Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century Part 4

At meals he sits in as great state over his penny commons as ever Vitellius did at his greatest banquet, and takes great delight in comparing his fare to my Lord Mayor's.

If he be a leader of a faction, he thinks himself greater than ever Caesar was or the Turk at this day is. And he had rather lose an inheritance than an office when he stands for it.

If he be to travel, he is longer furnis.h.i.+ng himself for a five miles'

journey than a s.h.i.+p is rigging for a seven years' voyage. He is never more troubled than when he has to maintain talk with a gentlewoman, wherein he commits more absurdities than a clown in eating of an egg.

He thinks himself as fine when he is in a clean band and a new pair of shoes, as any courtier doth when he is first in a new fas.h.i.+on.

Lastly, he is one that respects no man in the university, and is respected by no man out of it.

A WORTHY COMMANDER IN THE WARS

Is one that accounts learning the nourishment of military virtue, and lays that as his first foundation. He never bloodies his sword but in heat of battle, and had rather save one of his own soldiers than kill ten of his enemies. He accounts it an idle, vainglorious, and suspected bounty to be full of good words; his rewarding, therefore, of the deserver arrives so timely, that his liberality can never be said to be gouty-handed. He holds it next his creed that no coward can be an honest man, and dare die in it. He doth not think, his body yields a more spreading shadow after a victory than before; and when he looks upon his enemy's dead body 'tis a kind of n.o.ble heaviness--no insultation. He is so honourably merciful to women in surprisal, that only that makes him an excellent courtier. He knows the hazard of battles, not the pomp of ceremonies, are soldiers' best theatres, and strives to gain reputation, not by the mult.i.tude but by the greatness of his actions. He is the first in giving the charge and the last in retiring his foot. Equal toil he endures with the common soldier; from his examples they all take fire, as one torch lights many. He understands in war there is no mean to err twice, the first and last fault being sufficient to ruin an army: faults, therefore, he pardons none; they that are precedents of disorder or mutiny repair it by being examples of his justice. Besiege him never so strictly, so long as the air is not cut from him, his heart faints not. He hath learned as well to make use of a victory as to get it, and pursuing his enemies like a whirlwind, carries all before him; being a.s.sured if ever a man will benefit himself upon his foe, then is the time when they have lost force, wisdom, courage, and reputation. The goodness of his cause is the special motive to his valour; never is he known to slight the weakest enemy that comes armed against him in the band of justice. Hasty and overmuch heat he accounts the step-dame to all great actions that will not suffer them to drive; if he cannot overcome his enemy by force, he does it by time. If ever he shake hands with war, he can die more calmly than most courtiers, for his continual dangers have been, as it were, so many meditations of death. He thinks not out of his own calling when he accounts life a continual warfare, and his prayers then best become him when armed _cap-a-fie_. He utters them like the great Hebrew general, on horseback. He casts a smiling contempt upon calumny; it meets him as if gla.s.s should encounter adamant. He thinks war is never to be given o'er, but on one of these three conditions: an a.s.sured peace, absolute victory, or an honest death. Lastly, when peace folds him up, his silver head should lean near the golden sceptre and die in his prince's bosom.

A VAINGLORIOUS COWARD IN COMMAND

Is one that hath bought his place, or come to it by some n.o.bleman's letter. He loves alive dead pays, yet wishes they may rather happen in his company by the scurvy than by a battle. View him at a muster, and he goes with such a nose as if his body were the wheelbarrow that carried his judgment rumbling to drill his soldiers. No man can worse design between pride and n.o.ble courtesy. He that salutes him not, so far as a pistol carries level, gives him the disgust or affront, choose you whether. He trains by the book, and reckons so many postures of the pike and musket as if he were counting at noddy. When he comes at first upon a camisado, he looks, like the four winds in painting, as if he would blow away the enemy; but at the very first onset suffers fear and trembling to dress themselves in his face apparently. He scorns any man should take place before him, yet at the entering of a breach he hath been so humble-minded as to let his lieutenant lead his troops for him.

He is so sure armed for taking hurt that he seldom does any; and while he is putting on his arms, he is thinking what sum he can make to satisfy his ransom. He will rail openly against all the great commanders of the adverse party, yet in his own conscience allows them for better men. Such is the nature of his fear that, contrary to all other filthy qualities, it makes him think better of another man than himself. The first part of him that is set a running is his eye-sight; when that is once struck with terror all the costive physic in the world cannot stay him. If ever he do anything beyond his own heart 'tis for a knighthood, and he is the first kneels for it without bidding.

A PIRATE,

Truly defined, is a bold traitor, for he fortifies a castle against the king. Give him sea-room in never so small a vessel, and like a witch in a sieve, you would think he were going to make merry with the devil. Of all callings his is the most desperate, for he will not leave off his thieving, though he be in a narrow prison, and look every day, by tempest or fight, for execution. He is one plague the devil hath added to make the sea more terrible than a storm, and his heart is so hardened in that rugged element that he cannot repent, though he view his grave before him continually open. He hath so little of his own that the house he sleeps in is stolen: all the necessities of life he filches but one; he cannot steal a sound sleep for his troubled conscience. He is very gentle to those under him, yet his rule is the horriblest tyranny in the world, for he gives licence to all rape, murder, and cruelty in his own example. What he gets is small use to him, only lives by it somewhat the longer to do a little more service to his belly, for he throws away his treasure upon the sh.o.r.e in riot, as if he cast it into the sea. He is a cruel hawk that flies at all but his own kind; and as a whale never comes ash.o.r.e but when she is wounded, so he very seldom but for his necessities. He is the merchant's book that serves only to reckon up his losses, a perpetual plague to n.o.ble traffic, the hurricane of the sea, and the earthquake of the exchange. Yet for all this give him but his pardon and forgive him rest.i.tution, he may live to know the inside of a church, and die on this side Wapping.

AN ORDINARY FENCER

Is a fellow that, beside shaving of cudgels, hath a good insight into the world, for he hath long been beaten to it. Flesh and blood he is like other men, but surely nature meant him stockfish. His and a dancing-school are inseparable adjuncts, and are bound, though both stink of sweat most abominable, neither shall complain of annoyance.

Three large bavins set up his trade, with a bench, which, in the vacation of the afternoon, he used for his day-bed. When he comes on the stage at his prize he makes a leg seven several ways, and scrambles for money, as if he had been born at the Bath in Somersets.h.i.+re. At his challenge he shows his metal, for, contrary to all rules of physic, he dares bleed, though it be in the dog-days. He teaches devilish play in his school, but when he fights himself he doth it in the fear of a good Christian; he compounds quarrels among his scholars, and when he hath brought the business to a good upshot he makes the reckoning. His wounds are seldom above skin deep; for an inward bruise lamb-stones and sweetbreads are his only spermaceti, which he eats at night next his heart fasting. Strange schoolmasters they are that every day set a man as far backward as he went forward, and throwing him into a strange posture, teach him to thresh satisfaction out of injury. One sign of a good nature is that he is still open-breasted to his friends; for his foil and his doublet wear not out above two b.u.t.tons, and resolute he is, for he so much scorns to take blows that he never wears cuffs; and he lives better contented with a little than other men, for if he have two eyes in his head he thinks nature hath overdone him. The Lord Mayor's triumph makes him a man, for that's his best time to flourish. Lastly, these fencers are such things that care not if all the world were ignorant of more letters than only to read their patent.

A PUNY CLERK.

He is taken from grammar-school half coddled, and can hardly shake off his dreams of breeching in a twelvemonth. He is a farmer's son, and his father's utmost ambition is to make him an attorney. He doth itch towards a poet, and greases his breeches extremely with feeding without a napkin. He studies false dice to cheat costermongers. He eats gingerbread at a playhouse, and is so saucy that he ventures fairly for a broken pate at the banqueting-house, and hath it. He would never come to have any wit but for a long vacation, for that makes him bethink him how he shall s.h.i.+ft another day. He prays hotly against fasting, and so he may sup well on Friday nights, he cares not though his master be a puritan. He practices to make the words in his declaration spread as a sewer doth the dishes of a n.i.g.g.ard's table; a clerk of a swooping dash is as commendable as a Flanders horse of a large tail. Though you be never so much delayed you must not call his master knave, that makes him go beyond himself, and write a challenge in court hand, for it may be his own another day These are some certain of his liberal faculties; but in the term time his clog is a buckram bag. Lastly, which is great pity, he never comes to his full growth, with bearing on his shoulder the sinful burden of his master at several courts in Westminster.

A FOOTMAN.

Let him be never so well made, yet his legs are not matches, for he is still setting the best foot forward. He will never be a staid man, for he has had a running head of his own ever since his childhood. His mother, which out of question was a light-heeled wench, knew it, yet let him run his race thinking age would reclaim him from his wild courses.

He is very long-winded, and without doubt but that he hates naturally to serve on horseback, he had proved an excellent trumpet. He has one happiness above all the rest of the serving-men, for when he most overreaches his master he is best thought of. He lives more by his own heat than the warmth of clothes, and the waiting-woman hath the greatest fancy to him when he is in his close trouses. Guards he wears none, which makes him live more upright than any cross-gartered gentleman-usher. 'Tis impossible to draw his picture to the life, because a man must take it as he's running, only this, horses are usually let blood on St. Steven's Day. On St. Patrick's he takes rest, and is drenched for all the year after.

A n.o.bLE AND RETIRED HOUSEKEEPER

Is one whose bounty is limited by reason, not ostentation; and to make it last he deals it discreetly, as we sow the furrow, not by the sack, but by the handful. His word and his meaning never shake hands and part, but always go together. He can survey good and love it, and loves to do it himself for its own sake, not for thanks. He knows there is no such misery as to outlive good name, nor no such folly as to put it in practice. His mind is so secure that thunder rocks him asleep, which breaks other men's slumbers; n.o.bility lightens in his eyes, and in his face and gesture is painted the G.o.d of hospitality. His great houses bear in their front more durance than state, unless this add the greater state to them, that they promise to outlast much of our new fantastical buildings. His heart never grows old, no more than his memory, whether at his book or on horseback. He pa.s.seth his time in such n.o.ble exercise, a man cannot say any time is lost by him; nor hath he only years to approve he hath lived till he be old, but virtues. His thoughts have a high aim, though their dwelling be in the vale of an humble heart, whence, as by an engine (that raises water to fall that it may rise the higher), he is heightened in his humility. The adamant serves not for all seas, but this doth; for he hath, as it were, put a gird about the whole world and found all her quicksands. He hath this hand over fortune, that her injuries, how violent or sudden soever, they do not daunt him; for whether his time call him to live or die, he can do both n.o.bly; if to fall, his descent is breast to breast with virtue; and even then, like the sun near his set, he shows unto the world his clearest countenance.

AN INTRUDER INTO FAVOUR

Is one that builds his reputation on others' infamy, for slander is most commonly his morning prayer. His pa.s.sions are guided by pride and followed by injustice. An inflexible anger against some poor tutor he falsely calls a courageous constancy, and thinks the best part of gravity to consist in a ruffled forehead. He is the most slavishly submissive, though envious to those that are in better place than himself; and knows the art of words so well that (for shrouding dishonesty under a fair pretext) he seems to preserve mud in crystal.

Like a man of a kind nature, he is the first good to himself, in the next file to his French tailor, that gives him all his perfection; for indeed, like an estridge, or bird of paradise, his feathers are more worth than his body. If ever he do good deed (which is very seldom) his own mouth is the chronicle of it, lest it should die forgotten. His whole body goes all upon screws, and his face is the vice that moves them. If his patron be given to music, he opens his chops and sings, or with a wry neck falls to tuning his instrument; if that fail, he takes the height of his lord with a hawking pole. He follows the man's fortune, not the man, seeking thereby to increase his own. He pretends he is most undeservedly envied, and cries out, remembering the game, chess, that a p.a.w.n before a king is most played on. Debts he owns none but shrewd turns, and those he pays ere he be sued. He is a flattering gla.s.s to conceal age and wrinkles. He is mountain's monkey that, climbing a tree and skipping from bough to bough, gives you back his face; but come once to the top, he holds his nose up into the wind and shows you his tail. Yet all this gay glitter shows on him as if the sun shone in a puddle, for he is a small wine that will not last; and when he is falling, he goes of himself faster than misery can drive him.

A FAIR AND HAPPY MILKMAID

Is a country wench, that is so far from making herself beautiful by art, that one look of hers is able to put all face physic out of countenance.

She knows a fair look is but a dumb orator to commend virtue, therefore minds it not. All her excellences stand in her so silently, as if they had stolen upon her without her knowledge. The lining of her apparel (which is herself) is far better than outsides of tissue; for though she be not arrayed in the spoil of the silk-worm, she is decked in innocency, a far better wearing. She doth not, with lying long a-bed, spoil both her complexion and conditions; Nature hath taught her too immoderate sleep is rust to the soul; she rises therefore with chanticleer, her dame's c.o.c.k, and at night makes lamb her curfew. In milking a cow and straining the teats through her fingers, it seems that so sweet a milk-press makes the milk the whiter or sweeter; for never came almond glove or aromatic ointment off her palm to taint it. The golden ears of corn fall and kiss her feet when she reaps them, as if they wished to be bound and led prisoners by the same hand that felled them. Her breath is her own, which scents all the year long of June, like a new made hayc.o.c.k. She makes her hand hard with labour, and her heart soft with pity; and when winter's evenings fall early (sitting at her merry wheel) she sings a defiance to the giddy wheel of fortune. She doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not suffer her to do ill, because her mind is to do well. She bestows her year's wages at next fair; and, in choosing her garments, counts no bravery in the world like decency. The garden and beehive are all her physic and chirurgery, and she lives the longer for it. She dares go alone and unfold sheep in the night, and fears no manner of ill because she means none; yet, to say truth, she is never alone, for she is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones; yet they have their efficacy, in that they are not palled with ensuing idle cogitations. Lastly, her dreams are so chaste that she dare tell them: only a Friday's dream is all her superst.i.tion; that she conceals for fear of anger. Thus lives she, and all her care is that she may die in the spring-time, to have store of flowers stuck upon her winding-sheet.

AN ARRANT HORSE-COURSER

Hath the trick to blow up horse-flesh, as the butcher doth veal, which shall wash out again in twice riding betwixt Waltham and London. The trade of spur-making had decayed long since, but for this unG.o.dly tireman. He is cursed all over the four ancient highways of England; none but the blind men that sell switches in the road are beholding to him. His stable is filled with so many diseases, one would think most part about Smithfield was an hospital for horses, or a slaughter-house of the common hunt. Let him furnish you with a hackney, it is as much as if the King's warrant overtook you within ten miles to stay your journey. And though a man cannot say he cozens you directly, yet any hostler within ten miles, should he be brought upon his book-oath, will affirm he hath laid a bait for you. Resolve when you first stretch yourself in the stirrups, you are put as it were upon some usurer that will never bear with you past his day. He were good to make one that had the colic alight often, and, if example will cause him, make urine; let him only for that say, Grammercy horse. For his sale of horses, he hath false covers for all manner of diseases, only comes short of one thing (which he despairs not utterly to bring to perfection), to make a horse go on a wooden leg and two crutches. For powdering his ears with quicksilver, and giving him suppositories of live eels, he is expert.

All the while you are cheapening, he fears you will not bite; but he laughs in his sleeve when he hath cozened you in earnest. Frenchmen are his best chapmen; he keeps amblers for them on purpose, and knows he can deceive them very easily. He is so constant to his trade that, while he is awake, he tries any man he talks with, and when he is asleep he dreams very fearfully of the paving of Smithfield, for he knows it would founder his occupation.

A ROARING BOY.

His life is a mere counterfeit patent, which, nevertheless, makes many a country justice tremble. Don Quixote's water-mills are still Scotch bagpipes to him. He sends challenges by word of mouth, for he protests (as he is a gentleman and a brother of the sword) he can neither write nor read. He hath run through divers parcels of land, and great houses, beside both the counters. If any private quarrel happen among our great courtiers, he proclaims the business--that's the word, the business--as if the united force of the Romish Catholics were making up for Germany.

He cheats young gulls that are newly come to town; and when the keeper of the ordinary blames him for it he answers him in his own profession, that a woodc.o.c.k must be plucked ere he be dressed. He is a supervisor to brothels, and in them is a more unlawful reformer of vice than prentices on Shrove-Tuesday. He loves his friend as a counsellor at law loves the velvet breeches he was first made barrister in, he will be sure to wear him threadbare ere he forsake him. He sleeps with a tobacco-pipe in his mouth; and his first prayer in the morning is he may remember whom he fell out with over night. Soldier he is none, for he cannot distinguish between onion-seed and gunpowder; if he have worn it in his hollow tooth for the toothache and so come to the knowledge of it, that is all. The tenure by which he holds his means is an estate at will, and that's borrowing. Landlords have but four quarter-days, but he three hundred and odd. He keeps very good company, yet is a man of no reckoning; and when he goes not drunk to bed he is very sick next morning. He commonly dies like Anacreon, with a grape in his throat; or Hercules, with fire in his marrow. And I have heard of some that have escaped hanging begged for anatomies, only to deter man from taking tobacco.

A DRUNKEN DUTCHMAN RESIDENT IN ENGLAND

Is but a quarter-master with his wife. He stinks of b.u.t.ter as if he were anointed all over for the itch. Let him come over never so lean, and plant him but one month near the brew-houses in St Catherine's, and he will be puffed up to your hand like a bloat herring. Of all places of pleasure he loves a common garden, and with the swine of the parish had need be ringed for rooting. Next to these he affects lotteries naturally, and bequeaths the best prize in his will aforehand; when his hopes fall he's blank. They swarm in great tenements like flies; six households will live in a garret. He was wont, only to make us fools, to buy the fox skin for threepence, and sell the tail for a s.h.i.+lling. Now his new trade of brewing strong waters makes a number of madmen. He loves a Welshman extremely for his diet and orthography; that is, for plurality of consonants, and cheese. Like a horse, he is only guided by the mouth; when he's drunk you may thrust your hand into him like an eel's-skin, and strip him, his inside outwards. He h.o.a.rds up fair gold, and pretends 'tis to seethe in his wife's broth for consumption; and loves the memory of King Henry the Eighth, most especially for his old sovereigns. He says we are unwise to lament the decay of timber in England; for all manner of buildings or fortification whatsoever, he desires no other thing in the world than barrels and hop-poles. To conclude, the only two plagues he trembles at is small beer and the Spanish Inquisition.

A PHANTASTIQUE: AN IMPROVIDENT YOUNG GALLANT,

There is a confederacy between him and his clothes, to be made a puppy: view him well and you will say his gentry sits as ill upon him as if he had bought it with his penny. He hath more places to send money to than the devil hath to send his spirits; and to furnish each mistress would make him run besides his wits, if he had any to lose. He accounts bashfulness the wickedest thing in the world, and therefore studies impudence. If all men were of his mind all honesty would be out of fas.h.i.+on. He withers his clothes on a stage, as a saleman is forced to do his suits in Birchin Lane; and when the play is done, if you mark his rising, 'tis with a kind of walking epilogue between the two candles, to know if his suit may pa.s.s for current. He studies by the discretion of his barber, to frizzle like a baboon; three such would keep three the nimblest barbers in the town from ever having leisure to wear net-garters, for when they have to do with him, they have many irons in the fire. He is travelled, but to little purpose; only went over for a squirt and came back again, yet never the more mended in his conditions, because he carried himself along with him. A scholar he pretends himself, and says he hath sweat for it, but the truth is he knows Cornelius far better than Tacitus. His ordinary sports are c.o.c.k-fights, but the most frequent, horse-races, from whence he comes home dry-foundered. Thus when his purse hath cast her calf he goes down into the country, where he is brought to milk and white cheese like the Switzers.

A b.u.t.tON-MAKER OF AMSTERDAM