him so informer-like-dangerous, in taking advantage of anything
done or said, yea, even to the ruin of his makers, if he may have
benefit, that such a creature in a society makes men as careful
of their speeches and actions as the sight of a known cut-purse
in a throng makes them watchful over their purses and pockets.
He is also in this respect profitable physic, that his conversation
being once truly tasted and discovered, the hateful foulness of it
will make those that are not fully like him to purge all such
diseases as are rank in him out of their own lives, as the sight
of some citizens on horseback make a judicious man amend his
own faults in horsemanship. If one of these uses can be made
of him, let him not long offend the stomach of your company;
your best way is to spue him out. That he is a disease in the
body where he liveth were as strange a thing to doubt as whether
there be knavery in horse-coursers. (For if among sheep, the rot;
amongst dogs, the mange; amongst horses, the glanders; amongst
men and women, the Northern itch and the French ache, be
diseases, an hypocrite cannot but be the like in all States and
societies that breed him. If he be a clergy hypocrite, then all
manner of vice is for the most part so proper to him as he will
grudge any man the practice of it but himself; like that grave
burgess, who being desired to lend his clothes to represent a part
in a comedy, answered: No, by his leave, he would have nobody
play the fool in his clothes but himself. Hence are his so austere
reprehensions of drinking healths, lascivious talk, usury, and un-
conscionable dealing; whenas himself, hating the profane mixture
of malt and water, will, by his good will, let nothing come within
him but the purity of the grape, when he can get it of another's
But this must not be done neither without a preface of
seeming soothness, turning up the eyes, moving the head, laying
hand on the breast, and protesting that he would not do it but
to strengthen his body, being even consumed with dissembled
zeal, and tedious and thankless babbling to God and his auditors.
And for the other vices, do but venture the making yourself
private with him or trusting of him, and if you come off without
a savour of the air which his soul is infected with
you have great

cost.

other

миет

cher

любов

fortune. The fardel of all this ware that is in him you shall commonly see carried upon the back of these two beasts that ve within him, Ignorance and Imperiousness, and they may well serve to carry other vices, for of themselves they are insupportable. His Ignorance acquits him of all science, human or divine, and Of all language but his mother's; holding nothing pure, holy, or sincere but the senseless recollections of his own crazed brain, the zealous fumes of his inflamed spirit, and the endless labours of his eternal tongue, the motions whereof, when matter and words fail (as they often do), must be patched up to accomplish his four hours in a day at the least with long and fervent hums. Anything else, either for language or matter, he cannot abide, but thus censureth: Latin, the language of the beast; Greek, the tongue wherein the heathen poets wrote their fictions; Hebrew, the speech of the Jews that crucified Christ; controversies do not edify; logic and philosophy are the subtilties of Satan to deceive the simple; human stories profane, and not savouring of the Spirit; in a word, all decent and sensible form of speech and persuasion (though in his own tongue) vain ostentation. And all this is the burden of his Ignorance, saving that sometimes idleness will put in also to bear a part of the baggage. His other beast, Imperiousness, is yet more proudly laden; it carrieth a burden that no cords of authority, spiritual nor temporal, should bind if it might have the full swing. No Pilate, no prince should command him, nay, he will command them, and at his pleasure censure them if they will not suffer their ears to be fettered with the long chains of his tedious collations, their purses to be emptied with the inundations of his unsatiable humour, and their judgments to be blinded with the muffler of his zealous ignorance; for this doth he familiarly insult over his maintainer that breeds him, his patron that feeds him, and in time over all them that will suffer him to set a foot within their doors or put a finger in their purses. All this and much more is in him; that abhorring degrees and universities as reliques of superstition, hath leapt from a shop-board or a cloak-bag to a desk or pulpit; and that, like a sea-god in a pageant, hath the

ә

rotten laths of his culpable life and palpable ignorance covered over with the painted-cloth of a pure gown and a night-cap, and with a false trumpet of feigned zeal draweth after him some poor nymphs and madmen that delight more to resort to dark caves and secret places than to open and public assemblies. The lay- # Day laylay hypocrite is to the other a champion, disciple, and subject, and will not acknowledge the tithe of the subjection to any mitre, no, not to any sceptre, that he will do to the hook and crook of his zeal-blind shepherd. No Jesuits demand more blind and absolute

تسليهم

obedience from their vassals, no magistrates of the canting society rely

more slavish subjection from the members of that travelling State, than the clerk hypocrites expect from these lay pulpits. Nay, they must not only be obeyed, fed, and defended, but admired too; and that their lay-followers do sincerely, as a shirtless fellow with a cudgel under his arm doth a face-wringing ballad-singer, a water-bearer on the floor of a playhouse, a wide-mouthed poet that speaks nothing but blathers and bombast. Otherwise, for life and profession, nature and art, inward and outward, they agree in all; like canters and gypsies, they are all zeal no knowledge, all purity no humanity, all simplicity no honesty, and if you never trust them they will never deceive you.

A CHAMBERMAID.

يمن

She is her mistress's she secretary, and keeps the box of her teeth, her hair, and her painting very private. Her industry is upstairs and downstairs, like a drawer; and by her dry hand you may know she is a sore starcher. If she lie at her master's bed's feet, she is quit of the green sickness for ever, for she hath terrible dreams when she's awake, as if she were troubled with the nightmare. She hath a good liking to dwell in the country, but she F holds London the goodliest forest in England to shelter a great belly. She reads Greene's works over and over, but is so carriedef to away with the "Mirror of Knighthood," she is many times resolved to run out of her self and become a lady-errant. The pedant of the house, though he promise her marriage, cannot grow further

me

inward with her; she hath paid for her credulity often, and now grows weary. She likes the form of our marriage very well, in that a woman is not tied to answer to any articles concerning questions of virginity. Her mind, her body, and clothes are parcels loosely tacked together, and for want of good utterance she perpetually laughs out her meaning. Her mistress and she help to make away time to the idlest purpose that can be, either for love or money. In brief, these chambermaids are like lotteries: : you may draw twenty ere one worth anything.

A PRECISIAN.

To speak no otherwise of this varnished rottenness than in truth and verity he is, I must define him to be a demure creature, full of oral sanctity and mental impiety; a fair object to the eye, but stark naught for the understanding, or else a violent thing much given to contradiction. He will be sure to be in opposition. with the Papist, though it be sometimes accompanied with an absurdity, like the islanders near adjoining unto China, who salute by putting off their shoes, because the men of China do it by their hats. If at any time he fast, it is upon Sunday, and he is sure to feast upon Friday. He can better afford you ten lies than one oath, and dare commit any sin gilded with a pretence of sanctity. He will not stick to commit fornication or adultery so it be done in the fear of God and for the propagation of the godly, and can find in his heart to lie with any whore save the whore of Babylon. To steal he holds it lawful, so it be from the wicked and Egyptians. He had rather see Antichrist than a picture in the church window, and chooseth sooner to be half hanged than see a leg at the name of Jesus or one stand at the Creed. He conceives his prayer in the kitchen rather than in the church, and is of so good discourse that he dares challenge the Almighty to talk with him extempore. He thinks every organist is in the state of damnation, and had rather hear one of Robert Wisdom's psalms than the best hymn a cherubim can sing. He will not break wind without an apology or asking forgiveness,

nor kiss a gentlewoman for fear of lusting after her. He hath nicknamed all the prophets and apostles with his sons, and begets nothing but virtues for daughters. Finally, he is so sure of his salvation, that he will not change places in heaven with the Virgin Mary, without boot.

AN INNS OF COURT MAN.

He is distinguished from a scholar by a pair of silk stockings and a beaver hat, which makes him condemn a scholar as much as a scholar doth a schoolmaster. By that he hath heard one mooting and seen two plays, he thinks as basely of the university as a young sophister doth of the grammar-school. He talks of the university with that state as if he were her chancellor; finds fault with alterations and the fall of discipline with an "It was not so when I was a student," although that was within this half year. He will talk ends of Latin, though it be false, with as great confidence as ever Cicero could pronounce an oration, though his best authors for it be taverns and ordinaries. He is as far behind a courtier in his fashion as a scholar is behind him, and the best grace in his behaviour is to forget his acquaint

ance.

He laughs at every man whose band fits not well, or that hath not a fair shoe-tie, and he is ashamed to be seen in any man's company that wears not his clothes well. His very essence he placeth in his outside, and his chiefest prayer is, that his revenues may hold out for taffety cloaks in the summer and velvet in the winter. To his acquaintance he offers two quarts of wine for one he gives. You shall never see him melancholy but when he wants a new suit or fears a sergeant, at which times he only betakes himself to Ploydon. By that he hath read Littleton, he can call Solon, Lycurgus, and Justinian fools, and dares compare his law to a lord chief-justice's.