Is an extraordinary man in ordinary things. One that would go a strain
beyond himself, and is taken in it. A man that overdoes all things with
great solemnity of circumstance; and whereas with more negligence he
might pass better, makes himself with a great deal of endeavour
ridiculous. The fancy of some odd quaintnesses have put him clean beside
his nature; he cannot be that he would, and hath lost what he was. He is
one must be point-blank in every trifle, as if his credit and opinion
hung upon it; the very space of his arms in an embrace studied before
and premeditated, and the figure of his countenance of a fortnight's
contriving; he will not curse you without-book and extempore, but in
some choice way, and perhaps as some great man curses. Every action of
his cries,--"_Do ye mark me?_" and men do mark him how absurd he is: for
affectation is the most betraying humour, and nothing that puzzles a man
less to find out than this. All the actions of his life are like so many
things bodged in without any natural cadence or connection at all. You
shall track him all through like a school-boy's theme, one piece from
one author and this from another, and join all in this general, that
they are none of his own. You shall observe his mouth not made for that
tone, nor his face for that simper; and it is his luck that his finest
things most misbecome him. If he affect the gentleman as the humour most
commonly lies that way, not the least punctilio of a fine man, but he is
strict in to a hair, even to their very negligences, which he cons as
rules. He will not carry a knife with him to wound reputation, and pay
double a reckoning, rather than ignobly question it: and he is full of
this--ignobly--and nobly--and genteely; and this mere fear to trespass
against the genteel way puts him out most of all. It is a humour runs
through many things besides, but is an ill-favoured ostentation in all,
and thrives not:--and the best use of such men is, they are good parts
in a play.