His love-letters of the last year of his gentlemanship are stuffed with discontinuances, remitters, and uncore priests; but, now being enabled to speak in proper person, he talks of a French hood instead of a jointure, wags his law, and joins issue. Then he begins to stick his letters in his ground chamberwindow, that so the superscription may make his squireship transparent. His heraldry gives him place before the minister, because the Law was before the Gospel. Next term he walks his hoopsleeve gown to the hall; there it proclaims him. He feeds fat in the reading, and till it chance to his turn, dislikes no house order so much as that the month is so contracted to a fortnight. Amongst his country neighbours he arrogates as much honour for being reader of an Inn of Chancery, as if it had been of his own house; for they, poor souls, take law and conscience, Court and Chancery, for all one. He learned to frame his case from putting riddles and imitating Merlin's prophecies, and to set all the Cross Row together by the ears; yet his whole law is not able to decide Lucan's one old controversy betwixt Tau and Sigma. He accounts no man of his cap and coat idle, but who trots not the circuit. He affects no life or quality for itself, but for gain; and that, at least, to the stating him in a Justice of Peace-ship, which is the first quickening soul superadded to the elementary and inanimate form of his new tide. His terms are his wife's vacations; yet she then may usurp divers Courtdays, and has her returns in mensem for writs of entry-often shorter. His vacations are her termers; but in assize time (the circuit being long) he may have a trial at home against him by nisi prius. No way to heaven, he thinks, so wise as through Westminster Hall; and his clerks commonly through it visit both heaven and hell. Yet then he oft forgets his journey's end, although he look on the Star-Chamber. Neither is he wholly destitute of the arts. Grammar he has enough to make termination of those words which his authority hath endenizoned rhetoricsome; but so little that it is thought a concealment. Logic, enough to wrangle. Arithmetic, enough for the ordinals of his year-books and number-rolls; but he goes not to multiplication, there is a statute against it. So much geometry, that he can advise in a perambulatione facienda, or a rationalibus divisis. In astronomy and astrology he is so far seen, that by the Dominical letter he knows the holy-days, and finds by calculation that Michaelmas term will be long and dirty. Marry, he knows so much in music that he affects only the most and cunningest discords; rarely a perfect concord, especially song, except in fine. His skill in perspective endeavours much to deceive the eye of the law, and gives many false colours. He is specially practised in necromancy (such a kind as is out of the Statute of Primo), by raising many dead questions. What sufficiency he hath in criticism, the foul copies of his special pleas will tell you. Many of the same coat, which are much to be honoured, partake of divers of his indifferent qualities; but so that discretion, virtue, and sometimes other good learning, concurring and distinguishing ornaments to them, make them as foils to set their work on. A MERE SCHOLAR. A mere scholar is an intelligible ass, or a silly fellow in black that speaks sentences more familiarly than sense. The antiquity of his University is his creed, and the excellency of his college (though but for a match at football) an article of his faith. He speaks Latin better than his mother-tongue, and is a stranger in no part of the world but his own country. He does usually tell great stories of himself to small purpose, for they are commonly ridiculous, be they true or false. His ambition is that he either is or shall be a graduate; but if ever he get a fellowship, he has then no fellow. In spite of all logic he dares swear and maintain it, that a cuckold and a town's-man are termini convertibiles, though his mother's husband be an alderman. He was never begotten (as it seems) without much wrangling, for his whole life is spent in pro et contra. His tongue goes always before his wit, like gentleman-usher, but somewhat faster. That he be a complete gallant in all points, cap-à-pie, witness his He is commonly horsemanship and the wearing of his weapons. long-winded, able to speak more with ease than any man can endure to hear with patience. University jests are his universal discourse, and his news the demeanour of the proctors. His phrase, the apparel of his mind, is made of divers shreds, like a cushion, and when it goes plainest it hath a rash outside and fustian linings. The current of his speech is closed with an ergo; and, whatever be the question, the truth is on his side. It is a wrong to his reputation to be ignorant of anything; and yet he knows not that he knows nothing. He gives directions for husbandry, from Virgil's "Georgics;" for cattle, from his "Bucolics;" for warlike stratagems, from his "Eneids" or Cæsar's "Commentaries." He orders all things and thrives in none; skilful in all trades and thrives in none. He is led more by his ears than his understanding, taking the sound of words for their true sense, and does therefore confidently believe that Erra Pater was the father of heretics, Radulphus Agricola a substantial farmer, and will not stick to aver that Systemo's Logic doth excel Keckerman's. His ill-luck is not so much in being a fool, as in being put to such pains to express it to the world, for what in others is natural, in him (with much ado) is artificial. His poverty is his happiness, for it makes some men believe that he is none of fortune's favourites. That learning which he hath was in non age put in backward like a glyster, and it's now like ware mislaid in a pedlar's pack; a has it, but knows not where it is. In a word, his is the index of a man and the title-page of a scholar, or a puritan in morality—much in profession, nothing in practice. A TINKER Is a movable, for he hath no abiding-place; by his motion he gathers heat, thence his choleric nature. He seems to be very devout, for his life is a continual pilgrimage, and sometimes in humility goes barefoot, thereon making necessity a virtue. His house is as ancient as Tubal Cain's, and so is a renegade by antiquity yet he proves himself a gallant, for he carries all his : wealth upon his back; or a philosopher, for he bears all his substance about him. From his art was music first invented, and therefore he is always furnished with a song, to which his hammer keeping tune, proves that he was the first founder for the kettledrum. Note, that where the best ale is, there stands his music most upon crochets. The companion of his travels is some foul sun-burnt quean, that, since the terrible statute, recanted gipseyism and is turned pedlaress. So marches he all over England with his bag and baggage. His conversation is unreprovable, for he is ever mending. He observes truly the statutes, and therefore he can rather steal than beg, in which he is unremovably constant in spite of whip or imprisonment; and so a strong enemy to idleness, that in mending one hole he had rather make three than want work, and when he hath done, he throws the wallet of his faults behind him. He embraceth naturally ancient custom, conversing in open fields and lowly cottages. If he visit cities or towns, 'tis but to deal upon the imperfections of our weaker vessels. His tongue is very voluble, which with canting proves him a linguist. He is entertained in every place, but enters no further than the door, to avoid suspicion. Some will take him to be a coward, but believe it, he is a lad of metal; his valour is commonly three or four yards long, fastened to a pike in the end for flying off. He is provident, for he will fight but with one at once, and then also he had rather submit than be counted obstinate. To conclude, if he escape Tyburn and Banbury, he dies a beggar. AN APPARITOR Is a chick of the egg abuse, hatched by the warmth of authority; he is a bird of rapine, and begins to prey and feather together. He croaks like a raven against the death of rich men, and so gets a legacy unbequeathed. His happiness is in the multitude of children, for their increase is his wealth, and to that end he himself yearly adds one. He is a cunning hunter, uncoupling his intelligencing hounds under hedges, in thickets and corn fields, who follow the chase to city suburbs, where often his game is at covert; his quiver hangs by his side stuffed with silver arrows, which he shoots against church-gates and private men's doors, to the hazard of their purses and credit. There went but a pair of shears between him and the pursuivant of hell, for they both delight in sin, grow richer by it, and are by justice appointed to punish it; only the devil is more cunning, for he picks a living out of others' gains. His living lieth in his eye, which (like spirits) he sends through chinks and keyholes to survey the places of darkness; for which purpose he studieth the optics, but can discover no colour but black, for the pure white of chastity dazzleth his eyes. He is a Catholic, for he is everywhere; and with a politic, for he transforms himself into all shapes. He travels on foot to avoid idleness, and loves the Church entirely, because it is the place of his edification. He accounts not all sins mortal, for fornication with him is a venial sin, and to take bribes a matter of charity; he is collector for burnings and losses at sea, and in casting account readily subtracts the lesser from the greater sum. Thus lives he in a golden age, till death by a process summons him to appear. AN ALMANAC-MAKER Is the worst part of an astronomer; a certain compact of figures, characters, and ciphers, out of which he scores the fortune of a year, not so profitably as doubtfully. He is tenant by custom twelve houses by lease to the planets, of whom he holds the parol; to them he pays yearly rent, his study and time, yet lets them out again with all his heart for 40s. per annum. His life is merely contemplative; for his practice, 'tis worth nothing, at least not worthy of credit, and if by chance he purchase any, he loseth it again at the year's end, for time brings truth to light. Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe are his patrons, whose volumes he understands not but admires, and the rather because they are strangers, and so easier to be credited than controlled. His life is upright, for he is always looking upward, yet dares believe |