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

to cheat costermongers. He eats gingerbread at a playhouse, and is so saucy that he ventures fairly for a broken pate at the banqueting-house, and hath it. He would never come to have any wit but for a long vacation, for that makes him bethink him how he shall shift another day. He prays hotly against fasting, and so he may sup well on Friday nights, he cares not though his master be a puritan. He practices to make the words in his declaration spread as a sewer doth the dishes of a niggard's table; a clerk of a swooping dash is as commendable as a Flanders horse of a large tail. Though you be never so much delayed you must not call his master knave, that makes him go beyond himself, and write a challenge in court hand, for it may be his own another day These are some certain of his liberal faculties; but in the term time his clog is a buckram bag. Lastly, which is great pity, he never comes to his full growth, with bearing on his shoulder the sinful burden of his master at several courts in Westminster.

A FOOTMAN.

Let him be never so well made, yet his legs are not matches, for he is still setting the best foot forward. He will never be a staid man, for he has had running head of his own ever since his childhood. His mother, which out of question was a lightheeled wench, knew it, yet let him run his race thinking age would reclaim him from his wild courses. He is very long-winded, and without doubt but that he hates naturally to serve on horseback, he had proved an excellent trumpet. He has one happiness above all the rest of the serving-men, for when he most overreaches his master he is best thought of. He lives more by his own heat than the warmth of clothes, and the waiting-woman hath the greatest fancy to him when he is in his close trouses. Guards he wears none, which makes him live more upright than any cross-gartered gentleman-usher. 'Tis impossible to draw his picture to the life, because a man must take it as he's running,

only this, horses are usually let blood on St. Steven's Day. On St. Patrick's he takes rest, and is drenched for all the year after.

A NOBLE AND RETIRED HOUSEKEEPER

Is one whose bounty is limited by reason, not ostentation; and to make it last he deals it discreetly, as we sow the furrow, not by the sack, but by the handful. His word and his meaning never shake hands and part, but always go together. He can survey good and love it, and loves to do it himself for its own sake, not for thanks. He knows there is no such misery as to outlive good name, nor no such folly as to put it in practice. His mind is so secure that thunder rocks him asleep, which breaks other men's slumbers; nobility lightens in his eyes, and in his face and gesture is painted the god of hospitality. His great houses bear in their front more durance than state, unless this add the greater state to them, that they promise to outlast much of our new fantastical buildings. His heart never grows old, no more than his memory, whether at his book or on horseback. He passeth his time in such noble exercise, a man cannot say any time is lost by him; nor hath he only years to approve he hath lived till he be old, but virtues. His thoughts have a high aim, though their dwelling be in the vale of an humble heart, whence, as by an engine (that raises water to fall that it may rise the higher), he is heightened in his humility. The adamant serves not for all seas, but this doth; for he hath, as it were, put a gird about the whole world and found all her quicksands. He hath this hand over fortune, that her injuries, how violent or sudden soever, they do not daunt him; for whether his time call him to live or die, he can do both nobly; if to fall, his descent is breast to breast with virtue; and even then, like the sun near his set, he shows unto the world his clearest countenance.

AN INTRUDER INTO FAVOUR

Is one that builds his reputation on others' infamy, for slander is most commonly his morning prayer. His passions are guided

by pride and followed by injustice. An inflexible anger against some poor tutor he falsely calls a courageous constancy, and thinks the best part of gravity to consist in a ruffled forehead. He is the most slavishly submissive, though envious to those that are in better place than himself; and knows the art of words so well that (for shrouding dishonesty under a fair pretext) he seems to preserve mud in crystal. Like a man of a kind nature, he is the first good to himself, in the next file to his French tailor, that gives him all his perfection; for indeed, like an estridge, or bird of paradise, his feathers are more worth than his body. If ever he do good deed (which is very seldom) his own mouth is the chronicle of it, lest it should die forgotten. His whole body goes all upon screws, and his face is the vice that moves them. If his patron be given to music, he opens his chops and sings, or with a wry neck falls to tuning his instrument; if that fail, he takes the height of his lord with a hawking pole. He follows the man's fortune, not the man, seeking thereby to increase his own. He pretends he is most undeservedly envied, and cries out, remembering the game, chess, that a pawn before a king is most played on. Debts he owns none but shrewd turns, and those he pays ere he be sued. He is a flattering glass to conceal age and wrinkles. He is mountain's monkey that, climbing a tree and skipping from bough to bough, gives you back his face; but come once to the top, he holds his nose up into the wind and shows you his tail. Yet all this gay glitter shows on him as if the sun shone in a puddle, for he is a small wine that will not last; and when he is falling, he goes of himself faster than misery can drive him.

A FAIR AND HAPPY MILKMAID

Is a country wench, that is so far from making herself beautiful by art, that one look of hers is able to put all face physic out of countenance. She knows a fair look is but a dumb orator to commend virtue, therefore minds it not. All her excellences stand in her so silently, as if they had stolen upon her without

her knowledge. The lining of her apparel (which is herself) is far better than outsides of tissue; for though she be not arrayed in the spoil of the silk-worm, she is decked in innocency, a far better wearing. She doth not, with lying long a-bed, spoil both her complexion and conditions; Nature hath taught her too immoderate sleep is rust to the soul; she rises therefore with chanticleer, her dame's cock, and at night makes lamb her curfew. In milking a cow and straining the teats through her fingers, it seems that so sweet a milk-press makes the milk the whiter or sweeter; for never came almond glove or aromatic ointment off her palm to taint it. The golden ears of corn fall and kiss her feet when she reaps them, as if they wished to be bound and led prisoners by the same hand that felled them. Her breath is her own, which scents all the year long of June, like a new made haycock. She makes her hand hard with labour, and her heart soft with pity; and when winter's evenings fall early (sitting at her merry wheel) she sings a defiance to the giddy wheel of fortune. She doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not suffer her to do ill, because her mind is to do well. She bestows her year's wages at next fair; and, in choosing her garments, counts no bravery in the world like decency. The garden and beehive are all her physic and chirurgery, and she lives the longer for it. She dares go alone and unfold sheep in the night, and fears no manner of ill because she means none; yet, to say truth, she is never alone, for she is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones; yet they have their efficacy, in that they are not palled with ensuing idle cogitations. Lastly, her dreams are so chaste that she dare tell them: only a Friday's dream is all her superstition; that she conceals for fear of anger. Thus lives she, and all her care is that she may die in the spring-time, to have store of flowers stuck upon her winding-sheet.