Is a fellow that, beside shaving of cudgels, hath a good insight into
the world, for he hath long been beaten to it. Flesh and blood he is
like other men, but surely nature meant him stockfish. His and a
dancing-school are inseparable adjuncts, and are bound, though both
stink of sweat most abominable, neither shall complain of annoyance.
Three large bavins set up his trade, with a bench, which, in the
vacation of the afternoon, he used for his day-bed. When he comes on the
stage at his prize he makes a leg seven several ways, and scrambles for
money, as if he had been born at the Bath in Somersetshire. At his
challenge he shows his metal, for, contrary to all rules of physic, he
dares bleed, though it be in the dog-days. He teaches devilish play in
his school, but when he fights himself he doth it in the fear of a good
Christian; he compounds quarrels among his scholars, and when he hath
brought the business to a good upshot he makes the reckoning. His wounds
are seldom above skin deep; for an inward bruise lamb-stones and
sweetbreads are his only spermaceti, which he eats at night next his
heart fasting. Strange schoolmasters they are that every day set a man
as far backward as he went forward, and throwing him into a strange
posture, teach him to thresh satisfaction out of injury. One sign of a
good nature is that he is still open-breasted to his friends; for his
foil and his doublet wear not out above two buttons, and resolute he is,
for he so much scorns to take blows that he never wears cuffs; and he
lives better contented with a little than other men, for if he have two
eyes in his head he thinks nature hath overdone him. The Lord Mayor's
triumph makes him a man, for that's his best time to flourish. Lastly,
these fencers are such things that care not if all the world were
ignorant of more letters than only to read their patent.