A beggar is the child of idleness, whose life is a resolution of ease.
His travail is most in the highways, and his rendezvous is commonly in
an ale-house. His study is to counterfeit impotency, and his practice to
cozen simplicity of charity. The juice of the malt is the liquor of his
life, and at bed and at board a louse is his companion. He fears no such
enemy as a constable, and being acquainted with the stocks, must visit
them as he goes by them. He is a drone that feeds upon the labours of
the bee, and unhappily begotten that is born for no goodness. His staff
and his scrip are his walking furniture, and what he lacks in meat he
will have out in drink. He is a kind of caterpillar that spoils much
good fruit, and an unprofitable creature to live in a commonwealth. He
is seldom handsome and often noisome, always troublesome and never
welcome. He prays for all and preys upon all; begins with blessing but
ends often with cursing. If he have a licence he shows it with a grace,
but if he have none he is submissive to the ground. Sometime he is a
thief, but always a rogue, and in the nature of his profession the shame
of humanity. In sum, he is commonly begot in a bush, born in a barn,
lives in a highway, and dies in a ditch.