Chapter 30

Talks to no end, as well as to no purpose; for he would never come at it willingly. His discourse is like the road-miles in the north, the filthier and dirtier the longer; and he delights to dwell the longer upon them to make good the old proverb that says they are good for the dweller, but ill for the traveller. He sets a tale upon the rack, and stretches until it becomes lame and out of joint. Hippocrates says art is long; but he is so for want of art. He has a vein of dulness, that runs through all he says or does; for nothing can be tedious that is not dull and insipid. Digressions and repetitions, like bag and baggage, retard his march and put him to perpetual halts. He makes his approaches to a business by oblique lines, as if he meant to besiege it, and fetches a wide compass about to keep others from discovering what his design is. He is like one that travels in a dirty deep road, that moves slowly; and, when he is at a stop, goes back again, and loses more time in picking of his way than in going it. How troublesome and uneasy soever he is to others, he pleases himself so well that he does not at all perceive it; for though home be homely, it is more delightful than finer things abroad; and he that is used to a thing and knows no better believes that other men, to whom it appears otherwise, have the same sense of it that he has; as melancholy persons that fancy themselves to be glass believe that all others think them so too; and therefore that which is tedious to others is not so to him, otherwise he would avoid it; for it does not so often proceed from a natural defect as affectation and desire to give others that pleasure which they find themselves, though it always falls out quite contrary. He that converses with him is like one that travels with a companion that rides a lame jade; he must either endure to go his pace or stay for him; for though he understands long before what he would be at better than he does himself, he must have patience and stay for him, until, with much ado to little purpose, he at length comes to him; for he believes himself injured if he should bate a jot of his own diversion.

A PRETENDER

Is easily acquainted with all knowledges, but never intimate with any; he remembers he has seen them somewhere before, but cannot possibly call to mind where. He will call an art by its name, and claim acquaintance with it at first sight. He knew it perfectly, as the Platonics say, in the other world, but has had the unhappiness to discontinue his acquaintance ever since his occasions called him into this. He claps on all the sail he can possibly make, though his vessel be empty and apt to overset. He is of a true philosophical temper, contented with a little, desires no more knowledge than will satisfy nature, and cares not what his wants are so he can but keep them from the eyes of the world. His parts are unlimited; for as no man knows his abilities, so he does his endeavour that as few should his defects. He wears himself in opposition to the mode, for his lining is much coarser than his outside; and as others line their serge with silk, he lines his silk with serge. All his care is employed to appear not to be; for things that are not and things that appear not are not only the same in law, but in all other affairs of the world. It should seem that the most impudent face is the best; for he that does the shamefulest thing most unconcerned is said to set a good face upon it; for the truth is, the face is but the outside of the mind, but all the craft is to know how 'tis lined. Howsoever, he fancies himself as able as any man, but not being in a capacity to try the experiment, the hint-keeper of Gresham College is the only competent judge to decide the controversy. He may, for anything he knows, have as good a title to his pretences as another man; for judgment being not past in the case (which shall never be by his means), his title still stands fair. All he can possibly attain to is but to be another thing than nature meant him, though a much worse. He makes that good that Pliny says of children, _Qui celerius fari cepere, tardius ingredi incipiunt_. The apter he is to smatter, the slower he is in making any advance in his pretences. He trusts words before he is thoroughly acquainted with them, and they commonly show him a trick before he is aware; and he shows at the same time his ignorance to the learned and his learning to the ignorant.

A NEWSMONGER

Is a retailer of rumour that takes up upon trust and sells as cheap as he buys. He deals in a perishable commodity that will not keep; for if it be not fresh it lies upon his hands and will yield nothing. True or false is all one to him; for novelty being the grace of both, a truth grows stale as soon as a lie; and as a slight suit will last as well as a better while the fashion holds, a lie serves as well as truth till new ones come up. He is little concerned whether it be good or bad, for that does not make it more or less news; and, if there be any difference, he loves the bad best, because it is said to come soonest; for he would willingly bear his share in any public calamity to have the pleasure of hearing and telling it. He is deeply read in diurnals, and can give as good an account of Rowland Pepin, if need be, as another man. He tells news, as men do money, with his fingers; for he assures them it comes from very good hands. The whole business of his life is, like that of a spaniel, to fetch and carry news, and when he does it well he is clapped on the back and fed for it; for he does not take to it altogether, like a gentleman, for his pleasure, but when he lights on a considerable parcel of news, he knows where to put it off for a dinner, and quarter himself upon it until he has eaten it out; and by this means he drives a trade, by retrieving the first news to truck it for the first meat in season, and, like the old Roman luxury, ransacks all seas and lands to please his palate; for he imports his narratives from all parts within the geography of a diurnal, and eats as well upon the Russ and Polander as the English and Dutch. By this means his belly is provided for, and nothing lies upon his hands but his back, which takes other courses to maintain itself by weft and stray silver spoons, straggling hoods and scarfs, pimping, and sets at _L'Ombre_.

A MODERN CRITIC

Is a corrector of the press gratis; and as he does it for nothing, so it is to no purpose. He fancies himself clerk of Stationers' Hall, and nothing must pass current that is not entered by him. He is very severe in his supposed office, and cries, "Woe to ye scribes!" right or wrong. He supposes all writers to be malefactors without clergy that claim the privilege of their books, and will not allow it where the law of the land and common justice does. He censures in gross, and condemns all without examining particulars. If they will not confess and accuse themselves, he will rack them until they do. He is a committee-man in the commonwealth of letters, and as great a tyrant, so is not bound to proceed but by his own rules, which he will not endure to be disputed. He has been an apocryphal scribbler himself; but his writings wanting authority, he grew discontent and turned apostate, and thence becomes so severe to those of his own profession. He never commends anything but in opposition to something else that he would undervalue, and commonly sides with the weakest, which is generous anywhere but in judging. He is worse than an _index expurgatorius_; for he blots out all, and when he cannot find a fault, makes one. He demurs to all writers, and when he is overruled, will run into contempt. He is always bringing writs of error, like a pettifogger, and reversing of judgments, though the case be never so plain. He is a mountebank that is always quacking of the infirm and diseased parts of books, to show his skill, but has nothing at all to do with the sound. He is a very ungentle reader, for he reads sentence on all authors that have the unhappiness to come before him; and therefore pedants, that stand in fear of him, always appeal from him beforehand, by the name of Momus and Zoilus, complain sorely of his extra-judicial proceedings, and protest against him as corrupt, and his judgment void and of none effect, and put themselves in the protection of some powerful patron, who, like a knight-errant, is to encounter with the magician and free them from his enchantments.

A BUSY MAN

Is one that seems to labour in every man's calling but his own, and, like Robin Goodfellow, does any man's drudgery that will let him. He is like an ape, that loves to do whatsoever he sees others do, and is always as busy as a child at play. He is a great undertaker, and commonly as great an underperformer. His face is like a lawyer's buckram rag, that has always business in it, and as he trots about his head travels as fast as his feet. He covets his neighbour's business, and his own is to meddle, not do. He is very lavish of his advice, and gives it freely, because it is worth nothing, and he knows not what to do with it himself. He is a common-barreter for his pleasure, that takes no money, but pettifogs gratis. He is very inquisitive after every man's occasions, and charges himself with them like a public notary. He is a great overseer of State affairs, and can judge as well of them before he understands the reasons as afterwards. He is excellent at preventing inconveniences and finding out remedies when 'tis too late; for, like prophecies, they are never heard of till it is to no purpose. He is a great reformer, always contriving of expedients, and will press them with as much earnestness as if himself and every man he meets had power to impose them on the nation. He is always giving aim to State affairs, and believes by screwing of his body he can make them shoot which way he pleases. He inquires into every man's history, and makes his own commentaries upon it as he pleases to fancy it. He wonderfully affects to seem full of employments, and borrows men's business only to put on and appear in, and then returns it back again, only a little worse. He frequents all public places, and, like a pillar in the old Exchange, is hung with all men's business, both public and private, and his own is only to expose them. He dreads nothing so much as to be thought at leisure, though he is never otherwise; for though he be always doing, he never does anything.

A PEDANT

Is a dwarf scholar, that never outgrows the mode and fashion of the school where he should have been taught. He wears his little learning, unmade-up, puts it on before it was half finished, without pressing or smoothing. He studies and uses words with the greatest respect possible, merely for their own sakes, like an honest man, without any regard of interest, as they are useful and serviceable to things, and among those he is kindest to strangers (like a civil gentleman) that are far from their own country and most unknown. He collects old sayings and ends of verses, as antiquaries do old coins, and is as glad to produce them upon all occasions. He has sentences ready lying by him for all purposes, though to no one, and talks of authors as familiarly as his fellow-collegiates. He will challenge acquaintance with those he never saw before, and pretend to intimate knowledge of those he has only heard of. He is well stored with terms of art, but does not know how to use them, like a country-fellow that carries his gloves in his hands, not his hands in his gloves. He handles arts and sciences like those that can play a little upon an instrument, but do not know whether it be in tune or not. He converses by the book, and does not talk, but quote. If he can but screw in something that an ancient writer said, he believes it to be much better than if he had something of himself to the purpose. His brain is not able to concoct what it takes in, and therefore brings things up as they were swallowed, that is, crude and undigested, in whole sentences, not assimilated sense, which he rather affects; for his want of judgment, like want of health, renders his appetite preposterous. He pumps for affected and far-set expressions, and they always prove as far from the purpose. He admires canting above sense. He is worse than one that is utterly ignorant, as a cock that sees a little fights worse than one that is stark blind. He speaks in a different dialect from other men, and much affects forced expressions, forgetting that hard words, as well as evil ones, corrupt good manners. He can do nothing, like a conjurer, out of the circle of his arts, nor in it without canting and ... If he professes physic, he gives his patients sound, hard words for their money, as cheap as he can afford; for they cost him money, and study too, before he came by them, and he has reason to make as much of them as he can.

A HUNTER

Is an auxiliary hound that assists one nation of beasts to subdue and overrun another. He makes mortal war with the fox for committing acts of hostility against his poultry. He is very solicitous to have his dogs well descended of worshipful families, and understands their pedigree as learnedly as if he were a herald, and is as careful to match them according to their rank and qualities as High-Germans are of their own progenies. He is both cook and physician to his hounds, understands the constitutions of their bodies, and what to administer in any infirmity or disease, acute or chronic, that can befall them. Nor is he less skilful in physiognomy, and from the aspects of their faces, shape of their snouts, falling of their ears and lips, and make of their barrels will give a shrewd guess at their inclinations, parts, and abilities, and what parents they are lineally descended from; and by the tones of their voices and statures of their persons easily discover what country they are natives of. He believes no music in the world is comparable to a chorus of their voices, and that when they are well matched they will hunt their parts as true at first scent as the best singers of catches that ever opened in a tavern; that they understand the scale as well as the best scholar that ever learned to compose by the mathematics; and that when he winds his horn to them 'tis the very same thing with a cornet in a quire; that they will run down the hare with a fugue, and a double do-sol-re-dog hunt a thorough-base to them all the while; that when they are at a loss they do but rest, and then they know by turns who are to continue a dialogue between two or three of them, of which he is commonly one himself. He takes very great pains in his way, but calls it game and sport because it is to no purpose; and he is willing to make as much of it as he can, and not be thought to bestow so much labour and pains about nothing. Let the hare take which way she will, she seldom fails to lead him at long-running to the alehouse, where he meets with an after-game of delight in making up a narrative how every dog behaved himself, which is never done without long dispute, every man inclining to favour his friend as far as he can; and if there be anything remarkable to his thinking in it, he preserves it to please himself and, as he believes, all people else with, during his natural life, and after leaves it to his heirs male entailed upon the family, with his bugle-horn and seal-ring.

AN AFFECTED MAN

Carries himself like his dish (as the proverb says), very uprightly, without spilling one drop of his humour. He is an orator and rhetorician, that delights in flowers and ornaments of his own devising to please himself and others that laugh at him. He is of a leaden, dull temper, that stands stiff, as it is bent, to all crooked lines, but never to the right. When he thinks to appear most graceful, he adorns himself most ill-favouredly, like an Indian that wears jewels in his lips and nostrils. His words and gestures are all as stiff as buckram, and he talks as if his lips were turned up as well as his beard. All his motions are regular, as if he went by clockwork, and he goes very true to the nick as he is set. He has certain favourite words and expressions, which he makes very much of, as he has reason to do, for they serve him upon all occasions and are never out of the way when he has use of them, as they have leisure enough to do, for nobody else has any occasion for them but himself. All his affectations are forced and stolen from others; and though they become some particular persons where they grow naturally, as a flower does on its stalk, he thinks they will do so by him when they are pulled and dead. He puts words and language out of its ordinary pace and breaks it to his own fancy, which makes it go so uneasy in a shuffle, which it has not been used to. He delivers himself in a forced way, like one that sings with a feigned voice beyond his natural compass. He loves the sound of words better than the sense, and will rather venture to incur nonsense than leave out a word that he has a kindness for. If he be a statesman, the slighter and meaner his employments are the bigger he looks, as an ounce of tin swells and looks bigger than an ounce of gold; and his affectations of gravity are the most desperate of all, as the aphorism says--Madness of study and consideration are harder to be cured than those of lighter and more fantastic humour.

A MEDICINE-TAKER

Has a sickly mind and believes the infirmity is in his body, like one that draws the wrong tooth and fancies his pain in the wrong place. The less he understands the reason of physic the stronger faith he has in it, as it commonly fares in all other affairs of the world. His disease is only in his judgment, which makes him believe a doctor can fetch it out of his stomach or his belly, and fright those worms out of his guts that are bred in his brain. He believes a doctor is a kind of conjurer that can do strange things, and he is as willing to have him think so; for by that means he does not only get his money, but finds himself in some possibility by complying with that fancy to do him good for it, which he could never expect to do any other way; for, like those that have been cured by drinking their own water, his own imagination is a better medicine than any the doctor knows how to prescribe, even as the weapon-salve cures a wound by being applied to that which made it. He is no sooner well but any story or lie of a new famous doctor or strange cure puts him into a relapse, and he falls sick of a medicine instead of a disease, and catches physic like him that fell into a looseness at the sight of a purge. He never knows when he is well or sick, but is always tampering with his health till he has spoiled it, like a foolish musician that breaks his strings with striving to put them in tune; for Nature, which is physic, understands better how to do her own work than those that take it from her at second hand. Hippocrates says, _Ars longa, vita brevis_, and it is the truest of all his aphorisms--

"For he that's given much to the long art Does not prolong his life, but cut it short."

THE MISER

Is like the sea, that is said to be richer than the land, but is not able to make any use of it at all, and only keeps it from those that know how to enjoy it if they had it. The devil understood his business very well when he made choice of Judas's avarice to betray Christ, for no other vice would have undertaken it; and it is to be feared that his Vicars now on earth, by the tenderness they have to the bag, do not use Him much better than His steward did then. He gathers wealth to no purpose but to satisfy his avarice, that has no end, and afflicts himself to possess that which he is, of all men, the most incapable of ever obtaining. His treasure is in his hands in the same condition as if it were buried uncier ground and watched by an evil spirit. His desires are like the bottomless pit which he is destined to, for the one is as soon filled as the other. He shuts up his money in close custody, and that which has power to open all locks is not able to set itself at liberty. If he ever lets it out it is upon good bail and mainprize, to render itself prisoner again whensoever it shall be summoned. He loves wealth as an eunuch does women, whom he has no possibility of enjoying, or one that is bewitched with an impotency or taken with the falling sickness. His greedy appetite to riches is but a kind of dog-hunger, that never digests what it devours, but still the greedier and more eager it crams itself becomes more meagre. He finds that ink and parchment preserves money better than an iron chest and parsimony, like the memories of men that lie dead and buried when they are committed to brass and marble, but revive and flourish when they are trusted to authentic writings and increase by being used. If he had lived among the Jews in the wilderness he would have been one of their chief reformers, and have worshipped anything that is cast in gold, though a sillier creature than a calf. St. John in the Revelations describes the New Jerusalem to be built all of gold and silver and precious stones, for the saints commonly take so much delight in those creatures that nothing else could prevail with them ever to come thither; and as those times are called the Golden Age in which there was no gold at all in use, so men are reputed godly and rich that make no use at all of their religion or wealth. All that he has gotten together with perpetual pains and industry is not wealth, but a collection, which he intends to keep by him more for his own diversion than any other use, and he that made ducks and drakes with his money enjoyed it every way as much. He makes no conscience of anything but parting with his money, which is no better than a separation of soul and body to him, and he believes it to be as bad as self-murder if he should do it wilfully; for the price of the weapon with which a man is killed is always esteemed a very considerable circumstance, and next to not having the fear of God before his eyes. He loves the bowels of the earth broiled on the coals above any other cookery in the world. He is a slave condemned to the mines. He laughs at the golden mean as ridiculous, and believes there is no such thing in the world; for how can there be a mean of that of which no man ever had enough? He loves the world so well that he would willingly lose himself to save anything by it. His riches are like a dunghill, that renders the ground unprofitable that it lies upon, and is good for nothing until it be spread and scattered abroad.

A SWEARER