Part 3 (1/2)

Is a pitched piece of reason caulked and tackled, and only studied to dispute with tempests. He is part of his own provision, for he lives ever pickled. A fore-wind is the substance of his creed, and fresh water the burden of his prayers. He is naturally ambitious, for he is ever climbing; out of which as naturally he fears, for he is ever flying.

Time and he are everywhere ever contending who shall arrive first; he is well-winded, for he tires the day, and outruns darkness. His life is like a hawk's, the best part mewed; and if he live till three coats, is a master. He sees G.o.d's wonders in the deep, but so as rather they appear his playfellows than stirrers of his zeal. Nothing but hunger and hard rocks can convert him, and then but his upper deck neither; for his hold neither fears nor hopes, his sleeps are but reprievals of his dangers, and when he wakes 'tis but next stage to dying. His wisdom is the coldest part about him, for it ever points to the north, and it lies lowest, which makes his valour every tide overflow it. In a storm it is disputable whether the noise be more his or the elements, and which will first leave scolding; on which side of the s.h.i.+p he may be saved best, whether his faith be starboard faith or larboard, or the helm at that time not all his hope of heaven. His keel is the emblem of his conscience, till it be split he never repents, then no farther than the land allows him, and his language is a new confusion, and all his thoughts new nations. His body and his s.h.i.+p are both one burden, nor is it known who stows most wine or rolls most; only the s.h.i.+p is guided, he has no stern. A barnacle and he are bred together, both of one nature, and it is feared one reason. Upon any but a wooden horse he cannot ride, and if the wind blow against him he dare not. He swerves up to his seat as to a sail-yard, and cannot sit unless he bear a flagstaff. If ever he be broken to the saddle, it is but a voyage still, for he mistakes the bridle for a bowline, and is ever turning his horse-tail. He can pray, but it is by rote, not faith, and when he would he dares not, for his brackish belief hath made that ominous. A rock or a quicksand plucks him before he be ripe, else he is gathered to his friends at Wapping.

A SOLDIER

Is the husbandman of valour; his sword is his plough, which honour and _aqua vita_, two fiery-metalled jades, are ever drawing. A younger brother best becomes arms, an elder the thanks for them. Every heat makes him a harvest, and discontents abroad are his sowers. He is actively his prince's, but pa.s.sively his anger's servant. He is often a desirer of learning, which once arrived at, proves his strongest armour.

He is a lover at all points, and a true defender of the faith of women.

More wealth than makes him seem a handsome foe, lightly he covets not, less is below him. He never truly wants but in much having, for then his ease and lechery afflict him. The word peace, though in prayer, makes him start, and G.o.d he best considers by His power. Hunger and cold rank in the same file with him, and hold him to a man; his honour else, and the desire of doing things beyond him, would blow him greater than the sons of Anak. His religion is, commonly, as his cause is, doubtful, and that the best devotion keeps best quarter. He seldom sees grey hairs, some none at all, for where the sword fails, there the flesh gives fire.

In charity he goes beyond the clergy, for he loves his greatest enemy best, much drinking. He seems a full student, for he is a great desirer of controversies; he argues sharply, and carries his conclusion in his scabbard. In the first refining of mankind this was the gold, his actions are his amel. His alloy (for else you cannot work him perfectly) continual duties, heavy and weary marches, lodgings as full of need as cold diseases. No time to argue, but to execute. Line him with these, and link him to his squadrons, and he appears a most rich chain for princes.

A TAILOR

Is a creature made up of threads that were pared off from Adam, when he was rough cast; the end of his being differeth from that of others, and is not to serve G.o.d, but to cover sin. Other men's pride is the best patron, and their negligence a main pa.s.sage to his profit. He is a thing of more than ordinary judgment: for by virtue of that he buyeth land, buildeth houses, and raiseth the set roof of his cross-legged fortune.

His actions are strong encounters, and for their notoriousness always upon record. It is neither Amadis de Gaul, nor the Knight of the Sun, that is able to resist them. A ten-groat fee setteth them on foot, and a brace of officers bringeth them to execution. He handleth the Spanish pike to the hazard of many poor Egyptian vermin; and in show of his valour, scorneth a greater gauntlet than will cover the top of his middle finger. Of all weapons he most affecteth the long bill; and this he will manage to the great prejudice of a customer's estate. His spirit, notwithstanding, is not so much as to make you think him man; like a true mongrel, he neither bites nor barks but when your back is towards him. His heart is a lump of congealed snow: Prometheus was asleep while it was making. He differeth altogether from G.o.d; for with him the best pieces are still marked out for d.a.m.nation, and, without hope of recovery, shall be cast down into h.e.l.l. He is partly an alchemist; for he extracteth his own apparel out of other men's clothes; and when occasion serveth, making a broker's shop his alembic, can turn your silks into gold, and having furnished his necessities, after a month or two, if he be urged unto it, reduce them again to their proper subsistence. He is in part likewise an arithmetician, cunning enough for multiplication and addition, but cannot abide subtraction: _summa totalis_ is the language of his Canaan, and _usque ad ultimum quadrantem_ the period of all his charity. For any skill in geometry I dare not commend him, for he could never yet find out the dimensions of his own conscience; notwithstanding he hath many bottoms, it seemeth this is always bottomless. And so with a _libera nos a malo_ I leave you, promising to amend whatsoever is amiss at his next setting.

A PURITAN

Is a diseased piece of apocalypse: bind him to the Bible, and he corrupts the whole text. 'Ignorance and fat feed are his founders; his nurses, railing, rabies, and round breeches. His life is but a borrowed blast of wind: for between two religions, as between two doors, he is ever whistling. Truly, whose child he is is yet unknown; for, willingly, his faith allows no father: only thus far his pedigree is found, Bragger and he flourished about a time first. His fiery zeal keeps him continually costive, which withers him into his own translation; and till he eat a schoolman he is hide-bound. He ever prays against non-residents, but is himself the greatest discontinuer, for he never keeps near his text. Anything that the law allows, but marriage and March beer, he murmurs at; what it disallows and holds dangerous, makes him a discipline. Where the gate stands open, he is ever seeking a stile; and where his learning ought to climb, he creeps through. Give him advice, you run into traditions; and urge a modest course, he cries out counsel. His greatest care is to contemn obedience; his last care to serve G.o.d handsomely and cleanly. He is now become so cross a kind of teaching, that should the Church enjoin clean s.h.i.+rts, he were lousy.

More sense than single prayers is not his; nor more in those than still the same pet.i.tions: from which he either fears a learned faith, or doubts G.o.d understands not at first hearing. Show him a ring, he runs back like a bear; and hates square dealing as allied to caps. A pair of organs blow him out of the parish, and are the only glyster-pipes to cool him. Where the meat is best, there he confutes most, for his arguing is but the efficacy of his eating: good bits he holds breed good positions, and the Pope he best concludes against in plum-broth. He is often drunk, but not as we are, temporally; nor can his sleep then cure him, for the fumes of his ambition make his very soul reel, and that small beer that should allay him (silence) keeps him more surfeited, and makes his heat break out in private houses. Women and lawyers are his best disciples; the one, next fruit, longs for forbidden doctrine, the other to maintain forbidden t.i.tles, both which he sows amongst them.

Honest he dare not be, for that loves order; yet, if he can be brought to ceremony and made but master of it, he is converted.

A MERE COMMON LAWYER

Is the best shadow to make a discreet one show the fairer. He is a _materia prima_ informed by reports, actuated by statutes, and hath his motion by the favourable intelligence of the Court. His law is always furnished with a commission to arraign his conscience; but, upon judgment given, he usually sets it at large. He thinks no language worth knowing but his Barragouin: only for that point he hath been a long time at wars with Priscian for a northern province. He imagines that by sure excellency his profession only is learning, and that it is a profanation of the Temple to his Themis dedicated, if any of the liberal arts be there admitted to offer strange incense to her. For, indeed, he is all for money. Seven or eight years squires him out, some of his nation less standing; and ever since the night of his call, he forgot much what he was at dinner. The next morning his man (in _actu_ or _potentia_) enjoys his pickadels. His laundress is then shrewdly troubled in fitting him a ruff, his perpetual badge. His love-letters of the last year of his gentlemans.h.i.+p are stuffed with discontinuances, remitters, and uncore priests; but, now being enabled to speak in proper person, he talks of a French hood instead of a jointure, wags his law, and joins issue. Then he begins to stick his letters in his ground chamber-window, that so the superscription may make his squires.h.i.+p transparent. His heraldry gives him place before the minister, because the Law was before the Gospel.

Next term he walks his hoopsleeve gown to the hall; there it proclaims him. He feeds fat in the reading, and till it chance to his turn, dislikes no house order so much as that the month is so contracted to a fortnight. Amongst his country neighbours he arrogates as much honour for being reader of an Inn of Chancery, as if it had been of his own house; for they, poor souls, take law and conscience, Court and Chancery, for all one. He learned to frame his case from putting riddles and imitating Merlin's prophecies, and to set all the Cross Row together by the ears; yet his whole law is not able to decide Lucan's one old controversy betwixt Tau and Sigma. He accounts no man of his cap and coat idle, but who trots not the circuit. He affects no life or quality for itself, but for gain; and that, at least, to the stating him in a Justice of Peace-s.h.i.+p, which is the first quickening soul superadded to the elementary and inanimate form of his new tide. His terms are his wife's vacations; yet she then may usurp divers Court-days, and has her returns in _mensem_ for writs of entry--often shorter. His vacations are her termers; but in a.s.size time (the circuit being long) he may have a trial at home against him by _nisi prius_. No way to heaven, he thinks, so wise as through Westminster Hall; and his clerks commonly through it visit both heaven and h.e.l.l. Yet then he oft forgets his journey's end, although he look on the Star-Chamber. Neither is he wholly dest.i.tute of the arts. Grammar he has enough to make termination of those words which his authority hath endenizoned rhetoric-some; but so little that it is thought a concealment. Logic, enough to wrangle. Arithmetic, enough for the ordinals of his year-books and number-rolls; but he goes not to multiplication, there is a statute against it. So much geometry, that he can advise in a _perambulatione fadenda_, or a _rationalibus divisis_.

In astronomy and astrology he is so far seen, that by the Dominical letter he knows the holy-days, and finds by calculation that Michaelmas term will be long and dirty. Marry, he knows so much in music that he affects only the most and cunningest discords; rarely a perfect concord, especially song, except _in fine_. His skill in perspective endeavours much to deceive the eye of the law, and gives many false colours. He is specially practised in necromancy (such a kind as is out of the Statute of Primo), by raising many dead questions. What sufficiency he hath in criticism, the foul copies of his special pleas will tell you. Many of the same coat, which are much to be honoured, partake of divers of his indifferent qualities; but so that discretion, virtue, and sometimes other good learning, concurring and distinguis.h.i.+ng ornaments to them, make them as foils to set their work on.

A MERE SCHOLAR.

A mere scholar is an intelligible a.s.s, or a silly fellow in black that speaks sentences more familiarly than sense. The antiquity of his University is his creed, and the excellency of his college (though but for a match at football) an article of his faith. He speaks Latin better than his mother-tongue, and is a stranger in no part of the world but his own country. He does usually tell great stories of himself to small purpose, for they are commonly ridiculous, be they true or false. His ambition is that he either is or shall be a graduate; but if ever he get a fellows.h.i.+p, he has then no fellow. In spite of all logic he dares swear and maintain it, that a cuckold and a town's-man are _termini convertibles_, though his mother's husband be an alderman. He was never begotten (as it seems) without much wrangling, for his whole life is spent in _pro et contra_. His tongue goes always before his wit, like gentleman-usher, but somewhat faster. That he be a complete gallant in all points, _cap-a-pie_, witness his horsemans.h.i.+p and the wearing of his weapons. He is commonly long-winded, able to speak more with ease than any man can endure to hear with patience. University jests are his universal discourse, and his news the demeanour of the proctors. His phrase, the apparel of his mind, is made of divers shreds, like a cus.h.i.+on, and when it goes plainest it hath a rash outside and fustian linings. The current of his speech is closed with an _ergo_; and, whatever be the question, the truth is on his side. It is a wrong to his reputation to be ignorant of anything; and yet he knows not that he knows nothing. He gives directions for husbandry, from Virgil's ”Georgics;” for cattle, from his ”Bucolics;” for warlike stratagems, from his ”aeneids” or Caesar's ”Commentaries.” He orders all things and thrives in none; skilful in all trades and thrives in none. He is led more by his ears than his understanding, taking the sound of words for their true sense, and does therefore confidently believe that Erra Pater was the father of heretics, Radulphus Agricola a substantial farmer, and will not stick to aver that Systemo's Logic doth excel Keckerman's. His ill-luck is not so much in being a fool, as in being put to such pains to express it to the world, for what in others is natural, in him (with much ado) is artificial. His poverty is his happiness, for it makes some men believe that he is none of fortune's favourites. That learning which he hath was in non age put in backward like a glyster, and it's now like ware mislaid in a pedlar's pack; a has it, but knows not where it is. In a word, his is the index of a man and the t.i.tle-page of a scholar, or a puritan in morality--much in profession, nothing in practice.

A TINKER

Is a movable, for he hath no abiding-place; by his motion he gathers heat, thence his choleric nature. He seems to be very devout, for his life is a continual pilgrimage, and sometimes in humility goes barefoot, thereon making necessity a virtue. His house is as ancient as Tubal Cain's, and so is a renegade by antiquity: yet he proves himself a gallant, for he carries all his wealth upon his back; or a philosopher, for he bears all his substance about him. From his art was music first invented, and therefore he is always furnished with a song, to which his hammer keeping tune, proves that he was the first founder for the kettledrum. Note, that where the best ale is, there stands his music most upon crochets. The companion of his travels is some foul sun-burnt quean, that, since the terrible statute, recanted gipseyism and is turned pedlaress. So marches he all over England with his bag and baggage. His conversation is unreprovable, for he is ever mending. He observes truly the statutes, and therefore he can rather steal than beg, in which he is unremovably constant in spite of whip or imprisonment; and so a strong enemy to idleness, that in mending one hole he had rather make three than want work, and when he hath done, he throws the wallet of his faults behind him. He embraceth naturally ancient custom, conversing in open fields and lowly cottages. If he visit cities or towns, 'tis but to deal upon the imperfections of our weaker vessels.

His tongue is very voluble, which with canting proves him a linguist. He is entertained in every place, but enters no further than the door, to avoid suspicion. Some will take him to be a coward, but believe it, he is a lad of metal; his valour is commonly three or four yards long, fastened to a pike in the end for flying off. He is provident, for he will fight but with one at once, and then also he had rather submit than be counted obstinate. To conclude, if he escape Tyburn and Banbury, he dies a beggar.