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.