Chapter IV: Part 4

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--_

"I first adventure, with foolhardy might,
To tread the steps of perilous despite.
I first adventure, follow me who list,
And be the second English satirist."

_He could only have meant by this to claim that he was the first in England to write Satires in the manner of the Latins. He would not bend, he said, to Lady or to Patron--_

"Rather had I, albe in careless rhymes,
Check the misordered world and lawless times."

_Some of these Satires were, of course, of the nature of Characters, and I quote two or three in passing._

A DOMESTIC CHAPLAIN.

A gentle squire would gladly entertain
Into his house some trencher-chaplain;
Some willing man that might instruct his sons,
And that would stand to good conditions.
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,
Whilst his young master lieth o'er his head.
Secondly, that he do, on no default,
Ever presume to sit above the salt.
Third, that he never change his trencher twice.
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies;
Sit bare at meals, and one half rise and wait.
Last, that he never his young master beat
But he must ask his mother to define
How many jerks she would his breech should line.
All these observed, he could contented be,
To give five marks and winter livery.

THE WITLESS GALLANT.

Seest thou how gaily my young master goes,
Vaunting himself upon his rising toes;
And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side;
And picks his glutted teeth since late noon-tide?
'Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he dined to-day?
In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humfray.
Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer,
Keeps he for every straggling cavalier.
An open house, haunted with great resort;
Long service mixed with musical disport.
Many fair younker with a feathered crest,
Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest,
To fare so freely with so little cost,
Than stake his twelve-pence to a meaner host.
Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say
He touched no meat of all this live-long day.
For sure methought, yet that was but a guess,
His eyes seem sunk for very hollowness,
But could he have (as I did it mistake)
So little in his purse, so much upon his back?
So nothing in his maw? yet seemeth by his belt,
That his gaunt gut not too much stuffing felt.
Seest thou how side it hangs beneath his hip?
Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip.
Yet for all that, how stiffly struts he by,
All 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_:--