'Tis not unlikely but he was begot by some intelligencer under a hedge,
for his mind is wholly given to travel. He is not troubled with making
of jointures; he can divorce himself without the fee of a proctor, nor
fears he the cruelty of overseers of his will. He leaves his children
all the world to cant in, and all the people to their fathers. His
language is a constant tongue; the northern speech differs from the
south, Welsh from the Cornish; but canting is general, nor ever could be
altered by conquest of the Saxon, Dane, or Norman. He will not beg out
of his limit though he starve, nor break his oath, if he swear by his
Solomon, though you hang him; and he pays his custom as truly to his
grand rogue as tribute is paid to the great Turk. The March sun breeds
agues in others, but he adores it like the Indians, for then begins his
progress after a hard winter. Ostlers cannot endure him, for he is of
the infantry, and serves best on foot. He offends not the statute
against the excess of apparel, for he will go naked, and counts it a
voluntary penance. Forty of them lie together in a barn, yet are never
sued upon the Statute of Inmates. If he were learned no man could make a
better description of England, for he hath travelled it over and over.
Lastly, he brags that his great houses are repaired to his hands when
churches go to ruin, and those are prisons.