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.