Is a pocket with a hole in the bottom. His purse has got a dysentery and
lost its retentive faculty. He delights, like a fat overgrown man, to
see himself fall away and grow less. He does not spend his money, but
void it, and, like those that have the stone, is in pain till he is rid
of it. He is very loose and incontinent of his coin, and lets it fly,
like Jupiter, in a shower. He is very hospitable, and keeps open pockets
for all comers. All his silver turns to mercury, and runs through him as
if he had taken it for the _miserere_ or fluxed himself. The history of
his life begins with keeping of whores, and ends with keeping of hogs;
and as he fed high at first, so he does at last, for acorns are very
high food. He swallows land and houses like an earthquake, eats a whole
dining-room at a meal, and devours his kitchen at a breakfast. He wears
the furniture of his house on his back, and a whole feather-bed in his
hat, drinks down his plate, and eats his dishes up. He is not clothed,
but hung. He'll fancy dancers cattle, and present his lady with messuage
and tenement. He sets his horses at inn and inn, and throws himself out
of his coach at come the caster. He should be a good husband, for he has
made more of his estate in one year than his ancestors did in twenty. He
dusts his estate as they do a stand of ale in the north. His money in
his pocket (like hunted venison) will not keep; if it be not spent
presently it grows stale, and is thrown away. He possesses his estate as
the devil did the herd of swine, and is running it into the sea as fast
as he can. He has shot it with a zampatan, and it will presently fall
all to dust. He has brought his acres into a consumption, and they are
strangely fallen away; nothing but skin and bones left of a whole manor.
He will shortly have all his estate in his hands; for, like bias, he may
carry it about him. He lays up nothing but debts and diseases, and at
length himself in a prison. When he has spent all upon his pleasures,
and has nothing left for sustenance, he espouses a hostess dowager, and
resolves to lick himself whole again out of ale, and make it pay him
back all the charges it has put him to.