Has a sickly mind and believes the infirmity is in his body, like one that draws the wrong tooth and fancies his pain in the wrong place. The less he understands the reason of physic the stronger faith he has in it, as it commonly fares in all other affairs of the world. His disease is only in his judgment, which makes him believe a doctor can fetch it out of his stomach or his belly, and fright those worms out of his guts that are bred in his brain. He believes a doctor is a kind of conjurer that can do strange things, and he is as willing to have him think so; for by that means he does not only get his money, but finds himself in some possibility by complying with that fancy to do him good for it, which he could never expect to do any other way; for, like those that have been cured by drinking their own water, his own imagination is a better medicine than any the doctor knows how to prescribe, even as the weapon-salve cures a wound by being applied to that which made it. He is no sooner well but any story or lie of a new famous doctor or strange cure puts him into a relapse, and he falls sick of a medicine instead of a disease, and catches physic like him that fell into a looseness at the sight of a purge. He never knows when he is well or sick, but is always tampering with his health till he has spoiled it, like a foolish musician that breaks his strings with striving to put them in tune; for Nature, which is physic, understands better how to do her own work than those that take it from her at second hand. Hippocrates says,Ars longa, vita brevis, and it is the truest of all his aphorisms--
"For he that's given much to the long artDoes not prolong his life, but cut it short."
Is like the sea, that is said to be richer than the land, but is not able to make any use of it at all, and only keeps it from those that know how to enjoy it if they had it. The devil understood his business very well when he made choice of Judas's avarice to betray Christ, for no other vice would have undertaken it; and it is to be feared that his Vicars now on earth, by the tenderness they have to the bag, do not use Him much better than His steward did then. He gathers wealth to no purpose but to satisfy his avarice, that has no end, and afflicts himself to possess that which he is, of all men, the most incapable of ever obtaining. His treasure is in his hands in the same condition as if it were buried uncier ground and watched by an evil spirit. His desires are like the bottomless pit which he is destined to, for the one is as soon filled as the other. He shuts up his money in close custody, and that which has power to open all locks is not able to set itself at liberty. If he ever lets it out it is upon good bail and mainprize, to render itself prisoner again whensoever it shall be summoned. He loves wealth as an eunuch does women, whom he has no possibility of enjoying, or one that is bewitched with an impotency or taken with the falling sickness. His greedy appetite to riches is but a kind of dog-hunger, that never digests what it devours, but still the greedier and more eager it crams itself becomes more meagre. He finds that ink and parchment preserves money better than an iron chest and parsimony, like the memories of men that lie dead and buried when they are committed to brass and marble, but revive and flourish when they are trusted to authentic writings and increase by being used. If he had lived among the Jews in the wilderness he would have been one of their chief reformers, and have worshipped anything that is cast in gold, though a sillier creature than a calf. St. John in the Revelations describes the New Jerusalem to be built all of gold and silver and precious stones, for the saints commonly take so much delight in those creatures that nothing else could prevail with them ever to come thither; and as those times are called the Golden Age in which there was no gold at all in use, so men are reputed godly and rich that make no use at all of their religion or wealth. All that he has gotten together with perpetual pains and industry is not wealth, but a collection, which he intends to keep by him more for his own diversion than any other use, and he that made ducks and drakes with his money enjoyed it every way as much. He makes no conscience of anything but parting with his money, which is no better than a separation of soul and body to him, and he believes it to be as bad as self-murder if he should do it wilfully; for the price of the weapon with which a man is killed is always esteemed a very considerable circumstance, and next to not having the fear of God before his eyes. He loves the bowels of the earth broiled on the coals above any other cookery in the world. He is a slave condemned to the mines. He laughs at the golden mean as ridiculous, and believes there is no such thing in the world; for how can there be a mean of that of which no man ever had enough? He loves the world so well that he would willingly lose himself to save anything by it. His riches are like a dunghill, that renders the ground unprofitable that it lies upon, and is good for nothing until it be spread and scattered abroad.
Is one that sells the devil the best pennyworth that he meets with anywhere, and, like the Indians that part with gold for glass beads, he damns his soul for the slightest trifles imaginable. He betroths himself oftener to the devil in one day than Mecaenas did in a week to his wife, that he was married a thousand times to. His discourse is inlaid with oaths as the gallows is with nails, to fortify it against the assaults of those whose friends have made it their deathbed. He takes a preposterous course to be believed and persuade you to credit what he says, by saying that which at the best he does not mean; for all the excuse he has for his voluntary damning of himself is, that he means nothing by it. He is as much mistaken in what he does intend really, for that which he takes for the ornament of his language renders it the most odious and abominable. His custom of swearing takes away the sense of his saying. His oaths are but a dissolute formality of speech and the worst kind of affectation. He is a Knight-Baronet of the Post, or gentleman blasphemer, that swears for his pleasure only; a lay-affidavit man,in votoonly and not in orders. He learned to swear, as magpies do to speak, by hearing others. He talks nothing but bell, book, and candle, and delivers himself over to Satan oftener than a Presbyterian classis would do. He plays with the devil for sport only, and stakes his soul to nothing. He overcharges his oaths till they break and hurt himself only. He discharges them as fast as a gun that will shoot nine times with one loading. He is the devil's votary, and fails not to commend himself into his tuition upon all occasions. He outswears an exorcist, and outlies the legend. His oaths are of a wider bore and louder report than those of an ordinary perjurer, but yet they do not half the execution. Sometimes he resolves to leave it, but not too suddenly, lest it should prove unwholesome and injurious to his health, but by degrees as he took it up. Swearing should appear to be the greatest of sins, for though the Scripture says, "God sees no sin in His children," it does not say He hears none.
Places all enjoyment in spending, as a covetous man does in getting, and both are treated at a witch's feast, where nothing feeds but only the imagination, and like two madmen, that believe themselves to be the same prince, laugh at one another. He values his pleasures as they do honour, by the difficulty and dearness of the purchase, not the worth of the thing; and the more he pays the better he believes he ought to be pleased, as women are fondest of those children which they have groaned most for. His tongue is like a great practiser's in law, for as the one will not stir, so the other will not taste without a great fee. He never reckons what a thing costs by what it is worth, but what it is worth by what it costs. All his senses are like corrupt judges, that will understand nothing until they are thoroughly informed and satisfied with a convincing bribe. He relishes no meat but by the rate, and a high price is like sauce to it, that gives it a high taste and renders it savoury to his palate. He believes there is nothing dear, nor ought to be so, that does not cost much, and that the dearest bought is always the cheapest. He tastes all wines by the smallness of the bottles and the greatness of the price, and when he is over-reckoned takes it as an extraordinary value set upon him, as Dutchmen always reckon by the dignity of the person, not the charge of the entertainment he receives, put his quality and titles into the bill of fare, and make him pay for feeding upon his own honour and right-worship, which he brought along with him. He debauches his gluttony with an unnatural appetite to things never intended for food, like preposterous venery or the unnatural mixtures of beasts of several kinds. He is as curious of his pleasures as an antiquary of his rarities, and cares for none but such as are very choice and difficult to be gotten, disdains anything that is common, unless it be his women, which he esteems a common good, and therefore the more communicative the better. All his vices are, like children that have been nicely bred, a great charge to him, and it costs him dear to maintain them like themselves, according to their birth and breeding; but he, like a tender parent, had rather suffer want himself than they should, for he considers a man's vices are his own flesh and blood, and though they are but by-blows, he is bound to provide for them, out of natural affection, as well as if they were lawfully begotten.
Is like dust in the highway, that flies in the face of those that raise it. He that is ungrateful is all things that are amiss. He is like the devil, that seeks the destruction of those most of all that do him the best service, or an unhealthful sinner that receives pleasure and returns nothing but diseases. He receives obligations from all that he can, but they presently become void and of none effect, for good offices fare with him like death, from which there is no return. His ill-nature is like an ill stomach, that turns its nourishment into bad humours. He should be a man of very great civilities, for he receives all that he can, but never parts with any. He is like a barren soil; plant what you will on him, it will never grow, nor anything but thorns and thistles, that came in with the curse. His mother died in child-bed of him, for he is descended of the generation of vipers in which the dam always eats off the sire's head, and the young ones their way through her belly. He is like a horse in a pasture, that eats up the grass and dungs it in requital. He puts the benefits he receives from others and his own faults together in that end of the sack which he carries behind his back. His ill-nature, like a contagious disease, infects others that are of themselves good, who, observing his ingratitude, become less inclined to do good than otherwise they would be; and as the sweetest wine, if ill-preserved, becomes the sourest vinegar, so the greatest endearments with him turn to the bitterest injuries. He has an admirable art of forgetfulness, and no sooner receives a kindness but he owns it by prescription and claims from time out of mind. All his acknowledgments appear before his ends are served, but never after, and, like Occasion, grow very thick before but bare behind. He is like a river, that runs away from the spring that feeds it and undermines the banks that support it; or like vice and sin, that destroy those that are most addicted to it; or the hangman, that breaks the necks of those whom he gets his living by, and whips those that find him employment, and brands his masters that set him on work. He pleads the Act of Oblivion for all the good deeds that are done him, and pardons himself for the evil returns he makes. He never looks backward (like a right statesman), and things that are past are all one with him as if they had never been; and as witches, they say, hurt those only from whom they can get something and have a hank upon, he no sooner receives a benefit but he converts it to the injury of that person who conferred it on him. It fares with persons as with families, that think better of themselves the farther they are off their first raisers.
Deals with his mistress as the devil does with a witch, is content to be her servant for a time, that she may be his slave for ever. He is esquire to a knight-errant, donzel to the damsels, and gentleman usher daily waiter on the ladies, that rubs out his time in making legs and love to them. He is a gamester who throws at all ladies that are set him, but is always out, and never wins but when he throws at the candlestick, that is, for nothing; a general lover, that addresses unto all but never gains any, as universals produce nothing. He never appears so gallant a man as when he is in the head of a body of ladies and leads them up with admirable skill and conduct. He is a eunuch-bashaw, that has charge of the women and governs all their public affairs, because he is not able to do them any considerable private services. One of his prime qualifications is to convey their persons in and out of coaches, as tenderly as a cook sets his custards in an oven and draws them out again, without the least discomposure or offence to their inward or outward woman; that is, their persons and dresses. The greatest care he uses in his conversation with ladies is to order his peruke methodically, and keep off his hat with equal respect both to it and their ladyships, that neither may have cause to take any just offence, but continue him in their good graces. When he squires a lady he takes her by the handle of her person, the elbow, and steers it with all possible caution, lest his own foot should, upon a tack, for want of due circumspection, unhappily fall foul on the long train she carries at her stern. This makes him walk upon his toes and tread as lightly as if he were leading her a dance. He never tries any experiment solitary with her, but always in consort, and then he acts the woman's part and she the man's, talks loud and laughs, while he sits demurely silent, and simpers or bows, and cries, "Anon, Madam, excellently good!" &c. &c. He is a kind of hermaphrodite, for his body is of one sex and his mind of another, which makes him take no delight in the conversation or actions of men, because they do so by his, but apply himself to women, to whom the sympathy and likeness of his own temper and wit naturally inclines him, where he finds an agreeable reception for want of a better; for they, like our Indian planters, value their wealth by the number of their slaves. All his business in the morning is to dress himself, and in the afternoon to show his workmanship to the ladies, who after serious consideration approve or disallow of his judgment and abilities accordingly, and he as freely delivers his opinion of theirs. The glass is the only author he studies, by which his actions and gestures are all put on like his clothes, and by that he practices how to deliver what he has prepared to say to the dames, after he has laid a train to bring it in.
Is a saint that goes by clockwork, a machine made by the devil's geometry, which he winds and nicks to go as he pleases. He is the devil's finger-watch, that never goes true, but too fast or too slow as he sets him. His religion goes with wires, and he serves the devil for an idol to seduce the simple to worship and believe in him. He puts down the true saint with his copper-lace devotion, as ladies that use art paint fairer than the life. He is a great bustler in reformation, which is always most proper to his talent, especially if it be tumultuous; for pockets are nowhere so easily and safely picked as in jostling crowds. And as change and alterations are most agreeable to those who are tied to nothing, he appears more zealous and violent for the cause than such as are retarded by conscience or consideration. His religion is a mummery, and his Gospel-walkings nothing but dancing a masquerade. He never wears his own person, but assumes a shape, as his master, the devil, does when he appears. He wears counterfeit hands (as the Italian pickpocket did), which are fastened to his breast as if he held them up to heaven, while his natural fingers are in his neighbour's pocket. The whole scope of all his actions appears to be directed, like an archer's arrow, at heaven, while the clout he aims at sticks in the earth. The devil baits his hook with him when he fishes in troubled waters. He turns up his eyes to heaven like birds that have no upper lid. He is a weathercock upon the steeple of the church, that turns with every wind that blows from any point of the compass. He sets his words and actions like a printer's letters, and he that will understand him must read him backwards. He is much more to be suspected than one that is no professor, as a stone of any colour is easier counterfeited than a diamond that is of none. The inside of him tends quite cross to the outside, like a spring that runs upward within the earth and down without. He is an operator for the soul, and corrects other men's sins with greater of his own, as the Jews were punished for their idolatry by greater idolaters than themselves. He is a spiritual highwayman that robs on the road to heaven. His professions and his actions agree like a sweet voice and a stinking breath.
Is his own confidant, that maintains more opinions than he is able to support. They are all bastards commonly and unlawfully begotten, but being his own, he had rather, out of natural affection, take any pains, or beg, than they should want a subsistence. The eagerness and violence he uses to defend them argues they are weak, for if they were true they would not need it. How false soever they are to him, he is true to them; and as all extraordinary affections of love or friendship are usually upon the meanest accounts, he is resolved never to forsake them, how ridiculous soever they render themselves and him to the world. He is a kind of a knight-errant that is bound by his order to defend the weak and distressed, and deliver enchanted paradoxes, that are bewitched and held by magicians and conjurers in invisible castles. He affects to have his opinions as unlike other men's as he can, no matter whether better or worse, like those that wear fantastic clothes of their own devising. No force of argument can prevail upon him; for, like a madman, the strength of two men in their wits is not able to hold him down. His obstinacy grows out of his ignorance, for probability has so many ways that whosoever understands them will not be confident of any one. He holds his opinions as men do their lands, and though his tenure be litigious, he will spend all he has to maintain it. He does not so much as know what opinion means, which, always supposing uncertainty, is not capable of confidence. The more implicit his obstinacy is, the more stubborn it renders him; for implicit faith is always more pertinacious than that which can give an account of itself; and as cowards that are well backed will appear boldest, he that believes as the Church believes is more violent, though he knows not what it is, than he that can give a reason for his faith. And as men in the dark endeavour to tread firmer than when they are in the light, the darkness of his understanding makes him careful to stand fast wheresoever he happens, though it be out of his way.
Is one that stands for madman, and has as many voices as another. If he miss he has very hard dealing; for if he can but come to a fair polling of his fits against his intervals, he is sure to carry it. No doubt it would be a singular advantage to him; for, as his present condition stands, he has more full moons in a week than a lunatic has in a year. His passion is like tinder, soon set on fire and as soon out again. The smallest occasion imaginable puts him in his fit, and then he has no respect of persons, strikes up the heels of stools and chairs, tears cards limbmeal without regard of age, sex, or quality, and breaks the bones of dice, and makes them a dreadful example to deter others from daring to take part against him. He is guilty but of misprision of madness, and if the worst come to the worst, can but forfeit estate and suffer perpetual liberty to say what he pleases. 'Tis true he is but a candidate of Bedlam, and is not yet admitted fellow, but has the license of the College to practise, and in time will not fail to come in according to his seniority. He has his grace for madman, and has done his exercises, and nothing but his good manners can put him by his degree. He is, like a foul chimney, easily set on fire, and then he vapours and flashes as if he would burn the house, but is presently put out with a greater huff, and the mere noise of a pistol reduces him to a quiet and peaceable temper. His temper is, like that of a meteor, an imperfect mixture, that sparkles and flashes until it has spent itself. All his parts are irascible, and his gall is too big for his liver. His spleen makes others laugh at him, and as soon as his anger is over with others he begins to be angry with himself and sorry. He is sick of a preposterous ague, and has his hot fit always before his cold. The more violent his passion is the sooner it is out, like a running knot, that strains hardest, but is easiest loosed. He is never very passionate but for trifles, and is always most temperate where he has least cause, like a nettle that stings worst when it is touched with soft and gentle fingers, but when it is bruised with rugged, hardened hands returns no harm at all.
Is more zealous in his false, mistaken piety than others are in the truth; for he that is in an error has farther to go than one that is in the right way, and therefore is concerned to bestir himself and make the more speed. The practice of his religion is, like the Schoolmen's speculations, full of niceties and tricks, that take up his whole time and do him more hurt than good. His devotions are labours, not exercises, and he breaks the Sabbath in taking too much pains to keep it. He makes a conscience of so many trifles and niceties, that he has not leisure to consider things that are serious and of real weight. His religion is too full of fears and jealousies to be true and faithful, and too solicitous and unquiet to continue in the right, if it were so. And as those that are bunglers and unskilful in any art take more pains to do nothing, because they are in a wrong way, than those that are ready and expert to do the excellentest things, so the errors and mistakes of his religion engage him in perpetual troubles and anxieties, without any possibility of improvement until he unlearn all and begin again upon a new account. He talks much of the justice and merits of his cause, and yet gets so many advocates that it is plain he does not believe himself; but having pleaded not guilty, he is concerned to defend himself as well as he can, while those that confess and put themselves upon the mercy of the Court have no more to do. His religion is too full of curiosities to be sound and useful, and is fitter for a hypocrite than a saint; for curiosities are only for show and of no use at all. His conscience resides more in his stomach than his heart, and howsoever he keeps the commandments, he never fails to keep a very pious diet, and will rather starve than eat erroneously or taste anything that is not perfectly orthodox and apostolical; and if living and eating are inseparable, he is in the right, and lives because he eats according to the truly ancient primitive Catholic faith in the purest times.
Plays his part of wit readily at first sight, and sometimes better than with practice. He is excellent at voluntary and prelude, but has no skill in composition. He will run divisions upon any ground very dexterously, but now and then mistakes a flat for a sharp. He has a great deal of wit, but it is not at his own disposing, nor can he command it when he pleases unless it be in the humour. His fancy is counterchanged between jest and earnest, and the earnest lies always in the jest, and the jest in the earnest. He treats of all matters and persons by way of exercitation, without respect of things, time, place, or occasion, and assumes the liberty of a free-born Englishman, as if he were called to the long robe with long ears. He imposes a hard task upon himself as well as those he converses with, and more than either can bear without a convenient stock of confidence. His whole life is nothing but a merrymaking, and his business the same with a fiddler's, to play to all companies where he comes, and take what they please to give him either of applause or dislike; for he can do little without some applauders, who by showing him ground make him outdo his own expectation many times, and theirs too; for they that laugh on his side and cry him up give credit to his confidence, and sometimes contribute more than half the wit by making it better than he meant. He is impregnable to all assaults but that of a greater impudence, which, being stick-free, puts him, like a rough fencer, out of his play, and after passes upon him at pleasure, for when he is once routed he never rallies again. He takes a view of a man as a skilful commander does of a town he would besiege, to discover the weakest places where he may make his approaches with the least danger and most advantages, and when he finds himself mistaken, draws off his forces with admirable caution and consideration; for his business being only wit, he thinks there is very little of that shown in exposing himself to any inconvenience.
Does not hold opinions, but they hold him; for when he is once possessed with an error, 'tis, like the devil, not to be cast out but with great difficulty. Whatsoever he lays hold on, like a drowning man, he never loses, though it do but help to sink him the sooner. His ignorance is abrupt and inaccessible, impregnable both by art and nature, and will hold out to the last though it has nothing but rubbish to defend. It is as dark as pitch, and sticks as fast to anything it lays hold on. His skull is so thick that it is proof against any reason, and never cracks but on the wrong side, just opposite to that against which the impression is made, which surgeons say does happen very frequently. The slighter and more inconsistent his opinions are the faster he holds them, otherwise they would fall asunder of themselves; for opinions that are false ought to be held with more strictness and assurance than those that are true, otherwise they will be apt to betray their owners before they are aware. If he takes to religion, he has faith enough to save a hundred wiser men than himself, if it were right; but it is too much to be good; and though he deny supererogation and utterly disclaim any overplus of merits, yet he allows superabundant belief, and if the violence of faith will carry the kingdom of heaven, he stands fair for it. He delights most of all to differ in things indifferent; no matter how frivolous they are, they are weighty enough in proportion to his weak judgment, and he will rather suffer self-martyrdom than part with the least scruple of his freehold, for it is impossible to dye his dark ignorance into a lighter colour. He is resolved to understand no man's reason but his own, because he finds no man can understand his but himself. His wits are like a sack which, the French proverb says, is tied faster before it is full than when it is; and his opinions are like plants that grow upon rocks, that stick fast though they have no rooting. His understanding is hardened like Pharaoh's heart, and is proof against all sorts of judgments whatsoever.
Is a hot-headed brother that has his understanding blocked up on both sides, like a fore-horse's eyes, that he sees only straight-forwards and never looks about him, which makes him run on according as he is driven with his own caprice. He starts and stops (as a horse does) at a post only because he does not know what it is, and thinks to run away from the spur while he carries it with him. He is very violent, as all things that tend downward naturally are; for it is impossible to improve or raise him above his own level. He runs swiftly before any wind, like a ship that has neither freight nor ballast, and is as apt to overset. When his zeal takes fire it cracks and flies about like a squib until the idle stuff is spent, and then it goes out of itself. He is always troubled with small scruples, which his conscience catches like the itch, and the rubbing of these is both his pleasure and his pain. But for things of greater moment he is unconcerned, as cattle in the summer-time are more pestered with flies that vex their sores than creatures more considerable, and dust and motes are apter to stick in blear-eyes than things of greater weight. His charity begins and ends at home, for it never goes farther nor stirs abroad. David was eaten up with the zeal of God's house; but his zeal, quite contrary, eats up God's house; and as the words seem to intimate that David fed and maintained the priests, so he makes the priests feed and maintain him; and hence his zeal is never so vehement as when it concurs with his interest; for, as he styles himself a professor, it fares with him, as with men of other professions, to live by his calling and get as much as he can by it. He is very severe to other men's sins that his own may pass unsuspected, as those that were engaged in the conspiracy against Nero were most cruel to their own confederates; or as one says--
"Compounds for sins he is inclined toBy damning those he has no mind to."
Always throws beyond the jack and is gone a mile. He is no more able to contain himself than a bowl is when he is commanded to rub with the greatest power and vehemence imaginable, and nothing lights in his way. He is a conjurer that cannot keep within the compass of his circle, though he were sure the devil would fetch him away for the least transgression. He always overstocks his ground and starves instead of feeding, destroys whatsoever he has an extraordinary care for, and, like an ape, hugs the whelp he loves most to death. All his designs are greater than the life, and he laughs to think how Nature has mistaken her match, and given him so much odds that he can easily outrun her. He allows of no merit but that which is superabundant. All his actions are superfoetations, that either become monsters or twins; that is, too much, or the same again; for he is but a supernumerary and does nothing but for want of a better. He is a civil Catholic, that holds nothing more steadfastly than supererogation in all that he undertakes, for he undertakes nothing but what he overdoes. He is insatiable in all his actions, and, like a covetous person, never knows when he has done enough until he has spoiled all by doing too much. He is his own antagonist, and is never satisfied until he has outdone himself as well as that which he proposed, for he loves to be better than his word (though it always falls out worse) and deceive the world the wrong way. He believes the mean to be but a mean thing, and therefore always runs into extremities as the more excellent, great, and transcendent. He delights to exceed in all his attempts, for he finds that a goose that has three legs is more remarkable than a hundred that have but two apiece, and has a greater number of followers; and that all monsters are more visited and applied to than other creatures that Nature has made perfect in their kind. He believes he can never bestow too much pains upon anything; for his industry is his own and costs him nothing; and if it miscarry he loses nothing, for he has as much as it was worth. He is like a foolish musician that sets his instrument so high that he breaks his strings for want of understanding the right pitch of it, or an archer that breaks his with overbending; and all he does is forced, like one that sings above the reach of his voice.
Has a fever in his brain, and therefore is rightly said to be hot-headed. His reason and his actions run downhill, borne headlong by his unstaid will. He has not patience to consider, and perhaps it would not be the better for him if he had; for he is so possessed with the first apprehension of anything, that whatsoever comes after loses the race and is prejudged. All his actions, like sins, lead him perpetually to repentance, and from thence to the place from whence they came, to make more work for repentance; for though he be corrected never so often, he is never amended, nor will his haste give him time to call to mind where it made him stumble before; for he is always upon full speed, and the quickness of his motions takes away and dazzles the eyes of his understanding. All his designs are like diseases, with which he is taken suddenly before he is aware, and whatsoever he does is extempore, without premeditation; for he believes a sudden life to be the best of all, as some do a sudden death. He pursues things as men do an enemy upon a retreat, until he is drawn into an ambush for want of heed and circumspection. He falls upon things as they lie in his way, as if he stumbled at them, or his foot slipped and cast him upon them; for he is commonly foiled and comes off with bruises. He engages in business as men do in duels, the sooner the better, that, if any evil come of it, they may not be found to have slept upon it, or consulted with an effeminate pillow in point of honour and courage. He strikes when he is hot himself, not when the iron is so which he designs to work upon. His tongue has no retentive faculty, but is always running like a fool's drivel. He cannot keep it within compass, but it will be always upon the ramble and playing of tricks upon a frolic, fancying of passes upon religion, State, and the persons of those that are in present authority, no matter how, to whom, or where; for his discretion is always out of the way when he has occasion to make use of it.
Is a piece of clockwork, that moves only as it is wound up and set, and not like a voluntary agent. He is a mathematical body, nothing butpunctum, linea, et superficies, and perfectly abstract from matter. He walks as stiffly and uprightly as a dog that is taught to go on his hinder legs, and carries his hands as the other does his fore-feet. He is very ceremonious and full of respect to himself, for no man uses those formalities that does not expect the same from others. All his actions and words are set down in so exact a method that an indifferent accountant may cast him up to a halfpenny-farthing. He does everything by rule, as if it were in a course of Lessius's diet, and did not eat, but take a dose of meat and drink; and not walk, but proceed; not go, but march. He draws up himself with admirable conduct in a very regular and well-ordered body. All his business and affairs are junctures and transactions, and when he speaks with a man he gives him audience. He does not carry but marshal himself, and no one member of his body politic takes place of another without due right of precedence. He does all things by rules of proportion, and never gives himself the freedom to manage his gloves or his watch in an irregular and arbitrary way, but is always ready to render an account of his demeanour to the most strict and severe disquisition. He sets his face as if it were cast in plaster, and never admits of any commotion in his countenance, nor so much as the innovation of a smile without serious and mature deliberation, but preserves his looks in a judicial way, according as they have always been established.
Is a dog that fawns when he bites. He hangs bells in a man's ears, as a carman does by his horse while he lays a heavy load upon his back. His insinuations are like strong wine, that pleases a man's palate till it has got within him, and then deprives him of his reason and overthrows him. His business is to render a man a stranger to himself, and get between him and home, and then he carries him whither he pleases. He is a spirit that inveighs away a man from himself, undertakes great matters for him, and after sells him for a slave. He makes division not only between a man and his friends, but between a man and himself, raises a faction within him, and after takes part with the strongest side and ruins both. He steals him away from himself (as the fairies are said to do children in the cradle), and after changes him for a fool. He whistles to him, as a carter does to his horse while he whips out his eyes and makes him draw what he pleases. He finds out his humour and feeds it, till it will come to hand, and then he leads him whither he pleases. He tickles him, as they do trouts, until he lays hold on him, and then devours and feeds upon him. He tickles his ears with a straw, and while he is pleased with scratching it, picks his pocket, as the cutpurse served Bartl. Cokes. He embraces him and hugs him in his arms, and lifts him above ground, as wrestlers do, to throw him down again and fall upon him. He possesses him with his own praises like an evil spirit, that makes him swell and appear stronger than he was, talk what he does not understand, and do things that he knows nothing of when he comes to himself. He gives good words as doctors are said to give physic when they are paid for it, and lawyers advice when they are fee'd beforehand. He is a poisoned perfume that infects the brain and murders those it pleases. He undermines a man, and blows him up with his own praises to throw him down. He commends a man out of design, that he may be presented with him and have him for his pains, according to the mode.
Is a pocket with a hole in the bottom. His purse has got a dysentery and lost its retentive faculty. He delights, like a fat overgrown man, to see himself fall away and grow less. He does not spend his money, but void it, and, like those that have the stone, is in pain till he is rid of it. He is very loose and incontinent of his coin, and lets it fly, like Jupiter, in a shower. He is very hospitable, and keeps open pockets for all comers. All his silver turns to mercury, and runs through him as if he had taken it for themiserereor fluxed himself. The history of his life begins with keeping of whores, and ends with keeping of hogs; and as he fed high at first, so he does at last, for acorns are very high food. He swallows land and houses like an earthquake, eats a whole dining-room at a meal, and devours his kitchen at a breakfast. He wears the furniture of his house on his back, and a whole feather-bed in his hat, drinks down his plate, and eats his dishes up. He is not clothed, but hung. He'll fancy dancers cattle, and present his lady with messuage and tenement. He sets his horses at inn and inn, and throws himself out of his coach at come the caster. He should be a good husband, for he has made more of his estate in one year than his ancestors did in twenty. He dusts his estate as they do a stand of ale in the north. His money in his pocket (like hunted venison) will not keep; if it be not spent presently it grows stale, and is thrown away. He possesses his estate as the devil did the herd of swine, and is running it into the sea as fast as he can. He has shot it with a zampatan, and it will presently fall all to dust. He has brought his acres into a consumption, and they are strangely fallen away; nothing but skin and bones left of a whole manor. He will shortly have all his estate in his hands; for, like bias, he may carry it about him. He lays up nothing but debts and diseases, and at length himself in a prison. When he has spent all upon his pleasures, and has nothing left for sustenance, he espouses a hostess dowager, and resolves to lick himself whole again out of ale, and make it pay him back all the charges it has put him to.
Has a vagabond soul without any settled place of abode, like the wandering Jew. His head is unfixed, out of order, and utterly unserviceable upon any occasion. He is very apt to be taken with anything, but nothing can hold him, for he presently breaks loose and gives it the slip. His head is troubled with a palsy, which renders it perpetually wavering and incapable of rest. His head is like an hour-glass; that part that is uppermost always runs out until it is turned, and then runs out again. His opinions are too violent to last, for, like other things of the same kind in Nature, they quickly spend themselves and fall to nothing. All his opinions are like wefts and strays that are apt to straggle from their owners and belong to the lord of the manor where they are taken up. His soul has no retentive faculty, but suffers everything to run from him as fast as he receives it. His whole life is like a preposterous ague in which he has his hot fit always before his cold one, and is never in a constant temper. His principles and resolves are but a kind of movables, which he will not endure to be fastened to any freehold, but left loose to be conveyed away at pleasure as occasion shall please to dispose of him. His soul dwells, like a Tartar, in a hoord, without any settled habitation, but is always removing and dislodging from place to place. He changes his head oftener than a deer, and when his imaginations are stiff and at their full growth, he casts them off to breed new ones, only to cast off again the next season. All his purposes are built on air, the chamelion's diet, and have the same operation to make him change colour with every object he comes near. He pulls off his judgment as commonly as his hat to every one he meets with. His word and his deed are all one, for when he has given his word he has done, and never goes farther. His judgment, being unsound, has the same operation upon him that a disease has upon a sick man, that makes him find some ease in turning from side to side, and still the last is the most uneasy.
Eats his children, as the poets say Saturn did, and carries his felicity and all his concernments in his paunch. If he had lived when all the members of the body rebelled against the stomach there had been no possibility of accommodation. His entrails are like the sarcophagus, that devours dead bodies in a small space, or the Indian zampatan, that consumes flesh in a moment. He is a great dish made on purpose to carry meat. He eats out his own head, and his horses' too; he knows no grace but grace before meat, nor mortification but in fasting. If the body be the tabernacle of the soul, he lives in a sutler's hut. He celebrates mass, or rather mess, to the idol in his belly, and, like a papist, eats his adoration. A third course is the third heaven to him, and he is ravished into it. A feast is a good conscience to him, and he is troubled in mind when he misses of it. His teeth are very industrious in their calling, and his chops like a Bridewell perpetually hatcheling. He depraves his appetite withhaut-gousts, as old fornicators do their lechery into fulsomeness and stinks. He licks himself into the shape of a bear, as those beasts are said to do their whelps. He new forms himself in his own belly, and becomes another thing than God and Nature meant him. His belly takes place of the rest of his members, and walks before in state. He eats out that which eats all things else--time--and is very curious to have all things in season at his meals but his hours, which are commonly at midnight, and so late that he prays too late for his daily bread, unless he mean his natural daily bread. He is admirably learned in the doctrines of meats and sauces, and deserves the chair injuris-prudentia; that is, in the skill of pottages. At length he eats his life out of house and home and becomes a treat for worms, sells his clothes to feed his gluttony, and eats himself naked, as the first of his family, Adam, did.