authors have done greater honour to their profession or opinions, and
certain it is that none have ever more ably defended the cause of the
Romish church, or contended in favour of the pope with greater advantage.
As a proof of Bellarmin's abilities, there was scarcely a divine of any
eminence among the protestants who did not attack him: Bayle aptly says,
"they made his name resound every where, ut littus Styla, Styla, omne
sonaret."
[59] Faustus Socinus is so well known as the founder of the sect which
goes under his name, that a few words will be sufficient. He was born in
1539, at Sienna, and imbibed his opinions from the instruction of his
uncle, who always had a high opinion of, and confidence in, the abilities
of his nephew, to whom he bequeathed all his papers. After living several
years in the world, principally at the court of Francis de Medicis,
Socinus, in 1577, went into Germany, and began to propagate the principles
of his uncle, to which, it is said, he made great additions and
alterations of his own. In the support of his opinions, he suffered
considerable hardships, and received the greatest insults and
persecutions; to avoid which, he retired to a place near Cracow, in
Poland, where he died in 1504, at the age of sixty-five.
[60] Conrade Vorstius, a learned divine, who was peculiarly detested by
the Calvinists, and who had even the honour to be attacked by king James
the first, of England, was born in 1569. Being compelled, through the
interposition of James's ambassador, to quit Leiden, where he had attained
the divinity-chair, and several other preferments, he retired to Toningen,
where he died in 1622, with the strongest tokens of piety and resignation.
XXXVI.
AN ATTORNEY.
His antient beginning was a blue coat, since a livery, and his hatching
under a lawyer; whence, though but pen-feathered, he hath now nested for
himself, and with his boarded pence purchased an office. Two desks and a
quire of paper set him up, where he now sits in state for all corners. We
can call him no great author, yet he writes very much and with the infamy
of the court is maintained in his libels.[61] He has some smatch of a
scholar, and yet uses Latin very hardly; and lest it should accuse him,
cuts it off in the midst, and will not let it speak out. He is, contrary
to great men, maintained by his followers, that is, his poor country
clients, that worship him more than their landlords, and be they never
such churls, he looks for their courtesy. He first racks them soundly
himself, and then delivers them to the lawyer for execution. His looks are
very solicitous, importing much haste and dispatch, he is never without
his hands full of business, that is--of paper. His skin becomes at last as
dry as his parchment, and his face as intricate as the most winding cause.
He talks statutes as fiercely as if he had mooted[62] seven years in the
inns of court, when all his skill is stuck in his girdle, or in his
office-window. Strife and wrangling have made him rich, and he is thankful
to his benefactor, and nourishes it. If he live in a country village, he
makes all his neighbours good subjects; for there shall be nothing done
but what there is law for. His business gives him not leave to think of
his conscience, and when the time, or term of his life is going out, for
dooms-day he is secure; for he hopes he has a trick to reverse judgment.
FOOTNOTES:
[61] _His style is very constant, for it keeps still the former aforesaid;
and yet it seems he is much troubled in it, for he is always humbly
complaining--your poor orator._ First edit.
[62] To _moote_ a terme vsed in the innes of the court; it is the handling
of a case, as in the Vniuersitie their disputations, &c. So _Minshew_, who
supposes it to be derived from the French, _mot, verbum, quasi verba
facere, aut sermonem de aliqua re habere_. _Mootmen_ are those who, having
studied seven or eight years, are qualified to practise, and appear to
answer to our term of barristers.
XXXVII.
A PARTIAL MAN
Is the opposite extreme to a defamer, for the one speaks ill falsely, and
the other well, and both slander the truth. He is one that is still
weighing men in the scale of comparisons, and puts his affections in the
one balance and that sways. His friend always shall do best, and you shall
rarely hear good of his enemy. He considers first the man and then the
thing, and restrains all merit to what they deserve of him. Commendations
he esteems not the debt of worth, but the requital of kindness; and if you
ask his reason, shews his interest, and tells you how much he is beholden
to that man. He is one that ties his judgment to the wheel of fortune, and
they determine giddily both alike. He prefers England before other
countries because he was born there, and Oxford before other universities,
because he was brought up there, and the best scholar there is one of his
own college, and the best scholar there is one of his friends. He is a
great favourer of great persons, and his argument is still that which
should be antecedent; as,--he is in high place, therefore virtuous;--he is
preferred, therefore worthy. Never ask his opinion, for you shall hear but
his faction, and he is indifferent in nothing but conscience. Men esteem
him for this a zealous affectionate, but they mistake him many times, for
he does it but to be esteemed so. Of all men he is worst to write an
history, for he will praise a Sejanus or Tiberius, and for some petty
respect of his all posterity shall be cozened.
XXXVIII.
A TRUMPETER
Is the elephant with the great trunk, for he eats nothing but what comes
through this way. His profession is not so worthy as to occasion
insolence, and yet no man so much puft up. His face is as brazen as his
trumpet, and (which is worse,) as a fidler's, from whom he differeth only
in this, that his impudence is dearer. The sea of drink and much wind make
a storm perpetually in his cheeks, and his look is like his noise,
blustering and tempestuous. He was whilom the sound of war, but now of
peace; yet as terrible as ever, for wheresoever he comes they are sure to
pay for it. He is the common attendant of glittering folks, whether in the
court or stage, where he is always the prologue's prologue.[63] He is
somewhat in the nature of a hogshead, shrillest when he is empty; when
his belly is full he is quiet enough. No man proves life more to be a
blast, or himself a bubble, and he is like a counterfeit bankrupt, thrives
best when he is blown up.
FOOTNOTES:
[63] The prologue to our ancient dramas was ushered in by trumpets.
"Present not yourselfe on the stage (especially at a new play) untill the
quaking prologue hath (by rubbing) got cullor into his cheekes, and is
ready to giue the trumpets their cue that hee's vpon point to enter."
Decker's _Gul's Hornbook_, 1609. p. 30.
"Doe you not know that I am the Prologue? Do you not see this long blacke
veluet cloke vpon my backe? _Haue you not sounded thrice?_" Heywood's
_Foure Prentises of London_. 4to. 1615.
XXXIX.
A VULGAR-SPIRITED MAN
Is one of the herd of the world. One that follows merely the common cry,
and makes it louder by one. A man that loves none but who are publickly
affected, and he will not be wiser than the rest of the town. That never
owns a friend after an ill name, or some general imputation, though he
knows it most unworthy. That opposes to reason, "thus men say;" and "thus
most do;" and "thus the world goes;" and thinks this enough to poise the
other. That worships men in place, and those only; and thinks all a great
man speaks oracles. Much taken with my lord's jest, and repeats you it all
to a syllable. One that justifies nothing out of fashion, nor any opinion
out of the applauded way. That thinks certainly all Spaniards and Jesuits
very villains, and is still cursing the pope and Spinola. One that thinks
the gravest cassock the best scholar; and the best cloaths the finest man.
That is taken only with broad and obscene wit, and hisses any thing too
deep for him. That cries, Chaucer for his money above all our English
poets, because the voice has gone so, and he has read none. That is much
ravished with such a nobleman's courtesy, and would venture his life for
him, because he put off his hat. One that is foremost still to kiss the
king's hand, and cries, "God bless his majesty!" loudest. That rails on
all men condemned and out of favour, and the first that says "away with
the traitors!"--yet struck with much ruth at executions, and for pity to
see a man die, could kill the hangman. That comes to London to see it, and
the pretty things in it, and, the chief cause of his journey, the bears.
That measures the happiness of the kingdom by the cheapness of corn, and
conceives no harm of state, but ill trading. Within this compass too, come
those that are too much wedged into the world, and have no lifting
thoughts above those things; that call to thrive, to do well; and
preferment only the grace of God. That aim all studies at this mark, and
shew you poor scholars as an example to take heed by. That think the
prison and want a judgment for some sin, and never like well hereafter of
a jail-bird. That know no other content but wealth, bravery, and the
town-pleasures; that think all else but idle speculation, and the
philosophers madmen. In short, men that are carried away with all
outwardnesses, shews, appearances, the stream, the people; for there is no
man of worth but has a piece of singularity, and scorns something.
XL.
A PLODDING STUDENT
Is a kind of alchymist or persecutor of nature, that would change the dull
lead of his brain into finer metal, with success many times as
unprosperous, or at least not quitting the cost, to wit, of his own oil
and candles. He has a strange forced appetite to learning, and to atchieve
it brings nothing but patience and a body. His study is not great but
continual, and consists much in the sitting up till after midnight in a
rug-gown and a night-cap, to the vanquishing perhaps of some six lines;
yet what he has, he has perfect, for he reads it so long to understand it,
till he gets it without book. He may with much industry make a breach into
logick, and arrive at some ability in an argument; but for politer studies
he dare not skirmish with them, and for poetry accounts it impregnable.
His invention is no more than the finding out of his papers, and his few
gleanings there; and his disposition of them is as just as the
bookbinders, a setting or glewing of them together. He is a great
discomforter of young students, by telling them what travel it has cost
him, and how often his brain turned at philosophy, and makes others fear
studying as a cause of duncery. He is a man much given to apothegms, which
serve him for wit, and seldom breaks any jest but which belongs to some
Lacedemonian or Roman in Lycosthenes. He is like a dull carrier's horse,
that will go a whole week together, but never out of a foot pace; and he
that sets forth on the Saturday shall overtake him.
XLI.
PAUL'S WALK[64]
Is the land's epitome, or you may call it the lesser isle of Great
Britain. It is more than this, the whole world's map, which you may here
discern in its perfectest motion, justling and turning. It is a heap of
stones and men, with a vast confusion of languages; and were the steeple
not sanctified, nothing liker Babel. The noise in it is like that of bees,
a strange humming or buzz mixed of walking tongues and feet: it is a kind
of still roar or loud whisper. It is the great exchange of all discourse,
and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and a-foot. It is the
synod of all pates politick, jointed and laid together in most serious
posture, and they are not half so busy at the parliament. It is the antick
of tails to tails, and backs to backs, and for vizards you need go no
farther than faces. It is the market of young lecturers, whom you may
cheapen here at all rates and sizes. It is the general mint of all famous
lies, which are here like the legends of popery, first coined and stamped
in the church. All inventions are emptied here, and not few pockets. The
best sign of a temple in it is, that it is the thieves sanctuary, which
rob more safely in the crowd than a wilderness, whilst every searcher is a
bush to hide them. It is the other expence of the day, after plays,
tavern, and a bawdy-house; and men have still some oaths left to swear
here. It is the ear's brothel, and satisfies their lust and itch. The
visitants are all men without exceptions, but the principal inhabitants
and possessors are stale knights and captains[65] out of service; men of
long rapiers and breeches, which after all turn merchants here and
traffick for news. Some make it a preface to their dinner, and travel for
a stomach; but thriftier men make it their ordinary, and board here very
cheap.[66] Of all such places it is least haunted with hobgoblins, for if
a ghost would walk more, he could not.
FOOTNOTES:
[64] St. Paul's cathedral was, during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, a
sort of exchange and public parade, where business was transacted between
merchants, and where the fashionables of the day exhibited themselves. The
reader will find several allusions to this custom in the _variorum_
edition of Shakspeare, _K. Henry IV._ part 2. Osborne, in his _Traditional
Memoires on the Reigns of Elizabeth and James_, 12mo. 1658, says, "It was
the fashion of those times (James I.) and did so continue till these, (the
interregnum,) for the principal gentry, lords, courtiers, and men of all
professions, not merely mechanicks, to meet in _St. Paul's_ church by
eleven, and walk in the middle isle till twelve, and after dinner from
three to six; during which time some discoursed of business, others of
news." Weever complains of the practice, and says, "it could be wished
that walking in the middle isle of _Paules_ might be forborne in the time
of diuine seruice." _Ancient Funeral Monuments_, 1631, page 373.
[65] In the _Dramatis Personae_ to Ben Jonson's _Every Man in his Humour_,
Bobadil is styled a _Paul's man_; and Falstaff tells us that he bought
Bardolph in _Paul's_. _King Henry IV._ Part 2.
[66]
----You'd not doe
Like your penurious father, who was wont
_To walke his dinner out in Paules_.
Mayne's _City Match_, 1658.
XLII.
A COOK.
The kitchen is his hell, and he the devil in it, where his meat and he fry
together. His revenues are showered down from the fat of the land, and he
interlards his own grease among to help the drippings. Cholerick he is not
by nature so much as his art, and it is a shrewd temptation that the
chopping-knife is so near. His weapons, ofter offensive, are a mess of hot
broth and scalding water, and woe be to him that comes in his way. In the
kitchen he will domineer and rule the roast in spight of his master, and
curses in the very dialect of his calling. His labour is meer blustering
and fury, and his speech like that of sailors in a storm, a thousand
businesses at once; yet, in all this tumult, he does not love combustion,
but will be the first man that shall go and quench it. He is never a good
christian till a hissing pot of ale has slacked him, like water cast on a
firebrand, and for that time he is tame and dispossessed. His cunning is
not small in architecture, for he builds strange fabricks in paste, towers
and castles, which are offered to the assault of valiant teeth, and like
Darius' palace in one banquet demolished. He is a pittiless murderer of
innocents, and he mangles poor fowls with unheard-of tortures; and it is
thought the martyrs persecutions were devised from hence: sure we are, St.
Lawrence's gridiron came out of his kitchen. His best faculty is at the
dresser, where he seems to have great skill in the tacticks, ranging his
dishes in order military, and placing with great discretion in the
fore-front meats more strong and hardy, and the more cold and cowardly in
the rear; as quaking tarts and quivering custards, and such milk-sop
dishes, which scape many times the fury of the encounter. But now the
second course is gone up and he down in the cellar, where he drinks and
sleeps till four o'clock[67] in the afternoon, and then returns again to
his regiment.
FOOTNOTES:
[67] The time of supper was about five o'clock. See note at page 39.
XLIII.
A BOLD FORWARD MAN
Is a lusty fellow in a crowd, that is beholden more to his elbow than his
legs, for he does not go, but thrusts well. He is a good shuffler in the
world, wherein he is so oft putting forth, that at length he puts on. He
can do some things, but dare do much more, and is like a desperate
soldier, who will assault any thing where he is sure not to enter. He is
not so well opinioned of himself, as industrious to make others, and
thinks no vice so prejudicial as blushing. He is still citing for himself,
that a candle should not be hid under a bushel; and for his part he will
be sure not to hide his, though his candle be but a snuff or rush-candle.
Those few good parts he has, he is no niggard in displaying, and is like
some needy flaunting goldsmith, nothing in the inner room, but all on the
cupboard. If he be a scholar, he has commonly stepped into the pulpit
before a degree, yet into that too before he deserved it. He never defers
St. Mary's beyond his regency, and his next sermon is at Paul's cross,[68]
[and that printed.] He loves publick things alive; and for any solemn
entertainment he will find a mouth, find a speech who will. He is greedy
of great acquaintance and many, and thinks it no small advancement to rise
to be known. [He is one that has all the great names at court at his
fingers ends, and their lodgings; and with a saucy, "my lord," will salute
the best of them.] His talk at the table is like Benjamin's mess, five
times to his part, and no argument shuts him out for a quarreller. Of all
disgraces he endures not to be non-plussed, and had rather fly for
sanctuary to nonsense which few descry, than to nothing which all. His
boldness is beholden to other men's modesty, which rescues him many times
from a baffle; yet his face is good armour, and he is dashed out of any
thing sooner than countenance. Grosser conceits are puzzled in him for a
rare man; and wiser men though they know him [yet] take him [in] for their
pleasure, or as they would do a sculler for being next at hand. Thus
preferment at last stumbles on him, because he is still in the way. His
companions that flouted him before, now envy him, when they see him come
ready for scarlet, whilst themselves lye musty in their old clothes and
colleges.
FOOTNOTES:
[68] Paul's cross stood in the church-yard of that cathedral, on the north
side, towards the east end. It was used for the preaching of sermons to
the populace; and Holinshed mentions two instances of public penance being
performed here; in 1534 by some of the adherents of Elizabeth Barton, well
known as _the holy maid of Kent_, and in 1536 by sir Thomas Newman, a
priest, who "_bare a faggot at Paules crosse for singing masse with good
ale_."
XLIV.
A BAKER.
No man verifies the proverb more, that it is an alms-deed to punish him;
for his penalty is a dole,[69] and does the beggars as much good as their
dinner. He abhors, therefore, works of charity, and thinks his bread cast
away when it is given to the poor. He loves not justice neither, for the
weigh-scale's sake, and hates the clerk of the market as his executioner;
yet he finds mercy in his offences, and his basket only is sent to
prison.[70] Marry a pillory is his deadly enemy, and he never hears well
after.
FOOTNOTES:
[69] _Dole_ originally signified the portion of alms that was given away
at the door of a nobleman. Steevens, note to _Shakspeare_. Sir John
Hawkins affirms that the benefaction distributed at Lambeth palace gate,
is to this day called the _dole_.
[70] That is, the contents of his basket, if discovered to be of light
weight, are distributed to the needy prisoners.
XLV.
A PRETENDER TO LEARNING
Is one that would make all others more fools than himself, for though he
know nothing, he would not have the would know so much. He conceits
nothing in learning but the opinion, which he seeks to purchase without
it, though he might with less labour cure his ignorance than hide it. He
is indeed a kind of scholar-mountebank, and his art our delusion. He is
tricked out in all the accoutrements of learning, and at the first
encounter none passes better. He is oftener in his study than at his book,
and you cannot pleasure him better than to deprehend him: yet he hears you
not till the third knock, and then comes out very angry as interrupted.
You find him in his _slippers_[71] and a pen in his ear, in which
formality he was asleep. His table is spread wide with some classick
folio, which is as constant to it as the carpet, and hath laid open in the
same page this half year. His candle is always a longer sitter up than
himself, and the _boast_[72] of his window at midnight. He walks much
alone in the posture of meditation, and has a book still before his face
in the fields. His pocket is seldom without a Greek testament or Hebrew
bible, which he opens only in the church, and that when some stander-by
looks over. He has sentences for company, some scatterings of Seneca and
Tacitus, which are good upon all occasions. If he reads any thing in the
morning, it comes up all at dinner; and as long as that lasts, the
discourse is his. He is a great plagiary of tavern wit, and comes to
sermons only that he may talk of Austin. His parcels are the meer
scrapings from company, yet he complains at parting what time he has lost.
He is wondrously capricious to seem a judgment, and listens with a sower
attention to what he understands not. He talks much of Scaliger, and
Casaubon, and the Jesuits, and prefers some unheard-of Dutch name before
them all. He has verses to bring in upon these and these hints, and it
shall go hard but he will wind in his opportunity. He is critical in a
language he cannot conster, and speaks seldom under Arminius in divinity.
His business and retirement and caller away is his study, and he protests
no delight to it comparable. He is a great nomenclator of authors, which
he has read in general in the catalogue, and in particular in the title,
and goes seldom so far as the dedication. He never talks of any thing but
learning, and learns all from talking. Three encounters with the same men
pump him, and then he only puts in or gravely says nothing. He has taken
pains to be an ass, though not to be a scholar, and is at length
discovered and laughed at.
FOOTNOTES:
[71] _Study_, first edit.
[72] The first edition reads _post_, and, I think, preferably.
XLVI.
A HERALD
Is the spawn or indeed but the resultancy of nobility, and to the making
of him went not a generation but a genealogy. His trade is honour, and he
sells it and gives arms himself, though he be no gentleman. His bribes are
like those of a corrupt judge, for they are the prices of blood. He seems
very rich in discourse, for he tells you of whole fields of gold and
silver, or, and argent, worth much in French but in English nothing. He is
a great diver in the streams or issues of gentry, and not a by-channel or
bastard escapes him; yea he does with them like some shameless queen,
fathers more children on them than ever they begot. His traffick is a kind
of pedlary-ware, scutchions, and pennons, and little daggers and lions,
such as children esteem and gentlemen; but his penny-worths are rampant,
for you may buy three whole brawns cheaper than three boar's heads of him
painted. He was sometimes the terrible coat of Mars, but is now for more
merciful battles in the tilt-yard, where whosoever is victorious, the
spoils are his. He is an art in England but in Wales nature, where they
are born with heraldry in their mouths, and each name is a pedigree.
XLVII.
THE COMMON SINGING-MEN IN CATHEDRAL CHURCHES