Is one that builds his reputation on others' infamy, for slander is most
commonly his morning prayer. His passions are guided by pride and
followed by injustice. An inflexible anger against some poor tutor he
falsely calls a courageous constancy, and thinks the best part of
gravity to consist in a ruffled forehead. He is the most slavishly
submissive, though envious to those that are in better place than
himself; and knows the art of words so well that (for shrouding
dishonesty under a fair pretext) he seems to preserve mud in crystal.
Like a man of a kind nature, he is the first good to himself, in the
next file to his French tailor, that gives him all his perfection; for
indeed, like an estridge, or bird of paradise, his feathers are more
worth than his body. If ever he do good deed (which is very seldom) his
own mouth is the chronicle of it, lest it should die forgotten. His
whole body goes all upon screws, and his face is the vice that moves
them. If his patron be given to music, he opens his chops and sings, or
with a wry neck falls to tuning his instrument; if that fail, he takes
the height of his lord with a hawking pole. He follows the man's
fortune, not the man, seeking thereby to increase his own. He pretends
he is most undeservedly envied, and cries out, remembering the game,
chess, that a pawn before a king is most played on. Debts he owns none
but shrewd turns, and those he pays ere he be sued. He is a flattering
glass to conceal age and wrinkles. He is mountain's monkey that,
climbing a tree and skipping from bough to bough, gives you back his
face; but come once to the top, he holds his nose up into the wind and
shows you his tail. Yet all this gay glitter shows on him as if the sun
shone in a puddle, for he is a small wine that will not last; and when
he is falling, he goes of himself faster than misery can drive him.