Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century Part 27

Is a piece of clockwork, that moves only as it is wound up and set, and not like a voluntary agent. He is a mathematical body, nothing but _punctum, linea, et superficies_, and perfectly abstract from matter. He walks as stiffly and uprightly as a dog that is taught to go on his hinder legs, and carries his hands as the other does his fore-feet. He is very ceremonious and full of respect to himself, for no man uses those formalities that does not expect the same from others. All his actions and words are set down in so exact a method that an indifferent accountant may cast him up to a halfpenny-farthing. He does everything by rule, as if it were in a course of Lessius's diet, and did not eat, but take a dose of meat and drink; and not walk, but proceed; not go, but march. He draws up himself with admirable conduct in a very regular and well-ordered body. All his business and affairs are junctures and transactions, and when he speaks with a man he gives him audience. He does not carry but marshal himself, and no one member of his body politic takes place of another without due right of precedence. He does all things by rules of proportion, and never gives himself the freedom to manage his gloves or his watch in an irregular and arbitrary way, but is always ready to render an account of his demeanour to the most strict and severe disquisition. He sets his face as if it were cast in plaster, and never admits of any commotion in his countenance, nor so much as the innovation of a smile without serious and mature deliberation, but preserves his looks in a judicial way, according as they have always been established.

A FLATTERER

Is a dog that fawns when he bites. He hangs bells in a man's ears, as a carman does by his horse while he lays a heavy load upon his back. His insinuations are like strong wine, that pleases a man's palate till it has got within him, and then deprives him of his reason and overthrows him. His business is to render a man a stranger to himself, and get between him and home, and then he carries him whither he pleases. He is a spirit that inveighs away a man from himself, undertakes great matters for him, and after sells him for a slave. He makes division not only between a man and his friends, but between a man and himself, raises a faction within him, and after takes part with the strongest side and ruins both. He steals him away from himself (as the fairies are said to do children in the cradle), and after changes him for a fool. He whistles to him, as a carter does to his horse while he whips out his eyes and makes him draw what he pleases. He finds out his humour and feeds it, till it will come to hand, and then he leads him whither he pleases. He tickles him, as they do trouts, until he lays hold on him, and then devours and feeds upon him. He tickles his ears with a straw, and while he is pleased with scratching it, picks his pocket, as the cutpurse served Bartl. c.o.kes. He embraces him and hugs him in his arms, and lifts him above ground, as wrestlers do, to throw him down again and fall upon him. He possesses him with his own praises like an evil spirit, that makes him swell and appear stronger than he was, talk what he does not understand, and do things that he knows nothing of when he comes to himself. He gives good words as doctors are said to give physic when they are paid for it, and lawyers advice when they are fee'd beforehand. He is a poisoned perfume that infects the brain and murders those it pleases. He undermines a man, and blows him up with his own praises to throw him down. He commends a man out of design, that he may be presented with him and have him for his pains, according to the mode.

A PRODIGAL

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 wh.o.r.es, 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.

THE INCONSTANT

Has a vagabond soul without any settled place of abode, like the wandering Jew. His head is unfixed, out of order, and utterly unserviceable upon any occasion. He is very apt to be taken with anything, but nothing can hold him, for he presently breaks loose and gives it the slip. His head is troubled with a palsy, which renders it perpetually wavering and incapable of rest. His head is like an hour-gla.s.s; that part that is uppermost always runs out until it is turned, and then runs out again. His opinions are too violent to last, for, like other things of the same kind in Nature, they quickly spend themselves and fall to nothing. All his opinions are like wefts and strays that are apt to straggle from their owners and belong to the lord of the manor where they are taken up. His soul has no retentive faculty, but suffers everything to run from him as fast as he receives it. His whole life is like a preposterous ague in which he has his hot fit always before his cold one, and is never in a constant temper. His principles and resolves are but a kind of movables, which he will not endure to be fastened to any freehold, but left loose to be conveyed away at pleasure as occasion shall please to dispose of him. His soul dwells, like a Tartar, in a hoord, without any settled habitation, but is always removing and dislodging from place to place. He changes his head oftener than a deer, and when his imaginations are stiff and at their full growth, he casts them off to breed new ones, only to cast off again the next season. All his purposes are built on air, the chamelion's diet, and have the same operation to make him change colour with every object he comes near. He pulls off his judgment as commonly as his hat to every one he meets with. His word and his deed are all one, for when he has given his word he has done, and never goes farther.

His judgment, being unsound, has the same operation upon him that a disease has upon a sick man, that makes him find some ease in turning from side to side, and still the last is the most uneasy.

A GLUTTON

Eats his children, as the poets say Saturn did, and carries his felicity and all his concernments in his paunch. If he had lived when all the members of the body rebelled against the stomach there had been no possibility of accommodation. His entrails are like the sarcophagus, that devours dead bodies in a small s.p.a.ce, or the Indian zampatan, that consumes flesh in a moment. He is a great dish made on purpose to carry meat. He eats out his own head, and his horses' too; he knows no grace but grace before meat, nor mortification but in fasting. If the body be the tabernacle of the soul, he lives in a sutler's hut. He celebrates ma.s.s, or rather mess, to the idol in his belly, and, like a papist, eats his adoration. A third course is the third heaven to him, and he is ravished into it. A feast is a good conscience to him, and he is troubled in mind when he misses of it. His teeth are very industrious in their calling, and his chops like a Bridewell perpetually hatcheling. He depraves his appet.i.te with _haut-gousts_, as old fornicators do their lechery into fulsomeness and stinks. He licks himself into the shape of a bear, as those beasts are said to do their whelps. He new forms himself in his own belly, and becomes another thing than G.o.d and Nature meant him. His belly takes place of the rest of his members, and walks before in state. He eats out that which eats all things else--time--and is very curious to have all things in season at his meals but his hours, which are commonly at midnight, and so late that he prays too late for his daily bread, unless he mean his natural daily bread. He is admirably learned in the doctrines of meats and sauces, and deserves the chair in _juris-prudentia_; that is, in the skill of pottages. At length he eats his life out of house and home and becomes a treat for worms, sells his clothes to feed his gluttony, and eats himself naked, as the first of his family, Adam, did.

A RIBALD

Is the devil's hypocrite, that endeavours to make himself appear worse than he is. His evil words and bad manners strive which shall most corrupt one another, and it is hard to say which has the advantage. He vents his lechery at the mouth, as some fishes are said to engender. He is an unclean beast that chews the cud, for after he has satisfied his l.u.s.t he brings it up again into his mouth to a second enjoyment, and plays an after-game of lechery with his tongue much worse than that which the _Cunnilingi_ used among the old Romans. He strips Nature stark naked, and clothes her in the most fantastic and ridiculous fas.h.i.+on a wild imagination can invent. He is worse and more nasty than a dog, for in his broad descriptions of others' obscene actions he does but lick up the vomit of another man's surfeits. He tells tales out of a vaulting-school. A lewd, bawdy tale does more hurt and gives a worse example than the thing of which it was told, for the act extends but to few, and if it be concealed goes no farther; but the report of it is unlimited, and may be conveyed to all people and all times to come. He exposes that with his tongue which Nature gave women modesty, and brute beasts tails, to cover. He mistakes ribaldry for wit, though nothing is more unlike; and believes himself to be the finer man the filthier he talks, as if he were above civility as fanatics are above ordinances, and held nothing more shameful than to be ashamed of anything. He talks nothing but Aretine's pictures, as plain as the Scotch dialect, which is esteemed to be the most copious and elegant of the kind. He improves and husbands his sins to the best advantage, and makes one vice find employment for another; for what he acts loosely in private he talks as loosely of in public, and finds as much pleasure in the one as the other. He endeavours to purchase himself a reputation by pretending to that which the best men abominate and the worst value not, like one that clips and washes false coin and ventures his neck for that which will yield him nothing.

A MODERN POLITICIAN

Makes new discoveries in politics, but they are, like those that Columbus made of the New World, very rich, but barbarous. He endeavours to restore mankind to the original condition it fell from, by forgetting to discern between good and evil, and reduces all prudence back again to its first author, the serpent, that taught Adam wisdom; for he was really his tutor, and not Samboscor, as the Rabbins write. He finds the world has been mistaken in all ages, and that religion and morality are but vulgar errors that pa.s.s among the ignorant, and are but mere words to the wise. He despises all learning as a pedantic little thing, and believes books to be the business of children and not of men. He wonders how the distinction of virtue and vice came into the world's head, and believes them to be more ridiculous than any foppery of the schools. He holds it his duty to betray any man that shall take him for so much a fool as one fit to be trusted. He steadfastly believes that all men are born in the state of war, and that the civil life is but a cessation, and no peace nor accommodation; and though all open acts of hostility are forborne by consent, the enmity continues, and all advantages by treachery or breach of faith are very lawful; that there is no difference between virtue and fraud among friends as well as enemies, nor anything unjust that a man can do without damage to his own safety or interest; that oaths are but springes to catch woodc.o.c.ks withal, and bind none but those that are too weak and feeble to break them when they become ever so small an impediment to their advantages; that conscience is the effect of ignorance, and the same with that foolish fear which some men apprehend when they are in the dark and alone; that honour is but the word which a prince gives a man to pa.s.s his guards withal and save him from being stopped by law and justice, the sentinels of governments, when he has not wit nor credit enough to pa.s.s of himself; that to show respect to worth in any person is to appear a stranger to it, and not so familiarly acquainted with it as those are who use no ceremony, because it is no new thing to them, as it would appear if they should take notice of it; that the easiest way to purchase a reputation of wisdom and knowledge is to slight and undervalue it, as the readiest way to buy cheap is to bring down the price; for the world will be apt to believe a man well provided with any necessary or useful commodity which he sets a small value upon; that to oblige a friend is but a kind of casting him in prison, after the old Roman way or modern Chinese, that chains the keeper and prisoner together; for he that binds another man to himself binds himself as much to him and lays a restraint upon both. For as men commonly never forgive those that forgive them, and always hate those that purchase their estates (though they pay dear and more than any man else would give), so they never willingly endure those that have laid any engagement upon them, or at what rate soever purchased the least part of their freedom; and as partners for the most part cheat or suspect one another, so no man deals fairly with another that goes the least share in his freedom.

To propose any measure to wealth or power is to be ignorant of the nature of both, for as no man can ever have too much of either, so it is impossible to determine what is enough; and he that limits his desires by proposing to himself the enjoyment of any other pleasure but that of gaining more shows he has but a dull inclination that will not hold out to his journey's end. And therefore he believes that a courtier deserves to be begged himself that is ever satisfied with begging; for fruition without desire is but a dull entertainment, and that pleasure only real and substantial that provokes and improves the appet.i.te and increases in the enjoyment; and all the greatest masters in the several arts of thriving concur unanimously that the plain downright pleasure of gaining is greater and deserves to be preferred far before all the various delights of spending which the curiosity, wit, or luxury of mankind in all ages could ever find out.

He believes there is no way of thriving so easy and certain as to grow rich by defrauding the public; for public thieveries are more safe and less prosecuted than private, like robberies committed between sun and sun, which the county pays and no one is greatly concerned in; and as the monster of many heads has less wit in them all than any one reasonable person, so the monster of many purses is easier cheated than any one indifferent, crafty fool. For all the difficulty lies in being trusted, and when he has obtained that, the business does itself; and if he should happen to be questioned and called to an account, a pardon is as cheap as a paymaster's fee, not above fourteenpence in the pound.

He thinks that when a man comes to wealth or preferment, and is to put on a new person, his first business is to put off all his old friends.h.i.+ps and acquaintances, as things below him and no way consistent with his present condition, especially such as may have occasion to make use of him or have reason to expect any civil returns from him; for requiting of obligations received in a man's necessity is the same thing with paying of debts contracted in his minority when he was under age, for which he is not accountable by the laws of the land. These he is to forget as fast as he can, and by little neglects remove them to that distance that they may at length by his example learn to forget him, for men who travel together in company when their occasions lie several ways ought to take leave and part. It is a hard matter for a man that comes to preferment not to forget himself, and therefore he may very well be allowed to take the freedom to forget others; for advancement, like the conversion of a sinner, gives a man new values of things and persons, so different from those he had before that that which was wont to be most dear to him does commonly after become the most disagreeable; and as it is accounted n.o.ble to forget and pa.s.s over little injuries, so it is to forget little friends.h.i.+ps, that are no better than injuries when they become disparagements, and can only be importune and troublesome instead of being useful, as they were before. All Acts of Oblivion have, of late times, been found to extend rather to loyal and faithful services done than rebellion and treasons committed. For benefits are like flowers, sweet only and fresh when they are newly gathered, but stink when they grow stale and wither; and he only is ungrateful who makes returns of obligations, for he does it merely to free himself from owing so much as thanks. Fair words are all the civility and humanity that one man owes to another, for they are obliging enough of themselves, and need not the a.s.sistance of deeds to make them good; for he that does not believe them has already received too much, and he that does ought to expect no more.

And therefore promises ought to oblige those only to whom they are made, not those who make them; for he that expects a man should bind himself is worse than a thief, who does that service for him after he has robbed him on the highway. Promises are but words, and words air, which no man can claim a propriety in, but is equally free to all and incapable of being confined; and if it were not, yet he who pays debts which he can possibly avoid does but part with his money for nothing, and pays more for the mere reputation of honesty and conscience than it is worth.

He prefers the way of applying to the vices and humours of great persons before all other methods of getting into favour; for he that can be admitted into these offices of privacy and trust seldom fails to arrive at greater, and with greater ease and certainty than those who take the dull way of plain fidelity and merit. For vices, like beasts, are fond of none but those that feed them, and where they once prevail all other considerations go for nothing. They are his own flesh and blood, born and bred out of him, and he has a stronger natural affection for them than all other relations whatsoever; and he that has an interest in these has a greater power over him than all other obligations in the world; for though they are but his imperfections and infirmities, he is the more tender of them, as a lame member or diseased limb is more carefully cherished than all the rest that are sound and in perfect vigour. All offices of this kind are the greatest endearments, being real flatteries enforced by deeds and actions, and therefore far more prevalent than those that are performed but by words and fawning, though very great advantages are daily obtained that way; and therefore he esteems flattery as the next most sure and successful way of improving his interests. For flattery is but a kind of civil idolatry, that makes images to itself of virtue, worth, and honour in some person that is utterly void of all, and then falls down and wors.h.i.+ps them; and the more dull and absurd these applications are, the better they are always received; for men delight more to be presented with those things they want than such as they have no need nor use of. And though they condemn the realities of those honours and renowns that are falsely imputed to them, they are wonderfully affected with their false pretences; for dreams work more upon men's pa.s.sions than any waking thoughts of the same kind, and many, out of an ignorant superst.i.tion, give more credit to them than the most rational of all their vigilant conjectures, how false soever they prove in the event. No wonder, then, if those who apply to men's fancies and humours have a stronger influence upon them than those that seek to prevail upon their reason and understandings, especially in things so delightful to them as their own praises, no matter how false and apparently incredible; for great persons may wear counterfeit jewels of any carat with more confidence and security from being discovered than those of meaner quality, in whose hands the greatness of their value (if they were true) is more apt to render them suspected. A flatterer is like Mahomet's pigeon, that picks his food out of his master's ear, who is willing to have it believed that he whispers oracles into it, and accordingly sets a high esteem upon the service he does him, though the impostor only designs his own utilities; for men are for the most part better pleased with other men's opinions, though false, of their happiness than their own experiences, and find more pleasure in the dullest flattery of others than all the vast imaginations they can have of themselves, as no man is apt to be tickled with his own fingers; because the applauses of others are more agreeable to those high conceits they have of themselves, which they are glad to find confirmed, and are the only music that sets them a-dancing, like those that are bitten with a tarantula.

He accounts it an argument of great discretion, and as great temper, to take no notice of affronts and indignities put upon him by great persons; for he that is insensible of injuries of this nature can receive none, and if he lose no confidence by them, can lose nothing else; for it is greater to be above injuries than either to do or revenge them, and he that will be deterred by those discouragements from prosecuting his designs will never obtain what he proposes to himself.

When a man is once known to be able to endure insolences easier than others can impose them, they will raise the siege and leave him as impregnable; and therefore he resolves never to omit the least opportunity of pressing his affairs, for fear of being baffled and affronted; for if he can at any rate render himself master of his purposes, he would not wish an easier nor a cheaper way, as he knows how to repay himself and make others receive those insolences of him for good and current payment which he was glad to take before, and he esteems it no mean glory to show his temper of such a compa.s.s as is able to reach from the highest arrogance to the meanest and most dejected submissions. A man that has endured all sorts of affronts may be allowed, like an apprentice that has served out his time, to set up for himself and put them off upon others; and if the most common and approved way of growing rich is to gain by the ruin and loss of those who are in necessity, why should not a man be allowed as well to make himself appear great by debasing those that are below him? For insolence is no inconsiderable way of improving greatness and authority in the opinion of the world. If all men are born equally fit to govern, as some late philosophers affirm, he only has the advantage of all others who has the best opinion of his own abilities, how mean soever they really are; and, therefore, he steadfastly believes that pride is the only great, wise, and happy virtue that a man is capable of, and the most compendious and easy way to felicity; for he that is able to persuade himself impregnably that he is some great and excellent person, how far short soever he falls of it, finds more delight in that dream than if he were really so; and the less he is of what he fancies himself to be the better he is pleased, as men covet those things that are forbidden and denied them more greedily than those that are in their power to obtain; and he that can enjoy all the best rewards of worth and merit without the pains and trouble that attend it has a better bargain than he who pays as much for it as it is worth. This he performs by an obstinate, implicit believing as well as he can of himself, and as meanly of all other men, for he holds it a kind of self-preservation to maintain a good estimation of himself; and as no man is bound to love his neighbour better than himself, so he ought not to think better of him than he does of himself, and he that will not afford himself a very high esteem will never spare another man any at all. He who has made so absolute a conquest over himself (which philosophers say is the greatest of all victories) as to be received for a prince within himself, is greater and more arbitrary within his own dominions than he that depends upon the uncertain loves or fears of other men without him; and since the opinion of the world is vain and for the most part false, he believes it is not to be attempted but by ways as false and vain as itself, and therefore to appear and seem is much better and wiser than really to be whatsoever is well esteemed in the general value of the world Next pride, he believes ambition to be the only generous and heroical virtue in the world that mankind is capable of; for, as Nature gave man an erect figure to raise him above the grovelling condition of his fellow-creatures the beasts, so he that endeavours to improve that and raise himself higher seems best to comply with the design and intention of Nature. Though the stature of man is confined to a certain height, yet his mind is unlimited, and capable of growing up to heaven; and as those who endeavour to arrive at that perfection are adored and reverenced by all, so he that endeavours to advance himself as high as possibly he can in this world comes nearest to the condition of those holy and divine aspirers. All the purest parts of Nature always tend upwards, and the more dull and heavy downwards; so in the little world the n.o.blest faculties of man, his reason and understanding, that give him a prerogative above all other earthly creatures, mount upwards; and therefore he who takes that course, and still aspires in all his undertakings and designs, does but conform to that which Nature dictates. Are not the reason and the will, the two commanding faculties of the soul, still striving which shall be uppermost? Men honour none but those that are above them, contest with equals, and disdain inferiors. The first thing that G.o.d gave man was dominion over the rest of his inferior creatures; but he that can extend that over man improves his talent to the best advantage. How are angels distinguished but by dominions, powers, thrones, and princ.i.p.alities? Then he who still aspires to purchase those comes nearest to the nature of those heavenly ministers, and in all probability is most like to go to heaven, no matter what destruction he makes in his way, if he does but attain his end; for nothing is a crime that is too great to be punished; and when it is once arrived at that perfection, the most horrid actions in the world become the most admired and renowned. Birds that build highest are most safe; and he that can advance himself above the envy or reach of his inferiors is secure against the malice and a.s.saults of fortune. All religions have ever been persecuted in their primitive ages, when they were weak and impotent, but when they propagated and grew great, have been received with reverence and adoration by those who otherwise had proved their cruellest enemies; and those that afterwards opposed them have suffered as severely as those that first professed them. So thieves that rob in small parties and break houses, when they are taken, are hanged; but when they multiply and grow up into armies and are able to take towns, the same things are called heroic actions, and acknowledged for such by all the world. Courts of justice, for the most part, commit greater crimes than they punish, and do those that sue in them more injuries than they can possibly receive from one another; and yet they are venerable, and must not be told so, because they have authority and power to justify what they do, and the law (that is, whatsoever they please to call so) ready to give judgment for them. Who knows when a physician cures or kills? And yet he is equally rewarded for both, and the profession esteemed never the less wors.h.i.+pful; and therefore he accounts it a ridiculous vanity in any man to consider whether he does right or wrong in anything he attempts, since the success is only able to determine and satisfy the opinion of the world which is the one and which the other. As for those characters and marks of distinction which religion, law, and morality fix upon both, they are only significant and valid when their authority is able to command obedience and submission; but when the greatness, numbers, or interest of those who are concerned outgrows that, they change their natures, and that which was injury before becomes justice, and justice injury. It is with crimes as with inventions in the mechanics, that will frequently hold true to all purposes of the design while they are tried in little, but when the experiment is made in great prove false in all particulars to what is promised in the model: so iniquities and vices may be punished and corrected, like children, while they are little and impotent, but when they are great and st.u.r.dy they become incorrigible and proof against all the power of justice and authority.

Among all his virtues there is none which he sets so high an esteem upon as impudence, which he finds more useful and necessary than a vizard is to a highwayman; for he that has but a competent stock of this natural endowment has an interest in any man he pleases, and is able to manage it with greater advantages than those who have all the real pretences imaginable, but want that dexterous way of soliciting by which, if the worst fall out, he is sure to lose nothing if he does not win. He that is impudent is shot-free, and if he be ever so much overpowered can receive no hurt, for his forehead is impenetrable, and of so excellent a temper that nothing is able to touch it, but turns edge and is blunted.

His face holds no correspondence with his mind, and therefore whatsoever inward sense or conviction he feels, there is no outward appearance of it in his looks to give evidence against him; and in any difficulty that can befall him, impudence is the most infallible expedient to fetch him off, that is always ready, like his angel guardian, to relieve and rescue him in his greatest extremities; and no outward impression, nor inward neither, though his own conscience take part against him, is able to beat him from his guards. Though innocence and a good conscience be said to be a brazen wall, a brazen confidence is more impregnable and longer able to hold out; for it is a greater affliction to an innocent man to be suspected than it is to one that is guilty and impudent to be openly convicted of an apparent crime. And in all the affairs of mankind, a brisk confidence, though utterly void of sense, is able to go through matters of difficulty with greater ease than all the strength of reason less boldly enforced, as the Turks are said by a small, slight handling of their bows to make an arrow without a head pierce deeper into hard bodies than guns of greater force are able to do a bullet of steel; and though it be but a cheat and imposture, that has neither truth nor reason to support it, yet it thrives better in the world than things of greater solidity, as thorns and thistles flourish on barren grounds where n.o.bler plants would starve. And he that can improve his barren parts by this excellent and most compendious method deserves much better, in his judgment, than those who endeavour to do the same thing by the more studious and difficult way of downright industry and drudging. For impudence does not only supply all defects, but gives them a greater grace than if they had needed no art, as all other ornaments are commonly nothing else but the remedies or disguises of imperfections; and therefore he thinks him very weak that is unprovided of this excellent and most useful quality, without which the best natural or acquired parts are of no more use than the Guanches' darts, which, the virtuosos say, are headed with b.u.t.ter hardened in the sun. It serves him to innumerable purposes to press on and understand no repulse, how smart or harsh soever, for he that can fail nearest the wind has much the advantage of all others; and such is the weakness or vanity of some men, that they will grant that to obstinate importunity which they would never have done upon all the most just reasons and considerations imaginable, as those that watch witches will make them confess that which they would never have done upon any other account.

He believes a man's words and his meaning should never agree together; for he that says what he thinks lays himself open to be expounded by the most ignorant, and he who does not make his words rather serve to conceal than discover the sense of his heart deserves to have it pulled out, like a traitor's, and shown publicly to the rabble; for as a king, they say, cannot reign without dissembling, so private men, without that, cannot govern themselves with any prudence or discretion imaginable. This is the only politic magic that has power to make a man walk invisible, give him access into all men's privacies, and keep all others out of his, which is as great an odds as it is to discover what cards those he plays with have in their hands, and permit them to know nothing of his; and, therefore, he never speaks his own sense, but that which he finds comes nearest to the meaning of those he converses with, as birds are drawn into nets by pipes that counterfeit their own voices.

By this means he possesses men, like the devil, by getting within them before they are aware, turns them out of themselves, and either betrays or renders them ridiculous, as he finds it most agreeable either to his humour or his occasions.

As for religion, he believes a wise man ought to possess it only that he may not be observed to have freed himself from the obligations of it, and so teach others by his example to take the same freedom. For he who is at liberty has a great advantage over all those whom he has to deal with, as all hypocrites find by perpetual experience that one of the best uses that can be made of it is to take measure of men's understandings and abilities by it, according as they are more or less serious in it. For he thinks that no man ought to be much concerned in it but hypocrites and such as make it their calling and profession, who, though they do not live by their faith, like the righteous, do that which is nearest to it, get their living by it; and that those only take the surest course who make their best advantages of it in this world and trust to Providence for the next, to which purpose he believes it is most properly to be relied upon by all men.

He admires good nature as only good to those who have it not, and laughs at friends.h.i.+p as a ridiculous foppery, which all wise men easily outgrow; for the more a man loves another the less he loves himself. All regards and civil applications should, like true devotion, look upwards and address to those that are above us, and from whom we may in probability expect either good or evil; but to apply to those that are our equals, or such as cannot benefit or hurt us, is a far more irrational idolatry than wors.h.i.+pping of images or beasts. All the good that can proceed from friends.h.i.+p is but this, that it puts men in a way to betray one another. The best parents, who are commonly the worst men, have naturally a tender kindness for their children only because they believe they are a part of themselves, which shows that self-love is the original of all others, and the foundation of that great law of Nature, self-preservation; for no man ever destroyed himself wilfully that had not first left off to love himself. Therefore a man's self is the proper object of his love, which is never so well employed as when it is kept within its own confines, and not suffered to straggle. Every man is just so much a slave as he is concerned in the will, inclinations, or fortunes of another, or has anything of himself out of his own power to dispose of; and therefore he is resolved never to trust any man with that kindness which he takes up of himself, unless he has such security as is most certain to yield him double interest; for he that does otherwise is but a Jew and a Turk to himself, which is much worse than to be so to all the world beside. Friends are only friends to those who have no need of them, and when they have, become no longer friends; like the leaves of trees, that clothe the woods in the heat of summer, when they have no need of warmth, but leave them naked when cold weather comes; and since there are so few that prove otherwise, it is not wisdom to rely on any.

He is of opinion that no men are so fit to be employed and trusted as fools or knaves; for the first understand no right, the others regard none; and whensoever there falls out an occasion that may prove of great importance if the infamy and danger of the dishonesty be not too apparent, they are the only persons that are fit for the undertaking.

They are both equally greedy of employment; the one out of an itch to be thought able, and the other honest enough, to be trusted, as by use and practice they sometimes prove. For the general business of the world lies, for the most part, in routines and forms, of which there are none so exact observers as those who understand nothing else to divert them, as carters use to blind their fore-horses on both sides that they may see only forward, and so keep the road the better, and men that aim at a mark use to shut one eye that they may see the surer with the other. If fools are not notorious, they have far more persons to deal with of their own elevation (who understand one another better) than they have of those that are above them, which renders them fitter for many businesses than wiser men, and they believe themselves to be so for all.

For no man ever thought himself a fool that was one, so confident does their ignorance naturally render them, and confidence is no contemptible qualification in the management of human affairs; and as blind men have secret artifices and tricks to supply that defect and find out their ways, which those who have their eyes and are but hoodwinked are utterly unable to do, so fools have always little crafts and frauds in all their transactions which wiser men would never have thought upon, and by those they frequently arrive at very great wealth, and as great success in all their undertakings. For all fools are but feeble and impotent knaves, that have as strong and vehement inclinations to all sorts of dishonesty as the most notorious of those engineers, but want abilities to put them in practice; and as they are always found to be the most obstinate and intractable people to be prevailed upon by reason or conscience, so they are as easy to submit to their superiors--that is, knaves--by whom they are always observed to be governed, as all corporations are wont to choose their magistrates out of their own members. As for knaves, they are commonly true enough to their own interests, and while they gain by their employments, will be careful not to disserve those who can turn them out when they please, what tricks soever they put upon others; and therefore such men prove more useful to them in their designs of gain and profit than those whose consciences and reason will not permit them to take that lat.i.tude.

And since buffoonery is, and has always been, so delightful to great persons, he holds him very improvident that is to seek in a quality so inducing that he cannot at least serve for want of a better, especially since it is so easy that the greatest part of the difficulty lies in confidence; and he that can but stand fair and give aim to those that are gamesters does not always lose his labour, but many times becomes well esteemed for his generous and bold demeanour, and a lucky repartee hit upon by chance may be the making of a man. This is the only modern way of running at tilt, with which great persons are so delighted to see men encounter one another and break jests, as they did lances heretofore; and he that has the best beaver to his helmet has the greatest advantage; and as the former pa.s.sed upon the account of valour, so does the latter on the score of wit, though neither, perhaps, have any great reason for their pretences, especially the latter, that depends much upon confidence, which is commonly a great support to wit, and therefore believed to be its betters, that ought to take place of it, as all men are greater than their dependents; so pleasant it is to see men lessen one another and strive who shall show himself the most ill-natured and ill-mannered. As in cuffing all blows are aimed at the face, so it fares in these rencounters, where he that wears the toughest leather on his visage comes off with victory though he has ever so much the disadvantage upon all other accounts. For a buffoon is like a mad dog that has a worm in his tongue, which makes him bite at all that light in his way; and as he can do nothing alone, but must have somebody to set him that he may throw at, he that performs that office with the greatest freedom and is contented to be laughed at to give his patron pleasure cannot but be understood to have done very good service, and consequently deserves to be well rewarded, as a mountebank's pudding, that is content to be cut and slashed and burnt and poisoned, without which his master can show no tricks, deserves to have a considerable share in his gains.

As for the meanness of these ways, which some may think too base to be employed to so excellent an end, that imports nothing; for what dislike soever the world conceives against any man's undertakings, if they do but succeed and prosper, it will easily recant its error and applaud what it condemned before; and therefore all wise men have ever justly esteemed it a great virtue to disdain the false values it commonly sets upon all things and which itself is so apt to retract. For as those who go uphill use to stoop and bow their bodies forward, and sometimes creep upon their hands, and those that descend to go upright, so the lower a man stoops and submits in these endearing offices, the more sure and certain he is to rise; and the more upright he carries himself in other matters, the more like, in probability, to be ruined. And this he believes to be a wiser course for any man to take than to trouble himself with the knowledge of arts or arms; for the one does but bring a man an unnecessary trouble, and the other as unnecessary danger; and the shortest and more easy way to attain to both is to despise all other men and believe as steadfastly in himself as he can--a better and more certain course than that of merit.

What he gains wickedly he spends as vainly, for he holds it the greatest happiness that a man is capable of to deny himself nothing that his desires can propose to him, but rather to improve his enjoyments by glorying in his vices; for, glory being one end of almost all the business of this world, he who omits that in the enjoyment of himself and his pleasures loses the greatest part of his delight; and therefore the felicity which he supposes other men apprehend that he receives in the relish of his luxuries is more delightful to him than the fruition itself.

A MODERN STATESMAN

Owns his election from free grace in opposition to merits or any foresight of good works; for he is chosen not for his abilities or fitness for his employment, but, like a _tales_ in a jury, for happening to be near in court. If there were any other consideration in it (which is a hard question to the wise), it was only because he was held able enough to be a counsellor-extraordinary for the indifference and negligence of his understanding, and consequent probability of doing no hurt, if no good; for why should not such prove the safest physicians to the body politic as well as they do to the natural? Or else some near friend or friend's friend helped him to the place, that engaged for his honesty and good behaviour in it. Howsoever, he is able to sit still and look wise according to his best skill and cunning, and, though he understand no reason, serve for one that does, and be most steadfastly of that opinion that is most like to prevail. If he be a great person, he is chosen, as aldermen are in the city, for being rich enough, and fines to be taken in as those do to be left out; and money being the measure of all things, it is sufficient to justify all his other talents and render them, like itself, good and current. As for wisdom and judgment, with those other out-of-fas.h.i.+oned qualifications which have been so highly esteemed heretofore, they have not been found to be so useful in this age, since it has invented scantlings for politics that will move with the strength of a child and yet carry matters of very great weight; and that raillery and fooling is proved by frequent experiments to be the more easy and certain way; for, as the Germans heretofore were observed to be wisest when they were drunk and knew not how to dissemble, so are our modern statesmen when they are mad and use no reserved cunning in their consultations; and as the Church of Rome and that of the Turks esteem ignorant persons the most devout, there seems no reason why this age, that seems to incline to the opinions of them both, should not as well believe them to be the most prudent and judicious; for heavenly wisdom does, by the confession of men, far exceed all the subtlety and prudence of this world. The heathen priests of old never delivered oracles but when they were drunk and mad or distracted, and who knows why our modern oracles may not as well use the same method in all their proceedings? Howsoever, he is as ably qualified to govern as that sort of opinion that is said to govern all the world, and is perpetually false and foolish; and if his opinions are always so, they have the fairer t.i.tle to their pretensions. He is sworn to advise no further than his skill and cunning will enable him, and the less he has of either the sooner he despatches his business, and despatch is no mean virtue in a statesman.

A DUKE OF BUCKS

Is one that has studied the whole body of vice. His parts are disproportionate to the whole, and, like a monster, he has more of some and less of others than he should have. He has pulled down all that fabric that Nature raised in him, and built himself up again after a model of his own. He has dammed up all those lights that Nature made into the n.o.blest prospects of the world, and opened other little blind loopholes backward by turning day into night and night into day. His appet.i.te to his pleasures is diseased and crazy, like the pica in a woman that longs to eat that which was never made for food, or a girl in the green sickness that eats chalk and mortar. Perpetual surfeits of pleasure have filled his mind with bad and vicious humours (as well as his body with a nursery of diseases), which makes him affect new and extravagant ways as being sick and tired with the old. Continual wine, women, and music put false values upon things which by custom become habitual, and debauch his understanding so that he retains no right notion nor sense of things; and as the same dose of the same physic has no operation on those that are much used to it, so his pleasures require a larger proportion of excess and variety to render him sensible of them. He rises, eats, and goes to bed by the Julian account, long after all others that go by the new style, and keeps the same hours with owls and the antipodes. He is a great observer of the Tartars' customs, and never eats till the great Cham, having dined, makes proclamation that all the world may go to dinner. He does not dwell in his house, but haunts it like an evil spirit that walks all night to disturb the family, and never appears by day. He lives perpetually benighted, runs out of his life, and loses his time, as men do their ways, in the dark; and as blind men are led by their dogs, so is he governed by some mean servant or other that relates to his pleasures. He is as inconstant as the moon which he lives under; and although he does nothing but advise with his pillow all day, he is as great a stranger to himself as he is to the rest of the world. His mind entertains all things very freely that come and go, but, like guests and strangers, they are not welcome if they stay long. This lays him open to all cheats, quacks, and impostors, who apply to every particular humour while it lasts, and afterwards vanish. Thus, with St. Paul, though in a different sense, he dies daily, and only lives in the night. He deforms Nature while he intends to adorn her, like Indians that hang jewels in their lips and noses. His ears are perpetually drilled with a fiddlestick. He endures pleasures with less patience than other men do their pains.

A FANTASTIC

Is one that wears his feather on the inside of his head. His brain is like quicksilver, apt to receive any impression but retain none. His mind is made of changeable stuff, that alters colour with every motion towards the light. He is a cormorant that has but one gut, devours everything greedily, but it runs through him immediately. He does not know so much as what he would be, and yet would be everything he knows.

He is like a paper-lantern, that turns with the smoke of a candle. He wears his clothes as the ancient laws of the land have provided, according to his quality, that he may be known what he is by them; and it is as easy to decipher him by his habit as a pudding. He is rigged with ribbon, and his garniture is his tackle; all the rest of him is hull. He is sure to be the earliest in the fas.h.i.+on, and lays out for it like the first peas and cherries. He is as proud of leading a fas.h.i.+on as others are of a faction, and glories as much to be in the head of a mode as a soldier does to be in the head of an army. He is admirably skilful in the mathematics of clothes, and can tell, at the first view, whether they have the right symmetry. He alters his gait with the times, and has not a motion of his body that (like a dottrel) he does not borrow from somebody else. He exercises his limbs like a pike and musket, and all his postures are practised. Take him altogether, and he is nothing but a translation, word for word, out of French, an image cast in plaster-of-Paris, and a puppet sent over for others to dress themselves by. He speaks French as pedants do Latin, to show his breeding, and most naturally where he is least understood. All his non-naturals, on which his health and diseases depend, are _stile nuovo_, French is his holiday language, that he wears for his pleasure and ornament, and uses English only for his business and necessary occasions. He is like a Scotchman; though he is born a subject of his own nation, he carries a French faction within him.

He is never quiet, but sits as the wind is said to do when it is most in motion. His head is as full of maggots as a pastoral poet's flock. He was begotten, like one of Pliny's Portuguese horses, by the wind. The truth is, he ought not to have been reared; for, being calved in the increase of the moon, his head is troubled with a ----

_N.B._--The last word not legible.

AN HARANGUER

Is one that is so delighted with the sweet sound of his own tongue, that William Prynne will sooner lend an ear than he to anything else. His measure of talk is till his wind is spent, and then he is not silenced, but becalmed. His ears have catched the itch of his tongue, and though he scratch them, like a beast with his hoof, he finds a pleasure in it.