another face upon his preferment, for his own was not bred to it. One whom
fortune hath shot up to some office or authority, and he shoots up his
neck to his fortune, and will not bate you an inch of either. His very
countenance and gesture bespeak how much he is, and if you understand him
not, he tells you, and concludes every period with his place, which you
must and shall know. He is one that looks on all men as if he were angry,
but especially on those of his acquaintance, whom he beats off with a
surlier distance, as men apt to mistake him, because they have known him;
and for this cause he knows not you 'till you have told him your name,
which he thinks he has heard, but forgot, and with much ado seems to
recover. If you have any thing to use him in, you are his vassal for that
time, and must give him the patience of any injury, which he does only to
shew what he may do. He snaps you up bitterly, because he will be
offended, and tells you, you are sawcy and troublesome, and sometimes
takes your money in this language. His very courtesies are intolerable,
they are done with such an arrogance and imputation; and he is the only
man you may hate after a good turn, and not be ungrateful; and men reckon
it among their calamities to be beholden unto him. No vice draws with it a
more general hostility, and makes men readier to search into his faults,
and of them, his beginning; and no tale so unlikely but is willingly heard
of him and believed. And commonly such men are of no merit at all, but
make out in pride what they want in worth, and fence themselves with a
stately kind of behaviour from that contempt which would pursue them. They
are men whose preferment does us a great deal of wrong, and when they are
down, we may laugh at them without breach of good-nature.
LXI.
ACQUAINTANCE
Is the first draught of a friend, whom we must lay down oft thus, as the
foul copy, before we can write him perfect and true: for from hence, as
from a probation, men take a degree in our respect, till at last they
wholly possess us: for acquaintance is the hoard, and friendship the pair
chosen out of it; by which at last we begin to impropriate and inclose to
ourselves what before lay in common with others. And commonly where it
grows not up to this, it falls as low as may be; and no poorer relation
than old acquaintance, of whom we only ask how they do for fashion's sake,
and care not. The ordinary use of acquaintance is but somewhat a more
boldness of society, a sharing of talk, news, drink, mirth together; but
sorrow is the right of a friend, as a thing nearer our heart, and to be
delivered with it. Nothing easier than to create acquaintance, the mere
being in company once does it; whereas friendship, like children, is
ingendered by a more inward mixture, and coupling together; when we are
acquainted not with their virtues only, but their faults, their passions,
their fears, their shame,--and are bold on both sides to make their
discovery. And as it is in the love of the body, which is then at the
height and full when it has power and admittance into the hidden and
worst parts of it; so it is in friendship with the mind, when those
_verenda_ of the soul, and those things which we dare not shew the world,
are bare and detected one to another. Some men are familiar with all, and
those commonly friends to none; for friendship is a sullener thing, is a
contractor and taker up of our affections to some few, and suffers them
not loosely to be scattered on all men. The poorest tie of acquaintance is
that of place and country, which are shifted as the place, and missed but
while the fancy of that continues. These are only then gladdest of other,
when they meet in some foreign region, where the encompassing of strangers
unites them closer, till at last they get new, and throw off one another.
Men of parts and eminency, as their acquaintance is more sought for, so
they are generally more staunch of it, not out of pride only, but fear to
let too many in too near them: for it is with men as with pictures, the
best show better afar off and at distance, and the closer you come to them
the coarser they are. The best judgment of a man is taken from his
acquaintance, for friends and enemies are both partial; whereas these see
him truest because calmest, and are no way so engaged to lie for him. And
men that grow strange after acquaintance, seldom piece together again, as
those that have tasted meat and dislike it, out of a mutual experience
disrelishing one another.
LXII.
A MEER COMPLIMENTAL MAN
Is one to be held off still at the same distance you are now; for you
shall have him but thus, and if you enter on him farther you lose him.
Methinks Virgil well expresses him in those well-behaved ghosts that AEneas
met with, that were friends to talk with, and men to look on, but if he
grasped them, but air.[84] He is one that lies kindly to you, and for good
fashion's sake, and tis discourtesy in you to believe him. His words are
so many fine phrases set together, which serve equally for all men, and
are equally to no purpose. Each fresh encounter with a man puts him to the
same part again, and he goes over to you what he said to him was last with
him: he kisses your hands as he kissed his before, and is your servant to
be commanded, but you shall intreat of him nothing. His proffers are
universal and general, with exceptions against all particulars. He will do
any thing for you, but if you urge him to this, he cannot, or to that, he
is engaged; but he will do any thing. Promises he accounts but a kind of
mannerly words, and in the expectation of your manners not to exact them:
if you do, he wonders at your ill breeding, that cannot distinguish
betwixt what is spoken and what is meant. No man gives better
satisfaction at the first, and comes off more with the elogy of a kind
gentleman, till you know him better, and then you know him for nothing.
And commonly those most rail at him, that have before most commended him.
The best is, he cozens you in a fair manner, and abuses you with great
respect.
FOOTNOTES:
[84]
Ter conatus ibi collo dare brachia circum:
Ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago,
Par leuibus ventis, volucrique simillima somno.
_Virgil_ AEn. vi. _v._ 700. edit. Heyne, 1787.
LXIII.
A POOR FIDDLER
Is a man and a fiddle out of case, and he in worse case than his fiddle.
One that rubs two sticks together (as the Indians strike fire), and rubs a
poor living out of it; partly from this, and partly from your charity,
which is more in the hearing than giving him, for he sells nothing dearer
than to be gone. He is just so many strings above a beggar, though he have
but two; and yet he begs too, only not in the downright 'for God's sake,'
but with a shrugging 'God bless you,' and his face is more pined than the
blind man's. Hunger is the greatest pain he takes, except a broken head
sometimes, and the labouring John Dory.[85] Otherwise his life is so many
fits of mirth, and tis some mirth to see him. A good feast shall draw him
five miles by the nose, and you shall track him again by the scent. His
other pilgrimages are fairs and good houses, where his devotion is great
to the Christmas; and no man loves good times better. He is in league with
the tapsters for the worshipful of the inn, whom, he torments next morning
with his art, and has their names more perfect than their men. A new song
is better to him than a new jacket, especially if bawdy, which he calls
merry; and hates naturally the puritan, as an enemy to this mirth. A
country wedding and Whitson-ale are the two main places he domineers in,
where he goes for a musician, and overlooks the bag-pipe. The rest of him
is drunk, and in the stocks.
FOOTNOTES:
[85] Probably the name of some difficult tune.
LXIV.
A MEDDLING MAN
Is one that has nothing to do with his business, and yet no man busier
than he, and his business is most in his face. He is one thrusts himself
violently into all employments, unsent for, unfeed, and many times
unthanked; and his part in it is only an eager bustling, that rather keeps
ado than does any thing. He will take you aside, and question you of your
affair, and listen with both ears, and look earnestly, and then it is
nothing so much yours as his. He snatches what you are doing out of your
hands, and cries "give it me," and does it worse, and lays an engagement
upon you too, and you must thank him for his pains. He lays you down an
hundred wild plots, all impossible things, which you must be ruled by
perforce, and he delivers them with a serious and counselling forehead;
and there is a great deal more wisdom in this forehead than his head. He
will woo for you, solicit for you, and woo you to suffer him; and scarce
any thing done, wherein his letter, or his journey, or at least himself is
not seen; if he have no task in it else, he will rail yet on some side,
and is often beaten when he need not. Such men never thoroughly weigh any
business, but are forward only to shew their zeal, when many times this
forwardness spoils it, and then they cry they have done what they can,
that is, as much hurt. Wise men still deprecate these men's kindnesses,
and are beholden to them rather to let them alone; as being one trouble
more in all business, and which a man shall be hardest rid of.
LXV.
A GOOD OLD MAN
Is the best antiquity, and which we may with least vanity admire. One whom
time hath been thus long a working, and like winter fruit, ripened when
others are shaken down. He hath taken out as many lessons of the world as
days, and learnt the best thing in it; the vanity of it. He looks over his
former life as a danger well past, and would not hazard himself to begin
again. His lust was long broken before his body, yet he is glad this
temptation is broke too, and that he is fortified from it by this
weakness. The next door of death sads him not, but he expects it calmly as
his turn in nature; and fears more his recoiling back to childishness than
dust. All men look on him as a common father, and on old age, for his
sake, as a reverent thing. His very presence and face puts vice out of
countenance, and makes it an indecorum in a vicious man. He practises his
experience on youth without the harshness of reproof, and in his counsel
his good company. He has some old stories still of his own seeing to
confirm what he says, and makes them better in the telling; yet is not
troublesome neither with the same tale again, but remembers with them how
oft he has told them. His old sayings and morals seem proper to his beard;
and the poetry of Cato does well out of his mouth, and he speaks it as if
he were the author. He is not apt to put the boy on a younger man, nor the
fool on a boy, but can distinguish gravity from a sour look; and the less
testy he is, the more regarded. You must pardon him if he like his own
times better than these, because those things are follies to him now that
were wisdom then; yet he makes us of that opinion too when we see him, and
conjecture those times by so good a relick. He is a man capable of a
dearness with the youngest men, yet he not youthfuller for them, but they
older for him; and no man credits more his acquaintance. He goes away at
last too soon whensoever, with all men's sorrow but his own; and his
memory is fresh, when it is twice as old.
LXVI.
A FLATTERER
Is the picture of a friend, and as pictures flatter many times, so he oft
shews fairer than the true substance: his look, conversation, company, and
all the outwardness of friendship more pleasing by odds, for a true friend
dare take the liberty to be sometimes offensive, whereas he is a great
deal more cowardly, and will not let the least hold go, for fear of losing
you. Your meer sour look affrights him, and makes him doubt his
casheering. And this is one sure mark of him, that he is never first
angry, but ready though upon his own wrong to make satisfaction. Therefore
he is never yoked with a poor man, or any that stands on the lower
ground, but whose fortunes may tempt his pains to deceive him. Him he
learns first, and learns well, and grows perfecter in his humours than
himself, and by this door enters upon his soul, of which he is able at
last to take the very print and mark, and fashion his own by it, like a
false key to open all your secrets. All his affections jump[86] even with
your's; he is before-hand with your thoughts, and able to suggest them
unto you. He will commend to you first what he knows you like, and has
always some absurd story or other of your enemy, and then wonders how your
two opinions should jump in that man. He will ask your counsel sometimes
as a man of deep judgment, and has a secret of purpose to disclose to you,
and whatsoever you say, is persuaded. He listens to your words with great
attention, and sometimes will object that you may confute him, and then
protests he never heard so much before. A piece of wit bursts him with an
overflowing laughter, and he remembers it for you to all companies, and
laughs again in the telling. He is one never chides you but for your
vertues, as, _you are too good, too honest, too religious_, when his
chiding may seem but the earnester commendation, and yet would fain chide
you out of them too; for your vice is the thing he has use of, and wherein
you may best use him; and he is never more active than in the worst
diligences. Thus, at last, he possesses you from yourself, and then
expects but his hire to betray you: and it is a happiness not to discover
him; for as long as you are happy, you shall not.
FOOTNOTES:
[86] _Jump_ here signifies to coincide. The old play of _Soliman and
Perseda_, 4to. _without date_, uses it in the same sense:
"Wert thou my friend, thy mind would _jump_ with mine." So in _Pierce
Penilesse his Supplication to the Divele_:--"Not two of them jump in one
tale." p. 29.
LXVII.
A HIGH-SPIRITED MAN
Is one that looks like a proud man, but is not: you may forgive him his
looks for his worth's sake, for they are only too proud to be base. One
whom no rate can buy off from the least piece of his freedom, and make him
digest an unworthy thought an hour. He cannot crouch to a great man to
possess him, nor fall low to the earth to rebound never so high again. He
stands taller on his own bottom, than others on the advantage ground of
fortune, as having solidly that honour, of which title is but the pomp. He
does homage to no man for his great stile's sake, but is strictly just in
the exaction of respect again, and will not bate you a complement. He is
more sensible of a neglect than an undoing, and scorns no man so much as
his surly threatener. A man quickly fired, and quickly laid down with
satisfaction, but remits any injury sooner than words: only to himself he
is irreconcileable, whom he never forgives a disgrace, but is still
stabbing himself with the thought of it, and no disease that he dies of
sooner. He is one had rather perish than be beholden for his life, and
strives more to be quit with his friend than his enemy. Fortune may kill
him but not deject him, nor make him fall into an humbler key than before,
but he is now loftier than ever in his own defence; you shall hear him
talk still after thousands, and he becomes it better than those that have
it. One that is above the world and its drudgery, and cannot pull down his
thoughts to the pelting businesses of life. He would sooner accept the
gallows than a mean trade, or any thing that might disparage the height of
man in him, and yet thinks no death comparably base to hanging neither.
One that will do nothing upon command, though he would do it otherwise;
and if ever he do evil, it is when he is dared to it. He is one that if
fortune equal his worth puts a luster in all preferment; but if otherwise
he be too much crossed, turns desperately melancholy, and scorns mankind.
LXVIII.
A MEER GULL CITIZEN
Is one much about the same model and pitch of brain that the clown is,
only of somewhat a more polite and finical ignorance, and as sillily
scorns him as he is sillily admired by him. The quality of the city hath
afforded him some better dress of clothes and language, which he uses to
the best advantage, and is so much the more ridiculous. His chief
education is the visits of his shop, where if courtiers and fine ladies
resort, he is infected with so much more eloquence, and if he catch one
word extraordinary, wears it for ever. You shall hear him mince a
complement sometimes that was never made for him; and no man pays dearer
for good words,--for he is oft paid with them. He is suited rather fine
than in the fashion, and has still something to distinguish him from a
gentleman, though his doublet cost more; especially on Sundays,
bridegroom-like, where he carries the state of a very solemn man, and
keeps his pew as his shop; and it is a great part of his devotion to feast
the minister. But his chiefest guest is a customer, which is the greatest
relation he acknowledges, especially if you be an honest gentleman, that
is trust him to cozen you enough. His friendships are a kind of gossipping
friendships, and those commonly within the circle of his trade, wherein he
is careful principally to avoid two things, that is poor men and
suretiships. He is a man will spend his six-pence with a great deal of
imputation,[87] and no man makes more of a pint of wine than he. He is one
bears a pretty kind of foolish love to scholars, and to Cambridge
especially for Sturbridge[88] fair's sake; and of these all are truants
to him that are not preachers, and of these the loudest the best; and he
is much ravished with the noise of a rolling tongue. He loves to hear
discourses out of his element, and the less he understands the better
pleased, which he expresses in a smile and some fond protestation. One
that does nothing without his chuck[89], that is his wife, with whom he is
billing still in conspiracy, and the wantoner she is, the more power she
has over him; and she never stoops so low after him, but is the only woman
goes better of a widow than a maid. In the education of his child no man
fearfuller, and the danger he fears is a harsh school-master, to whom he
is alledging still the weakness of the boy, and pays a fine extraordinary
for his mercy. The first whipping rids him to the university, and from
thence rids him again for fear of starving, and the best he makes of him
is some gull in plush. He is one loves to hear the famous acts of
citizens, whereof the gilding of the cross[90] he counts the glory of this
age, and the four[91] prentices of London above all the nine[92]
worthies. He intitles himself to all the merits of his company, whether
schools, hospitals, or exhibitions, in which he is joint benefactor,
though four hundred years ago, and upbraids them far more than those that
gave them: yet with all this folly he has wit enough to get wealth, and
in that a sufficienter man than he that is wiser.
FOOTNOTES:
[87] _Imputation_ here must be used for _consequence_; of which I am,
however, unable to produce any other instance.
[88] _Sturbridge fair_ was the great mart for business, and resort for
pleasure, in bishop Earle's day. It is alluded to in Randolph's _Conceited
Pedlar_, 4to. 1630.
"I am a pedlar, and I sell my ware
This braue Saint Barthol. or _Sturbridge faire_."
Edward Ward, the facetious author of _The London Spy_, gives a whimsical
account of a journey to _Sturbridge_, in the second volume of his works.
[89] This silly term of endearment appears to be derived from _chick_, or
_my chicken_. Shakspeare uses it in Macbeth, Act iii. Scene 2.
"Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest _chuck_."
[90] The great cross in West Cheap, was originally erected in 1290, by
Edward I. in commemoration of the death of queen Ellinor, whose body
rested at that place, on its journey from Herdeby, in Lincolnshire, to
Westminster, for interment. It was rebuilt in 1441, and again in 1484. In
1581, the images and ornaments were destroyed by the populace; and in
1599, the top of the cross was taken down, the timber being rotted within
the lead, and fears being entertained as to its safety. By order of queen
Elizabeth, and her privy council, it was repaired in 1600, when, says
Stow, "a cross of timber was framed, set up, covered with lead, _and
gilded_," &c. Stow's _Survey of London_, by Strype, book iii. p. 35. Edit,
folio, Lond. 1720.
[91] This must allude to the play written by Heywood with the following
title: _The Foure Prentises of London. With the Conquest of Ierusalem. As
it hath bene diuerse times acted at the Red Bull, by the Queene's
Maiesties Seruants._ 4to. Lond. 1615. In this drama, the _four prentises_
are Godfrey, Grey, Charles, and Eustace, sons to the _old Earle of
Bullen_, who, having lost his territories, by assisting William the
Conqueror in his descent upon England, is compelled to live like a private
citizen in London, and binds his sons to a mercer, a goldsmith, a
haberdasher, and a grocer. The _four prentises_, however, prefer the life
of a soldier to that of a tradesman, and, quitting the service of their
masters, follow Robert of Normandy to the holy land, where they perform
the most astonishing feats of valour, and finally accomplish the _conquest
of Ierusalem_. The whole play abounds in bombast and impossibilities, and,
as a composition, is unworthy of notice or remembrance.
[92] _The History of the Nine Worthies of the World; three whereof were
Gentiles: 1. Hector, son of Priamus, king of Troy. 2. Alexander the Great,
king of Macedon, and conqueror of the world. 3. Julius Caesar, first
emperor of Rome. Three Jews. 4. Joshua, captain general and leader of
Israel into Canaan. 5. David, king of Israel. 6. Judas Maccabeus, a
valiant Jewish commander against the tyranny of Antiochus. Three
Christians. 7. Arthur, king of Britain, who courageously defended his
country against the Saxons. 8. Charles the Great, king of France and
emperor of Germany. 9. Godfrey of Bullen, king of Jerusalem. Being an
account of their glorious lives, worthy actions, renowned victories, and
deaths._ 12mo. No date.
LXIX.
A LASCIVIOUS MAN
Is the servant he says of many mistresses, but all are but his lust, to
which only he is faithful, and none besides, and spends his best blood and
spirits in the service. His soul is the bawd to his body, and those that
assist him in this nature the nearest to it. No man abuses more the name
of love, or those whom he applies this name to; for his love is like his
stomach to feed on what he loves, and the end of it to surfeit and loath,
till a fresh appetite rekindle him; and it kindles on any sooner than who
deserve best of him. There is a great deal of malignity in this vice, for
it loves still to spoil the best things, and a virgin sometimes rather
than beauty, because the undoing here is greater, and consequently his
glory. No man laughs more at his sin than he, or is so extremely tickled
with the remembrance of it; and he is more violence to a modest ear than
to her he defloured. A bawdy jest enters deep into him, and whatsoever you
speak he will draw to baudry, and his wit is never so good as here. His
unchastest part is his tongue, for that commits always what he must act
seldomer; and that commits with all which he acts with few; for he is his
own worst reporter, and men believe as bad of him, and yet do not believe
him. Nothing harder to his persuasion than a chaste man, no eunuch; and
makes a scoffing miracle at it, if you tell him of a maid. And from this
mistrust it is that such men fear marriage, or at least marry such as are
of bodies to be trusted, to whom only they sell that lust which they buy
of others, and make their wife a revenue to their mistress. They are men
not easily reformed, because they are so little ill-persuaded of their
illness, and have such pleas from man and nature. Besides it is a jeering
and flouting vice, and apt to put jests on the reprover. The pox only
converts them, and that only when it kills them.
LXX.
A RASH MAN
Is a man too quick for himself; one whose actions put a leg still before
his judgement, and out-run it. Every hot fancy or passion is the signal
that sets him forward, and his reason comes still in the rear. One that
has brain enough, but not patience to digest a business, and stay the
leisure of a second thought. All deliberation is to him a kind of sloth
and freezing of action, and it shall burn him rather than take cold. He is
always resolved at first thinking, and the ground he goes upon is, _hap
what may_. Thus he enters not, but throws himself violently upon all
things, and for the most part is as violently upon all off again; and as
an obstinate "_I will_" was the preface to his undertaking, so his
conclusion is commonly "_I would I had not_;" for such men seldom do any
thing that they are not forced to take in pieces again, and are so much
farther off from doing it, as they have done already. His friends are with
him as his physician, sought to only in his sickness and extremity, and to
help him out of that mire he has plunged himself into; for in the
suddenness of his passions he would hear nothing, and now his ill success
has allayed him he hears too late. He is a man still swayed with the first
reports, and no man more in the power of a pick-thank than he. He is one
will fight first, and then expostulate, condemn first, and then examine.
He loses his friend in a fit of quarrelling, and in a fit of kindness
undoes himself; and then curses the occasion drew this mischief upon him,
and cries, God mercy! for it, and curses again. His repentance is meerly a
rage against himself, and he does something in itself to be repented
again. He is a man whom fortune must go against much to make him happy,
for had he been suffered his own way, he had been undone.
LXXI.
AN AFFECTED MAN