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Title: Character Writings of the 17th Century

Author: Various

Release Date: January 13, 2004 [EBook #10699]

Language: English

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CHARACTER WRITINGS

OF THE

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

EDITED BY

HENRY MORLEY, LL.D.

EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

1891

CONTENTS.

CHARACTER WRITING BEFORE THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

THEOPHRASTUS.

THOMAS HARMAN'S "Caveat for Cursitors"

BEN JONSON'S "Every Man out of his Humour" and "Cynthia's Revels"

CHARACTER WRITINGS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Sir THOMAS OVERBURY

JOSEPH HALL

JOHN STEPHENS

JOHN EARLE

NICHOLAS BRETON

GEOFFREY MINSHULL

HENRY PARROTT [?]

MICROLOGIA, by R. M.

WHIMZIES, OR A NEW CAST OF CHARACTERS

JOHN MILTON

WYE SALTONSTALL

DONALD LUPTON

CHARACTERS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1642 AND 1646, BY SIR FRANCIS WORTLEY, T.  FORD, AND OTHERS

JOHN CLEVELAND

CHARACTERS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1647 AND 1665

RICHARD FLECKNOE

CHARACTERS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1673 AND 1689

SAMUEL BUTLER

CHARACTER WRITING AFTER THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Character of the Happy Warrior

CHARACTER WRITINGS

OF THE

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

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 Bruyère 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 Bruyère 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 Bruyère 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

                        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 15th of September 1613. On the 5th 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-à-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 "Æneids" 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-à-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'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--

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--

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 trappéd 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 dishevelléd,
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 notchéd 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
Despiséd nature suit them once aright,
Their body to their coat, both now misdight.
Their body to their clothes might shapen be,
That nil their clothés 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:^[14] 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 Cæsar, 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 à 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^[64]

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 Æneas 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

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 fas