Chapter XIV: Part 14

Some critics are of opinion that poets ought to apply themselves to the imitation of Nature, and make a conscience of digressing from her; but he is none of these. The ancient magicians could charm down the moon and force rivers back to their springs by the power of poetry only, and the moderns will undertake to turn the inside of the earth outward (like a juggler's pocket) and shake the chaos out of it, make Nature show tricks like an ape, and the stars run on errands; but still it is by dint of poetry. And if poets can do such noble feats, they were unwise to descend to mean and vulgar. For where the rarest and most common things are of a price (as they are all one to poets), it argues disease in judgment not to choose the most curious. Hence some infer that the account they give of things deserves no regard, because they never receive anything as they find it into their compositions, unless it agree both with the measure of their own fancies and the measure of their lines, which can very seldom happen. And therefore, when they give a character of any thing or person, it does commonly bear no more proportion to the subject than the fishes and ships in a map do to the scale. But let such know that poets as well as kings ought rather to consider what is fit for them to give than others to receive; that they are fain to have regard to the exchange of language, and write high or low according as that runs. For in this age, when the smallest poet seldom goes below more the most, it were a shame for a greater and more noble poet not to outthrow that cut a bar.

There was a tobacco-man that wrapped Spanish tobacco in a paper of verses which Benlowes had written against the Pope, which, by a natural antipathy that his wit has to anything that's Catholic, spoiled the tobacco, for it presently turned mundungus. This author will take an English word, and, like the Frenchman that swallowed water and spit it out wine, with a little heaving and straining would turn it immediately into Latin, as _plunderat ilie domos, mille hocopokiana_, and a thousand such.

There was a young practitioner in poetry that found there was no good to be done without a mistress; for he that writes of love before he hath tried it doth but travel by the map, and he that makes love without a dame does like a gamester that plays for nothing. He thought it convenient, therefore, first to furnish himself with a name for his mistress beforehand, that he might not be to seek when his merit or good fortune should bestow her upon him; for every poet is his mistress's godfather, and gives her a new name, like a nun that takes orders. He was very curious to fit himself with a handsome word of a tunable sound, but could light upon none that some poet or other had not made use of before. He was therefore forced to fall to coining, and was several months before he could light on one that pleased him perfectly. But after he had overcome that difficulty he found a greater remaining, to get a lady to own him. He accosted some of all sorts, and gave them to understand, both in prose and verse, how incomparably happy it was in his power to make his mistress, but could never convert any of them. At length he was fain to make his laundress supply that place as a proxy until his good fortune or somebody of better quality would be more kind to him, which after a while he neither hoped nor cared for; for how mean soever her condition was before, when he had once pretended to her she was sure to be a nymph and a goddess. For what greater honour can a woman be capable of than to be translated into precious stones and stars? No herald in the world can go higher. Besides, he found no man can use that freedom of hyperbole in the character of a person commonly known (as great ladies are) which we can in describing one so obscure and unknown that nobody can disprove him. For he that writes but one sonnet upon any of the public persons shall be sure to have his reader at every third word cry out, "What an ass is this to call Spanish paper and ceruse lilies and roses, or claps influences; to say the Graces are her waiting-women, when they are known to be no better than her bawds; that day breaks from her eyes when she looks asquint; or that her breath perfumes the Arabian winds when she puffs tobacco!"

It is no mean art to improve a language, and find out words that are not only removed from common use, but rich in consonants, the nerves and sinews of speech; to raise a soft and feeble language like ours to the pitch of High-Dutch, as he did that writ--

"Arts rattling foreskins shrilling bagpipes quell."

This is not only the most elegant but most politic way of writing that a poet can use, for I know no defence like it to preserve a poem from the torture of those that lisp and stammer. He that wants teeth may as well venture upon a piece of tough horny brawn as such a line, for he will look like an ass eating thistles.

He never begins a work without an invocation of his Muse; for it is not fit that she should appear in public to show her skill before she is entreated, as gentlewomen do not use to sing until they are applied to and often desired.

I shall not need to say anything of the excellence of poetry, since it has been already performed by many excellent persons, among whom some have lately undertaken to prove that the civil government cannot possibly subsist without it, which, for my part, I believe to be true in a poetical sense, and more probable to be received of it than those strange feats of building walls and making trees dance which antiquity ascribes to verse. And though philosophers are of a contrary opinion and will not allow poets fit to live in a commonwealth, their partiality is plainer than their reasons, for they have no other way to pretend to this prerogative themselves, as they do, but by removing poets whom they know to have a fairer title; and this they do so unjustly that Plato, who first banished poets his republic, forgot that that very commonwealth was poetical. I shall say nothing to them, but only desire the world to consider how happily it is like to be governed by those that are at so perpetual a civil war among themselves, that if we should submit ourselves to their own resolution of this question, and be content to allow them only fit to rule if they could but conclude it so themselves, they would never agree upon it. Meanwhile there is no less certainty and agreement in poetry than the mathematics, for they all submit to the same rules without dispute or controversy. But whosoever shall please to look into the records of antiquity shall find their title so unquestioned that the greatest princes in the whole world have been glad to derive their pedigrees, and their power too, from poets. Alexander the Great had no wiser a way to secure that Empire to himself by right which he had gotten by force than by declaring himself the son of Jupiter; and who was Jupiter but the son of a poet? So Caesar and all Rome was transported with joy when a poet made Jupiter his colleague in the Empire; and when Jupiter governed, what did the poets that governed Jupiter?

A PHILOSOPHER

Seats himself as spectator and critic on the great theatre of the world, and gives sentence on the plots, language, and action of whatsoever he sees represented, according to his own fancy. He will pretend to know what is done behind the scene, but so seldom is in the right that he discovers nothing more than his own mistakes. When his profession was in credit in the world, and money was to be gotten by it, it divided itself into multitudes of sects, that maintained themselves and their opinions by fierce and hot contests with one another; but since the trade decayed and would not turn to account, they all fell of themselves, and now the world is so unconcerned in their controversies, that three Reformado sects joined in one, like Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana, will not serve to maintain one pedant. He makes his hypotheses himself, as a tailor does a doublet without measure; no matter whether they fit Nature, he can make Nature fit them, and, whether they are too straight or wide, pinch or stuff out the body accordingly. He judges of the works of Nature just as the rabble do of State affairs; they see things done, and every man according to his capacity guesses at the reasons of them, but knowing nothing of the arcana or secret movements of either, they seldom or never are in the right. Howsoever, they please themselves and some others with their fancies, and the farther they are off truth, the more confident they are they are near it, as those that are out of their way believe the farther they have gone they are the nearer their journey's end, when they are farthest of all from it. He is confident of immaterial substances, and his reasons are very pertinent; that is, substantial as he thinks, and immaterial as others do. Heretofore his beard was the badge of his profession, and the length of that in all his polemics was ever accounted the length of his weapon; but when the trade fell, that fell too. In Lucius's time they were commonly called beard-wearers, for all the strength of their wits lay in their beards, as Samson's did in his locks; but since the world began to see the vanity of that hare-brained cheat, they left it off to save their credit.

A MELANCHOLY MAN

Is one that keeps the worst company in the world; that is, his own; and though he be always falling out and quarrelling with himself, yet he has not power to endure any other conversation. His head is haunted, like a house, with evil spirits and apparitions, that terrify and fright him out of himself, till he stands empty and forsaken. His sleeps and his wakings are so much the same that he knows not how to distinguish them, and many times when he dreams he believes he is broad awake and sees visions. The fumes and vapours that rise from his spleen and hypochondrias have so smutched and sullied his brain (like a room that smokes) that his understanding is blear-eyed and has no right perception of anything. His soul lives in his body, like a mole in the earth that labours in the dark, and casts up doubts and scruples of his own imaginations, to make that rugged and uneasy that was plain and open before. His brain is so cracked that he fancies himself to be glass, and is afraid that everything he comes near should break him in pieces. Whatsoever makes an impression in his imagination works itself in like a screw, and the more he turns and winds it the deeper it sticks, till it is never to be got out again. The temper of his brain, being earthy, cold, and dry, is apt to breed worms, that sink so deep into it no medicine in art or nature is able to reach them. He leads his life as one leads a dog in a slip that will not follow, but is dragged along until he is almost hanged, as he has it often under consideration to treat himself in convenient time and place, if he can but catch himself alone. After a long and mortal feud between his inward and his outward man, they at length agree to meet without seconds and decide the quarrel, in which the one drops and the other slinks out of the way and makes his escape into some foreign world, from whence it is never after heard of. He converses with nothing so much as his own imagination, which, being apt to misrepresent things to him, makes him believe that it is something else than it is, and that he holds intelligence with spirits that reveal whatsoever he fancies to him, as the ancient rude people that first heard their own voices repeated by echoes in the woods concluded it must proceed from some invisible inhabitants of those solitary places, which they after believed to be gods, and called them sylvans, fauns, and dryads. He makes the infirmity of his temper pass for revelations, as Mahomet did by his falling sickness, and inspires himself with the wind of his own hypochondrias. He laments, like Heraclitus, the maudlin philosopher, at other men's mirth, and takes pleasure in nothing but his own unsober sadness. His mind is full of thoughts, but they are all empty, like a nest of boxes. He sleeps little, but dreams much, and soundest when he is waking. He sees visions farther off than a second-sighted man in Scotland, and dreams upon a hard point with admirable judgment. He is just so much worse than a madman as he is below him in degree of frenzy, for among madmen the most mad govern all the rest, and receive a natural obedience from their inferiors.

A TRAVELLER

Is a native of all countries and an alien at home. He flies from the place where he was hatched, like a wild goose, and prefers all others before it. He has no quarrel to it but because he was born in it, and, like a bastard, he is ashamed of his mother, because she is of him. He is a merchant that makes voyages into foreign nations to drive a trade in wisdom and politics, and it is not for his credit to have it thought he has made an ill return, which must be if he should allow of any of the growth of his own country. This makes him quack and blow up himself with admiration of foreign parts and a generous contempt of home, that all men may admire at least the means he has had of improvement and deplore their own defects. His observations are like a sieve, that lets the finer flour pass and retains only the bran of things, for his whole return of wisdom proves to be but affectation, a perishable commodity, which he will never be able to put off. He believes all men's wits are at a stand that stay at home, and only those advanced that travel, as if change of pasture did make great politicians as well as fat calves. He pities the little knowledge of truth which those have that have not seen the world abroad, forgetting that at the same time he tells us how little credit is to be given to his own relations and those of others that speak and write of their travels. He has worn his own language to rags, and patched it up with scraps and ends of foreign. This serves him for wit; for when he meets with any of his foreign acquaintances, all they smatter passes for wit, and they applaud one another accordingly. He believes this raggedness of his discourse a great demonstration of the improvement of his knowledge, as Inns-of-Court men intimate their proficiency in the law by the tatters of their gowns. All the wit he brought home with him is like foreign coin, of a baser alloy than our own, and so will not pass here without great loss. All noble creatures that are famous in any one country degenerate by being transplanted, and those of mean value only improve. If it hold with men, he falls among the number of the latter, and his improvements are little to his credit. All he can say for himself is, his mind was sick of a consumption, and change of air has cured him; for all his other improvements have only been to eat in ... and talk with those he did not understand, to hold intelligence with all _Gazettes_, and from the sight of statesmen in the street unriddle the intrigues of all their Councils, to make a wondrous progress into knowledge by riding with a messenger, and advance in politics by mounting of a mule, run through all sorts of learning in a waggon, and sound all depths of arts in a felucca, ride post into the secrets of all states, and grow acquainted with their close designs in inns and hostelries; for certainly there is great virtue in highways and hedges to make an able man, and a good prospect cannot but let him see far into things.

A CURIOUS MAN

Values things not by their use or worth, but scarcity. He is very tender and scrupulous of his humour, as fanatics are of their consciences, and both for the most part in trifles. He cares not how unuseful anything be, so it be but unuseful and rare. He collects all the curiosities he can light upon in art or nature, not to inform his own judgment, but to catch the admiration of others, which he believes he has a right to because the rarities are his own. That which other men neglect he believes they oversee, and stores up trifles as rare discoveries, at least of his own wit and sagacity. He admires subtleties above all things, because the more subtle they are the nearer they are to nothing, and values no art but that which is spun so thin that it is of no use at all. He had rather have an iron chain hung about the neck of a flea than an alderman's of gold, and Homer's Iliads in a nutshell than Alexander's cabinet. He had rather have the twelve apostles on a cherry-stone than those on St. Peter's portico, and would willingly sell Christ again for that numerical piece of coin that Judas took for Him. His perpetual dotage upon curiosities at length renders him one of them, and he shows himself as none of the meanest of his rarities. He so much affects singularity that, rather than follow the fashion that is used by the rest of the world, he will wear dissenting clothes with odd fantastic devices to distinguish himself from others, like marks set upon cattle. He cares not what pains he throws away upon the meanest trifle so it be but strange, while some pity and others laugh at his ill-employed industry. He is one of those that valued Epictetus's lamp above the excellent book he wrote by it. If he be a book-man, he spends all his time and study upon things that are never to be known. The philosopher's stone and universal medicine cannot possibly miss him, though he is sure to do them. He is wonderfully taken with abstruse knowledge, and had rather handle truth with a pair of tongs wrapped up in mysteries and hieroglyphics than touch it with his hands or see it plainly demonstrated to his senses.

A HERALD

Calls himself a king because he has power and authority to hang, draw, and quarter arms. For assuming a jurisdiction over the distributive justice of titles of honour, as far as words extend, he gives himself as great a latitude that way as other magistrates use to do where they have authority and would enlarge it as far as they can. 'Tis true he can make no lords nor knights of himself, but as many squires and gentlemen as he pleases, and adopt them into what family they have a mind. His dominions abound with all sorts of cattle, fish, and fowl, and all manner of manufactures, besides whole fields of gold and silver, which he magnificently bestows upon his followers or sells as cheap as lands in Jamaica. The language they use is barbarous, as being but a dialect of pedlar's French or the Egyptian, though of a loftier sound, and in the propriety affecting brevity, as the other does verbosity. His business is like that of all the schools, to make plain things hard with perplexed methods and insignificant terms, and then appear learned in making them plain again. He professes arms not for use, but ornament only, and yet makes the basest things in the world, as dogs' turds and women's spindles, weapons of good and worshipful bearings. He is wiser than the fellow that sold his ass, but kept the shadow for his own use; for he sells only the shadow (that is, the picture) and keeps the ass himself. He makes pedigrees as apothecaries do medicines when they put in one ingredient for another that they have not by them; by this means he often makes incestuous matches, and causes the son to many the mother. His chief province is at funerals, where he commands in chief, marshals the _tristitiae irritamenta_, and, like a gentleman-sower to the worms, serves up the feast with all punctual formality. He will join as many shields together as would make a Roman _testudo_ or Macedonian phalanx, to fortify the nobility of a new-made lord that will pay for the impressing of them and allow him coat and conduct money. He is a kind of a necromancer, and can raise the dead out of their graves to make them marry and beget those they never heard of in their lifetime. His coat is, like the King of Spain's dominions, all skirts, and hangs as loose about him; and his neck is the waist, like the picture of Nobody with his breeches fastened to his collar. He will sell the head or a single joint of a beast or fowl as dear as the whole body, like a pig's head in Bartholomew Fair, and after put off the rest to his customers at the same rate. His arms, being utterly out of use in war since guns came up, have been translated to dishes and cups, as the ancients used their precious stones, according to the poet, _Gemmas ad pocula transfert a gladiis, &c._; and since are like to decay every day more and more, for since he gave citizens coats-of-arms, gentlemen have made bold to take their letters of mark by way of reprisal. The hangman has a receipt to mar all his work in a moment, for by nailing the wrong end of a scutcheon upwards upon a gibbet all the honour and gentility extinguishes of itself, like a candle that's held with the flame downwards. Other arms are made for the spilling of blood, but his only purify and cleanse it like scurvy-grass; for a small dose taken by his prescription will refine that which is as base and gross as bull's blood (which the Athenians used to poison withal) to any degree of purity.

A VIRTUOSO

Is a well-willer to the mathematics; he pursues knowledge rather out of humour than ingenuity, and endeavours rather to seem than to be. He has nothing of nature but an inclination, which he strives to improve with industry; but as no art can make a fountain run higher than its own head, so nothing can raise him above the elevation of his own pole. He seldom converses but with men of his own tendency, and wheresoever he comes treats with all men as such; for as country gentlemen use to talk of their dogs to those that hate hunting because they love it themselves, so will he of his arts and sciences to those that neither know nor care to know anything of them. His industry were admirable if it did not attempt the greatest difficulties with the feeblest means; for he commonly slights anything that is plain and easy, how useful and ingenious soever, and bends all his forces against the hardest and most improbable, though to no purpose if attained to; for neither knowing how to measure his own abilities nor the weight of what he attempts, he spends his little strength in vain and grows only weaker by it; and as men use to blind horses that draw in a mill, his ignorance of himself and his undertakings makes him believe he has advanced when he is no nearer to his end than when he set out first. The bravery of difficulties does so dazzle his eyes that he prosecutes them with as little success as the tailor did his amours to Queen Elizabeth. He differs from a pedant as things do from words, for he uses the same affectation in his operations and experiments as the other does in language. He is a haberdasher of small arts and sciences, and deals in as many several operations as a baby artificer does in engines. He will serve well enough for an index to tell what is handled in the world, but no further. He is wonderfully delighted with rarities, and they continue still so to him though he has shown them a thousand times, for every new admirer that gapes upon them sets him a-gaping too. Next these he loves strange natural histories; and as those that read romances, though they know them to be fictions, are as much affected as if they were true, so is he, and will make hard shift to tempt himself to believe them first to be possible, and then he's sure to believe them to be true, forgetting that belief upon belief is false heraldry. He keeps a catalogue of the names of all famous men in any profession, whom he often takes occasion to mention as his very good friends and old acquaintances. Nothing is more pedantic than to seem too much concerned about wit or knowledge, to talk much of it, and appear too critical in it. All he can possibly arrive to is but like the monkeys dancing on the rope, to make men wonder how 'tis possible for art to put nature so much out of her play.

His learning is like those letters on a coach, where, many being writ together, no one appears plain. When the King happens to be at the university and degrees run like wine in conduits at public triumphs, he is sure to have his share; and though he be as free to choose his learning as his faculty, yet, like St. Austin's soul, _Creando infunditur, infundendo creatur_. Nero was the first emperor of his calling, though it be not much for his credit. He is like an elephant that, though he cannot swim, yet of all creatures most delights to walk along a river's side; and as, in law, things that appear not and things that are not are all one, so he had rather not be than not appear. The top of his ambition is to have his picture graved in brass and published upon walls, if he has no work of his own to face with it. His want of judgment inclines him naturally to the most extravagant undertakings, like that of making old dogs young, telling how many persons there are in a room by knocking at a door, stopping up of words in bottles, &c. He is like his books, that contain much knowledge, but know nothing themselves. He is but an index of things and words, that can direct where they are to be spoken with, but no farther. He appears a great man among the ignorant, and, like a figure in arithmetic, is so much the more as it stands before ciphers that are nothing of themselves. He calls himself an antisocordist, a name unknown to former ages, but spawned by the pedantry of the present. He delights most in attempting things beyond his reach, and the greater distance he shoots at, the farther he is sure to be off his mark. He shows his parts as drawers do a room at a tavern, to entertain them at the expense of their time and patience. He inverts the moral of that fable of him that caressed his dog for fawning and leaping up upon him and beat his ass for doing the same thing, for it is all one to him whether he be applauded by an ass or a wiser creature, so he be but applauded.

AN INTELLIGENCER

Would give a penny for any statesman's thought at any time. He travels abroad to guess what princes are designing by seeing them at church or dinner, and will undertake to unriddle a government at first sight, and tell what plots she goes with, male or female; and discover, like a mountebank, only by seeing the public face of affairs, what private marks there are in the most secret parts of the body politic. He is so ready at reasons of State, that he has them, like a lesson, by rote; but as charlatans make diseases fit their medicines, and not their medicines diseases, so he makes all public affairs conform to his own established reason of State, and not his reason, though the case alter ever so much, comply with them. He thinks to obtain a great insight into State affairs by observing only the outside pretences and appearances of things, which are seldom or never true, and may be resolved several ways, all equally probable; and therefore his penetrations into these matters are like the penetrations of cold into natural bodies, without any sense of itself or the thing it works upon. For all his discoveries in the end amount only to entries and equipages, addresses, audiences, and visits, with other such politic speculations as the rabble in the streets is wont to entertain itself withal. Nevertheless he is very cautious not to omit his cipher, though he writes nothing but what every one does or may safely know, for otherwise it would appear to be no secret. He endeavours to reduce all his politics into maxims, as being most easily portable for a travelling head, though, as they are for the most part of slight matters, they are but like spirits drawn out of water, insipid and good for nothing. His letters are a kind of bills of exchange, in which he draws news and politics upon all his correspondents, who place it to account, and draw it back again upon him; and though it be false, neither cheats the other, for it passes between both for good and sufficient pay. If he drives an inland trade, he is factor to certain remote country virtuosos, who, finding themselves unsatisfied with the brevity of the _Gazette_, desire to have exceedings of news besides their ordinary commons. To furnish those, he frequents clubs and coffee-houses, the markets of news, where he engrosses all he can light upon; and if that do not prove sufficient, he is forced to add a lie or two of his own making, which does him double service; for it does not only supply his occasions for the present, but furnishes him with matter to fill up gaps in the next letter with retracting what he wrote before, and in the meantime has served for as good news as the best; and when the novelty is over it is no matter what becomes of it, for he is better paid for it than if it were true.

A QUIBBLER

Is a juggler of words, that shows tricks with them, to make them appear what they were not meant for and serve two senses at once, like one that plays on two Jew's trumps. He is a fencer of language, that falsifies his blow and hits where he did not aim. He has a foolish sleight of wit that catches at words only and lets the sense go, like the young thief in the farce that took a purse, but gave the owner his money back again. He is so well versed in all cases of quibble, that he knows when there will be a blot upon a word as soon as it is out. He packs his quibbles like a stock of cards; let him but shuffle, and cut where you will, he will be sure to have it. He dances on a rope of sand, does the somersault, strappado, and half-strappado with words, plays at all manner of games with clinches, carwickets, and quibbles, and talks under-leg. His wit is left-handed, and therefore what others mean for right he apprehends quite contrary. All his conceptions are produced by equivocal generation, which makes them justly esteemed but maggots. He rings the changes upon words, and is so expert that he can tell at first sight how many variations any number of words will bear. He talks with a trillo, and gives his words a double relish. He had rather have them bear two senses in vain and impertinently than one to the purpose, and never speaks without a leer-sense. He talks nothing but equivocation and mental reservation, and mightily affects to give a word a double stroke, like a tennis-ball against two walls at one blow, to defeat the expectation of his antagonist. He commonly slurs every fourth or fifth word, and seldom fails to throw doublets. There are two sorts of quibbling, the one with words and the other with sense, like the rhetorician's _figurae dictionis et figurae sententiae_--the first is already cried down, and the other as yet prevails, and is the only elegance of our modern poets, which easy judges call easiness; but having nothing in it but easiness, and being never used by any lasting wit, will in wiser times fall to nothing of itself.

A TIME-SERVER

Wears his religion, reason, and understanding always in the mode, and endeavours as far as he can to be one of the first in the fashion, let it change as oft as it can. He makes it his business, like a politic epicure, to entertain his opinion, faith, and judgment with nothing but what he finds to be most in season, and is as careful to make his understanding ready according to the present humour of affairs as the gentleman was that used every morning to put on his clothes by the weather-glass. He has the same reverend esteem of the modern age as an antiquary has for venerable antiquity, and, like a glass, receives readily any present object, but takes no notice of that which is past or to come. He is always ready to become anything as the times shall please to dispose of him, but is really nothing of himself; for he that sails before every wind can be bound for no port. He accounts it blasphemy to speak against anything in present vogue, how vain or ridiculous soever, and arch-heresy to approve of anything, though ever so good and wise, that is laid by; and therefore casts his judgment and understanding upon occasion, as bucks do their horns, when the season arrives to breed new against the next, to be cast again. He is very zealous to show himself, upon all occasions, a true member of the Church for the time being, that has not the least scruple in his conscience against the doctrine or discipline of it, as it stands at present, or shall do hereafter, unsight unseen; for he is resolved to be always for the truth, which he believes is never so plainly demonstrated as in that character that says it is great and prevails, and in that sense only fit to be adhered to by a prudent man, who will never be kinder to Truth than she is to him; for suffering is a very evil effect, and not like to proceed from a good cause. He is a man of a right public spirit, for he resigns himself wholly to the will and pleasure of the times, and, like a zealous implicit patriot, believes as the State believes, though he neither knows nor cares to know what that is.

A PRATER

Is a common nuisance, and as great a grievance to those that come near him as a pewterer is to his neighbours. His discourse is like the braying of a mortar, the more impertinent the more voluble and loud, as a pestle makes more noise when it is rung on the sides of a mortar than when it stamps downright and hits upon the business. A dog that opens upon a wrong scent will do it oftener than one that never opens but upon a right. He is as long-winded as a ventiduct that fills as fast as it empties, or a trade-wind that blows one way for half-a-year together, and another as long, as if it drew in its breath for six months, and blew it out again for six more. He has no mercy on any man's ears or patience that he can get within his sphere of activity, but tortures him, as they correct boys in Scotland, by stretching their lugs without remorse. He is like an earwig; when he gets within a man's ear he is not easily to be got out again. He will stretch a story as unmercifully as he does the ears of those he tells it to, and draw it out in length like a breast of mutton at the Hercules pillars, or a piece of cloth set on the tenters, till it is quite spoiled and good for nothing. If he be an orator that speaks _distincté et ornaté_, though not _apté_, he delivers his circumstances with the same mature deliberation that one that drinks with a gusto swallows his wine, as if he were loth to part with it sooner than he must of necessity; or a gamester that pulls the cards that are dealt him one by one, to enjoy the pleasure more distinctly of seeing what game he has in his hand. He takes so much pleasure to hear himself speak, that he does not perceive with what uneasiness other men endure him, though they express it ever so plainly; for he is so diverted with his own entertainment of himself, that he is not at leisure to take notice of any else. He is a siren to himself, and has no way to escape shipwreck but by having his mouth stopped instead of his ears. He plays with his tongue as a cat does with her tail, and is transported with the delight he gives himself of his own making. He understands no happiness like that of having an opportunity to show his abilities in public, and will venture to break his neck to show the activity of his eloquence; for the tongue is not only the worst part of a bad servant, but of an ill master that does not know how to govern it; for then it is like Guzman's wife, very headstrong and not sure of foot.

A DISPUTANT

Is a holder of arguments, and wagers too, when he cannot make them good. He takes naturally to controversy, like fishes in India that are said to have worms in their heads and swim always against the stream. The greatest mastery of his art consists in turning and winding the state of the question, by which means he can easily defeat whatsoever has been said by his adversary, though excellently to the purpose, like a bowler that knocks away the jack when he sees another man's bowl lie nearer to it than his own. Another of his faculties is with a multitude of words to render what he says so difficult to be recollected that his adversary may not easily know what he means, and consequently not understand what to answer, to which he secretly reserves an advantage to reply by interpreting what he said before otherwise than he at first intended it, according as he finds it serve his purpose to evade whatsoever shall be objected. Next to this, to pretend not to understand, or misinterpret what his antagonist says, though plain enough, only to divert him from the purpose, and to take occasion from his exposition of what he said to start new cavils on the bye and run quite away from the question; but when he finds himself pressed home and beaten from all his guards, to amuse the foe with some senseless distinction, like a falsified blow that never hits where 'tis aimed, but while it is minded makes way for some other trick that may pass. But that which renders him invincible is abundance of confidence and words, which are his offensive and defensive arms; for a brazen face is a natural helmet or beaver, and he that has store of words needs not surrender for want of ammunition. No matter for reason and sense, that go for no more in disputations than the justice of a cause does in war, which is understood but by few and commonly regarded by none. For the custom of disputants is not so much to destroy one another's reason as to cavil at the manner of expressing it, right or wrong; for they believe _Dolus an virtus_, &c., ought to be allowed in controversy as war, and he that gets the victory on any terms whatsoever deserves it and gets it honourably. He and his opponent are like two false lute-strings that will never stand in tune to one another, or like two tennis-players whose greatest skill consists in avoiding one another's strokes.

A PROJECTOR

Is by interpretation a man of forecast. He is an artist of plots, designs, and expedients to find out money, as others hide it, where nobody would look for it. He is a great rectifier of the abuses of all trades and mysteries, yet has but one remedy for all diseases; that is, by getting a patent to share with them, by virtue of which they become authorised, and consequently cease to be cheats. He is a great promoter of the public good, and makes it his care and study to contrive expedients that the nation may not be ill served with false rags, arbitrary puppet-plays, and insufficient monsters, of all which he endeavours to get the superintendency. He will undertake to render treasonable pedlars, that carry intelligence between rebels and fanatics, true subjects and well-affected to the Government for half-a-crown a quarter, which he takes for giving them license to do so securely and uncontrolled. He gets as much by those projects that miscarry as by those that hold (as lawyers are paid as well for undoing as preserving of men); for when he has drawn in adventurers to purchase shares of the profit, the sooner it is stopped the better it proves for him; for, his own business being done, he is the sooner rid of theirs. He is very expert at gauging the understandings of those he deals with, and has his engines always ready with mere air to blow all their money out of their pockets into his own, as vintners do wine out of one vessel into another. He is very amorous of his country, and prefers the public good before his own advantage, until he has joined them both together in some monopoly, and then he thinks he has done his part, and may be allowed to look after his own affairs in the second place. The chiefest and most useful part of his talent consists in quacking and lying, which he calls answering of objections and convincing the ignorant. Without this he can do nothing; for as it is the common practice of most knaveries, so it is the surest and best fitted to the vulgar capacities of the world; and though it render him more ridiculous to some few, it always prevails upon the greater part.

A COMPLEMENTER

Is one that endeavours to make himself appear a very fine man in persuading another that he is so, and by offering those civilities which he does not intend to part with, believes he adds to his own reputation and obliges another for nothing. He is very free in making presents of his services, because he is certain he cannot possibly receive in return less than they are worth. He differs very much from all other critics in punctilios of honour; for he esteems himself very uncivilly dealt with if his vows and protestations pass for anything but mere lies and vanities. When he gives his word, he believes it is no longer his, and therefore holds it very unreasonable to give it and keep it too. He divides his services among so many that there comes but little or nothing to any one man's share, and therefore they are very willing to let him take it back again. He makes over himself in truth to every man, but still it is to his own uses to secure his title against all other claims and cheat his creditors. He is very generous of his promises, but still it is without lawful consideration, and so they go for nothing. He extols a man to his face, like those that write in praise of an author to show his own wit, not his whom they undertake to commend. He has certain set forms and routines of speech, which he can say over while he thinks on anything else, as a Catholic does his prayers, and therefore never means what he says. His words flow easily from him, but so shallow that they will bear no weight at all. All his offers of endearment are but like terms of course, that carry their own answers along with them, and therefore pass for nothing between those that understand them, and deceive those only that believe in them. He professes most kindness commonly to those he least cares for, like an host that bids a man welcome when he is going away. He had rather be every man's menial servant than any one man's friend; for servants gain by their masters, and men often lose by their friends.

A CHEAT

Is a freeman of all trades, and all trades of his. Fraud and treachery are his calling, though his profession be the strictest integrity and truth. He spins nets, like a spider, out of his own entrails, to entrap the simple and unwary that light in his way, whom he devours and feeds upon. All the greater sort of cheats, being allowed by authority, have lost their names (as judges, when they are called to the Bench, are no more styled lawyers) and left the title to the meaner only and the unallowed. The common ignorance of mankind is his province, which he orders to the best advantage. He is but a tame highwayman, that does the same things by stratagem and design which the other does by force, makes men deliver their understandings first, and after their purses. Oaths and lies are his tools that he works with, and he gets his living by the drudgery of his conscience. He endeavours to cheat the devil by mortgaging his soul so many times over and over to him, forgetting that he has damnations, as priests have absolutions of all prices. He is a kind of a just judgment, sent into this world to punish the confidence and curiosity of ignorance, that out of a natural inclination to error will tempt its own punishment and help to abuse itself. He can put on as many shapes as the devil that set him on work, is one that fishes in muddy understandings, and will tickle a trout in his own element till he has him in his clutches, and after in his dish or the market. He runs down none but those which he is certain are _fera natura_, mere natural animals, that belong to him that can catch them. He can do no feats without the co-operating assistance of the chouse, whose credulity commonly meets the impostor half-way, otherwise nothing is done; for all the craft is not in the catching (as the proverb says), but the better half at least in being catched. He is one that, like a bond without fraud, covin, and further delay, is void and of none effect, otherwise does stand and remain in full power, force, and virtue. He trusts the credulous with what hopes they please at a very easy rate, upon their own security, until he has drawn them far enough in, and then makes them pay for all at once. The first thing he gets from him is a good opinion, and afterwards anything he pleases; for after he has drawn from his guards he deals with him like a surgeon, and ties his arm before he lets him blood.

A TEDIOUS MAN

Talks to no end, as well as to no purpose; for he would never come at it willingly. His discourse is like the road-miles in the north, the filthier and dirtier the longer; and he delights to dwell the longer upon them to make good the old proverb that says they are good for the dweller, but ill for the traveller. He sets a tale upon the rack, and stretches until it becomes lame and out of joint. Hippocrates says art is long; but he is so for want of art. He has a vein of dulness, that runs through all he says or does; for nothing can be tedious that is not dull and insipid. Digressions and repetitions, like bag and baggage, retard his march and put him to perpetual halts. He makes his approaches to a business by oblique lines, as if he meant to besiege it, and fetches a wide compass about to keep others from discovering what his design is. He is like one that travels in a dirty deep road, that moves slowly; and, when he is at a stop, goes back again, and loses more time in picking of his way than in going it. How troublesome and uneasy soever he is to others, he pleases himself so well that he does not at all perceive it; for though home be homely, it is more delightful than finer things abroad; and he that is used to a thing and knows no better believes that other men, to whom it appears otherwise, have the same sense of it that he has; as melancholy persons that fancy themselves to be glass believe that all others think them so too; and therefore that which is tedious to others is not so to him, otherwise he would avoid it; for it does not so often proceed from a natural defect as affectation and desire to give others that pleasure which they find themselves, though it always falls out quite contrary. He that converses with him is like one that travels with a companion that rides a lame jade; he must either endure to go his pace or stay for him; for though he understands long before what he would be at better than he does himself, he must have patience and stay for him, until, with much ado to little purpose, he at length comes to him; for he believes himself injured if he should bate a jot of his own diversion.

A PRETENDER