Chapter IV: Appendix: Some account of bishop EarleAS 186 (3)

His antient beginning was a blue coat, since a livery, and his hatching under a lawyer; whence, though but pen-feathered, he hath now nested for himself, and with his boarded pence purchased an office. Two desks and a quire of paper set him up, where he now sits in state for all corners. We can call him no great author, yet he writes very much and with the infamy of the court is maintained in his libels.[61] He has some smatch of a scholar, and yet uses Latin very hardly; and lest it should accuse him, cuts it off in the midst, and will not let it speak out. He is, contrary to great men, maintained by his followers, that is, his poor country clients, that worship him more than their landlords, and be they never such churls, he looks for their courtesy. He first racks them soundly himself, and then delivers them to the lawyer for execution. His looks are very solicitous, importing much haste and dispatch, he is never without his hands full of business, that is--of paper. His skin becomes at last as dry as his parchment, and his face as intricate as the most winding cause. He talks statutes as fiercely as if he had mooted[62] seven years in the inns of court, when all his skill is stuck in his girdle, or in his office-window. Strife and wrangling have made him rich, and he is thankful to his benefactor, and nourishes it. If he live in a country village, he makes all his neighbours good subjects; for there shall be nothing done but what there is law for. His business gives him not leave to think of his conscience, and when the time, or term of his life is going out, for dooms-day he is secure; for he hopes he has a trick to reverse judgment.

FOOTNOTES:

[61] _His style is very constant, for it keeps still the former aforesaid; and yet it seems he is much troubled in it, for he is always humbly complaining--your poor orator._ First edit.

[62] To _moote_ a terme vsed in the innes of the court; it is the handling of a case, as in the Vniuersitie their disputations, &c. So _Minshew_, who supposes it to be derived from the French, _mot, verbum, quasi verba facere, aut sermonem de aliqua re habere_. _Mootmen_ are those who, having studied seven or eight years, are qualified to practise, and appear to answer to our term of barristers.

XXXVII.

A PARTIAL MAN

Is the opposite extreme to a defamer, for the one speaks ill falsely, and the other well, and both slander the truth. He is one that is still weighing men in the scale of comparisons, and puts his affections in the one balance and that sways. His friend always shall do best, and you shall rarely hear good of his enemy. He considers first the man and then the thing, and restrains all merit to what they deserve of him. Commendations he esteems not the debt of worth, but the requital of kindness; and if you ask his reason, shews his interest, and tells you how much he is beholden to that man. He is one that ties his judgment to the wheel of fortune, and they determine giddily both alike. He prefers England before other countries because he was born there, and Oxford before other universities, because he was brought up there, and the best scholar there is one of his own college, and the best scholar there is one of his friends. He is a great favourer of great persons, and his argument is still that which should be antecedent; as,--he is in high place, therefore virtuous;--he is preferred, therefore worthy. Never ask his opinion, for you shall hear but his faction, and he is indifferent in nothing but conscience. Men esteem him for this a zealous affectionate, but they mistake him many times, for he does it but to be esteemed so. Of all men he is worst to write an history, for he will praise a Sejanus or Tiberius, and for some petty respect of his all posterity shall be cozened.

XXXVIII.

A TRUMPETER

Is the elephant with the great trunk, for he eats nothing but what comes through this way. His profession is not so worthy as to occasion insolence, and yet no man so much puft up. His face is as brazen as his trumpet, and (which is worse,) as a fidler's, from whom he differeth only in this, that his impudence is dearer. The sea of drink and much wind make a storm perpetually in his cheeks, and his look is like his noise, blustering and tempestuous. He was whilom the sound of war, but now of peace; yet as terrible as ever, for wheresoever he comes they are sure to pay for it. He is the common attendant of glittering folks, whether in the court or stage, where he is always the prologue's prologue.[63] He is somewhat in the nature of a hogshead, shrillest when he is empty; when his belly is full he is quiet enough. No man proves life more to be a blast, or himself a bubble, and he is like a counterfeit bankrupt, thrives best when he is blown up.

FOOTNOTES:

[63] The prologue to our ancient dramas was ushered in by trumpets. "Present not yourselfe on the stage (especially at a new play) untill the quaking prologue hath (by rubbing) got cullor into his cheekes, and is ready to giue the trumpets their cue that hee's vpon point to enter." Decker's _Gul's Hornbook_, 1609. p. 30.

"Doe you not know that I am the Prologue? Do you not see this long blacke veluet cloke vpon my backe? _Haue you not sounded thrice?_" Heywood's _Foure Prentises of London_. 4to. 1615.

XXXIX.

A VULGAR-SPIRITED MAN

Is one of the herd of the world. One that follows merely the common cry, and makes it louder by one. A man that loves none but who are publickly affected, and he will not be wiser than the rest of the town. That never owns a friend after an ill name, or some general imputation, though he knows it most unworthy. That opposes to reason, "thus men say;" and "thus most do;" and "thus the world goes;" and thinks this enough to poise the other. That worships men in place, and those only; and thinks all a great man speaks oracles. Much taken with my lord's jest, and repeats you it all to a syllable. One that justifies nothing out of fashion, nor any opinion out of the applauded way. That thinks certainly all Spaniards and Jesuits very villains, and is still cursing the pope and Spinola. One that thinks the gravest cassock the best scholar; and the best cloaths the finest man. That is taken only with broad and obscene wit, and hisses any thing too deep for him. That cries, Chaucer for his money above all our English poets, because the voice has gone so, and he has read none. That is much ravished with such a nobleman's courtesy, and would venture his life for him, because he put off his hat. One that is foremost still to kiss the king's hand, and cries, "God bless his majesty!" loudest. That rails on all men condemned and out of favour, and the first that says "away with the traitors!"--yet struck with much ruth at executions, and for pity to see a man die, could kill the hangman. That comes to London to see it, and the pretty things in it, and, the chief cause of his journey, the bears. That measures the happiness of the kingdom by the cheapness of corn, and conceives no harm of state, but ill trading. Within this compass too, come those that are too much wedged into the world, and have no lifting thoughts above those things; that call to thrive, to do well; and preferment only the grace of God. That aim all studies at this mark, and shew you poor scholars as an example to take heed by. That think the prison and want a judgment for some sin, and never like well hereafter of a jail-bird. That know no other content but wealth, bravery, and the town-pleasures; that think all else but idle speculation, and the philosophers madmen. In short, men that are carried away with all outwardnesses, shews, appearances, the stream, the people; for there is no man of worth but has a piece of singularity, and scorns something.

XL.

A PLODDING STUDENT

Is a kind of alchymist or persecutor of nature, that would change the dull lead of his brain into finer metal, with success many times as unprosperous, or at least not quitting the cost, to wit, of his own oil and candles. He has a strange forced appetite to learning, and to atchieve it brings nothing but patience and a body. His study is not great but continual, and consists much in the sitting up till after midnight in a rug-gown and a night-cap, to the vanquishing perhaps of some six lines; yet what he has, he has perfect, for he reads it so long to understand it, till he gets it without book. He may with much industry make a breach into logick, and arrive at some ability in an argument; but for politer studies he dare not skirmish with them, and for poetry accounts it impregnable. His invention is no more than the finding out of his papers, and his few gleanings there; and his disposition of them is as just as the bookbinders, a setting or glewing of them together. He is a great discomforter of young students, by telling them what travel it has cost him, and how often his brain turned at philosophy, and makes others fear studying as a cause of duncery. He is a man much given to apothegms, which serve him for wit, and seldom breaks any jest but which belongs to some Lacedemonian or Roman in Lycosthenes. He is like a dull carrier's horse, that will go a whole week together, but never out of a foot pace; and he that sets forth on the Saturday shall overtake him.

XLI.

PAUL'S WALK[64]

Is the land's epitome, or you may call it the lesser isle of Great Britain. It is more than this, the whole world's map, which you may here discern in its perfectest motion, justling and turning. It is a heap of stones and men, with a vast confusion of languages; and were the steeple not sanctified, nothing liker Babel. The noise in it is like that of bees, a strange humming or buzz mixed of walking tongues and feet: it is a kind of still roar or loud whisper. It is the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and a-foot. It is the synod of all pates politick, jointed and laid together in most serious posture, and they are not half so busy at the parliament. It is the antick of tails to tails, and backs to backs, and for vizards you need go no farther than faces. It is the market of young lecturers, whom you may cheapen here at all rates and sizes. It is the general mint of all famous lies, which are here like the legends of popery, first coined and stamped in the church. All inventions are emptied here, and not few pockets. The best sign of a temple in it is, that it is the thieves sanctuary, which rob more safely in the crowd than a wilderness, whilst every searcher is a bush to hide them. It is the other expence of the day, after plays, tavern, and a bawdy-house; and men have still some oaths left to swear here. It is the ear's brothel, and satisfies their lust and itch. The visitants are all men without exceptions, but the principal inhabitants and possessors are stale knights and captains[65] out of service; men of long rapiers and breeches, which after all turn merchants here and traffick for news. Some make it a preface to their dinner, and travel for a stomach; but thriftier men make it their ordinary, and board here very cheap.[66] Of all such places it is least haunted with hobgoblins, for if a ghost would walk more, he could not.

FOOTNOTES:

[64] St. Paul's cathedral was, during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, a sort of exchange and public parade, where business was transacted between merchants, and where the fashionables of the day exhibited themselves. The reader will find several allusions to this custom in the _variorum_ edition of Shakspeare, _K. Henry IV._ part 2. Osborne, in his _Traditional Memoires on the Reigns of Elizabeth and James_, 12mo. 1658, says, "It was the fashion of those times (James I.) and did so continue till these, (the interregnum,) for the principal gentry, lords, courtiers, and men of all professions, not merely mechanicks, to meet in _St. Paul's_ church by eleven, and walk in the middle isle till twelve, and after dinner from three to six; during which time some discoursed of business, others of news." Weever complains of the practice, and says, "it could be wished that walking in the middle isle of _Paules_ might be forborne in the time of diuine seruice." _Ancient Funeral Monuments_, 1631, page 373.

[65] In the _Dramatis Personae_ to Ben Jonson's _Every Man in his Humour_, Bobadil is styled a _Paul's man_; and Falstaff tells us that he bought Bardolph in _Paul's_. _King Henry IV._ Part 2.

[66]

----You'd not doe
Like your penurious father, who was wont
_To walke his dinner out in Paules_.

Mayne's _City Match_, 1658.

XLII.

A COOK.

The kitchen is his hell, and he the devil in it, where his meat and he fry together. His revenues are showered down from the fat of the land, and he interlards his own grease among to help the drippings. Cholerick he is not by nature so much as his art, and it is a shrewd temptation that the chopping-knife is so near. His weapons, ofter offensive, are a mess of hot broth and scalding water, and woe be to him that comes in his way. In the kitchen he will domineer and rule the roast in spight of his master, and curses in the very dialect of his calling. His labour is meer blustering and fury, and his speech like that of sailors in a storm, a thousand businesses at once; yet, in all this tumult, he does not love combustion, but will be the first man that shall go and quench it. He is never a good christian till a hissing pot of ale has slacked him, like water cast on a firebrand, and for that time he is tame and dispossessed. His cunning is not small in architecture, for he builds strange fabricks in paste, towers and castles, which are offered to the assault of valiant teeth, and like Darius' palace in one banquet demolished. He is a pittiless murderer of innocents, and he mangles poor fowls with unheard-of tortures; and it is thought the martyrs persecutions were devised from hence: sure we are, St. Lawrence's gridiron came out of his kitchen. His best faculty is at the dresser, where he seems to have great skill in the tacticks, ranging his dishes in order military, and placing with great discretion in the fore-front meats more strong and hardy, and the more cold and cowardly in the rear; as quaking tarts and quivering custards, and such milk-sop dishes, which scape many times the fury of the encounter. But now the second course is gone up and he down in the cellar, where he drinks and sleeps till four o'clock[67] in the afternoon, and then returns again to his regiment.

FOOTNOTES:

[67] The time of supper was about five o'clock. See note at page 39.

XLIII.

A BOLD FORWARD MAN

Is a lusty fellow in a crowd, that is beholden more to his elbow than his legs, for he does not go, but thrusts well. He is a good shuffler in the world, wherein he is so oft putting forth, that at length he puts on. He can do some things, but dare do much more, and is like a desperate soldier, who will assault any thing where he is sure not to enter. He is not so well opinioned of himself, as industrious to make others, and thinks no vice so prejudicial as blushing. He is still citing for himself, that a candle should not be hid under a bushel; and for his part he will be sure not to hide his, though his candle be but a snuff or rush-candle. Those few good parts he has, he is no niggard in displaying, and is like some needy flaunting goldsmith, nothing in the inner room, but all on the cupboard. If he be a scholar, he has commonly stepped into the pulpit before a degree, yet into that too before he deserved it. He never defers St. Mary's beyond his regency, and his next sermon is at Paul's cross,[68] [and that printed.] He loves publick things alive; and for any solemn entertainment he will find a mouth, find a speech who will. He is greedy of great acquaintance and many, and thinks it no small advancement to rise to be known. [He is one that has all the great names at court at his fingers ends, and their lodgings; and with a saucy, "my lord," will salute the best of them.] His talk at the table is like Benjamin's mess, five times to his part, and no argument shuts him out for a quarreller. Of all disgraces he endures not to be non-plussed, and had rather fly for sanctuary to nonsense which few descry, than to nothing which all. His boldness is beholden to other men's modesty, which rescues him many times from a baffle; yet his face is good armour, and he is dashed out of any thing sooner than countenance. Grosser conceits are puzzled in him for a rare man; and wiser men though they know him [yet] take him [in] for their pleasure, or as they would do a sculler for being next at hand. Thus preferment at last stumbles on him, because he is still in the way. His companions that flouted him before, now envy him, when they see him come ready for scarlet, whilst themselves lye musty in their old clothes and colleges.

FOOTNOTES:

[68] Paul's cross stood in the church-yard of that cathedral, on the north side, towards the east end. It was used for the preaching of sermons to the populace; and Holinshed mentions two instances of public penance being performed here; in 1534 by some of the adherents of Elizabeth Barton, well known as _the holy maid of Kent_, and in 1536 by sir Thomas Newman, a priest, who "_bare a faggot at Paules crosse for singing masse with good ale_."

XLIV.

A BAKER.

No man verifies the proverb more, that it is an alms-deed to punish him; for his penalty is a dole,[69] and does the beggars as much good as their dinner. He abhors, therefore, works of charity, and thinks his bread cast away when it is given to the poor. He loves not justice neither, for the weigh-scale's sake, and hates the clerk of the market as his executioner; yet he finds mercy in his offences, and his basket only is sent to prison.[70] Marry a pillory is his deadly enemy, and he never hears well after.

FOOTNOTES:

[69] _Dole_ originally signified the portion of alms that was given away at the door of a nobleman. Steevens, note to _Shakspeare_. Sir John Hawkins affirms that the benefaction distributed at Lambeth palace gate, is to this day called the _dole_.

[70] That is, the contents of his basket, if discovered to be of light weight, are distributed to the needy prisoners.

XLV.

A PRETENDER TO LEARNING

Is one that would make all others more fools than himself, for though he know nothing, he would not have the would know so much. He conceits nothing in learning but the opinion, which he seeks to purchase without it, though he might with less labour cure his ignorance than hide it. He is indeed a kind of scholar-mountebank, and his art our delusion. He is tricked out in all the accoutrements of learning, and at the first encounter none passes better. He is oftener in his study than at his book, and you cannot pleasure him better than to deprehend him: yet he hears you not till the third knock, and then comes out very angry as interrupted. You find him in his _slippers_[71] and a pen in his ear, in which formality he was asleep. His table is spread wide with some classick folio, which is as constant to it as the carpet, and hath laid open in the same page this half year. His candle is always a longer sitter up than himself, and the _boast_[72] of his window at midnight. He walks much alone in the posture of meditation, and has a book still before his face in the fields. His pocket is seldom without a Greek testament or Hebrew bible, which he opens only in the church, and that when some stander-by looks over. He has sentences for company, some scatterings of Seneca and Tacitus, which are good upon all occasions. If he reads any thing in the morning, it comes up all at dinner; and as long as that lasts, the discourse is his. He is a great plagiary of tavern wit, and comes to sermons only that he may talk of Austin. His parcels are the meer scrapings from company, yet he complains at parting what time he has lost. He is wondrously capricious to seem a judgment, and listens with a sower attention to what he understands not. He talks much of Scaliger, and Casaubon, and the Jesuits, and prefers some unheard-of Dutch name before them all. He has verses to bring in upon these and these hints, and it shall go hard but he will wind in his opportunity. He is critical in a language he cannot conster, and speaks seldom under Arminius in divinity. His business and retirement and caller away is his study, and he protests no delight to it comparable. He is a great nomenclator of authors, which he has read in general in the catalogue, and in particular in the title, and goes seldom so far as the dedication. He never talks of any thing but learning, and learns all from talking. Three encounters with the same men pump him, and then he only puts in or gravely says nothing. He has taken pains to be an ass, though not to be a scholar, and is at length discovered and laughed at.

FOOTNOTES:

[71] _Study_, first edit.

[72] The first edition reads _post_, and, I think, preferably.

XLVI.

A HERALD

Is the spawn or indeed but the resultancy of nobility, and to the making of him went not a generation but a genealogy. His trade is honour, and he sells it and gives arms himself, though he be no gentleman. His bribes are like those of a corrupt judge, for they are the prices of blood. He seems very rich in discourse, for he tells you of whole fields of gold and silver, or, and argent, worth much in French but in English nothing. He is a great diver in the streams or issues of gentry, and not a by-channel or bastard escapes him; yea he does with them like some shameless queen, fathers more children on them than ever they begot. His traffick is a kind of pedlary-ware, scutchions, and pennons, and little daggers and lions, such as children esteem and gentlemen; but his penny-worths are rampant, for you may buy three whole brawns cheaper than three boar's heads of him painted. He was sometimes the terrible coat of Mars, but is now for more merciful battles in the tilt-yard, where whosoever is victorious, the spoils are his. He is an art in England but in Wales nature, where they are born with heraldry in their mouths, and each name is a pedigree.

XLVII.

THE COMMON SINGING-MEN IN CATHEDRAL CHURCHES

Are a bad society, and yet a company of good fellows, that roar deep in the quire, deeper in the tavern. They are the eight parts of speech which go to the syntaxis of service, and are distinguished by their noises much like bells, for they make not a concert but a peal. Their pastime or recreation is prayers, their exercise drinking, yet herein so religiously addicted that they serve God oftest when they are drunk. Their humanity is a leg to the residencer, their learning a chapter, for they learn it commonly before they read it; yet the old Hebrew names are little beholden to them, for they mis-call them worse than one another. Though they never expound the scripture, they handle it much, and pollute the gospel with two things, their conversation and their thumbs. Upon worky-days, they behave themselves at prayers as at their pots, for they swallow them down in an instant. Their gowns are laced commonly with streamings of ale, the superfluities of a cup or throat above measure. Their skill in melody makes them the better companions abroad, and their anthems abler to sing catches. Long lived for the most part they are not, especially the base, they overflow their bank so oft to drown the organs. Briefly, if they escape arresting, they die constantly in God's service; and to take their death with more patience, they have wine and cakes at their funeral, and now they keep[73] the church a great deal better, and help to fill it with their bones as before with their noise.

FOOTNOTES:

[73] _Keep_ for attend.

XLVIII.

A SHOP-KEEPER.

His shop is his well stuft book, and himself the title-page of it, or index. He utters much to all men, though he sells but to a few, and intreats for his own necessities, by asking others what they lack. No man speaks more and no more, for his words are like his wares, twenty of one sort, and he goes over them alike to all commers. He is an arrogant commender of his own things; for whatsoever he shews you is the best in the town, though the worst in his shop. His conscience was a thing that would have laid upon his hands, and he was forced to put it off, and makes great use of honesty to profess upon. He tells you lies by rote, and not minding, as the phrase to sell in, and the language he spent most of his years to learn. He never speaks so truely as when he says he would use you as his brother; for he would abuse his brother, and in his shop thinks it lawful. His religion is much in the nature of his customers, and indeed the pander to it: and by a mis-interpreted sense of scripture makes a gain of his godliness. He is your slave while you pay him ready money, but if he once befriend you, your tyrant, and you had better deserve his hate than his trust.

XLIX.

A BLUNT MAN

Is one whose wit is better pointed than his behaviour, and that coarse and impolished, not out of ignorance so much as humour. He is a great enemy to the fine gentleman, and these things of complement, and hates ceremony in conversation, as the Puritan in religion. He distinguishes not betwixt fair and double dealing, and suspects all smoothness for the dress of knavery. He starts at the encounter of a salutation as an assault, and beseeches you in choler to forbear your courtesy. He loves not any thing in discourse that comes before the purpose, and is always suspicious of a preface. Himself falls rudely still on his matter without any circumstance, except he use an old proverb for an introduction. He swears old out-of-date innocent oaths, as, by the mass! by our lady! and such like, and though there be lords present, he cries, my masters! He is exceedingly in love with his humour, which makes him always profess and proclaim it, and you must take what he says patiently, because he is a plain man. His nature is his excuse still, and other men's tyrant; for he must speak his mind, and that is his worst, and craves your pardon most injuriously for not pardoning you. His jests best become him, because they come from him rudely and unaffected; and he has the luck commonly to have them famous. He is one that will do more than he will speak, and yet speak more than he will hear; for though he love to touch others, he is touchy himself, and seldom to his own abuses replies but with his fists. He is as squeazy[74] of his commendations, as his courtesy, and his good word is like an eulogy in a satire. He is generally better favoured than he favours, as being commonly well expounded in his bitterness, and no man speaks treason more securely. He chides great men with most boldness, and is counted for it an honest fellow. He is grumbling much in the behalf of the commonwealth, and is in prison oft for it with credit. He is generally honest, but more generally thought so, and his downrightness credits him, as a man not well bended and crookned to the times. In conclusion, he is not easily bad, in whom this quality is nature, but the counterfeit is most dangerous, since he is disguised in a humour, that professes not to disguise.

FOOTNOTES:

[74] _Squeazy_, niggardly.

L.

A HANDSOME HOSTESS

Is the fairer commendation of an inn, above the fair sign, or fair lodgings. She is the loadstone that attracts men of iron, gallants and roarers, where they cleave sometimes long, and are not easily got off. Her lips are your welcome, and your entertainment her company, which is put into the reckoning too, and is the dearest parcel in it. No citizen's wife is demurer than she at the first greeting, nor draws in her mouth with a chaster simper; but you may be more familiar without distaste, and she does not startle at bawdry. She is the confusion of a pottle of sack more than would have been spent elsewhere, and her little jugs are accepted to have her kiss excuse them. She may be an honest woman, but is not believed so in her parish, and no man is a greater infidel in it than her husband.

LI.

A CRITIC

Is one that has spelled over a great many books, and his observation is the orthography. He is the surgeon of old authors, and heals the wounds of dust and ignorance. He converses much in fragments and _desunt multa's_, and if he piece it up with two lines he is more proud of that book than the author. He runs over all sciences to peruse their syntaxis, and thinks all learning comprised in writing Latin. He tastes stiles as some discreeter palates do wine; and tells you which is genuine, which sophisticate and bastard. His own phrase is a miscellany of old words, deceased long before the Caesars, and entombed by Varro, and the modernest man he follows is Plautus. He writes _omneis_ at length, and _quidquid_, and his gerund is most inconformable. He is a troublesome vexer of the dead, which after so long sparing must rise up to the judgment of his castigations. He is one that makes all books sell dearer, whilst he swells them into folios with his comments.[75]

FOOTNOTES:

[75] On this passage, I fear, the present volume will be a sufficient commentary.

LII.

A SERGEANT, OR CATCH-POLE

Is one of God's judgments; and which our roarers do only conceive terrible. He is the properest shape wherein they fancy Satan; for he is at most but an arrester, and hell a dungeon. He is the creditor's hawk, wherewith they seize upon flying birds, and fetch them again in his tallons. He is the period of young gentlemen, or their full stop, for when he meets with them they can go no farther. His ambush is a shop-stall, or close lane, and his assault is cowardly at your back. He respites you in no place but a tavern, where he sells his minutes dearer than a clock-maker. The common way to run from him is through him, which is often attempted and atchieved,[76] [_and no man is more beaten out of charity_.] He is one makes the street more dangerous than the highways, and men go better provided in their walks than their journey. He is the first handsel of the young rapiers of the templers; and they are as proud of his repulse as an Hungarian of killing a Turk. He is a moveable prison, and his hands two manacles hard to be filed off. He is an occasioner of disloyal thoughts in the commonwealth, for he makes men hate the king's name worse than the devil's.

FOOTNOTES:

[76] _And the clubs out of charity knock him down_, first edit.

LIII.

AN UNIVERSITY DUN

Is a gentleman's follower cheaply purchased, for his own money has hired him. He is an inferior creditor of some ten shillings downwards, contracted for horse-hire, or perchance for drink, too weak to be put in suit, and he arrests your modesty. He is now very expensive of his time, for he will wait upon your stairs a whole afternoon, and dance attendance with more patience than a gentleman-usher. He is a sore beleaguerer of chambers, and assaults them sometimes with furious knocks; yet finds strong resistance commonly, and is kept out. He is a great complainer of scholar's loytering, for he is sure never to find them within, and yet he is the chief cause many times that makes them study. He grumbles at the ingratitude of men that shun him for his kindness, but indeed it is his own fault, for he is too great an upbraider. No man puts them more to their brain than he; and by shifting him off they learn to shift in the world. Some chuse their rooms on purpose to avoid his surprisals, and think the best commodity in them his prospect. He is like a rejected acquaintance, hunts those that care not for his company, and he knows it well enough, and yet will not keep away. The sole place to supple him is the buttery, where he takes grievous use upon your name,[77] and he is one much wrought with good beer and rhetorick. He is a man of most unfortunate voyages, and no gallant walks the streets to less purpose.

FOOTNOTES:

[77] That is, _runs you up a long score_.

LIV.

A STAYED MAN

Is a man: one that has taken order with himself, and sets a rule to those lawlesnesses within him: whose life is distinct and in method, and his actions, as it were, cast up before; not loosed into the world's vanities, but gathered up and contracted in his station: not scattered into many pieces of businesses, but that one course he takes, goes through with. A man firm and standing in his purposes, not heaved off with each wind and passion: that squares his expence to his coffers, and makes the total first, and then the items. One that thinks what he does, and does what he says, and foresees what he may do before he purposes. One whose "if I can" is more than another's assurance; and his doubtful tale before some men's protestations:--that is confident of nothing in futurity, yet his conjectures oft true prophecies:--that makes a pause still betwixt his ear and belief, and is not too hasty to say after others. One whose tongue is strung up like a clock till the time, and then strikes, and says much when he talks little:--that can see the truth betwixt two wranglers, and sees them agree even in that they fall out upon:--that speaks no rebellion in a bravery, or talks big from the spirit of sack. A man cool and temperate in his passions, not easily betrayed by his choler:--that vies not oath with oath, nor heat with heat, but replies calmly to an angry man, and is too hard for him too:--that can come fairly off from captain's companies, and neither drink nor quarrel. One whom no ill hunting sends home discontented, and makes him swear at his dogs and family. One not hasty to pursue the new fashion, nor yet affectedly true to his old round breeches; but gravely handsome, and to his place, which suits him better than his taylor: active in the world without disquiet, and careful without misery; yet neither ingulphed in his pleasures, nor a seeker of business, but has his hour for both. A man that seldom laughs violently, but his mirth is a cheerful look: of a composed and settled countenance, not set, nor much alterable with sadness or joy. He affects nothing so wholly, that he must be a miserable man when he loses it; but fore-thinks what will come hereafter, and spares fortune his thanks and curses. One that loves his credit, not this word reputation; yet can save both without a duel. Whose entertainments to greater men are respectful, not complementary; and to his friends plain, not rude. A good husband, father, master; that is, without doting, pampering, familiarity. A man well poised in all humours, in whom nature shewed most geometry, and he has not spoiled the work. A man of more wisdom than wittiness, and brain than fancy; and abler to any thing than to make verses.

LV.

A MODEST MAN

Is a far finer man than he knows of, one that shews better to all men than himself, and so much the better to all men, as less to himself;[78] for no quality sets a man off like this, and commends him more against his will: and he can put up any injury sooner than this (as he calls it) your irony. You shall hear him confute his commenders, and giving reasons how much they are mistaken, and is angry almost if they do not believe him. Nothing threatens him so much as great expectation, which he thinks more prejudicial than your under-opinion, because it is easier to make that false, than this true. He is one that sneaks from a good action, as one that had pilfered, and dare not justify it; and is more blushingly reprehended in this, than others in sin: that counts all publick declarings of himself, but so many penances before the people; and the more you applaud him, the more you abash him, and he recovers not his face a month after. One that is easy to like any thing of another man's, and thinks all he knows not of him better than that he knows. He excuses that to you, which another would impute; and if you pardon him, is satisfied. One that stands in no opinion because it is his own, but suspects it rather, because it is his own, and is confuted and thanks you. He sees nothing more willingly than his errors, and it is his error sometimes to be too soon persuaded. He is content to be auditor, where he only can speak, and content to go away, and think himself instructed. No man is so weak that he is ashamed to learn of, and is less ashamed to confess it; and he finds many times even in the dust, what others overlook and lose. Every man's presence is a kind of bridle to him, to stop the roving of his tongue and passions: and even impudent men look for this reverence from him, and distaste that in him, which they suffer in themselves, as one in whom vice is ill-favoured, and shews more scurvily than another. A bawdy jest shall shame him more than a bastard another man, and he that got it shall censure him among the rest. And he is coward to nothing more than an ill tongue, and whosoever dare lye on him hath power over him; and if you take him by his look, he is guilty. The main ambition of his life is not to be discredited; and for other things, his desires are more limited than his fortunes, which he thinks preferment, though never so mean, and that he is to do something to deserve this. He is too tender to venture on great places, and would not hurt a dignity to help himself: If he do, it was the violence of his friends constrained him, how hardly soever he obtain it, he was harder persuaded to seek it.

FOOTNOTES:

[78] This, as well as many other passages in this work, has been appropriated by John Dunton, the celebrated bookseller, as his own. See his character of Mr. Samuel Hool, in _Dunton's Life and Errors_, 8vo. 1705. p. 337.

LVI.

A MEER EMPTY WIT

Is like one that spends on the stock without any revenues coming in, and will shortly be no wit at all; for learning is the fuel to the fire of wit, which, if it wants this feeding, eats out it self. A good conceit or two bates of such a man, and makes a sensible weakening in him; and his brain recovers it not a year after. The rest of him are bubbles and flashes, darted out on a sudden, which, if you take them while they are warm, may be laughed at; if they are cool, are nothing. He speaks best on the present apprehension, for meditation stupifies him, and the more he is in travel, the less he brings forth. His things come off then, as in a nauseateing stomach, where there is nothing to cast up, strains and convulsions, and some astonishing bombasts, which men only, till they understand, are scared with. A verse or some such work he may sometimes get up to, but seldom above the stature of an epigram, and that with some relief out of Martial, which is the ordinary companion of his pocket, and he reads him as he were inspired. Such men are commonly the trifling things of the world, good to make merry the company, and whom only men have to do withal when they have nothing to do, and none are less their friends than who are most their company. Here they vent themselves over a cup some-what more lastingly; all their words go for jests, and all their jests for nothing. They are nimble in the fancy of some ridiculous thing, and reasonable good in the expression. Nothing stops a jest when it's coming, neither friends, nor danger, but it must out howsoever, though their blood come out after, and then they emphatically rail, and are emphatically beaten, and commonly are men reasonable familiar to this. Briefly they are such whose life is but to laugh and be laughed at; and only wits in jest and fools in earnest.

LVII.

A DRUNKARD

Is one that will be a man to-morrow morning, but is now what you will make him, for he is in the power of the next man, and if a friend the better. One that hath let go himself from the hold and stay of reason, and lies open to the mercy of all temptations. No lust but finds him disarmed and fenceless, and with the least assault enters. If any mischief escape him, it was not his fault, for he was laid as fair for it as he could. Every man sees him, as Cham saw his father the first of this sin, an uncovered man, and though his garment be on, uncovered; the secretest parts of his soul lying in the nakedest manner visible: all his passions come out now, all his vanities, and those shamefuller humours which discretion clothes. His body becomes at last like a miry way, where the spirits are beclogged and cannot pass: all his members are out of office, and his heels do but trip up one another. He is a blind man with eyes, and a cripple with legs on. All the use he has of this vessel himself, is to hold thus much; for his drinking is but a scooping in of so many quarts, which are filled out into his body, and that filled out again into the room, which is commonly as drunk as he. Tobacco serves to air him after a washing, and is his only breath and breathing while. He is the greatest enemy to himself, and the next to his friend, and then most in the act of his kindness, for his kindness is but trying a mastery, who shall sink down first: and men come from him as a battle, wounded and bound up. Nothing takes a man off more from his credit, and business, and makes him more retchlesly[79] careless what becomes of all. Indeed he dares not enter on a serious thought, or if he do, it is such melancholy that it sends him to be drunk again.

FOOTNOTES:

[79] Rechlesse, _negligent_. Saxon, rectlerre. Chaucer uses it also as an adjective:

"I may not in this cas be _reccheles_."

_Clerkes Tale_, v. 8364.

LVIII.

A PRISON

Is the grave of the living,[80] where they are shut up from the world and their friends; and the worms that gnaw upon them their own thoughts and the jaylor. A house of meagre looks and ill smells, for lice, drink, and tobacco are the compound. Pluto's court was expressed from this fancy; and the persons are much about the same parity that is there. You may ask, as Menippus in Lucian, which is Nireus, which Thersites, which the beggar, which the knight;--for they are all suited in the same form of a kind of nasty poverty. Only to be out at elbows is in fashion here, and a great indecorum not to be thread-bare. Every man shews here like so many wracks upon the sea, here the ribs of a thousand pound, here the relicks of so many mannors, a doublet without buttons; and 'tis a spectacle of more pity than executions are. The company one with the other is but a vying of complaints, and the causes they have to rail on fortune and fool themselves, and there is a great deal of good fellowship in this. They are commonly, next their creditors, most bitter against the lawyers, as men that have had a great stroke in assisting them hither. Mirth here is stupidity or hard-heartedness, yet they feign it sometimes to slip melancholy, and keep off themselves from themselves, and the torment of thinking what they have been. Men huddle up their life here as a thing of no use, and wear it out like an old suit, the faster the better; and he that deceives the time best, best spends it. It is the place where new comers are most welcomed, and, next them, ill news, as that which extends their fellowship in misery, and leaves few to insult:--and they breath their discontents more securely here, and have their tongues at more liberty than abroad. Men see here much sin and much calamity; and where the last does not mortify, the other hardens; as those that are worse here, are desperately worse, and those from whom the horror of sin is taken off and the punishment familiar: and commonly a hard thought passes on all that come from this school; which though it teach much wisdom, it is too late, and with danger: and it is better be a fool than come here to learn it.

FOOTNOTES:

[80] "A prison is a graue to bury men aliue, and a place wherein a man for halfe a yeares experience may learne more law then he can at Westminster for an hundred pound." Mynshul's _Essays and Characters of a Prison_. 4to. 1618.

LIX.

A SERVING MAN

Is one of the makings up of a gentleman as well as his clothes, and somewhat in the same nature, for he is cast behind his master as fashionably as his sword and cloak are, and he is but _in querpo_[81] without him. His properness[82] qualifies him, and of that a good leg; for his head he has little use but to keep it bare. A good dull wit best suits with him to comprehend common sense and a trencher; for any greater store of brain it makes him but tumultuous, and seldom thrives with him. He follows his master's steps, as well in conditions as the street; if he wench or drink, he comes him in an under kind, and thinks it a part of his duty to be like him. He is indeed wholly his master's; of his faction,--of his cut,--of his pleasures:--he is handsome for his credit, and drunk for his credit, and if he have power in the cellar, commands the parish. He is one that keeps the best company, and is none of it; for he knows all the gentlemen his master knows, and picks from thence some hawking and horse-race terms,[83] which he swaggers with in the ale-house, where he is only called master. His mirth is bawdy jests with the wenches, and, behind the door, bawdy earnest. The best work he does is his marrying, for it makes an honest woman, and if he follows in it his master's direction, it is commonly the best service he does him.

FOOTNOTES:

[81] _In querpo_ is a corruption from the Spanish word _cuerpo_. "_En cuerpo, a man without a cloak._" Pineda's _Dictionary_, 1740. The present signification evidently is, that a gentleman without his serving-man, or attendant, is but half dressed:--he possesses only in part the appearance of a man of fashion. "_To walk in cuerpo, is to go without a cloak._" _Glossographia Anglicana Nova_, 8vo. 1719.

[82] _Proper_ was frequently used by old writers for comely, or handsome. Shakspeare has several instances of it:

"I do mistake my person all this while:
Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
Myself to be a marvellous _proper_ man."

_K. Richard III._ Act I. Sc. 2. &c.

[83] "Why you know an'a man have not skill in the hawking and hunting languages now-a-days, I'll not give a rush for him." _Master Stephen._ _Every Man in his Humour._

LX.

AN INSOLENT MAN

Is a fellow newly great and newly proud; one that hath put himself into another face upon his preferment, for his own was not bred to it. One whom fortune hath shot up to some office or authority, and he shoots up his neck to his fortune, and will not bate you an inch of either. His very countenance and gesture bespeak how much he is, and if you understand him not, he tells you, and concludes every period with his place, which you must and shall know. He is one that looks on all men as if he were angry, but especially on those of his acquaintance, whom he beats off with a surlier distance, as men apt to mistake him, because they have known him; and for this cause he knows not you 'till you have told him your name, which he thinks he has heard, but forgot, and with much ado seems to recover. If you have any thing to use him in, you are his vassal for that time, and must give him the patience of any injury, which he does only to shew what he may do. He snaps you up bitterly, because he will be offended, and tells you, you are sawcy and troublesome, and sometimes takes your money in this language. His very courtesies are intolerable, they are done with such an arrogance and imputation; and he is the only man you may hate after a good turn, and not be ungrateful; and men reckon it among their calamities to be beholden unto him. No vice draws with it a more general hostility, and makes men readier to search into his faults, and of them, his beginning; and no tale so unlikely but is willingly heard of him and believed. And commonly such men are of no merit at all, but make out in pride what they want in worth, and fence themselves with a stately kind of behaviour from that contempt which would pursue them. They are men whose preferment does us a great deal of wrong, and when they are down, we may laugh at them without breach of good-nature.

LXI.

ACQUAINTANCE