Part 9 (1/2)
THE SECOND BOOK.
CHARACTERISMS OF VICES.
THE PROEM.
I have showed you many fair virtues: I speak not for them; if their sight cannot command affection let them lose it. They shall please yet better after you have troubled your eyes a little with the view of deformities; and by how much more they please, so much more odious and like themselves shall these deformities appear. This light contraries give to each other in the midst of their enmity, that one makes the other seem more good or ill. Perhaps in some of these (which thing I do at once fear and hate) my style shall seem to some less grave, more satirical: if you find me, not without cause, jealous, let it please you to impute it to the nature of those vices which will not be otherwise handled. The fas.h.i.+ons of some evils are, besides the odiousness, ridiculous, which to repeat is to seem bitterly merry. I abhor to make sport with wickedness, and forbid any laughter here but of disdain.
Hypocrisy shall lead this ring worthily, I think, because both she cometh nearest to virtue and is the worst of vices.
CHARACTER OF THE HYPOCRITE.
An hypocrite is the worst kind of player, by so much as he acts the better part, which hath always two faces, ofttimes two hearts; that can compose his forehead to sadness and gravity, while he bids his heart be wanton and careless within, and in the meantime laughs within himself to think how smoothly he hath cozened the beholder. In whose silent face are written the characters of religion, which his tongue and gestures p.r.o.nounce but his hands recant. That hath a clean face and garment with a foul soul, whose mouth belies his heart, and his fingers belie his mouth. Walking early up into the city, he turns into the great church, and salutes one of the pillars on one knee, wors.h.i.+pping that G.o.d which at home he cares not for, while his eye is fixed on some window, on some pa.s.senger, and his heart knows not whither his lips go. He rises, and looking about with admiration, complains on our frozen charity, commends the ancient. At church he will ever sit where he may be seen best, and in the midst of the sermon pulls out his tables in haste, as if he feared to lose that note; when he writes either his forgotten errand or nothing. Then he turns his Bible with a noise to seek an omitted quotation, and folds the leaf as if he had found it, and asks aloud the name of the preacher, and repeats it, whom he publicly salutes, thanks, praises, invites, entertains with tedious good counsel, with good discourse, if it had come from an honester mouth. He can command tears when he speaks of his youth, indeed because it is past, not because it was sinful; himself is now better, but the times are worse. All other sins he reckons up with detestation, while he loves and hides his darling in his bosom. All his speech returns to himself, and every occurrence draws in a story to his own praise. When he should give, he looks about him and says, ”Who sees me?” No alms, no prayers, fall from him without a witness, belike lest G.o.d should deny that He hath received them; and when he hath done (lest the world should not know it) his own mouth is his trumpet to proclaim it. With the superfluity of his usury he builds an hospital, and harbours them whom his extortion hath spoiled; so while he makes many beggars he keeps some. He turneth all gnats into camels, and cares not to undo the world for a circ.u.mstance.
Flesh on a Friday is more abomination to him than his neighbour's bed: he more abhors not to uncover at the name of Jesus than to swear by the name of G.o.d. When a rhymer reads his poem to him he begs a copy, and persuades the press there is nothing that he dislikes in presence that in absence he censures not. He comes to the sick-bed of his stepmother, and weeps when he secretly fears her recovery. He greets his friend in the street with so clear a countenance, so fast a closure, that the other thinks he reads his heart in his face, and shakes hands with an indefinite invitation of ”When will you come?” and when his back is turned, joys that he is so well rid of a guest; yet if that guest visit him unfeared, he counterfeits a smiling welcome, and excuses his cheer, when closely he frowns on his wife for too much. He shows well, and says well, and himself is the worst thing he hath. In brief, he is the stranger's saint, the neighbour's disease, the blot of goodness, a rotten stick in a dark night, a poppy in a corn-field, an ill-tempered candle with a great snuff that in going out smells ill; and an angel abroad, a devil at home, and worse when an angel than when a devil.
OF THE BUSYBODY.
His estate is too narrow for his mind, and therefore he is fain to make himself room in others' affairs, yet ever in pretence of love. No news can stir but by his door, neither can he know that which he must not tell. What every man ventures in Guiana voyage, and what they gained, he knows to a hair. Whether Holland will have peace he knows, and on what conditions, and with what success, is familiar to him ere it be concluded. No post can pa.s.s him without a question, and rather than he will lose the news, he rides back with him to apprise him of tidings; and then to the next man he meets he supplies the wants of his hasty intelligence and makes up a perfect tale, wherewith he so haunteth the patient auditor, that after many excuses he is fain to endure rather the censure of his manners in running away than the tediousness of an impertinent discourse. His speech is oft broken off with a succession of long parentheses, which he ever vows to fill up ere the conclusion, and perhaps would effect it if the other's ear were as umveariable as his tongue. If he see but two men talk and read a letter in the street, he runs to them and asks if he may not be partner of that secret relation; and if they deny it, he offers to tell, since he may not hear, wonders, and then falls upon the report of the Scottish mine, or of the great fish taken up at Lynne, or of the freezing of the Thames, and after many thanks and admissions is hardly entreated silence. He undertakes as much as he performs little; this man will thrust himself forward to be the guide of the way he knows not, and calls at his neighbour's window and asks why his servants are not at work. The market hath no commodity which he prizeth not, and which the next table shall not hear recited.
His tongue, like the tail of Samson's foxes, carries firebrands, and is enough to set the whole field of the world on a flame. Himself begins table-talk of his neighbour at another's board, to whom he bears the first news, and adjures him to conceal the reporter, whose choleric answer he returns to his first host enlarged with a second edition; so as it uses to be done in the sight of unwilling mastiffs, he claps each on the side apart, and provokes them to an eager conflict. There can no act pa.s.s without his comment, which is ever far-fetched, rash, suspicious, dilatory. His ears are long and his eyes quick, but most of all to imperfections, which as he easily sees, so he increases with intermeddling. He harbours another man's servant, and amidst his entertainment asks what fare is usual at home, what hours are kept, what talk pa.s.seth their meals, what his master's disposition is, what his government, what his guests? and when he hath by curious inquiries extracted all the juice and spirit of hoped intelligence, turns him off whence he came, and works on anew. He hates constancy as an earthen dulness, unfit for men of spirit, and loves to change his work and his place: neither yet can he be so soon weary of any place as every place is weary of him, for as he sets himself on work, so others pay him with hatred; and look how many masters he hath, so many enemies: neither is it possible that any should not hate him but who know him not. So then he labours without thanks, talks without credit, lives without love, dies without tears, without pity, save that some say it was pity he died no sooner.
OF THE SUPERSt.i.tIOUS.
Superst.i.tion is G.o.dless religion, devout impiety. The superst.i.tious is fond in observation, servile in fear; he wors.h.i.+ps G.o.d but as he lists; he gives G.o.d what He asks not more than He asks, and all but what he should give; and makes more sins than the Ten Commandments. This man dares not stir forth till his breast be crossed and his face sprinkled: if but an hare cross him the way, he returns; or if his journey began unawares on the dismal day, or if he stumble at the threshold. If he see a snake unkilled, he fears a mischief; if the salt fall towards him, he looks pale and red, and is not quiet till one of the waiters have poured wine on his lap; and when he sneezeth, thinks them not his friends that uncover not. In the morning he listens whether the crow crieth even or odd, and by that token presages of the weather. If he hear but a raven croak from the next roof he makes his will, or if a bittern fly over his head by night; but if his troubled fancy shall second his thoughts with the dream of a fair garden, or green rushes, or the salutation of a dead friend, he takes leave of the world and says he cannot live. He will never set to sea but on a Sunday, neither ever goes without an _Erra Pater_ in his pocket. Saint Paul's Day and Saint Swithin's with the Twelve are his oracles, which he dares believe against the almanack.
When he lies sick on his deathbed no sin troubles him so much as that he did once eat flesh on a Friday; no repentance can expiate that, the rest need none. There is no dream of his without an interpretation, without a prediction; and if the event answer not his exposition, he expounds it according to the event. Every dark grove and pictured wall strikes him with an awful but carnal devotion. Old wives and stars are his counsellors, his night-spell is his guard, and charms his physicians. He wears Paracelsian characters for the toothache, and a little hallowed wax is his antidote for all evils. This man is strangely credulous, and calls impossible things miraculous. If he hear that some sacred block speaks, moves, weeps, smiles, his bare feet carry him thither with an offering; and if a danger miss him in the way, his saint hath the thanks. Some ways he will not go, and some he dares not; either there are bugs, or he feigneth them; every lantern is a ghost, and every noise is of chains. He knows not why, but his custom is to go a little about, and to leave the cross still on the right hand. One event is enough to make a rule; out of these he concludes fas.h.i.+ons proper to himself; and nothing can turn him out of his own course. If he have done his task he is safe, it matters not with what affection. Finally, if G.o.d would let him be the carver of his own obedience, He could not have a better subject; as he is, He cannot have a worse.
OF THE PROFANE.
The superst.i.tious hath too many G.o.ds; the profane man hath none at all, unless perhaps himself be his own deity, and the world his heaven. To matter of religion his heart is a piece of dead flesh, without feeling of love, of fear, of care, or of pain from the deaf strokes of a revenging conscience. Custom of sin hath wrought this senselessness, which now hath so long entertained that it pleads prescription and knows not to be altered. This is no sudden evil; we are born sinful, but have made ourselves profane; through many degrees we climb to this height of impiety. At first he sinned and cared not, now he sinneth and knoweth not. Appet.i.te is his lord, and reason his servant, and religion his drudge. Sense is the rule of his belief; and if piety may be an advantage, he can at once counterfeit and deride it. When aught succeedeth to him he sacrifices to his net, and thanks either his fortune or his wit; and will rather make a false G.o.d than acknowledge the truth; if contrary, he cried out of destiny, and blames him to whom he will not be beholden. His conscience would fain speak with him, but he will not hear it; sets the day, but he disappoints it; and when it cries loud for audience, he drowns the noise with good fellows.h.i.+p. He never names G.o.d but in his oaths; never thinks of Him but in extremity; and then he knows not how to think of Him, because he begins but then.
He quarrels for the hard conditions of his pleasure for his future d.a.m.nation, and from himself lays all the fault upon his Maker; and from His decree fetcheth excuses of his wickedness. The inevitable necessity of G.o.d's counsel makes him desperately careless; so with good food he poisons himself. Goodness is his minstrel; neither is any mirth so cordial to him, as his sport with G.o.d's fools. Every virtue hath his slander, and his jest to laugh it out of fas.h.i.+on; every vice his colour.
His usualest theme is the boast of his young sins, which he can still joy in, though he cannot commit; and (if it may be) his speech makes him worse than he is. He cannot think of death with patience, without terror, which he therefore fears worse than h.e.l.l, because this he is sure of, the other he but doubts of. He comes to church as to the theatre, saving that not so willingly, for company, for custom, for recreation, perhaps for sleep, or to feed his eyes or his ears; as for his soul, he cares no more than if he had none. He loves none but himself, and that not enough to seek his true good; neither cares he on whom he treads that he may rise. His life is full of license, and his practice of outrage. He is hated of G.o.d as much as he hateth goodness; and differs little from a devil, but that he hath a body.
OF THE MALCONTENT.
He is neither well full nor fasting; and though he abound with complaints, yet nothing dislikes him but the present; for what he condemned while it was, once past he magnifies, and strives to recall it out of the jaws of time. What he hath he seeth not, his eyes are so taken up with what he wants; and what he sees he cares not for, because he cares so much for that which is not. When his friend carves him the best morsel, he murmurs that it is an happy feast wherein each one may cut for himself. When a present is sent him he asks, Is this all? and, What, no better? and so accepts it, as if he would have his friend know how much he is bound to him for vouchsafing to receive it. It is hard to entertain him with a proportionable gift. If nothing, he cries out of unthankfulness; if little, that he is basely regarded; if much, he exclaims of flattery, and expectation of a large requital. Every blessing hath somewhat to disparage and distaste it; children bring cares, single life is wild and solitary, eminency is envious, retiredness obscure, fasting painful, satiety unwieldy, religion nicely severe, liberty is lawless, wealth burdensome, mediocrity contemptible.
Everything faulteth, either in too much or too little. This man is ever headstrong and self-willed, neither is he always tied to esteem or p.r.o.nounce according to reason; some things he must dislike he knows not wherefore, but he likes them not; and otherwhere, rather than not censure, he will accuse a man of virtue. Everything he meddleth with he either findeth imperfect or maketh so; neither is there anything that soundeth so harsh in his ear as the commendation of another; whereto yet perhaps he fas.h.i.+onably and coldly a.s.senteth, but with such an after-clause of exception as doth more than mar his former allowance; and if he list not to give a verbal disgrace, yet he shakes his head and smiles, as if his silence should say, I could and will not. And when himself is praised without excess, he complains that such imperfect kindness hath not done him right. If but an unseasonable shower cross his recreation, he is ready to fall out with heaven, and thinks he is wronged if G.o.d will not take his times when to rain, when to s.h.i.+ne. He is a slave to envy, and loseth flesh with fretting--not so much at his own infelicity as at others' good; neither hath he leisure to joy in his own blessings whilst another prospereth. Fain would he see some mutinies, but dares not raise them; and suffers his lawless tongue to walk through the dangerous paths of conceited alterations; but so, as in good manners he had rather thrust every man before him when it comes to acting. Nothing but fear keeps him from conspiracies, and no man is more cruel when he is not manacled with danger. He speaks nothing but satires and libels, and lodgeth no guests in his heart but rebels. The inconstant and he agree well in their felicity, which both place in change; but herein they differ--the inconstant man affects that which will be, the malcontent commonly that which was. Finally, he is a querulous cur, whom no horse can pa.s.s by without barking at; yea, in the deep silence of night the very moons.h.i.+ne openeth his clamorous mouth. He is the wheel of a well-couched firework, that flies out on all sides, not without scorching itself. Every ear is long ago weary of him, and he is now almost weary of himself. Give him but a little respite, and he will die alone, of no other death than other's welfare.