Part 3

A grave divine 8

A meer dull physician 11

An alderman 16

A discontented man 18

An antiquary 20

A younger brother 22

A meer formal man 25

A church papist 27

A self-conceited man 29

A too idly reserved man 31

A tavern 34

A shark 37

A carrier 40

A young man 42

An old college butler 45

An upstart country knight 48

An idle gallant 51

A constable 53

A downright scholar 54

A plain country fellow 57

A player 60

A detractor 63

A young gentleman of the university 65

A weak man 68

A tobacco-seller 70

A pot poet 71

A plausible man 74

A bowl-alley 76

The world's wise man 78

A surgeon 80

A contemplative man 82

A she precise hypocrite 84

A sceptick in religion 88

An attorney 93

A partial man 95

A trumpeter 97

A vulgar spirited man 98

A plodding student 101

Paul's walk 103

A cook 106

A bold forward man 108

A baker 111

A pretender to learning 112

A herald 115

The common singing-men in cathedral churches 116

A shop-keeper 118

A blunt man 119

A handsome hostess 122

A critic 123

A serjeant, or catch-pole 124

An university dun 126

A stayed man 128

[All from this character were added after the first edition.]

A modest man 131

A meer empty wit 134

A drunkard 136

A prison 138

A serving-man 140

An insolent man 142

Acquaintance 144

A meer complimental man 147

A poor fiddler 149

A meddling-man 151

A good old man 153

A flatterer 155

A high spirited man 158

A meer gull citizen 160

A lascivious man 165

A rash man 167

An affected man 169

A profane man 171

A coward 173

A sordid rich man 174

A meer great man 177

A poor man 179

An ordinary honest man 181

A suspicious, or jealous man 183

APPENDIX.

Some account of bishop Earle[AS] 186

Characters of bishop Earle 194

List of Dr. Earle's Works 197

Lines on sir John Burroughs 199

Lines on the death of the earl of Pembroke 201

Lines on Mr. Beaumont 203

Dedication to the Latin translation of the [Greek: Eikon Basilike] 207

Inscription on Dr. Heylin's monument 211

Correspondence between Dr. Earle and Mr. Bagster 213

Inscription in Streglethorp church 217

Chronological List of Books of Characters, from 1567 to 1700 219

Corrections and additions 279

A note on bishop Earle's arms, from _Guillim's Heraldry_ 282

_Supplementary Appendix, 1897, (Durham MS., Letters of Earle and Clarendon, etc.)_ 303

FOOTNOTES:

[AS] It will be remarked, that Dr. Earle's name is frequently spelled _Earle_ and _Earles_ in the following pages. Wherever the editor has had occasion to use the name himself, he has invariably called it _Earle_, conceiving that to be the proper orthography. Wherever it is found _Earles_, he has attended strictly to the original, from which the article or information has been derived.

TO THE READER[AT].

I have (for once) adventured to play the midwife's part, helping to bring forth these infants into the world, which the father would have smothered; who having left them lapt up in loose sheets, as soon as his fancy was delivered of them, written especially for his private recreation, to pass away the time in the country, and by the forcible request of friends drawn from him: yet, passing severally from hand to hand, in written copies, grew at length to be a pretty number in a little volume: and among so many sundry dispersed transcripts, some very imperfect and surreptitious had liked to have passed the press, if the author had not used speedy means of prevention; when, perceiving the hazard he ran to be wronged, was unwillingly[AU] willing to let them pass as now they appear to the world. If any faults have escaped the press (as few books can be printed without), impose them not on the author, I intreat thee; but rather impute them to mine and the printer's oversight, who seriously promise, on the re-impression hereof, by greater care and diligence for this our former default, to make thee ample satisfaction. In the mean while, I remain

Thine,

ED. BLOUNT[AV].

FOOTNOTES:

[AT] _Gentile, or Gentle_, 8th edit. 1650.

[AU] Willingly, 8th edit. evidently a typographical error.

[AV] Edward Blount, who lived at the Black Bear, Saint Paul's Church-yard, appears to have been a bookseller of respectability, and in some respects a man of letters. Many dedications and prefaces, with as much merit as compositions of this nature generally possess, bear his name, and there is every reason to suppose that he translated a work from the Italian, which is intituled "_The Hospitall of Incurable Fooles_," &c. 4to. 1600. Mr. Ames has discovered, from the Stationer's Register, that he was the son of Ralph Blount or Blunt, merchant-taylor of London; that he was apprenticed to William Ponsonby, in 1578, and made free in 1588. It is no slight honour to his taste and judgment, that he was one of the partners in the first edition of Shakspeare.

MICROCOSMOGRAPHY;

_or_,

_A piece of the World characterized_.

I.

A CHILD

Is a man in a small letter, yet the best copy of Adam before he tasted of Eve or the apple; and he is happy whose small practice in the world can only write his character. He is nature's fresh picture newly drawn in oil, which time, and much handling, dims and defaces. His soul is yet a white paper[1] unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith, at length, it becomes a blurred note-book. He is purely happy, because he knows no evil, nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted with misery. He arrives not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures evils to come, by fore-seeing them. He kisses and loves all, and, when the smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater. Nature and his parents alike dandle him, and tice him on with a bait of sugar to a draught of wormwood. He plays yet, like a young prentice the first day, and is not come to his task of melancholy. [[2]All the language he speaks yet is tears, and they serve him well enough to express his necessity.] His hardest labour is his tongue, as if he were loath to use so deceitful an organ; and he is best company with it when he can but prattle. We laugh at his foolish ports,

Shakspeare, of a child, says, "---- the hand of time Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume."

_K. John II._ i.

but his game is our earnest; and his drums, rattles, and hobby-horses, but the emblems and mocking of man's business. His father hath writ him as his own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life that he cannot remember, and sighs to see what innocence he hath out-lived. The elder he grows, he is a stair lower from God; and, like his first father, much worse in his breeches.[3] He is the Christian's example, and the old man's relapse; the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his simplicity. Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got eternity without a burden, and exchanged but one heaven for another.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] So Washbourne, in his _Divine Poems_, 12mo. 1654:

"---- ere 'tis accustom'd unto sin, _The mind white paper_ is, and will admit Of any lesson you will write in it."--p. 26.

[2] This, and every other passage throughout the volume, [included between brackets,] does not appear in the first edition of 1628.

[3] Adam did not, to use the words of the old Geneva Bible, "make himself breeches," till he knew sin: the meaning of the passage in the text is merely that, as a child advances in age, he commonly proceeds in the knowledge and commission of vice and immorality.

II.

A YOUNG RAW PREACHER

Is a bird not yet fledged, that hath hopped out of his nest to be chirping on a hedge, and will be straggling abroad at what peril soever. His backwardness in the university hath set him thus forward; for had he not truanted there, he had not been so hasty a divine. His small standing, and time, hath made him a proficient only in boldness, out of which, and his table-book, he is furnished for a preacher. His collections of study are the notes of sermons, which, taken up at St. Mary's,[4] he utters in the country: and if he write brachigraphy,[5] his stock is so much the better. His writing is more than his reading, for he reads only what he gets without book. Thus accomplished he comes down to his friends, and his first salutation is grace and peace out of the pulpit. His prayer is conceited, and no man remembers his college more at large.[6] The pace of his sermon is a full career, and he runs wildly over hill and dale, till the clock stop him. The labour of it is chiefly in his lungs; and the only thing he has made[7] _in_ it himself, is the faces. He takes on against the pope without mercy, and has a jest still in lavender for Bellarmine: yet he preaches heresy, if it comes in his way, though with a mind, I must needs say, very orthodox. His action is all passion, and his speech interjections. He has an excellent faculty in bemoaning the people, and spits with a very good grace. [His stile is compounded of twenty several men's, only his body imitates some one extraordinary.] He will not draw his handkercher out of his place, nor blow his nose without discretion. His commendation is, that he never looks upon book; and indeed he was never used to it. He preaches but once a year, though twice on Sunday; for the stuff is still the same, only the dressing a little altered: he has more tricks with a sermon, than a taylor with an old cloak, to turn it, and piece it, and at last quite disguise it with a new preface. If he have waded farther in his profession, and would shew reading of his own, his authors are postils, and his school-divinity a catechism. His fashion and demure habit gets him in with some town-precisian, and makes him a guest on Friday nights. You shall know him by his narrow velvet cape, and serge facing; and his ruff, next his hair, the shortest thing about him. The companion of his walk is some zealous tradesman, whom he astonishes with strange points, which they both understand alike. His friends and much painfulness may prefer him to thirty pounds a year, and this means to a chambermaid; with whom we leave him now in the bonds of wedlock:--next Sunday you shall have him again.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] St. Mary's church was originally built by king Alfred, and annexed to the University of Oxford, for the use of the scholars, when St. Giles's and St. Peter's (which were till then appropriated to them,) had been mined by the violence of the Danes. It was totally rebuilt during the reign of Henry VII., who gave forty oaks towards the materials; and is, to this day, the place of worship in which the public sermons are preached before the members of the university.

[5] _Brachigraphy_, or short-hand-writing, appears to have been much studied in our author's time, and was probably esteemed a fashionable accomplishment. It was first introduced into this country by Peter Bales, who, in 1590, published _The Writing Schoolmaster_, a treatise consisting of three parts, the first "of Brachygraphie, that is, to write as fast as a man speaketh treatably, writing but one letter for a word;" the second, of Orthography; and the third, of Calligraphy. Imprinted at London, by T. Orwin, &c. 1590. 4to. A second edition, "with sundry new additions," appeared in 1597. 12mo. Imprinted at London, by George Shawe, &c. Holinshed gives the following description of one of Bale's performances:--"The tenth of August (1575,) a rare peece of worke, and almost incredible, was brought to passe by an Englishman borne in the citie of London, named Peter Bales, who by his industrie and practise of his pen, contriued and writ within the compasse of a penie, in Latine, the Lord's praier, the creed, the ten commandements, a praier to God, a praier for the queene, his posie, his name, the daie of the moneth, the yeare of our Lord, and the reigne of the queene. And on the seuenteenthe of August next following, at Hampton court, he presented the same to the queene's maiestie, in the head of a ring of gold, couered with a christall; and presented therewith an excellent spectacle by him deuised, for the easier reading thereof: wherewith hir maiestie read all that was written therein with great admiration, and commended the same to the lords of the councell, and the ambassadors, and did weare the same manie times vpon hir finger." _Holinshed's Chronicle, page 1262, b. edit, folio, Lond. 1587._

[6] It is customary in all sermons delivered before the University, to use an introductory prayer for the founder of, and principal benefactors to, the preacher's individual college, as well as for the officers and members of the university in general. This, however, would appear very ridiculous when "_he comes down to his friends_" or, in other words, preaches before a country congregation.

[7] _of_, first edit. 1628.

III.

A GRAVE DIVINE

Is one that knows the burthen of his calling, and hath studied to make his shoulders sufficient; for which he hath not been hasty to launch forth of his port, the university, but expected the ballast of learning, and the wind of opportunity. Divinity is not the beginning but the end of his studies; to which he takes the ordinary stair, and makes the arts his way. He counts it not prophaneness to be polished with human reading, or to smooth his way by Aristotle to school-divinity. He has sounded both religions, and anchored in the best, and is a protestant out of judgment, not faction; not because his country, but his reason is on this side. The ministry is his choice, not refuge, and yet the pulpit not his itch, but fear. His discourse is substance, not all rhetoric, and he utters more things than words. His speech is not helped with inforced action, but the matter acts itself. He shoots all his meditations at one but; and beats upon his text, not the cushion; making his hearers, not the pulpit groan. In citing of popish errors, he cuts them with arguments, not cudgels them with barren invectives; and labours more to shew the truth of his cause than the spleen. His sermon is limited by the method, not the hour-glass; and his devotion goes along with him out of the pulpit. He comes not up thrice a week, because he would not be idle; nor talks three hours together, because he would not talk nothing: but his tongue preaches at fit times, and his conversation is the every day's exercise. In matters of ceremony, he is not ceremonious, but thinks he owes that reverence to the church to bow his judgement to it, and make more conscience of schism, than a surplice. He esteems the church hierarchy as the church's glory, and however we jar with Rome, would not have our confusion distinguish us. In simoniacal purchases he thinks his soul goes in the bargain, and is loath to come by promotion so dear; yet his worth at length advances him, and the price of his own merit buys him a living. He is no base grater of his tythes, and will not wrangle for the odd egg. The lawyer is the only man he hinders, by whom he is spited for taking up quarrels. He is a main pillar of our church, though not yet dean or canon, and his life our religion's best apology. His death is the last sermon, where, in the pulpit of his bed, he instructs men to die by his example.[8]

FOOTNOTES:

[8] I cannot forbear to close this admirable character with the beautiful description of a "_poure Persone_," _riche of holy thought and werk_, given by the father of English poetry:--

"Benigne he was, and wonder diligent, And in adversite ful patient: And swiche he was ypreved often sithes. Ful loth were him to cursen for his tythes, But rather wolde he yeven out of doute, Unto his poure parishens aboute, Of his offring, and eke of his substance. He coude in litel thing have suffisance. Wide was his parish, and houses fer asonder, But he ne left nought for no rain ne thonder, In sikenesse and in mischief to visite The ferrest in his parish, moche and lite, Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf.

* * * * *

And though he holy were, and vertuous, He was to sinful men not dispitous, Ne of his speche dangerous ne digne, But in his teching discrete and benigne. To drawen folk to heven, with fairenesse, By good ensample, was his besinesse.

* * * * *

He waited after no pompe ne reverence, Ne maked him no spiced conscience, But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, He taught, but first he folwed it himselve."

_Chaucer, Prol. to Cant. Tales, v._ 485.

We may surely conclude with a line from the same poem,

"A better preest I trowe that nowher non is."

IV.

A MEER DULL PHYSICIAN.

His practice is some business at bedsides, and his speculation an urinal: he is distinguished from an empiric, by a round velvet cap and doctor's gown, yet no man takes degrees more superfluously, for he is doctor howsoever. He is sworn to Galen and Hippocrates, as university men to their statutes, though they never saw them; and his discourse is all aphorisms, though his reading be only Alexis of Piedmont,[9] or the Regiment of Health.[10] The best cure he has done, is upon his own purse, which from a lean sickliness he hath made lusty, and in flesh. His learning consists much in reckoning up the hard names of diseases, and the superscriptions of gally-pots in his apothecary's shop, which are ranked in his shelves, and the doctor's memory. He is, indeed, only languaged in diseases, and speaks Greek many times when he knows not. If he have been but a by-stander at some desperate recovery, he is slandered with it though he be guiltless; and this breeds his reputation, and that his practice, for his skill is merely opinion. Of all odours he likes best the smell of urine, and holds Vespasian's[11] rule, that no gain is unsavory. If you send this once to him you must resolve to be sick howsoever, for he will never leave examining your water, till he has shaked it into a disease:[12] then follows a writ to his drugger in a strange tongue, which he understands, though he cannot conster. If he see you himself, his presence is the worst visitation: for if he cannot heal your sickness, he will be sure to help it. He translates his apothecary's shop into your chamber, and the very windows and benches must take physic. He tells you your malady in Greek, though it be but a cold, or headach; which by good endeavour and diligence he may bring to some moment indeed. His most unfaithful act is, that he leaves a man gasping, and his pretence is, death and he have a quarrel and must not meet; but his fear is, lest the carkass should bleed.[13] Anatomies, and other spectacles of mortality, have hardened him, and he is no more struck with a funeral than a grave-maker. Noble-men use him for a director of their stomach, and ladies for wantonness,[14] especially if he be a proper man.[15] If he be single, he is in league with his she-apothecary; and because it is the physician, the husband is patient. If he have leisure to be idle (that is to study,) he has a smatch at alcumy, and is sick of the philosopher's stone; a disease uncurable, but by an abundant phlebotomy of the purse. His two main opposites are a mountebank and a good woman, and he never shews his learning so much as in an invective against them and their boxes. In conclusion, he is a sucking consumption, and a very brother to the worms, for they are both engendered out of man's corruption.

FOOTNOTES: