Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century Part 23

And now I speak of reformation, _vous avez_, Fox the tinker, the liveliest emblem of it that may be; for what did this parliament ever go about to reform, but, tinkerwise, in mending one hole they made three?

But I have not ink enough to cure all the tetters and ring-worms of the State.

I will close up all thus. The victories of the rebels are like the magical combat of Apuleius, who thinking he had slain three of his enemies, found them at last but a triumvirate of bladders. Such, and so empty are the triumphs of a diurnal, but so many impostumated fancies, so many bladders of their own blowing.

_The "Surfeit to A.B.C." in 1656, was a look of Characters. "Naps upon Parna.s.sus'" in 1658 contained Characters of a Temporizer and an Antiquary. In the same year appeared "Satyrical Characters and Handsome Descriptions, in Letters." In 1659 there was a third edition of a satire on the English, published as "A Character of England, as it was lately presented in a Letter to a n.o.bleman of France" replied to in that year by "A Character of France." These suggested the production in 1659 of "A Perfect Description of the People and Country of Scotland" and, also in 1659, "A Brief Character of the Low Countries under the States, being Three Weeks' Observation of the Vices and Virtues of the Inhabitants."

This was written by Owen Feltham, and added to several editions of his "Resolves." In 1660 appeared "The Character of Italy" and "The Character of Spain;" in 1661, "Essays and Characters by L. G.;" in 1662-63, "The a.s.sembly-Man" a Character that had been written by Sir John Birkenhead in 1647. Then came, in 1665, Richard Flecknoe, to whom Dryden ascribed sovereignty as one who

"In prose and verse was owned without dispute, Through all the realms of Nonsense absolute."

As he was equally ready in all forms of writing that his neighbours followed he, of course, wrote Characters. They were "Fifty-five Enigmatical Characters, all very exactly drawn to the Life, from several Persons, Humours, Dispositions. Pleasant and full of Delight. By R. F., Esq." The Duke of Newcastle admired, and wrote, in lines prefixed to the book--_

"Flecknoe, thy characters are so full of wit And fancy, as each word is throng'd with it.

Each line's a volume, and who reads would swear Whole libraries were in each character.

Nor arrows in a quiver stuck, nor yet Lights in the starry skies are thicker set, Nor quills upon the armed porcupine, Than wit and fancy in this work of thine."

_This is one of Flecknoe's Characters:--_

THE VALIANT MAN.

He is only a man; your coward and rash being but tame and savage beasts.

His courage is still the same, and drink cannot make him more valiant, nor danger less. His valour is enough to leaven whole armies; he is an army himself, worth an army of other men. His sword is not always out like children's daggers, but he is always last in beginning quarrels, though first in ending them. He holds honour, though delicate as crystal, yet not so slight and brittle to be broke and cracked with every touch; therefore, though most wary of it, is not querulous nor punctilious. He is never troubled with pa.s.sion, as knowing no degree beyond clear courage; and is always valiant, but never furious. He is the more gentle in the chamber, more fierce he's in the field, holding boast (the coward's valour), and cruelty (the beast's), unworthy a valiant man. He is only coward in this, that he dares not do an unhandsome action. In fine, he can only be overcome by discourtesy, and has but one defect--he cannot talk much--to recompense which he does the more.

_In 1673 there was published "The Character of a Coffee House, with the symptoms of a Town Wit;" and in the same year, "Essays of Love and Marriage ... with some Characters and other Pa.s.sages of Wit;" in 1675, "The Character of a Fanatick. By a Person of Quality;" a set of eleven Characters appeared in 1675; "A Whip for a Jockey, or a Character of an Horse-Courser," in 1677; "Four for a Penny, or Poor Robin's Character of an unconscionable p.a.w.nbroker and Ear-mark of an oppressing Tally-man, with a friendly description of a b.u.m-bailey, and his merciless setting cur or Follower," appeared in 1678; and in the same year the Duke of Buckingham's "Character of an Ugly Woman." In 1681 appeared the "Character of a Disbanded Courtier," and in 1684 Oldham's "Character of a certain ugly old P----." In 1686 followed "Twelve ingenious Characters, or pleasant Descriptions of the Properties of sundry Persons and Things." Sir William Coventry's "Character of a Trimmer," published in 1689, had been written before 1659, when it had been answered by a "Character of a Tory," not printed at the time, but included (1721) in the works of George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham. In 1689 appeared "Characters addressed to Ladies of Age," and also "The Ceremony-Monger his Character, in Six Chapters, by E. Hickeringill, Rector of All Saints, Colchester." Ohe! Enough, enough!_

SAMUEL BUTLER,

_Author of "Hudibras," who died in 1680, also exercised his wit in Character writing. When Butler's "Remains" were published in two volumes in 1759 by R. Thyer, Keeper of the Public Library of Manchester, 460 pages of the second volume, (all the volume except forty or fifty pages of "Thoughts on Various Subjects,") was occupied by a collection of 120 Characters that he had written. I close this volume of "Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century" with as many of Samuel Butler's Characters as the book has room for,--none are wittier--s.p.a.ce being left for one Character by a poet of our own century, Wordsworth's "Character of the Happy Warrior" to bring us to a happy close._

CHARACTERS.

BY SAMUEL BUTLER.

A DEGENERATE n.o.bLE; OR, ONE THAT IS PROUD OF HIS BIRTH,

Is like a turnip, there is nothing good of him but that which is underground; or rhubarb, a contemptible shrub that springs from a n.o.ble root. He has no more t.i.tle to the worth and virtue of his ancestors than the worms that were engendered in their dead bodies, and yet he believes he has enough to exempt himself and his posterity from all things of that nature for ever. This makes him glory in the antiquity of his family, as if his n.o.bility were the better the further off it is, in time as well as desert, from that of his predecessors. He believes the honour that was left him as well as the estate is sufficient to support his quality without troubling himself to purchase any more of his own; and he meddles us little with the management of the one as the other, but trusts both to the government of his servants, by whom he is equally cheated in both. He supposes the empty t.i.tle of honour sufficient to serve his turn, though he has spent the substance and reality of it, like the fellow that sold his a.s.s but would not part with the shadow of it; or Apicius, that sold his house, and kept only the balcony to see and be seen in. And because he is privileged from being arrested for his debts, supposes he has the same freedom from all obligations he owes humanity and his country, because he is not punishable for his ignorance and want of honour, no more than poverty or unskilfulness is in other professions, which the law supposes to be punishment enough to itself.

He is like a fanatic, that contents himself with the mere t.i.tle of a saint, and makes that his privilege to act all manner of wickedness; or the ruins of a n.o.ble structure, of which there is nothing left but the foundation, and that obscured and buried under the rubbish of the superstructure. The living honour of his ancestors is long ago departed, dead and gone, and his is but the ghost and shadow of it, that haunts the house with horror and disquiet where once it lived. His n.o.bility is truly descended from the glory of his forefathers, and may be rightly said to fall to him, for it will never rise again to the height it was in them by his means, and he succeeds them as candles do the office of the sun. The confidence of n.o.bility has rendered him ign.o.ble, as the opinion of wealth makes some men poor, and as those that are born to estates neglect industry and have no business but to spend, so he being born to honour believes he is no further concerned than to consume and waste it. He is but a copy, and so ill done that there is no line of the original in him but the sin only. He is like a word that by ill-custom and mistake has utterly lost the sense of that from which it was derived, and now signifies quite contrary; for the glory of n.o.ble ancestors will not permit the good or bad of their posterity to be obscure. He values himself only upon his t.i.tle, which being only verbal gives him a wrong account of his natural capacity, for the same words signify more or less, according as they are applied to things, as ordinary and extraordinary do at court; and sometimes the greater sound has the less sense, as in accounts, though four be more than three, yet a third in proportion is more than a fourth.

A HUFFING COURTIER

Is a cipher, that has no value himself but from the place he stands in.

All his happiness consists in the opinion he believes others have of it.

This is his faith, but as it is heretical and erroneous, though he suffer much tribulation for it, he continues obstinate, and not to be convinced. He flutters up and down like a b.u.t.terfly in a garden, and while he is pruning of his peruke takes occasion to contemplate his legs and the symmetry of his breeches. He is part of the furniture of the rooms, and serves for a walking picture, a moving piece of arras. His business is only to be seen, and he performs it with admirable industry, placing himself always in the best light, looking wonderfully politic, and cautious whom he mixes withal. His occupation is to show his clothes, and if they could but walk themselves they would save him the labour and do his work as well as himself. His immunity from varlets is his freehold, and he were a lost man without it. His clothes are but his tailor's livery, which he gives him, for 'tis ten to one he never pays for them. He is very careful to discover the lining of his coat, that you may not suspect any want of integrity or flaw in him from the skin outwards. His tailor is his creator, and makes him of nothing; and though he lives by faith in him, he is perpetually committing iniquities against him. His soul dwells in the outside of him, like that of a hollow tree, and if you do but peel the bark off him he deceases immediately. His carriage of himself is the wearing of his clothes, and, like the cinnamon tree, his bark is better than his body. His looking big is rather a tumour than greatness. He is an idol that has just so much value as other men give him that believe in him, but none of his own. He makes his ignorance pa.s.s for reserve, and, like a hunting-nag, leaps over what he cannot get through. He has just so much of politics as hostlers in the university have Latin. He is as humble as a Jesuit to his superior, but repays himself again in insolence over those that are below him, and with a generous scorn despises those that can neither do him good nor hurt. He adores those that may do him good, though he knows they never will, and despises those that would not hurt him if they could. The court is his church, and he believes as that believes, and cries up and down everything as he finds it pa.s.s there. It is a great comfort to him to think that some who do not know him may perhaps take him for a lord, and while that thought lasts he looks bigger than usual and forgets his acquaintance, and that's the reason why he will sometimes know you and sometimes not. Nothing but want of money or credit puts him in mind that he is mortal, but then he trusts Providence that somebody will trust him, and in expectation of that hopes for a better life, and that his debts will never rise up in judgment against him. To get in debt is to labour in his vocation, but to pay is to forfeit his protection, for what's that worth to one that owes nothing?

His employment being only to wear his clothes, the whole account of his life and actions is recorded in shopkeepers' books, that are his faithful historiographers to their own posterity; and he believes he loses so much reputation as he pays off his debts, and that no man wears his clothes in fas.h.i.+on that pays for them, for nothing is further from the mode. He believes that he that runs in debt is beforehand with those that trust him, and only those that pay are behind. His brains are turned giddy, like one that walks on the top of a house, and that's the reason it is so troublesome to him to look downwards. He is a kind of spectrum, and his clothes are the shape he takes to appear and walk in, and when he puts them off he vanishes. He runs as busily out of one room into another as a great practiser does in Westminster Hall from one court to another. When he accosts a lady he puts both ends of his microcosm in motion, by making legs at one end and combing his peruke at the other. His garniture is the sauce to his clothes, and he walks in his portcannons like one that stalks in long gra.s.s. Every motion of him cries "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, quoth the preacher." He rides himself like a well-managed horse, reins in his neck, and walks _terra-terra_. He carries his elbows backward, as if he were pinioned like a trussed-up fowl, and moves as stiff as if he was upon the spit.

His legs are stuck in his great voluminous breeches like the whistles in a bagpipe, those abundant breeches in which his nether parts are not clothed but packed up. His hat has been long in a consumption of the fas.h.i.+on, and is now almost worn to nothing; if it do not recover quickly it will grow too little for a head of garlic. He wears garniture on the toes of his shoes to justify his pretensions to the gout, or such other malady that for the time being is most in fas.h.i.+on or request. When he salutes a friend he pulls off his hat, as women do their vizard-masks.

His ribbons are of the true complexion of his mind, a kind of painted cloud or gaudy rainbow, that has no colour of itself but what it borrows from reflection. He is as tender of his clothes as a coward is of his flesh, and as loth to have them disordered. His bravery is all his happiness, and, like Atlas, he carries his heaven on his back. He is like the golden fleece, a fine outside on a sheep's back. He is a monster or an Indian creature, that is good for nothing in the world but to be seen. He puts himself up into a sedan, like a fiddle in a case, and is taken out again for the ladies to play upon, who, when they have done with him, let down his treble-string till they are in the humour again. His cook and _valet de chambre_ conspire to dress dinner and him so punctually together that the one may not be ready before the other.

As peac.o.c.ks and ostriches have the gaudiest and finest feathers, yet cannot fly, so all his bravery is to flutter only. The beggars call him "my lord," and he takes them at their words and pays them for it. If you praise him, he is so true and faithful to the mode that he never fails to make you a present of himself, and will not be refused, though you know not what to do with him when you have him.

A COURT BEGGAR

Waits at Court, as a dog does under a table, to catch what falls, or force it from his fellows if he can. When a man is in a fair way to be hanged that is richly worth it, or has hanged himself, he puts in to be his heir and succeed him, and pretends as much merit as another, as no doubt he has great reason to do if all things were rightly considered.

He thinks it vain to deserve well of his Prince as long as he can do his business more easily by begging, for the same idle laziness possesses him that does the rest of his fraternity, that had rather take an alms than work for their livings, and therefore he accounts merit a more uncertain and tedious way of rising, and sometimes dangerous. He values himself and his place not upon the honour or allowances of it, but the convenient opportunity of begging, as King Clause's courtiers do when they have obtained of the superior powers a good station where three ways meet to exercise the function in. The more ignorant, foolish, and undeserving he is, provided he be but impudent enough, which all such seldom fail to be, the better he thrives in his calling, as others in the same way gain more by their sores and broken limbs than those that are sound and in health. He always undervalues what he gains, because he comes easily by it; and, how rich soever he proves, is resolved never to be satisfied, as being, like a Friar Minor, bound by his order to be always a beggar. He is, like King Agrippa, almost a Christian; for though he never begs anything of G.o.d, yet he does very much of his vicegerent the King, that is next Him. He spends lavishly what he gets, because it costs him so little pains to get more, but pays nothing; for if he should, his privilege would be of no use at all to him, and he does not care to part with anything of his right. He finds it his best way to be always craving, because he lights many times upon things that are disposed of or not beggable; but if one hit, it pays for twenty that miscarry; even as those virtuosos of his profession at large ask as well of those that give them nothing as those few that, out of charity, give them something. When he has pa.s.sed almost all offices, as other beggars do from constable to constable, and after meets with a stop, it does but encourage him to be more industrious in watching the next opportunity, to repair the charge he has been at to no purpose. He has his emissaries, that are always hunting out for discoveries, and when they bring him in anything that he judges too heavy far his own interest to carry, he takes in others to join with him (like blind men and cripples that beg in consort), and if they prosper they share, and give the jackal some small snip for his pains in questing; that is, if he has any further use of him; otherwise he leaves him, like virtue, to reward himself; and because he deserves well, which he does by no means approve of, gives him, that which he believes to be the fittest recompense of all merit, just nothing. He believes that the King's restoration being upon his birthday, he is bound to observe it all the days of his life, and grant, as some other kings have done upon the same occasion, whatever is demanded of him, though it were the one-half of his kingdom.

A b.u.mPKIN OR COUNTRY SQUIRE

Is a clown of rank and degree. He is the growth of his own land, a kind of Autocthonus, like the Athenians that sprang out of their own ground, or barnacles that grow upon trees in Scotland. His homely education has rendered him a native only of his own soil and a foreigner to all other places, from which he differs in language, manner of living, and behaviour, which are as rugged as the coat of a colt that has been bred upon a common. The custom of being the best man in his own territories has made him the worst everywhere else. He a.s.sumes the upper end of the table at an ale-house as his birthright, receives the homage of his company, which are always subordinate, and dispenses ale and communication like a self-conforming teacher in a conventicle. The chief points he treats on are the memoirs of his dogs and horses, which he repeats as often as a holder-forth that has but two sermons, to which if he adds the history of his hawks and fis.h.i.+ng he is very painful and laborious. He does his endeavour to appear a droll, but his wit being, like his estate, within the compa.s.s of a hedge, is so profound and obscure to a stranger that it requires a commentary, and is not to be understood without a perfect knowledge of all circ.u.mstances of persons and the particular idiom of the place. He has no ambition to appear a person of civil prudence or understanding more than in putting off a lame, infirm jade for sound wind and limb, to which purpose he brings his squirehood and groom to vouch, and, rather than fail, will outswear an affidavit-man. The top of his entertainment is horrible strong beer, which he pours into his guests (as the Dutch did water into our merchants when they tortured them at Amboyna) till they confess they can drink no more, and then he triumphs over them as subdued and vanquished, no less by the strength of his brain than his drink. When he salutes a man he lays violent hands upon him, and grips and shakes him like a fit of an ague; and when he accosts a lady he stamps with his foot, like a French fencer, and makes a lunge at her, in which he always misses his aim, too high or too low, and hits her on the nose or chin. He is never without some rough-handed flatterer, that rubs him, like a horse, with a curry-comb till he kicks and grunts with the pleasure of it. He has old family stories and jests, that fell to him with the estate, and have been left from heir to heir time out of mind. With these he entertains all comers over and over, and has added some of his own times, which he intends to transmit over to posterity. He has but one way of making all men welcome that come to his house, and that is by making himself and them drunk; while his servants take the same course with theirs, which he approves of as good and faithful service, and the rather because, if he has occasion to tell a strange, improbable story, they may be in a readiness to vouch with the more impudence, and make it a case of conscience to lie as well as drink for his credit. All the heroical glory he aspires to is but to be reputed a most potent and victorious stealer of deer and beater-up of parks, to which purpose he has compiled commentaries of his own great actions that treat of his dreadful adventures in the night, of giving battle in the dark, discomfiting of keepers, horsing the deer on his own back, and making off with equal resolution and success.

AN ANTIQUARY

Is one that has his being in this age, but his life and conversation is in the days of old. He despises the present age as an innovation and slights the future, but has a great value for that which is past and gone, like the madman that fell in love with Cleopatra. He is an old frippery-philosopher, that has so strange a natural affection to worm-eaten speculation that it is apparent he has a worm in his skull.

He honours his forefathers and foremothers, but condemns his parents as too modern and no better than upstarts. He neglects himself because he was born in his own time and so far off antiquity, which he so much admires, and repines, like a younger brother, because he came so late into the world. He spends the one-half of his time in collecting old insignificant trifles, and the other in showing them, which he takes singular delight in, because the oftener he does it the farther they are from being new to him. All his curiosities take place of one another according to their seniority, and he values them not by their abilities, but their standing. He has a great veneration for words that are stricken in years, and are grown so aged that they have outlived their employments. These he uses with a respect agreeable to their antiquity and the good services they have done. He throws away his time in inquiring after that which is past and gone so many ages since, like one that shoots away an arrow to find out another that was lost before. He fetches things out of dust and ruins, like the fable of the chemical plant raised out of its own ashes. He values one old invention, that is lost and never to be recovered, before all the new ones in the world, though never so useful. The whole business of his life is the same with his that shows the tombs at Westminster, only the one does it for his pleasure, and the other for money. As every man has but one father, but two grandfathers and a world of ancestors, so he has a proportional value for things that are ancient, and the farther off the greater.

He is a great time-server, but it is of time out of mind to which he conforms exactly, but is wholly retired from the present. His days were spent and gone long before he came into the world, and since his only business is to collect what he can out of the ruins of them. He has so strong a natural affection to anything that is old, that he may truly say to dust and worms, "You are my father;" and to rottenness, "Thou art my mother." He has no providence nor foresight, for all his contemplations look backward upon the days of old; and his brains are turned with them, as if he walked backwards. He had rather interpret one obscure word in any old senseless discourse than be author of the most ingenious new one, and, with Scaliger, would sell the Empire of Germany (if it were in his power) for an old song. He devours an old ma.n.u.script with greater relish than worms and moths do, and, though there be nothing in it, values it above anything printed, which he accounts but a novelty. When he happens to cure a small botch in an old author, he is as proud of it as if he had got the philosopher's stone and could cure all the diseases of mankind. He values things wrongfully upon their antiquity, forgetting that the most modern are really the most ancient of all things in the world, like those that reckon their pounds before their s.h.i.+llings and pence of which they are made up. He esteems no customs but such as have outlived themselves and are long since out of use, as the Catholics allow of no saints but such as are dead, and the fanatics, in opposition, of none but the living.

A PROUD MAN

Is a fool in fermentation, that swells and boils over like a porridge-pot. He sets out his feathers like an owl, to swell and seem bigger than he is. He is troubled with a tumour and inflammation of self-conceit, that renders every part of him stiff and uneasy. He has given himself sympathetic love-powder, that works upon him to dotage and has transformed him into his own mistress. He is his own gallant, and makes most pa.s.sionate addresses to his own dear perfections. He commits idolatry to himself, and wors.h.i.+ps his own image; though there is no soul living of his Church but himself, yet he believes as the Church believes, and maintains his faith with the obstinacy of a fanatic. He is his own favourite, and advances himself not only above his merit, but all mankind; is both Damon and Pythias to his own dear self, and values his crony above his soul. He gives place to no man but himself, and that with very great distance to all others, whom he esteems not worthy to approach him. He believes whatsoever he has receives a value in being his, as a horse in a n.o.bleman's stable will bear a greater price than in a common market. He is so proud that he is as hard to be acquainted with himself as with others, for he is very apt to forget who he is, and knows himself only superficially; therefore he treats himself civilly as a stranger with ceremony and compliment, but admits of no privacy. He strives to look bigger than himself as well as others, and is no better than his own parasite and flatterer. A little flood will make a shallow torrent swell above its banks, and rage and foam and yield a roaring noise, while a deep, silent stream glides quietly on. So a vain-glorious, insolent, proud man swells with a little frail prosperity, grows big and loud, and overflows his bounds, and when he sinks, leaves mud and dirt behind him. His carriage is as glorious and haughty as if he were advanced upon men's shoulders or tumbled over their heads like knipperdolling. He fancies himself a Colosse, and so he is, for his head holds no proportion to his body, and his foundation is lesser than his upper storeys. We can naturally take no view of ourselves unless we look downwards, to teach us how humble admirers we ought to be of our own values. The slighter and less solid his materials are the more room they take up and make him swell the bigger, as feathers and cotton will stuff cus.h.i.+ons better than things of more close and solid parts.

A SMALL POET

Is one that would fain make himself that which Nature never meant him, like a fanatic that inspires himself with his own whimsies. He sets up haberdasher of small poetry, with a very small stock and no credit. He believes it is invention enough to find out other men's wit, and whatsoever he lights upon, either in books or company, he makes bold with as his own. This he puts together so untowardly, that you may perceive his own wit has the rickets by the swelling disproportion of the joints. Imitation is the whole sum of him, and his vein is but an itch that he has catched of others, and his flame like that of charcoals that were burnt before. But as he wants judgment to understand what is best, he naturally takes the worst, as being most agreeable to his own talent. You may know his wit not to be natural, 'tis so unquiet and troublesome in him; for as those that have money but seldom are always shaking their pockets when they have it, so does he when he thinks he has got something that will make him appear. He is a perpetual talker, and you may know by the freedom of his discourse that he came lightly by it, as thieves spend freely what they get. He measures other men's wit by their modesty, and his own by his confidence. He makes nothing of writing plays, because he has not wit enough to understand the difficulty. This makes him venture to talk and scribble, as chouses do to play with cunning gamesters until they are cheated and laughed at. He is always talking of wit, as those that have bad voices are always singing out of tune, and those that cannot play delight to fumble on instruments. He grows the unwiser by other men's harms, for the worse others write, he finds the more encouragement to do so too. His greediness of praise is so eager that he swallows anything that comes in the likeness of it, how notorious and palpable soever, and is as shot-free against anything that may lessen his good opinion of himself.

This renders him incurable, like diseases that grow insensible.