shorter than a publican's; for he is no friend to the Lord's prayer, for the power and full sense of it, and because it is a form, and none of his own, nor of the Spirit because it is learnt; and therefore prefers the Pharisaical way of tediousness and tautology. This he calls "the gift of prayer,"

which he highly values himself upon, and yet delivers in a tone that he steals from the beggars; blames the Catholics for placing devotion in the mere repetition of words, and yet makes the same the character of spiritual gifts and graces in himself; for he uses the old phrases of the English translation of the Bible from the Jewish idiom, as if they contained in them more sanctity and holiness than other words that more properly signify the same thing. He professes a mortal hatred to ceremonies, and yet has more punctilios than a Jew; for he is of too rugged and churlish a nature to use any respect at all to anything. And though ceremonies are signs of submission, and very useful in the public service of God, yet they do not turn to any considerable account, nor acquire any opinion of gifts from the people to those that use them; and he pretends to a nearer familiarity with his Maker than to need any ceremonies, like a stranger; and indeed they are nothing agreeable to that audacious freedom that he assumes in his applications to Him. So he condemns uniformity in the public service of God, and yet affects nothing else in his own doctrines and uses, and cap and beard, which are all of the same stamp. He denounces against all those that are given over to a reprobate sense, but takes no notice of those that are given over to a reprobate nonsense. He is an implacable enemy to superstition and profaneness, and never gives it quarter, but is very tender of meddling with hypocrisy, though it be far more wicked, because the interests of it are so mixed with his own, that it is very difficult to

touch the one without disordering the other: for though hypocrisy be but a "form of godliness" without power, and he defies forms above all things, yet he is content to allow of it there, and disclaim it in all things else.

AN ALDERMAN

Has taken his degree in cheating, and the highest of his faculty, or paid for refusing his mandamus. He is a peer of the City, and a member of their Upper House, who, as soon as he arrives at so many thousand pounds, is bound by the charter to serve the public with so much understanding, what shift soever he make to raise it, and wear a chain about his neck like a reindeer, or in default to commute and make satisfaction in ready money, the best reason of the place; for which he has the name only, like a titular prince, and is an alderman extraordinary. But if his wife can prevail with him to stand, he becomes one of the City supporters, and, like the unicorn in the King's arms, wears a chain about his neck very right-worshipfully. He wears scarlet, not for his honesty, but the rank and quality he is of among the wicked. When he sits as a judge in his court he is absolute, and uses arbitrary power; for he is not bound to understand what he does, nor render an account why he gives judgment on one side rather than another; but his will is sufficient to stand for his reason, to all intents and purposes. He does no public business without eating and drinking, and never meets about matters of importance, but the cramming his inside is the most weighty part of the work of the day. He despatches no public affair until he has thoroughly dined upon it, and is fully satisfied with quince-pie and custard; for men are wiser, the Italians say, after their bellies are full, than

when they are fasting, and he is very cautious to omit no occasion of improving his parts that way. He is so careful of the interest of his belly, and manages it so industriously, that in a little space it grows great and takes place of all the rest of his members, and becomes so powerful that they will never be in a condition to rebel against it any more. He is clothed in scarlet, the livery of his sins, like the rich glutton, to put him in mind of what means he came to his wealth and preferment by. He makes a trade of his eating, and, like a cock, scrapes when he feeds; for the public pays for all and more, which he and his brethren share among themselves; for they never make a dry reckoning. When he comes to be Lord Mayor, he does not keep a great house, but a very great house-warming for a whole year; for though he invites all the "companies" in the City he does not treat them, but they club to entertain him, and pay the reckoning beforehand. His fur gown makes him look a great deal bigger than he is, like the feathers of an owl; and when he pulls it off, he looks as if he were fallen away, or, like a rabbit, had his skin pulled off.

A CORRUPT JUDGE

Passes judgment as a gamester does false dice. The first thing he takes is his oath and his commission, and afterwards the strongest side and bribes. He gives judgment, as the counsel at the bar are said to give advice, when they are paid for it. He wraps himself warm in furs, that the cold air may not strike his conscience inward. He is never an upright judge, but when he is weary of sitting, and stands for his ease. All the use he makes of his oath is to oppose it against his prince, for whose service he first took it, and to bind him with that which he first pretended to bind him

N

self with; as if the king, by imparting a little of his power to him, gave him a title to all the rest, like those who holding a little land in capite render all the rest liable to the same tenure. As for that which concerns the people, he takes his liberty to do what he pleases; this he maintains with canting, of which himself being the only judge, he can give it what arbitrary interpretation he pleases; yet is a great enemy to arbitrary power, because he would have no body use it but himself. If he have hopes of preferment, he makes all the law run on the king's side; if not, it always takes part against him; for as he was bred to make any thing right or wrong between man and man, so he can do between the king and his subjects. He calls himself capitalis, &c., which word he never uses but to crimes of the highest nature. He usurps insufferable tyranny over words; for when he has enslaved and debased them from their original sense, he makes them serve against themselves to support him, and their own abuse. He is as stiff to delinquents, and makes as harsh a noise as a new cart-wheel, until he is greased, and then he turns about as easily. He calls all necessary and unavoidable proceedings of state, without the punctual formality of law, arbitrary and illegal, but never considers that his own interpretations of law are more arbitrary, and, when he pleases, illegal. He cannot be denied to be à very impartial judge; for right or wrong are all one to him. He takes bribes, as pious men give alms, with so much caution, that his right hand never knows what his left receives.

A CHURCHWARDEN

Is a public officer, intrusted to rob the church by virtue of his place, as long as he is in it. He has a very great care

to eat and drink well upon all public occasions that concern the parish for "a good conscience being a perpetual feast," he believes the better he feeds the more conscience he uses in the discharge of his trust; and as long as there is no dry-money-cheat used, all others are allowed, according to the tradition and practice of the church in the purest times. When he lays a tax upon the parish he commonly raises it a fourth part above the accompt, to supply the default of houses that may be burnt or stand empty, or men that may break and run away; and if none of these happen, his fortune is the greater, and his hazard never the less; and therefore he divides the overplus between himself and his colleagues, who were engaged to pay the whole, if all the parish had run away, or hanged themselves. He over-reckons the parish in his accompts, as the taverns do him, and keeps the odd money himself instead of giving it to the drawers. He eats up the bell-ropes like the ass in the emblem, and converts the broken glass-windows into whole beer-glasses of sack; and before his year is out, if he be but as good a fellow as the drinking bishop was, pledges a whole pulpitful. If the church happen to fall to decay in his time, it proves a deodand to him; for he is lord of the manor, and does not only make what he pleases of it, but has his name recorded on the walls among texts of Scripture and leathern buckets, with the year of his office, that the memory of the unjust as well as the just may last as long as so transitory a thing may. He interprets his oath, as Catholics do the Scripture, not according to the sense and meaning of the words, but the tradition and practice of his predecessors, who have always been observed to swear what others please, and do what they please themselves.