Chapter 24

Is a volume of various conceits or epitome of time, who by his representation and appearance makes things long past seem present. He is much like the counters in arithmetic, and may stand one while for a king, another while a beggar, many times as a mute or cipher. Sometimes he represents that which in his life he scarce practises--to be an honest man. To the point, he oft personates a rover, and therein conies nearest to himself. If his action prefigure passion, he raves, rages, and protests much by his painted heavens, and seems in the height of this fit ready to pull Jove out of the garret where perchance he lies leaning on his elbows, or is employed to make squibs and crackers to grace the play. His audience are oftentimes judicious, but his chief admirers are commonly young wanton chambermaids, who are so taken with his posture and gay clothes, they never come to be their own women after. He exasperates men's enormities in public view, and tells them their faults on the stage, not as being sorry for them, but rather wishes still he might find more occasions to work on. He is the general corrupter of spirits yet untainted, inducing them by gradation to much lascivious depravity. He is a perspicuity of vanity in variety, and suggests youth to perpetrate such vices as otherwise they had haply ne'er heard of. He is (for the most part) a notable hypocrite, seeming what he is not, and is indeed what he seems not. And if he lose one of his fellow strolls, in the summer he turns king of the gipsies; if not, some great man's protection is a sufficient warrant for his peregrination, and a means to procure him the town-hall, where he may long exercise his qualities with clown-claps of great admiration, in a tone suitable to the large ears of his illiterate auditory. He is one seldom takes care for old age, because ill diet and disorder, together with a consumption or some worse disease taken up in his full career, have only chalked out his catastrophe but to a colon; and he scarcely survives to his natural period of days.

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_In_ 1631 _"Whimzies, or, A new Cast of Characters" inscribed to Sir Alexander Radcliffe by one who signed his dedication Clitus Alexandrinus, gave twenty-four Characters, of which this of the maker of a Courant or news sheet is one:--_

A CORRANTO-COINER

Is a state newsmonger; and his own genius is his intelligencer. His mint goes weekly, and he coins money by it. Howsoever, the more intelligent merchants do jeer him, the vulgar do admire him, holding his novels oracular; and these are usually sent for tokens or intermissive courtesies betwixt city and country. He holds most constantly one form or method of discourse. He retains some military words of art, which he shoots at random; no matter where they hit they cannot wound any. He ever leaves some passages doubtful, as if they were some more intimate secrecies of state, closing his sentence abruptly with--_hereafter you shall hear more._ Which words, I conceive, he only useth as baits, to make the appetite of the reader more eager in his next week's pursuit fora more satisfying labour. Some general-erring relations he picks up, as crumbs or fragments, from a frequented ordinary; of which shreds he shapes a coat to fit any credulous fool that will wear it. You shall never observe him make any reply in places of public concourse; he ingenuously acknowledges himself to be more bounden to the happiness of a retentive memory, than either ability of tongue or pregnancy of conceit. He carries his table-book still about with him, but dares not pull it out publicly. Yet no sooner is the table drawn than he turns notary, by which means he recovers the charge of his ordinary. Paul's is his walk in winter, Moorfields in summer, where the whole discipline, designs, projects, and exploits of the States, Netherlands, Poland, Switzer, Crimchan and all, are within the compass of one quadrangle walk most judiciously and punctually discovered. But long he must not walk, lest he make his news-press stand. Thanks to his good invention, he can collect much out of a very little; no matter though more experienced judgments disprove him, he is anonymous, and that will secure him. To make his reports more credible or (which he and his stationer only aims at) more vendible, in the relation of every occurrence he renders you the day of the month; and to approve himself a scholar, he annexeth these Latin parcels, or parcel-gilt sentences, _veteri stylo, novo stylo_. Palisados, parapets, counter-scarps, forts, fortresses, rampiers, bulwarks, are his usual dialect. He writes as if he would do some mischief, yet the charge of his shot is but paper. He will sometimes start in his sleep, as one affrighted with visions, which I can impute to no other cause but to the terrible skirmishes which he discoursed of in the daytime. He has now tied himself apprentice to the trade of minting, and must weekly perform his task, or (beside the loss which accrues to himself) he disappoints a number of no small fools, whose discourse, discipline, and discretion is drilled from his state-service. These you shall know by their Monday's mornings question, a little before exchange time: Stationer, have you any news? Which they no sooner purchase than peruse; and, early by next morning (lest their country friend should be deprived of the benefit of so rich a prize), they freely vent the substance of it, with some illustrations, if their understanding can furnish them that way. He would make you believe that he were known to some foreign intelligence, but I hold him the wisest man that hath the least faith to believe him. For his relations he stands resolute, whether they become approved or evinced for untruths; which if they be, he has contracted with his face never to blush for the matter. He holds especial concurrence with two philosophical sects, though he be ignorant of the tenets of either: in the collection of his observations he is peripatetical, for he walks circularly; in the digestion of his relations he is stoical, and sits regularly. He has an alphabetical table of all the chief commanders, generals, leaders, provincial towns, rivers, ports, creeks, with other fitting materials to furnish his imaginary building. Whisperings, mutterings, and bare suppositions are sufficient grounds for the authority of his relations. It is strange to see with what greediness this airy chameleon, being all lungs and wind, will swallow a receipt of news, as if it were physical; yea, with what frontless insinuation he will screw himself into the acquaintance of some knowing intelligencers, who, trying the cask by his hollow sound, do familiarly gull him. I am of opinion, were all his voluminous centuries of fabulous relations compiled, they would vie in number with the Iliads of many fore-running ages. You shall many times find in his gazettas, pasquils, and corrantos miserable distractions: here a city taken by force long before it be besieged; there a country laid waste before ever the enemy entered. He many times tortures his readers with impertinencies, yet are these the tolerablest passages throughout all his discourse. He is the very landscape of our age. He is all air; his ear always open to all reports, which, how incredible soever, must pass for current and find vent, purposely to get him current money and delude the vulgar. Yet our best comfort is, his chimeras live not long; a week is the longest in the city, and after their arrival, little longer in the country, which past they melt like butter, or match a pipe, and so burn. But indeed, most commonly it is the height of their ambition to aspire to the employment of stopping mustard-pots, or wrapping up pepper, powder, staves-aker, &c., which done, they expire. Now for his habit, Wapping and Long Lane will give him his character. He honours nothing with a more endeared observance, nor hugs ought with more intimacy, than antiquity, which he expresseth even in his clothes. I have known some love fish best that smelled of the pannier; and the like humour reigns in him, for he loves that apparel best that has a taste of the broker. Some have held him for a scholar, but trust me such are in a palpable error, for he never yet understood so much Latin as to construe _Gallo-Belgicus_. For his library (his own continuations excepted), it consists of very few or no books. He holds himself highly engaged to his invention if it can purchase him victuals; for authors, he never converseth with them, unless they walk in Paul's. For his discourse it is ordinary, yet he will make you a terrible repetition of desperate commanders, unheard-of exploits, intermixing withal his own personal service. But this is not in all companies, for his experience hath sufficiently informed him in this principle--that as nothing works more on the simple than things strange and incredibly rare, so nothing discovers his weakness more among the knowing and judicious than to insist, by way of discourse, on reports above conceit. Amongst these, therefore, he is as mute as a fish. But now imagine his lamp (if he be worth one) to be nearly burnt out, his inventing genius wearied and footsore with ranging over so many unknown regions, and himself wasted with the fruitless expense of much paper, resigning his place of weekly collections to another, whom, in hope of some little share, he has to his stationer recommended, while he lives either poorly respected or dies miserably suspended. The rest I end with his own close:--Next week you shall hear more.

_The other characters in "Whimzies" were an Almanac-maker, a Ballad-monger, a Decoy, an Exchange-man, a Forester, a Gamester, an Hospital-man, a Jailer, a Keeper, a Launderer, a Metal-man, a Neater, an Ostler, a Postmaster, a Quest-man, a Ruffian, a Sailor, a Traveller, an Under-Sheriff, a Wine-Soaker, a Xantippean, a Jealous Neighbour, a Zealous Brother. The collection was enlarged by addition under separate title-page of "A Cater-Character, thrown out of a box by an Experienced Gamester"-which gave Characters of an Apparitor, a Painter, a Pedlar, and a Piper. The author added also some lines "upon the Birthday of his sonne Iohn," beginning--

"God blesse thee, Iohn, And make thee such an one That I may joy In calling thee my son.

Thou art my ninth, And by it I divine That thou shalt live To love the Muses Nine."_

JOHN MILTON,

_when he was at college, ventured down among the Character-writers in his two pieces on the University Carrier. Thomas Hobson had been for sixty years carrier between Cambridge and the Bull Inn, Bishopsgate Street, London. He was a very well-known Cambridge character. Steele, in No. 509 of the "Spectator" ascribed to him the origin of the proverbial phrase, Hobson's Choice. "Being a man of great ability and invention, and one that saw where there might good profit arise, though the duller men overlooked it, this ingenious man was the first in this island who let out hackney-horses.'" [That is a mistake, but never mind.] "He lived in Cambridge; and, observing that the scholars rid hard, his manner was to keep a large stable of horses, with boots, bridles, and whips, to furnish the gentlemen at once, without going from college to college to borrow. I say, Mr. Hobson kept a stable of forty good cattle, always ready and fit for travelling; but, when a man came for a horse, he was led into the stable, where there was great choice; but he obliged him to take the horse which stood next the stable door; so that every customer was alike well served according to his chance, and every horse ridden with the same justice--from whence it became a proverb, when what ought to be your election was forced upon you, to say 'Hobson's Choice!'"

In the spring of 1630 the Plague in Cambridge caused colleges to be closed, and among other precautions against spread of infection, Hobson the Carrier was forbidden to go to and fro between Cambridge and London. At the end of the year, after six or seven, months of forced inaction, Hobson sickened; and he died on the first of January, at the age of eighty-six, leaving his family amply provided for, and money for the maintenance of the town conduit. At the Bull Inn in London there used to be a portrait of him with a money-bag under his arm.

Character-writing being in fashion many a character of the University Carrier was written, no doubt, by Cambridge men after Hobson's death at the beginning of the year_ 1631 _(new style). And these were Milton's. Their unlikeness to other work of his lies in their likeness to a form of literature which was but fashion of the day, and having travelled out of sight of its old starting-point and forgotten where its true goal lay, had gone astray, and often by idolatry of wit sinned against wisdom._

ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER,

_Who sickened in the time of his Vacancy, being forbid to go to London by reason of the Plague._

Here lies old Hobson. Death hath broke his girt, And here, alas, hath laid him in the dirt; Or else, the ways being foul, twenty to one He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown. 'Twas such a shifter that, if truth were known, Death was half glad when he had got him down; For he had any time this ten years full Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and _The Bull_, And surely Death could never have prevailed Had not his weekly course of carriage failed: But lately, finding him so long at home, And thinking now his journey's end was come, And that he had ta'en up his latest inn, In the kind office of a chamberlin Showed him his room where he must lodge that night, Pulled off his boots, and took away the light. If any ask for him, it shall be said, "Hobson has supped, and's newly gone to bed."

ANOTHER ON THE SAME.

Here lieth one that did most truly prove That he could never die while he could move; So hung his destiny, never to rot While he might still jog on and keep his trot; Made of sphere-metal, never to decay Until his revolution was at stay. Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime 'Gainst old truth) motion numbered out his time; And, like an engine moved with wheel and weight, His principles being ceased, he ended straight. Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death, And too much breathing put him out of breath; Nor were it contradiction to affirm Too long vacation hastened on his term. Merely to drive the time away he sickened, Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quickened. "Nay," quoth he, on his swooning-bed outstretched, "If I mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetched, But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers, For one carrier put down to make six bearers." Ease was his chief disease; and, to judge right, He died for heaviness that his cart went light. His leisure told him that his time was come, And lack of load made his life burdensome, That even to his last breath (there be that say't) As he were pressed to death, he cried. "More weight!" But, had his doings lasted as they were, He had been an immortal carrier. Obedient to the moon he spent his date In course reciprocal, and had his fate Linked to the mutual flowing of the seas; Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase. His letters are delivered all and gone, Only remains the superscription.

_How very sure we should all be that Milton did not write these pieces, if he had not given them a place among his published works! Returning to the crowd of Character-writers we find in 1631, the year of Milton's writing upon Hobson,_

WYE SALTONSTALL,

_author of "Pictures Loquentes, or Pictures drawn forth in Characters. With a Poeme of a Maid" The poem of a Maid was, of course, suggested by the fact that Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters had joined to them the poem of a Wife. There was a second edition in 1635. Saltonstall's Characters were the World, an Old Man, a Woman, a Widow, a True Lover, a Country Bride, a Ploughman, a Melancholy Man, a Young Heir, a Scholar in the University, a Lawyers Clerk, a Townsman in Oxford, an Usurer, a Wandering Rogue, a Waterman, a Shepherd, a Jealous Man, a Chamberlain, a Maid, a Bailey, a Country Fair, a Country Ale-house, a Horse Race, a Farmer's Daughter, a Keeper, a Gentleman's House in the Country; to which he added in the second edition, a Fine Dame, a Country Dame, a Gardener, a Captain, a Poor Village, a Merry Man, a Scrivener, the Term, a Mower, a Happy Man, an Arrant Knave, and an Old Waiting Gentlewoman. This is one of his Characters as quoted by Philip Bliss in the Appendix to his edition of Earle_--

THE TERM

Is a time when Justice keeps open court for all comers, while her sister Equity strives to mitigate the rigour of her positive sentence. It is called the term, because it does end and terminate business, or else because it is the _Terminus ad quem_, that is, the end of the countryman's journey, who comes up to the term, and with his hobnail shoes grinds the faces of the poor stones, and so returns again. It is the soul of the year, and makes it quick, which before was dead. Innkeepers gape for it as earnestly as shell-fish do for salt water after a low ebb. It sends forth new books into the world, and replenishes Paul's Walk with fresh company, where _Quid novi_? is their first salutation, and the weekly news their chief discourse. The taverns are painted against the term, and many a cause is argued there and tried at that bar, where you are adjudged to pay the costs and charges, and so dismissed with "welcome, gentlemen." Now the city puts her best side outward, and a new play at the Blackfriars is attended on with coaches. It keeps watermen from sinking, and helps them with many a fare voyage to Westminster. Tour choice beauties come up to it only to see and be seen, and to learn the newest fashion, and for some other recreations. Now many that have been long sick and crazy begins to stir and walk abroad, especially if some young prodigals come to town, who bring more money than wit. Lastly, the term is the joy of the city, a dear friend to countrymen, and is never more welcome than after a long vacation.

_We have also, in 1632, "London and Country Carbonadoed and Quartered into Several Characters" by Donald Lupton; in 1633, the "Character of a Gentleman" appended to Brathwaif's "English Gentleman;" in 1634, "A strange Metamorphosis of Man, transformed into a Wilderness, Deciphered in Characters" of which this is a specimen_:--

THE HORSE

Is a creature made, as it were, in wax. When Nature first framed him, she took a secret complacence in her work. He is even her masterpiece in irrational things, borrowing somewhat of all things to set him forth. For example, his slick bay coat he took from the chestnut; his neck from the rainbow, which perhaps make him rain so well. His mane belike he took from Pegasus, making him a hobby to make this a complete jennet, which mane he wears so curled, much after the women's fashions now-a-days;--this I am sure of, howsoever, it becomes them, [and] it sets forth our jennet well. His legs he borrowed of the hart, with his swiftness, which makes him a true courser indeed. The stars in his forehead he fetched from heaven, which will not be much missed, there being so many. The little head he hath, broad breast, fat buttock, and thick tail are properly his own, for he knew not where to get him better. If you tell him of the horns he wants to make him most complete, he scorns the motion, and sets them at his heel. He is well shod, especially in the upper leather, for as for his soles, they are much at reparation, and often fain to be removed. Nature seems to have spent an apprenticeship of years to make you such a one, for it is full seven years ere he comes to this perfection, and be fit for the saddle: for then (as we), it seems to come to the years of discretion, when he will show a kind of rational judgment with him, and if you set an expert rider on his back, you shall see how sensible they will talk together, as master and scholar. When he shall be no sooner mounted and planted in the seat, with the reins in one hand, a switch in the other, and speaking with his spurs in the horse's flanks, a language he well understands, but he shall prance, curvet, and dance the canaries half an hour together in compass of a bushel, and yet still, as he thinks, get some ground, shaking the goodly plume on his head with a comely pride. This will our Bucephalus do in the lists: but when he comes abroad into the fields, he will play the country gentleman as truly, as before the knight in tournament. If the game be up once, and the hounds in chase, you shall see how he will prick up his ears straight, and tickle at the sport as much as his rider shall, and laugh so loud, that if there be many of them, they will even drown the rural harmony of the dogs. When he travels, of all inns he loves best the sign of the silver bell, because likely there he fares best, especially if he come the first and get the prize. He carries his ears upright, nor seldom ever lets them fall till they be cropped off, and after that, as in despite, will never wear them more. His tail is so essential to him, that if he lose it once he is no longer a horse, but ever styled a curtali. To conclude, he is a blade of Vulcan's forging, made for Mars of the best metal, and the post of Fame to carry her tidings through the world, who, if he knew his own strength, would shrewdly put for the monarchy of our wilderness.

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_Then there-were separate Characters, as "of a Projector" (1642); "of an Oxford Incendiary" (1645); and in 1664, "A New Anatomic, or Character of a Christian or Roundhead, expressing his Description, Excellenrie, Happiness, and Innocencie. Wherein may appear how far this blind World is mistaken in their unjust Censures of him." Several Characters were included in Lord North's "Forest of Varieties" published in 1645. Fourteen Characters, some of individual persons, were in the "Characters and Elegies, by Sir Francis Wortley, Knight and Baronet" published in 1646. The author was son of Sir Richard Wortley of Wortley in Yorkshire. He was a good royalist, was taken prisoner in the civil wars, and wrote his Characters in the Tower. They were these:--The Character of his Roy all Majestie; the Character of the Queene's Majestie; the Hopeful Prince; a true Character of the illustrious James, Duke of York; the Character of a Noble General; a true English Protestant; an Antinomian, or Anabaptistical Independent; a Jesuit; the true Character of a Northern Lady, as she is Wife, Mother, and Sister; the Politique Neuter; the Citie Paragon; a Sharking Committee-man; Britannicus his Pedigree --afatall Prediction of his end; and last, the Phoenix of the Court.

In 1646, T. F., who is named by interlineation on his title-page among the King's Pamphlets, T. Ford, servant to Mr. Sam. Man, produced the "Times Anatomized, in several Characters." These were: A Good King, Rebellion, an Honest Subject, an Hypocritical Convert of the Times, a Soldier of Fortune, a Discontented Person, an Ambitious Man, the Vulgar, Error, Truth, a Self-seeker, Pamphlets, an Envious Man, True Valour, Time, a Neuter, a Turn-Coat, a Moderate Man, a Corrupt Committee-man, a Sectary, War, Peace, a Drunkard, a Novice, Preacher, a Scandalous Preacher, a Grave Divine, a Self-Conceited Man, Religion, Death. This is T. Ford's Character of Pamphlets--_

PAMPHLETS