Chapter 29

Is a well-willer to the mathematics; he pursues knowledge rather out of humour than ingenuity, and endeavours rather to seem than to be. He has nothing of nature but an inclination, which he strives to improve with industry; but as no art can make a fountain run higher than its own head, so nothing can raise him above the elevation of his own pole. He seldom converses but with men of his own tendency, and wheresoever he comes treats with all men as such; for as country gentlemen use to talk of their dogs to those that hate hunting because they love it themselves, so will he of his arts and sciences to those that neither know nor care to know anything of them. His industry were admirable if it did not attempt the greatest difficulties with the feeblest means; for he commonly slights anything that is plain and easy, how useful and ingenious soever, and bends all his forces against the hardest and most improbable, though to no purpose if attained to; for neither knowing how to measure his own abilities nor the weight of what he attempts, he spends his little strength in vain and grows only weaker by it; and as men use to blind horses that draw in a mill, his ignorance of himself and his undertakings makes him believe he has advanced when he is no nearer to his end than when he set out first. The bravery of difficulties does so dazzle his eyes that he prosecutes them with as little success as the tailor did his amours to Queen Elizabeth. He differs from a pedant as things do from words, for he uses the same affectation in his operations and experiments as the other does in language. He is a haberdasher of small arts and sciences, and deals in as many several operations as a baby artificer does in engines. He will serve well enough for an index to tell what is handled in the world, but no further. He is wonderfully delighted with rarities, and they continue still so to him though he has shown them a thousand times, for every new admirer that gapes upon them sets him a-gaping too. Next these he loves strange natural histories; and as those that read romances, though they know them to be fictions, are as much affected as if they were true, so is he, and will make hard shift to tempt himself to believe them first to be possible, and then he's sure to believe them to be true, forgetting that belief upon belief is false heraldry. He keeps a catalogue of the names of all famous men in any profession, whom he often takes occasion to mention as his very good friends and old acquaintances. Nothing is more pedantic than to seem too much concerned about wit or knowledge, to talk much of it, and appear too critical in it. All he can possibly arrive to is but like the monkeys dancing on the rope, to make men wonder how 'tis possible for art to put nature so much out of her play.

His learning is like those letters on a coach, where, many being writ together, no one appears plain. When the King happens to be at the university and degrees run like wine in conduits at public triumphs, he is sure to have his share; and though he be as free to choose his learning as his faculty, yet, like St. Austin's soul, _Creando infunditur, infundendo creatur_. Nero was the first emperor of his calling, though it be not much for his credit. He is like an elephant that, though he cannot swim, yet of all creatures most delights to walk along a river's side; and as, in law, things that appear not and things that are not are all one, so he had rather not be than not appear. The top of his ambition is to have his picture graved in brass and published upon walls, if he has no work of his own to face with it. His want of judgment inclines him naturally to the most extravagant undertakings, like that of making old dogs young, telling how many persons there are in a room by knocking at a door, stopping up of words in bottles, &c. He is like his books, that contain much knowledge, but know nothing themselves. He is but an index of things and words, that can direct where they are to be spoken with, but no farther. He appears a great man among the ignorant, and, like a figure in arithmetic, is so much the more as it stands before ciphers that are nothing of themselves. He calls himself an antisocordist, a name unknown to former ages, but spawned by the pedantry of the present. He delights most in attempting things beyond his reach, and the greater distance he shoots at, the farther he is sure to be off his mark. He shows his parts as drawers do a room at a tavern, to entertain them at the expense of their time and patience. He inverts the moral of that fable of him that caressed his dog for fawning and leaping up upon him and beat his ass for doing the same thing, for it is all one to him whether he be applauded by an ass or a wiser creature, so he be but applauded.

AN INTELLIGENCER

Would give a penny for any statesman's thought at any time. He travels abroad to guess what princes are designing by seeing them at church or dinner, and will undertake to unriddle a government at first sight, and tell what plots she goes with, male or female; and discover, like a mountebank, only by seeing the public face of affairs, what private marks there are in the most secret parts of the body politic. He is so ready at reasons of State, that he has them, like a lesson, by rote; but as charlatans make diseases fit their medicines, and not their medicines diseases, so he makes all public affairs conform to his own established reason of State, and not his reason, though the case alter ever so much, comply with them. He thinks to obtain a great insight into State affairs by observing only the outside pretences and appearances of things, which are seldom or never true, and may be resolved several ways, all equally probable; and therefore his penetrations into these matters are like the penetrations of cold into natural bodies, without any sense of itself or the thing it works upon. For all his discoveries in the end amount only to entries and equipages, addresses, audiences, and visits, with other such politic speculations as the rabble in the streets is wont to entertain itself withal. Nevertheless he is very cautious not to omit his cipher, though he writes nothing but what every one does or may safely know, for otherwise it would appear to be no secret. He endeavours to reduce all his politics into maxims, as being most easily portable for a travelling head, though, as they are for the most part of slight matters, they are but like spirits drawn out of water, insipid and good for nothing. His letters are a kind of bills of exchange, in which he draws news and politics upon all his correspondents, who place it to account, and draw it back again upon him; and though it be false, neither cheats the other, for it passes between both for good and sufficient pay. If he drives an inland trade, he is factor to certain remote country virtuosos, who, finding themselves unsatisfied with the brevity of the _Gazette_, desire to have exceedings of news besides their ordinary commons. To furnish those, he frequents clubs and coffee-houses, the markets of news, where he engrosses all he can light upon; and if that do not prove sufficient, he is forced to add a lie or two of his own making, which does him double service; for it does not only supply his occasions for the present, but furnishes him with matter to fill up gaps in the next letter with retracting what he wrote before, and in the meantime has served for as good news as the best; and when the novelty is over it is no matter what becomes of it, for he is better paid for it than if it were true.

A QUIBBLER

Is a juggler of words, that shows tricks with them, to make them appear what they were not meant for and serve two senses at once, like one that plays on two Jew's trumps. He is a fencer of language, that falsifies his blow and hits where he did not aim. He has a foolish sleight of wit that catches at words only and lets the sense go, like the young thief in the farce that took a purse, but gave the owner his money back again. He is so well versed in all cases of quibble, that he knows when there will be a blot upon a word as soon as it is out. He packs his quibbles like a stock of cards; let him but shuffle, and cut where you will, he will be sure to have it. He dances on a rope of sand, does the somersault, strappado, and half-strappado with words, plays at all manner of games with clinches, carwickets, and quibbles, and talks under-leg. His wit is left-handed, and therefore what others mean for right he apprehends quite contrary. All his conceptions are produced by equivocal generation, which makes them justly esteemed but maggots. He rings the changes upon words, and is so expert that he can tell at first sight how many variations any number of words will bear. He talks with a trillo, and gives his words a double relish. He had rather have them bear two senses in vain and impertinently than one to the purpose, and never speaks without a leer-sense. He talks nothing but equivocation and mental reservation, and mightily affects to give a word a double stroke, like a tennis-ball against two walls at one blow, to defeat the expectation of his antagonist. He commonly slurs every fourth or fifth word, and seldom fails to throw doublets. There are two sorts of quibbling, the one with words and the other with sense, like the rhetorician's _figurae dictionis et figurae sententiae_--the first is already cried down, and the other as yet prevails, and is the only elegance of our modern poets, which easy judges call easiness; but having nothing in it but easiness, and being never used by any lasting wit, will in wiser times fall to nothing of itself.

A TIME-SERVER

Wears his religion, reason, and understanding always in the mode, and endeavours as far as he can to be one of the first in the fashion, let it change as oft as it can. He makes it his business, like a politic epicure, to entertain his opinion, faith, and judgment with nothing but what he finds to be most in season, and is as careful to make his understanding ready according to the present humour of affairs as the gentleman was that used every morning to put on his clothes by the weather-glass. He has the same reverend esteem of the modern age as an antiquary has for venerable antiquity, and, like a glass, receives readily any present object, but takes no notice of that which is past or to come. He is always ready to become anything as the times shall please to dispose of him, but is really nothing of himself; for he that sails before every wind can be bound for no port. He accounts it blasphemy to speak against anything in present vogue, how vain or ridiculous soever, and arch-heresy to approve of anything, though ever so good and wise, that is laid by; and therefore casts his judgment and understanding upon occasion, as bucks do their horns, when the season arrives to breed new against the next, to be cast again. He is very zealous to show himself, upon all occasions, a true member of the Church for the time being, that has not the least scruple in his conscience against the doctrine or discipline of it, as it stands at present, or shall do hereafter, unsight unseen; for he is resolved to be always for the truth, which he believes is never so plainly demonstrated as in that character that says it is great and prevails, and in that sense only fit to be adhered to by a prudent man, who will never be kinder to Truth than she is to him; for suffering is a very evil effect, and not like to proceed from a good cause. He is a man of a right public spirit, for he resigns himself wholly to the will and pleasure of the times, and, like a zealous implicit patriot, believes as the State believes, though he neither knows nor cares to know what that is.

A PRATER

Is a common nuisance, and as great a grievance to those that come near him as a pewterer is to his neighbours. His discourse is like the braying of a mortar, the more impertinent the more voluble and loud, as a pestle makes more noise when it is rung on the sides of a mortar than when it stamps downright and hits upon the business. A dog that opens upon a wrong scent will do it oftener than one that never opens but upon a right. He is as long-winded as a ventiduct that fills as fast as it empties, or a trade-wind that blows one way for half-a-year together, and another as long, as if it drew in its breath for six months, and blew it out again for six more. He has no mercy on any man's ears or patience that he can get within his sphere of activity, but tortures him, as they correct boys in Scotland, by stretching their lugs without remorse. He is like an earwig; when he gets within a man's ear he is not easily to be got out again. He will stretch a story as unmercifully as he does the ears of those he tells it to, and draw it out in length like a breast of mutton at the Hercules pillars, or a piece of cloth set on the tenters, till it is quite spoiled and good for nothing. If he be an orator that speaks _distincté et ornaté_, though not _apté_, he delivers his circumstances with the same mature deliberation that one that drinks with a gusto swallows his wine, as if he were loth to part with it sooner than he must of necessity; or a gamester that pulls the cards that are dealt him one by one, to enjoy the pleasure more distinctly of seeing what game he has in his hand. He takes so much pleasure to hear himself speak, that he does not perceive with what uneasiness other men endure him, though they express it ever so plainly; for he is so diverted with his own entertainment of himself, that he is not at leisure to take notice of any else. He is a siren to himself, and has no way to escape shipwreck but by having his mouth stopped instead of his ears. He plays with his tongue as a cat does with her tail, and is transported with the delight he gives himself of his own making. He understands no happiness like that of having an opportunity to show his abilities in public, and will venture to break his neck to show the activity of his eloquence; for the tongue is not only the worst part of a bad servant, but of an ill master that does not know how to govern it; for then it is like Guzman's wife, very headstrong and not sure of foot.

A DISPUTANT

Is a holder of arguments, and wagers too, when he cannot make them good. He takes naturally to controversy, like fishes in India that are said to have worms in their heads and swim always against the stream. The greatest mastery of his art consists in turning and winding the state of the question, by which means he can easily defeat whatsoever has been said by his adversary, though excellently to the purpose, like a bowler that knocks away the jack when he sees another man's bowl lie nearer to it than his own. Another of his faculties is with a multitude of words to render what he says so difficult to be recollected that his adversary may not easily know what he means, and consequently not understand what to answer, to which he secretly reserves an advantage to reply by interpreting what he said before otherwise than he at first intended it, according as he finds it serve his purpose to evade whatsoever shall be objected. Next to this, to pretend not to understand, or misinterpret what his antagonist says, though plain enough, only to divert him from the purpose, and to take occasion from his exposition of what he said to start new cavils on the bye and run quite away from the question; but when he finds himself pressed home and beaten from all his guards, to amuse the foe with some senseless distinction, like a falsified blow that never hits where 'tis aimed, but while it is minded makes way for some other trick that may pass. But that which renders him invincible is abundance of confidence and words, which are his offensive and defensive arms; for a brazen face is a natural helmet or beaver, and he that has store of words needs not surrender for want of ammunition. No matter for reason and sense, that go for no more in disputations than the justice of a cause does in war, which is understood but by few and commonly regarded by none. For the custom of disputants is not so much to destroy one another's reason as to cavil at the manner of expressing it, right or wrong; for they believe _Dolus an virtus_, &c., ought to be allowed in controversy as war, and he that gets the victory on any terms whatsoever deserves it and gets it honourably. He and his opponent are like two false lute-strings that will never stand in tune to one another, or like two tennis-players whose greatest skill consists in avoiding one another's strokes.

A PROJECTOR

Is by interpretation a man of forecast. He is an artist of plots, designs, and expedients to find out money, as others hide it, where nobody would look for it. He is a great rectifier of the abuses of all trades and mysteries, yet has but one remedy for all diseases; that is, by getting a patent to share with them, by virtue of which they become authorised, and consequently cease to be cheats. He is a great promoter of the public good, and makes it his care and study to contrive expedients that the nation may not be ill served with false rags, arbitrary puppet-plays, and insufficient monsters, of all which he endeavours to get the superintendency. He will undertake to render treasonable pedlars, that carry intelligence between rebels and fanatics, true subjects and well-affected to the Government for half-a-crown a quarter, which he takes for giving them license to do so securely and uncontrolled. He gets as much by those projects that miscarry as by those that hold (as lawyers are paid as well for undoing as preserving of men); for when he has drawn in adventurers to purchase shares of the profit, the sooner it is stopped the better it proves for him; for, his own business being done, he is the sooner rid of theirs. He is very expert at gauging the understandings of those he deals with, and has his engines always ready with mere air to blow all their money out of their pockets into his own, as vintners do wine out of one vessel into another. He is very amorous of his country, and prefers the public good before his own advantage, until he has joined them both together in some monopoly, and then he thinks he has done his part, and may be allowed to look after his own affairs in the second place. The chiefest and most useful part of his talent consists in quacking and lying, which he calls answering of objections and convincing the ignorant. Without this he can do nothing; for as it is the common practice of most knaveries, so it is the surest and best fitted to the vulgar capacities of the world; and though it render him more ridiculous to some few, it always prevails upon the greater part.

A COMPLEMENTER

Is one that endeavours to make himself appear a very fine man in persuading another that he is so, and by offering those civilities which he does not intend to part with, believes he adds to his own reputation and obliges another for nothing. He is very free in making presents of his services, because he is certain he cannot possibly receive in return less than they are worth. He differs very much from all other critics in punctilios of honour; for he esteems himself very uncivilly dealt with if his vows and protestations pass for anything but mere lies and vanities. When he gives his word, he believes it is no longer his, and therefore holds it very unreasonable to give it and keep it too. He divides his services among so many that there comes but little or nothing to any one man's share, and therefore they are very willing to let him take it back again. He makes over himself in truth to every man, but still it is to his own uses to secure his title against all other claims and cheat his creditors. He is very generous of his promises, but still it is without lawful consideration, and so they go for nothing. He extols a man to his face, like those that write in praise of an author to show his own wit, not his whom they undertake to commend. He has certain set forms and routines of speech, which he can say over while he thinks on anything else, as a Catholic does his prayers, and therefore never means what he says. His words flow easily from him, but so shallow that they will bear no weight at all. All his offers of endearment are but like terms of course, that carry their own answers along with them, and therefore pass for nothing between those that understand them, and deceive those only that believe in them. He professes most kindness commonly to those he least cares for, like an host that bids a man welcome when he is going away. He had rather be every man's menial servant than any one man's friend; for servants gain by their masters, and men often lose by their friends.

A CHEAT

Is a freeman of all trades, and all trades of his. Fraud and treachery are his calling, though his profession be the strictest integrity and truth. He spins nets, like a spider, out of his own entrails, to entrap the simple and unwary that light in his way, whom he devours and feeds upon. All the greater sort of cheats, being allowed by authority, have lost their names (as judges, when they are called to the Bench, are no more styled lawyers) and left the title to the meaner only and the unallowed. The common ignorance of mankind is his province, which he orders to the best advantage. He is but a tame highwayman, that does the same things by stratagem and design which the other does by force, makes men deliver their understandings first, and after their purses. Oaths and lies are his tools that he works with, and he gets his living by the drudgery of his conscience. He endeavours to cheat the devil by mortgaging his soul so many times over and over to him, forgetting that he has damnations, as priests have absolutions of all prices. He is a kind of a just judgment, sent into this world to punish the confidence and curiosity of ignorance, that out of a natural inclination to error will tempt its own punishment and help to abuse itself. He can put on as many shapes as the devil that set him on work, is one that fishes in muddy understandings, and will tickle a trout in his own element till he has him in his clutches, and after in his dish or the market. He runs down none but those which he is certain are _fera natura_, mere natural animals, that belong to him that can catch them. He can do no feats without the co-operating assistance of the chouse, whose credulity commonly meets the impostor half-way, otherwise nothing is done; for all the craft is not in the catching (as the proverb says), but the better half at least in being catched. He is one that, like a bond without fraud, covin, and further delay, is void and of none effect, otherwise does stand and remain in full power, force, and virtue. He trusts the credulous with what hopes they please at a very easy rate, upon their own security, until he has drawn them far enough in, and then makes them pay for all at once. The first thing he gets from him is a good opinion, and afterwards anything he pleases; for after he has drawn from his guards he deals with him like a surgeon, and ties his arm before he lets him blood.

A TEDIOUS MAN