Always throws beyond the jack and is gone a mile. He is no more able to
contain himself than a bowl is when he is commanded to rub with the
greatest power and vehemence imaginable, and nothing lights in his way.
He is a conjurer that cannot keep within the compass of his circle,
though he were sure the devil would fetch him away for the least
transgression. He always overstocks his ground and starves instead of
feeding, destroys whatsoever he has an extraordinary care for, and, like
an ape, hugs the whelp he loves most to death. All his designs are
greater than the life, and he laughs to think how Nature has mistaken
her match, and given him so much odds that he can easily outrun her. He
allows of no merit but that which is superabundant. All his actions are
superfoetations, that either become monsters or twins; that is, too
much, or the same again; for he is but a supernumerary and does nothing
but for want of a better. He is a civil Catholic, that holds nothing
more steadfastly than supererogation in all that he undertakes, for he
undertakes nothing but what he overdoes. He is insatiable in all his
actions and, like a covetous person, never knows when he has done
enough until he has spoiled all by doing too much. He is his own
antagonist, and is never satisfied until he has outdone himself as well
as that which he proposed, for he loves to be better than his word
(though it always falls out worse) and deceive the world the wrong way.
He believes the mean to be but a mean thing, and therefore always runs
into extremities as the more excellent, great, and transcendent. He
delights to exceed in all his attempts, for he finds that a goose that
has three legs is more remarkable than a hundred that have but two
apiece, and has a greater number of followers; and that all monsters are
more visited and applied to than other creatures that Nature has made
perfect in their kind. He believes he can never bestow too much pains
upon anything; for his industry is his own and costs him nothing; and if
it miscarry he loses nothing, for he has as much as it was worth. He is
like a foolish musician that sets his instrument so high that he breaks
his strings for want of understanding the right pitch of it, or an
archer that breaks his with overbending; and all he does is forced, like
one that sings above the reach of his voice.