A MERE FELLOW OF AN HOUSE.

He is one whose hopes commonly exceed his fortunes and whose mind soars above his purse. If he hath read Tacitus Guicciardine or Gallo-Belgicus, he condemns the late LordTreasurer for all the state policy he had, and laughs to think what a fool he could make of Solomon if he were now alive. He never wears new clothes but against a commencement or a good time, and is commonly a degree behind the fashion. He hath sworn to see London once a year, though all his business be to see a play, walk a turn in Paul's, and observe the fashion. He thinks it a discredit to be out of debt, which he never likely clears without resignation money. He will not leave his part he hath in the privilege over young gentlemen in going bare to him, for the empire of Germany. He prays as heartily for a sealing as a cormorant doth for a dear year, yet commonly he spends that revenue before he receives it.

At meals he sits in as great state over his penny commons as ever Vitellius did at his greatest banquet, and takes great delight in comparing his fare to my Lord Mayor's.

If he be a leader of a faction, he thinks himself greater than ever Cæsar was or the Turk at this day is. And he had rather lose an inheritance than an office when he stands for it.

If he be to travel, he is longer furnishing himself for a five miles' journey than a ship is rigging for a seven years' voyage. He is never more troubled than when he has to maintain talk with a gentlewoman, wherein he commits more absurdities than a clown in eating of an egg.

He thinks himself as fine when he is in a clean band and a new pair of shoes, as any courtier doth when he is first in a new fashion.

Lastly, he is one that respects no man in the university, and is respected by no man out of it.

A WORTHY COMMANDER IN THE WARS

Is one that accounts learning the nourishment of military virtue, and lays that as his first foundation. He never bloodies his sword but in heat of battle, and had rather save one of his own soldiers than kill ten of his enemies. He accounts it an idle, vainglorious, and suspected bounty to be full of good words; his rewarding, therefore, of the deserver arrives so timely, that his liberality can never be said to be gouty-handed. He holds it next his creed that no coward can be an honest man, and dare die in it. He doth not think his body yields a more spreading shadow after a victory than before; and when he looks upon his enemy's dead body 'tis a kind of noble heaviness-no insultation. He is so honourably merciful to women in surprisal, that only that makes him an excellent courtier. He knows the hazard of battles, not the pomp of ceremonies, are soldiers' best theatres, and strives to gain reputation, not by the multitude but by the greatness of his actions. He is the first in giving the charge and the last in retiring his foot. Equal toil he endures with the common soldier; from his examples they all take fire, as one torch lights many. He understands in war there is no mean to err twice, the first and last fault being sufficient to ruin an army: faults, therefore, he pardons none; they that are precedents of disorder or mutiny repair it by being examples of his justice. Besiege him never so strictly, so long as the air is not cut from him, his heart faints not. He hath learned as well to make use of a victory as to get it, and pursuing his enemies like a whirlwind, carries all before him; being assured if ever a man will benefit himself upon his foe, then is the time when they have lost force, wisdom, courage, and reputation. The goodness of his cause is the special motive to his valour; never is he known to slight the weakest enemy that comes armed against him in the band of justice. Hasty and overmuch heat he accounts the stepdame to all great actions that will not suffer them to drive; if he cannot overcome his enemy by force, he does it by time. If ever he shake hands with war, he can die more calmly than most

courtiers, for his continual dangers have been, as it were, so many meditations of death. He thinks not out of his own calling when he accounts life a continual warfare, and his prayers then best become him when armed cap-à-pie. He utters them like the great Hebrew general, on horseback. He casts a smiling contempt upon calumny; it meets him as if glass should encounter adamant. He thinks war is never to be given o'er, but on one of these three conditions: an assured peace, absolute victory, or an honest death. Lastly, when peace folds him up, his silver head should lean near the golden sceptre and die in his prince's bosom.

A VAINGLORIOUS COWARD IN COMMAND

Is one that hath bought his place, or come to it by some nobleman's letter. He loves alive dead pays, yet wishes they may rather happen in his company by the scurvy than by a battle. View him at a muster, and he goes with such a nose as if his body were the wheelbarrow that carried his judgment rumbling to drill his soldiers. No man can worse design between pride and noble courtesy. He that salutes him not, so far as a pistol carries level, gives him the disgust or affront, choose you whether. He trains by the book, and reckons so many postures of the pike and musket as if he were counting at noddy. When he comes at first upon a camisado, he looks, like the four winds in painting, as if he would blow away the enemy; but at the very first onset suffers fear and trembling to dress themselves in his face appa rently. He scorns any man should take place before him, yet at the entering of a breach he hath been so humble-minded as to let his lieutenant lead his troops for him. He is so sure armed for taking hurt that he seldom does any; and while he is putting on his arms, he is thinking what sum he can make to satisfy his ransom. He will rail openly against all the great commanders of the adverse party, yet in his own conscience allows them for better Such is the nature of his fear that, contrary to all other filthy qualities, it makes him think better of another man than

men.

himself. The first part of him that is set a running is his eyesight; when that is once struck with terror all the costive physic in the world cannot stay him. If ever he do anything beyond his own heart 'tis for a knighthood, and he is the first kneels for it without bidding.

A PIRATE,

Truly defined, is a bold traitor, for he fortifies a castle against the king. Give him sea-room in never so small a vessel, and like a witch in a sieve, you would think he were going to make merry with the devil. Of all callings his is the most desperate, for he will not leave off his thieving, though he be in a narrow prison, and look every day, by tempest or fight, for execution. He is one plague the devil hath added to make the sea more terrible than a storm, and his heart is so hardened in that rugged element that he cannot repent, though he view his grave before him continually open. He hath so little of his own that the house he sleeps in is stolen: all the necessities of life he filches but one; he cannot steal a sound sleep for his troubled conscience. He is very gentle to those under him, yet his rule is the horriblest tyranny in the world, for he gives licence to all rape, murder, and cruelty in his own example. What he gets is small use to him, only lives by it somewhat the longer to do a little more service to his belly, for he throws away his treasure upon the shore in riot, as if he cast it into the sea. He is a cruel hawk that flies at all but his own kind; and as a whale never comes ashore but when she is wounded, so he very seldom but for his necessities. is the merchant's book that serves only to reckon up his losses, a perpetual plague to noble traffic, the hurricane of the sea, and the earthquake of the exchange. Yet for all this give him but his pardon and forgive him restitution, he may live to know the inside of a church, and die on this side Wapping.

AN ORDINARY FENCER

He

Is a fellow that, beside shaving of cudgels, hath a good insight into the world, for he hath long been beaten to it. Flesh and

E

blood he is like other men, but surely nature meant him stockfish. His and a dancing-school are inseparable adjuncts, and are bound, though both stink of sweat most abominable, neither shall complain of annoyance. Three large bavins set up his trade, with a bench, which, in the vacation of the afternoon, he used for his day-bed. When he comes on the stage at his prize he makes a leg seven several ways, and scrambles for money, as if he had been born at the Bath in Somersetshire. At his challenge he shows his metal, for, contrary to all rules of physic, he dares bleed, though it be in the dog-days. He teaches devilish play in his school, but when he fights himself he doth it in the fear of a good Christian; he compounds quarrels among his scholars, and when he hath brought the business to a good upshot he makes the reckoning. His wounds are seldom above skin deep; for an inward bruise lamb-stones and sweetbreads are his only spermaceti, which he eats at night next his heart fasting. Strange schoolmasters they are that every day set a man as far backward as he went forward, and throwing him into a strange posture, teach him to thresh satisfaction out of injury. One sign of a good nature is that he is still open-breasted to his friends; for his foil and his doublet wear not out above two buttons, and resolute he is, for he so much scorns to take blows that he never wears cuffs; and he lives better contented with a little than other men, for if he have two eyes in his head he thinks nature hath overdone him. The Lord Mayor's triumph makes him a man, for that's his best time to flourish. Lastly, these fencers are such things that care not if all the world were ignorant of more letters than only to read their patent.

A PUNY CLERK.

He is taken from grammar-school half coddled, and can hardly shake off his dreams of breeching in a twelvemonth. He is a farmer's son, and his father's utmost ambition is to make him an attorney. He doth itch towards a poet, and greases his breeches extremely with feeding without a napkin. He studies false dice