Is sowed as cummin or hempseed, with curses, and he thinks he thrives
the better. He is far better read in the penal statutes than in the
Bible, and his evil angel persuades him he shall sooner be saved by
them. He can be no man's friend, for all men he hath most interest in he
undoes. And a double dealer he is certainly, for by his good will he
ever takes the forfeit. He puts his money to the unnatural act of
generation, and his scrivener is the supervisor bawd to it. Good deeds
he loves none, but sealed and delivered; nor doth he wish anything to
thrive in the country but beehives, for they make him wax rich. He hates
all but law-Latin, yet thinks he might be drawn to love a scholar, could
he reduce the year to a shorter compass, that his use money might come
in the faster. He seems to be the son of a jailor, for all his estate is
in most heavy and cruel bonds. He doth not give, but sell, days of
payment, and those at the rate of a man's undoing. He doth only fear the
Day of Judgment should fall sooner than the payment of some great sum of
money due to him. He removes his lodging when a subsidy comes; and if he
be found out, and pay it, he grumbles treason: but 'tis in such a
deformed silence as witches raise their spirits in. Gravity he pretends
in all things but in his private vice, for he will not in a hundred
pound take one light sixpence. And it seems he was at Tilbury Camp, for
you must not tell him of a Spaniard. He is a man of no conscience, for
(like the Jakes-farmer that swooned with going into Bucklersbury) he
falls into a cold sweat if he but look into the Chancery; thinks, in his
religion, we are in the right for everything, if that were abolished. He
hides his money as if he thought to find it again at the last day, and
then begin's old trade with it. His clothes plead prescription, and
whether they or his body are more rotten is a question. Yet, should he
live to be hanged in them, this good they would do him: the very hangman
would pity his case. The table he keeps is able to starve twenty tall
men. His servants have not their living, but their dying from him, and
that's of hunger. A spare diet he commends in all men but himself. He
comes to cathedrals only for love of the singing-boys, because they look
hungry. He likes our religion best because 'tis best cheap, yet would
fain allow of purgatory, cause 'twas of his trade, and brought in so
much money. His heart goes with the same snaphance his purse doth: 'tis
seldom open to any man. Friendship he accounts but a word without any
signification; nay, he loves all the world so little, that an it were
possible he would make himself his own executor. For certain, he is made
administrator to his own good name while he is in perfect memory, for
that dies long before him; but he is so far from being at the charge of
a funeral for it, that he lets it stink above-ground. In conclusion, for
neighbourhood you were better dwell by a contentious lawyer. And for his
death, 'tis either surfeit, the pox, or despair; for seldom such as he
die of God's making, as honest men should do.