A creature of a most perfect and divine temper: one in whom the humours
and elements are peaceably met, without emulation of precedency. He is
neither too fantastically melancholy, too slowly phlegmatic, too lightly
sanguine, nor too rashly choleric; but in all so composed and ordered,
as it is clear Nature went about some full work, she did more than make
a man when she made him. His discourse is like his behaviour, uncommon,
but not unpleasing; he is prodigal of neither. He strives rather to be
that which men call judicious, than to be thought so; and is so truly
learned, that he affects not to show it. He will think and speak his
thought both freely; but as distant from depraving another man's merit,
as proclaiming his own. For his valour, 'tis such that he dares as
little to offer any injury as receive one. In sum, he hath a most
ingenuous and sweet spirit, a sharp and seasoned wit, a straight
judgment and a strong mind. Fortune could never break him, nor make him
less. He counts it his pleasure to despise pleasures, and is more
delighted with good deeds than goods. It is a competency to him that he
can be virtuous. He doth neither covet nor fear; he hath too much reason
to do either; and that commends all things to him.
_The play that preceded "Cynthia's Revels" was "Every Man Out of his
Humour." It was first printed in 1600, and Ben Jonson amused himself by
adding to its list of Dramatis Personae this piece of Character
Writing_:--