Chapter 32

Is a hot-headed brother that has his understanding blocked up on both sides, like a fore-horse's eyes, that he sees only straight-forwards and never looks about him, which makes him run on according as he is driven with his own caprice. He starts and stops (as a horse does) at a post only because he does not know what it is, and thinks to run away from the spur while he carries it with him. He is very violent, as all things that tend downward naturally are; for it is impossible to improve or raise him above his own level. He runs swiftly before any wind, like a ship that has neither freight nor ballast, and is as apt to overset. When his zeal takes fire it cracks and flies about like a squib until the idle stuff is spent, and then it goes out of itself. He is always troubled with small scruples, which his conscience catches like the itch, and the rubbing of these is both his pleasure and his pain. But for things of greater moment he is unconcerned, as cattle in the summer-time are more pestered with flies that vex their sores than creatures more considerable, and dust and motes are apter to stick in blear-eyes than things of greater weight. His charity begins and ends at home, for it never goes farther nor stirs abroad. David was eaten up with the zeal of God's house; but his zeal, quite contrary, eats up God's house; and as the words seem to intimate that David fed and maintained the priests, so he makes the priests feed and maintain him; and hence his zeal is never so vehement as when it concurs with his interest; for, as he styles himself a professor, it fares with him, as with men of other professions, to live by his calling and get as much as he can by it. He is very severe to other men's sins that his own may pass unsuspected, as those that were engaged in the conspiracy against Nero were most cruel to their own confederates; or as one says--

"Compounds for sins he is inclined to By damning those he has no mind to."

THE OVERDOER

Always throws beyond the jack and is gone a mile. He is no more able to contain himself than a bowl is when he is commanded to rub with the greatest power and vehemence imaginable, and nothing lights in his way. He is a conjurer that cannot keep within the compass of his circle, though he were sure the devil would fetch him away for the least transgression. He always overstocks his ground and starves instead of feeding, destroys whatsoever he has an extraordinary care for, and, like an ape, hugs the whelp he loves most to death. All his designs are greater than the life, and he laughs to think how Nature has mistaken her match, and given him so much odds that he can easily outrun her. He allows of no merit but that which is superabundant. All his actions are superfoetations, that either become monsters or twins; that is, too much, or the same again; for he is but a supernumerary and does nothing but for want of a better. He is a civil Catholic, that holds nothing more steadfastly than supererogation in all that he undertakes, for he undertakes nothing but what he overdoes. He is insatiable in all his actions and, like a covetous person, never knows when he has done enough until he has spoiled all by doing too much. He is his own antagonist, and is never satisfied until he has outdone himself as well as that which he proposed, for he loves to be better than his word (though it always falls out worse) and deceive the world the wrong way. He believes the mean to be but a mean thing, and therefore always runs into extremities as the more excellent, great, and transcendent. He delights to exceed in all his attempts, for he finds that a goose that has three legs is more remarkable than a hundred that have but two apiece, and has a greater number of followers; and that all monsters are more visited and applied to than other creatures that Nature has made perfect in their kind. He believes he can never bestow too much pains upon anything; for his industry is his own and costs him nothing; and if it miscarry he loses nothing, for he has as much as it was worth. He is like a foolish musician that sets his instrument so high that he breaks his strings for want of understanding the right pitch of it, or an archer that breaks his with overbending; and all he does is forced, like one that sings above the reach of his voice.

THE RASH MAN

Has a fever in his brain, and therefore is rightly said to be hot-headed. His reason and his actions run downhill, borne headlong by his unstaid will. He has not patience to consider, and perhaps it would not be the better for him if he had; for he is so possessed with the first apprehension of anything, that whatsoever comes after loses the race and is prejudged. All his actions, like sins, lead him perpetually to repentance, and from thence to the place from whence they came, to make more work for repentance; for though he be corrected never so often, he is never amended, nor will his haste give him time to call to mind where it made him stumble before; for he is always upon full speed, and the quickness of his motions takes away and dazzles the eyes of his understanding. All his designs are like diseases, with which he is taken suddenly before he is aware, and whatsoever he does is extempore, without premeditation; for he believes a sudden life to be the best of all, as some do a sudden death. He pursues things as men do an enemy upon a retreat, until he is drawn into an ambush for want of heed and circumspection. He falls upon things as they lie in his way, as if he stumbled at them, or his foot slipped and cast him upon them; for he is commonly foiled and comes off with bruises. He engages in business as men do in duels, the sooner the better, that, if any evil come of it, they may not be found to have slept upon it, or consulted with an effeminate pillow in point of honour and courage. He strikes when he is hot himself, not when the iron is so which he designs to work upon. His tongue has no retentive faculty, but is always running like a fool's drivel. He cannot keep it within compass, but it will be always upon the ramble and playing of tricks upon a frolic, fancying of passes upon religion, State, and the persons of those that are in present authority, no matter how, to whom, or where; for his discretion is always out of the way when he has occasion to make use of it.

THE AFFECTED OR FORMAL

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

A FLATTERER

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

A PRODIGAL

Is a pocket with a hole in the bottom. His purse has got a dysentery and lost its retentive faculty. He delights, like a fat overgrown man, to see himself fall away and grow less. He does not spend his money, but void it, and, like those that have the stone, is in pain till he is rid of it. He is very loose and incontinent of his coin, and lets it fly, like Jupiter, in a shower. He is very hospitable, and keeps open pockets for all comers. All his silver turns to mercury, and runs through him as if he had taken it for the _miserere_ or fluxed himself. The history of his life begins with keeping of whores, and ends with keeping of hogs; and as he fed high at first, so he does at last, for acorns are very high food. He swallows land and houses like an earthquake, eats a whole dining-room at a meal, and devours his kitchen at a breakfast. He wears the furniture of his house on his back, and a whole feather-bed in his hat, drinks down his plate, and eats his dishes up. He is not clothed, but hung. He'll fancy dancers cattle, and present his lady with messuage and tenement. He sets his horses at inn and inn, and throws himself out of his coach at come the caster. He should be a good husband, for he has made more of his estate in one year than his ancestors did in twenty. He dusts his estate as they do a stand of ale in the north. His money in his pocket (like hunted venison) will not keep; if it be not spent presently it grows stale, and is thrown away. He possesses his estate as the devil did the herd of swine, and is running it into the sea as fast as he can. He has shot it with a zampatan, and it will presently fall all to dust. He has brought his acres into a consumption, and they are strangely fallen away; nothing but skin and bones left of a whole manor. He will shortly have all his estate in his hands; for, like bias, he may carry it about him. He lays up nothing but debts and diseases, and at length himself in a prison. When he has spent all upon his pleasures, and has nothing left for sustenance, he espouses a hostess dowager, and resolves to lick himself whole again out of ale, and make it pay him back all the charges it has put him to.

THE INCONSTANT

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

A GLUTTON

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

A RIBALD

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

A MODERN POLITICIAN

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

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

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