hits where ’ tis aimed, but while it is minded makes way for

some other trick that may pass. But that which renders him invincible is

abundance of confidence and words, which are his offensive and defensive

arms; for a brazen face is a natural helmet or beaver, and he that has

store of words needs not surrender for want of ammunition. No matter for

reason and sense, that go for no more in disputations than the justice

of a cause does in war, which is understood but by few and commonly

regarded by none. For the custom of disputants is not so much to destroy

one another ’ s reason as to cavil at the manner of expressing it, right

or wrong; for they believe _Dolus an virtus_, &c., ought to be allowed

in controversy as war, and he that gets the victory on any terms

whatsoever deserves it and gets it honourably. He and his opponent are

like two false lute-strings that will never stand in tune to one

another, or like two tennis-players whose greatest skill consists in

avoiding one another ’ s strokes.

A PROJECTOR
Is by interpretation a man of forecast. He is an artist of plots,

designs, and expedients to find out money, as others hide it, where

nobody would look for it. He is a great rectifier of the abuses of all

trades and mysteries, yet has but one remedy for all diseases; that is,

by getting a patent to share with them, by virtue of which they become

authorised, and consequently cease to be cheats. He is a great promoter

of the public good, and makes it his care and study to contrive

expedients that the nation may not be ill served with false rags,

arbitrary puppet-plays, and insufficient monsters, of all which he

endeavours to get the superintendency. He will undertake to render

treasonable pedlars, that carry intelligence between rebels and

fanatics, true subjects and well-affected to the Government for

half-a-crown a quarter, which he takes for giving them license to do so

securely and uncontrolled. He gets as much by those projects that

miscarry as by those that hold (as lawyers are paid as well for undoing

as preserving of men); for when he has drawn in adventurers to purchase

shares of the profit, the sooner it is stopped the better it proves for

him; for, his own business being done, he is the sooner rid of theirs.

He is very expert at gauging the understandings of those he deals with,

and has his engines always ready with mere air to blow all their money

out of their pockets into his own, as vintners do wine out of one vessel

into another. He is very amorous of his country, and prefers the public

good before his own advantage, until he has joined them both together in

some monopoly, and then he thinks he has done his part, and may be

allowed to look after his own affairs in the second place. The chiefest

and most useful part of his talent consists in quacking and lying, which

he calls answering of objections and convincing the ignorant. Without

this he can do nothing; for as it is the common practice of most

knaveries, so it is the surest and best fitted to the vulgar capacities

of the world; and though it render him more ridiculous to some few, it

always prevails upon the greater part.

A COMPLEMENTER
Is one that endeavours to make himself appear a very fine man in

persuading another that he is so, and by offering those civilities which

he does not intend to part with, believes he adds to his own reputation

and obliges another for nothing. He is very free in making presents of

his services, because he is certain he cannot possibly receive in return

less than they are worth. He differs very much from all other critics in

punctilios of honour; for he esteems himself very uncivilly dealt with

if his vows and protestations pass for anything but mere lies and

vanities. When he gives his word, he believes it is no longer his, and

therefore holds it very unreasonable to give it and keep it too. He

divides his services among so many that there comes but little or

nothing to any one man ’ s share, and therefore they are very willing to

let him take it back again. He makes over himself in truth to every man,

but still it is to his own uses to secure his title against all other

claims and cheat his creditors. He is very generous of his promises, but

still it is without lawful consideration, and so they go for nothing. He

extols a man to his face, like those that write in praise of an author

to show his own wit, not his whom they undertake to commend. He has

certain set forms and routines of speech, which he can say over while he

thinks on anything else, as a Catholic does his prayers, and therefore

never means what he says. His words flow easily from him, but so shallow

that they will bear no weight at all. All his offers of endearment are

but like terms of course, that carry their own answers along with them,

and therefore pass for nothing between those that understand them, and

deceive those only that believe in them. He professes most kindness

commonly to those he least cares for, like an host that bids a man

welcome when he is going away. He had rather be every man ’ s menial

servant than any one man ’ s friend; for servants gain by their masters,

and men often lose by their friends.

A CHEAT
Is a freeman of all trades, and all trades of his. Fraud and treachery

are his calling, though his profession be the strictest integrity and

truth. He spins nets, like a spider, out of his own entrails, to entrap

the simple and unwary that light in his way, whom he devours and feeds

upon. All the greater sort of cheats, being allowed by authority, have

lost their names (as judges, when they are called to the Bench, are no

more styled lawyers) and left the title to the meaner only and the

unallowed. The common ignorance of mankind is his province, which he

orders to the best advantage. He is but a tame highwayman, that does the

same things by stratagem and design which the other does by force, makes

men deliver their understandings first, and after their purses. Oaths

and lies are his tools that he works with, and he gets his living by the

drudgery of his conscience. He endeavours to cheat the devil by

mortgaging his soul so many times over and over to him, forgetting that

he has damnations, as priests have absolutions of all prices. He is a

kind of a just judgment, sent into this world to punish the confidence

and curiosity of ignorance, that out of a natural inclination to error

will tempt its own punishment and help to abuse itself. He can put on as

many shapes as the devil that set him on work, is one that fishes in

muddy understandings, and will tickle a trout in his own element till he

has him in his clutches, and after in his dish or the market. He runs

down none but those which he is certain are _fera natura_, mere natural

animals, that belong to him that can catch them. He can do no feats

without the co-operating assistance of the chouse, whose credulity

commonly meets the impostor half-way, otherwise nothing is done; for all

the craft is not in the catching (as the proverb says), but the better

half at least in being catched. He is one that, like a bond without

fraud, covin, and further delay, is void and of none effect, otherwise

does stand and remain in full power, force, and virtue. He trusts the

credulous with what hopes they please at a very easy rate, upon their

own security, until he has drawn them far enough in, and then makes them

pay for all at once. The first thing he gets from him is a good opinion,

and afterwards anything he pleases; for after he has drawn from his

guards he deals with him like a surgeon, and ties his arm before he lets

him blood.

A TEDIOUS MAN
Talks to no end, as well as to no purpose; for he would never come at it

willingly. His discourse is like the road-miles in the north, the

filthier and dirtier the longer; and he delights to dwell the longer

upon them to make good the old proverb that says they are good for the

dweller, but ill for the traveller. He sets a tale upon the rack, and

stretches until it becomes lame and out of joint. Hippocrates says art

is long; but he is so for want of art. He has a vein of dulness, that

runs through all he says or does; for nothing can be tedious that is not

dull and insipid. Digressions and repetitions, like bag and baggage,

retard his march and put him to perpetual halts. He makes his approaches

to a business by oblique lines, as if he meant to besiege it, and

fetches a wide compass about to keep others from discovering what his

design is. He is like one that travels in a dirty deep road, that moves

slowly; and, when he is at a stop, goes back again, and loses more time

in picking of his way than in going it. How troublesome and uneasy

soever he is to others, he pleases himself so well that he does not at

all perceive it; for though home be homely, it is more delightful than

finer things abroad; and he that is used to a thing and knows no better

believes that other men, to whom it appears otherwise, have the same

sense of it that he has; as melancholy persons that fancy themselves to

be glass believe that all others think them so too; and therefore that

which is tedious to others is not so to him, otherwise he would avoid

it; for it does not so often proceed from a natural defect as

affectation and desire to give others that pleasure which they find

themselves, though it always falls out quite contrary. He that converses

with him is like one that travels with a companion that rides a lame

jade; he must either endure to go his pace or stay for him; for though

he understands long before what he would be at better than he does

himself, he must have patience and stay for him, until, with much ado to

little purpose, he at length comes to him; for he believes himself

injured if he should bate a jot of his own diversion.

A PRETENDER
Is easily acquainted with all knowledges, but never intimate with any;

he remembers he has seen them somewhere before, but cannot possibly call

to mind where. He will call an art by its name, and claim acquaintance

with it at first sight. He knew it perfectly, as the Platonics say, in

the other world, but has had the unhappiness to discontinue his

acquaintance ever since his occasions called him into this. He claps on

all the sail he can possibly make, though his vessel be empty and apt to

overset. He is of a true philosophical temper, contented with a little,

desires no more knowledge than will satisfy nature, and cares not what

his wants are so he can but keep them from the eyes of the world. His

parts are unlimited; for as no man knows his abilities, so he does his

endeavour that as few should his defects. He wears himself in opposition

to the mode, for his lining is much coarser than his outside; and as

others line their serge with silk, he lines his silk with serge. All his

care is employed to appear not to be; for things that are not and things

that appear not are not only the same in law, but in all other affairs

of the world. It should seem that the most impudent face is the best;

for he that does the shamefulest thing most unconcerned is said to set a

good face upon it; for the truth is, the face is but the outside of the

mind, but all the craft is to know how ’ tis lined. Howsoever, he fancies

himself as able as any man, but not being in a capacity to try the

experiment, the hint-keeper of Gresham College is the only competent

judge to decide the controversy. He may, for anything he knows, have as

good a title to his pretences as another man; for judgment being not

past in the case (which shall never be by his means), his title still

stands fair. All he can possibly attain to is but to be another thing

than nature meant him, though a much worse. He makes that good that

Pliny says of children, _Qui celerius fari cepere, tardius ingredi

incipiunt_. The apter he is to smatter, the slower he is in making any

advance in his pretences. He trusts words before he is thoroughly

acquainted with them, and they commonly show him a trick before he is

aware; and he shows at the same time his ignorance to the learned and

his learning to the ignorant.

A NEWSMONGER
Is a retailer of rumour that takes up upon trust and sells as cheap as

he buys. He deals in a perishable commodity that will not keep; for if

it be not fresh it lies upon his hands and will yield nothing. True or

false is all one to him; for novelty being the grace of both, a truth

grows stale as soon as a lie; and as a slight suit will last as well as

a better while the fashion holds, a lie serves as well as truth till new

ones come up. He is little concerned whether it be good or bad, for that

does not make it more or less news; and, if there be any difference, he

loves the bad best, because it is said to come soonest; for he would

willingly bear his share in any public calamity to have the pleasure of

hearing and telling it. He is deeply read in diurnals, and can give as

good an account of Rowland Pepin, if need be, as another man. He tells

news, as men do money, with his fingers; for he assures them it comes

from very good hands. The whole business of his life is, like that of a

spaniel, to fetch and carry news, and when he does it well he is clapped

on the back and fed for it; for he does not take to it altogether, like

a gentleman, for his pleasure, but when he lights on a considerable

parcel of news, he knows where to put it off for a dinner, and quarter

himself upon it until he has eaten it out; and by this means he drives a

trade, by retrieving the first news to truck it for the first meat in

season, and, like the old Roman luxury, ransacks all seas and lands to

please his palate; for he imports his narratives from all parts within

the geography of a diurnal, and eats as well upon the Russ and Polander

as the English and Dutch. By this means his belly is provided for, and

nothing lies upon his hands but his back, which takes other courses to

maintain itself by weft and stray silver spoons, straggling hoods and

scarfs, pimping, and sets at _L ’ Ombre_.

A MODERN CRITIC
Is a corrector of the press gratis; and as he does it for nothing, so it

is to no purpose. He fancies himself clerk of Stationers ’ Hall, and

nothing must pass current that is not entered by him. He is very severe

in his supposed office, and cries, "Woe to ye scribes!" right or wrong.

He supposes all writers to be malefactors without clergy that claim the

privilege of their books, and will not allow it where the law of the

land and common justice does. He censures in gross, and condemns all

without examining particulars. If they will not confess and accuse

themselves, he will rack them until they do. He is a committee-man in

the commonwealth of letters, and as great a tyrant, so is not bound to

proceed but by his own rules, which he will not endure to be disputed.

He has been an apocryphal scribbler himself; but his writings wanting

authority, he grew discontent and turned apostate, and thence becomes so

severe to those of his own profession. He never commends anything but in

opposition to something else that he would undervalue, and commonly

sides with the weakest, which is generous anywhere but in judging. He is

worse than an _index expurgatorius_; for he blots out all, and when he

cannot find a fault, makes one. He demurs to all writers, and when he is

overruled, will run into contempt. He is always bringing writs of error,

like a pettifogger, and reversing of judgments, though the case be never

so plain. He is a mountebank that is always quacking of the infirm and

diseased parts of books, to show his skill, but has nothing at all to do

with the sound. He is a very ungentle reader, for he reads sentence on

all authors that have the unhappiness to come before him; and therefore

pedants, that stand in fear of him, always appeal from him beforehand,

by the name of Momus and Zoilus, complain sorely of his extra-judicial

proceedings, and protest against him as corrupt, and his judgment void

and of none effect, and put themselves in the protection of some

powerful patron, who, like a knight-errant, is to encounter with the

magician and free them from his enchantments.

A BUSY MAN
Is one that seems to labour in every man ’ s calling but his own, and,

like Robin Goodfellow, does any man ’ s drudgery that will let him. He is

like an ape, that loves to do whatsoever he sees others do, and is

always as busy as a child at play. He is a great undertaker, and

commonly as great an underperformer. His face is like a lawyer ’ s buckram

rag, that has always business in it, and as he trots about his head

travels as fast as his feet. He covets his neighbour ’ s business, and his

own is to meddle, not do. He is very lavish of his advice, and gives it

freely, because it is worth nothing, and he knows not what to do with it

himself. He is a common-barreter for his pleasure, that takes no money,

but pettifogs gratis. He is very inquisitive after every man ’ s

occasions, and charges himself with them like a public notary. He is a

great overseer of State affairs, and can judge as well of them before he

understands the reasons as afterwards. He is excellent at preventing

inconveniences and finding out remedies when ’ tis too late; for, like

prophecies, they are never heard of till it is to no purpose. He is a

great reformer, always contriving of expedients, and will press them

with as much earnestness as if himself and every man he meets had power

to impose them on the nation. He is always giving aim to State affairs,

and believes by screwing of his body he can make them shoot which way he

pleases. He inquires into every man ’ s history, and makes his own

commentaries upon it as he pleases to fancy it. He wonderfully affects

to seem full of employments, and borrows men ’ s business only to put on

and appear in, and then returns it back again, only a little worse. He

frequents all public places, and, like a pillar in the old Exchange, is

hung with all men ’ s business, both public and private, and his own is

only to expose them. He dreads nothing so much as to be thought at

leisure, though he is never otherwise; for though he be always doing, he

never does anything.

A PEDANT
Is a dwarf scholar, that never outgrows the mode and fashion of the

school where he should have been taught. He wears his little learning,

unmade-up, puts it on before it was half finished, without pressing or

smoothing. He studies and uses words with the greatest respect possible,

merely for their own sakes, like an honest man, without any regard of

interest, as they are useful and serviceable to things, and among those

he is kindest to strangers (like a civil gentleman) that are far from

their own country and most unknown. He collects old sayings and ends of

verses, as antiquaries do old coins, and is as glad to produce them upon

all occasions. He has sentences ready lying by him for all purposes,

though to no one, and talks of authors as familiarly as his

fellow-collegiates. He will challenge acquaintance with those he never

saw before, and pretend to intimate knowledge of those he has only heard

of. He is well stored with terms of art, but does not know how to use

them, like a country-fellow that carries his gloves in his hands, not

his hands in his gloves. He handles arts and sciences like those that

can play a little upon an instrument, but do not know whether it be in

tune or not. He converses by the book, and does not talk, but quote. If

he can but screw in something that an ancient writer said, he believes

it to be much better than if he had something of himself to the purpose.

His brain is not able to concoct what it takes in, and therefore brings

things up as they were swallowed, that is, crude and undigested, in

whole sentences, not assimilated sense, which he rather affects; for his

want of judgment, like want of health, renders his appetite

preposterous. He pumps for affected and far-set expressions, and they

always prove as far from the purpose. He admires canting above sense. He

is worse than one that is utterly ignorant, as a cock that sees a little

fights worse than one that is stark blind. He speaks in a different

dialect from other men, and much affects forced expressions, forgetting

that hard words, as well as evil ones, corrupt good manners. He can do

nothing, like a conjurer, out of the circle of his arts, nor in it

without canting and ... If he professes physic, he gives his patients

sound, hard words for their money, as cheap as he can afford; for they

cost him money, and study too, before he came by them, and he has reason

to make as much of them as he can.

A HUNTER
Is an auxiliary hound that assists one nation of beasts to subdue and

overrun another. He makes mortal war with the fox for committing acts of

hostility against his poultry. He is very solicitous to have his dogs

well descended of worshipful families, and understands their pedigree as

learnedly as if he were a herald, and is as careful to match them

according to their rank and qualities as High-Germans are of their own

progenies. He is both cook and physician to his hounds, understands the

constitutions of their bodies, and what to administer in any infirmity

or disease, acute or chronic, that can befall them. Nor is he less

skilful in physiognomy, and from the aspects of their faces, shape of

their snouts, falling of their ears and lips, and make of their barrels

will give a shrewd guess at their inclinations, parts, and abilities,

and what parents they are lineally descended from; and by the tones of

their voices and statures of their persons easily discover what country

they are natives of. He believes no music in the world is comparable to

a chorus of their voices, and that when they are well matched they will

hunt their parts as true at first scent as the best singers of catches

that ever opened in a tavern; that they understand the scale as well as

the best scholar that ever learned to compose by the mathematics; and

that when he winds his horn to them ’ tis the very same thing with a

cornet in a quire; that they will run down the hare with a fugue, and a

double do-sol-re-dog hunt a thorough-base to them all the while; that

when they are at a loss they do but rest, and then they know by turns

who are to continue a dialogue between two or three of them, of which he

is commonly one himself. He takes very great pains in his way, but calls

it game and sport because it is to no purpose; and he is willing to make

as much of it as he can, and not be thought to bestow so much labour and

pains about nothing. Let the hare take which way she will, she seldom

fails to lead him at long-running to the alehouse, where he meets with

an after-game of delight in making up a narrative how every dog behaved

himself, which is never done without long dispute, every man inclining

to favour his friend as far as he can; and if there be anything

remarkable to his thinking in it, he preserves it to please himself and,

as he believes, all people else with, during his natural life, and after

leaves it to his heirs male entailed upon the family, with his

bugle-horn and seal-ring.

AN AFFECTED MAN
Carries himself like his dish (as the proverb says), very uprightly,

without spilling one drop of his humour. He is an orator and

rhetorician, that delights in flowers and ornaments of his own devising

to please himself and others that laugh at him. He is of a leaden, dull

temper, that stands stiff, as it is bent, to all crooked lines, but

never to the right. When he thinks to appear most graceful, he adorns

himself most ill-favouredly, like an Indian that wears jewels in his

lips and nostrils. His words and gestures are all as stiff as buckram,

and he talks as if his lips were turned up as well as his beard. All his

motions are regular, as if he went by clockwork, and he goes very true

to the nick as he is set. He has certain favourite words and

expressions, which he makes very much of, as he has reason to do, for

they serve him upon all occasions and are never out of the way when he

has use of them, as they have leisure enough to do, for nobody else has

any occasion for them but himself. All his affectations are forced and

stolen from others; and though they become some particular persons where

they grow naturally, as a flower does on its stalk, he thinks they will

do so by him when they are pulled and dead. He puts words and language

out of its ordinary pace and breaks it to his own fancy, which makes it

go so uneasy in a shuffle, which it has not been used to. He delivers

himself in a forced way, like one that sings with a feigned voice beyond

his natural compass. He loves the sound of words better than the sense,

and will rather venture to incur nonsense than leave out a word that he

has a kindness for. If he be a statesman, the slighter and meaner his

employments are the bigger he looks, as an ounce of tin swells and looks

bigger than an ounce of gold; and his affectations of gravity are the

most desperate of all, as the aphorism says--Madness of study and

consideration are harder to be cured than those of lighter and more

fantastic humour.

A MEDICINE-TAKER
Has a sickly mind and believes the infirmity is in his body, like one

that draws the wrong tooth and fancies his pain in the wrong place. The

less he understands the reason of physic the stronger faith he has in

it, as it commonly fares in all other affairs of the world. His disease

is only in his judgment, which makes him believe a doctor can fetch it

out of his stomach or his belly, and fright those worms out of his guts

that are bred in his brain. He believes a doctor is a kind of conjurer

that can do strange things, and he is as willing to have him think so;

for by that means he does not only get his money, but finds himself in

some possibility by complying with that fancy to do him good for it,

which he could never expect to do any other way; for, like those that

have been cured by drinking their own water, his own imagination is a

better medicine than any the doctor knows how to prescribe, even as the

weapon-salve cures a wound by being applied to that which made it. He is

no sooner well but any story or lie of a new famous doctor or strange

cure puts him into a relapse, and he falls sick of a medicine instead of

a disease, and catches physic like him that fell into a looseness at the

sight of a purge. He never knows when he is well or sick, but is always

tampering with his health till he has spoiled it, like a foolish

musician that breaks his strings with striving to put them in tune; for

Nature, which is physic, understands better how to do her own work than

those that take it from her at second hand. Hippocrates says, _Ars

longa, vita brevis_, and it is the truest of all his aphorisms--

"For he that ’ s given much to the long art

Does not prolong his life, but cut it short."

THE MISER
Is like the sea, that is said to be richer than the land, but is not

able to make any use of it at all, and only keeps it from those that

know how to enjoy it if they had it. The devil understood his business

very well when he made choice of Judas ’ s avarice to betray Christ, for

no other vice would have undertaken it; and it is to be feared that his

Vicars now on earth, by the tenderness they have to the bag, do not use

Him much better than His steward did then. He gathers wealth to no

purpose but to satisfy his avarice, that has no end, and afflicts

himself to possess that which he is, of all men, the most incapable of

ever obtaining. His treasure is in his hands in the same condition as if

it were buried uncier ground and watched by an evil spirit. His desires

are like the bottomless pit which he is destined to, for the one is as

soon filled as the other. He shuts up his money in close custody, and

that which has power to open all locks is not able to set itself at

liberty. If he ever lets it out it is upon good bail and mainprize, to

render itself prisoner again whensoever it shall be summoned. He loves

wealth as an eunuch does women, whom he has no possibility of enjoying,

or one that is bewitched with an impotency or taken with the falling

sickness. His greedy appetite to riches is but a kind of dog-hunger,

that never digests what it devours, but still the greedier and more

eager it crams itself becomes more meagre. He finds that ink and

parchment preserves money better than an iron chest and parsimony, like

the memories of men that lie dead and buried when they are committed to

brass and marble, but revive and flourish when they are trusted to

authentic writings and increase by being used. If he had lived among the

Jews in the wilderness he would have been one of their chief reformers,

and have worshipped anything that is cast in gold, though a sillier

creature than a calf. St. John in the Revelations describes the New

Jerusalem to be built all of gold and silver and precious stones, for

the saints commonly take so much delight in those creatures that nothing

else could prevail with them ever to come thither; and as those times

are called the Golden Age in which there was no gold at all in use, so

men are reputed godly and rich that make no use at all of their religion

or wealth. All that he has gotten together with perpetual pains and

industry is not wealth, but a collection, which he intends to keep by

him more for his own diversion than any other use, and he that made

ducks and drakes with his money enjoyed it every way as much. He makes

no conscience of anything but parting with his money, which is no better

than a separation of soul and body to him, and he believes it to be as

bad as self-murder if he should do it wilfully; for the price of the

weapon with which a man is killed is always esteemed a very considerable

circumstance, and next to not having the fear of God before his eyes. He

loves the bowels of the earth broiled on the coals above any other

cookery in the world. He is a slave condemned to the mines. He laughs at

the golden mean as ridiculous, and believes there is no such thing in

the world; for how can there be a mean of that of which no man ever had

enough? He loves the world so well that he would willingly lose himself

to save anything by it. His riches are like a dunghill, that renders the

ground unprofitable that it lies upon, and is good for nothing until it

be spread and scattered abroad.

A SWEARER
Is one that sells the devil the best pennyworth that he meets with

anywhere, and, like the Indians that part with gold for glass beads, he

damns his soul for the slightest trifles imaginable. He betroths himself

oftener to the devil in one day than Mecaenas did in a week to his wife,

that he was married a thousand times to. His discourse is inlaid with

oaths as the gallows is with nails, to fortify it against the assaults

of those whose friends have made it their deathbed. He takes a

preposterous course to be believed and persuade you to credit what he

says, by saying that which at the best he does not mean; for all the

excuse he has for his voluntary damning of himself is, that he means

nothing by it. He is as much mistaken in what he does intend really, for

that which he takes for the ornament of his language renders it the most

odious and abominable. His custom of swearing takes away the sense of

his saying. His oaths are but a dissolute formality of speech and the

worst kind of affectation. He is a Knight-Baronet of the Post, or

gentleman blasphemer, that swears for his pleasure only; a lay-affidavit

man, _in voto_ only and not in orders. He learned to swear, as magpies

do to speak, by hearing others. He talks nothing but bell, book, and

candle, and delivers himself over to Satan oftener than a Presbyterian

classis would do. He plays with the devil for sport only, and stakes his

soul to nothing. He overcharges his oaths till they break and hurt

himself only. He discharges them as fast as a gun that will shoot nine

times with one loading. He is the devil ’ s votary, and fails not to

commend himself into his tuition upon all occasions. He outswears an

exorcist, and outlies the legend. His oaths are of a wider bore and

louder report than those of an ordinary perjurer, but yet they do not

half the execution. Sometimes he resolves to leave it, but not too

suddenly, lest it should prove unwholesome and injurious to his health,

but by degrees as he took it up. Swearing should appear to be the

greatest of sins, for though the Scripture says, "God sees no sin in His

children," it does not say He hears none.

THE LUXURIOUS
Places all enjoyment in spending, as a covetous man does in getting, and

both are treated at a witch ’ s feast, where nothing feeds but only the

imagination, and like two madmen, that believe themselves to be the same

prince, laugh at one another. He values his pleasures as they do honour,

by the difficulty and dearness of the purchase, not the worth of the

thing; and the more he pays the better he believes he ought to be

pleased, as women are fondest of those children which they have groaned

most for. His tongue is like a great practiser ’ s in law, for as the one

will not stir, so the other will not taste without a great fee. He never

reckons what a thing costs by what it is worth, but what it is worth by

what it costs. All his senses are like corrupt judges, that will

understand nothing until they are thoroughly informed and satisfied with

a convincing bribe. He relishes no meat but by the rate, and a high

price is like sauce to it, that gives it a high taste and renders it

savoury to his palate. He believes there is nothing dear, nor ought to

be so, that does not cost much, and that the dearest bought is always

the cheapest. He tastes all wines by the smallness of the bottles and

the greatness of the price, and when he is over-reckoned takes it as an

extraordinary value set upon him, as Dutchmen always reckon by the

dignity of the person, not the charge of the entertainment he receives,

put his quality and titles into the bill of fare, and make him pay for

feeding upon his own honour and right-worship, which he brought along

with him. He debauches his gluttony with an unnatural appetite to things

never intended for food, like preposterous venery or the unnatural

mixtures of beasts of several kinds. He is as curious of his pleasures

as an antiquary of his rarities, and cares for none but such as are very

choice and difficult to be gotten, disdains anything that is common,

unless it be his women, which he esteems a common good, and therefore

the more communicative the better. All his vices are, like children that

have been nicely bred, a great charge to him, and it costs him dear to

maintain them like themselves, according to their birth and breeding;

but he, like a tender parent, had rather suffer want himself than they

should, for he considers a man ’ s vices are his own flesh and blood, and

though they are but by-blows, he is bound to provide for them, out of

natural affection, as well as if they were lawfully begotten.

AN UNGRATEFUL MAN
Is like dust in the highway, that flies in the face of those that raise

it. He that is ungrateful is all things that are amiss. He is like the

devil, that seeks the destruction of those most of all that do him the

best service, or an unhealthful sinner that receives pleasure and

returns nothing but diseases. He receives obligations from all that he

can, but they presently become void and of none effect, for good offices

fare with him like death, from which there is no return. His ill-nature

is like an ill stomach, that turns its nourishment into bad humours. He

should be a man of very great civilities, for he receives all that he

can, but never parts with any. He is like a barren soil; plant what you

will on him, it will never grow, nor anything but thorns and thistles,

that came in with the curse. His mother died in child-bed of him, for he

is descended of the generation of vipers in which the dam always eats

off the sire ’ s head, and the young ones their way through her belly. He

is like a horse in a pasture, that eats up the grass and dungs it in

requital. He puts the benefits he receives from others and his own

faults together in that end of the sack which he carries behind his

back. His ill-nature, like a contagious disease, infects others that are

of themselves good, who, observing his ingratitude, become less inclined

to do good than otherwise they would be; and as the sweetest wine, if

ill-preserved, becomes the sourest vinegar, so the greatest endearments

with him turn to the bitterest injuries. He has an admirable art of

forgetfulness, and no sooner receives a kindness but he owns it by

prescription and claims from time out of mind. All his acknowledgments

appear before his ends are served, but never after, and, like Occasion,

grow very thick before but bare behind. He is like a river, that runs

away from the spring that feeds it and undermines the banks that support

it; or like vice and sin, that destroy those that are most addicted to

it; or the hangman, that breaks the necks of those whom he gets his

living by, and whips those that find him employment, and brands his

masters that set him on work. He pleads the Act of Oblivion for all the

good deeds that are done him, and pardons himself for the evil returns

he makes. He never looks backward (like a right statesman), and things

that are past are all one with him as if they had never been; and as

witches, they say, hurt those only from whom they can get something and

have a hank upon, he no sooner receives a benefit but he converts it to

the injury of that person who conferred it on him. It fares with persons

as with families, that think better of themselves the farther they are

off their first raisers.

A SQUIRE OF DAMES
Deals with his mistress as the devil does with a witch, is content to be

her servant for a time, that she may be his slave for ever. He is

esquire to a knight-errant, donzel to the damsels, and gentleman usher

daily waiter on the ladies, that rubs out his time in making legs and

love to them. He is a gamester who throws at all ladies that are set

him, but is always out, and never wins but when he throws at the

candlestick, that is, for nothing; a general lover, that addresses unto

all but never gains any, as universals produce nothing. He never appears

so gallant a man as when he is in the head of a body of ladies and leads

them up with admirable skill and conduct. He is a eunuch-bashaw, that

has charge of the women and governs all their public affairs, because he

is not able to do them any considerable private services. One of his

prime qualifications is to convey their persons in and out of coaches,

as tenderly as a cook sets his custards in an oven and draws them out

again, without the least discomposure or offence to their inward or

outward woman; that is, their persons and dresses. The greatest care he

uses in his conversation with ladies is to order his peruke

methodically, and keep off his hat with equal respect both to it and

their ladyships, that neither may have cause to take any just offence,

but continue him in their good graces. When he squires a lady he takes

her by the handle of her person, the elbow, and steers it with all

possible caution, lest his own foot should, upon a tack, for want of due

circumspection, unhappily fall foul on the long train she carries at her

stern. This makes him walk upon his toes and tread as lightly as if he

were leading her a dance. He never tries any experiment solitary with

her, but always in consort, and then he acts the woman ’ s part and she

the man ’ s, talks loud and laughs, while he sits demurely silent, and

simpers or bows, and cries, "Anon, Madam, excellently good!" &c. &c. He

is a kind of hermaphrodite, for his body is of one sex and his mind of

another, which makes him take no delight in the conversation or actions

of men, because they do so by his, but apply himself to women, to whom

the sympathy and likeness of his own temper and wit naturally inclines

him, where he finds an agreeable reception for want of a better; for

they, like our Indian planters, value their wealth by the number of

their slaves. All his business in the morning is to dress himself, and

in the afternoon to show his workmanship to the ladies, who after

serious consideration approve or disallow of his judgment and abilities

accordingly, and he as freely delivers his opinion of theirs. The glass

is the only author he studies, by which his actions and gestures are all

put on like his clothes, and by that he practices how to deliver what he

has prepared to say to the dames, after he has laid a train to bring

it in.

AN HYPOCRITE
Is a saint that goes by clockwork, a machine made by the devil ’ s

geometry, which he winds and nicks to go as he pleases. He is the

devil ’ s finger-watch, that never goes true, but too fast or too slow as

he sets him. His religion goes with wires, and he serves the devil for

an idol to seduce the simple to worship and believe in him. He puts down

the true saint with his copper-lace devotion, as ladies that use art

paint fairer than the life. He is a great bustler in reformation, which

is always most proper to his talent, especially if it be tumultuous; for

pockets are nowhere so easily and safely picked as in jostling crowds.

And as change and alterations are most agreeable to those who are tied

to nothing, he appears more zealous and violent for the cause than such

as are retarded by conscience or consideration. His religion is a

mummery, and his Gospel-walkings nothing but dancing a masquerade. He

never wears his own person, but assumes a shape, as his master, the

devil, does when he appears. He wears counterfeit hands (as the Italian

pickpocket did), which are fastened to his breast as if he held them up

to heaven, while his natural fingers are in his neighbour ’ s pocket. The

whole scope of all his actions appears to be directed, like an archer ’ s

arrow, at heaven, while the clout he aims at sticks in the earth. The

devil baits his hook with him when he fishes in troubled waters. He

turns up his eyes to heaven like birds that have no upper lid. He is a

weathercock upon the steeple of the church, that turns with every wind

that blows from any point of the compass. He sets his words and actions

like a printer ’ s letters, and he that will understand him must read him

backwards. He is much more to be suspected than one that is no

professor, as a stone of any colour is easier counterfeited than a

diamond that is of none. The inside of him tends quite cross to the

outside, like a spring that runs upward within the earth and down

without. He is an operator for the soul, and corrects other men ’ s sins

with greater of his own, as the Jews were punished for their idolatry by

greater idolaters than themselves. He is a spiritual highwayman that

robs on the road to heaven. His professions and his actions agree like a

sweet voice and a stinking breath.

AN OPINIONATER
Is his own confidant, that maintains more opinions than he is able to

support. They are all bastards commonly and unlawfully begotten, but

being his own, he had rather, out of natural affection, take any pains,

or beg, than they should want a subsistence. The eagerness and violence

he uses to defend them argues they are weak, for if they were true they

would not need it. How false soever they are to him, he is true to them;

and as all extraordinary affections of love or friendship are usually

upon the meanest accounts, he is resolved never to forsake them, how

ridiculous soever they render themselves and him to the world. He is a

kind of a knight-errant that is bound by his order to defend the weak

and distressed, and deliver enchanted paradoxes, that are bewitched and

held by magicians and conjurers in invisible castles. He affects to have

his opinions as unlike other men ’ s as he can, no matter whether better

or worse, like those that wear fantastic clothes of their own devising.

No force of argument can prevail upon him; for, like a madman, the

strength of two men in their wits is not able to hold him down. His

obstinacy grows out of his ignorance, for probability has so many ways

that whosoever understands them will not be confident of any one. He

holds his opinions as men do their lands, and though his tenure be

litigious, he will spend all he has to maintain it. He does not so much

as know what opinion means, which, always supposing uncertainty, is not

capable of confidence. The more implicit his obstinacy is, the more

stubborn it renders him; for implicit faith is always more pertinacious

than that which can give an account of itself; and as cowards that are

well backed will appear boldest, he that believes as the Church believes

is more violent, though he knows not what it is, than he that can give a

reason for his faith. And as men in the dark endeavour to tread firmer

than when they are in the light, the darkness of his understanding makes

him careful to stand fast wheresoever he happens, though it be out

of his way.

A CHOLERIC MAN
Is one that stands for madman, and has as many voices as another. If he

miss he has very hard dealing; for if he can but come to a fair polling

of his fits against his intervals, he is sure to carry it. No doubt it

would be a singular advantage to him; for, as his present condition

stands, he has more full moons in a week than a lunatic has in a year.

His passion is like tinder, soon set on fire and as soon out again. The

smallest occasion imaginable puts him in his fit, and then he has no

respect of persons, strikes up the heels of stools and chairs, tears

cards limbmeal without regard of age, sex, or quality, and breaks the

bones of dice, and makes them a dreadful example to deter others from

daring to take part against him. He is guilty but of misprision of

madness, and if the worst come to the worst, can but forfeit estate and

suffer perpetual liberty to say what he pleases. ’ Tis true he is but a

candidate of Bedlam, and is not yet admitted fellow, but has the license

of the College to practise, and in time will not fail to come in

according to his seniority. He has his grace for madman, and has done

his exercises, and nothing but his good manners can put him by his

degree. He is, like a foul chimney, easily set on fire, and then he

vapours and flashes as if he would burn the house, but is presently put

out with a greater huff, and the mere noise of a pistol reduces him to a

quiet and peaceable temper. His temper is, like that of a meteor, an

imperfect mixture, that sparkles and flashes until it has spent itself.

All his parts are irascible, and his gall is too big for his liver. His

spleen makes others laugh at him, and as soon as his anger is over with

others he begins to be angry with himself and sorry. He is sick of a

preposterous ague, and has his hot fit always before his cold. The more

violent his passion is the sooner it is out, like a running knot, that

strains hardest, but is easiest loosed. He is never very passionate but

for trifles, and is always most temperate where he has least cause, like

a nettle that stings worst when it is touched with soft and gentle

fingers, but when it is bruised with rugged, hardened hands returns no

harm at all.

A SUPERSTITIOUS MAN
Is more zealous in his false, mistaken piety than others are in the

truth; for he that is in an error has farther to go than one that is in

the right way, and therefore is concerned to bestir himself and make the

more speed. The practice of his religion is, like the Schoolmen ’ s

speculations, full of niceties and tricks, that take up his whole time

and do him more hurt than good. His devotions are labours, not

exercises, and he breaks the Sabbath in taking too much pains to keep

it. He makes a conscience of so many trifles and niceties, that he has

not leisure to consider things that are serious and of real weight. His

religion is too full of fears and jealousies to be true and faithful,

and too solicitous and unquiet to continue in the right, if it were so.

And as those that are bunglers and unskilful in any art take more pains

to do nothing, because they are in a wrong way, than those that are

ready and expert to do the excellentest things, so the errors and

mistakes of his religion engage him in perpetual troubles and anxieties,

without any possibility of improvement until he unlearn all and begin

again upon a new account. He talks much of the justice and merits of his

cause, and yet gets so many advocates that it is plain he does not

believe himself; but having pleaded not guilty, he is concerned to

defend himself as well as he can, while those that confess and put

themselves upon the mercy of the Court have no more to do. His religion

is too full of curiosities to be sound and useful, and is fitter for a

hypocrite than a saint; for curiosities are only for show and of no use

at all. His conscience resides more in his stomach than his heart, and

howsoever he keeps the commandments, he never fails to keep a very pious

diet, and will rather starve than eat erroneously or taste anything that

is not perfectly orthodox and apostolical; and if living and eating are

inseparable, he is in the right, and lives because he eats according to

the truly ancient primitive Catholic faith in the purest times.

A DROLL
Plays his part of wit readily at first sight, and sometimes better than

with practice. He is excellent at voluntary and prelude, but has no

skill in composition. He will run divisions upon any ground very

dexterously, but now and then mistakes a flat for a sharp. He has a

great deal of wit, but it is not at his own disposing, nor can he

command it when he pleases unless it be in the humour. His fancy is

counterchanged between jest and earnest, and the earnest lies always in

the jest, and the jest in the earnest. He treats of all matters and

persons by way of exercitation, without respect of things, time, place,

or occasion, and assumes the liberty of a free-born Englishman, as if he

were called to the long robe with long ears. He imposes a hard task upon

himself as well as those he converses with, and more than either can

bear without a convenient stock of confidence. His whole life is nothing

but a merrymaking, and his business the same with a fiddler ’ s, to play

to all companies where he comes, and take what they please to give him

either of applause or dislike; for he can do little without some

applauders, who by showing him ground make him outdo his own expectation

many times, and theirs too; for they that laugh on his side and cry him

up give credit to his confidence, and sometimes contribute more than

half the wit by making it better than he meant. He is impregnable to all

assaults but that of a greater impudence, which, being stick-free, puts

him, like a rough fencer, out of his play, and after passes upon him at

pleasure, for when he is once routed he never rallies again. He takes a

view of a man as a skilful commander does of a town he would besiege, to

discover the weakest places where he may make his approaches with the

least danger and most advantages, and when he finds himself mistaken,

draws off his forces with admirable caution and consideration; for his

business being only wit, he thinks there is very little of that shown in

exposing himself to any inconvenience.

THE OBSTINATE MAN
Does not hold opinions, but they hold him; for when he is once possessed

with an error, ’ tis, like the devil, not to be cast out but with great

difficulty. Whatsoever he lays hold on, like a drowning man, he never

loses, though it do but help to sink him the sooner. His ignorance is

abrupt and inaccessible, impregnable both by art and nature, and will

hold out to the last though it has nothing but rubbish to defend. It is

as dark as pitch, and sticks as fast to anything it lays hold on. His

skull is so thick that it is proof against any reason, and never cracks

but on the wrong side, just opposite to that against which the

impression is made, which surgeons say does happen very frequently. The

slighter and more inconsistent his opinions are the faster he holds

them, otherwise they would fall asunder of themselves; for opinions that

are false ought to be held with more strictness and assurance than those

that are true, otherwise they will be apt to betray their owners before

they are aware. If he takes to religion, he has faith enough to save a

hundred wiser men than himself, if it were right; but it is too much to

be good; and though he deny supererogation and utterly disclaim any

overplus of merits, yet he allows superabundant belief, and if the

violence of faith will carry the kingdom of heaven, he stands fair for

it. He delights most of all to differ in things indifferent; no matter

how frivolous they are, they are weighty enough in proportion to his

weak judgment, and he will rather suffer self-martyrdom than part with

the least scruple of his freehold, for it is impossible to dye his dark

ignorance into a lighter colour. He is resolved to understand no man ’ s

reason but his own, because he finds no man can understand his but

himself. His wits are like a sack which, the French proverb says, is

tied faster before it is full than when it is; and his opinions are like

plants that grow upon rocks, that stick fast though they have no

rooting. His understanding is hardened like Pharaoh ’ s heart, and is

proof against all sorts of judgments whatsoever.

A ZEALOT
Is a hot-headed brother that has his understanding blocked up on both

sides, like a fore-horse ’ s eyes, that he sees only straight-forwards and

never looks about him, which makes him run on according as he is driven

with his own caprice. He starts and stops (as a horse does) at a post

only because he does not know what it is, and thinks to run away from

the spur while he carries it with him. He is very violent, as all things

that tend downward naturally are; for it is impossible to improve or

raise him above his own level. He runs swiftly before any wind, like a

ship that has neither freight nor ballast, and is as apt to overset.

When his zeal takes fire it cracks and flies about like a squib until

the idle stuff is spent, and then it goes out of itself. He is always

troubled with small scruples, which his conscience catches like the

itch, and the rubbing of these is both his pleasure and his pain. But

for things of greater moment he is unconcerned, as cattle in the

summer-time are more pestered with flies that vex their sores than

creatures more considerable, and dust and motes are apter to stick in

blear-eyes than things of greater weight. His charity begins and ends at

home, for it never goes farther nor stirs abroad. David was eaten up

with the zeal of God ’ s house; but his zeal, quite contrary, eats up

God ’ s house; and as the words seem to intimate that David fed and

maintained the priests, so he makes the priests feed and maintain him;

and hence his zeal is never so vehement as when it concurs with his

interest; for, as he styles himself a professor, it fares with him, as

with men of other professions, to live by his calling and get as much as

he can by it. He is very severe to other men ’ s sins that his own may

pass unsuspected, as those that were engaged in the conspiracy against

Nero were most cruel to their own confederates; or as one says--

"Compounds for sins he is inclined to

By damning those he has no mind to."

THE OVERDOER
Always throws beyond the jack and is gone a mile. He is no more able to

contain himself than a bowl is when he is commanded to rub with the

greatest power and vehemence imaginable, and nothing lights in his way.

He is a conjurer that cannot keep within the compass of his circle,

though he were sure the devil would fetch him away for the least

transgression. He always overstocks his ground and starves instead of

feeding, destroys whatsoever he has an extraordinary care for, and, like

an ape, hugs the whelp he loves most to death. All his designs are

greater than the life, and he laughs to think how Nature has mistaken

her match, and given him so much odds that he can easily outrun her. He

allows of no merit but that which is superabundant. All his actions are

superfoetations, that either become monsters or twins; that is, too

much, or the same again; for he is but a supernumerary and does nothing

but for want of a better. He is a civil Catholic, that holds nothing

more steadfastly than supererogation in all that he undertakes, for he

undertakes nothing but what he overdoes. He is insatiable in all his

actions and, like a covetous person, never knows when he has done

enough until he has spoiled all by doing too much. He is his own

antagonist, and is never satisfied until he has outdone himself as well

as that which he proposed, for he loves to be better than his word

(though it always falls out worse) and deceive the world the wrong way.

He believes the mean to be but a mean thing, and therefore always runs

into extremities as the more excellent, great, and transcendent. He

delights to exceed in all his attempts, for he finds that a goose that

has three legs is more remarkable than a hundred that have but two

apiece, and has a greater number of followers; and that all monsters are

more visited and applied to than other creatures that Nature has made

perfect in their kind. He believes he can never bestow too much pains

upon anything; for his industry is his own and costs him nothing; and if

it miscarry he loses nothing, for he has as much as it was worth. He is

like a foolish musician that sets his instrument so high that he breaks

his strings for want of understanding the right pitch of it, or an

archer that breaks his with overbending; and all he does is forced, like

one that sings above the reach of his voice.

THE RASH MAN
Has a fever in his brain, and therefore is rightly said to be

hot-headed. His reason and his actions run downhill, borne headlong by

his unstaid will. He has not patience to consider, and perhaps it would

not be the better for him if he had; for he is so possessed with the

first apprehension of anything, that whatsoever comes after loses the

race and is prejudged. All his actions, like sins, lead him perpetually

to repentance, and from thence to the place from whence they came, to

make more work for repentance; for though he be corrected never so

often, he is never amended, nor will his haste give him time to call to

mind where it made him stumble before; for he is always upon full speed,

and the quickness of his motions takes away and dazzles the eyes of his

understanding. All his designs are like diseases, with which he is taken

suddenly before he is aware, and whatsoever he does is extempore,

without premeditation; for he believes a sudden life to be the best of

all, as some do a sudden death. He pursues things as men do an enemy

upon a retreat, until he is drawn into an ambush for want of heed and

circumspection. He falls upon things as they lie in his way, as if he

stumbled at them, or his foot slipped and cast him upon them; for he is

commonly foiled and comes off with bruises. He engages in business as

men do in duels, the sooner the better, that, if any evil come of it,

they may not be found to have slept upon it, or consulted with an

effeminate pillow in point of honour and courage. He strikes when he is

hot himself, not when the iron is so which he designs to work upon. His

tongue has no retentive faculty, but is always running like a fool ’ s

drivel. He cannot keep it within compass, but it will be always upon the

ramble and playing of tricks upon a frolic, fancying of passes upon

religion, State, and the persons of those that are in present authority,

no matter how, to whom, or where; for his discretion is always out of

the way when he has occasion to make use of it.

THE AFFECTED OR FORMAL
Is a piece of clockwork, that moves only as it is wound up and set, and

not like a voluntary agent. He is a mathematical body, nothing but

_punctum, linea, et superficies_, and perfectly abstract from matter. He

walks as stiffly and uprightly as a dog that is taught to go on his

hinder legs, and carries his hands as the other does his fore-feet. He is

very ceremonious and full of respect to himself, for no man uses those

formalities that does not expect the same from others. All his actions

and words are set down in so exact a method that an indifferent

accountant may cast him up to a halfpenny-farthing. He does everything

by rule, as if it were in a course of Lessius ’ s diet, and did not eat,

but take a dose of meat and drink; and not walk, but proceed; not go,

but march. He draws up himself with admirable conduct in a very regular

and well-ordered body. All his business and affairs are junctures and

transactions, and when he speaks with a man he gives him audience. He

does not carry but marshal himself, and no one member of his body

politic takes place of another without due right of precedence. He does

all things by rules of proportion, and never gives himself the freedom

to manage his gloves or his watch in an irregular and arbitrary way, but

is always ready to render an account of his demeanour to the most strict

and severe disquisition. He sets his face as if it were cast in plaster,

and never admits of any commotion in his countenance, nor so much as the

innovation of a smile without serious and mature deliberation, but

preserves his looks in a judicial way, according as they have always

been established.

A FLATTERER
Is a dog that fawns when he bites. He hangs bells in a man ’ s ears, as a

carman does by his horse while he lays a heavy load upon his back. His

insinuations are like strong wine, that pleases a man ’ s palate till it

has got within him, and then deprives him of his reason and overthrows

him. His business is to render a man a stranger to himself, and get

between him and home, and then he carries him whither he pleases. He is

a spirit that inveighs away a man from himself, undertakes great matters

for him, and after sells him for a slave. He makes division not only

between a man and his friends, but between a man and himself, raises a

faction within him, and after takes part with the strongest side and

ruins both. He steals him away from himself (as the fairies are said to

do children in the cradle), and after changes him for a fool. He

whistles to him, as a carter does to his horse while he whips out his

eyes and makes him draw what he pleases. He finds out his humour and

feeds it, till it will come to hand, and then he leads him whither he

pleases. He tickles him, as they do trouts, until he lays hold on him,

and then devours and feeds upon him. He tickles his ears with a straw,

and while he is pleased with scratching it, picks his pocket, as the

cutpurse served Bartl. Cokes. He embraces him and hugs him in his arms,

and lifts him above ground, as wrestlers do, to throw him down again and

fall upon him. He possesses him with his own praises like an evil

spirit, that makes him swell and appear stronger than he was, talk what

he does not understand, and do things that he knows nothing of when he

comes to himself. He gives good words as doctors are said to give physic

when they are paid for it, and lawyers advice when they are fee ’ d

beforehand. He is a poisoned perfume that infects the brain and murders

those it pleases. He undermines a man, and blows him up with his own

praises to throw him down. He commends a man out of design, that he may

be presented with him and have him for his pains, according to the mode.

A PRODIGAL
Is a pocket with a hole in the bottom. His purse has got a dysentery and

lost its retentive faculty. He delights, like a fat overgrown man, to

see himself fall away and grow less. He does not spend his money, but

void it, and, like those that have the stone, is in pain till he is rid

of it. He is very loose and incontinent of his coin, and lets it fly,

like Jupiter, in a shower. He is very hospitable, and keeps open pockets

for all comers. All his silver turns to mercury, and runs through him as

if he had taken it for the _miserere_ or fluxed himself. The history of

his life begins with keeping of whores, and ends with keeping of hogs;

and as he fed high at first, so he does at last, for acorns are very

high food. He swallows land and houses like an earthquake, eats a whole

dining-room at a meal, and devours his kitchen at a breakfast. He wears

the furniture of his house on his back, and a whole feather-bed in his

hat, drinks down his plate, and eats his dishes up. He is not clothed,

but hung. He ’ ll fancy dancers cattle, and present his lady with messuage

and tenement. He sets his horses at inn and inn, and throws himself out

of his coach at come the caster. He should be a good husband, for he has

made more of his estate in one year than his ancestors did in twenty. He

dusts his estate as they do a stand of ale in the north. His money in

his pocket (like hunted venison) will not keep; if it be not spent

presently it grows stale, and is thrown away. He possesses his estate as

the devil did the herd of swine, and is running it into the sea as fast

as he can. He has shot it with a zampatan, and it will presently fall

all to dust. He has brought his acres into a consumption, and they are

strangely fallen away; nothing but skin and bones left of a whole manor.

He will shortly have all his estate in his hands; for, like bias, he may

carry it about him. He lays up nothing but debts and diseases, and at

length himself in a prison. When he has spent all upon his pleasures,

and has nothing left for sustenance, he espouses a hostess dowager, and

resolves to lick himself whole again out of ale, and make it pay him

back all the charges it has put him to.

THE INCONSTANT
Has a vagabond soul without any settled place of abode, like the

wandering Jew. His head is unfixed, out of order, and utterly

unserviceable upon any occasion. He is very apt to be taken with

anything, but nothing can hold him, for he presently breaks loose and

gives it the slip. His head is troubled with a palsy, which renders it

perpetually wavering and incapable of rest. His head is like an

hour-glass; that part that is uppermost always runs out until it is

turned, and then runs out again. His opinions are too violent to last,

for, like other things of the same kind in Nature, they quickly spend

themselves and fall to nothing. All his opinions are like wefts and

strays that are apt to straggle from their owners and belong to the lord

of the manor where they are taken up. His soul has no retentive faculty,

but suffers everything to run from him as fast as he receives it. His

whole life is like a preposterous ague in which he has his hot fit

always before his cold one, and is never in a constant temper. His

principles and resolves are but a kind of movables, which he will not

endure to be fastened to any freehold, but left loose to be conveyed

away at pleasure as occasion shall please to dispose of him. His soul

dwells, like a Tartar, in a hoord, without any settled habitation, but

is always removing and dislodging from place to place. He changes his

head oftener than a deer, and when his imaginations are stiff and at

their full growth, he casts them off to breed new ones, only to cast off

again the next season. All his purposes are built on air, the

chamelion ’ s diet, and have the same operation to make him change colour

with every object he comes near. He pulls off his judgment as commonly

as his hat to every one he meets with. His word and his deed are all

one, for when he has given his word he has done, and never goes farther.

His judgment, being unsound, has the same operation upon him that a

disease has upon a sick man, that makes him find some ease in turning

from side to side, and still the last is the most uneasy.

A GLUTTON
Eats his children, as the poets say Saturn did, and carries his felicity

and all his concernments in his paunch. If he had lived when all the

members of the body rebelled against the stomach there had been no

possibility of accommodation. His entrails are like the sarcophagus,

that devours dead bodies in a small space, or the Indian zampatan, that

consumes flesh in a moment. He is a great dish made on purpose to carry

meat. He eats out his own head, and his horses ’ too; he knows no grace

but grace before meat, nor mortification but in fasting. If the body be

the tabernacle of the soul, he lives in a sutler ’ s hut. He celebrates

mass, or rather mess, to the idol in his belly, and, like a papist, eats

his adoration. A third course is the third heaven to him, and he is

ravished into it. A feast is a good conscience to him, and he is

troubled in mind when he misses of it. His teeth are very industrious in

their calling, and his chops like a Bridewell perpetually hatcheling. He

depraves his appetite with _haut-gousts_, as old fornicators do their

lechery into fulsomeness and stinks. He licks himself into the shape of

a bear, as those beasts are said to do their whelps. He new forms

himself in his own belly, and becomes another thing than God and Nature

meant him. His belly takes place of the rest of his members, and walks

before in state. He eats out that which eats all things else--time--and

is very curious to have all things in season at his meals but his hours,

which are commonly at midnight, and so late that he prays too late for

his daily bread, unless he mean his natural daily bread. He is admirably

learned in the doctrines of meats and sauces, and deserves the chair in

_juris-prudentia_; that is, in the skill of pottages. At length he eats

his life out of house and home and becomes a treat for worms, sells his

clothes to feed his gluttony, and eats himself naked, as the first of

his family, Adam, did.

A RIBALD
Is the devil ’ s hypocrite, that endeavours to make himself appear worse

than he is. His evil words and bad manners strive which shall most

corrupt one another, and it is hard to say which has the advantage. He

vents his lechery at the mouth, as some fishes are said to engender. He

is an unclean beast that chews the cud, for after he has satisfied his

lust he brings it up again into his mouth to a second enjoyment, and

plays an after-game of lechery with his tongue much worse than that

which the _Cunnilingi_ used among the old Romans. He strips Nature stark

naked, and clothes her in the most fantastic and ridiculous fashion a

wild imagination can invent. He is worse and more nasty than a dog, for

in his broad descriptions of others ’ obscene actions he does but lick up

the vomit of another man ’ s surfeits. He tells tales out of a

vaulting-school. A lewd, bawdy tale does more hurt and gives a worse

example than the thing of which it was told, for the act extends but to

few, and if it be concealed goes no farther; but the report of it is

unlimited, and may be conveyed to all people and all times to come. He

exposes that with his tongue which Nature gave women modesty, and brute

beasts tails, to cover. He mistakes ribaldry for wit, though nothing is

more unlike; and believes himself to be the finer man the filthier he

talks, as if he were above civility as fanatics are above ordinances,

and held nothing more shameful than to be ashamed of anything. He talks

nothing but Aretine ’ s pictures, as plain as the Scotch dialect, which is

esteemed to be the most copious and elegant of the kind. He improves and

husbands his sins to the best advantage, and makes one vice find

employment for another; for what he acts loosely in private he talks as

loosely of in public, and finds as much pleasure in the one as the

other. He endeavours to purchase himself a reputation by pretending to

that which the best men abominate and the worst value not, like one that

clips and washes false coin and ventures his neck for that which will

yield him nothing.

A MODERN POLITICIAN
Makes new discoveries in politics, but they are, like those that

Columbus made of the New World, very rich, but barbarous. He endeavours

to restore mankind to the original condition it fell from, by forgetting

to discern between good and evil, and reduces all prudence back again to

its first author, the serpent, that taught Adam wisdom; for he was

really his tutor, and not Samboscor, as the Rabbins write. He finds the

world has been mistaken in all ages, and that religion and morality are

but vulgar errors that pass among the ignorant, and are but mere words

to the wise. He despises all learning as a pedantic little thing, and

believes books to be the business of children and not of men. He wonders

how the distinction of virtue and vice came into the world ’ s head, and

believes them to be more ridiculous than any foppery of the schools. He

holds it his duty to betray any man that shall take him for so much a

fool as one fit to be trusted. He steadfastly believes that all men are

born in the state of war, and that the civil life is but a cessation,

and no peace nor accommodation; and though all open acts of hostility

are forborne by consent, the enmity continues, and all advantages by

treachery or breach of faith are very lawful; that there is no

difference between virtue and fraud among friends as well as enemies,

nor anything unjust that a man can do without damage to his own safety

or interest; that oaths are but springes to catch woodcocks withal, and

bind none but those that are too weak and feeble to break them when they

become ever so small an impediment to their advantages; that conscience

is the effect of ignorance, and the same with that foolish fear which

some men apprehend when they are in the dark and alone; that honour is

but the word which a prince gives a man to pass his guards withal and

save him from being stopped by law and justice, the sentinels of

governments, when he has not wit nor credit enough to pass of himself;

that to show respect to worth in any person is to appear a stranger to

it, and not so familiarly acquainted with it as those are who use no

ceremony, because it is no new thing to them, as it would appear if they

should take notice of it; that the easiest way to purchase a reputation

of wisdom and knowledge is to slight and undervalue it, as the readiest

way to buy cheap is to bring down the price; for the world will be apt

to believe a man well provided with any necessary or useful commodity

which he sets a small value upon; that to oblige a friend is but a kind

of casting him in prison, after the old Roman way or modern Chinese,

that chains the keeper and prisoner together; for he that binds another

man to himself binds himself as much to him and lays a restraint upon

both. For as men commonly never forgive those that forgive them, and

always hate those that purchase their estates (though they pay dear and

more than any man else would give), so they never willingly endure those

that have laid any engagement upon them, or at what rate soever

purchased the least part of their freedom; and as partners for the most

part cheat or suspect one another, so no man deals fairly with another

that goes the least share in his freedom.

To propose any measure to wealth or power is to be ignorant of the

nature of both, for as no man can ever have too much of either, so it is

impossible to determine what is enough; and he that limits his desires

by proposing to himself the enjoyment of any other pleasure but that of

gaining more shows he has but a dull inclination that will not hold out

to his journey ’ s end. And therefore he believes that a courtier deserves

to be begged himself that is ever satisfied with begging; for fruition

without desire is but a dull entertainment, and that pleasure only real

and substantial that provokes and improves the appetite and increases in

the enjoyment; and all the greatest masters in the several arts of

thriving concur unanimously that the plain downright pleasure of gaining

is greater and deserves to be preferred far before all the various

delights of spending which the curiosity, wit, or luxury of mankind in

all ages could ever find out.

He believes there is no way of thriving so easy and certain as to grow

rich by defrauding the public; for public thieveries are more safe and

less prosecuted than private, like robberies committed between sun and

sun, which the county pays and no one is greatly concerned in; and as

the monster of many heads has less wit in them all than any one

reasonable person, so the monster of many purses is easier cheated than

any one indifferent, crafty fool. For all the difficulty lies in being

trusted, and when he has obtained that, the business does itself; and if

he should happen to be questioned and called to an account, a pardon is

as cheap as a paymaster ’ s fee, not above fourteenpence in the pound.

He thinks that when a man comes to wealth or preferment, and is to put

on a new person, his first business is to put off all his old

friendships and acquaintances, as things below him and no way consistent

with his present condition, especially such as may have occasion to make

use of him or have reason to expect any civil returns from him; for

requiting of obligations received in a man ’ s necessity is the same thing

with paying of debts contracted in his minority when he was under age,

for which he is not accountable by the laws of the land. These he is to

forget as fast as he can, and by little neglects remove them to that

distance that they may at length by his example learn to forget him, for

men who travel together in company when their occasions lie several ways

ought to take leave and part. It is a hard matter for a man that comes

to preferment not to forget himself, and therefore he may very well be

allowed to take the freedom to forget others; for advancement, like the

conversion of a sinner, gives a man new values of things and persons, so

different from those he had before that that which was wont to be most

dear to him does commonly after become the most disagreeable; and as it

is accounted noble to forget and pass over little injuries, so it is to

forget little friendships, that are no better than injuries when they

become disparagements, and can only be importune and troublesome instead

of being useful, as they were before. All Acts of Oblivion have, of late

times, been found to extend rather to loyal and faithful services done

than rebellion and treasons committed. For benefits are like flowers,

sweet only and fresh when they are newly gathered, but stink when they

grow stale and wither; and he only is ungrateful who makes returns of

obligations, for he does it merely to free himself from owing so much as

thanks. Fair words are all the civility and humanity that one man owes

to another, for they are obliging enough of themselves, and need not the

assistance of deeds to make them good; for he that does not believe them

has already received too much, and he that does ought to expect no more.

And therefore promises ought to oblige those only to whom they are made,

not those who make them; for he that expects a man should bind himself

is worse than a thief, who does that service for him after he has robbed

him on the highway. Promises are but words, and words air, which no man

can claim a propriety in, but is equally free to all and incapable of

being confined; and if it were not, yet he who pays debts which he can

possibly avoid does but part with his money for nothing, and pays more

for the mere reputation of honesty and conscience than it is worth.

He prefers the way of applying to the vices and humours of great persons

before all other methods of getting into favour; for he that can be

admitted into these offices of privacy and trust seldom fails to arrive

at greater, and with greater ease and certainty than those who take the

dull way of plain fidelity and merit. For vices, like beasts, are fond

of none but those that feed them, and where they once prevail all other

considerations go for nothing. They are his own flesh and blood, born

and bred out of him, and he has a stronger natural affection for them

than all other relations whatsoever; and he that has an interest in

these has a greater power over him than all other obligations in the

world; for though they are but his imperfections and infirmities, he is

the more tender of them, as a lame member or diseased limb is more

carefully cherished than all the rest that are sound and in perfect

vigour. All offices of this kind are the greatest endearments, being

real flatteries enforced by deeds and actions, and therefore far more

prevalent than those that are performed but by words and fawning, though

very great advantages are daily obtained that way; and therefore he

esteems flattery as the next most sure and successful way of improving

his interests. For flattery is but a kind of civil idolatry, that makes

images to itself of virtue, worth, and honour in some person that is

utterly void of all, and then falls down and worships them; and the more

dull and absurd these applications are, the better they are always

received; for men delight more to be presented with those things they

want than such as they have no need nor use of. And though they condemn

the realities of those honours and renowns that are falsely imputed to

them, they are wonderfully affected with their false pretences; for

dreams work more upon men ’ s passions than any waking thoughts of the

same kind, and many, out of an ignorant superstition, give more credit

to them than the most rational of all their vigilant conjectures, how

false soever they prove in the event. No wonder, then, if those who

apply to men ’ s fancies and humours have a stronger influence upon them

than those that seek to prevail upon their reason and understandings,

especially in things so delightful to them as their own praises, no

matter how false and apparently incredible; for great persons may wear

counterfeit jewels of any carat with more confidence and security from

being discovered than those of meaner quality, in whose hands the

greatness of their value (if they were true) is more apt to render them

suspected. A flatterer is like Mahomet ’ s pigeon, that picks his food out

of his master ’ s ear, who is willing to have it believed that he whispers

oracles into it, and accordingly sets a high esteem upon the service he

does him, though the impostor only designs his own utilities; for men

are for the most part better pleased with other men ’ s opinions, though

false, of their happiness than their own experiences, and find more

pleasure in the dullest flattery of others than all the vast

imaginations they can have of themselves, as no man is apt to be tickled

with his own fingers; because the applauses of others are more agreeable

to those high conceits they have of themselves, which they are glad to

find confirmed, and are the only music that sets them a-dancing, like

those that are bitten with a tarantula.

He accounts it an argument of great discretion, and as great temper, to

take no notice of affronts and indignities put upon him by great

persons; for he that is insensible of injuries of this nature can

receive none, and if he lose no confidence by them, can lose nothing

else; for it is greater to be above injuries than either to do or

revenge them, and he that will be deterred by those discouragements from

prosecuting his designs will never obtain what he proposes to himself.

When a man is once known to be able to endure insolences easier than

others can impose them, they will raise the siege and leave him as

impregnable; and therefore he resolves never to omit the least

opportunity of pressing his affairs, for fear of being baffled and

affronted; for if he can at any rate render himself master of his

purposes, he would not wish an easier nor a cheaper way, as he knows how

to repay himself and make others receive those insolences of him for

good and current payment which he was glad to take before, and he

esteems it no mean glory to show his temper of such a compass as is able

to reach from the highest arrogance to the meanest and most dejected

submissions. A man that has endured all sorts of affronts may be

allowed, like an apprentice that has served out his time, to set up for

himself and put them off upon others; and if the most common and

approved way of growing rich is to gain by the ruin and loss of those

who are in necessity, why should not a man be allowed as well to make

himself appear great by debasing those that are below him? For insolence

is no inconsiderable way of improving greatness and authority in the

opinion of the world. If all men are born equally fit to govern, as some

late philosophers affirm, he only has the advantage of all others who

has the best opinion of his own abilities, how mean soever they really

are; and, therefore, he steadfastly believes that pride is the only

great, wise, and happy virtue that a man is capable of, and the most

compendious and easy way to felicity; for he that is able to persuade

himself impregnably that he is some great and excellent person, how far

short soever he falls of it, finds more delight in that dream than if he

were really so; and the less he is of what he fancies himself to be the

better he is pleased, as men covet those things that are forbidden and

denied them more greedily than those that are in their power to obtain;

and he that can enjoy all the best rewards of worth and merit without

the pains and trouble that attend it has a better bargain than he who

pays as much for it as it is worth. This he performs by an obstinate,

implicit believing as well as he can of himself, and as meanly of all

other men, for he holds it a kind of self-preservation to maintain a

good estimation of himself; and as no man is bound to love his neighbour

better than himself, so he ought not to think better of him than he does

of himself, and he that will not afford himself a very high esteem will

never spare another man any at all. He who has made so absolute a

conquest over himself (which philosophers say is the greatest of all

victories) as to be received for a prince within himself, is greater and

more arbitrary within his own dominions than he that depends upon the

uncertain loves or fears of other men without him; and since the opinion

of the world is vain and for the most part false, he believes it is not

to be attempted but by ways as false and vain as itself, and therefore

to appear and seem is much better and wiser than really to be whatsoever

is well esteemed in the general value of the world Next pride, he

believes ambition to be the only generous and heroical virtue in the

world that mankind is capable of; for, as Nature gave man an erect

figure to raise him above the grovelling condition of his

fellow-creatures the beasts, so he that endeavours to improve that and

raise himself higher seems best to comply with the design and intention

of Nature. Though the stature of man is confined to a certain height,

yet his mind is unlimited, and capable of growing up to heaven; and as

those who endeavour to arrive at that perfection are adored and

reverenced by all, so he that endeavours to advance himself as high as

possibly he can in this world comes nearest to the condition of those

holy and divine aspirers. All the purest parts of Nature always tend

upwards, and the more dull and heavy downwards; so in the little world

the noblest faculties of man, his reason and understanding, that give

him a prerogative above all other earthly creatures, mount upwards; and

therefore he who takes that course, and still aspires in all his

undertakings and designs, does but conform to that which Nature

dictates. Are not the reason and the will, the two commanding faculties

of the soul, still striving which shall be uppermost? Men honour none

but those that are above them, contest with equals, and disdain

inferiors. The first thing that God gave man was dominion over the rest

of his inferior creatures; but he that can extend that over man improves

his talent to the best advantage. How are angels distinguished but by

dominions, powers, thrones, and principalities? Then he who still

aspires to purchase those comes nearest to the nature of those heavenly

ministers, and in all probability is most like to go to heaven, no

matter what destruction he makes in his way, if he does but attain his

end; for nothing is a crime that is too great to be punished; and when

it is once arrived at that perfection, the most horrid actions in the

world become the most admired and renowned. Birds that build highest are

most safe; and he that can advance himself above the envy or reach of

his inferiors is secure against the malice and assaults of fortune. All

religions have ever been persecuted in their primitive ages, when they

were weak and impotent, but when they propagated and grew great, have

been received with reverence and adoration by those who otherwise had

proved their cruellest enemies; and those that afterwards opposed them

have suffered as severely as those that first professed them. So thieves

that rob in small parties and break houses, when they are taken, are

hanged; but when they multiply and grow up into armies and are able to

take towns, the same things are called heroic actions, and acknowledged

for such by all the world. Courts of justice, for the most part, commit

greater crimes than they punish, and do those that sue in them more

injuries than they can possibly receive from one another; and yet they

are venerable, and must not be told so, because they have authority and

power to justify what they do, and the law (that is, whatsoever they

please to call so) ready to give judgment for them. Who knows when a

physician cures or kills? And yet he is equally rewarded for both, and

the profession esteemed never the less worshipful; and therefore he

accounts it a ridiculous vanity in any man to consider whether he does

right or wrong in anything he attempts, since the success is only able

to determine and satisfy the opinion of the world which is the one and

which the other. As for those characters and marks of distinction which

religion, law, and morality fix upon both, they are only significant and

valid when their authority is able to command obedience and submission;

but when the greatness, numbers, or interest of those who are concerned

outgrows that, they change their natures, and that which was injury

before becomes justice, and justice injury. It is with crimes as with

inventions in the mechanics, that will frequently hold true to all

purposes of the design while they are tried in little, but when the

experiment is made in great prove false in all particulars to what is

promised in the model: so iniquities and vices may be punished and

corrected, like children, while they are little and impotent, but when

they are great and sturdy they become incorrigible and proof against all

the power of justice and authority.

Among all his virtues there is none which he sets so high an esteem upon

as impudence, which he finds more useful and necessary than a vizard is

to a highwayman; for he that has but a competent stock of this natural

endowment has an interest in any man he pleases, and is able to manage

it with greater advantages than those who have all the real pretences

imaginable, but want that dexterous way of soliciting by which, if the

worst fall out, he is sure to lose nothing if he does not win. He that

is impudent is shot-free, and if he be ever so much overpowered can

receive no hurt, for his forehead is impenetrable, and of so excellent a

temper that nothing is able to touch it, but turns edge and is blunted.

His face holds no correspondence with his mind, and therefore whatsoever

inward sense or conviction he feels, there is no outward appearance of

it in his looks to give evidence against him; and in any difficulty that

can befall him, impudence is the most infallible expedient to fetch him

off, that is always ready, like his angel guardian, to relieve and

rescue him in his greatest extremities; and no outward impression, nor

inward neither, though his own conscience take part against him, is able

to beat him from his guards. Though innocence and a good conscience be

said to be a brazen wall, a brazen confidence is more impregnable and

longer able to hold out; for it is a greater affliction to an innocent

man to be suspected than it is to one that is guilty and impudent to be

openly convicted of an apparent crime. And in all the affairs of

mankind, a brisk confidence, though utterly void of sense, is able to go

through matters of difficulty with greater ease than all the strength of

reason less boldly enforced, as the Turks are said by a small, slight

handling of their bows to make an arrow without a head pierce deeper

into hard bodies than guns of greater force are able to do a bullet of

steel; and though it be but a cheat and imposture, that has neither

truth nor reason to support it, yet it thrives better in the world than

things of greater solidity, as thorns and thistles flourish on barren

grounds where nobler plants would starve. And he that can improve his

barren parts by this excellent and most compendious method deserves much

better, in his judgment, than those who endeavour to do the same thing

by the more studious and difficult way of downright industry and

drudging. For impudence does not only supply all defects, but gives them

a greater grace than if they had needed no art, as all other ornaments

are commonly nothing else but the remedies or disguises of

imperfections; and therefore he thinks him very weak that is unprovided

of this excellent and most useful quality, without which the best

natural or acquired parts are of no more use than the Guanches ’ darts,

which, the virtuosos say, are headed with butter hardened in the sun. It

serves him to innumerable purposes to press on and understand no

repulse, how smart or harsh soever, for he that can fail nearest the

wind has much the advantage of all others; and such is the weakness or

vanity of some men, that they will grant that to obstinate importunity

which they would never have done upon all the most just reasons and

considerations imaginable, as those that watch witches will make them

confess that which they would never have done upon any other account.

He believes a man ’ s words and his meaning should never agree together;

for he that says what he thinks lays himself open to be expounded by the

most ignorant, and he who does not make his words rather serve to

conceal than discover the sense of his heart deserves to have it pulled

out, like a traitor ’ s, and shown publicly to the rabble; for as a king,

they say, cannot reign without dissembling, so private men, without

that, cannot govern themselves with any prudence or discretion

imaginable. This is the only politic magic that has power to make a man

walk invisible, give him access into all men ’ s privacies, and keep all

others out of his, which is as great an odds as it is to discover what

cards those he plays with have in their hands, and permit them to know

nothing of his; and, therefore, he never speaks his own sense, but that

which he finds comes nearest to the meaning of those he converses with,

as birds are drawn into nets by pipes that counterfeit their own voices.

By this means he possesses men, like the devil, by getting within them

before they are aware, turns them out of themselves, and either betrays

or renders them ridiculous, as he finds it most agreeable either to his

humour or his occasions.

As for religion, he believes a wise man ought to possess it only that he

may not be observed to have freed himself from the obligations of it,

and so teach others by his example to take the same freedom. For he who

is at liberty has a great advantage over all those whom he has to deal

with, as all hypocrites find by perpetual experience that one of the

best uses that can be made of it is to take measure of men ’ s

understandings and abilities by it, according as they are more or less

serious in it. For he thinks that no man ought to be much concerned in

it but hypocrites and such as make it their calling and profession, who,

though they do not live by their faith, like the righteous, do that

which is nearest to it, get their living by it; and that those only take

the surest course who make their best advantages of it in this world and

trust to Providence for the next, to which purpose he believes it is

most properly to be relied upon by all men.

He admires good nature as only good to those who have it not, and laughs

at friendship as a ridiculous foppery, which all wise men easily

outgrow; for the more a man loves another the less he loves himself. All

regards and civil applications should, like true devotion, look upwards

and address to those that are above us, and from whom we may in

probability expect either good or evil; but to apply to those that are

our equals, or such as cannot benefit or hurt us, is a far more

irrational idolatry than worshipping of images or beasts. All the good

that can proceed from friendship is but this, that it puts men in a way

to betray one another. The best parents, who are commonly the worst men,

have naturally a tender kindness for their children only because they

believe they are a part of themselves, which shows that self-love is the

original of all others, and the foundation of that great law of Nature,

self-preservation; for no man ever destroyed himself wilfully that had

not first left off to love himself. Therefore a man ’ s self is the proper

object of his love, which is never so well employed as when it is kept

within its own confines, and not suffered to straggle. Every man is just

so much a slave as he is concerned in the will, inclinations, or

fortunes of another, or has anything of himself out of his own power to

dispose of; and therefore he is resolved never to trust any man with

that kindness which he takes up of himself, unless he has such security

as is most certain to yield him double interest; for he that does

otherwise is but a Jew and a Turk to himself, which is much worse than

to be so to all the world beside. Friends are only friends to those who

have no need of them, and when they have, become no longer friends; like

the leaves of trees, that clothe the woods in the heat of summer, when

they have no need of warmth, but leave them naked when cold weather

comes; and since there are so few that prove otherwise, it is not wisdom

to rely on any.

He is of opinion that no men are so fit to be employed and trusted as

fools or knaves; for the first understand no right, the others regard

none; and whensoever there falls out an occasion that may prove of great

importance if the infamy and danger of the dishonesty be not too

apparent, they are the only persons that are fit for the undertaking.

They are both equally greedy of employment; the one out of an itch to be

thought able, and the other honest enough, to be trusted, as by use and

practice they sometimes prove. For the general business of the world

lies, for the most part, in routines and forms, of which there are none

so exact observers as those who understand nothing else to divert them,

as carters use to blind their fore-horses on both sides that they may

see only forward, and so keep the road the better, and men that aim at a

mark use to shut one eye that they may see the surer with the other. If

fools are not notorious, they have far more persons to deal with of

their own elevation (who understand one another better) than they have

of those that are above them, which renders them fitter for many

businesses than wiser men, and they believe themselves to be so for all.

For no man ever thought himself a fool that was one, so confident does

their ignorance naturally render them, and confidence is no contemptible

qualification in the management of human affairs; and as blind men have

secret artifices and tricks to supply that defect and find out their

ways, which those who have their eyes and are but hoodwinked are utterly

unable to do, so fools have always little crafts and frauds in all their

transactions which wiser men would never have thought upon, and by those

they frequently arrive at very great wealth, and as great success in all

their undertakings. For all fools are but feeble and impotent knaves,

that have as strong and vehement inclinations to all sorts of dishonesty

as the most notorious of those engineers, but want abilities to put them

in practice; and as they are always found to be the most obstinate and

intractable people to be prevailed upon by reason or conscience, so they

are as easy to submit to their superiors--that is, knaves--by whom they

are always observed to be governed, as all corporations are wont to

choose their magistrates out of their own members. As for knaves, they

are commonly true enough to their own interests, and while they gain by

their employments, will be careful not to disserve those who can turn

them out when they please, what tricks soever they put upon others; and

therefore such men prove more useful to them in their designs of gain

and profit than those whose consciences and reason will not permit them

to take that latitude.

And since buffoonery is, and has always been, so delightful to great

persons, he holds him very improvident that is to seek in a quality so

inducing that he cannot at least serve for want of a better, especially

since it is so easy that the greatest part of the difficulty lies in

confidence; and he that can but stand fair and give aim to those that

are gamesters does not always lose his labour, but many times becomes

well esteemed for his generous and bold demeanour, and a lucky repartee

hit upon by chance may be the making of a man. This is the only modern

way of running at tilt, with which great persons are so delighted to see

men encounter one another and break jests, as they did lances

heretofore; and he that has the best beaver to his helmet has the

greatest advantage; and as the former passed upon the account of valour,

so does the latter on the score of wit, though neither, perhaps, have

any great reason for their pretences, especially the latter, that

depends much upon confidence, which is commonly a great support to wit,

and therefore believed to be its betters, that ought to take place of

it, as all men are greater than their dependents; so pleasant it is to

see men lessen one another and strive who shall show himself the most

ill-natured and ill-mannered. As in cuffing all blows are aimed at the

face, so it fares in these rencounters, where he that wears the toughest

leather on his visage comes off with victory though he has ever so much

the disadvantage upon all other accounts. For a buffoon is like a mad

dog that has a worm in his tongue, which makes him bite at all that

light in his way; and as he can do nothing alone, but must have somebody

to set him that he may throw at, he that performs that office with the

greatest freedom and is contented to be laughed at to give his patron

pleasure cannot but be understood to have done very good service, and

consequently deserves to be well rewarded, as a mountebank ’ s pudding,

that is content to be cut and slashed and burnt and poisoned, without

which his master can show no tricks, deserves to have a considerable

share in his gains.

As for the meanness of these ways, which some may think too base to be

employed to so excellent an end, that imports nothing; for what dislike

soever the world conceives against any man ’ s undertakings, if they do

but succeed and prosper, it will easily recant its error and applaud

what it condemned before; and therefore all wise men have ever justly

esteemed it a great virtue to disdain the false values it commonly sets

upon all things and which itself is so apt to retract. For as those who

go uphill use to stoop and bow their bodies forward, and sometimes creep

upon their hands, and those that descend to go upright, so the lower a

man stoops and submits in these endearing offices, the more sure and

certain he is to rise; and the more upright he carries himself in other

matters, the more like, in probability, to be ruined. And this he

believes to be a wiser course for any man to take than to trouble

himself with the knowledge of arts or arms; for the one does but bring a

man an unnecessary trouble, and the other as unnecessary danger; and the

shortest and more easy way to attain to both is to despise all other men

and believe as steadfastly in himself as he can--a better and more

certain course than that of merit.

What he gains wickedly he spends as vainly, for he holds it the greatest

happiness that a man is capable of to deny himself nothing that his

desires can propose to him, but rather to improve his enjoyments by

glorying in his vices; for, glory being one end of almost all the

business of this world, he who omits that in the enjoyment of himself

and his pleasures loses the greatest part of his delight; and therefore

the felicity which he supposes other men apprehend that he receives in

the relish of his luxuries is more delightful to him than the

fruition itself.

A MODERN STATESMAN
Owns his election from free grace in opposition to merits or any

foresight of good works; for he is chosen not for his abilities or

fitness for his employment, but, like a _tales_ in a jury, for happening

to be near in court. If there were any other consideration in it (which

is a hard question to the wise), it was only because he was held able

enough to be a counsellor-extraordinary for the indifference and

negligence of his understanding, and consequent probability of doing no

hurt, if no good; for why should not such prove the safest physicians to

the body politic as well as they do to the natural? Or else some near

friend or friend ’ s friend helped him to the place, that engaged for his

honesty and good behaviour in it. Howsoever, he is able to sit still and

look wise according to his best skill and cunning, and, though he

understand no reason, serve for one that does, and be most steadfastly

of that opinion that is most like to prevail. If he be a great person,

he is chosen, as aldermen are in the city, for being rich enough, and

fines to be taken in as those do to be left out; and money being the

measure of all things, it is sufficient to justify all his other talents

and render them, like itself, good and current. As for wisdom and

judgment, with those other out-of-fashioned qualifications which have

been so highly esteemed heretofore, they have not been found to be so

useful in this age, since it has invented scantlings for politics that

will move with the strength of a child and yet carry matters of very

great weight; and that raillery and fooling is proved by frequent

experiments to be the more easy and certain way; for, as the Germans

heretofore were observed to be wisest when they were drunk and knew not

how to dissemble, so are our modern statesmen when they are mad and use

no reserved cunning in their consultations; and as the Church of Rome

and that of the Turks esteem ignorant persons the most devout, there

seems no reason why this age, that seems to incline to the opinions of

them both, should not as well believe them to be the most prudent and

judicious; for heavenly wisdom does, by the confession of men, far

exceed all the subtlety and prudence of this world. The heathen priests

of old never delivered oracles but when they were drunk and mad or

distracted, and who knows why our modern oracles may not as well use the

same method in all their proceedings? Howsoever, he is as ably qualified

to govern as that sort of opinion that is said to govern all the world,

and is perpetually false and foolish; and if his opinions are always so,

they have the fairer title to their pretensions. He is sworn to advise

no further than his skill and cunning will enable him, and the less he

has of either the sooner he despatches his business, and despatch is no

mean virtue in a statesman.

A DUKE OF BUCKS
Is one that has studied the whole body of vice. His parts are

disproportionate to the whole, and, like a monster, he has more of some

and less of others than he should have. He has pulled down all that

fabric that Nature raised in him, and built himself up again after a

model of his own. He has dammed up all those lights that Nature made

into the noblest prospects of the world, and opened other little blind

loopholes backward by turning day into night and night into day. His

appetite to his pleasures is diseased and crazy, like the pica in a

woman that longs to eat that which was never made for food, or a girl in

the green sickness that eats chalk and mortar. Perpetual surfeits of

pleasure have filled his mind with bad and vicious humours (as well as

his body with a nursery of diseases), which makes him affect new and

extravagant ways as being sick and tired with the old. Continual wine,

women, and music put false values upon things which by custom become

habitual, and debauch his understanding so that he retains no right

notion nor sense of things; and as the same dose of the same physic has

no operation on those that are much used to it, so his pleasures require

a larger proportion of excess and variety to render him sensible of

them. He rises, eats, and goes to bed by the Julian account, long after

all others that go by the new style, and keeps the same hours with owls

and the antipodes. He is a great observer of the Tartars ’ customs, and

never eats till the great Cham, having dined, makes proclamation that

all the world may go to dinner. He does not dwell in his house, but

haunts it like an evil spirit that walks all night to disturb the

family, and never appears by day. He lives perpetually benighted, runs

out of his life, and loses his time, as men do their ways, in the dark;

and as blind men are led by their dogs, so is he governed by some mean

servant or other that relates to his pleasures. He is as inconstant as

the moon which he lives under; and although he does nothing but advise

with his pillow all day, he is as great a stranger to himself as he is

to the rest of the world. His mind entertains all things very freely

that come and go, but, like guests and strangers, they are not welcome

if they stay long. This lays him open to all cheats, quacks, and

impostors, who apply to every particular humour while it lasts, and

afterwards vanish. Thus, with St. Paul, though in a different sense, he

dies daily, and only lives in the night. He deforms Nature while he

intends to adorn her, like Indians that hang jewels in their lips and

noses. His ears are perpetually drilled with a fiddlestick. He endures

pleasures with less patience than other men do their pains.

A FANTASTIC
Is one that wears his feather on the inside of his head. His brain is

like quicksilver, apt to receive any impression but retain none. His

mind is made of changeable stuff, that alters colour with every motion

towards the light. He is a cormorant that has but one gut, devours

everything greedily, but it runs through him immediately. He does not

know so much as what he would be, and yet would be everything he knows.

He is like a paper-lantern, that turns with the smoke of a candle. He

wears his clothes as the ancient laws of the land have provided,

according to his quality, that he may be known what he is by them; and

it is as easy to decipher him by his habit as a pudding. He is rigged

with ribbon, and his garniture is his tackle; all the rest of him is

hull. He is sure to be the earliest in the fashion, and lays out for it

like the first peas and cherries. He is as proud of leading a fashion as

others are of a faction, and glories as much to be in the head of a mode

as a soldier does to be in the head of an army. He is admirably skilful

in the mathematics of clothes, and can tell, at the first view, whether

they have the right symmetry. He alters his gait with the times, and has

not a motion of his body that (like a dottrel) he does not borrow from

somebody else. He exercises his limbs like a pike and musket, and all

his postures are practised. Take him altogether, and he is nothing but a

translation, word for word, out of French, an image cast in

plaster-of-Paris, and a puppet sent over for others to dress themselves

by. He speaks French as pedants do Latin, to show his breeding, and most

naturally where he is least understood. All his non-naturals, on which

his health and diseases depend, are _stile nuovo_, French is his holiday

language, that he wears for his pleasure and ornament, and uses English

only for his business and necessary occasions. He is like a Scotchman;

though he is born a subject of his own nation, he carries a French

faction within him.

He is never quiet, but sits as the wind is said to do when it is most in

motion. His head is as full of maggots as a pastoral poet ’ s flock. He

was begotten, like one of Pliny ’ s Portuguese horses, by the wind. The

truth is, he ought not to have been reared; for, being calved in the

increase of the moon, his head is troubled with a

_N.B._--The last word not legible.

AN HARANGUER
Is one that is so delighted with the sweet sound of his own tongue, that

William Prynne will sooner lend an ear than he to anything else. His

measure of talk is till his wind is spent, and then he is not silenced,

but becalmed. His ears have catched the itch of his tongue, and though

he scratch them, like a beast with his hoof, he finds a pleasure in it.

A silenced minister has more mercy on the Government in a secure

conventicle than he has on the company that he is in. He shakes a man by

the ear, as a dog does a pig, and never loses his hold till he has tired

himself as well as his patient. He does not talk to a man, but attacks

him, and whomsoever he can get into his hands he lays violent language

on. If he can he will run a man up against a wall and hold him at a bay

by the buttons, which he handles as bad as he does his person or the

business he treats upon. When he finds him begin to sink he holds him by

the clothes, and feels him as a butcher does a calf before he kills him.

He is a walking pillory, and crucifies more ears than a dozen standing

ones. He will hold any argument rather than his tongue, and maintain

both sides at his own charge; for he will tell you what you will say,

though perhaps he does not intend to give you leave. He lugs men by the

ears, as they correct children in Scotland, and will make them tingle

while he talks with them, as some say they will do when a man is talked

of in his absence. When he talks to a man he comes up close to him, and,

like an old soldier, lets fly in his face, or claps the bore of his

pistol to his ear and whispers aloud, that he may be sure not to miss

his mark. His tongue is always in motion, though very seldom to the

purpose, like a barber ’ s scissors, which are always snipping, as well

when they do not cut as when they do. His tongue is like a

bagpipe-drone, that has no stop, but makes a continual ugly noise, as

long as he can squeeze any wind out of himself. He never leaves a man

until he has run him down, and then he winds a death over him. A

sow-gelder ’ s horn is not so terrible to dogs and cats as he is to all

that know him. His way of argument is to talk all and hear no

contradiction. First he gives his antagonist the length of his wind, and

then, let him make his approaches if he can, he is sure to be beforehand

with him. Of all dissolute diseases the running of the tongue is the

worst, and the hardest to be cured. If he happen at any time to be at a

stand, and any man else begins to speak, he presently drowns him with

his noise, as a water-dog makes a duck dive; for when you think he has

done he falls on and lets fly again, like a gun that will discharge nine

times with one loading. He is a rattlesnake, that with his noise gives

men warning to avoid him, otherwise he will make them wish they had. He

is, like a bell, good for nothing but to make a noise. He is like common

fame, that speaks most and knows least, Lord Brooks, or a wild goose

always cackling when he is upon the wing. His tongue is like any kind of

carriage, the less weight it bears the faster and easier it goes. He is

so full of words that they run over and are thrown away to no purpose,

and so empty of things or sense that his dryness has made his leaks so

wide whatsoever is put in him runs out immediately. He is so long in

delivering himself that those that hear him desire to be delivered too

or despatched out of their pain. He makes his discourse the longer with

often repeating to be short, and talking much of in fine, never means to

come near it.

A RANTER
Is a fanatic Hector that has found out, by a very strange way of new

light, how to transform all the devils into angels of light; for he

believes all religion consists in looseness, and that sin and vice is

the whole duty of man. He puts off the old man, but puts it on again

upon the new one, and makes his pagan vices serve to preserve his

Christian virtues from wearing out, for if he should use his piety and

devotion always it would hold out but a little while. He is loth that

iniquity and vice should be thrown away as long as there may be good use

for it; for if that which is wickedly gotten may be disposed to pious

uses, why should not wickedness itself as well? He believes himself

shot-free against all the attempts of the devil, the world, and the

flesh, and therefore is not afraid to attack them in their own quarters

and encounter them at their own weapons. For as strong bodies may freely

venture to do and suffer that, without any hurt to themselves, which

would destroy those that are feeble, so a saint that is strong in grace

may boldly engage himself in those great sins and iniquities that would

easily damn a weak brother, and yet come off never the worse. He

believes deeds of darkness to be only those sins that are committed in

private, not those that are acted openly and owned. He is but a

hypocrite turned the wrong side outward; for, as the one wears his vices

within and the other without, so when they are counterchanged the ranter

becomes a hypocrite, and the hypocrite an able ranter. His church is the

devil ’ s chapel, for it agrees exactly both in doctrine and discipline

with the best reformed bawdy-houses. He is a monster produced by the

madness of this latter age; but if it had been his fate to have been

whelped in old Rome he had passed for a prodigy, and been received among

raining of stones and the speaking of bulls, and would have put a stop

to all public affairs until he had been expiated. Nero clothed

Christians in the skins of wild beasts, but he wraps wild beasts in the

skins of Christians.

AN AMORIST
Is an artificer or maker of love, a sworn servant to all ladies, like an

officer in a corporation. Though no one in particular will own any title

to him, yet he never fails upon all occasions to offer his services, and

they as seldom to turn it back again untouched. He commits nothing with

them but himself to their good graces; and they recommend him back again

to his own, where he finds so kind a reception that he wonders how he

does fail of it everywhere else. His passion is as easily set on fire as

a fart, and as soon out again. He is charged and primed with love-powder

like a gun, and the least sparkle of an eye gives fire to him and off he

goes, but seldom or never hits the mark. He has commonplaces, and

precedents of repartees, and letters for all occasions, and falls as

readily into his method of making love as a parson does into his form of

matrimony. He converses, as angels are said to do, by intuition, and

expresses himself by sighs most significantly. He follows his visits as

men do their business, and is very industrious in waiting on the ladies

where his affairs lie; among which those of greatest concernment are

questions and commands, purposes, and other such received forms of wit

and conversation, in which he is so deeply studied that in all questions

and doubts that arise he is appealed to, and very learnedly declares

which was the most true and primitive way of proceeding in the purest

times. For these virtues he never fails of his summons to all balls,

where he manages the country-dances with singular judgment, and is

frequently an assistant at _l ’ ombre_; and these are all the uses they

make of his parts, beside the sport they give themselves in laughing at

him, which he takes for singular favours and interprets to his own

advantage, though it never goes further; for, all his employments being

public, he is never admitted to any private services, and they despise

him as not woman ’ s meat; for he applies to too many to be trusted by any

one, as bastards by having many fathers have none at all. He goes often

mounted in a coach as a convoy to guard the ladies, to take the dust in

Hyde Park, where by his prudent management of the glass windows he

secures them from beggars, and returns fraught with China-oranges and

ballads. Thus he is but a gentleman-usher-general, and his business is

to carry one lady ’ s services to another, and bring back the other ’ s

in exchange.

AN ASTROLOGER
Is one that expounds upon the planets and teaches to construe the

accidents by the due joining of stars in construction. He talks with

them by dumb signs, and can tell what they mean by their twinkling and

squinting upon one another as well as they themselves. He is a spy upon

the stars, and can tell what they are doing by the company they keep and

the houses they frequent. They have no power to do anything alone until

so many meet as will make a quorum. He is clerk of the committee to

them, and draws up all their orders that concern either public or

private affairs. He keeps all their accounts for them, and sums them up,

not by debtor, but creditor alone--a more compendious way. They do ill

to make them have so much authority over the earth, which perhaps has as

much as any one of them but the sun, and as much right to sit and vote

in their councils as any other. But because there are but seven Electors

of the German Empire, they will allow of no more to dispose of all

other, and most foolishly and unnaturally dispossess their own parent of

its inheritance rather than acknowledge a defect in their own rules.

These rules are all they have to show for their title, and yet not one

of them can tell whether those they had them from came honestly by them.

Virgil ’ s description of fame, that reaches from earth to the stars, _tam

ficti pravique tenax_, to carry lies and knavery, will serve astrologers

without any sensible variation. He is a fortune-seller, a retailer of

destiny, and petty chapman to the planets. He casts nativities as

gamesters do false dice, and by slurring and palming sextile, quartile,

and trine, like _six, quatre, trois_, can throw what chance he pleases.

He sets a figure as cheats do a main at hazard, and gulls throw away

their money at it. He fetches the grounds of his art so far off, as well

from reason as the stars, that, like a traveller, he is allowed to lie

by authority; and as beggars that have no money themselves believe all

others have, and beg of those that have as little as themselves, so the

ignorant rabble believe in him though he has no more reason for what he

professes than they.

A LAWYER
Is a retailer of justice that uses false lights, false weights, and

false measures. He measures right and wrong by his retaining fee, and,

like a French duellist, engages on that side that first bespeaks him,

though it be against his own brother; not because it is right, but

merely upon a punctilio of profit, which is better than honour to him,

because riches will buy nobility, and nobility nothing, as having no

intrinsic value. He sells his opinion, and engages to maintain the title

against all that claim under him, but no further. He puts it off upon

his word, which he believes himself not bound to make good, because when

he has parted with his right to it, it is no longer his. He keeps no

justice for his own use, as being a commodity of his own growth, which

he never buys, but only sells to others; and as no man goes worse shod

than the shoemaker, so no man is more out of justice than he that gets

his living by it. He draws bills as children do lots at a lottery, and

is paid as much for blanks as prizes. He undoes a man with the same

privilege as a doctor kills him, and is paid as well for it as if he

preserved him, in which he is very impartial, but in nothing else. He

believes it no fault in himself to err in judgment, because that part of

the law belongs to the judge and not to him. His best opinions and his

worst are all of a price, like good wine and bad in a tavern, in which

he does not deal so fairly as those who, if they know what you are

willing to bestow, can tell how to fit you accordingly. When his law

lies upon his hands he will afford a good pennyworth, and rather

pettifog and turn common barreter than be out of employment. His opinion

is one thing while it is his own and another when it is paid for; for,

the property being altered, the case alters also. When his counsel is

not for his client ’ s turn he will never take it back again, though it be

never the worse, nor allow him anything for it, yet will sell the same

over and over again to as many as come to him for it. His pride

increases with his practice, and the fuller of business he is, like a

sack, the bigger he looks. He crowds to the Bar like a pig through a

hedge, and his gown is fortified with flankers about the shoulders to

guard his ears from being galled with elbows. He draws his bills more

extravagant and unconscionable than a tailor; for if you cut off

two-thirds in the beginning, middle, or end, that which is left will be

more reasonable and nearer to sense than the whole, and yet he is paid

for all; for when he draws up a business, like a captain that makes

false musters, he produces as many loose and idle words as he can

possibly come by until he has received for them, and then turns them off

and retains only those that are to the purpose. This he calls drawing of

breviates. All that appears of his studies is, in short, time converted

into waste-paper, tailor ’ s measures, and heads for children ’ s drums. He

appears very violent against the other side, and rails to please his

client as they do children, "Give me a blow and I ’ ll strike him, ah,

naughty!" &c. This makes him seem very zealous for the good of his

client, and though the cause go against him he loses no credit by it,

especially if he fall foul on the counsel of the other side, which goes

for no more among them than it does with those virtuous persons that

quarrel and fight in the streets to pick the pockets of those that look

on. He hangs men ’ s estates and fortunes on the slightest curiosities and

feeblest niceties imaginable, and undoes them like the story of breaking

a horse ’ s back with a feather or sinking a ship with a single drop of

water, as if right and wrong were only notional and had no relation at

all to practice (which always requires more solid foundations), or

reason and truth did wholly consist in the right spelling of letters,

whenas the subtler things are the nearer they are to nothing, so the

subtler words and notions are the nearer they are to nonsense. He

overruns Latin and French with greater barbarism than the Goths did

Italy and France, and makes as mad a confusion of language by mixing

both with English. Nor does he use English much better, for he clogs it

so with words that the sense becomes as thick as puddle, and is utterly

lost to those that have not the trick of skipping over where it is

impertinent. He has but one termination for all Latin words, and that ’ s

a dash. He is very just to the first syllables of words, but always

bobtails the last, in which the sense most of all consists, like a cheat

that does a man all right at the first that he may put a trick upon him

in the end. He is an apprentice to the law without a master, is his own

pupil, and has no tutor but himself, that is a fool. He will screw and

wrest law as unmercifully as a tumbler does his body to lick up money

with his tongue. He is a Swiss that professes mercenary arms, will fight

for him that gives him best pay, and, like an Italian bravo, will fall

foul on any man ’ s reputation that he receives a retaining fee against.

If he could but maintain his opinions as well as they do him, he were a

very just and righteous man; but when he has made his most of it, he

leaves it, like his client, to shift for itself. He fetches money out of

his throat like a juggler; and as the rabble in the country value

gentlemen by their housekeeping and their eating, so is he supposed to

have so much law as he has kept commons, and the abler to deal with

clients by how much the more he has devoured of Inns-of-Court mutton;

and it matters not whether he keep his study so he has but kept commons.

He never ends a suit, but prunes it that it may grow the faster and

yield a greater increase of strife. The wisdom of the law is to admit of

all the petty, mean, real injustices in the world, to avoid imaginary

possible great ones that may perhaps fall out. His client finds the

Scripture fulfilled in him, that it is better to part with a coat too

than go to law for a cloak; for, as the best laws are made of the worst

manners, even so are the best lawyers of the worst men. He hums about

Westminster Hall, and returns home with his pockets like a bee with his

thighs laden; and that which Horace says of an ant, _Ore trahit

quodcunque potest, atque addit acervo_, is true of him, for he gathers

all his heap with the labour of his mouth rather than his brain and

hands. He values himself, as a carman does his horse, by the money he

gets, and looks down upon all that gain less as scoundrels. The law is

like that double-formed, ill-begotten monster that was kept in an

intricate labyrinth and fed with men ’ s flesh, for it devours all that

come within the mazes of it and have not a clue to find the way out

again. He has as little kindness for the Statute Law as Catholics have

for the Scripture, but adores the Common Law as they do tradition, and

both for the very same reason; for the Statute Law being certain,

written and designed to reform and prevent corruptions and abuses in the

affairs of the world (as the Scriptures are in matters of religion), he

finds it many times a great obstruction to the advantage and profit of

his practice; whereas the Common Law, being unwritten, or written in an

unknown language which very few understand but himself, is the more

pliable and easy to serve all his purposes, being utterly exposed to

what interpretation and construction his interest and occasions shall at

any time incline him to give it; and differs only from arbitrary power

in this, that the one gives no account of itself at all, and the other

such a one as is perhaps worse than none, that is implicit and not to be

understood, or subject to what constructions he pleases to put

upon it:--

Great critics in a _noverint universi_

Know all men by these presents how to curse ye;

Pedants of said and foresaid, and both Frenches,

Pedlars, and pokie, may those rev ’ rend benches

Y ’ aspire to be the stocks, and may ye be

No more call ’ d to the Bar, but pillory;

Thither in triumph may ye backward ride

To have your ears most justly crucified,

And cut so close until there be not leather

Enough to stick a pen in left of either;

Then will your consciences, your ears, and wit

Be like indentures tripartite cut fit.

May your horns multiply and grow as great

As that which does blow grace before your meat;

May varlets be your barbers now, and do

The same to you they have been done unto;

That ’ s law and gospel too; may it prove true,

Then they shall do pump-justice upon you;

And when y ’ are shaved and powder ’ d you shall fall,

Thrown o ’ er the Bar, as they did o ’ er the wall,

Never to rise again, unless it be

To hold your hands up for your roguery;

And when you do so may they be no less

Sear ’ d by the hangman than your consciences.

May your gowns swarm until you can determine

The strife no more between yourselves and vermin

Than you have done between your clients ’ purses;

Now kneel and take the last and worst of curses--

May you be honest when it is too late;

That is, undone the only way you hate.

AN EPIGRAMMATIST
Is a poet of small wares, whose Muse is short-winded and quickly out of

breath. She flies like a goose, that is no sooner upon the wing but down

again. He was originally one of those authors that used to write upon

white walls, from whence his works, being collected and put together,

pass in the world like single money among those that deal in small

matters. His wit is like fire in a flint, that is nothing while it is

in, and nothing again as soon as it is out. He treats of all things and

persons that come in his way, but like one that draws in little, much

less than the life:--

His bus ’ ness is t ’ inveigh and flatter,

Like parcel parasite and satyr.

He is a kind of vagabond writer, that is never out of his way, for

nothing is beside the purpose with him that proposes none at all. His

works are like a running banquet, that have much variety but little of a

sort, for he deals in nothing but scraps and parcels, like a tailor ’ s

broker. He does not write, but set his mark upon things, and gives no

account in words at length, but only in figures. All his wit reaches but

to four lines or six at the most; and if he ever venture farther it

tires immediately, like a post-horse, that will go no farther than his

wonted stages. Nothing agrees so naturally with his fancy as bawdry,

which he dispenses in small pittances to continue his reader still in an

appetite for more.

A FANATIC.
St. Paul was thought by Festus to be mad with too much learning, but the

fanatics of our times are mad with too little. He chooses himself one of

the elect, and packs a committee of his own party to judge the twelve

tribes of Israel. The apostles in the primitive Church worked miracles

to confirm and propagate their doctrine, but he thinks to confirm his by

working at his trade. He assumes a privilege to impress what text of

Scripture he pleases for his own use, and leaves those that make against

him for the use of the wicked. His religion, that tends only to faction

and sedition, is neither fit for peace nor war, but times of a condition

between both, like the sails of a ship that will not endure a storm and

are of no use at all in a calm. He believes it has enough of the

primitive Christian if it be but persecuted as that was, no matter for

the piety or doctrine of it, as if there were nothing required to prove

the truth of a religion but the punishment of the professors of it, like

the old mathematicians that were never believed to be profoundly knowing

in their profession until they had run through all punishments and just

escaped the fork. He is all for suffering for religion, but nothing for

acting; for he accounts good works no better than encroachments upon the

merits of free believing, and a good life the most troublesome and

unthrifty way to heaven. He canonises himself a saint in his own

lifetime, as the more sure and certain way, and less troublesome to

others. He outgrows ordinances, as an apprentice that has served out his

time does his indentures, and being a freeman, supposes himself at

liberty to set up what religion he pleases. He calls his own supposed

abilities gifts, and disposes of himself like a foundation designed to

pious uses, although, like others of the same kind, they are always

diverted to other purposes. He owes all his gifts to his ignorance, as

beggars do the alms they receive to their poverty. They are such as the

fairies are said to drop in men ’ s shoes, and when they are discovered to

give them over and confer no more; for when his gifts are discovered

they vanish and come to nothing. He is but a puppet saint that moves he

knows not how, and his ignorance is the dull, leaden weight that puts

all his parts in motion. His outward man is a saint and his inward man a

reprobate, for he carries his vices in his heart and his religion in

his face.

A PROSELYTE.
A priest stole him out of the cradle, like the fairies, and left a fool

and changeling in his place. He new dyes his religion, and commonly into

a sadder and darker colour than it was before. He gives his opinion the

somersault and turns the wrong side of it outwards. He does not mend his

manners, but botch them with patches of another stuff and colour. Change

of religion, being for the most part used by those who understand not

why one religion is better than another, is like changing of money two

sixpences for a shilling; both are of equal value, but the change is for

convenience or humour. There is nothing more difficult than a change of

religion for the better, for as all alterations in judgment are derived

from a precedent confessed error, that error is more probably like to

produce another than anything of so different a nature as truth. He

imposes upon himself in believing the infirmity of his nature to be the

strength of his judgment, and thinks he changes his religion when he

changes himself, and turns as naturally from one thing to another as a

maggot does to a fly. He is a kind of freebooty and plunder, or one head

of cattle driven by the priests of one religion out of the quarters of

another, and they value him above two of their own; for, beside the

glory of the exploit, they have a better title to him (as he that is

conquered is more in the power of him that subdued him than he that was

born his subject), and they expect a freer submission from one that

takes quarter than from those that were under command before. His

weakness or ignorance, or both, are commonly the chief causes of his

conversion; for if he be a man of a profession that has no hopes to

thrive upon the account of mere merit, he has no way so easy and certain

as to betake himself to some forbidden church, where, for the common

cause ’ s sake, he finds so much brotherly love and kindness, that they

will rather employ him than one of another persuasion though more

skilful, and he gains by turning and winding his religion as tradesmen

do by their stocks. The priest has commonly the very same design upon

him, for he that is not able to go to the charges of his conversion may

live free enough from being attacked by any side. He was troubled with a

vertigo in his conscience, and nothing but change of religion, like

change of air, could cure him. He is like a sick man that can neither

lie still in his bed nor turn himself but as he is helped by others. He

is like a revolter in an army; and as men of honour and commanders

seldom prove such, but common soldiers, men of mean condition,

frequently to mend their fortunes, so in religion clergymen who are

commanders seldom prevail upon one another, and when they do, the

proselyte is usually one who had no reputation among his own party

before, and after a little trial finds as little among those to whom

he revolts.

A CLOWN
Is a centaur, a mixture of man and beast, like a monster engendered by

unnatural copulation, a crab engrafted on an apple. He was neither made

by art nor nature, but in spite of both, by evil custom.. His perpetual

conversation with beasts has rendered him one of them, and he is among

men but a naturalised brute. He appears by his language, genius, and

behaviour to be an alien to mankind, a foreigner to humanity, and of so

opposite a genius that ’ tis easier to make a Spaniard a Frenchman than

to reduce him to civility. He disdains every man that he does not fear,

and only respects him that has done him hurt or can do it. He is like

Nebuchadnezzar after he had been a month at grass, but will never return

to be a man again as he did, if he might, for he despises all manner of

lives but his own, unless it be his horse ’ s, to whom he is but _valet de

chambre_. He never shows himself humane or kind in anything but when he

pimps to his cow or makes a match for his mare; in all things else he is

surly and rugged, and does not love to be pleased himself, which makes

him hate those that do him any good. He is a stoic to all passions but

fear, envy, and malice, and hates to do any good though it cost him

nothing. He abhors a gentleman because he is most unlike himself, and

repines as much at his manner of living as if he maintained him. He

murmurs at him as the saints do at the wicked, as if he kept his right

from him, for he makes his clownery a sect and damns all that are not of

his Church. He manures the earth like a dunghill, but lets himself lie

fallow, for no improvement will do good upon him. Cain was the first of

his family, and he does his endeavour not to degenerate from the

original churlishness of his ancestor. He that was fetched from the

plough to be made dictator had not half his pride and insolence, nor

Caligula ’ s horse that was made consul. All the worst names that are

given to men are borrowed from him, as villain, deboise, peasant, &c. He

wears his clothes like a hide, and shifts them no oftener than a beast

does his hair. He is a beast that Gesner never thought of.

A WOOER
Stands candidate for cuckold, and if he miss of it, it is none of his

fault, for his merit is sufficiently known. He is commonly no lover, but

able to pass for a most desperate one where he finds it is like to prove

of considerable advantage to him, and therefore has passions lying by

him of all sizes proportionable to all women ’ s fortunes, and can be

indifferent, melancholy, or stark-mad according as their estates give

him occasion; and when he finds it is to no purpose, can presently come

to himself again and try another. He prosecutes his suit against his

mistress as clients do a suit in law, and does nothing without the

advice of his learned counsel, omits no advantage for want of

soliciting, and, when he gets her consent, overthrows her. He endeavours

to match his estate, rather than himself, to the best advantage, and if

his mistress ’ s fortune and his do but come to an agreement, their

persons are easily satisfied, the match is soon made up, and a cross

marriage between all four is presently concluded. He is not much

concerned in his lady ’ s virtues, for if the opinion of the Stoics be

true, that the virtuous are always rich, there is no doubt but she that

is rich must be virtuous. He never goes without a list in his pocket of

all the widows and virgins about the town, with particulars of their

jointures, portions, and inheritances, that if one miss he may not be

without a reserve; for he esteems Cupid very improvident if he has not

more than two strings to his bow. When he wants a better introduction he

begins his addresses to the chambermaid, like one that sues the tenant

to eject the landlord, and according as he thrives there makes his

approaches to the mistress. He can tell readily what the difference is

between jointure with tuition of infant, land, and money of any value,

and what the odds is to a penny between them all, either to take or

leave. He does not so much go a-wooing as put in his claim, as if all

men of fortune had a fair title to all women of the same quality, and

therefore are said to demand them in marriage. But if he be a wooer of

fortune, that designs to raise himself by it, he makes wooing his

vocation, deals with all matchmakers, that are his setters, is very

painful in his calling, and if his business succeed, steals her away and

commits matrimony with a felonious intent. He has a great desire to

beget money on the body of a woman, and as for other issue is very

indifferent, and cares not how old she be so she be not past

money-bearing.

AN IMPUDENT MAN
Is one whose want of money and want of wit have engaged him beyond his

abilities. The little knowledge he has of himself, being suitable to the

little he has in his profession, has made him believe himself fit for

it. This double ignorance has made him set a value upon himself, as he

that wants a great deal appears in a better condition than he that wants

a little. This renders him confident and fit for any undertaking, and

sometimes (such is the concurrent ignorance of the world) he prospers in

it, but oftener miscarries and becomes ridiculous; yet this advantage he

has, that as nothing can make him see his error, so nothing can

discourage him that way, for he is fortified with his ignorance, as

barren and rocky places are by their situation, and he will rather

believe that all men want judgment than himself. For, as no man is

pleased that has an ill opinion of himself, Nature, that finds out

remedies herself, and his own ease, render him insensible of his

defects. From hence he grows impudent; for, as men judge by comparison,

he knows as little what it is to be defective as what it is to be

excellent. Nothing renders men modest but a just knowledge how to

compare themselves with others; and where that is wanting impudence

supplies the place of it, for there is no vacuum in the minds of men,

and commonly, like other things in Nature, they swell more with

rarefaction than condensation. The more men know of the world, the worse

opinion they have of it; and the more they understand of truth, they are

better acquainted with the difficulties of it, and consequently are the

less confident in their assertions, especially in matters of

probability, which commonly is squint-eyed and looks nine ways at once.

It is the office of a just judge to hear both parties, and he that

considers but the one side of things can never make a just judgment,

though he may by chance a true one. Impudence is the bastard of

ignorance, not only unlawfully but incestuously begotten by a man upon

his own understanding, and laid by himself at his own door, a monster of

unnatural production; for shame is as much the propriety of human

nature, though overseen by the philosophers, and perhaps more than

reason, laughing, or looking asquint, by which they distinguish man from

beasts; and the less men have of it the nearer they approach to the

nature of brutes. Modesty is but a noble jealousy of honour, and

impudence the prostitution of it; for he whose face is proof against

infamy must be as little sensible of glory. His forehead, like a

voluntary cuckold ’ s, is by his horns made proof against a blush. Nature

made man barefaced, and civil custom has preserved him so; but he that ’ s

impudent does wear a vizard more ugly and deformed than highway thieves

disguise themselves with. Shame is the tender moral conscience of good

men. When there is a crack in the skull, Nature herself, with a tough

horny callous repairs the breach; so a flawed intellect is with a brawny

callous face supplied. The face is the dial of the mind; and where they

do not go together, ’ tis a sign that one or both are out of order. He

that is impudent is like a merchant that trades upon his credit without

a stock, and if his debts were known would break immediately. The inside

of his head is like the outside, and his peruke as naturally of his own

growth as his wit. He passes in the world like a piece of counterfeit

coin, looks well enough until he is rubbed and worn with use, and then

his copper complexion begins to appear, and nobody will take him but by

owl-light.

AN IMITATOR
Is a counterfeit stone, and the larger and fairer he appears the more

apt he is to be discovered; whilst small ones, that pretend to no great

value, pass unsuspected. He is made like a man in arras-hangings, after

some great master ’ s design, though far short of the original. He is like

a spectrum or walking spirit, that assumes the shape of some particular

person and appears in the likeness of something that he is not because

he has no shape of his own to put on. He has a kind of monkey and baboon

wit, that takes after some man ’ s way whom he endeavours to imitate, but

does it worse than those things that are naturally his own; for he does

not learn, but take his pattern out, as a girl does her sampler. His

whole life is nothing but a kind of education, and he is always learning

to be something that he is not nor ever will be. For Nature is free, and

will not be forced out of her way, nor compelled to do anything against

her own will and inclination. He is but a retainer to wit and a follower

of his master, whose badge he wears everywhere, and therefore his way is

called servile imitation. His fancy is like the innocent lady ’ s, who, by

looking on the picture of a Moor that hung in her chamber, conceived a

child of the same complexion; for all his conceptions are produced by

the pictures of other men ’ s imaginations, and by their features betray

whose bastards they are. His Muse is not inspired, but infected with

another man ’ s fancy; and he catches his wit, like the itch, of somebody

else that had it before, and when he writes he does but scratch himself.

His head is, like his hat, fashioned upon a block and wrought in a shape

of another man ’ s invention. He melts down his wit and casts it in a

mould; and as metals melted and cast are not so firm and solid as those

that are wrought with the hammer, so those compositions that are founded

and run in other men ’ s moulds are always more brittle and loose than

those that are forged in a man ’ s own brain. He binds himself apprentice

to a trade which he has no stock to set up with, if he should serve out

his time and live to be made free. He runs a-whoring after another man ’ s

inventions, for he has none of his own to tempt him to an incontinent

thought, and begets a kind of mongrel breed that never comes to good.

A SOT
Has found out a way to renew not only his youth, but his childhood, by

being stewed, like old Aeson, in liquor; much better than the virtuoso ’ s

way of making old dogs young again, for he is a child again at second

hand, never the worse for the wearing, but as purely fresh, simple, and

weak as he was at first. He has stupefied his senses by living in a

moist climate, according to the poet, _Boeotum in crasso jurares aere

natum_. He measures his time by glasses of wine, as the ancients did by

water-glasses; and as Hermes Trismegistus is said to have kept the first

account of hours by the pissing of a beast dedicated to Serapis, he

revives that custom in his own practice, and observes it punctually in

passing his time. He is like a statue placed in a moist air; all the

lineaments of humanity are mouldered away, and there is nothing left of

him but a rude lump of the shape of a man, and no one part entire. He

has drowned himself in a butt of wine, as the Duke of Clarence was

served by his brother. He has washed down his soul and pissed it out,

and lives now only by the spirit of wine or brandy, or by an extract

drawn off his stomach. He has swallowed his humanity and drunk himself

into a beast, as if he had pledged Madam Circe and done her right. He is

drowned in a glass like a fly, beyond the cure of crumbs of bread or the

sunbeams. He is like a springtide; when he is drunk to his

high-water-mark he swells and looks big, runs against the stream, and

overflows everything that stands in his way; but when the drink within

him is at an ebb, he shrinks within his banks and falls so low and

shallow that cattle may pass over him. He governs all his actions by the

drink within him, as a Quaker does by the light within him; has a

different humour for every nick his drink rises to, like the degrees of

the weather-glass; and proceeds from ribaldry and bawdry to politics,

religion, and quarrelling, until it is at the top, and then it is the

dog-days with him; from whence he falls down again until his liquor is

at the bottom, and then he lies quiet and is frozen up.

A JUGGLER
Is an artificial magician, that with his fingers casts a mist before the

eyes of the rabble and makes his balls walk invisible which way he

pleases. He does his feats behind a table, like a Presbyterian in a

conventicle, but with much more dexterity and cleanliness, and therefore

all sorts of people are better pleased with him. Most professions and

mysteries derive the practice of all their faculties from him, but use

them with less ingenuity and candour; for the more he deceives those he

has to do with the better he deals with them; while those that imitate

him in a lawful calling are far more dishonest, for the more they impose

the more they abuse. All his cheats are primitive, and therefore more

innocent and of greater purity than those that are by tradition from

hand to hand derived to them; for he conveys money out of one man ’ s

pocket into another ’ s with much more sincerity and ingenuity than those

that do it in a legal way, and for a less considerable, though more

conscientious, reward. He will fetch money out of his own throat with a

great deal more of delight and satisfaction to those that pay him for it

than any haranguer whatsoever, and make it chuck in his throat better

than a lawyer that has talked himself hoarse, and swallowed so many fees

that he is almost choked. He will spit fire and blow smoke out of his

mouth with less harm and inconvenience to the Government than a

seditious holder-forth, and yet all these disown and scorn him, even as

men that are grown great and rich despise the meanness of their

originals. He calls upon "Presto begone," and the Babylonian ’ s tooth, to

amuse and divert the rabble from looking too narrowly into his tricks;

while a zealous hypocrite, that calls heaven and earth to witness his,

turns up the eye and shakes the head at his idolatry and profanation. He

goes the circuit to all country fairs, where he meets with good

strolling practice, and comes up to Bartholomew Fair as his Michaelmas

term; after which he removes to some great thoroughfare, where he hangs

out himself in effigy, like a Dutch malefactor, that all those that pass

by may for their money have a trial of his skill. He endeavours to plant

himself as near as he can to some puppet-play, monster, or mountebank,

as the most convenient situation; and when trading grows scant they join

all their forces together and make up one grand show, and admit the

cutpurse and balladsinger to trade under them, as orange-women do at a

playhouse.

A ROMANCE-WRITER
Pulls down old histories to build them up finer again, after a new model

of his own designing. He takes away all the lights of truth in history

to make it the fitter tutoress of life; for Truth herself has little or

nothing to do in the affairs of the world, although all matters of the

greatest weight and moment are pretended and done in her name, like a

weak princess that has only the title, and falsehood all the power. He

observes one very fit decorum in dating his histories in the days of old

and putting all his own inventions upon ancient times; for when the

world was younger, it might perhaps love and fight, and do generous

things at the rate he describes them; but since it is grown old, all

these heroic feats are laid by and utterly given over, nor ever like to

come in fashion again; and therefore all his images of those virtues

signify no more than the statues upon dead men ’ s tombs, that will never

make them live again. He is like one of Homer ’ s gods, that sets men

together by the ears and fetches them off again how he pleases; brings

armies into the field like Janello ’ s leaden soldiers; leads up both

sides himself, and gives the victory to which he pleases, according as

he finds it fit the design of his story; makes love and lovers too,

brings them acquainted, and appoints meetings when and where he pleases,

and at the same time betrays them in the height of all their felicity to

miserable captivity, or some other horrid calamity; for which he makes

them rail at the gods and curse their own innocent stars when he only

has done them all the injury; makes men villains, compels them to act

all barbarous inhumanities by his own directions, and after inflicts the

cruellest punishments upon them for it. He makes all his knights fight

in fortifications, and storm one another ’ s armour before they can come

to encounter body for body, and always matches them so equally one with

another that it is a whole page before they can guess which is likely to

have the better; and he that has it is so mangled that it had been

better for them both to have parted fair at first; but when they

encounter with those that are no knights, though ever so well armed and

mounted, ten to one goes for nothing. As for the ladies, they are every

one the most beautiful in the whole world, and that ’ s the reason why no

one of them, nor all together with all their charms, have power to tempt

away any knight from another. He differs from a just historian as a

joiner does from a carpenter; the one does things plainly and

substantially for use, and the other carves and polishes merely for show

and ornament.

A LIBELLER
Is a certain classic author that handles his subject-matter very

ruggedly, and endeavours with his own evil words to corrupt another

man ’ s good manners. All his works treat but of two things, his own

malice and another man ’ s faults, both which he describes in very proper

and pertinent language. He is not much concerned whether what he writes

be true or false; that ’ s nothing to his purpose, which aims only at

filthy and bitter, and therefore his language is, like pictures of the

devil, the fouler the better. He robs a man of his good name, not for

any good it will do him (for he dares not own it), but merely, as a

jackdaw steals money, for his pleasure. His malice has the same success

with other men ’ s charity, to be rewarded in private; for all he gets is

but his own private satisfaction and the testimony of an evil

conscience; for which, if it be discovered, he suffers the worst kind of

martyrdom and is paid with condign punishment, so that at the best he

has but his labour for his pains. He deals with a man as the Spanish

Inquisition does with heretics, clothes him in a coat painted with

hellish shapes of fiends, and so shows him to the rabble to render him

the more odious. He exposes his wit like a bastard, for the next comer

to take up and put out to nurse, which it seldom fails of, so ready is

every man to contribute to the infamy of another. He is like the devil,

that sows tares in the dark, and while a man sleeps plants weeds among

his corn. When he ventures to fall foul on the Government or any great

persons, if he has not a special care to keep himself, like a conjurer,

safe in his circle, he raises a spirit that falls foul on himself and

carries him to limbo, where his neck is clapped up in the hole, out of

which it is never released until he has paid his ears down on the nail

for fees. He is in a worse condition than a schoolboy, for when he is

discovered he is whipped for his exercise, whether it be well or ill

done; so that he takes a wrong course to show his wit, when his best way

to do so is to conceal it; otherwise he shows his folly instead of his

wit, and pays dear for the mistake.

A FACTIOUS MEMBER
Is sent out laden with the wisdom and politics of the place he serves

for, and has his own freight and custom free. He is trusted like a

factor to trade for a society, but endeavours to turn all the public to

his own private advantages. He has no instructions but his pleasure, and

therefore strives to have his privileges as large. He is very wise in

his politic capacity as having a full share in the House and an implicit

right to every man ’ s reason, though he has none of his own, which makes

him appear so simple out of it. He believes all reason of State consists

in faction, as all wisdom in haranguing, of which he is so fond that he

had rather the nation should perish than continue ignorant of his great

abilities that way; though he that observes his gestures, words, and

delivery will find them so perfectly agreeable to the rules of the House

that he cannot but conclude he learnt his oratory the very same way that

jackdaws and parrots practise by; for he coughs and spits and blows his

nose with that discreet and prudent caution that you would think he had

buried his talent in a handkerchief, and were now pulling it out to

dispose of it to a better advantage. He stands and presumes so much upon

the privileges of the House, as if every member were a tribune of the

people and had as absolute power as they had in Rome, according to the

lately established fundamental custom and practice of their quartered

predecessors of unhappy memory. He endeavours to show his wisdom in

nothing more than in appearing very much unsatisfied with the present

manage of State affairs, although he knows nothing of the reasons. So

much the better, for the thing is the more difficult, and argues his

judgment and insight the greater; for any man can judge that understands

the reasons of what he does, but very few know how to judge mechanically

without understanding why or wherefore. It is sufficient to assure him

that the public money has been diverted from the proper uses it was

raised for because he has had no share of it himself, and the government

ill managed because he has no hand in it, which, truly, is a very great

grievance to the people, that understand, by himself and his party, that

are their representatives, and ought to understand for them how able he

is for it. He fathers all his own passions and concerns, like bastards,

on the people, because, being entrusted by them without articles or

conditions, they are bound to acknowledge whatsoever he does as their

own act and deed.

A PLAY-WRITER
Of our times is like a fanatic, that has no wit in ordinary easy things,

and yet attempts the hardest task of brains in the whole world, only

because, whether his play or work please or displease, he is certain to

come off better than he deserves, and find some of his own latitude to

applaud him, which he could never expect any other way, and is as sure

to lose no reputation, because he has none to venture:--

Like gaming rooks, that never stick

To play for hundreds upon tick,

’ Cause, if they chance to lose at play,

They ’ ve not one halfpenny to pay;

And, if they win a hundred pound,

Gain, if for sixpence they compound.

Nothing encourages him more in his undertaking than his ignorance, for

he has not wit enough to understand so much as the difficulty of what he

attempts; therefore he runs on boldly like a foolhardy wit, and Fortune,

that favours fools and the bold, sometimes takes notice of him for his

double capacity, and receives him into her good graces. He has one

motive more, and that is the concurrent ignorant judgment of the present

age, in which his sottish fopperies pass with applause, like Oliver

Cromwell ’ s oratory among fanatics of his own canting inclination. He

finds it easier to write in rhyme than prose, for the world being

over-charged with romances, he finds his plots, passions, and repartees

ready made to his hand, and if he can but turn them into rhyme the

thievery is disguised, and they pass for his own wit and invention

without question, like a stolen cloak made into a coat or dyed into

another colour. Besides this, he makes no conscience of stealing

anything that lights in his way, and borrows the advice of so many to

correct, enlarge, and amend what he has ill-favouredly patched together,

that it becomes like a thing drawn by counsel, and none of his own

performance, or the son of a whore that has no one certain father. He

has very great reason to prefer verse before prose in his compositions;

for rhyme is like lace, that serves excellently well to hide the piecing

and coarseness of a bad stuff, contributes mightily to the bulk, and

makes the less serve by the many impertinences it commonly requires to

make way for it, for very few are endowed with abilities to bring it in

on its own account. This he finds to be good husbandry and a kind of

necessary thrift, for they that have but a little ought to make as much

of it as they can. His prologue, which is commonly none of his own, is

always better than his play, like a piece of cloth that ’ s fine in the

beginning and coarse afterwards; though it has but one topic, and that ’ s

the same that is used by malefactors, when they are to be tried, to

except against as many of the jury as they can.

A MOUNTEBANK
Is an epidemic physician, a doctor-errant, that keeps himself up by

being, like a top, in motion, for if he should settle he would fall to

nothing immediately. He is a pedlar of medicines, a petty chapman of

cures, and tinker empirical to the body of man. He strolls about to

markets and fairs, where he mounts on the top of his shop, that is his

bank, and publishes his medicines as universal as himself; for

everything is for all diseases, as himself is of all places--that is to

say, of none. His business is to show tricks and impudence. As for the

cure of diseases, it concerns those that have them, not him, further

than to get their money. His pudding is his setter that lodges the

rabble for him, and then slips him, who opens with a deep mouth, and has

an ill day if he does not run down some. He baits his patient ’ s body

with his medicines, as a rat-catcher does a room, and either poisons the

disease or him. As soon as he has got all the money and spent all the

credit the rabble could spare him, he then removes to fresh quarters

where he is less known and better trusted. If but one in twenty of his

medicines hit by chance, when nature works the cure, it saves the credit

of all the rest, that either do no good or hurt; for whosoever recovers

in his hands, he does the work under God; but if he die, God does it

under him: his time was come, and there ’ s an end. A velvet jerkin is his

prime qualification, by which he is distinguished from his pudding, as

he is with his cap from him. This is the usher of his school, that draws

the rabble together, and then he draws their teeth. He administers

physic with a farce, and gives his patients a preparative of dancing on

the rope, to stir the humours and prepare them for evacuation. His fool

serves for his foil, and sets him off as well as his bragging and lying.

The first thing he vents is his own praise, and then his medicines

wrapped up in several papers and lies. He mounts his bank as a vaulter

does his wooden horse, and then shows tricks for his patients, as apes

do for the King of Spain. He casts the nativity of urinals, and tries

diseases, like a witch, by water. He bails the place with a jig, draws

the rabble together, and then throws his hook among them. He pretends to

universal medicines; that is, such as, when all men are sick together,

will cure them all, but till then no one in particular.

A WITTOL
Is a person of great complaisance, and very civil to all that have

occasion to make use of his wife. He married a wife as a common proxy

for the service of all those that are willing to come in for their

shares; he engrossed her first by wholesale, and since puts her off by

retail; he professes a form of matrimony, but utterly denies the power

thereof. They that tell tales are very unjust, for, having not put in

their claims before marriage, they are bound for ever after to hold

their tongues. The reason why citizens are commonly wittols is, because

men that drive a trade and are dealers in the world seldom provide

anything for their own uses which they will not very willingly put off

again for considerable profit. He believes it to be but a vulgar error

and no such disparagement as the world commonly imagines to be a

cuckold; for man, being the epitomy and representation of all creatures,

cannot be said to be perfect while he wants that badge and character

which so many several species wear both for their defence and ornament.

He takes the only wise and sure course that his wife should do him no

injury; for, having his own free consent, it is not in her power that

way to do him any wrong at all. His wife is, like Eve in Paradise,

married to all mankind, and yet is unsatisfied that there are no more

worlds, as Alexander the Great was. She is a person of public capacity,

and rather than not serve her country would suffer an army to march over

her, as Sir Rice ap Thomas did. Her husband and she give and take equal

liberty, which preserves a perfect peace and good understanding between

both, while those that are concerned in one another ’ s love and honour

are never quiet, but always caterwauling. He differs from a jealous man

as a valiant man does from a coward, that trembles at a danger which the

other scorns and despises. He is of a true philosophical temper, and

suffers what he knows not how to avoid with a more than stoical

resolution. He is one of those the poet speaks of:--

"Qui ferre incommoda vitae,

Nec jactare jugum, vita didicere magistra."

He is as much pleased to see many men approve his choice of his wife and

has as great a kindness for them, as opiniasters have for all those whom

they find to agree with themselves in judgment and approve the abilities

of their understandings.

A LITIGIOUS MAN
Goes to law as men do to bad houses, to spend his money and satisfy his

concupiscence of wrangling. He is a constant customer to the old

reverend gentlewoman Law, and believes her to be very honest, though she

picks his pockets and puts a thousand tricks and gulleries upon him. He

has a strange kindness for an action of the case, but a most passionate

loyalty for the King ’ s writ. A well-drawn bill and answer will draw him

all the world over, and a breviate as far as the Line. He enters the

lists at Westminster like an old tiller, runs his course in law, and

breaks an oath or two instead of a lance; and if he can but unhorse the

defendant and get the sentence of the judges on his side, he marches off

in triumph. He prefers a cry of lawyers at the Bar before any pack of

the best-mouthed dogs in all the North. He has commonly once a term a

trial of skill with some other professor of the noble science of

contention at the several weapons of bill and answer, forgery, perjury,

subornation, champarty, affidavit, common barretry, maintenance, &c.,

and though he come off with the worst, he does not greatlv care so he

can but have another bout for it. He fights with bags of money as they

did heretofore with sand-bags, and he that has the heaviest has the

advantage and knocks down the other, right or wrong and he suffers the

penalties of the law for having no more money to show in the case. He is

a client by his order and votary of the long robe, and though he were

sure the devil invented it to hide his cloven feet, he has the greater

reverence for it; for, as evil manners produce good laws, the worse the

inventor was the better the thing may be. He keeps as many Knights of

the Post to swear for him, as the King does poor knights at Windsor to

pray for him. When he is defendant and like to be worsted in a suit, he

puts in a cross bill and becomes plaintiff; for the plainant is eldest

hand, and has not only that advantage, but is understood to be the

better friend to the Court, and is considered for it accordingly.

A HUMOURIST
Is a peculiar fantastic that has a wonderful natural affection to some

particular kind of folly, to which he applies himself and in time

becomes eminent. ’ Tis commonly some outlying whimsy of Bedlam, that,

being tame and unhurtful, is suffered to go at liberty. The more serious

he is the more ridiculous he becomes, and at the same time pleases

himself in earnest and others in jest. He knows no mean, for that is

inconsistent with all humour, which is never found but in some extreme

or other. Whatsoever he takes to he is very full of, and believes every

man else to be so too, as if his own taste were the same in every man ’ s

palate. If he be a virtuoso, he applies himself with so much earnestness

to what he undertakes that he puts his reason out of joint and strains

his judgment; and there is hardly anything in the world so slight or

serious that some one or other has not squandered away his brains and

time and fortune upon to no other purpose but to be ridiculous. He is

exempted from a dark room and a doctor, because there is no danger in

his frenzy; otherwise he has as good a title to fresh straw as another.

Humour is but a crookedness of the mind, a disproportioned swelling of

the brain, that draws the nourishment from the other parts to stuff an

ugly and deformed crup-shoulder. If it have the luck to meet with many

of its own temper, instead of being ridiculous it becomes a church, and

from jest grows to earnest.

A   LEADER OF A FACTION

Sets the psalm, and all his party sing after him. He is like a figure in

arithmetic; the more ciphers he stands before the more his value amounts

to. He is a great haranguer, talks himself into authority, and, like a

parrot, climbs with his beak. He appears brave in the head of his party,

but braver in his own; for vainglory leads him, as he does them, and

both, many times out of the King ’ s highway, over hedges and ditches, to

find out by-ways and shorter cuts, which generally prove the farthest

about, but never the nearest home again. He is so passionate a lover of

the Liberty of the People that his fondness turns to jealousy. He

interprets every trifle in the worst sense, to the prejudice of her

honesty, and is so full of caprices and scruples that, if he had his

will, he would have her shut up and never suffered to go abroad again,

if not made away, for her incontinence. All his politics are speculative

and for the most part impracticable, full of curious niceties, that tend

only to prevent future imaginary inconveniences with greater real and

present. He is very superstitious of having the formalities and

punctilios of law held sacred, that, while they are performing, those

that would destroy the very being of it may have time to do their

business or escape. He bends all his forces against those that are above

him, and, like a free-born English mastiff, plays always at the head. He

gathers his party as fanatics do a church, and admits all his admirers

how weak and slight soever; for he believes it is argument of wisdom

enough in them to admire, or, as he has it, to understand him. When he

has led his faction into any inconvenience they all run into his mouth,

as young snakes do into the old ones, and he defends them with his

oratory as well as he is able; for all his confidence depends upon his

tongue more than his brain or heart, and if that fail the others

surrender immediately; for though David says it is a two-edged sword, a

wooden dagger is a better weapon to fight with. His judgment is like a

nice balance that will turn with the twentieth part of a grain, but a

little using renders it false, and it is not so good for use as one that

will not stir without a greater weight.

A DEBAUCHED MAN
Saves the devil a labour and leads himself into temptation, being loth

to lose his good favour in giving him any trouble where he can do the

business himself without his assistance, which he very prudently

reserves for matters of greater concernment. He governs himself in an

arbitrary way, and is absolute, without being confined to anything but

his own will and pleasure, which he makes his law. His life is all

recreation, and his diversions nothing but turning from one vice, that

he is weary of, to entertain himself with another that is fresh. He

lives above the state of his body as well as his fortune, and runs out

of his health and money as if he had made a match and betted on the

race, or bid the devil take the hindmost. He is an amphibious animal,

that lives in two elements, wet and dry, and never comes out of the

first but, like a sea-calf, to sleep on the shore. His language is very

suitable to his conversation, and he talks as loosely as he lives.

Ribaldry and profanation are his doctrine and use, and what he professes

publicly he practises very carefully in his life and conversation; not

like those clergymen that, to save the souls of other men, condemn

themselves out of their own mouths. His whole life is nothing but a

perpetual lordship of misrule and a constant ramble day and night as

long as it lasts, which is not according to the course of nature, but

its own course; for he cuts off the latter end of it, like a pruned

vine, that it may bear the more wine although it be the shorter. As for

that which is left, he is as lavish of it as he is of everything else;

for he sleeps all day and sits up all night, that he may not see how it

passes, until, like one that travels in a litter and sleeps, he is at

his journey ’ s end before he is aware; for he is spirited away by his

vices and clapped under hatches, where he never knows whither he is

going until he is at the end of his voyage.

THE SEDITIOUS MAN
Is a civil mutineer, and as all mutinies for the most part are for pay,

if it were not for that he would never trouble himself with it. His

business is to kindle and blow up discontents against the Government,

that, when they are inflamed, he may have the fairer opportunity to rob

and plunder, while those that are concerned are employed in quenching

it. He endeavours to raise tumults and, if he can, civil war--a remedy

which no man that means well to his country can endure to think on

though the disease were never so desperate. He is a State mountebank,

whose business is to persuade the people that they are not well in

health, that he may get their money to make them worse. If he be a

preacher, he has the advantage of all others of his tribe, for he has a

way to vent sedition by wholesale; and as the foulest purposes have most

need of the fairest pretences, so when sedition is masked under the veil

of piety, religion, conscience, and holy duty, it propagates wonderfully

among the rabble, and he vents more in an hour from the pulpit than

others by news and politics can do in a week. Next him, writers and

libellers are most pernicious, for though the contagion they disperse

spreads slower and with less force than preaching, yet it lasts longer,

and in time extends to more, and with less danger to the author, who is

not easily discovered if he use any care to conceal himself. And

therefore, as we see stinging-flies vex and provoke cattle most

immediately before storms, so multitudes of those kinds of vermin do

always appear to stir up the people before the beginning of all

troublesome times, and nobody knows who they are or from whence they

came, but only that they were printed the present year that they may not

lose the advantage of being known to be new. Some do it only out of

humour and envy, or desire to see those that are above them pulled down

and others raised in their places, as if they held it a kind of freedom

to change their governors, though they continue in the same condition

themselves still, only they are a little better pleased with it in

observing the dangers greatness is exposed to. He delights in nothing so

much as civil commotions, and, like a porpoise, always plays before a

storm. Paper and tinder are both made of the same material, rags, but he

converts them both into the same again and makes his paper tinder.

THE RUDE MAN
Is an Ostro-Goth or Northern Hun, that, wheresoever he comes, invades

and all the world does overrun, without distinction of age, sex, or

quality. He has no regard to anything but his own humour, and that, he

expects, should pass everywhere without asking leave or being asked

wherefore, as if he had a safe-conduct for his rudeness. He rolls up

himself like a hedgehog in his prickles, and is as intractable to all

that come near him. He is an ill-designed piece, built after the rustic

order, and all his parts look too big for their height. He is so

ill-contrived that that which should be the top in all regular

structures--_i.e._, confidence--is his foundation. He has neither

doctrine nor discipline in him, like a fanatic Church, but is guided by

the very same spirit that dipped the herd of swine in the sea. He was

not bred, but reared; not brought up to hand, but suffered to run wild

and take after his kind, as other people of the pasture do. He takes

that freedom in all places, as if he were not at liberty, but had broken

loose and expected to be tied up again. He does not eat, but feed, and

when he drinks goes to water. The old Romans beat the barbarous part of

the world into civility, but if he had lived in those times he had been

invincible to all attempts of that nature, and harder to be subdued and

governed than a province. He eats his bread, according to the curse,

with the sweat of his brow, and takes as much pains at a meal as if he

earned it; puffs and blows like a horse that eats provender, and crams

his throat like a screwed gun with a bullet bigger than the bore. His

tongue runs perpetually over everything that comes in its way, without

regard of what, where, or to whom, and nothing but a greater rudeness

than his own can stand before it; and he uses it to as slovenly purposes

as a dog does that licks his sores and the dirt off his feet. He is the

best instance of the truth of Pythagoras ’ s doctrine, for his soul passed

through all sorts of brute beasts before it came to him, and still

retains something of the nature of every one.

A RABBLE
Is a congregation or assembly of the States-general sent from their

several and respective shops, stalls, and garrets. They are full of

controversy, and every one of a several judgment concerning the business

under present consideration, whether it be mountebank, show, hanging, or

ballad-singer. They meet, like Democritus ’ s atoms, _in vacuo_, and by a

fortuitous jostling together produce the greatest and most savage beast

in the whole world; for though the members of it may have something of

human nature while they are asunder, when they are put together they

have none at all, as a multitude of several sounds make one great noise

unlike all the rest, in which no one particular is distinguished. They

are a great dunghill where all sorts of dirty and nasty humours meet,

stink, and ferment, for all the parts are in a perpetual tumult. ’ Tis no

wonder they make strange Churches, for they take naturally to any

imposture, and have a great antipathy to truth and order as being

contrary to their original confusion. They are a herd of swine possessed

with a dry devil that run after hanging instead of drowning. Once a

month they go on pilgrimage to the gallows, to visit the sepulchres of

their ancestors, as the Turks do once a week. When they come there they

sing psalms, quarrel, and return full of satisfaction and narrative.

When they break loose they are like a public ruin, in which the highest

parts lie undermost, and make the noblest fabrics heaps of rubbish. They

are like the sea, that ’ s stirred into a tumult with every blast of wind

that blows upon it, till it become a watery Apennine, and heap mountain

billows upon one another, as once the giants did in the war with heaven.

A crowd is their proper element, in which they make their way with their

shoulders as pigs creep through hedges. Nothing in the world delights

them so much as the ruin of great persons or any calamity in which they

have no share, though they get nothing by it. They love nothing but

themselves in the likeness of one another, and, like sheep, run all that

way the first goes, especially if it be against their governors, whom

they have a natural disaffection to.

A KNIGHT OF THE POST
Is a retailer of oaths, a deposition-monger, an evidence-maker, that

lives by the labour of his conscience. He takes money to kiss the

Gospel, as Judas did Christ when he betrayed Him. As a good conscience

is a continual feast, so an ill one is with him his daily food. He plies

at a court of justice, as porters do at a market, and his business is to

bear witness, as they do burdens for any man that will pay them for it.

He will swear his ears through an inch-board, and wears them merely by

favour of the Court; for, being _amicus curiae_, they are willing to let

him keep the pillory out of possession, though he has forfeited his

right never so often; for when he is once outed of his ears he is past

his labour, and can do the commonwealth of practisers no more service.

He is false weight in the balance of justice, and, as a lawyer ’ s tongue

is the tongue of the balance that inclines either way according as the

weight of the bribe inclines it, so does his. He lays one hand on the

Book, and the other is in the plaintiff ’ s or defendant ’ s pocket. He

feeds upon his conscience, as a monkey eats his tail. He kisses the Book

to show he renounces and takes his leave of it. Many a parting kiss has

he given the Gospel. He pollutes it with his lips oftener than a

hypocrite. He is a sworn officer of every court and a great practiser,

is admitted within the Bar, and makes good what the rest of the counsel

say. The attorney and solicitor fee and instruct him in the case, and he

ventures as far for his client as any man to be laid by the ears. He

speaks more to the point than any other, yet gives false ground to his

brethren of the jury, that they seldom come near the jack. His oaths are

so brittle that not one in twenty of them will hold the taking, but fly

as soon as they are out. He is worse than an ill conscience, for that

bears true witness, but his is always false; and though his own

conscience be said to be a thousand witnesses, he will outswear and

outface them all. He believes it no sin to bear false witness for his

neighbour that pays him for it, because it is not forbidden, but only to

bear false witness against his neighbour.

AN UNDESERVING FAVOURITE
Is a piece of base metal with the King ’ s stamp upon it, a fog raised by

the sun to obscure his own brightness. He came to preferment by unworthy

offices, like one that rises with his bum forwards, which the rabble

hold to be fortunate. He got up to preferment on the wrong side, and

sits as untoward in it. He is raised rather above himself than others,

or as base metals are by the test of lead, while gold and silver

continue still unmoved. He is raised and swells, like a pimple, to be an

eyesore and deform the place he holds. He is borne like a cloud on the

air of the Prince ’ s favour, and keeps his light from the rest of his

people. He rises, like the light end of a balance, for want of weight,

or as dust and feathers do, for being light. He gets into the Prince ’ s

favour by wounding it. He is a true person of honour, for he does but

act it at the best; a lord made only to justify all the lords of

May-poles, morrice-dances, and misrule; a thing that does not live, but

lie in state before he ’ s dead, such as the heralds dight at funerals.

His Prince gives him honour out of his own stock, and estate out of his

revenue, and lessens himself in both:--

"He is like fern, that vile unuseful weed,

That springs equivocally, without seed."

He was not made for honour, nor it for him, which makes it sit so

unfavouredly upon him. The fore-part of himself and the hinder-part of

his coach publish his distinction; as French lords, that have _haute

justice_--that is, may hang and draw--distinguish their qualities by the

pillars of their gallows. He got his honour easily, by chance, without

the hard, laborious way of merit, which makes him so prodigally lavish

of it. He brings down the price of honour, as the value of anything

falls in mean hands. He looks upon all men in the state of knighthood

and plain gentility as most deplorable, and wonders how he could endure

himself when he was but of that rank. The greatest part of his honour

consists in his well-sounding title, which he therefore makes choice of,

though he has none to the place, but only a patent to go by the name of

it. This appears at the end of his coach in the shape of a coronet,

which his footmen set their bums against, to the great disparagement of

the wooden representative. The people take him for a general grievance,

a kind of public pressure or innovation, and would willingly give a

subsidy to be redressed of him. He is a strict observer of men ’ s

addresses to him, and takes a mathematical account whether they stoop

and bow in just proportion to the weight of his greatness and allow full

measure to their legs and cringes accordingly. He never uses courtship

but in his own defence, that others may use the same to him, and, like a

true Christian, does as he would be done unto. He is intimate with no

man but his pimp and his surgeon, with whom he keeps no state, but

communicates all the states of his body. He is raised, like the market

or a tax, to the grievance and curse of the people. He that knew the

inventory of him would wonder what slight ingredients go to the making

up of a great person; howsoever, he is turned up trump, and so commands

better cards than himself while the game lasts. He has much of honour

according to the original sense of it, which among the ancients, Gellius

says, signified injury. His prosperity was greater than his brain could

bear, and he is drunk with it; and if he should take a nap as long as

Epimenides or the Seven Sleepers he would never be sober again. He took

his degree and went forth lord by mandamus, without performing exercises

of merit. His honour ’ s but an immunity from worth, and his nobility a

dispensation for doing things ignoble. He expects that men ’ s hats should

fly off before him like a storm, and not presume to stand in the way of

his prospect, which is always over their heads. All the advantage he has

is but to go before or sit before, in which his nether parts take place

of his upper, that continue still, in comparison, but commoners. He is

like an open summer-house, that has no furniture but bare seats. All he

has to show for his honour is his patent, which will not be in season

until the third or fourth generation, if it lasts so long. His very

creation supposes him nothing before, and as tailors rose by the fall of

Adam, and came in, like thorns and thistles, with the curse, so did he

by the frailty of his master. His very face is his gentleman-usher, that

walks before him in state, and cries "Give way!" He is as stiff as if he

had been dipped in petrifying water and turned into his own statue. He

is always taking the name of his honour in vain, and will rather damn it

like a knighthood of the post than want occasion to pawn it for every

idle trifle, perhaps for more than it is worth, or any man will give to

redeem it; and in this he deals uprightly, though perhaps in

nothing else.

A MALICIOUS MAN
Has a strange natural inclination to all ill intents and purposes. He

bears nothing so resolutely as ill-will, which he takes naturally to, as

some do to gaming, and will rather hate for nothing than sit out. He

believes the devil is not so bad as he should be, and therefore

endeavours to make him worse by drawing him into his own party offensive

and defensive; and if he would but be ruled by him, does not doubt but

to make him understand his business much better than he does. He lays

nothing to heart but malice, which is so far from doing him hurt that it

is the only cordial that preserves him. Let him use a man never so

civilly to his face, he is sure to hate him behind his back. He has no

memory for any good that is done him; but evil, whether it be done him

or not, never leaves him, as things of the same kind always keep

together. Love and hatred, though contrary passions, meet in him as a

third and unite, for he loves nothing but to hate, and hates nothing but

to love. All the truths in the world are not able to produce so much

hatred as he is able to supply. He is a common enemy to the world, for

being born to the hatred of it, Nature, that provides for everything she

brings forth, has furnished him with a competence suitable to his

occasions, for all men together cannot hate him so much as he does them

one by one. He loses no occasion of offence, but very thriftily lays it

up and endeavours to improve it to the best advantage. He makes issues

in his skin to vent his ill-humours, and is sensible of no pleasure so

much as the itching of his sores. He hates death for nothing so much as

because he fears it will take him away before he has paid all the

ill-will he owes, and deprive him of all those precious feuds he has

been scraping together all his lifetime. He is troubled to think what a

disparagement it will be to him to die before those that will be glad to

hear he is gone, and desires very charitably they might come to an

agreement like good friends and go hand-in-hand out of the world

together. He loves his neighbour as well as he does himself, and is

willing to endure any misery so they may but take part with him, and

undergo any mischief rather than they should want it. He is ready to

spend his blood and lay down his life for theirs that would not do half

so much for him, and rather than fail would give the devil suck, and his

soul into the bargain, if he would but make him his plenipotentiary to

determine all differences between himself and others. He contracts

enmities, as others do friendships, out of likenesses, sympathies, and

instincts; and when he lights upon one of his own temper, as contraries

produce the same effects, they perform all the offices of friendship,

have the same thoughts, affections, and desires of one another ’ s

destruction, and please themselves as heartily, and perhaps as securely,

in hating one another as others do in loving. He seeks out enemies to

avoid falling out with himself, for his temper is like that of a

flourishing kingdom; if it have not a foreign enemy it will fall into a

civil war and turn its arms upon itself, and so does but hate in his own

defence. His malice is all sorts of gain to him, for as men take

pleasure in pursuing, entrapping, and destroying all sorts of beasts and

fowl, and call it sport, so would he do men, and if he had equal power

would never be at a loss, nor give over his game without his prey; and

in this he does nothing but justice, for as men take delight to destroy

beasts, he, being a beast, does but do as he is done by in endeavouring

to destroy men. The philosopher said, "Man to man is a god and a wolf;"

but he, being incapable of the first, does his endeavour to make as much

of the last as he can, and shows himself as excellent in his kind as it

is in his power to do.

A KNAVE
Is like a tooth-drawer, that maintains his own teeth in constant eating

by pulling out those of other men. He is an ill moral philosopher, of

villainous principles, and as bad practice. His tenets are to hold what

he can get, right or wrong. His tongue and his heart are always at

variance, and fall out like rogues in the street, to pick somebody ’ s

pocket. They never agree but, like Herod and Pilate, to do mischief. His

conscience never stands in his light when the devil holds a candle to

him, for he has stretched it so thin that it is transparent. He is an

engineer of treachery, fraud, and perfidiousness, and knows how to

manage matters of great weight with very little force by the advantage

of his trepanning screws. He is very skilful in all the mechanics of

cheat, the mathematical magic of imposture, and will outdo the

expectation of the most credulous to their own admiration and undoing.

He is an excellent founder, and will melt down a leaden fool and cast

him into what form he pleases. He is like a pike in a pond, that lives

by rapine, and will sometimes venture on one of his own kind, and devour

a knave as big as himself. He will swallow a fool a great deal bigger

than himself, and, if he can but get his head within his jaws, will

carry the rest of him hanging out at his mouth, until by degrees he has

digested him all. He has a hundred tricks to slip his neck out of the

pillory without leaving his ears behind. As for the gallows, he never

ventures to show his tricks upon the high-rope for fear of breaking his

neck. He seldom commits any villainy but in a legal way, and makes the

law bear him out in that for which it hangs others. He always robs under

the wizard of law, and picks pockets with tricks in equity. By his means

the law makes more knaves than it hangs, and, like the Inns-of-Court,

protects offenders against itself. He gets within the law and disarms

it. His hardest labour is to wriggle himself into trust, which if he can

but compass his business is done, for fraud and treachery follow as

easily as a thread does a needle. He grows rich by the ruin of his

neighbours, like grass in the streets in a great sickness. He shelters

himself under the covert of the law, like a thief in a hemp-plot, and

makes that secure him which was intended for his destruction.

APPENDIX.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
_Wrote "The Character of the Happy Warrior" in 1806. It was suggested by

the death of Nelson at Trafalgar on the 21st of October 1805. Wordsworth

did not connect the poem with the name of Nelson because there was a

stain upon his public life, in his relations with Lady Hamilton, that

clouded the ideal. The poet said that in writing he thought much of his

true-hearted sailor-brother who, as Captain of an Indiaman, had been

drowned in the wreck of his ship off the Bill of Portland on the 5th of

February 1805, his body not being found until the 20th of March_.

CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR.
Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he

That every man in arms should wish to he?

--It is the generous spirit, who, when brought

Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought

Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought:

Whose high endeavours are an inward light

That makes the path before him always bright:

Who, with a natural instinct to discern

What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;

Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,

But makes his moral being his prime care;

Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,

And Fear, and Bloodshed--miserable train!--

Turns his necessity to glorious gain;

In face of these doth exercise a power

Which is our human nature ’ s highest dower;

Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves

Of their bad influence, and their good receives:

By objects, which might force the soul to abate

Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;

Is placable--because occasions rise

So often that demand such sacrifice;

More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,

As tempted more; more able to endure

As more exposed to suffering and distress;

Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.

-- ’ Tis he whose law is reason; who depends

Upon that law as on the best of friends;

Whence, in a state where men are tempted still

To evil for a guard against worse ill,

And what in quality or act is best

Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,

He labours good on good to fix, and owes

To virtue every triumph that he knows:

--Who, if he rise to station of command,

Rises by open means; and there will stand

On honourable terms, or else retire,

And in himself possess his own desire;

Who comprehends his trust, and to the same

Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;

And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait

For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state;

Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,

Like showers of manna, if they come at all:

Whose flowers shed round him in the common strife,

Or mild concerns of ordinary life,

A constant influence, a peculiar grace;

But who, if he be called upon to face

Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined

Great issues, good or bad for human kind,

Is happy as a Lover; and attired

With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired;

And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law

In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;

Or if an unexpected call succeed,

Come when it will, is equal to the need:

--He who, though thus endued as with a sense

And faculty for storm and turbulence,

Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans

To home-felt pleasures and to gentle scenes;

Sweet images! which, wheresoe ’ er he be,

Are at his heart; and such fidelity

It is his darling passion to approve;

More brave for this, that he hath much to love:--

’ Tis finally, the man who, lifted high,

Conspicuous object in a Nation ’ s eye,

Or left unthought of in obscurity,--

Who, with a toward or untoward lot,

Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not--

Plays, in the many games of life, that one

Where what he most doth value must be won:

Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,

Nor thought of tender happiness betray;

Who, not content that former worth stand fast,

Looks forward, persevering to the last,

From well to better, daily self-surpassed:

Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth

For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,

Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame,

And leave a dead unprofitable name--

Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;

And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws

His breath in confidence of Heaven ’ s applause:

This is the happy Warrior; this is He

That every Man in arms should wish to be.

[ Footnote 1:

Henry Wootton. ]

[ Footnote 2:

"Microcosmography; or, a Piece of the World discovered; in Essays and

Characters. By John Earle, D.D. of Christchurch and Merton College,

Oxford and Bishop of Salisbury. A new edition, to which are add Notes

and Appendix by Philip Bliss, Fellow of St. John ’ s College, Oxford." ]

[ Footnote 3:

So Washbourne, in his _Divine Poems_, 12mo, 1654:--

"--ere ’ tis accustom ’ d unto sin,

_The mind white paper_ is, and will admit

of any lesson you will write in it."--P. 26.

Shakspeare, of a child, says--

"--the hand of time

Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume."--_K. John, II_ I. ]

[ Footnote 4:

This, and every other passage throughout the volume, [ included between

brackets, ] does not appear in the first edition of 1628. ]

[ Footnote 5:

Adam did not, to use the words of the old Geneva Bible, "make himself

breeches," till he knew sin: the meaning of the passage in the text is

merely that, as a child advances in age, he commonly proceeds in the

knowledge and commission of vice and immorality. ]

[ Footnote 6:

St. Mary ’ s church was originally built by king Alfred, and annexed to

the University of Oxford, for the use of the scholars, when St. Giles ’ s

and St. Peter ’ s (which were till then appropriated to them,) had been

ruined by the violence of the Danes. It was totally rebuilt during the

reign of Henry VII., who gave forty oaks towards the materials; and is,

in this day, the place of worship in which the public sermons are

preached before the members of the university. ]

[ Footnote 7:

_Brachigraphy_, or short-hand-writing, appears to have been much studied

in our author ’ s time, and was probably esteemed a fashionable

accomplishment. It was first introduced into this country by Peter

Bales, who, in 1590, published The _Writing Schoolmaster_, a treatise

consisting of three parts, the first "of Brachygraphie, that is, to

write as fast as a man speaketh treatably, writing but one letter for a

word;" the second, of Orthography; and the third of Calligraphy.

Imprinted at London, by T. Orwin, &c., 1590, 4to. A second edition,

"with sundry new additions," appeared in 1597, 12mo, Imprinted at

London, by George Shawe, &c. Holinshed gives the following description

of one of Bales ’ performances:--"The tenth of August (1575.) a rare

peece of worke, and almost incredible, was brought to passe by an

Englishman borne in the citie of London, named Peter Bales, who by his

industrie and practise of his pen, contriued and writ within the

compasse of a penie, in Latine, the Lord ’ s praier, the creed, the ten

commandements, a praier to God, a praier for the queene, his posie, his

name, the daie of the moneth, the yeare of our Lord, and the reigne of

the queene. And on the seuenteenthe of August next following, at Hampton

court, he presented the same to the queen ’ s maiestie, in the head of a

ring of gold, couered with a christall; and presented therewith an

excellent spectacle by him deuised, for the easier reading thereof:

wherewith hir maiestie read all that was written therein with great

admiration, and commended the same to the lords of the councell, and the

ambassadors, and did weare the same manie times vpon hir

finger."--_Holinshed ’ s Chronicle_, page 1262, b. edit, folio,

Lond. 1587. ]

[ Footnote 8:

It is customary in all sermons delivered before the University, to use

an introductory prayer for the founder of, and principal benefactors to,

the preacher ’ s individual college, as well as for the officers and

members of the university in general. This, however, would appear very

ridiculous when "_he comes down to his friends_" or, in other words,

preaches before a country congregation. ]

[ Footnote 9:

_of_, first edit. 1628. ]

[ Footnote 10:

I cannot forbear to close this admirable character with the beautiful

description of a _"poure Persons," riche of holy thought and werk_,

given by the father of English poetry:--

Benigne he was, and wonder diligent,

And in adversite ful patient:

And swiche he was ypreved often sithes.

Ful loth were him to cursen for his tithes,

But rather wolde he yeven out of doute,

Unto his poure parishens aboute,

Of his offring, and eke of his substance.

He coude in litel thing have suffisance.

Wide was his parish, and houses fer asonder,

But he ne left nought for no rain ne thonder,

In sikenesse and in mischief to visite

The ferrest in his parish, moche and lite,

Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf.



And though he holy were, and vertuous,

He was to sinful men not dispitous,

Ne of his speche dangerous ne digne,

But in his teching discrete and benigne.

To drawen folk to heven, with fairenesse,

By good ensample, was his besinesse.



He waited after no pompe ne reverence,

Ne maked him no spiced conscience,

But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,

He taught, but first he folwed it himselve.

_Chaucer, Prol. to Cant. Tales_, v. 485.

We may surely conclude with a line from the same poem,

"A better preest I trowe that nowher non is." ]

[ Footnote 11:

_The secretes of the reverende maister Alexis of Piemovnt, containyng

excellente remedies against diuers diseases, &c._, appear to have been a

very favourite study either with the physicians, or their patients,

about this period.

They were originally written in Italian, and were translated into

English by William Warde, of which editions were printed at London, in

1558, 1562, 1595, and 1615. In 1603, a _fourth_ edition of a Latin

version appeared at Basil; and from Ward ’ s dedication to "the lorde

Russell, erle of Bedford," it seems that the French and Dutch were not

without so great a treasure in their own languages. A specimen of the

importance of this publication may be given in the title of the first

secret. "The maner and secrete to conserue a man ’ s youth, and to holde

back olde age, to maintaine a man always in helth and strength, as in

the fayrest floure of his yeres." ]

[ Footnote 12:

_The Regiment of Helthe_, by Thomas Paynell, is another

volume of the same description, and was printed by Thomas Berthelette, in

1541. 410. ]

[ Footnote 13:

_Vespasian_, tenth emperor of Rome, imposed a tax upon urine, and when

his son Titus remonstrated with him on the meanness of the act,

"Pecuniam," says Suetonius, "ex prima pensione admovit ad nares,

suscitans _num odore offenderetur?_ et illo negante, atqui, inquit, e

lotio est." ]

[ Footnote 14:

"Vpon the market-day he is much haunted with vrinals, where, if he finde

any thing, (though he knowe nothing,) yet hee will say some-what, which

if it hit to some purpose, with a fewe fustian words, hee will seeme a

piece of strange stuffe." Character of an unworthy physician. "_The Good

and the Badde_" by Nicholas Breton. 4to. 1618. ]

[ Footnote 15:

That the murdered body bleeds at the approach of the murderer, was, in

our author ’ s time, a commonly received opinion. Holinshed affirms that

the corpse of Henry the Sixth bled as it was carrying for interment; and

Sir Kenelm Digby so firmly believed in the truth of the report, that he

has endeavoured to explain the reason. It is remarked by Mr. Steevens,

in a note to _Shakspeare_, that the opinion seems to be derived from the

ancient Swedes, or Northern nations, from whom we descend; as they

practised this method of trial in all dubious cases. ]

[ Footnote 16:

"Faith, doctor, it is well, thy study is to please

The female sex, and how their corp ’ ral griefes to ease."

Goddard ’ s "_Mastif Whelp._" _Satires_. 4to. Without date. Sat.

17. ]

[ Footnote 17:

In the first edition it stands thus:--"_and his hat is as antient as the

tower of Babel._" ]

[ Footnote 18:

The Low-countries appear to have afforded ample room for ridicule at all

times. In "_A brief Character of the Low-countries under the States,

being Three Weeks Observation of the Vices and Virtues of the

Inhabitants_," written by Owen Feltham, and printed Lond. 1659, 12mo, we

find them epitomized as a general sea-land--the great bog of Europe--an

universal quagmire--in short, a green cheese in pickle. The sailors (in

which denomination the author appears to include all the natives) he

describes as being able to "drink, rail, swear, niggle, steal, and be

_lowsie_ alike." P. 40. ]

[ Footnote 19:

_Gavelkind_, or the practice of dividing lands equally among all the

male children of the deceased, was (according to Spelman) adopted by the

Saxons, from Germany, and is noticed by Tacitus in his description of

that nation. _Gloss. Archaiol._, folio, Lond. 1664. Harrison, in _The

Description of England_, prefixed to Holinshed ’ s _Chronicle_ (vol. i.

page 180), says, "Gauell kind is all the male children equallie to

inherit, and is continued to this daie in _Kent_, where it is onelie to

my knowledge reteined, and no where else in England." And Lambarde, in

his _Customes of Kent_ (_Perambulation_, 410, 1596, page 538), thus

notices it:--"The custom of Grauelkynde is generall, and spreadeth

itselfe throughout the whole shyre, into all landes subiect by auncient

tenure vnto the same, such places onely excepted, where it is altered by

acte of parleament." ]

[ Footnote 20:

_Minster-walk_, 1st edit. ]

[ Footnote 21:

_Ambrose Spinola_ was one of the most celebrated and excellent

commanders that Spain ever possessed: he was born, in 1569, of a noble

family, and distinguished himself through life in being opposed to

Prince Maurice of Nassau, the greatest general of his age, by whom he

was ever regarded with admiration and respect. He died in 1630, owing to

a disadvantage sustained by his troops at the siege of Cassel, which was

to be entirely attributed to the imprudent orders he received from

Spain, and which that government compelled him to obey. This disaster

broke his heart; and he died with the exclamation of "_they have robbed

me of my honour_;" an idea he was unable to survive. It is probable

that, at the time this character was composed, many of the disaffected

in England were in expectation of an attack to be made on this country

by the Spaniards, under the command of Spinola. ]

[ Footnote 22:

_and Lipsius his hopping stile before either Tully or Quintilian._ First

edit. ]

[ Footnote 23:

_Primivist_ and primero were, in all probability, the same game,

although Minshew, in his Dictionary, calls them "_two_ games at cardes."

The latter he explains, "primum et primum visum, that is, first and

first seene, because hee that can shew such an order of cardes, first

winnes the game." The coincidence between Mr. Strutt ’ s description of

the former and the passage in the text, shows that there could be little

or no difference between the value of the cards in these games, or in

the manner of playing them. "Each player had four cards dealt to him,

one by one, the _seven_ was the highest card, in point of number, that

he could avail himself of, _which counted for twenty-one_, the _six

counted for sixteen_, the five for fifteen, and the ace for the same,"

&c. (_Sports and Pastimes_, 247.) The honourable Daines Harrington

conceived that Primero was introduced by Philip the Second, or some of

his suite, whilst in England. Shakspeare proves that it was played in

the royal circle.

-"I left him (Henry VIII.) at _Primero_

With the duke of Suffolk."--_Henry VIII._

So Decker: "Talke of none but lords and such ladies with whom you have

plaid at _Primero_."--_Gul ’ s Horne-booke_, 1609. 37.

Among the Marquis of Worcester ’ s celebrated "_Century of Inventions,_"

12mo, 1663, is one "so contrived without suspicion, that playing at

Primero at cards, one may, without clogging his memory, keep reckoning

of all sixes, sevens, and aces, which he hath discarded."--No. 87. ]

[ Footnote 24:

"Enquire out those tauernes which are best customd, whose maisters are

oftenest drunk, for that confirmes their taste, and that they choose

wholesome wines."--Decker ’ s _Gul ’ s Horne-booke_, 1609. ]

[ Footnote 25:

_his_, 1st edit. ]

[ Footnote 26:

The editor of the edition in 1732, has altered _canary_ to "_sherry_,"

for what reason I am at a loss to discover, and have consequently

restored the reading of the first edition. Venner gives the following

description of this favourite liquor. "Canarie-wine, which beareth the

name of the islands from whence it is brought, is of some termed a

sacke, with this adjunct, sweete; but yet very improperly, for it

differeth not only from sacke in sweetness and pleasantness of taste,

but also in colour and consistence, for it is not so white in colour as

sack, nor so thin in substance; wherefore it is more nutritive than

sack, and less penetrative."--_Via recta ad Vitam longam_, 4to, 1622. In

Howell ’ s time, Canary wine was much adulterated. "I think," says he, in

one of his Letters, "there is more Canary brought into England than to

all the world besides; I think also, there is a hundred times more drunk

under the name of Canary wine, than there is brought in; for Sherries

and Malagas, well mingled, pass for Canaries in most taverns. When Sacks

and Canaries," he continues, "were brought in first amongst us, they

were used to be drunk in aqua vitae measures, and ’ twas held fit only

for those to drink who were used to carry their _legs in their hands,

their eyes upon their noses_, and an _almanack in their bones;_ but now

they go down every one ’ s throat, both young and old, like

milk."--Howell, _Letter to the lord Cliff_, dated Oct. 7, 1634. ]

[ Footnote 27:

We learn from Harrison ’ s _Description of England_, prefixed to

Holinshed, that _eleven o ’ clock_ was the usual time for dinner during

the reign of Elizabeth. "With vs the nobilitie, gentrie, and students,

doo ordinarilie go to dinner at _eleuen before noone_, and to supper at

fiue, or between fiue and six at afternoone" (vol. i. page 171, edit.

1587). The alteration in manners at this time is rather singularly

evinced, from a passage immediately following the above quotation, where

we find that _merchants_ and _husbandmen_ dined and supped at a _later

hour than the nobility_. ]

[ Footnote 28:

Alluding to the public dinners given by the sheriff at particular

seasons of the year. So in _The Widow_, a comedy, 4to, 1652.

"And as at a _sheriff ’ s table_, O blest custome!

A poor indebted gentleman may dine,

Feed well, and without fear, and depart so." ]

[ Footnote 29:

The chapel of the Virgin Mary, in the cathedral church of Gloucester,

was founded by Richard Stanley, abbot, in 1457, and finished by William

Farley, a monk of the monastery, in 1472. Sir Robert Atkyns gives the

following description of the vault here alluded to. "The _whispering

place_ is very remarkable; it is a long alley, from one side of the

choir to the other, built circular, that it might not darken the great

east window of the choir. When a person whispers at one end of the

alley, his voice is heard distinctly at the other end, though the

passage be open in the middle, having large spaces for doors and windows

on the east side. It may be imputed to the close cement of the wall,

which makes it as one entire stone, and so conveys the voice, as a long

piece of timber does convey the least stroak to the other end. Others

assign it to the repercussion of the voice from accidental

angles."--_Atkyns ’ Ancient and Present State of Glostershire_, Lond.

1712, folio, page 128. See also _Fuller ’ s Worthies, in Gloucestershire_,

page 351. ]

[ Footnote 30:

_Then in apiece of gold, &c._, 1st edit._ ]

[ Footnote 31:

_Whilst he has not yet got them, enjoys them_, 1st edit. ]

[ Footnote 32:

_Gallo-Belgicus_ was erroneously supposed, by the ingenious Mr. Reed, to

be the "first newspaper, published in England;" we are, however, assured

by the author of the _Life of Ruddiman_, that it has no title to so

honourable a distinction. _Gallo-Belgicus_ appears to have been rather

an _Annual Register_, or _History of its own Times_, than a newspaper.

It was written in Latin, and entituled, "MERCURSS GALLO-BELGICI: _sive,

rerum in Gallia, et Belgio potissimum: Hispania quoque, Italia, Anglia,

Germania, Polonia, Vicinisque locis ab anno 1588, ad Martium anni 1594,

gestarum_, NUNCIJ." The first volume was printed in 8vo, at Cologne,

1598; from which year, to about 1605, it was published annually; and

from thence to the time of its conclusion, which is uncertain, it

appeared in _half-yearly_ volumes. Chalmers ’ _Life of Ruddiman_, 1794.

The great request in which newspapers were held at the publication of

the present work may be gathered from Burton, who, in his _Anatomy of

Melancholy_, complains that "if any read now-a-days, it is a play-book,

or a pamphlet of newes." ]

[ Footnote 33:

Bartholomew Keckerman was born at Dantzick, in Prussia, 1571, and

educated under Fabricius. Being eminently distinguished for his

abilities and application, he was, in 1597, requested, by the senate of

Dantzick, to take upon him the management of their academy; an honour he

then declined, but accepted, on a second application, in 1601. Here he

proposed to instruct his pupils in the complete science of philosophy in

the short space of three years, and, for that purpose, drew up a great

number of books upon logic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics,

metaphysics, geography, astronomy, &c. &c., till, as it is said,

literally worn out with scholastic drudgery, he died at the early age

of 38. ]

[ Footnote 34:

"Of bread made of wheat we have sundrie sorts dailie brought to the

table, whereof the first and most excellent is the _mainchet_, which we

commonlie call white bread."--Harrison, _Description of England_

prefixed to Holinshed, chap. 6. ]

[ Footnote 35:

_His honour was somewhat preposterous, for he bare_, &c., first edit. ]

[ Footnote 36:

_Clown_, first edit. ]

[ Footnote 37:

The art of hawking has been so frequently and so fully explained, that

it would be superfluous, if not arrogant, to trace its progress, or

delineate its history, in this place. In the earliest periods it appears

to have been exclusively practised by the nobility; and, indeed, the

great expense at which the amusement was supported, seems to have been a

sufficient reason for deterring persons of more moderate income, and of

inferior rank, from indulging in the pursuit. In the _Sports and

Pastimes_ of Mr. Strutt, a variety of instances are given of the

importance attached to the office of falconer, and of the immense value

of, and high estimation the birds themselves were held in from the

commencement of the Norman government, down to the reign of James I., in

which Sir Thomas Monson gave L1000 for a cast of hawks, which consisted

of only _two_.

The great increase of wealth, and the consequent equalization of

property in this country, about the reign of Elizabeth, induced many of

inferior birth to practise the amusements of their superiors, which they

did without regard to expense, or indeed propriety. Sir Thomas Elyot, in

his _Governour_ (1580), complains that the falcons of his day consumed

so much poultry, that, in a few years, he feared there would be a great

scarcity of it. "I speake not this," says he, "in disprayse of the

faukons, but of them which keepeth them lyke cockneyes." A reproof,

there can be no doubt, applicable to the character in the text. ]

[ Footnote 38:

A term in hawking, signifying the short straps of leather which are

fastened to the hawk ’ s legs, by which she is held on the fist, or joined

to the leash. They were sometimes made of silk, as appears from _The

Boke of hawkynge, huntynge, and fysshynge, with all the propertyes and

medecynes that are necessarye to be kepte_: "Hawkes haue aboute theyr

legges _gesses_ made of lether most comonly, some of sylke, which shuld

be no lenger but that the knottes of them shulde appere in the myddes of

the lefte hande," &c. _Juliana Barnes_, edit. 410, "_Imprynted at London

in Pouls chyrchyarde by me Hery Tab_." Sig. C. ii. ]

[ Footnote 39:

_This authority of his is that club which keeps them under as his dogs

hereafter_, first edit. ]

[ Footnote 40:

_Now become a man ’ s total_, first edit. ]

[ Footnote 41:

Of the game called one and thirty, I am unable to find any mention in

Mr. Strutt ’ s _Sports and Pastimes_, nor is it alluded to in any of the

old plays or tracts I have yet met with. A very satisfactory account of

_tables_ may be read in the interesting and valuable publication

just noticed. ]

[ Footnote 42:

The room where the performers dress, previous to coming on the stage. ]

[ Footnote 43:

This passage affords a proof of what has been doubted, namely, that the

theatres were not permitted to be open during Lent, in the reign of

James I. The restriction was waived in the next reign, as we find from

the puritanical Prynne:--"There are none so much addicted to

stage-playes, but when they goe unto places where they cannot have them,

or when, as they are suppressed by publike authority, (as in times of

pestilence, and in _Lent, till now of late_) can well subsist without

them," &c. _Histrio Mastix_, 4to, Lond. 1633, page 384, ]

[ Footnote 44:

It may not be known to those who are not accustomed to meet with old

books in their original bindings, or of seeing public libraries of

antiquity, that the volumes were formerly placed on the shelves with the

_leaves_, not the _back_, in front; and that the two sides of the

binding were joined together with _neat silk_ or other strings, and, in

some instances, where the books were of greater value and curiosity than

common, even fastened with gold or silver chains. ]

[ Footnote 45:

A hanger-on to noblemen, who are distinguished at the university by gold

tassels to their caps; or in the language of the present day, a

_tuft-hunter_. ]

[ Footnote 46:

_If he could order his intentions_, first edit. ]

[ Footnote 47:

Minshew calls a tobacconist _fumi-vendulus_, a _smoak-seller_. ]

[ Footnote 48:

_Cento_, a composition formed by joining scraps from other

authors.--_Johnson_. Camden, in his _Remains_, uses it in the same

sense. "It is quilted, as it were, out of shreds of divers poets, such

as scholars call a _cento_." ]

[ Footnote 49:

_Firing_, first edit. ]

[ Footnote 50:

In the hope of discovering some account of the _strange monster_ alluded

to, I have looked through one of the largest and most curious

collections of tracts, relating to the marvellous, perhaps in existence.

That bequeathed to the Bodleian, by Robert Burton, the author of the

_Anatomy of Melancholy_. Hitherto my researches have been unattended

with success, as I have found only two tracts of this description

relating to Germany, both of which are in prose, and neither giving any

account of a monster.

1. _A most true Relation of a very dreadfull Earthquake, with the

lamentable Effectes thereof, which began upon the 8 of December 1612,

and yet continueth most fearefull in Munster in Germanie. Reade and

Tremble. Translated out of Dutch, by Charles Demetrius, Publike Notarie

in London, and printed at Rotterdame, in Holland, at the Signe of the

White Gray-hound_. (Date cut off. Twenty-six pages, 4to, with

a woodcut.)

2: _Miraculous Newes from the Cittie of Holt, in the Lordship of

Munster, in Germany, the twentieth of September last past, 1616, where

there were plainly beheld three dead bodyes rise out of their Graves

admonishing the people of Judgements to come. Faithfully translated (&c.

&c.) London, Printed for John Barnes, dwelling in Hosie Lane neere

Smithfield, 1616_. (4to, twenty pages, woodcut.) ]

[ Footnote 51:

It was customary to work or paint proverbs, moral sentences, or scraps

of verse, on old tapestry hangings, which were called _painted cloths_.

Several allusions to this practice may be found in the works of our

early English dramatists. See Reed ’ s _Shakspeare_, viii. 103. ]

[ Footnote 52:

_Beller_, first edit. ]

[ Footnote 53:

_Hale_, first edit. ]

[ Footnote 54:

Calais sands were chosen by English duellists to decide their quarrels

on, as being out of the jurisdiction of the law. This custom is noticed

in an Epigram written about the period in which this book

first appeared.

"When boasting Bembus challeng ’ d is to fight,

He seemes at first a very Diuell in sight:

Till more aduizde, will not defile [ his ] hands,

Vnlesse you meete him vpon _Callice sands."

The Mastive or Young Whelpe of the olde Dog. Epigrams and Satyrs._ 4to,

Lond. (Printed, as Warton supposes, about 1600.)

A passage in _The Beau ’ s Duel: or a Soldier for the Ladies_, a comedy,

by Mrs. Centlivre, 4to, 1707, proves that it existed so late as at that

day. "Your only way is to send him word you ’ ll meet him on _Calais

sands;_ duelling is unsafe in England for men of estates," &c. See also

other instances in Dodsley ’ s _Old Plays,_ edit. 1780, vii. 218;

xii. 412. ]

[ Footnote 55:

Strict devotees were, I believe, noted for the smallness and precision

of their ruffs, which were termed _in print_ from the exactness of the

folds. So in Mynshul ’ s _Essays,_ 4to, 1618. "I vndertooke a warre when I

aduentured to speake in _print,_ (not in _print as Puritan ’ s ruffes_ are

set.)" The term of _Geneva print_ probably arose from the minuteness of

the type used at Geneva. In the _Merry Devil of Edmonton_, a comedy,

4to, 1608, is an expression which goes some way to prove the

correctness of this supposition:--"I see by thy eyes thou hast bin

reading _little Geneva print;"_--and, that _small ruffs_ were worn by

the puritanical set, an instance appears in Mayne ’ s _City Match,_ a

comedy, 4to, 1658.

"O miracle!

Out of your _little ruffe,_ Dorcas, and in the fashion!

Dost thou hope to be saved?"

From these three extracts it is, I think, clear that a _ruff of Geneva

print_ means a _small, closely-folded ruff,_ which was the distinction

of a nonconformist. ]

[ Footnote 56:

A virginal, says Mr. Malone, was strung like a spinnet, and shaped like

a pianoforte: the mode of playing on this instrument was therefore

similar to that of the organ. ]

[ Footnote 57:

_Weapons are spells no less potent than different, as being the sage

sentences of some of her own sectaries._ First edit. ]

[ Footnote 58:

Robert Bellarmine, an Italian jesuit, was born at Monte Pulciano, a town

in Tuscany, in the year 1542, and in 1560 entered himself among the

jesuits. In 1599 he was honoured with a cardinal ’ s hat, and in 1602 was

presented with the arch-bishopric of Capua: this, however, he resigned

in 1605, when Pope Paul V. desired to have him near himself. He was

employed in the affairs of the court of Rome till 1621, when, leaving

the Vatican, he retired to a house belonging to his order, and died

September 17, in the same year.

Bellarmine was one of the best controversial writers of his time; few

authors have done greater honour to their profession or opinions, and

certain it is that none have ever more ably defended the cause of the

Romish Church, or contended in favour of the pope with greater

advantage. As a proof of Bellarmine ’ s abilities, there was scarcely a

divine of any eminence among the Protestants who did not attack him:

Bayle aptly says, "they made his name resound every where, ut littus

Styla, Styla, omne sonaret." ]

[ Footnote 59:

Faustus Socinus is so well known as the founder of the sect which goes

under his name, that a few words will be sufficient. He was born in

1539, at Sienna, and imbibed his opinions from the instruction of his

uncle, who always had a high opinion of, and confidence in, the

abilities of his nephew, to whom he bequeathed all his papers. After

living several years in the world, principally at the court of Francis

de Medicis, Socinus, in 1577, went into Germany, and began to propagate

the principles of his uncle, to which, it is said, he made great

additions and alterations of his own. In the support of his opinions, he

suffered considerable hardships, and received the greatest insults and

persecutions; to avoid which, he retired to a place near Cracow, in

Poland, where he died in 1504, at the age of sixty-five. ]

[ Footnote 60:

Conrade Vorstius, a learned divine, who was peculiarly detested by the

Calvinists, and who had even the honour to be attacked by King James the

First, of England, was born in 1569. Being compelled, through the

interposition of James ’ s ambassador, to quit Leyden, where he had

attained the divinity-chair, and several other preferments, he retired

to Toningen, where he died in 1622, with the strongest tokens of piety

and resignation. ]

[ Footnote 61:

_His style is very constant, for it keeps still the former aforesaid;

and yet it seems he is much troubled in it, for he is always humbly

complaining--your poor orator_. First edit. ]

[ Footnote 62:

"To _moote_, a term vsed in the innes of the court; it is the handling

of a case, as in the Vniuersitie their disputations," &c. So _Minshew_,

who supposes it to be derived from the French, _mot, verbum, quasi verba

facere, aut sermonem de aliqua re habere_. _Mootmen_ are those who,

having studied seven or eight years, are qualified to practise, and

appear to answer to our term of barristers. ]

[ Footnote 63:

The prologue to our ancient dramas was ushered in by trumpets. "Present

not yourselfe on the stage (especially at a new play) untill the quaking

prologue hath (by rubbing) got cullor into his cheekes, and is ready to

giue the trumpets their cue that hee ’ s vpon point to enter."--Decker ’ s

_Gul ’ s Hornbook_, 1609, p. 30. "Doe you not know that I am the Prologue?

Do you not see this long blacke veluet cloke vpon my backe? _Haue you

not sounded thrice?_"--Heywood ’ s _Foure Prentises of London_,

4to, 1615. ]

[ Footnote 64:

St. Paul ’ s Cathedral was, during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, a

sort of exchange and public parade, where business was transacted

between merchants, and where the fashionables of the day exhibited

themselves. The reader will find several allusions to this custom in the

_variorum_ edition of Shakspeare, _K. Henry IV._, part 2. Osborne, in

his _Traditional Memoires on the Reigns of Elisabeth and James_, 12mo,

1658, says, "It was the fashion of those times (James I.) and did so

continue till these, (the interregnum,) for the principal gentry, lords,

courtiers, and men of all professions, not merely mechanicks, to meet in

_St. Paul ’ s _church by eleven, and walk in the middle isle till twelve,

and after dinner from three to six; during which time some discoursed of

business, others of news." Weever complains of the practice, and says,

"it could be wished that walking in the middle isle of _Paul ’ s_ might be

forborne in the time of diuine service." _Ancient Funeral Monuments_,

1631, page 373. ]

[ Footnote 65:

In the _Dramatis Personal_ to Ben Jonson ’ s _Every Man in his Humour_,

Bobadil is styled a _Paul ’ s man_; and Falstaff tells us that he bought

Bardolph in _Pauls_. _King Henry IV_., part 2. ]

[ Footnote 66:

"You ’ d not doe

Like your penurious father, who was wont

_To walk his dinner out in Paules._"

--Mayne ’ s _City Match_, 1658. ]

[ Footnote 67:

The time of supper was about five o ’ clock. ]

[ Footnote 68:

Paul ’ s cross stood in the churchyard of that cathedral, on the north

side, towards the east end. It was used for the preaching of sermons to

the populace; and Holinshed mentions two instances of public penance

being performed here; in 1534 by some of the adherents of Elizabeth

Barton, well known as _the holy maid of Kent_, and in 1536 by Sir Thomas

Newman, a priest, who "_bare a faggot at Paules crosse for singing masse

with good ale_." ]

[ Footnote 69:

_Dole_ originally signified the portion of alms that was given away at

the door of a nobleman. Steevens, note to _Shakspeare_. Sir John Hawkins

affirms that the benefaction distributed at Lambeth Palace gate, is to

this day called the _dole_. ]

[ Footnote 70:

That is, the contents of his basket, if discovered to be of light weight,

are distributed to the needy prisoners. ]

[ Footnote 71:

_Study_, first edit. ]

[ Footnote 72:

The first edition reads _post_, and, I think, preferably. ]

[ Footnote 73:

_Keep for attend_. ]

[ Footnote 74:

_Squeazy_, niggardly. ]

[ Footnote 75:

_And the clubs out of charity knock him down,_ first

edit. ]

[ Footnote 76:

That is, _runs you up a long score_. ]

[ Footnote 77:

This, as well as many other passages in this work, has been appropriated

by John Dunton, the celebrated bookseller, as his own. See his character

of Mr. Samuel Hool, in _Dunton ’ s Life and Errors_, 8vo, 1705, p. 337. ]

[ Footnote 78:

"A prison is a grave to bury men alive, and a place wherein a man for

halfe a yeares experience may learne more law than he can at Westminster

for an hundred pound."--Mynshul ’ s _Essays and Characters of a

Prison_, 4to, 1618. ]

[ Footnote 79:

_In querpo_ is a corruption from the Spanish word _cuerpo_. "_En cuerpo,

a man without a cloak_."--Pineda ’ s Dictionary, 1740. The present

signification evidently is, that a gentleman without his serving-man, or

attendant, is but half dressed:--he possesses only in part the

appearance of a man of fashion. "_To walk in cuerpo, is to go without a

cloak."--Glossographia Anglicana Nova_, 8vo, 1719. ]

[ Footnote 80:

_Proper_ was frequently used by old writers for comely, or handsome.

Shakspeare has several instances of it:

"I do mistake my person all this while:

Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,

Myself to be a marvellous _proper_ man."

--_K. Richard III_. Act I. Sc. 2, &c. ]

[ Footnote 81:

"Why you know an ’ a man have not skill in the _hawking and hunting_

languages now-a-days, I ’ ll not give a rush for him."--_Master Stephen.

Every Man in his Humour_. ]

[ Footnote 82:

"Ter conatus ibi collo dare brachia circum:

Ter frustra conprensa manus effugit imago,

Par levibus ventis, volucrique simillima somno."

--_Virgil_, AEn. vi. _v_. 700. ]

[ Footnote 83:

Probably the name of some difficult tune. ]

[ Footnote 84:

Jump here signifies to coincide. The old play of Soliman and Perseda

uses it in the same sense:

"Wert thou my friend, thy mind would _jump_ with mine."

So in _Pierce Penilesse his Supplication to the Divele_:--"Not two

of them _jump_ in one tale," p. 29. ]

[ Footnote 85:

_Imputation_ here must be used for _consequence_; of which I am,

however, unable to produce any other instance. ]

[ Footnote 86:

_Sturtridge fair_ was the great mart for business, and resort for

pleasure, in Bishop Earle ’ s day. It is alluded to in Randolph ’ s

_Conceited Pedlar_, 410, 1630:--

"I am a pedlar, and I sell my ware

This braue Saint Bartholmew or _Sturtridge faire_."

Edward Ward, the author of _The London Spy_, gives a whimsical

account of a journey to Sturbridge, in the second volume of his works. ]

[ Footnote 87:

This silly term of endearment appears to be derived from _chick_ or

_my chicken_, Shakspeare uses it in _Macbeth_, Act iii.

Scene 2:--

"Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest _chuck_." ]

[ Footnote 88:

The great cross in West Cheap was originally erected in 1290, by Edward

I., in commemoration of the death of Queen Ellinor, whose body rested at

that place, on its journey from Herdeby, in Lincolnshire, to Westminster,

for interment. It was rebuilt in 1441, and again in 1484. In 1584 the

images and ornaments were destroyed by the populace; and in 1599 the top

of the cross was taken down, the timber being rotted within the lead, and

fears being entertained as to its safety. By order of Queen Elizabeth, and

her privy council, it was repaired in 1600, when, says Stow, "a cross of

timber was framed, set up, covered with lead, _and gilded_," &c.

Stow ’ s _Survey of London_, by Strype, book iii. p. 35. Edit, folio.

Lond. 1720. ]

[ Footnote 89:

This must allude to the play written by Heywood with the following title:

_The Foure Prentises of London. With the Conquest of Jerusalem. As it

hath bene diuerse times acted at the Red Bull, by the Queenes Maiesties

Servants_. 410, Lond. 1615. In this drama, the four prentises are

Godfrey, Grey, Charles, and Eustace, sons to the _old Earle of

Bullen_, who, having lost his territories, by assisting William the

Conqueror in his descent upon England, is compelled to live like a private

citizen in London, and binds his sons to a mercer, a goldsmith, a

haberdasher, and a grocer. The _four prentises_, however, prefer the

life of a soldier to that of a tradesman, and, quitting the service of

their masters, follow Robert of Normandy to the holy land, where they

perform the most astonishing feats of valour, and finally accomplish the

_conquest of Jerusalem_. The whole play abounds in bombast and

impossibilities, and, as a composition, is unworthy of notice or

remembrance. ]

[ Footnote 90:

_The History of the Nine Worthies of the World; three whereof were

Gentiles; I. Hector, son of Priamus, king of Troy. 2. Alexander the

Great, king of Macedon, and conqueror of the world. 3. Julius Caesar,

first emperor of Rome. There Jews. 4. Joshua, captain general and leader

of Israel into Canaan. 5. David, king of Israel. 6. Judas Maccabeus, a

’ valiant Jewish commander against the tyranny of Antiochus. Three

Christians. 7. Arthur, king of Britain, who courageously defended his

country against the Saxons. 8. Charles the Great, king of France and

emperor of Germany. 9. Godfrey of Bullen, king of Jerusalem. Being an

account of their glorious lives, worthy actions, renowned victories, and

deaths._ 12mo. No date. ]

[ Footnote 91:

Those of the same habits with himself; his associates. ]

[ Footnote 92:

The _dear year_ here, I believe, alluded to, was in 1574, and is thus

described by that faithful and valuable historian Holinshed:--"This

yeare, about Lammas, wheat was sold at London for three shillings the

bushell: but shortlie after, it was raised to foure shillings, fiue

shillings, six shillings, and, before Christmas, to a noble, and seuen

shillings; which so continued long after. Beefe was sold for twentie

pence, and two and twentie pence the stone; and all other flesh and

white meats at an excessiue price; all kind of salt fish verie deare, as

fine herrings two pence, &c.; yet great plentie of fresh fish, and oft

times the same verie cheape. Pease at foure shillings the bushell;

ote-meale at foure shillings eight pence; baie salt at three shillings

the bushell, &c. All this dearth notwithstanding (thanks be given to

God), there was no want of anie thing to them that wanted not monie."

--Holinshed, _Chronicle_, vol. in., p. 1259, a. edit, folio, 1587. ]

[ Footnote 93:

On the 21st of December 1564 began a frost, referred to by Fleming in

his Index to _Holinshed_, as the "_frost called the great frost_," which

lasted till the 3rd of January 1565. It was so severe that the Thames

was frozen over, and the passage on it, from London Bridge to

Westminster, as easy as and more frequented than that on dry land. ]

[ Footnote 94:

The person who exhibits Westminster Abbey. ]