the quire, deeper in the tavern. They are the eight parts of speech which
go to the syntaxis of service, and are distinguished by their noises much
like bells, for they make not a concert but a peal. Their pastime or
recreation is prayers, their exercise drinking, yet herein so religiously
addicted that they serve God oftest when they are drunk. Their humanity is
a leg to the residencer, their learning a chapter, for they learn it
commonly before they read it; yet the old Hebrew names are little beholden
to them, for they mis-call them worse than one another. Though they never
expound the scripture, they handle it much, and pollute the gospel with
two things, their conversation and their thumbs. Upon worky-days, they
behave themselves at prayers as at their pots, for they swallow them down
in an instant. Their gowns are laced commonly with streamings of ale, the
superfluities of a cup or throat above measure. Their skill in melody
makes them the better companions abroad, and their anthems abler to sing
catches. Long lived for the most part they are not, especially the base,
they overflow their bank so oft to drown the organs. Briefly, if they
escape arresting, they die constantly in God's service; and to take their
death with more patience, they have wine and cakes at their funeral, and
now they keep[73] the church a great deal better, and help to fill it
with their bones as before with their noise.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] _Keep_ for attend.
XLVIII.
A SHOP-KEEPER.
His shop is his well stuft book, and himself the title-page of it, or
index. He utters much to all men, though he sells but to a few, and
intreats for his own necessities, by asking others what they lack. No man
speaks more and no more, for his words are like his wares, twenty of one
sort, and he goes over them alike to all commers. He is an arrogant
commender of his own things; for whatsoever he shews you is the best in
the town, though the worst in his shop. His conscience was a thing that
would have laid upon his hands, and he was forced to put it off, and
makes great use of honesty to profess upon. He tells you lies by rote,
and not minding, as the phrase to sell in, and the language he spent most
of his years to learn. He never speaks so truely as when he says he would
use you as his brother; for he would abuse his brother, and in his shop
thinks it lawful. His religion is much in the nature of his customers, and
indeed the pander to it: and by a mis-interpreted sense of scripture makes
a gain of his godliness. He is your slave while you pay him ready money,
but if he once befriend you, your tyrant, and you had better deserve his
hate than his trust.
XLIX.
A BLUNT MAN
Is one whose wit is better pointed than his behaviour, and that coarse and
impolished, not out of ignorance so much as humour. He is a great enemy to
the fine gentleman, and these things of complement, and hates ceremony in
conversation, as the Puritan in religion. He distinguishes not betwixt
fair and double dealing, and suspects all smoothness for the dress of
knavery. He starts at the encounter of a salutation as an assault, and
beseeches you in choler to forbear your courtesy. He loves not any thing
in discourse that comes before the purpose, and is always suspicious of a
preface. Himself falls rudely still on his matter without any
circumstance, except he use an old proverb for an introduction. He swears
old out-of-date innocent oaths, as, by the mass! by our lady! and such
like, and though there be lords present, he cries, my masters! He is
exceedingly in love with his humour, which makes him always profess and
proclaim it, and you must take what he says patiently, because he is a
plain man. His nature is his excuse still, and other men's tyrant; for he
must speak his mind, and that is his worst, and craves your pardon most
injuriously for not pardoning you. His jests best become him, because
they come from him rudely and unaffected; and he has the luck commonly to
have them famous. He is one that will do more than he will speak, and yet
speak more than he will hear; for though he love to touch others, he is
touchy himself, and seldom to his own abuses replies but with his fists.
He is as squeazy[74] of his commendations, as his courtesy, and his good
word is like an eulogy in a satire. He is generally better favoured than
he favours, as being commonly well expounded in his bitterness, and no man
speaks treason more securely. He chides great men with most boldness, and
is counted for it an honest fellow. He is grumbling much in the behalf of
the commonwealth, and is in prison oft for it with credit. He is generally
honest, but more generally thought so, and his downrightness credits him,
as a man not well bended and crookned to the times. In conclusion, he is
not easily bad, in whom this quality is nature, but the counterfeit is
most dangerous, since he is disguised in a humour, that professes not to
disguise.
FOOTNOTES:
[74] _Squeazy_, niggardly.
L.
A HANDSOME HOSTESS
Is the fairer commendation of an inn, above the fair sign, or fair
lodgings. She is the loadstone that attracts men of iron, gallants and
roarers, where they cleave sometimes long, and are not easily got off. Her
lips are your welcome, and your entertainment her company, which is put
into the reckoning too, and is the dearest parcel in it. No citizen's wife
is demurer than she at the first greeting, nor draws in her mouth with a
chaster simper; but you may be more familiar without distaste, and she
does not startle at bawdry. She is the confusion of a pottle of sack more
than would have been spent elsewhere, and her little jugs are accepted to
have her kiss excuse them. She may be an honest woman, but is not believed
so in her parish, and no man is a greater infidel in it than her husband.
LI.
A CRITIC
Is one that has spelled over a great many books, and his observation is
the orthography. He is the surgeon of old authors, and heals the wounds of
dust and ignorance. He converses much in fragments and _desunt multa's_,
and if he piece it up with two lines he is more proud of that book than
the author. He runs over all sciences to peruse their syntaxis, and thinks
all learning comprised in writing Latin. He tastes stiles as some
discreeter palates do wine; and tells you which is genuine, which
sophisticate and bastard. His own phrase is a miscellany of old words,
deceased long before the Caesars, and entombed by Varro, and the modernest
man he follows is Plautus. He writes _omneis_ at length, and _quidquid_,
and his gerund is most inconformable. He is a troublesome vexer of the
dead, which after so long sparing must rise up to the judgment of his
castigations. He is one that makes all books sell dearer, whilst he swells
them into folios with his comments.[75]
FOOTNOTES:
[75] On this passage, I fear, the present volume will be a sufficient
commentary.
LII.
A SERGEANT, OR CATCH-POLE
Is one of God's judgments; and which our roarers do only conceive
terrible. He is the properest shape wherein they fancy Satan; for he is at
most but an arrester, and hell a dungeon. He is the creditor's hawk,
wherewith they seize upon flying birds, and fetch them again in his
tallons. He is the period of young gentlemen, or their full stop, for when
he meets with them they can go no farther. His ambush is a shop-stall, or
close lane, and his assault is cowardly at your back. He respites you in
no place but a tavern, where he sells his minutes dearer than a
clock-maker. The common way to run from him is through him, which is often
attempted and atchieved,[76] [_and no man is more beaten out of charity_.]
He is one makes the street more dangerous than the highways, and men go
better provided in their walks than their journey. He is the first handsel
of the young rapiers of the templers; and they are as proud of his repulse
as an Hungarian of killing a Turk. He is a moveable prison, and his hands
two manacles hard to be filed off. He is an occasioner of disloyal
thoughts in the commonwealth, for he makes men hate the king's name worse
than the devil's.
FOOTNOTES:
[76] _And the clubs out of charity knock him down_, first edit.
LIII.
AN UNIVERSITY DUN
Is a gentleman's follower cheaply purchased, for his own money has hired
him. He is an inferior creditor of some ten shillings downwards,
contracted for horse-hire, or perchance for drink, too weak to be put in
suit, and he arrests your modesty. He is now very expensive of his time,
for he will wait upon your stairs a whole afternoon, and dance attendance
with more patience than a gentleman-usher. He is a sore beleaguerer of
chambers, and assaults them sometimes with furious knocks; yet finds
strong resistance commonly, and is kept out. He is a great complainer of
scholar's loytering, for he is sure never to find them within, and yet he
is the chief cause many times that makes them study. He grumbles at the
ingratitude of men that shun him for his kindness, but indeed it is his
own fault, for he is too great an upbraider. No man puts them more to
their brain than he; and by shifting him off they learn to shift in the
world. Some chuse their rooms on purpose to avoid his surprisals, and
think the best commodity in them his prospect. He is like a rejected
acquaintance, hunts those that care not for his company, and he knows it
well enough, and yet will not keep away. The sole place to supple him is
the buttery, where he takes grievous use upon your name,[77] and he is one
much wrought with good beer and rhetorick. He is a man of most unfortunate
voyages, and no gallant walks the streets to less purpose.
FOOTNOTES:
[77] That is, _runs you up a long score_.
LIV.
A STAYED MAN
Is a man: one that has taken order with himself, and sets a rule to those
lawlesnesses within him: whose life is distinct and in method, and his
actions, as it were, cast up before; not loosed into the world's vanities,
but gathered up and contracted in his station: not scattered into many
pieces of businesses, but that one course he takes, goes through with. A
man firm and standing in his purposes, not heaved off with each wind and
passion: that squares his expence to his coffers, and makes the total
first, and then the items. One that thinks what he does, and does what he
says, and foresees what he may do before he purposes. One whose "if I can"
is more than another's assurance; and his doubtful tale before some men's
protestations:--that is confident of nothing in futurity, yet his
conjectures oft true prophecies:--that makes a pause still betwixt his
ear and belief, and is not too hasty to say after others. One whose tongue
is strung up like a clock till the time, and then strikes, and says much
when he talks little:--that can see the truth betwixt two wranglers, and
sees them agree even in that they fall out upon:--that speaks no rebellion
in a bravery, or talks big from the spirit of sack. A man cool and
temperate in his passions, not easily betrayed by his choler:--that vies
not oath with oath, nor heat with heat, but replies calmly to an angry
man, and is too hard for him too:--that can come fairly off from captain's
companies, and neither drink nor quarrel. One whom no ill hunting sends
home discontented, and makes him swear at his dogs and family. One not
hasty to pursue the new fashion, nor yet affectedly true to his old round
breeches; but gravely handsome, and to his place, which suits him better
than his taylor: active in the world without disquiet, and careful without
misery; yet neither ingulphed in his pleasures, nor a seeker of business,
but has his hour for both. A man that seldom laughs violently, but his
mirth is a cheerful look: of a composed and settled countenance, not set,
nor much alterable with sadness or joy. He affects nothing so wholly, that
he must be a miserable man when he loses it; but fore-thinks what will
come hereafter, and spares fortune his thanks and curses. One that loves
his credit, not this word reputation; yet can save both without a duel.
Whose entertainments to greater men are respectful, not complementary; and
to his friends plain, not rude. A good husband, father, master; that is,
without doting, pampering, familiarity. A man well poised in all humours,
in whom nature shewed most geometry, and he has not spoiled the work. A
man of more wisdom than wittiness, and brain than fancy; and abler to any
thing than to make verses.
LV.
A MODEST MAN
Is a far finer man than he knows of, one that shews better to all men than
himself, and so much the better to all men, as less to himself;[78] for no
quality sets a man off like this, and commends him more against his will:
and he can put up any injury sooner than this (as he calls it) your irony.
You shall hear him confute his commenders, and giving reasons how much
they are mistaken, and is angry almost if they do not believe him. Nothing
threatens him so much as great expectation, which he thinks more
prejudicial than your under-opinion, because it is easier to make that
false, than this true. He is one that sneaks from a good action, as one
that had pilfered, and dare not justify it; and is more blushingly
reprehended in this, than others in sin: that counts all publick
declarings of himself, but so many penances before the people; and the
more you applaud him, the more you abash him, and he recovers not his face
a month after. One that is easy to like any thing of another man's, and
thinks all he knows not of him better than that he knows. He excuses that
to you, which another would impute; and if you pardon him, is satisfied.
One that stands in no opinion because it is his own, but suspects it
rather, because it is his own, and is confuted and thanks you. He sees
nothing more willingly than his errors, and it is his error sometimes to
be too soon persuaded. He is content to be auditor, where he only can
speak, and content to go away, and think himself instructed. No man is so
weak that he is ashamed to learn of, and is less ashamed to confess it;
and he finds many times even in the dust, what others overlook and lose.
Every man's presence is a kind of bridle to him, to stop the roving of his
tongue and passions: and even impudent men look for this reverence from
him, and distaste that in him, which they suffer in themselves, as one in
whom vice is ill-favoured, and shews more scurvily than another. A bawdy
jest shall shame him more than a bastard another man, and he that got it
shall censure him among the rest. And he is coward to nothing more than an
ill tongue, and whosoever dare lye on him hath power over him; and if you
take him by his look, he is guilty. The main ambition of his life is not
to be discredited; and for other things, his desires are more limited than
his fortunes, which he thinks preferment, though never so mean, and that
he is to do something to deserve this. He is too tender to venture on
great places, and would not hurt a dignity to help himself: If he do, it
was the violence of his friends constrained him, how hardly soever he
obtain it, he was harder persuaded to seek it.
FOOTNOTES:
[78] This, as well as many other passages in this work, has been
appropriated by John Dunton, the celebrated bookseller, as his own. See
his character of Mr. Samuel Hool, in _Dunton's Life and Errors_, 8vo.
1705. p. 337.
LVI.
A MEER EMPTY WIT
Is like one that spends on the stock without any revenues coming in, and
will shortly be no wit at all; for learning is the fuel to the fire of
wit, which, if it wants this feeding, eats out it self. A good conceit or
two bates of such a man, and makes a sensible weakening in him; and his
brain recovers it not a year after. The rest of him are bubbles and
flashes, darted out on a sudden, which, if you take them while they are
warm, may be laughed at; if they are cool, are nothing. He speaks best on
the present apprehension, for meditation stupifies him, and the more he is
in travel, the less he brings forth. His things come off then, as in a
nauseateing stomach, where there is nothing to cast up, strains and
convulsions, and some astonishing bombasts, which men only, till they
understand, are scared with. A verse or some such work he may sometimes
get up to, but seldom above the stature of an epigram, and that with some
relief out of Martial, which is the ordinary companion of his pocket, and
he reads him as he were inspired. Such men are commonly the trifling
things of the world, good to make merry the company, and whom only men
have to do withal when they have nothing to do, and none are less their
friends than who are most their company. Here they vent themselves over a
cup some-what more lastingly; all their words go for jests, and all their
jests for nothing. They are nimble in the fancy of some ridiculous thing,
and reasonable good in the expression. Nothing stops a jest when it's
coming, neither friends, nor danger, but it must out howsoever, though
their blood come out after, and then they emphatically rail, and are
emphatically beaten, and commonly are men reasonable familiar to this.
Briefly they are such whose life is but to laugh and be laughed at; and
only wits in jest and fools in earnest.
LVII.
A DRUNKARD
Is one that will be a man to-morrow morning, but is now what you will make
him, for he is in the power of the next man, and if a friend the better.
One that hath let go himself from the hold and stay of reason, and lies
open to the mercy of all temptations. No lust but finds him disarmed and
fenceless, and with the least assault enters. If any mischief escape him,
it was not his fault, for he was laid as fair for it as he could. Every
man sees him, as Cham saw his father the first of this sin, an uncovered
man, and though his garment be on, uncovered; the secretest parts of his
soul lying in the nakedest manner visible: all his passions come out now,
all his vanities, and those shamefuller humours which discretion clothes.
His body becomes at last like a miry way, where the spirits are beclogged
and cannot pass: all his members are out of office, and his heels do but
trip up one another. He is a blind man with eyes, and a cripple with legs
on. All the use he has of this vessel himself, is to hold thus much; for
his drinking is but a scooping in of so many quarts, which are filled out
into his body, and that filled out again into the room, which is commonly
as drunk as he. Tobacco serves to air him after a washing, and is his only
breath and breathing while. He is the greatest enemy to himself, and the
next to his friend, and then most in the act of his kindness, for his
kindness is but trying a mastery, who shall sink down first: and men come
from him as a battle, wounded and bound up. Nothing takes a man off more
from his credit, and business, and makes him more retchlesly[79] careless
what becomes of all. Indeed he dares not enter on a serious thought, or if
he do, it is such melancholy that it sends him to be drunk again.
FOOTNOTES:
[79] Rechlesse, _negligent_. Saxon, rectlerre. Chaucer uses it also as an
adjective:
"I may not in this cas be _reccheles_."
_Clerkes Tale_, v. 8364.
LVIII.
A PRISON
Is the grave of the living,[80] where they are shut up from the world and
their friends; and the worms that gnaw upon them their own thoughts and
the jaylor. A house of meagre looks and ill smells, for lice, drink, and
tobacco are the compound. Pluto's court was expressed from this fancy; and
the persons are much about the same parity that is there. You may ask, as
Menippus in Lucian, which is Nireus, which Thersites, which the beggar,
which the knight;--for they are all suited in the same form of a kind of
nasty poverty. Only to be out at elbows is in fashion here, and a great
indecorum not to be thread-bare. Every man shews here like so many wracks
upon the sea, here the ribs of a thousand pound, here the relicks of so
many mannors, a doublet without buttons; and 'tis a spectacle of more pity
than executions are. The company one with the other is but a vying of
complaints, and the causes they have to rail on fortune and fool
themselves, and there is a great deal of good fellowship in this. They are
commonly, next their creditors, most bitter against the lawyers, as men
that have had a great stroke in assisting them hither. Mirth here is
stupidity or hard-heartedness, yet they feign it sometimes to slip
melancholy, and keep off themselves from themselves, and the torment of
thinking what they have been. Men huddle up their life here as a thing of
no use, and wear it out like an old suit, the faster the better; and he
that deceives the time best, best spends it. It is the place where new
comers are most welcomed, and, next them, ill news, as that which extends
their fellowship in misery, and leaves few to insult:--and they breath
their discontents more securely here, and have their tongues at more
liberty than abroad. Men see here much sin and much calamity; and where
the last does not mortify, the other hardens; as those that are worse
here, are desperately worse, and those from whom the horror of sin is
taken off and the punishment familiar: and commonly a hard thought passes
on all that come from this school; which though it teach much wisdom, it
is too late, and with danger: and it is better be a fool than come here to
learn it.
FOOTNOTES:
[80] "A prison is a graue to bury men aliue, and a place wherein a man for
halfe a yeares experience may learne more law then he can at Westminster
for an hundred pound." Mynshul's _Essays and Characters of a Prison_. 4to.
1618.
LIX.
A SERVING MAN
Is one of the makings up of a gentleman as well as his clothes, and
somewhat in the same nature, for he is cast behind his master as
fashionably as his sword and cloak are, and he is but _in querpo_[81]
without him. His properness[82] qualifies him, and of that a good leg;
for his head he has little use but to keep it bare. A good dull wit best
suits with him to comprehend common sense and a trencher; for any greater
store of brain it makes him but tumultuous, and seldom thrives with him.
He follows his master's steps, as well in conditions as the street; if he
wench or drink, he comes him in an under kind, and thinks it a part of his
duty to be like him. He is indeed wholly his master's; of his faction,--of
his cut,--of his pleasures:--he is handsome for his credit, and drunk for
his credit, and if he have power in the cellar, commands the parish. He is
one that keeps the best company, and is none of it; for he knows all the
gentlemen his master knows, and picks from thence some hawking and
horse-race terms,[83] which he swaggers with in the ale-house, where he is
only called master. His mirth is bawdy jests with the wenches, and, behind
the door, bawdy earnest. The best work he does is his marrying, for it
makes an honest woman, and if he follows in it his master's direction, it
is commonly the best service he does him.
FOOTNOTES:
[81] _In querpo_ is a corruption from the Spanish word _cuerpo_. "_En
cuerpo, a man without a cloak._" Pineda's _Dictionary_, 1740. The present
signification evidently is, that a gentleman without his serving-man, or
attendant, is but half dressed:--he possesses only in part the appearance
of a man of fashion. "_To walk in cuerpo, is to go without a cloak._"
_Glossographia Anglicana Nova_, 8vo. 1719.
[82] _Proper_ was frequently used by old writers for comely, or handsome.
Shakspeare has several instances of it:
"I do mistake my person all this while:
Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
Myself to be a marvellous _proper_ man."
_K. Richard III._ Act I. Sc. 2. &c.
[83] "Why you know an'a man have not skill in the hawking and hunting
languages now-a-days, I'll not give a rush for him." _Master Stephen._
_Every Man in his Humour._
LX.
AN INSOLENT MAN