Microcosmography
by John Earle · English · Gutenberg #26425 · 483,410 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Microcosmography
Author: John Earle
Release date: August 25, 2008 [eBook #26425]
Most recently updated: January 4, 2021
Language: English
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MICROCOSMOGRAPHY;
OR,
A Piece of the World discovered;
IN
ESSAYS AND CHARACTERS.
MICROCOSMOGRAPHY;
OR,
A PIECE OF THE WORLD
DISCOVERED;
IN
ESSAYS AND CHARACTERS
By JOHN EARLE, D.D.
_A Reprint of Dr. Bliss's Edition of 1811._
WITH A PREFACE AND SUPPLEMENTARY
APPENDIX
By S. T. IRWIN.
Bristol:
PUBLISHED BY W. CROFTON HEMMONS.
London:
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LTD.
TO THE MEMORY
OF THE REVEREND DAVID WRIGHT,
"THE GRAVE DIVINE" OF THESE PAGES,
WHOSE NAME WILL LIVE IN BRISTOL
AS LONG AS MEN CARE FOR BEAUTY OF CHARACTER,
RICHNESS OF THOUGHT, OR DISTINCTION OF SPEECH,
THIS BRISTOL REPRINT IS INSCRIBED.
"From the contagion of the world's slow stain
He was secure."
PREFACE.
It may be reasonably asked why Dr. Bliss's[A] edition of the
Microcosmography should require a preface, and the answer is that it does
not require one. It would be difficult to have a more scholarly, more
adequate, more self-sufficing edition of a favourite book. Almost
everything that helps the elucidation of the text, almost everything about
Bishop Earle that could heighten our affection for him (there is nothing
known to his disparagement) is to be found here.[B] And affection for the
editor is conciliated by the way. It is not only his standard of
equipment that secures this--a standard that might have satisfied Mark
Pattison[C]--but also the painstaking love revealed in it, which, like
every other true love, whether of men or books, will not give of that
which costs it nothing. And, as a further title to our regard, Dr. Bliss
is amusing at his own expense, and compares himself to Earle's "critic,"
who swells books into folios with his comments. Not that this humorous
self-depreciation is to be pressed; for, unlike that critic, he is no
"troublesome vexer of the dead."
But though there is no need of a preface, I have two excuses for writing
one.
The first is that I was asked to do it by my friend Mr. Frank George, of
Bristol, who wished to see the book reprinted; and the second is the old
_professio pietatis_, which seemed to Tacitus a sufficient defence of the
Agricola, and may perhaps be allowed to serve humbler people as well. What
Earle says of men is no less true of books: "Acquaintance is the first
draught of a friend. Men take a degree in our respect till at last they
wholly possess us;" and the history of this possession must, in every
case, have a sort of interest, as long as it is not carried to the point
of demanding from others the superlatives we permit to ourselves. It is
sufficiently common for people to like the same book for different
reasons; and where an author has a secure place in English literature, his
shade, like the deity of Utopia, may be best pleased with a manifold and
various worship.[D]
The character of Earle, as drawn by Clarendon, is itself a guarantee for
his studies of character; and the fact that Lord Falkland was his chosen
friend is evidence of his possessing something of that sweet
reasonableness of temper for which his host was so remarkable. "He was
very dear" (we are told) "to the Lord Falkland, with whom he spent as much
time as he could make his own." Indeed, "Mr. Earles would frequently
profess that he had got more useful learning by his conversation at Tew
than he had at Oxford." Of Earle's conversation Clarendon says that it was
"so pleasant and delightful, so very innocent and so very facetious, that
no man's company was more desired and more loved." Walton, too, tells us
of his "innocent wisdom and sanctified learning"; and another witness
speaks of his "charitable heart," an epithet which is nobly borne out by
the correspondence between himself and Baxter printed in this volume.
This is no superfluous citation of testimony. Without it we might,
perhaps, have suspected, though not, I think, legitimately, something
almost of a cynical spirit in the severity of the punishment which he
deals out to the various disguises of vice and imposture, and in the
pitiless nakedness in which he leaves them. But there are even stronger
reasons for recalling contemporary verdicts pronounced on Earle as a man.
Hallam, in the "Literature of Europe,"[E] has a short notice of him, and
though it shews some appreciation of his ability, it contains a very
unworthy aspersion on his character. "The chapter on the sceptic," he
says, "is witty, but an insult to the honest searcher after truth, which
could only have come from one that was content to take up his own opinions
for ease or profit." If we accept all that is said of Earle's piety and
devotion, and give its proper weight to the very significant epithet
"innocent," used both by Walton and Clarendon, we shall, I think, be slow
to suspect his motive in attacking the sceptic. The honest doubter, it
must be remembered, was not the familiar--much less the
fashionable--figure he has become since, and it is very certain that Earle
described one type of sceptic both of his day and our own. That his sketch
may have done injustice to other types is likely enough; but that is no
reason for calling in question the sincerity of his opinions, or
attributing an interested orthodoxy to one whom Bunyan might have
christened Mr. Singleheart. The piety of the 17th Century was not disposed
to be gentle to sceptics. Even Bacon's enlightenment allows itself harsher
language on such subjects than any to be found in Earle. "None do refuse
to believe in a God save those for _whom it maketh that there were no
God_." And if Bacon is not thought a satisfactory witness, we have an
unimpeachable one very much nearer to our time. Dr. Johnson's occasional
strictures on sceptics are well-known, but his reputation for honest
thinking has never been impaired by their severity. Earle knew what
charity was, as the Baxter correspondence shows, and he has exposed in one
of his characters "the faith that has no room for it"; and if his own
faith needed further enlargement in the case of a sceptic,[F] some
enlargement of Hallam's charity might also have been looked for in
dealing with the earnestness of a militant piety.
The character-sketch is naturally a thing of limited scope. "Fine
portraiture,"[G] it has been said, "is not possible under such conditions
as it imposes. The traits, common to a class, cannot at the same time be
the accurate and intimate likeness of an individual. For this, a simple
enumeration of actions which such and such a man will do, is not enough. A
novelist takes a long series of connected actions, and even then he has to
interpret, to review from time to time whole stages of development." All
this is, no doubt, true, but the character-writers differ to a remarkable
extent in their individualising power--some of them achieving a high
degree of success, as is subsequently admitted in the case of Thackeray by
the writer just quoted. It may be noticed too, by the way, that great
novelists are not always equally successful in the character-sketch. One
is reminded of Johnson's phrase about Milton's inability "to carve heads
upon cherry stones" when one thinks of "Theophrastus Such" on the one
hand, and the almost unique position of George Eliot as a novelist on the
other. Less successful as she often is in lightness of touch when she has
to pause and interpret her story, she had not prepared us for such a
complete exhaustion of power as her attempt in this branch of literature
(apparently of the same genus, almost of the same species, as the novel)
reveals to her disappointed admirers. It may, at any rate, be said that
her failure is an instructive lesson in the literary division of labour,
and that these studies require a peculiar delicacy of organisation in the
observer, as well as a special gift of exposition.
"Dolus latet in generalibus" is a salutary warning, but the
character-writers, as a whole, have in most instances got creditably out
of the snare, while Earle, I think, has achieved something more. Besides
his humour and acuteness, besides even his profundity, I find in him an
exceptional power of individualizing. "The contemplative man," for
instance, belongs to a small class at all times; but it is only an
individual we have known, and known at rare intervals, of whose
Wordsworthian temper we are able to say that "Nature asks his approbation
as it were of her works and variety." Again, "the grave divine, who is not
yet dean or canon, though his life is our religion's best apology," reads
throughout like a personal experience. I at least so read it, or I should
not have borrowed from Earle for the dedication which stands at the head
of this preface. Yet such identifications are usually reserved for the
great novelist, whose highest art, as Macaulay says, is to "make the
inventions of one man seem like the recollections of another."
Some of Earle's readers appear to be chiefly impressed with his book as
furnishing "a picturesque idea of a period now remote, and as possessing
much of the affected quaintness of its age."[H] The picturesqueness I
find, and a good deal of quaintness; but the total impression is that of a
man who has got beyond words, ancient or modern, in his studies of human
nature--of one who, whether
"invectively he pierceth through
The body of the country, city, court;"
or is "anatomizing the wise man's folly," is as instructive a moralist in
the end of the nineteenth century as in the beginning of the seventeenth.
This, in a sense, is true of all great moralists, but the distinction of
Earle, as I understand it, is that his characters are so often really
people of our own day, with idiosyncracies that seem almost more
applicable to our own age than to his.
Society is almost a technical term to-day, susceptible, one would have
said, of refinements of difference infinitely more various than anything
that could have existed more than two hundred years ago; yet one cannot
but feel that this observer would have been fully equal to drawing our
microcosm as well as his own. Earle's is a penetrating observation which
is always fresh--so fresh that no archaism of phrase in him, and no cheery
optimism in ourselves, can disguise the fact that it is our weaknesses he
is probing, our motives he is discovering.
There are still with us "those well-behaved ghosts AEneas met with--friends
to talk with, and men to look on, but if he grasped them but air"--those
shadowy creatures that "wonder at your ill-breeding,[I] that cannot
distinguish between what is spoken and what is meant."
We are no strangers to "the fashionable respect which loves not deeper
mutualities, but though exceeding kind and friendly at your first
acquaintance, is at the twentieth meeting but friendly still"; or to that
similar temper which "nothing so much puts out as to trespass against the
genteel way." And, to go a stage lower, the formal man still survives,
whose "face is in so good a frame because he is not disjointed with other
meditations--who hath staid in the world to fill a number; and when he is
gone there wants one and there's an end."[J] He, to be sure, has no
conversation, and that is his discretion--but others display then as now a
bolder discretion, and in their talk "fly for sanctuary rather to nonsense
which few descry, than to nothing which all."
But literary conversation is not forgotten. It may be a stretch beyond
the power of a latter-day imagination to fancy a visitor proposing to
fascinate his company by some "scatterings of Seneca and Tacitus," or even
to think ourselves back to a time when these "were good for all
occasions." Yet, those who say "Chaucer[K] for our money above all our
English poets because the voice has gone so," (or had we better substitute
Browning?),[L] are still common enough examples of those who desire to
acquire inexpensively the reputation of good taste.
And there is another variety of modern artificiality which is not spared
in this book. For the many forms of busy idleness, the worship of
organisation and system, and all the other hindrances to life properly
so-called, which it has been the cherished labour of this age to
multiply, Earle would have had no reserve of patience. "The dull
physician," we are told, has no leisure _to be idle_, that is, to study.
"The grave divine," who has "studied to make his shoulders sufficient for
his burden, comes not up thrice a week into his pulpit because _he would
not be idle_"; whereas the commendation of the young raw preacher is that
"he speaks without book, and, indeed, he was never used to it."
We may justly boast of the superior humanity of our century; but few would
deny that the elaborate apparatus of modern philanthropy has too often
become an end in itself, and absorption in it a serious detriment to any
worthy preparation for the work of edifying. In the absence of leisure
pulpits will hardly furnish us with that "sincere erudition which can send
us clear and pure away unto a virtuous and happy life."[M] Nor is such a
loss compensated by an endless succession of services or even a whole
street of committee-rooms.
One would not, however, wish to rest in negations or dwell in the last
resort on Earle's critical attitude. One feels that the delightful house
at Tew did not spend all or even its best strength on criticism. Earle may
have there pursued the method of verification and studied his characters
in the flesh. Perhaps he saw there "the staid man," and duly appraised
this specimen of "nature's geometry";[N] while his obvious gifts as a
rational peace-maker, if not much needed in such a company, would not be
overlooked by Lord Falkland. "The good old man," too is a portrait so
strongly individualized that I cannot help thinking some very personal
experience went to the making of it--experience of a sort that was sure to
be revived at Tew, where "so good a relick of the old times" was not
likely to be wanting. It was a house, at any rate, for the "modest man" to
whom, as to the poet Cowper, public appearances were so many penances; for
though the world may not agree with Earle as to the degree in which this
quality sets off a man, there is no question of Lord Falkland's welcome of
the modest man, even if that grave divine "Mr. Earles," did not point out
this diffident guest as one who "had a piece of singularity," and, for all
his modesty, "scorned something."
And, as "the most polite and _accurate_ men of the University of
Oxford"[O] were to be met with at Tew, we may further hope that Earle
there watched the social mellowing of the "downright scholar whose mind
was too much taken up with his mind,"[P] and strove to carry out his own
recommendation, "practising him in men, and brushing him over with good
company."
Symposium is a word that has been much abused and vulgarised of late, but
something like its true Platonic sense must have been realised by the
company at Lord Falkland's, as they "examined and refined those grosser
propositions which laziness and consent made current in vulgar
conversation":[Q] for a more Platonic programme it would be difficult to
conceive. The pattern of the ideal republic is, we know, laid up somewhere
in the heavens; but the republic of letters so far as it was represented,
must have been as near the ideal in that house as it ever was on earth.
And in this ideal one of Earle's characters already mentioned was not only
a natural but a necessary element. "The contemplative man" is solitary, we
are told, in company, but he would not be so in this company. "Outward
show, the stream, the people," were not taken seriously at Lord
Falkland's; and the man who "can spell heaven out of earth" would be the
centre of a rare group--men upon whose fresh and eager appetites
conversation that was "mysterious and inward" could not easily pall.
Bishop Berkeley is one of the very few men who could answer with any
plausibility to this last character of Earle's. But the marvellous
amenity of his social gifts brings him a little closer to the kindly race
of men than Earle thinks is usual with the contemplative student. In every
other point it is an accurate piece of portraiture.[R] Nature might well
ask approbation of her works and variety from a man who was ever feeding
his noble curiosity and never satisfying it. He, too, made a "ladder of
his observations to climb to God." He, too, was "free from vice, because
he had no occasion to employ it." "Such gifts," said the turbulent Bishop
Atterbury of him, "I did not think had been the portion of any but
angels." After this it is no hyperbole to say, as Earle does of the
contemplative man, "He has learnt all can here be taught him, and comes
now to heaven to see more."
Though Clarendon does full justice to Earle's personal charm, he uses the
epithets "sharp and witty" to describe his published "discourses"; and the
piercing severity of his wit is illustrated everywhere in this book. It is
clear, however, from the sympathetic sketches that Earle's was no _nil
admirari_ doctrine, and that while he saw grave need on all hands for men
to clear their mind of cant, and their company of those who live by it, he
had great store of affection for all that is noble or noble in the making.
The "modest man" and the high-spirited man" are opposite types, but there
is in both the worthy pursuit and the high ideal. Moreover, the second of
those characters reveals a power of pathos which Earle might have
developed with more opportunity.[S] "The child" whom "his father has writ
as his own little story" is another indication of the same mood.
These sketches are full of suggestive melancholy--not the melancholy of
the misanthrope, but the true melancholy--the melancholy of
Virgil--_Invalidus etiamque tremens etiam inscius aevi._[T]
There is another character drawn with a most incisive pathos, though less
_Virgilian_[U] in its tone.
The poor man, "with whom even those that are not friends _for ends_ love
not a dearness," and who, "with a great deal of virtue, obtains of himself
not to hate men," is a pathetic figure, but he is something more. He is a
sermon on human weakness, not drawn as some Iago might have drawn it with
exultant mockery, but with the painful unflinching veracity of one who is
ashamed of himself and of his kind. When one thinks how often this
weakness is spoken of as if it were peculiar to the moneyed class or to
the uneducated, and how many people whom one knows act and think as if
poverty were a vice if not a crime, though they shrink from avowing it, so
unqualified an exposure indicates a conscience of no common sensitiveness.
Earle's wit and humour are deadly weapons, and it must be said that the
trades and professions are treated with scant indulgence. He can even
leave a mark like that of Junius when he has a mind. Thus the dull
physician is present at "some desperate recovery, and is slandered with
it, though he be guiltless"; and the attorney does not fear doomsday
because "he hopes he has a trick to reverse judgment!"
But though one would not ask on behalf of impostors or scoundrels for
suspension of sentence, one does wish for more than a single picture of
the young man "who sins to better his understanding." The companionship
of one who by his 34th year "had so much dispatched the business of life
that the oldest rarely attain to that knowledge and the youngest enter not
the world with more innocence,"[V] might have induced Earle to pourtray
more than the weaknesses of immature manhood.
We could not, however, have missed this or the other pictures of
characterless persons whether young or "having attained no proficiency by
their stay in the world." Inexperience may fail to recognise them and
suffer for it; or the gilding of rank and fashion may win for such persons
a name in society above that which they deserve, and the moralist is bound
to unmask them. These studies nevertheless are somewhat sombre;[W] and
there is something much lighter and pleasanter in his presentation of
some not unfamiliar phases of manners. There is the self-complacency that
deals with itself like a "truant reader skipping over the harsh places";
the frank discourtesy that finds something vicious in the conventions and
"circumstance" of good breeding; the patronising insolence[X] that "with
much ado seems to recover your name"; the egoism of discontent that "has
an accustomed tenderness not to be crossed in its fancy"; or lastly, that
affectation of reticence which is as modern as anything in the book,
though its illustrations look so remote. Where we meet with such a temper,
Earle's is still the right method--"we must deal with such a man as we do
with Hebrew letters, spell him backwards and read him!"
Despite all this searching analysis and the biting wit which accompanies
it, I cannot think the epithet cynical, which I have heard ascribed to
Earle, is defensible. There is a vast difference between recognising our
frailty which is a fact, and insisting that our nature is made up of
nothing else, which is not a fact. The severe critic and the cynic differ
chiefly in this: the first reports distressing facts, the second invents
disgraceful fictions; the one distrusts, the other insults our common
nature; and in doing justice to the possibilities of that nature, no one
has gone further than Earle in his "contemplative man."
Something may be said of Earle's style before this introduction is brought
to an end.
I do not think it is uniformly conspicuous[Y] for quaintness, or that
there is much that can be called affectation; though occasionally an
excess of brevity has proved too tempting, or the desire to individualize
runs away with him.
The following passages, taken at random from the Characters, seem to
contain phrases that we should be well content to use to-day if we had
thought of them.
_He sighs to see what innocence he hath outlived._
_We look on old age for his sake as a more reverent
thing._
_He has still something to distinguish him from a
gentleman, though his doublet cost more._
_It is discourtesy in you to believe him._
_An extraordinary man in ordinary things._
_His businesses with his friends are to visit them._
_The main ambition of his life is not to be
discredited._
_He preaches heresy if it comes in his way, though with
a mind I must needs say very orthodox._
These quotations have no very unfamiliar sound, nor much flavour of
archaism about them. And there are many more, surprisingly free from
conceits or other oddities, if we reflect that the book was written before
Dryden was born, or modern prose with its precision and balance even
thought of.
There is one very distinguishing mark set on Earle's characters, the
profundity of the analysis that accompanies the sketch. He lets us know
not only what the grave divine or the staid man looks like, but why they
are what they are, and all this without turning his sketch into an essay.
This mistake Bishop Hall is inclined to make, and Butler actually makes.
The author of Hudibras, it seems, would have been too fortunate had he
known where his own happiness lay--to wit in that "sting" of verse, which
Cowper says prose neither has nor can have.
When one compares the essay in its beginnings with the essay as we know it
to-day, it is not difficult to understand the change of form in the
character sketch. "The Character of a Trimmer"[Z] is a very powerful piece
of writing, containing some very fine things, but Halifax could not make
of it that finished piece of brevity which it would have become in Earle's
hands. Latin criticism has the right word for his work--"densus."[AA] We
could not pack the thinking closer if we wished. And yet if we do not
care to reason a type out, there are pictures enough unspoilt by
commentary.[AB] Earle has some of that delightful suddenness of
illustration which Selden makes so captivating in his Table-Talk. At once
we are made to see likeness or unlikeness, we hear no comment on it; since
the artist desires no more moral than is to be looked for in his art.
When on the other hand Earle makes more of the reason of the thing, he[AC]
is literally "swift and sententious"--he never takes the opportunity to
draw us into an instructive disquisition, or to assume airs of profundity.
And his passing hint as to the cause of what _we see_ no more injures any
picture he may draw than Coleridge's prose argument at the side of the
page destroys the imaginative spectacle in the Ancient Mariner.
Earle, it has been said, "is not so thoroughly at home with men of all
sorts and conditions as Overbury, who had probably seen far more of the
world."[AD] However relatively true this may be, Earle's book [published
1628] gives evidence of an experience of men as wide as it is intimate--an
experience little short of marvellous in a resident Fellow of
twenty-seven, whose younger years were chiefly distinguished for "oratory,
poetry, and witty fancies."[AE] (Perhaps his youth may account for some of
that excessive severity in handling follies which is occasionally
noticeable.) The article in the "Dictionary of National Biography" gives a
somewhat different impression of Earle as an observer. "The sketches
throw," it says, "_the greatest light_ upon the social condition of the
time." Now this is not possible for anyone to achieve whose vision
requires "the spectacles of books"; though with such help it is doubtless
possible to extend and improve on the observations of others, with human
nature as a constant quantity. But to be at home with one's contemporaries
and to record one's intimacy means to see with the eye as well as the
mind. The slow inductive method of personal contact is indispensable; and
no reasoning from first principles, no assimilating of secondhand
experience, with whatever touches of genius, can be mistaken for it.
It is not likely that the Registrar's house (his father's house) at York
added much to Earle's sketch-book; and we have to fall back on what
Clarendon says of his delightful conversation, and by implication, of his
delight in it. In the society of a University and in the life of a
University town there would be presented to an observer of his exceptional
penetration enough of the fusion or confusion of classes to furnish the
analytical powers with a tolerably wide field.
And Earle does not suffer by comparison with his rivals. "The concise
narrative manner"[AF] of Theophrastus, though in its way as humorously
informing as we find Plautus and Terence, and as we should have found the
New Comedy which they copied, leaves us a little cold from the looseness
or the connexion in the quasi-narrative: we rise a little unsatisfied from
the ingenious banquet of conversational scraps; we desire more. Overbury,
again, says less than Earle, and is more artificial in saying it. Butler
and Bishop Hall too directly suggest _the essay_[AG] and the sermon. In no
one of them is brevity so obviously the soul of wit as it is in Earle; no
one of them is so humorously thoughtful, so lucid in conception, so
striking in phrase.
When one has reckoned up all these gifts, and all that his friends and
contemporaries said of him, and remember also who and what these friends
were, one is not startled by the eulogistic epitaph in Merton College
Chapel; these words are as moving as they are strong:
Si nomen ejus necdum suboleat, Lector,
Nomen ejus ut pretiosa unguenta;
Johannes Earle Eboracensis.
But his own choicer Latin in the epitaph he wrote for the learned Peter
Heylin would serve no less well for himself; and the beautiful brevity of
its closing cadences has so much of the distinction of his English, and
puts so forcibly what Earle deserves to have said of him, that it may
fitly be the last word here:
Plura ejusmodi meditanti
mors indixit silentium:
ut sileatur
efficere non potest.
S.T.I.
Clifton, May, 1896.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] It came out in 1811. Forty-four years afterwards he wrote that in his
interleaved copy the list of Seventeenth Century Characters had increased
fourfold--good evidence of his affection for and interest in Earle's
Characters. Yet he despaired of anyone republishing a book so "common and
unimportant" (??). (See Arber's reprint of Earle.) It is to the credit of
Bristol that this pessimism has not been justified.
[B] Since writing this preface I have added a small supplementary
appendix; but there is nothing in it to require much qualification of the
opinion here expressed. It was hardly possible, as I gather, for Bliss to
have known of the Durham MS.
[C] Mr. John Morley has called Pattison's standard "the highest of our
time." Bliss's conception of an editor's duties is well illustrated in the
note on p. 73.
[D] "Varium ac multiplicem expetens cultum deus."--_Mori Utopia Lib. II._
[E] Vol. iii., pp. 153 and 154.
[F] Were the unorthodox opinions of Hobbes known to his friends as early
as 1647? If so, Earle could hardly have been very curious in scenting out
heresy, for Clarendon hopes Earle's intercession may secure for him a book
of Hobbes's. (See letters of Clarendon in Supplementary Appendix.)
[G] Professor Jebb, in his edition of The Characters of Theophrastus. I
rejoice to see that Professor Jebb assigns Earle a place of far more
distinction than is implied in the measured tribute of Hallam. His preface
furnishes lovers of Earle with just those reasoned opinions with which
instinctive attraction desires to justify itself; and I take this
opportunity of acknowledging my great obligations to it.
[H] Hallam. The same tone is taken in the article on Earle in the
"Encyclopaedia Britannica."
[I] Mr. Bridges indeed, ("Achilles in Scyros"), finds that this character
has been always with us, and gives it a place in the Heroic Age. The
passage has almost the note of Troilus and Cressida:--
"My invitation, Sir,
Was but my seal of full denial, a challenge
For honor's eye not to be taken up.
Your master hath slipped in manners."
[J] We may compare Matthew Arnold's travelling companion ("Essays in
Criticism," 1st Edition, Preface), who was so nervous about railway
murders, and who refused to be consoled by being reminded that though the
worst should happen, there would still be the old crush at the corner of
Fenchurch Street, and that he would not be missed: "the great mundane
movement would still go on!"
[K] Chaucer could hardly have been well-known in 1811, or Dr. Bliss would
scarcely have quoted in full the most familiar character in his Prologue;
but I could not find courage to excise, or lay a profane hand on any of
his notes.
[L] It is, perhaps, superfluous to say that no disrespect is intended to
the Author of the "Ring and the Book"; but it would be difficult to find
another poet who has had so many of the equivocal tributes of fashion.
[M] Sir Thomas Browne, "Christian Morals."
[N] "So infinite a fancy, bound in by a most logical
ratiocination."--_Clarendon (of Lord Falkland)._
[O] Clarendon.
[P] "A great cherisher of good parts ... and if he found men clouded with
poverty, or want, a most liberal and bountiful patron."--_Clarendon, ib._
[Q] Clarendon, _ib._
[R] Between Earle himself and Berkeley there is much resemblance. Of
Berkeley too it would have been said--"a person certainly of the sweetest
and most obliging nature that lived in our age"; and this resemblance
extends beyond their social gifts or their cast of mind, even to their
language. Earle's "vulgar-spirited" man, with whom "to thrive is to do
well," recalls a famous passage in the Siris.
"He that hath not thought much about God, the human soul, and the _summum
bonum_, may indeed be a _thriving_ earth-worm, but he will make a sorry
patriot, and a sorry statesman."
[S] Is this from Pliny's Letters? "Totum patrem mira similitudine
exscripserat."--_Lib._ V. xvi.
[T] One may recall, too, the famous words of the Sophoclean Ajax to his
son in connection with Earle's phrases. "He is not come to his task of
melancholy," "he arrives not at the mischief of being wise," read like a
free translation of Soph. Ajax, II. 554 and 555.
[U] Perhaps the simile in AEn. viii. 408 and one or two other places would
justify us in calling this also Virgilian, as, indeed, one may call most
good things.
[V] Clarendon--his character of Lord Falkland.
[W] There are certain things not at all sombre applicable not only to our
day, but to our _hour_, _e.g._ "the poet (I regret to say he is 'a pot
poet,') now much employed in commendations of our navy"; or this, "His
father sent him to the University, because he heard there were the best
fencing and dancing schools there." If we substitute athletics of some
kind, we have a very modern reason for the existence of such things as
Universities accepted as sound by both parents and children. _cf._ too Dr.
Bliss's note on the serving-man, and its quotation, "An' a man have not
skill in the hawking and hunting languages nowadays, I'll not give a rush
for him!"
[X] _cf._ Falconbridge in "King John":
"And if his name be George I'll call him Peter,
For new-made honour doth forget men's names."
It is this character which was the occasion of the most delightful of all
stories of absence of mind, and though, doubtless, familiar to many, I
cannot resist repeating it. The poet Rogers was looking at a new picture
in the National Gallery in company with a friend. Rogers was soon
satisfied, but his friend was still absorbed. "I say," said Rogers, "_that
fellow_ [Earle's insolent man] was at Holland House again last night, and
he came up and asked me if my name was Rogers." "Yes," said the friend,
still intent on the picture, "_and was it_?
[Y] The article in the "Dictionary of National Biography" lays stress on
the freedom from conceits in Earle's few poems at a time when conceits
were universal. The lines on Sir John Burroughs contain a couplet which is
wonderfully close to Wordsworth's "Happy Warrior":
"His rage was tempered well, no fear could daunt
_His reason_, his _cold_ blood was valiant."
_cf._ "Who in the heat of conflict keeps _the law_
In _calmness_ made."
Earle's standard in poetry was high. "Dr. Earle would not allow Lord
Falkland to be a good poet though a Great Witt," yet many poets praised
his verses. Aubrey, who tells us of Earle's opinion, confirms it. "He
(Lord Falkland) writt not a smooth verse, but a great deal of sense."
[Z] "The Trimmer" is no doubt a political manifesto--but no retreat from
politics could have chastened Halifax's style into a resemblance to
Earle's; when the "Character" became a political weapon, its literary
identity was all but at an end. "The Trimmer" is commended by Macaulay in
his History, where it will be remembered he pays a tribute to its
"vivacity."
[AA] Quintilian uses it of Thucydides.
[AB] The "She precise hypocrite" is a striking example--one of Earle's
most humorous pieces.
_cf._ also "The plain country fellow."
[AC] The pictures, with the moral attached, are best seen in places: in
"The Tavern, the best theatre of natures"; in "The Bowl-alley, an emblem
of the world where some few justle in to the mistress fortune"; in Paul's
Walk, "where all inventions are emptied and not a few pockets!"
[AD] Professor Jebb, preface to "The Characters of Theophrastus."
[AE] Anthony Wood.
[AF] Professor Jebb.
[AG] Professor Jebb justly replies to Hallam that if La Bruyere is far
superior to Theophrastus the scope of the two writers makes the comparison
unfair. The difference between them may perhaps be expressed by saying
that an essay was the last thing that the master and the first thing that
the disciple was anxious to produce.
CONTENTS
OF THE
SUPPLEMENTARY APPENDIX.
(1) THE DURHAM MS.
In the Cathedral Library at Durham is a small bound volume which contains
forty-six of Earle's Characters, bearing date 1627[AH],--the date of the
first edition being 1628. I was enabled by the kindness of Dr. Greenwell,
the Librarian, to take it away and examine it at leisure; and the courtesy
of the University Librarian, Dr. Fowler, furnished me with an exact
collation of the MS. versions with the printed text[AI] of these
forty-six Characters, the original of the contributions made by him to
"Notes and Queries," and referred to in the "Dictionary of National
Biography."
(2) I have printed, besides, some other versions quoted by Bliss from "Dr.
Bright's MS.," and incorporated in his annotated copy of his own book.
These are often the same with those of the Durham MS. I should mention
that though this annotated copy is in the Bodleian Library, the
Sub-Librarian, Mr. Falconer Madan, "knows of no 'Bright MS.,'[AJ] nor
where Bliss's MS. with that name is." The copy in question contains so
much additional matter that I have added a few things from it, but my
space was necessarily limited; there is good evidence in it of Bliss's
statement that he had continued collecting materials for the book for
forty-four years after its publication. Moreover, in the "Bliss Sale
Catalogue" in the Bodleian there are some 530 books of Characters
(including duplicates). I am myself in possession, as I believe, of a copy
of Bliss's edition which belonged to himself, and which is annotated by
himself and Haslewood.[AK] It contains a castrated title-page (originally
Bliss suppressed his name) and a notice of the book in the "Monthly
Review" of 1812.
(3) I have added a few "testimonies" to Earle from Anthony Wood and
others.
(4) I have printed three letters from Clarendon to Earle from the
"Clarendon State Papers," with short extracts from two others; as well as
two letters of Earle's from the Bodleian Library--interesting rather as
personal relics than as containing anything very significant. All that
relates to its author will, I believe, be acceptable to lovers of the
"Cosmography."
For this additional matter, as well as for other help and counsel, I am
indebted to Mr. Charles Firth, of Balliol College, Oxford, whose learning
is always at the service of his friends, and who stands in no need of the
old injunction--"not to be reserved and caitiff in this part of goodness."
(5) From a notebook of Bliss's (in MS.) in my possession I have added a
few titles of Books of Characters.
I have retained in this Appendix the spelling I found. Bliss's text has,
with a few exceptions (possibly accidental), the modern spelling.
FOOTNOTES:
[AH] Dec. 14th, 1627. [At the end, by way of Colophon:] at the top of page
1, in a different hand, "Edw. Blunt Author." This MS. was obviously one of
"the _written copies_, passing severally from hand to hand, which grew at
length to be a pretty number in a little volume." (See Blount's Preface to
the Reader.)
[AI] As it appears in Arber's Reprint.
[AJ] The "Bright MS." was obviously later than that in the Durham
Cathedral Library, since it contained several Characters known to have
been added to the first edition.
[AK] Joseph Haslewood, Antiquary. One of the founders of the Roxburghe
Club.
MICROCOSMOGRAPHY;
OR
A Piece of the World discovered;
IN
ESSAYS AND CHARACTERS.
BY JOHN EARLE, D.D.
OF CHRIST-CHURCH AND MERTON COLLEGES, OXFORD,
AND BISHOP OF SALISBURY.
A NEW EDITION.
TO WHICH ARE ADDED,
NOTES AND AN APPENDIX,
BY PHILIP BLISS,
FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD.
_LONDON:_
PRINTED FOR WHITE AND COCHRANE, FLEET-STREET;
AND
JOHN HARDING. ST. JAMES'S-STREET.
1811.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The present edition of Bishop Earle's Characters was undertaken from an
idea that they were well worthy of republication, and that the present
period, when the productions of our early English writers are sought after
with an avidity hitherto unexampled, would be the most favourable for
their appearance.
The text has been taken from the edition of 1732, collated with the first
impression in 1628. The variations from the latter are thus
distinguished:--those words or passages which have been added since the
first edition are contained between brackets, [and printed in the common
type]; those which have received some alteration, are printed in _italic_,
and the passages, as they stand in the first edition, are always given in
a note.
For the Notes, Appendix, and Index, the editor is entirely answerable, and
although he is fully aware that many superfluities will be censured, many
omissions discovered, and many errors pointed out, he hopes that the
merits of the original author will, in a great measure, compensate for the
false judgment or neglect of his reviver.
_January_ 30, 1811.
THE PREFACE
[TO THE EDITION OF 1732[AL].]
This little book had six editions between 1628 and 1633, without any
author's name to recommend it: I have heard of an eighth in 1664. From
that of 33 this present edition is reprinted, without altering any thing
but the plain errors of the press, and the old pointing and spelling in
some places.
The language is generally easy, and proves our English tongue not to be so
very changeable as is commonly supposed; nay, sometimes the phrase seems a
little obscure, more by the mistakes of the printer than the distance of
time. Here and there we meet with a broad expression, and some characters
are far below others; nor is it to be expected that so great a variety of
portraits should all be drawn with equal excellence, though there are
scarce any without some masterly touches. The change of fashions
unavoidably casts a shade upon a few places, yet even those contain an
exact picture of the age wherein they were written, as the rest does of
mankind in general: for reflections founded upon nature will be just in
the main, as long as men are men, though the particular instances of vice
and folly may be diversified. Paul's Walk is now no more, but then good
company adjourn to coffee-houses, and, at the reasonable fine of two or
three pence, throw away as much of their precious time as they find
troublesome.
Perhaps these valuable essays may be as acceptable to the public now as
they were at first; both for the entertainment of those who are already
experienced in the ways of mankind, and for the information of others who
would know the world the best way, that is--without trying it[AM].
FOOTNOTES:
[AL] _London: Printed by E. Say, Anno Domini_ M.DCC.XXXII.
[AM] A short account of Earle, taken from the _Athenae Oxonienses_ is here
omitted.
ADVERTISEMENT
[TO THE EDITION OF 1786[AN].]
As this entertaining little book is become rather scarce, and is replete
with so much good sense and genuine humour, which, though in part adapted
to the times when it first appeared, seems, on the whole, by no means
inapplicable to any aera of mankind, the editor conceives that there needs
little apology for the republication. A farther inducement is, his having,
from very good authority, lately discovered[AO] that these _Characters_
(hitherto known only under the title of _Blount's_[AP]), were actually
drawn by the able pencil of JOHN EARLE, who was formerly bishop of Sarum,
having been translated to that see from Worcester, A.D. 1663, and died at
Oxford, 1665.
Isaac Walton, in his Life of Hooker, delineates the character of the said
venerable prelate.
It appears from Antony Wood's Athen. Oxon. under the Life of Bishop Earle,
that this book was first of all published at London in 1628, under the
name of "_Edward Blount_."
FOOTNOTES:
[AN] _"Microcosmography; or, a Piece of the World characterized; in Essays
and Characters. London, printed A.D. 1650. Salisbury, Reprinted and sold
by E. Easton, 1786. Sold also by G. and T. Wilkie, St. Paul's Church-yard,
London."_
[AO] I regret extremely that I am unable to put the reader in possession
of this very acute discoverer's name.
[AP] This mistake originated with Langbaine, who, in his account of Lilly,
calls Blount "a gentleman who has made himself known to the world by the
several pieces of his own writing, (as _Horae Subsecivae_, his
_Microcosmography_, &c.") _Dramatic Poets_, 8vo, 1691, p. 327.
EDITIONS OF "MICROCOSMOGRAPHY."
The first edition (of which the Bodleian possesses a copy, 8vo. P. 154.
Theol.) was printed with the following title: "_Microcosmographie: or, a
Peece of the World discovered; In Essayes and Characters. Newly composed
for the Northerne parts of this Kingdome. At London. Printed by W. S. for
Ed. Blount, 1628_." This contains only fifty-four characters[AQ], which in
the present edition are placed first. I am unable to speak of any
subsequent copy, till one in the following year, (1629), printed for
Robert Allot[AR], and called in the title "_The first edition much
enlarged_." This, as Mr. Henry Ellis kindly informs me, from a copy in the
British Museum, possesses seventy-six characters. The _sixth_ was printed
for Allot, in 1633, (_Bodl. Mar._ 441,) and has seventy-eight, the
additional ones being "a herald," and "a suspicious, or jealous man." The
_seventh_ appeared in 1638, for Andrew Crooke, agreeing precisely with the
sixth; and in 1650 the _eighth_. A copy of the latter is in the curious
library of Mr. Hill, and, as Mr. Park acquaints me, is without any
specific edition numbered in the title. I omit that noticed by the editor
of 1732, as printed in 1664, for if such a volume did exist, which I much
doubt, it was nothing more than a copy of the eighth with a new
title-page. In 1732 appeared the _ninth_, which was a reprint of the
_sixth_, executed with care and judgment. I have endeavoured in vain to
discover to whom we are indebted for this republication of bishop Earle's
curious volume, but it is probable that the person who undertook it, found
so little encouragement in his attempt to revive a taste for the
productions of our early writers, that he suffered his name to remain
unknown. Certain it is that the impression, probably not a large one, did
not sell speedily, as I have seen a copy, bearing date 1740, under the
name of "_The World display'd: or several Essays; consisting of the
various Characters and Passions of its principal Inhabitants_," &c.
London, printed for C. Ward, and R. Chandler. The edition printed at
Salisbury, in 1786, (which has only seventy-four characters,) with that
now offered to the public, close the list.
FOOTNOTES:
[AQ] Having never seen or been able to hear of any copy of the second,
third, or fourth editions, I am unable to point out when the additional
characters first appeared.
[AR] Robert Allot, better known as the editor of _England's Parnassus_,
appears to have succeeded Blount in several of his copy-rights, among
others, in that of Shakspeare, as the second edition (1632) was printed
for him.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
_Preface to the Reprint of 1897_ vii.
Advertisement to the present edition (1811) xlv.
Preface to the edition of 1732 xlvii.
Advertisement to the edition of 1786 xlix.
Editions of _Microcosmography_ li.
Blount's Preface to the Reader lix.
A child 1
A young raw preacher 4
A grave divine 8
A meer dull physician 11
An alderman 16
A discontented man 18
An antiquary 20
A younger brother 22
A meer formal man 25
A church papist 27
A self-conceited man 29
A too idly reserved man 31
A tavern 34
A shark 37
A carrier 40
A young man 42
An old college butler 45
An upstart country knight 48
An idle gallant 51
A constable 53
A downright scholar 54
A plain country fellow 57
A player 60
A detractor 63
A young gentleman of the university 65
A weak man 68
A tobacco-seller 70
A pot poet 71
A plausible man 74
A bowl-alley 76
The world's wise man 78
A surgeon 80
A contemplative man 82
A she precise hypocrite 84
A sceptick in religion 88
An attorney 93
A partial man 95
A trumpeter 97
A vulgar spirited man 98
A plodding student 101
Paul's walk 103
A cook 106
A bold forward man 108
A baker 111
A pretender to learning 112
A herald 115
The common singing-men in cathedral churches 116
A shop-keeper 118
A blunt man 119
A handsome hostess 122
A critic 123
A serjeant, or catch-pole 124
An university dun 126
A stayed man 128
[All from this character were added after the first edition.]
A modest man 131
A meer empty wit 134
A drunkard 136
A prison 138
A serving-man 140
An insolent man 142
Acquaintance 144
A meer complimental man 147
A poor fiddler 149
A meddling-man 151
A good old man 153
A flatterer 155
A high spirited man 158
A meer gull citizen 160
A lascivious man 165
A rash man 167
An affected man 169
A profane man 171
A coward 173
A sordid rich man 174
A meer great man 177
A poor man 179
An ordinary honest man 181
A suspicious, or jealous man 183
APPENDIX.
Some account of bishop Earle[AS] 186
Characters of bishop Earle 194
List of Dr. Earle's Works 197
Lines on sir John Burroughs 199
Lines on the death of the earl of Pembroke 201
Lines on Mr. Beaumont 203
Dedication to the Latin translation of the [Greek: Eikon Basilike] 207
Inscription on Dr. Heylin's monument 211
Correspondence between Dr. Earle and Mr. Bagster 213
Inscription in Streglethorp church 217
Chronological List of Books of Characters, from 1567
to 1700 219
Corrections and additions 279
A note on bishop Earle's arms, from _Guillim's Heraldry_ 282
_Supplementary Appendix, 1897, (Durham MS., Letters
of Earle and Clarendon, etc.)_ 303
FOOTNOTES:
[AS] It will be remarked, that Dr. Earle's name is frequently spelled
_Earle_ and _Earles_ in the following pages. Wherever the editor has had
occasion to use the name himself, he has invariably called it _Earle_,
conceiving that to be the proper orthography. Wherever it is found
_Earles_, he has attended strictly to the original, from which the article
or information has been derived.
TO THE READER[AT].
I have (for once) adventured to play the midwife's part, helping to bring
forth these infants into the world, which the father would have smothered;
who having left them lapt up in loose sheets, as soon as his fancy was
delivered of them, written especially for his private recreation, to pass
away the time in the country, and by the forcible request of friends drawn
from him: yet, passing severally from hand to hand, in written copies,
grew at length to be a pretty number in a little volume: and among so many
sundry dispersed transcripts, some very imperfect and surreptitious had
liked to have passed the press, if the author had not used speedy means of
prevention; when, perceiving the hazard he ran to be wronged, was
unwillingly[AU] willing to let them pass as now they appear to the world.
If any faults have escaped the press (as few books can be printed
without), impose them not on the author, I intreat thee; but rather impute
them to mine and the printer's oversight, who seriously promise, on the
re-impression hereof, by greater care and diligence for this our former
default, to make thee ample satisfaction. In the mean while, I remain
Thine,
ED. BLOUNT[AV].
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[AT] _Gentile, or Gentle_, 8th edit. 1650.
[AU] Willingly, 8th edit. evidently a typographical error.
[AV] Edward Blount, who lived at the Black Bear, Saint Paul's Church-yard,
appears to have been a bookseller of respectability, and in some respects
a man of letters. Many dedications and prefaces, with as much merit as
compositions of this nature generally possess, bear his name, and there is
every reason to suppose that he translated a work from the Italian, which
is intituled "_The Hospitall of Incurable Fooles_," &c. 4to. 1600. Mr.
Ames has discovered, from the Stationer's Register, that he was the son of
Ralph Blount or Blunt, merchant-taylor of London; that he was apprenticed
to William Ponsonby, in 1578, and made free in 1588. It is no slight
honour to his taste and judgment, that he was one of the partners in the
first edition of Shakspeare.
MICROCOSMOGRAPHY;
_or_,
_A piece of the World characterized_.
I.
A CHILD
Is a man in a small letter, yet the best copy of Adam before he tasted of
Eve or the apple; and he is happy whose small practice in the world can
only write his character. He is nature's fresh picture newly drawn in oil,
which time, and much handling, dims and defaces. His soul is yet a white
paper[1] unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith, at length,
it becomes a blurred note-book. He is purely happy, because he knows no
evil, nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted with misery. He arrives
not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures evils to come, by
fore-seeing them. He kisses and loves all, and, when the smart of the rod
is past, smiles on his beater. Nature and his parents alike dandle him,
and tice him on with a bait of sugar to a draught of wormwood. He plays
yet, like a young prentice the first day, and is not come to his task of
melancholy. [[2]All the language he speaks yet is tears, and they serve
him well enough to express his necessity.] His hardest labour is his
tongue, as if he were loath to use so deceitful an organ; and he is best
company with it when he can but prattle. We laugh at his foolish ports,
Shakspeare, of a child, says,
"---- the hand of time
Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume."
_K. John II._ i.
but his game is our earnest; and his drums, rattles, and hobby-horses, but
the emblems and mocking of man's business. His father hath writ him as his
own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life that he cannot
remember, and sighs to see what innocence he hath out-lived. The elder he
grows, he is a stair lower from God; and, like his first father, much
worse in his breeches.[3] He is the Christian's example, and the old man's
relapse; the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his
simplicity. Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got
eternity without a burden, and exchanged but one heaven for another.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] So Washbourne, in his _Divine Poems_, 12mo. 1654:
"---- ere 'tis accustom'd unto sin,
_The mind white paper_ is, and will admit
Of any lesson you will write in it."--p. 26.
[2] This, and every other passage throughout the volume, [included between
brackets,] does not appear in the first edition of 1628.
[3] Adam did not, to use the words of the old Geneva Bible, "make himself
breeches," till he knew sin: the meaning of the passage in the text is
merely that, as a child advances in age, he commonly proceeds in the
knowledge and commission of vice and immorality.
II.
A YOUNG RAW PREACHER
Is a bird not yet fledged, that hath hopped out of his nest to be chirping
on a hedge, and will be straggling abroad at what peril soever. His
backwardness in the university hath set him thus forward; for had he not
truanted there, he had not been so hasty a divine. His small standing, and
time, hath made him a proficient only in boldness, out of which, and his
table-book, he is furnished for a preacher. His collections of study are
the notes of sermons, which, taken up at St. Mary's,[4] he utters in the
country: and if he write brachigraphy,[5] his stock is so much the
better. His writing is more than his reading, for he reads only what he
gets without book. Thus accomplished he comes down to his friends, and his
first salutation is grace and peace out of the pulpit. His prayer is
conceited, and no man remembers his college more at large.[6] The pace of
his sermon is a full career, and he runs wildly over hill and dale, till
the clock stop him. The labour of it is chiefly in his lungs; and the only
thing he has made[7] _in_ it himself, is the faces. He takes on against
the pope without mercy, and has a jest still in lavender for Bellarmine:
yet he preaches heresy, if it comes in his way, though with a mind, I must
needs say, very orthodox. His action is all passion, and his speech
interjections. He has an excellent faculty in bemoaning the people, and
spits with a very good grace. [His stile is compounded of twenty several
men's, only his body imitates some one extraordinary.] He will not draw
his handkercher out of his place, nor blow his nose without discretion.
His commendation is, that he never looks upon book; and indeed he was
never used to it. He preaches but once a year, though twice on Sunday; for
the stuff is still the same, only the dressing a little altered: he has
more tricks with a sermon, than a taylor with an old cloak, to turn it,
and piece it, and at last quite disguise it with a new preface. If he have
waded farther in his profession, and would shew reading of his own, his
authors are postils, and his school-divinity a catechism. His fashion and
demure habit gets him in with some town-precisian, and makes him a guest
on Friday nights. You shall know him by his narrow velvet cape, and serge
facing; and his ruff, next his hair, the shortest thing about him. The
companion of his walk is some zealous tradesman, whom he astonishes with
strange points, which they both understand alike. His friends and much
painfulness may prefer him to thirty pounds a year, and this means to a
chambermaid; with whom we leave him now in the bonds of wedlock:--next
Sunday you shall have him again.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] St. Mary's church was originally built by king Alfred, and annexed to
the University of Oxford, for the use of the scholars, when St. Giles's
and St. Peter's (which were till then appropriated to them,) had been
mined by the violence of the Danes. It was totally rebuilt during the
reign of Henry VII., who gave forty oaks towards the materials; and is, to
this day, the place of worship in which the public sermons are preached
before the members of the university.
[5] _Brachigraphy_, or short-hand-writing, appears to have been much
studied in our author's time, and was probably esteemed a fashionable
accomplishment. It was first introduced into this country by Peter Bales,
who, in 1590, published _The Writing Schoolmaster_, a treatise consisting
of three parts, the first "of Brachygraphie, that is, to write as fast as
a man speaketh treatably, writing but one letter for a word;" the second,
of Orthography; and the third, of Calligraphy. Imprinted at London, by T.
Orwin, &c. 1590. 4to. A second edition, "with sundry new additions,"
appeared in 1597. 12mo. Imprinted at London, by George Shawe, &c.
Holinshed gives the following description of one of Bale's
performances:--"The tenth of August (1575,) a rare peece of worke, and
almost incredible, was brought to passe by an Englishman borne in the
citie of London, named Peter Bales, who by his industrie and practise of
his pen, contriued and writ within the compasse of a penie, in Latine, the
Lord's praier, the creed, the ten commandements, a praier to God, a praier
for the queene, his posie, his name, the daie of the moneth, the yeare of
our Lord, and the reigne of the queene. And on the seuenteenthe of August
next following, at Hampton court, he presented the same to the queene's
maiestie, in the head of a ring of gold, couered with a christall; and
presented therewith an excellent spectacle by him deuised, for the easier
reading thereof: wherewith hir maiestie read all that was written therein
with great admiration, and commended the same to the lords of the
councell, and the ambassadors, and did weare the same manie times vpon hir
finger." _Holinshed's Chronicle, page 1262, b. edit, folio, Lond. 1587._
[6] It is customary in all sermons delivered before the University, to use
an introductory prayer for the founder of, and principal benefactors to,
the preacher's individual college, as well as for the officers and members
of the university in general. This, however, would appear very ridiculous
when "_he comes down to his friends_" or, in other words, preaches before
a country congregation.
[7] _of_, first edit. 1628.
III.
A GRAVE DIVINE
Is one that knows the burthen of his calling, and hath studied to make his
shoulders sufficient; for which he hath not been hasty to launch forth of
his port, the university, but expected the ballast of learning, and the
wind of opportunity. Divinity is not the beginning but the end of his
studies; to which he takes the ordinary stair, and makes the arts his way.
He counts it not prophaneness to be polished with human reading, or to
smooth his way by Aristotle to school-divinity. He has sounded both
religions, and anchored in the best, and is a protestant out of judgment,
not faction; not because his country, but his reason is on this side. The
ministry is his choice, not refuge, and yet the pulpit not his itch, but
fear. His discourse is substance, not all rhetoric, and he utters more
things than words. His speech is not helped with inforced action, but the
matter acts itself. He shoots all his meditations at one but; and beats
upon his text, not the cushion; making his hearers, not the pulpit groan.
In citing of popish errors, he cuts them with arguments, not cudgels them
with barren invectives; and labours more to shew the truth of his cause
than the spleen. His sermon is limited by the method, not the hour-glass;
and his devotion goes along with him out of the pulpit. He comes not up
thrice a week, because he would not be idle; nor talks three hours
together, because he would not talk nothing: but his tongue preaches at
fit times, and his conversation is the every day's exercise. In matters
of ceremony, he is not ceremonious, but thinks he owes that reverence to
the church to bow his judgement to it, and make more conscience of schism,
than a surplice. He esteems the church hierarchy as the church's glory,
and however we jar with Rome, would not have our confusion distinguish us.
In simoniacal purchases he thinks his soul goes in the bargain, and is
loath to come by promotion so dear; yet his worth at length advances him,
and the price of his own merit buys him a living. He is no base grater of
his tythes, and will not wrangle for the odd egg. The lawyer is the only
man he hinders, by whom he is spited for taking up quarrels. He is a main
pillar of our church, though not yet dean or canon, and his life our
religion's best apology. His death is the last sermon, where, in the
pulpit of his bed, he instructs men to die by his example.[8]
FOOTNOTES:
[8] I cannot forbear to close this admirable character with the beautiful
description of a "_poure Persone_," _riche of holy thought and werk_,
given by the father of English poetry:--
"Benigne he was, and wonder diligent,
And in adversite ful patient:
And swiche he was ypreved often sithes.
Ful loth were him to cursen for his tythes,
But rather wolde he yeven out of doute,
Unto his poure parishens aboute,
Of his offring, and eke of his substance.
He coude in litel thing have suffisance.
Wide was his parish, and houses fer asonder,
But he ne left nought for no rain ne thonder,
In sikenesse and in mischief to visite
The ferrest in his parish, moche and lite,
Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf.
* * * * *
And though he holy were, and vertuous,
He was to sinful men not dispitous,
Ne of his speche dangerous ne digne,
But in his teching discrete and benigne.
To drawen folk to heven, with fairenesse,
By good ensample, was his besinesse.
* * * * *
He waited after no pompe ne reverence,
Ne maked him no spiced conscience,
But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taught, but first he folwed it himselve."
_Chaucer, Prol. to Cant. Tales, v._ 485.
We may surely conclude with a line from the same poem,
"A better preest I trowe that nowher non is."
IV.
A MEER DULL PHYSICIAN.
His practice is some business at bedsides, and his speculation an urinal:
he is distinguished from an empiric, by a round velvet cap and doctor's
gown, yet no man takes degrees more superfluously, for he is doctor
howsoever. He is sworn to Galen and Hippocrates, as university men to
their statutes, though they never saw them; and his discourse is all
aphorisms, though his reading be only Alexis of Piedmont,[9] or the
Regiment of Health.[10] The best cure he has done, is upon his own purse,
which from a lean sickliness he hath made lusty, and in flesh. His
learning consists much in reckoning up the hard names of diseases, and the
superscriptions of gally-pots in his apothecary's shop, which are ranked
in his shelves, and the doctor's memory. He is, indeed, only languaged in
diseases, and speaks Greek many times when he knows not. If he have been
but a by-stander at some desperate recovery, he is slandered with it
though he be guiltless; and this breeds his reputation, and that his
practice, for his skill is merely opinion. Of all odours he likes best the
smell of urine, and holds Vespasian's[11] rule, that no gain is unsavory.
If you send this once to him you must resolve to be sick howsoever, for he
will never leave examining your water, till he has shaked it into a
disease:[12] then follows a writ to his drugger in a strange tongue, which
he understands, though he cannot conster. If he see you himself, his
presence is the worst visitation: for if he cannot heal your sickness, he
will be sure to help it. He translates his apothecary's shop into your
chamber, and the very windows and benches must take physic. He tells you
your malady in Greek, though it be but a cold, or headach; which by good
endeavour and diligence he may bring to some moment indeed. His most
unfaithful act is, that he leaves a man gasping, and his pretence is,
death and he have a quarrel and must not meet; but his fear is, lest the
carkass should bleed.[13] Anatomies, and other spectacles of mortality,
have hardened him, and he is no more struck with a funeral than a
grave-maker. Noble-men use him for a director of their stomach, and ladies
for wantonness,[14] especially if he be a proper man.[15] If he be single,
he is in league with his she-apothecary; and because it is the physician,
the husband is patient. If he have leisure to be idle (that is to study,)
he has a smatch at alcumy, and is sick of the philosopher's stone; a
disease uncurable, but by an abundant phlebotomy of the purse. His two
main opposites are a mountebank and a good woman, and he never shews his
learning so much as in an invective against them and their boxes. In
conclusion, he is a sucking consumption, and a very brother to the worms,
for they are both engendered out of man's corruption.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] _The secretes of the reverende maister Alexis of Piemount, containyng
excellente remedies against diuers diseases_, &c. appear to have been a
very favourite study either with the physicians, or their patients, about
this period.
They were originally written in Italian, and were translated into English
by William Warde, of which editions were printed at London, in 1558, 1562,
1595, and 1615. In 1603, a _fourth_ edition of a Latin version appeared at
Basil; and from Ward's dedication to "the lorde Russell, erle of Bedford,"
it seems that the French and Dutch were not without so great a treasure in
their own languages. A specimen of the importance of this publication may
be given in the title of the first secret. "The maner and secrete to
conserue a man's youth, and to holde back olde age, to maintaine a man
always in helth and strength, as in the fayrest floure of his yeres."
[10] _The Regiment of Helthe_, by Thomas Paynell, is another volume of the
same description, and was printed by Thomas Berthelette, in 1541. 4to.
[11] _Vespatian_, tenth emperor of Rome, imposed a tax upon urine, and
when his son Titus remonstrated with him on the meanness of the act,
"Pecuniam," says Suetonius, "ex prima pensione admovit ad nares, suscitans
_num odore offenderetur_? et illo negante, atqui, inquit, e lotio est."
[12] "Vpon the market-day he is much haunted with vrinals, where, if he
finde any thing, (though he knowe nothing,) yet hee will say some-what,
which if it hit to some purpose, with a fewe fustian words, hee will seeme
a piece of strange stuffe." Character of an unworthy physician. "_The Good
and the Badde_," by Nicholas Breton. 4to. 1618.
[13] That the murdered body bleeds at the approach of the murderer, was,
in our author's time, a commonly received opinion. Holinshed affirms that
the corps of Henry the Sixth bled as it was carrying for interment; and
Sir Kenelm Digby so firmly believed in the truth of the report, that he
has endeavoured to explain the reason. It is remarked by Mr. Steevens, in
a note to _Shakspeare_, that the opinion seems to be derived from the
ancient Swedes, or Northern nations, from whom we descend; as they
practised this method of trial in all dubious cases.
[14]
"Faith, doctor, it is well, thy study is to please
The female sex, and how their corp'rall griefes to ease."
Goddard's "_Mastif Whelp_." Satires. 4to. Without date. Sat. 17.
[15] _Proper_ for handsome.
V.
AN ALDERMAN.
He is venerable in his gown, more in his beard, wherewith he sets not
forth so much his own, as the face of a city. You must look on him as one
of the town gates, and consider him not as a body, but a corporation. His
eminency above others hath made him a man of worship, for he had never
been preferred, but that he was worth thousands. He over-sees the
commonwealth, as his shop, and it is an argument of his policy, that he
has thriven by his craft. He is a rigorous magistrate in his ward; yet his
scale of justice is suspected, lest it be like the balances in his
warehouse. A ponderous man he is, and substantial, for his weight is
commonly extraordinary, and in his preferment nothing rises so much as his
belly. His head is of no great depth, yet well furnished; and when it is
in conjunction with his brethren, may bring forth a city apophthegm, or
some such sage matter. He is one that will not hastily run into error, for
he treads with great deliberation, and his judgment consists much in his
pace. His discourse is commonly the annals of his mayoralty, and what good
government there was in the days of his gold chain, though the door posts
were the only things that suffered reformation. He seems most sincerely
religious, especially on solemn days; for he comes often to church to make
a shew, [and is a part of the quire hangings.] He is the highest stair of
his profession, and an example to his trade, what in time they may come
to. He makes very much of his authority, but more of his sattin doublet,
which, though of good years, bears its age very well, and looks fresh
every Sunday: but his scarlet gown is a monument, and lasts from
generation to generation.
VI.
A DISCONTENTED MAN
Is one that is fallen out with the world, and will be revenged on himself.
Fortune has denied him in something, and he now takes pet, and will be
miserable in spite. The root of his disease is a self-humouring pride, and
an accustomed tenderness not to be crossed in his fancy; and the occasion
commonly of one of these three, a hard father, a peevish wench, or his
ambition thwarted. He considered not the nature of the world till he felt
it, and all blows fall on him heavier, because they light not first on his
expectation. He has now foregone all but his pride, and is yet
vain-glorious in the ostentation of his melancholy. His composure of
himself is a studied carelessness, with his arms across, and a neglected
hanging of his head and cloak; and he is as great an enemy to an hat-band,
as fortune. He quarrels at the time and up-starts, and sighs at the
neglect of men of parts, that is, such as himself. His life is a perpetual
satyr, and he is still girding[16] the age's vanity, when this very anger
shews he too much esteems it. He is much displeased to see men merry, and
wonders what they can find to laugh at. He never draws his own lips higher
than a smile, and frowns wrinkle him before forty. He at last falls into
that deadly melancholy to be a bitter hater of men, and is the most apt
companion for any mischief. He is the spark that kindles the commonwealth,
and the bellows himself to blow it: and if he turn anything, it is
commonly one of these, either friar, traitor, or mad-man.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] To _gird_, is to sneer at, or scorn any one. Falstaff says, "men of
all sorts take a pride to _gird_ at me."--_Henry IV. Part 2._
VII.
AN ANTIQUARY;
He is a man strangly thrifty of time past, and an enemy indeed to his maw,
whence he fetches out many things when they are now all rotten and
stinking. He is one that hath that unnatural disease to be enamoured of
old age and wrinkles, and loves all things (as Dutchmen do cheese,) the
better for being mouldy and worm-eaten. He is of our religion, because we
say it is most antient; and yet a broken statue would almost make him an
idolater. A great admirer he is of the rust of old monuments, and reads
only those characters, where time hath eaten out the letters. He will go
you forty miles to see a saint's well or a ruined abbey; and there be but
a cross or stone foot-stool in the way, he'll be considering it so long,
till he forget his journey. His estate consists much in shekels, and Roman
coins; and he hath more pictures of Caesar, than James or Elizabeth.
Beggars cozen him with musty things which they have raked from dunghills,
and he preserves their rags for precious relicks. He loves no library, but
where there are more spiders volumes than authors, and looks with great
admiration on the antique work of cobwebs. Printed books he contemns, as a
novelty of this latter age, but a manuscript he pores on everlastingly,
especially if the cover be all moth-eaten, and the dust make a parenthesis
between every syllable. He would give all the books in his study (which
are rarities all,) for one of the old Roman binding, or six lines of Tully
in his own hand. His chamber is hung commonly with strange beasts skins,
and is a kind of charnel-house of bones extraordinary; and his discourse
upon them, if you will hear him, shall last longer. His very attire is
that which is the eldest out of fashion, [[AW]_and you may pick a
criticism out of his breeches_.] He never looks upon himself till he is
grey-haired, and then he is pleased with his own antiquity. His grave
does not fright him, for he has been used to sepulchers, and he likes
death the better, because it gathers him to his fathers.
FOOTNOTES:
[AW] In the first edition it stands thus:--"_and his hat is as antient as
the tower of Babel_."
VIII.
A YOUNGER BROTHER.
His elder brother was the Esau, that came out first and left him like
Jacob at his heels. His father has done with him, as Pharoah to the
children of Israel, that would have them make brick and give them no
straw, so he tasks him to be a gentleman, and leaves him nothing to
maintain it. The pride of his house has undone him, which the elder's
knighthood must sustain, and his beggary that knighthood. His birth and
bringing up will not suffer him to descend to the means to get wealth; but
he stands at the mercy of the world, and which is worse, of his brother.
He is something better than the serving-men; yet they more saucy with him
than he bold with the master, who beholds him with a countenance of stern
awe, and checks him oftener than his liveries. His brother's old suits and
he are much alike in request, and cast off now and then one to the other.
Nature hath furnished him with a little more wit upon compassion, for it
is like to be his best revenue. If his annuity stretch so far, he is sent
to the university, and with great heart-burning takes upon him the
ministry, as a profession he is condemned to by his ill fortune. Others
take a more crooked path yet, the king's high-way; where at length their
vizard is plucked off, and they strike fair for Tyburn: but their
brother's pride, not love, gets them a pardon. His last refuge is the
Low-countries,[17] where rags and lice are no scandal, where he lives a
poor gentleman of a company, and dies without a shirt. The only thing that
may better his fortunes is an art he has to make a gentlewoman, wherewith
he baits now and then some rich widow that is hungry after his blood. He
is commonly discontented and desperate, and the form of his exclamation
is, _that churl my brother_. He loves not his country for this unnatural
custom, and would have long since revolted to the Spaniard, but for
Kent[18] only, which he holds in admiration.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] The Low-countries appear to have afforded ample room for ridicule at
all times. In "_A brief Character of the Low-countries under the States,
being Three Weeks Observation of the Vices and Virtues of the
Inhabitants_, written by Owen Felltham, and printed Lond. 1659, 12mo. we
find them epitomized as a general sea-land--the great bog of Europe--an
universal quagmire--in short a green cheese in pickle. The sailors (in
which denomination the author appears to include all the natives,) he
describes as being able to "drink, rail, swear, niggle, steal, and be
_lowsie_ alike. P. 40.
[18] _Gavelkind_, or the practice of dividing lands equally among all the
male children of the deceased, was (according to Spelman,) adopted by the
Saxons, from Germany, and is noticed by Tacitus in his description of that
nation. _Gloss. Archaiol._ folio. Lond. 1664. Harrison, in _The
Description of England_, prefixed to Holinshed's _Chronicle_, (vol. 1.
page 180,) says, "Gauell kind is all the male children equallie to
inherit, and is continued to this daie in _Kent_, where it is onelie to my
knowledge reteined, and no where else in England." And Lambarde, in his
_Customes of Kent_, (_Perambulation_, 4to. 1596, page 538,) thus notices
it:--"The custom of Grauelkynde is generall, and spreadeth itselfe
throughout the whole shyre, into all landes subiect by auncient tenure
vnto the same, such places onely excepted, where it is altered by acte of
parleament."
IX.
A MEER FORMAL MAN
Is somewhat more than the shape of a man; for he has his length, breadth,
and colour. When you have seen his outside, you have looked through him,
and need employ your discovery no farther. His reason is merely example,
and his action is not guided by his understanding, but he sees other men
do thus, and he follows them. He is a negative, for we cannot call him a
wise man, but not a fool; nor an honest man, but not a knave; nor a
protestant, but not a papist. The chief burden of his brain is the
carriage of his body and the setting of his face in a good frame; which he
performs the better, because he is not disjointed with other meditations.
His religion is a good quiet subject, and he prays as he swears, in the
phrase of the land. He is a fair guest, and a fair inviter, and can excuse
his good cheer in the accustomed apology. He has some faculty in mangling
of a rabbit, and the distribution of his morsel to a neighbour's trencher.
He apprehends a jest by seeing men smile, and laughs orderly himself, when
it comes to his turn. His businesses with his friends are to visit them,
and whilst the business is no more, he can perform this well enough. His
discourse is the news that he hath gathered in his walk, and for other
matters his discretion is, that he will only what he can, that is, say
nothing. His life is like one that runs to the[19]church-walk, to take a
turn or two, and so passes. He hath staid in the world to fill a number;
and when he is gone, there wants one, and there's an end.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] _Minster-walk_, 1st edit.
X.
A CHURCH-PAPIST
Is one that parts his religion betwixt his conscience and his purse, and
comes to church not to serve God but the king. The face of the law makes
him wear the mask of the gospel, which he uses not as a means to save his
soul, but charges. He loves Popery well, but is loth to lose by it; and
though he be something scared with the bulls of Rome, yet they are far
off, and he is struck with more terror at the apparitor. Once a month he
presents himself at the church, to keep off the church-warden, and brings
in his body to save his bail. He kneels with the congregation, but prays
by himself, and asks God forgiveness for coming thither. If he be forced
to stay out a sermon, he pulls his hat over his eyes, and frowns out the
hour; and when he comes home, thinks to make amends for this fault by
abusing the preacher. His main policy is to shift off the communion, for
which he is never unfurnished of a quarrel, and will be sure to be out of
charity at Easter; and indeed he lies not, for he has a quarrel to the
sacrament. He would make a bad martyr and good traveller, for his
conscience is so large he could never wander out of it; and in
Constantinople would be circumcised with a reservation. His wife is more
zealous and therefore more costly, and he bates her in tires[20] what she
stands him in religion. But we leave him hatching plots against the state,
and expecting Spinola.[21]
FOOTNOTES:
[20] The word _tire_ is probably here used as an abbreviation of the word
_attire_, dress, ornament.
[21] _Ambrose Spinola_ was one of the most celebrated and excellent
commanders that Spain ever possessed: he was born, in 1569, of a noble
family, and distinguished himself through life in being opposed to prince
Maurice of Nassau, the greatest general of his age, by whom he was ever
regarded with admiration and respect. He died in 1630, owing to a
disadvantage sustained by his troops at the siege of Cassel, which was to
be entirely attributed to the imprudent orders he received from Spain, and
which that government compelled him to obey. This disaster broke his
heart; and he died with the exclamation of "_they have robbed me of my
honour_;" an idea he was unable to survive. It is probable that, at the
time this character was composed, many of the disaffected in England were
in expectation of an attack to be made on this country by the Spaniards,
under the command of Spinola.
XI.
A SELF-CONCEITED MAN
Is one that knows himself so well, that he does not know himself. Two
excellent well-dones have undone him, and he is guilty of it that first
commended him to madness. He is now become his own book, which he pores on
continually, yet like a truant reader skips over the harsh places, and
surveys only that which is pleasant. In the speculation of his own good
parts, his eyes, like a drunkard's, see all double, and his fancy, like an
old man's spectacles, make a great letter in a small print. He imagines
every place where he comes his theater, and not a look stirring but his
spectator; and conceives men's thoughts to be very idle, that is, [only]
busy about him. His walk is still in the fashion of a march, and like his
opinion unaccompanied, with his eyes most fixed upon his own person, or on
others with reflection to himself. If he have done any thing that has past
with applause, he is always re-acting it alone, and conceits the extasy
his hearers were in at every period. His discourse is all positions and
definitive decrees, with _thus it must be_ and _thus it is_, and he will
not humble his authority to prove it. His tenent is always singular and
aloof from the vulgar as he can, from which you must not hope to wrest
him. He has an excellent humour for an heretick, and in these days made
the first Arminian. He prefers Ramus before Aristotle, and Paracelsus
before Galen,[22] [_and whosoever with most paradox is commended_.] He
much pities the world that has no more insight in his parts, when he is
too well discovered even to this very thought. A flatterer is a dunce to
him, for he can tell him nothing but what he knows before: and yet he
loves him too, because he is like himself. Men are merciful to him, and
let him alone, for if he be once driven from his humour, he is like two
inward friends fallen out: his own bitter enemy and discontent presently
makes a murder. In sum, he is a bladder blown up with wind, which the
least flaw crushes to nothing.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] _and Lipsius his hopping stile before either Tully or Quintilian._
First edit.
XII.
A TOO IDLY RESERVED MAN
Is one that is a fool with discretion, or a strange piece of politician,
that manages the state of himself. His actions are his privy-council,
wherein no man must partake beside. He speaks under rule and prescription,
and dare not shew his teeth without Machiavel. He converses with his
neighbours as he would in Spain, and fears an inquisitive man as much as
the inquisition. He suspects all questions for examinations, and thinks
you would pick something out of him, and avoids you. His breast is like a
gentlewoman's closet, which locks up every toy or trifle, or some bragging
mountebank that makes every stinking thing a secret. He delivers you
common matters with great conjuration of silence, and whispers you in the
ear acts of parliament. You may as soon wrest a tooth from him as a paper,
and whatsoever he reads is letters. He dares not talk of great men for
fear of bad comments, and _he knows not how his words may be misapplied_.
Ask his opinion, and he tells you his doubt; and he never hears any thing
more astonishedly than what he knows before. His words are like the cards
at primivist,[23] where 6 is 18, and 7, 21; for they never signify what
they sound; but if he tell you he will do a thing, it is as much as if he
swore he would not. He is one, indeed, that takes all men to be craftier
than they are, and puts himself to a great deal of affliction to hinder
their plots and designs, where they mean freely. He has been long a riddle
himself, but at last finds OEdipuses; for his over-acted dissimulation
discovers him, and men do with him as they would with Hebrew letters,
spell him backwards and read him.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] _Primivist_ and primero were, in all probability, the same game,
although Minshew, in his Dictionary, calls them "two games at cardes." The
latter he explains "primum et primum visum, that is, first and first
seene, because hee that can shew such an order of cardes, first winnes the
game." The coincidence between Mr. Strutt's description of the former and
the passage in the text, shews that there could be little or no difference
between the value of the cards in these games, or in the manner of playing
them. "Each player has four cards dealt to him, one by one, the _seven_
was the highest card, in point of number, that he could avail himself of,
_which counted for twenty-one_, the six _counted for sixteen_, the five
for fifteen, and the ace for the same," &c. (_Sports and Pastimes_, 247.)
The honourable Daines Barrington conceived that Primero was introduced by
Philip the Second, or some of his suite, whilst in England. Shakspeare
proves that it was played in the royal circle.
----"I left him (Henry VIII.) at _Primero_
With the duke of Suffolk."----
_Henry VIII._
So Decker: "Talke of none but lords and such ladies with whom you have
plaid at _Primero_."--_Gul's Hornebooke_, 1609. 37.
Among the marquis of Worcester's celebrated "_Century of Inventions_,"
12mo. 1663, is one "so contrived without suspicion, that playing at
Primero at cards, one may, without clogging his memory, keep reckoning of
all sixes, sevens, and aces, which he hath discarded."--No. 87.
XIII.
A TAVERN
Is a degree, or (if you will,) a pair of stairs above an ale-house, where
men are drunk with more credit and apology. If the vintner's nose[24] be
at door, it is a sign sufficient, but the absence of this is supplied by
the ivy-bush: the rooms are ill breathed like the drinkers that have been
washed well over night, and are smelt-to fasting next morning; not
furnished with beds apt to be defiled, but more necessary implements,
stools, table, and a chamber-pot. It is a broacher of more news than
hogsheads, and more jests than news, which are sucked up here by some
spongy brain, and from thence squeezed into a comedy. Men come here to
make merry, but indeed make a noise, and this musick above is answered
with the clinking below. The drawers are the civilest people in it, men of
good bringing up, and howsoever we esteem of them, none can boast more
justly of their high calling. 'Tis the best theater of natures, where they
are truly acted, not played, and the business as in the rest of the world
up and down, to wit, from the bottom of the cellar to the great chamber. A
melancholy man would find here matter to work upon, to see heads as
brittle as glasses, and often broken; men come hither to quarrel, and come
hither to be made friends: and if Plutarch will lend me his simile, it is
even Telephus's sword that makes wounds and cures them. It is the common
consumption of the afternoon, and the murderer or maker-away of a rainy
day. It is the torrid zone that scorches _the_[25] face, and tobacco the
gun-powder that blows it up. Much harm would be done, if the charitable
vintner had not water ready for these flames. A house of sin you may call
it, but not a house of darkness, for the candles are never out; and it is
like those countries far in the North, where it is as clear at mid-night
as at mid-day. After a long sitting, it becomes like a street in a dashing
shower, where the spouts are flushing above, and the conduits running
below, while the Jordans like swelling rivers overflow their banks. To
give you the total reckoning of it; it is the busy man's recreation, the
idle man's business, the melancholy man's sanctuary, the stranger's
welcome, the inns-of-court man's entertainment, the scholar's kindness,
and the citizen's courtesy. It is the study of sparkling wits, and a cup
of canary[26] their book, whence we leave them.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] "Enquire out those tauernes which are best customd, whose maistres
are oftenest drunk, for that confirmes their taste, and that they choose
wholesome wines."--Decker's _Gul's Horne-booke_, 1609.
[25] _his_, First edit.
[26] The editor of the edition in 1732, has altered _canary_ to "_sherry_"
for what reason I am at a loss to discover, and have consequently restored
the reading of the first edition. Venner gives the following description
of this favourite liquor. "Canarie-wine, which beareth the name of the
islands from whence it is brought, is of some termed a sacke, with this
adjunct, sweete; but yet very improperly, for it differeth not only from
sacke in sweetness and pleasantness of taste, but also in colour and
consistence, for it is not so white in colour as sack, nor so thin in
substance; wherefore it is more nutritive than sack, and less
penetrative." _Via recta ad Vitam longum._ 4to. 1622. In Howell's time,
Canary wine was much adulterated. "I think," says he, in one of his
_Letters_, "there is more Canary brought into England than to all the
world besides; I think also, there is a hundred times more drunk under the
name of Canary wine, than there is brought in; for Sherries and Malagas,
well mingled, pass for Canaries in most taverns. When Sacks and Canaries,"
he continues, "were brought in first amongst us, they were used to be
drunk in aqua vitae measures, and 'twas held fit only for those to drink
who were used to _carry their legs in their hands_, _their eyes upon their
noses_, and an _almanack in their bones_; but now they go down every one's
throat, both young and old, like milk." Howell, _Letter to the lord
Cliff_, dated Oct. 7, 1634.
XIV.
A SHARK
Is one whom all other means have failed, and he now lives of himself. He
is some needy cashiered fellow, whom the world hath oft flung off, yet
still clasps again, and is like one a drowning, fastens upon anything that
is next at hand. Amongst other of his shipwrecks he has happily lost
shame, and this want supplies him. No man puts his brain to more use than
he, for his life is a daily invention, and each meal a new stratagem. He
has an excellent memory for his acquaintance, though there passed but _how
do you_ betwixt them seven years ago, it shall suffice for an embrace, and
that for money. He offers you a pottle of sack out of joy to see you, and
in requital of his courtesy you can do no less than pay for it. He is
fumbling with his purse-strings, as a school-boy with his points, when he
is going to be whipped, 'till the master, weary with long stay, forgives
him. When the reckoning is paid, he says, It must not be so, yet is strait
pacified, and cries, What remedy? His borrowings are like subsidies, each
man a shilling or two, as he can well dispend; which they lend him, not
with a hope to be repaid, but that he will come no more. He holds a
strange tyrrany over men, for he is their debtor, and they fear him as a
creditor. He is proud of any employment, though it be but to carry
commendations, which he will be sure to deliver at eleven of the
clock.[27] They in courtesy bid him stay, and he in manners cannot deny
them. If he find but a good look to assure his welcome, he becomes their
half-boarder, and haunts the threshold so long 'till he forces good nature
to the necessity of a quarrel. Publick invitations he will not wrong with
his absence, and is the best witness of the sheriff's hospitality.[28] Men
shun him at length as they would do an infection, and he is never crossed
in his way if there be but a lane to escape him. He has done with the age
as his clothes to him, hung on as long as he could, and at last drops off.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] We learn from Harrison's _Description of England_, prefixed to
Holinshed, that _eleven o'clock_ was the usual time for dinner during the
reign of Elizabeth. "With vs the nobilitie, gentrie, and students, doo
ordinarilie go to dinner at _eleuen before noone_, and to supper at fiue,
or between fiue and six at afternoon." (vol. i. page 171. edit. 1587.) The
alteration in manners at this time is rather singularly evinced, from a
passage immediately following the above quotation, where we find that
_merchants_ and _husbandmen_ dined and supped at a _later hour than the
nobility_.
[28] Alluding to the public dinners given by the sheriff at particular
seasons of the year. So in _The Widow_, a comedy, 4to. 1652.
"And as at a _sheriff's table_, O blest custome!
A poor indebted gentleman may dine,
Feed well, and without fear, and depart so."
XV.
A CARRIER
Is his own hackney-man; for he lets himself out to travel as well as his
horses. He is the ordinary embassador between friend and friend, the
father and the son, and brings rich presents to the one, but never returns
any back again. He is no unlettered man, though in shew simple; for
questionless, he has much in his budget, which he can utter too in fit
time and place. He is [like] the vault[29] in Gloster church, that
conveys whispers at a distance, for he takes the sound out of your mouth
at York, and makes it be heard as far as London. He is the young student's
joy and expectation, and the most accepted guest, to whom they lend a
willing hand to discharge him of his burden. His first greeting is
commonly, _Your friends are well_; [_and to prove it_][30] in a piece of
gold delivers their blessing. You would think him a churlish blunt fellow,
but they find in him many tokens of humanity. He is a great afflicter of
the high-ways, and beats them out of measure; which injury is sometimes
revenged by the purse-taker, and then the voyage miscarries. No man
domineers more in his inn, nor calls his host unreverently with more
presumption, and this arrogance proceeds out of the strength of his
horses. He forgets not his load where he takes his ease, for he is drunk
commonly before he goes to bed. He is like the prodigal child, still
packing away and still returning again. But let him pass.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] The chapel of the Virgin Mary, in the cathedral church of Gloucester,
was founded by Richard Stanley, abbot, in 1457, and finished by William
Farley, a monk of the monastery, in 1472. Sir Robert Atkyns gives the
following description of the vault here alluded to. "The _whispering
place_ is very remarkable; it is a long alley, from one side of the choir
to the other, built circular, that it might not darken the great east
window of the choir. When a person whispers at one end of the alley, his
voice is heard distinctly at the other end, though the passage be open in
the middle, having large spaces for doors and windows on the east side. It
may be imputed to the close cement of the wall, which makes it as one
entire stone, and so conveys the voice, as a long piece of timber does
convey the least stroak to the other end. Others assign it to the
repercussion of the voice from accidental angles." _Atkyns' Ancient and
Present State of Glostershire. Lond. 1712, folio, page 128._ See also
_Fuller's Worthies, in Gloucestershire, page 351_.
[30] _Then in a piece of gold_, &c. first edit.
XVI.
A YOUNG MAN;
He is now out of nature's protection, though not yet able to guide
himself; but left loose to the world and fortune, from which the weakness
of his childhood preserved him; and now his strength exposes him. He is,
indeed, just of age to be miserable, yet in his own conceit first begins
to be happy; and he is happier in this imagination, and his misery not
felt is less. He sees yet but the outside of the world and men, and
conceives them, according to their appearing, glister, and out of this
ignorance believes them. He pursues all vanities for happiness, and
[31][_enjoys them best in this fancy._] His reason serves, not to curb but
understand his appetite, and prosecute the motions thereof with a more
eager earnestness. Himself is his own temptation, and needs not Satan, and
the world will come hereafter. He leaves repentance for grey hairs, and
performs it in being covetous. He is mingled with the vices of the age as
the fashion and custom, with which he longs to be acquainted, and sins to
better his understanding. He conceives his youth as the season of his
lust, and the hour wherein he ought to be bad; and because he would not
lose his time, spends it. He distastes religion as a sad thing, and is six
years elder for a thought of heaven. He scorns and fears, and yet hopes
for old age, but dare not imagine it with wrinkles. He loves and hates
with the same inflammation, and when the heat is over is cool alike to
friends and enemies. His friendship is seldom so stedfast, but that lust,
drink, or anger may overturn it. He offers you his blood to-day in
kindness, and is ready to take yours to-morrow. He does seldom any thing
which he wishes not to do again, and is only wise after a misfortune. He
suffers much for his knowledge, and a great deal of folly it is makes him
a wise man. He is free from many vices, by being not grown to the
performance, and is only more virtuous out of weakness. Every action is
his danger, and every man his ambush. He is a ship without pilot or
tackling, and only good fortune may steer him. If he scape this age, he
has scaped a tempest, and may live to be a man.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] _Whilst he has not yet got them, enjoys them_, First edit.
XVII.
AN OLD COLLEGE BUTLER
Is none of the worst students in the house, for he keeps the set hours at
his book more duly than any. His authority is great over men's good names,
which he charges many times with shrewd aspersions, which they hardly wipe
off without payment. [His box and counters prove him to be a man of
reckoning, yet] he is stricter in his accounts than a usurer, and delivers
not a farthing without writing. He doubles the pains of Gollobelgicus,[32]
for his books go out once a quarter, and they are much in the same
nature, brief notes and sums of affairs, and are out of request as soon.
His comings in are like a taylor's, from the shreds of bread, [the]
chippings and remnants of a broken crust; excepting his vails from the
barrel, which poor folks buy for their hogs but drink themselves. He
divides an halfpenny loaf with more subtlety than Keckerman,[33] and
sub-divides the _a primo ortum_ so nicely, that a stomach of great
capacity can hardly apprehend it. He is a very sober man, considering his
manifold temptations of drink and strangers; and if he be overseen, 'tis
within his own liberties, and no man ought to take exception. He is never
so well pleased with his place as when a gentleman is beholden to him for
shewing him the buttery, whom he greets with a cup of single beer and
sliced manchet,[34] and tells him it is the fashion of the college. He
domineers over freshmen when they first come to the hatch, and puzzles
them with strange language of cues and cees, and some broken Latin which
he has learnt at his bin. His faculties extraordinary is the warming of a
pair of cards, and telling out a dozen of counters for post and pair, and
no man is more methodical in these businesses. Thus he spends his age till
the tap of it is run out, and then a fresh one is set abroach.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Gallo-Belgicus was erroneously supposed, by the ingenious Mr. Reed,
to be the "first news-paper published in England;" we are, however,
assured by the author of the "Life of Ruddiman," that it has no title to
so honourable a distinction. Gallo-Belgicus appears to have been rather an
_Annual Register_, or _History of its own Times_, than a news-paper. It
was written in Latin, and entitled. "MERCURIJ GALLO-BELGICI: _sive, rerum
in Gallia, et Belgio potissimum: Hispania quoque, Italia, Anglia,
Germania, Polonia. Vicinisque locis ab anno 1588, ad Martium anni 1594,
gestarum_, NUNCIJ." The first volume was printed in 8vo. at Cologne, 1598;
from which year, to about 1605, it was published annually; and from thence
to the time of its conclusion, which is uncertain, it appeared in
_half-yearly_ volumes. Chalmers' _Life of Ruddiman_, 1794. The great
request in which newspapers were held at the publication of the present
work, may be gathered from Burton, who, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_,
complains that "if any read now-a-days, it is a play-book, or a pamphlet
of newes."
[33] Bartholomew Keckerman was born at Dantzick, in Prussia, 1571, and
educated under Fabricius. Being eminently distinguished for his abilities
and application, he was, in 1597, requested, by the senate of Dantzick, to
take upon him the management of their academy; an honour he then declined,
but accepted, on a second application, in 1601. Here he proposed to
instruct his pupils in the complete science of philosophy in the short
space of three years, and, for that purpose, drew up a great number of
books upon logic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, metaphysics,
geography, astronomy, &c. &c. till, as it is said, literally worn out with
scholastic drudgery, he died at the early age of 38.
[34] Of bread made of wheat we have sundrie sorts dailie brought to the
table, whereof the first and most excellent is the _mainchet_, which we
commonlie call white bread. Harrison, _Description of England_ prefixed to
Holinshed, chap. 6.
XVIII.
AN UPSTART COUNTRY KNIGHT
[_Is a holiday clown, and differs only in the stuff of his clothes, not
the stuff of himself_,][35] for he bare the king's sword before he had
arms to wield it; yet being once laid o'er the shoulder with a knighthood,
he finds the herald his friend. His father was a man of good stock, though
but a tanner or usurer; he purchased the land, and his son the title. He
has doffed off the name of a [36][_country fellow_,] but the look not so
easy, and his face still bears a relish of churne-milk. He is guarded with
more gold lace than all the gentlemen of the country, yet his body makes
his clothes still out of fashion. His house-keeping is seen much in the
distinct families of dogs, and serving-men attendant on their kennels, and
the deepness of their throats is the depth of his discourse. A hawk he
esteems the true burden of nobility,[37] and is exceeding ambitious to
seem delighted in the sport, and have his fist gloved with his
jesses.[38] A justice of peace he is to domineer in his parish, and do his
neighbour wrong with more right.[39] He will be drunk with his hunters for
company, and stain his gentility with droppings of ale. He is fearful of
being sheriff of the shire by instinct, and dreads the assize-week as much
as the prisoner. In sum, he's but a clod of his own earth, or his land is
the dunghill and he the cock that crows over it: and commonly his race is
quickly run, and his children's children, though they escape hanging,
return to the place from whence they came.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] _His honour was somewhat preposterous, for he bare_, &c. first edit.
[36] _Clown_, first edit.
[37] The art of hawking has been so frequently and so fully explained,
that it would be superfluous, if not arrogant, to trace its progress, or
delineate its history, in this place. In the earliest periods it appears
to have been exclusively practised by the nobility; and, indeed, the great
expense at which the amusement was supported, seems to have been a
sufficient reason for deterring persons of more moderate income, and of
inferior rank, from indulging in the pursuit. In the _Sports and Pastimes_
of Mr. Strutt, a variety of instances are given of the importance attached
to the office of falconer, and of the immense value of, and high
estimation the birds themselves were held in from the commencement of the
Norman government, down to the reign of James I. in which sir Thomas
Monson gave _1000l._ for a cast of hawks, which consisted of only _two_.
The great increase of wealth, and the consequent equalization of property
in this country, about the reign of Elizabeth, induced many of inferior
birth to practise the amusements of their superiors, which they did
without regard to expense, or indeed propriety. Sir Thomas Elyot, in his
_Governour_ (1580), complains that the falkons of his day consumed so much
poultry, that, in a few years, he feared there would be a great scarcity
of it. "I speake not this," says he, "in disprayse of the faukons, but of
them which keepeth them lyke cockneyes." A reproof, there can be no doubt,
applicable to the character in the text.
[38] A term in hawking, signifying the short straps of leather which are
fastened to the hawk's legs, by which she is held on the fist, or joined
to the leash. They were sometimes made of silk, as appears from [P] _The
Boke of hawkynge, huntynge, and fysshynge, with all the propertyes and
medecynes that are necessarye to be kepte_: "Hawkes haue aboute theyr
legges gesses made of lether most comonly, some of sylke, which shuld be
no lenger but that the knottes of them shulde appere in the myddes of the
lefte hande," &c. _Juliana Barnes._ edit. 4to. "_Imprynted at London in
Pouls chyrchyarde by me Hery Tab._" sig. C. ii.
[39] _This authority of his is that club which keeps them under as his
dogs hereafter._ First edit.
XIX.
AN IDLE GALLANT
Is one that was born and shaped for his cloaths; and, if Adam had not
fallen, had lived to no purpose. He gratulates therefore the first sin,
and fig-leaves that were an occasion of [his] bravery. His first care is
his dress, the next his body, and in the uniting of these two lies his
soul and its faculties. He observes London trulier than the terms, and his
business is the street, the stage, the court, and those places where a
proper man is best shown. If he be qualified in gaming extraordinary, he
is so much the more genteel and compleat, and he learns the best oaths for
the purpose. These are a great part of his discourse, and he is as curious
in their newness as the fashion. His other talk is ladies and such pretty
things, or some jest at a play. His pick-tooth bears a great part in his
discourse, so does his body, the upper parts whereof are as starched as
his linnen, and perchance use the same laundress. He has learned to ruffle
his face from his boot, and takes great delight in his walk to hear his
spurs gingle. Though his life pass somewhat slidingly, yet he seems very
careful of the time, for he is still drawing his watch out of his pocket,
and spends part of his hours in numbering them. He is one never serious
but with his taylor, when he is in conspiracy for the next device. He is
furnished with his jests, as some wanderer with sermons, some three for
all congregations, one especially against the scholar, a man to him much
ridiculous, whom he knows by no other definition, but a silly fellow in
black. He is a kind of walking mercer's shop, and shows you one stuff
to-day and another to-morrow; an ornament to the room he comes in as the
fair bed and hangings be; and it is meerly ratable accordingly, fifty or a
hundred pounds as his suit is. His main ambition is to get a knight-hood,
and then an old lady, which if he be happy in, he fills the stage and a
coach so much longer: Otherwise, himself and his cloaths grow stale
together, and he is buried commonly ere he dies in the gaol, or the
country.
XX.
A CONSTABLE
Is a vice-roy in the street, and no man stands more upon't that he is the
king's officer. His jurisdiction extends to the next stocks, where he has
commission for the heels only, and sets the rest of the body at liberty.
He is a scarecrow to that ale-house, where he drinks not his morning
draught, and apprehends a drunkard for not standing in the king's name.
Beggars fear him more than the justice, and as much as the whip-stock,
whom he delivers over to his subordinate magistrates, the bridewell-man,
and the beadle. He is a great stickler in the tumults of double jugs, and
ventures his head by his place, which is broke many times to keep whole
the peace. He is never so much in his majesty as in his night-watch, where
he sits in his chair of state, a shop-stall, and invironed with a guard of
halberts, examines all passengers. He is a very careful man in his office,
but if he stay up after midnight you shall take him napping.
XXI.
A DOWN-RIGHT SCHOLAR
Is one that has much learning in the ore, unwrought and untried, which
time and experience fashions and refines. He is good metal in the inside,
though rough and unscoured without, and therefore hated of the courtier,
that is quite contrary. The time has got a vein of making him ridiculous,
and men laugh at him by tradition, and no unlucky absurdity but is put
upon his profession, and done like a scholar. But his fault is only this,
that his mind is [somewhat] too much taken up with his mind, and his
thoughts not loaden with any carriage besides. He has not put on the
quaint garb of the age, which is now a man's [_Imprimis and all the
Item_.[40]] He has not humbled his meditations to the industry of
complement, nor afflicted his brain in an elaborate leg. His body is not
set upon nice pins, to be turning and flexible for every motion, but his
scrape is homely and his nod worse. He cannot kiss his hand and cry,
madam, nor talk idle enough to bear her company. His smacking of a
gentlewoman is somewhat too savory, and he mistakes her nose for her lips.
A very woodcock would puzzle him in carving, and he wants the logick of a
capon. He has not the glib faculty of sliding over a tale, but his words
come squeamishly out of his mouth, and the laughter commonly before the
jest. He names this word college too often, and his discourse beats too
much on the university. The perplexity of mannerliness will not let him
feed, and he is sharp set at an argument when he should cut his meat. He
is discarded for a gamester at all games but one and thirty,[41] and at
tables he reaches not beyond doublets. His fingers are not long and drawn
out to handle a fiddle, but his fist clunched with the habit of disputing.
He ascends a horse somewhat sinisterly, though not on the left side, and
they both go jogging in grief together. He is exceedingly censured by the
inns-of-court men, for that heinous vice being out of fashion. He cannot
speak to a dog in his own dialect, and understands Greek better than the
language of a falconer. He has been used to a dark room, and dark
cloathes, and his eyes dazzle at a sattin suit. The hermitage of his
study, has made him somewhat uncouth in the world, and men make him worse
by staring on him. Thus is he [silly and] ridiculous, and it continues
with him for some quarter of a year out of the university. But practise
him a little in men, and brush him over with good company, and he shall
out-ballance those glisterers, as far as a solid substance does a feather,
or gold, gold-lace.
FOOTNOTES:
[40] _Now become a man's total_, first edit.
[41] Of the game called _one and thirty_, I am unable to find any mention
in Mr. Strutt's _Sports and Pastimes_, nor is it alluded to in any of the
old plays or tracts I have yet met with. A very satisfactory account of
_tables_ may be read in the interesting and valuable publication just
noticed.
XXII.
A PLAIN COUNTRY FELLOW
Is one that manures his ground well, but lets himself lye fallow and
untilled. He has reason enough to do his business, and not enough to be
idle or melancholy. He seems to have the punishment of _Nebuchadnezzar_,
for his conversation is among beasts, and his tallons none of the
shortest, only he eats not grass, because he loves not sallets. His hand
guides the plough, and the plough his thoughts, and his ditch and
land-mark is the very mound of his meditations. He expostulates with his
oxen very understandingly, and speaks gee, and ree, better than English.
His mind is not much distracted with objects, but if a good fat cow come
in his way, he stands dumb and astonished, and though his haste be never
so great, will fix here half an hour's contemplation. His habitation is
some poor thatched roof, distinguished from his barn by the loopholes that
let out smoak, which the rain had long since washed through, but for the
double ceiling of bacon on the inside, which has hung there from his
grandsire's time, and is yet to make rashers for posterity. His dinner is
his other work, for he sweats at it as much as at his labour; he is a
terrible fastner on a piece of beef, and you may hope to stave the guard
off sooner. His religion is a part of his copy-hold, which he takes from
his land-lord, and refers it wholly to his discretion: Yet if he give him
leave he is a good Christian to his power, (that is,) comes to church in
his best cloaths, and sits there with his neighbours, where he is capable
only of two prayers, for rain, and fair weather. He apprehends God's
blessings only in a good year, or a fat pasture, and never praises him but
on _good ground_. Sunday he esteems a day to make merry in, and thinks a
bag-pipe as essential to it as evening-prayer, where he walks very
solemnly after service, with his hands coupled behind him, and censures
the dancing of his parish. [His compliment with his neighbour is a good
thump on the back, and his salutation commonly some blunt curse.] He
thinks nothing to be vices, but pride and ill husbandry, from which he
will gravely dissuade the youth, and has some thrifty hob-nail proverbs to
clout his discourse. He is a niggard all the week, except only market-day,
where, if his corn sell well, he thinks he may be drunk with a good
conscience. His feet never stink so unbecomingly as when he trots after a
lawyer in Westminster-hall, and even cleaves the ground with hard scraping
in beseeching his worship to take his money. He is sensible of no calamity
but the burning a stack of corn or the overflowing of a meadow, and
thinks Noah's flood the greatest plague that ever was, not because it
drowned the world, but spoiled the grass. For death he is never troubled,
and if he get in but his harvest before, let it come when it will, he
cares not.
XXIII.
A PLAYER.
He knows the right use of the world, wherein he comes to play a part and
so away. His life is not idle, for it is all action, and no man need be
more wary in his doings, for the eyes of all men are upon him. His
profession has in it a kind of contradiction, for none is more disliked,
and yet none more applauded; and he has the misfortune of some scholar,
too much wit makes him a fool. He is like our painting gentlewomen, seldom
in his own face, seldomer in his cloaths; and he pleases, the better he
counterfeits, except only when he is disguised with straw for gold lace.
He does not only personate on the stage, but sometimes in the street, for
he is masked still in the habit of a gentleman. His parts find him oaths
and good words, which he keeps for his use and discourse, and makes shew
with them of a fashionable companion. He is tragical on the stage, but
rampant in the tiring-house,[42] and swears oaths there which he never
conned. The waiting women spectators are over-ears in love with him, and
ladies send for him to act in their chambers. Your inns-of-court men were
undone but for him, he is their chief guest and employment, and the sole
business that makes them afternoon's-men. The poet only is his tyrant, and
he is bound to make his friend's friend drunk at his charge.
Shrove-Tuesday he fears as much as the bauds, and Lent[43] is more damage
to him than the butcher. He was never so much discredited as in one act,
and that was of parliament, which gives hostlers priviledge before him,
for which he abhors it more than a corrupt judge. But to give him his due,
one well-furnished actor has enough in him for five common gentlemen, and,
if he have a good body, [for six, and] for resolution he shall challenge
any Cato, for it has been his practice to die bravely.
FOOTNOTES:
[42] The room where the performers dress, previous to coming on the stage.
[43] This passage affords a proof of what has been doubted, namely, that
the theatres were not permitted to be open during Lent, in the reign of
James I. The restriction was waved in the next reign, as we find from the
Puritanical Prynne:--"There are none so much addicted to stage-playes, but
when they goe unto places where they cannot have them, or when, as they
are suppressed by publike authority, (as in times of pestilence, and in
_Lent, till now of late_,) can well subsist without them," &c.
_Histrio-Mastix_, 4to. _Lond. 1633. page 384._
XXIV.
A DETRACTOR
Is one of a more cunning and active envy, wherewith he gnaws not foolishly
himself, but throws it abroad and would have it blister others. He is
commonly some weak parted fellow, and worse minded, yet is strangely
ambitious to match others, not by mounting their worth, but bringing them
down with his tongue to his own poorness. He is indeed like the red dragon
that pursued the woman, for when he cannot over-reach another, he opens
his mouth and throws a flood after to drown him. You cannot anger him
worse than to do well, and he hates you more bitterly for this, than if
you had cheated him of his patrimony with your own discredit. He is always
slighting the general opinion, and wondering why such and such men should
be applauded. Commend a good divine, he cries postilling; a philologer,
pedantry; a poet, rhiming; a school-man, dull wrangling; a sharp conceit,
boyishness; an honest man, plausibility. He comes to publick things not to
learn, but to catch, and if there be but one soloecism, that is all he
carries away. He looks on all things with a prepared sowerness, and is
still furnished with a pish beforehand, or some musty proverb that
disrelishes all things whatsoever. If fear of the company make him second
a commendation, it is like a law-writ, always with a clause of exception,
or to smooth his way to some greater scandal. He will grant you something,
and bate more; and this bating shall in conclusion take away all he
granted. His speech concludes still with an Oh! but,--and I could wish one
thing amended; and this one thing shall be enough to deface all his former
commendations. He will be very inward with a man to fish some bad out of
him, and make his slanders hereafter more authentick, when it is said a
friend reported it. He will inveigle you to naughtiness to get your good
name into his clutches; he will be your pandar to have you on the hip for
a whore-master, and make you drunk to shew you reeling. He passes the
more plausibly because all men have a smatch of his humour, and it is
thought freeness which is malice. If he can say nothing of a man, he will
seem to speak riddles, as if he could tell strange stories if he would;
and when he has racked his invention to the utmost, he ends;--but I wish
him well, and therefore must hold my peace. He is always listening and
enquiring after men, and suffers not a cloak to pass by him unexamined. In
brief, he is one that has lost all good himself, and is loth to find it in
another.
XXV.
A YOUNG GENTLEMAN OF THE UNIVERSITY
Is one that comes there to wear a gown, and to say hereafter, he has been
at the university. His father sent him thither because he heard there
were the best fencing and dancing-schools; from these he has his
education, from his tutor the over-sight. The first element of his
knowledge is to be shewn the colleges, and initiated in a tavern by the
way, which hereafter he will learn of himself. The two marks of his
seniority, is the bare velvet of his gown, and his proficiency at tennis,
where when he can once play a set, he is a fresh man no more. His study
has commonly handsome shelves, his books neat silk strings, which he shews
to his father's man, and is loth to unty[44] or take down for fear of
misplacing. Upon foul days for recreation he retires thither, and looks
over the pretty book his tutor reads to him, which is commonly some short
history, or a piece of Euphormio; for which his tutor gives him money to
spend next day. His main loytering is at the library, where he studies
arms and books of honour, and turns a gentleman critick in pedigrees. Of
all things he endures not to be mistaken for a scholar, and hates a black
suit though it be made of sattin. His companion is ordinarily some stale
fellow, that has been notorious for an ingle to gold hatbands,[45] whom he
admires at first, afterward scorns. If he have spirit or wit he may light
of better company, and may learn some flashes of wit, which may do him
knight's service in the country hereafter. But he is now gone to the
inns-of-court, where he studies to forget what he learned before, his
acquaintance and the fashion.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] It may not be known to those who are not accustomed to meet with old
books in their original bindings, or of seeing public libraries of
antiquity, that the volumes were formerly placed on the shelves with the
_leaves_, not the _back_, in front; and that the two sides of the binding
were joined together with _neat silk_ or other strings, and, in some
instances, where the books were of greater value and curiosity than
common, even fastened with gold or silver chains.
[45] A hanger-on to noblemen, who are distinguished at the university by
gold tassels to their caps; or in the language of the present day, a
_tuft-hunter_.
XXVI.
A WEAK MAN
Is a child at man's estate, one whom nature huddled up in haste, and left
his best part unfinished. The rest of him is grown to be a man, only his
brain stays behind. He is one that has not improved his first rudiments,
nor attained any proficiency by his stay in the world: but we may speak of
him yet as when he was in the bud, a good harmless nature, a well meaning
mind[46] [_and no more_.] It is his misery that he now wants a tutor, and
is too old to have one. He is two steps above a fool, and a great many
more below a wise man; yet the fool is oft given him, and by those whom he
esteems most. Some tokens of him are,--he loves men better upon relation
than experience, for he is exceedingly enamoured of strangers, and none
quicklier a weary of his friend. He charges you at first meeting with all
his secrets, and on better acquaintance grows more reserved. Indeed he is
one that mistakes much his abusers for friends, and his friends for
enemies, and he apprehends your hate in nothing so much as in good
council. One that is flexible with any thing but reason, and then only
perverse. [A servant to every tale and flatterer, and whom the last man
still works over.] A great affecter of wits and such prettinesses; and his
company is costly to him, for he seldom has it but invited. His friendship
commonly is begun in a supper, and lost in lending money. The tavern is a
dangerous place to him, for to drink and be drunk is with him all one, and
his brain is sooner quenched than his thirst. He is drawn into naughtiness
with company, but suffers alone, and the bastard commonly laid to his
charge. One that will be patiently abused, and take exception a month
after when he understands it, and then be abused again into a
reconcilement; and you cannot endear him more than by cozening him, and it
is a temptation to those that would not. One discoverable in all silliness
to all men but himself, and you may take any man's knowledge of him
better than his own. He will promise the same thing to twenty, and rather
than deny one break with all. One that has no power over himself, over his
business, over his friends, but a prey and pity to all; and if his
fortunes once sink, men quickly cry, Alas!--and forget him.
FOOTNOTES:
[46] _If he could order his intentions_, first edit.
XXVII.
A TOBACCO-SELLER
Is the only man that finds good in it which others brag of but do not; for
it is meat, drink, and clothes to him. No man opens his ware with greater
seriousness, or challenges your judgment more in the approbation. His shop
is the rendezvous of spitting, where men dialogue with their noses, and
their communication is smoak.[47] It is the place only where Spain is
commended and preferred before England itself. He should be well
experienced in the world, for he has daily trial of men's nostrils, and
none is better acquainted with humours. He is the piecing commonly of some
other trade, which is bawd to his tobacco, and that to his wife, which is
the flame that follows this smoak.
FOOTNOTES:
[47] Minshew calls a tobacconist _fumi-vendulus_, a _smoak-seller_.
XXVIII.
A POT-POET
Is the dregs of wit, yet mingled with good drink may have some relish. His
inspirations are more real than others, for they do but feign a God, but
he has his by him. His verse runs like the tap, and his invention as the
barrel, ebbs and flows at the mercy of the spiggot. In thin drink he
aspires not above a ballad, but a cup of sack inflames him, and sets his
muse and nose a-fire together. The press is his mint, and stamps him now
and then a six-pence or two in reward of the baser coin his pamphlet. His
works would scarce sell for three half-pence, though they are given oft
for three shillings, but for the pretty title that allures the country
gentleman; for which the printer maintains him in ale a fortnight. His
verses are like his clothes miserable centoes[48] and patches, yet their
pace is not altogether so hobbling as an almanack's. The death of a great
man or the _burning_[49] of a house furnish him with an argument, and the
nine muses are out strait in mourning gowns, and Melpomene cries fire!
fire! [His other poems are but briefs in rhime, and like the poor Greeks
collections to redeem from captivity.] He is a man now much employed in
commendations of our navy, and a bitter inveigher against the Spaniard.
His frequentest works go out in single sheets, and are chanted from
market to market to a vile tune and a worse throat; whilst the poor
country wench melts like her butter to hear them. And these are the
stories of some men of Tyburn, or a strange monster out of Germany;[50]
or, sitting in a bawdy-house, he writes God's judgments. He drops away at
last in some obscure painted cloth, to which himself made the verses,[51]
and his life, like a cann too full, spills upon the bench. He leaves
twenty shillings on the score, which my hostess loses.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] _Cento_, a composition formed by joining scraps from other authors.
_Johnson._ Camden, in his _Remains_, uses it in the same sense. "It is
quilted, as it were, out of shreds of divers poets, such as scholars call
a _cento_."
[49] _Firing_, first edit.
[50] In the hope of discovering some account of the _strange monster_
alluded to, I have looked through one of the largest and most curious
collections of tracts, relating to the marvellous, perhaps in existence.
That bequeathed to the Bodleian, by Robert Burton, the author of the
_Anatomy of Melancholy_. Hitherto my researches have been unattended with
success, as I have found only two tracts of this description relating to
Germany, both of which are in prose, and neither giving any account of a
monster.
1. _A most true Relation of a very dreadfull Earthquake, with the
lamentable Effectes thereof, which began upon the 8. of December 1612. and
yet continueth most fearefull in Munster in Germanie. Reade and Tremble.
Translated out of Dutch, by Charles Demetrius, Publike Notarie in London,
and printed at Rotterdame, in Holland, at the Signe of the White
Gray-hound._ (Date cut off. Twenty-six pages, 4to. with a woodcut.)
2. _Miraculous Newes from the Cittie of Holt, in the Lordship of Munster,
in Germany, the twentieth of September last past, 1616. where there were
plainly beheld three dead bodyes rise out of their Graues admonishing the
people of Iudgements to come. Faithfully translated (&c. &c.) London,
Printed for Iohn Barnes, dwelling in Hosie Lane neere Smithfield, 1616._
(4to. twenty pages, wood-cut.)
[51] It was customary to work or paint proverbs, moral sentences, or
scraps of verse on old tapestry hangings, which were called _painted
cloths_. Several allusions to this practice may be found in the works of
our early English dramatists. See Reed's _Shakspeare_, viii. 103
XXIX.
A PLAUSIBLE MAN
Is one that would fain run an even path in the world, and jut against no
man. His endeavour is not to offend, and his aim the general opinion. His
conversation is a kind of continued compliment, and his life a practice of
manners. The relation he bears to others, a kind of fashionable respect,
not friendship but friendliness, which is equal to all and general, and
his kindnesses seldom exceed courtesies. He loves not deeper mutualities,
because he would not take sides, nor hazard himself on displeasures, which
he principally avoids. At your first acquaintance with him he is exceeding
kind and friendly, and at your twentieth meeting after but friendly still.
He has an excellent command over his patience and tongue, especially the
last, which he accommodates always to the times and persons, and speaks
seldom what is sincere, but what is civil. He is one that uses all
companies, drinks all healths, and is reasonable cool in all religions.
[He considers who are friends to the company, and speaks well where he is
sure to hear of it again.] He can listen to a foolish discourse with an
applausive attention, and conceal his laughter at nonsense. Silly men much
honour and esteem him, because by his fair reasoning with them as with men
of understanding, he puts them into an erroneous opinion of themselves,
and makes them forwarder hereafter to their own discovery. He is one
_rather well_[52] thought on than beloved, and that love he has is more of
whole companies together than any one in particular. Men gratify him
notwithstanding with a good report, and whatever vices he has besides, yet
having no enemies, he is sure to be an honest fellow.
FOOTNOTES:
[52] _Better_, first edit.
XXX.
A BOWL-ALLEY
Is the place where there are three things thrown away beside bowls, to
wit, time, money, and curses, and the last ten for one. The best sport in
it is the gamesters, and he enjoys it that looks on and bets not. It is
the school of wrangling, and worse than the schools, for men will cavil
here for a hair's breadth, and make a stir where a straw would end the
controversy. No antick screws men's bodies into such strange flexures, and
you would think them here senseless, to speak sense to their bowl, and put
their trust in intreaties for a good cast. The betters are the factious
noise of the alley, or the gamesters beadsmen that pray for them. They are
somewhat like those that are cheated by great men, for they lose their
money and must say nothing. It is the best discovery of humours,
especially in the losers, where you have fine variety of impatience,
whilst some fret, some rail, some swear, and others more ridiculously
comfort themselves with philosophy. To give you the moral of it; it is the
emblem of the world, or the world's ambition: where most are short, or
over, or wide or wrong-biassed, and some few justle in to the mistress
fortune. And it is here as in the court, where the nearest are most
spited, and all blows aimed at the toucher.
XXXI.
THE WORLD'S WISE MAN
Is an able and sufficient wicked man: It is a proof of his sufficiency
that he is not called wicked, but wise. A man wholly determined in himself
and his own ends, and his instruments herein any thing that will do it.
His friends are a part of his engines, and as they serve to his works,
used or laid by: Indeed he knows not this thing of friend, but if he give
you the name, it is a sign he has a plot on you. Never more active in his
businesses, than when they are mixed with some harm to others; and it is
his best play in this game to strike off and lie in the place: Successful
commonly in these undertakings, because he passes smoothly those rubs
which others stumble at, as conscience and the like; and gratulates
himself much in this advantage. Oaths and falshood he counts the nearest
way, and loves not by any means to go about. He has many fine quips at
this folly of plain dealing, but his "tush!" is greatest at religion; yet
he uses this too, and virtue and good words, but is less dangerously a
devil than a saint. He ascribes all honesty to an unpractisedness in the
world, and conscience a thing merely for children. He scorns all that are
so silly to _trust_[53] him, and only not scorns his enemy, especially if
as bad as himself: he fears him as a man well armed and provided, but sets
boldly on good natures, as the most vanquishable. One that seriously
admires those worst princes, as Sforza, Borgia, and Richard the third; and
calls matters of deep villany things of difficulty. To whom murders are
but resolute acts, and treason a business of great consequence. One whom
two or three countries make up to this compleatness, and he has travelled
for the purpose. His deepest indearment is a communication of mischief,
and then only you have him fast. His conclusion is commonly one of these
two, either a great man, or hanged.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] _Hate_, first edit.
XXXII.
A SURGEON
Is one that has some business about this building or little house of man,
whereof nature is as it were the tiler, and he the plaisterer. It is ofter
out of reparations than an old parsonage, and then he is set on work to
patch it again. He deals most with broken commodities, as a broken head or
a mangled face, and his gains are very ill got, for he lives by the hurts
of the commonwealth. He differs from a physician as a sore does from a
disease, or the sick from those that are not whole, the one distempers you
within, the other blisters you without. He complains of the decay of
valour in these days, and sighs for that slashing age of sword and
buckler; and thinks the law against duels was made meerly to wound his
vocation. He had been long since undone if the charity of the stews had
not relieved him, from whom he has his tribute as duly as the pope; or a
wind-fall sometimes from a tavern, if a quart pot hit right. The rareness
of his custom makes him pitiless when it comes, and he holds a patient
longer than our [spiritual] courts a cause. He tells you what danger you
had been in if he had staid but a minute longer, and though it be but a
pricked finger, he makes of it much matter. He is a reasonable cleanly
man, considering the scabs he has to deal with, and your finest ladies are
now and then beholden to him for their best dressings. He curses old
gentlewomen and their charity that makes his trade their alms; but his
envy is never stirred so much as when gentlemen go over to fight upon
Calais sands,[54] whom he wishes drowned e'er they come there, rather than
the French shall get his custom.
FOOTNOTES:
[54] _Calais sands_ were chosen by English duellists to decide their
quarrels on, as being out of the jurisdiction of the law. This custom is
noticed in an Epigram written about the period in which this book first
appeared.
"When boasting Bembus challeng'd is to fight,
He seemes at first a very Diuell in sight:
Till more aduizde, will not defile [his] hands,
Vnlesse you meete him vpon _Callice_ sands."
_The Mastive or Young Whelpe of the olde Dog. Epigrams and Satyrs._ 4to.
_Lond._ (_Printed, as Warton supposes, about 1600._)
A passage in _The Beau's Duel: or a Soldier for the Ladies_, a comedy, by
Mrs. Centlivre, 4to. 1707, proves, that it existed so late as at that day.
"Your only way is to send him word you'll meet him on _Calais sands_;
duelling is unsafe in England for men of estates," &c. See also other
instances in Dodsley's _Old Plays_, edit. 1780. vii. 218.--xii. 412.
XXXIII.
A CONTEMPLATIVE MAN
Is a scholar in this great university the world; and the same his book and
study. He cloysters not his meditations in the narrow darkness of a room,
but sends them abroad with his eyes, and his brain travels with his feet.
He looks upon man from a high tower, and sees him trulier at this distance
in his infirmities and poorness. He scorns to mix himself in men's
actions, as he would to act upon a stage; but sits aloft on the scaffold
a censuring spectator. [He will not lose his time by being busy, or make
so poor a use of the world as to hug and embrace it.] Nature admits him as
a partaker of her sports, and asks his approbation as it were of her own
works and variety. He comes not in company, because he would not be
solitary, but finds discourse enough with himself, and his own thoughts
are his excellent playfellows. He looks not upon a thing as a yawning
stranger at novelties, but his search is more mysterious and inward, and
he spells heaven out of earth. He knits his observations together, and
makes a ladder of them all to climb to God. He is free from vice, because
he has no occasion to imploy it, and is above those ends that make man
wicked. He has learnt all can here be taught him, and comes now to heaven
to see more.
XXXIV.
A SHE PRECISE HYPOCRITE
Is one in whom good women suffer, and have their truth misinterpreted by
her folly. She is one, she knows not what her self if you ask her, but she
is indeed one that has taken a toy at the fashion of religion, and is
enamoured of the new fangle. She is a nonconformist in a close stomacher
and ruff of Geneva print,[55] and her purity consists much in her linnen.
She has heard of the rag of Rome, and thinks it a very sluttish religion,
and rails at the whore of Babylon for a very naughty woman. She has left
her virginity as a relick of popery, and marries in her tribe without a
ring. Her devotion at the church is much in the turning up of her eye; and
turning down the leaf in her book, when she hears named chapter and verse.
When she comes home, she commends the sermon for the scripture, and two
hours. She loves preaching better then praying, and of preachers,
lecturers; and thinks the week day's exercise far more edifying than the
Sunday's. Her oftest gossipings are sabbath-day's journeys, where, (though
an enemy to superstition,) she will go in pilgrimage five mile to a
silenced minister, when there is a better sermon in her own parish. She
doubts of the virgin Mary's salvation, and dares not saint her, but knows
her own place in heaven as perfectly as the pew she has a key to. She is
so taken up with faith she has no room for charity, and understands no
good works but what are wrought on the sampler. She accounts nothing vices
but superstition and an oath, and thinks adultery a less sin than to swear
_by my truly_. She rails at other women by the names of Jezebel and
Dalilah; and calls her own daughters Rebecca and Abigail, and not Ann but
Hannah. She suffers them not to learn on the virginals,[56] because of
their affinity with organs, but is reconciled to the bells for the chimes
sake, since they were reformed to the tune of a psalm. She overflows so
with the bible, that she spills it upon every occasion, and will not
cudgel her maids without scripture. It is a question whether she is more
troubled with the Devil, or the Devil with her: She is always challenging
and daring him, and her weapon [[57]_is the Practice of Piety_.] Nothing
angers her so much as that women cannot preach, and in this point only
thinks the Brownist erroneous; but what she cannot at the church she does
at the table, where she prattles more than any against sense and
Antichrist, 'till a capon's wing silence her. She expounds the priests of
Baal, reading ministers, and thinks the salvation of that parish as
desperate as the Turks. She is a main derider to her capacity of those
that are not her preachers, and censures all sermons but bad ones. If her
husband be a tradesman, she helps him to customers, howsoever to good
cheer, and they are a most faithful couple at these meetings, for they
never fail. Her conscience is like others lust, never satisfied, and you
might better answer Scotus than her scruples. She is one that thinks she
performs all her duties to God in hearing, and shews the fruits of it in
talking. She is more fiery against the may-pole than her husband, and
thinks she might do a Phineas' act to break the pate of the fidler. She is
an everlasting argument, but I am weary of her.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] Strict devotees were, I believe, noted for the smallness and
precision of their _ruffs_, which were termed _in print_ from the
exactness of the folds. So in Mynshul's _Essays_, 4to. 1618. "I vndertooke
a warre when I adventured to speake in _print_, (not in _print as
Puritan's ruffes_ are set.)" The term of _Geneva print_ probably arose
from the minuteness of the type used at Geneva. In the _Merry Devil of
Edmonton_, a comedy, 4to. 1608, is an expression which goes some way to
prove the correctness of this supposition:--"I see by thy eyes thou hast
bin reading _little Geneua print_;"--and, that _small ruffs_ were worn by
the puritanical set, an instance appears in Mayne's _City Match_, a
comedy, 4to. 1658.
----"O miracle!
Out of your _little ruffe_, Dorcas, and in the fashion!
Dost thou hope to be saved?"
From these three extracts it is, I think, clear that a _ruff of Geneva
print_ meant a _small, closely-folded ruff_, which was the distinction of
a non-conformist.
[56] A virginal, says Mr. Malone, was strung like a spinnet, and shaped
like a piano-forte: the mode of playing on this instrument was therefore
similar to that of the organ.
[57] _Weapons are spells no less potent than different, as being the sage
sentences of some of her own sectaries._ First edit.
XXXV.
A SCEPTICK IN RELIGION
Is one that hangs in the balance with all sorts of opinions, whereof not
one but stirs him and none sways him. A man guiltier of credulity than he
is taken to be; for it is out of his belief of every thing, that he fully
believes nothing. Each religion scares him from its contrary: none
persuades him to itself. He would be wholly a Christian, but that he is
something of an atheist, and wholly an atheist, but that he is partly a
Christian; and a perfect heretic, but that there are so many to distract
him. He finds reason in all opinions, truth in none: indeed the least
reason perplexes him, and the best will not satisfy him. He is at most a
confused and wild Christian, not specialized by any form, but capable of
all. He uses the land's religion, because it is next him, yet he sees not
why he may not take the other, but he chuses this, not as better, but
because there is not a pin to choose. He finds doubts and scruples better
than resolves them, and is always too hard for himself. His learning is
too much for his brain, and his judgment too little for his learning, and
his over-opinion of both, spoils all. Pity it was his mischance of being a
scholar; for it does only distract and irregulate him, and the world by
him. He hammers much in general upon our opinion's uncertainty, and the
possibility of erring makes him not venture on what is true. He is
troubled at this naturalness of religion to countries, that protestantism
should be born so in England and popery abroad, and that fortune and the
stars should so much share in it. He likes not this connection of the
common-weal and divinity, and fears it may be an arch-practice of state.
In our differences with Rome he is strangely unfixed, and a new man every
new day, as his last discourse-book's meditations transport him. He could
like the gray hairs of popery, did not some dotages there stagger him: he
would come to us sooner, but our new name affrights him. He is taken with
their miracles, but doubts an imposture; he conceives of our doctrine
better, but it seems too empty and naked. He cannot drive into his fancy
the circumscription of truth to our corner, and is as hardly persuaded to
think their old legends true. He approves well of our faith, and more of
their works, and is sometimes much affected at the zeal of Amsterdam. His
conscience interposes itself betwixt duellers, and whilst it would part
both, is by both wounded. He will sometimes propend much to us upon the
reading a good writer, and at Bellarmine[58] recoils as far back again;
and the fathers justle him from one side to another. Now Socinus[59] and
Vorstius[60] afresh torture him, and he agrees with none worse than
himself. He puts his foot into heresies tenderly, as a cat in the water,
and pulls it out again, and still something unanswered delays him; yet he
bears away some parcel of each, and you may sooner pick all religions out
of him than one. He cannot think so many wise men should be in error, nor
so many honest men out of the way, and his wonder is double when he sees
these oppose one another. He hates authority as the tyrant of reason, and
you cannot anger him worse than with a father's _dixit_, and yet that many
are not persuaded with reason, shall authorise his doubt. In sum, his
whole life is a question, and his salvation a greater, which death only
concludes, and then he is resolved.
FOOTNOTES:
[58] Robert Bellarmin, an Italian Jesuit, was born at Monte Pulciano, a
town in Tuscany, in the year 1542, and in 1560 entered himself among the
Jesuits. In 1599 he was honoured with a cardinal's hat, and in 1602 was
presented with the arch-bishopric of Capua: this, however, he resigned in
1605, when pope Paul V. desired to have him near himself. He was employed
in the affairs of the court of Rome till 1621, when, leaving the Vatican,
he retired to a house belonging to his order, and died September 17, in
the same year.
Bellarmin was one of the best controversial writers of his time; few
authors have done greater honour to their profession or opinions, and
certain it is that none have ever more ably defended the cause of the
Romish church, or contended in favour of the pope with greater advantage.
As a proof of Bellarmin's abilities, there was scarcely a divine of any
eminence among the protestants who did not attack him: Bayle aptly says,
"they made his name resound every where, ut littus Styla, Styla, omne
sonaret."
[59] Faustus Socinus is so well known as the founder of the sect which
goes under his name, that a few words will be sufficient. He was born in
1539, at Sienna, and imbibed his opinions from the instruction of his
uncle, who always had a high opinion of, and confidence in, the abilities
of his nephew, to whom he bequeathed all his papers. After living several
years in the world, principally at the court of Francis de Medicis,
Socinus, in 1577, went into Germany, and began to propagate the principles
of his uncle, to which, it is said, he made great additions and
alterations of his own. In the support of his opinions, he suffered
considerable hardships, and received the greatest insults and
persecutions; to avoid which, he retired to a place near Cracow, in
Poland, where he died in 1504, at the age of sixty-five.
[60] Conrade Vorstius, a learned divine, who was peculiarly detested by
the Calvinists, and who had even the honour to be attacked by king James
the first, of England, was born in 1569. Being compelled, through the
interposition of James's ambassador, to quit Leiden, where he had attained
the divinity-chair, and several other preferments, he retired to Toningen,
where he died in 1622, with the strongest tokens of piety and resignation.
XXXVI.
AN ATTORNEY.
His antient beginning was a blue coat, since a livery, and his hatching
under a lawyer; whence, though but pen-feathered, he hath now nested for
himself, and with his 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
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