A REPROBATE.

A reprobate is the child of sin who, being born for the service of the devil, cares not what villainy he does in the world. His wit is always in a maze, for his courses are ever out of order; and while his will stands for his wisdom, the best that falls out of him is a fool. He betrays the trust of the simple, and sucks out the blood of the innocent. His breath is the fume of blasphemy, and his tongue the firebrand of hell. His desires are the destruction of the virtuous, and his delights are the traps to damnation. He bathes in the blood of murder, and sups up the broth of iniquity. He frighteth the eyes of the godly, and disturbeth the hearts of the religious. He marreth the wits of the wise, and is hateful to the souls of the gracious. In sum, he is an inhuman creature, a fearful companion, a man-monster, and a devil incarnate.

AN OLD MAN.

An old man is the declaration of time in the defect of Nature, and the imperfection of sense in the use of reason. He is in the observation of Time, a calendar of experience; but in the power of action, he is a blank among lots. He is the subject of weakness, the agent of sickness, the displeasure of life, and the forerunner of death. He is twice a child and half a man, a living picture, and a dying creature. He is a blown bladder that is only stuffed with wind, and a withered tree that hath lost the sap of the root, or an old lute with strings all broken, or a ruined castle that is ready to fall. He is the eyesore of youth and the jest of love, and in the fulness of infirmity the mirror of misery. Yet in the honour of wisdom he may be gracious in gravity, and in the government of justice deserve the honour of reverence. Yea, his word may be notes for the use of reason, and his actions examples for the imitation of discretion. In sum, In sum, in whatsoever estate he is but as the snuff of a candle, that pink it ever so long it will out at last.

A YOUNG MAN.

A young man is the spring of time, when nature in her pride shows her beauty to the world. He is the delight of the eye and the study of the mind, the labour of instruction and the pupil of reason. His wit is in making or marring, his wealth in gaining or losing, his honour in advancing or declining, and his life in abridging or increasing. He is a bloom that either is blasted in the bud or grows to a good fruit, or a bird that dies in the nest or lives to make use of her wings. He is a colt that must have a bridle ere he be well managed, and a falcon that must be well maned or he will never be reclaimed. He is the darling of nature and the charge of reason, the exercise of patience and the hope of charity. His exercise is either study or action, and his study either knowledge or pleasure. His disposition gives a great note of his generation, and yet his breeding may either better or worse him, though to wish a blackamoor white be the loss of labour, and what is bred in the bone will never out of the flesh. In sum, till experience have seasoned his understanding, he is rather a child than a man, a prey of flattery or a praise of providence, in the way of grace to prove a saint, or in the way of sin to grow a devil.

A HOLY MAN.

A holy man is the chiefest creature in the workmanship of the world. He is the highest in the election of love, and the nearest to the image of the human nature of his Maker. He is served of all the creatures in the earth, and created but for the service of his Creator. He is capable of the course of nature, and by the rule of observation finds the art of reason. His senses are but servants to his spirit, which is guided by a power above himself. His time is only known to the eye of the Almighty, and what he is in his most greatness is as nothing but in His mercy. He makes law by the direction of life, and lives but in the mercy of love. He treads upon the face of the earth till in the same

substance he be trod upon, though his soul that gave life to his senses live in heaven till the resurrection of his flesh. He hath an eye to look upward towards grace, while labour is only the punishment of sin. His faith is the hand of his soul, which layeth hold on the promise of mercy. His patience is the tenure of the possession of his soul, his charity the rule of his life, and his hope the anchor of his salvation. His study is the state of obedience, and his exercise the continuance of prayer; his life but a passage to a better, and his death the rest of his labours. His heart is a watch to his eye, his wit a door to his mouth, his soul a guard to his spirit, and his limbs are but labourers for his body. In sum, he is ravished with divine love, hateful to the nature of sin, troubled with the vanities of the world, and longing for his joy but in heaven.

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GEOFFREY MINSHULL.

After "The Good and the Bad," published in 1616, came, in 1618, Essays and Characters of a Prison and Prisoners, by G. M. of Grayes Inn, Gent." G. M. signed his name in fullGeffray Minshul-after the Dedication to his uncle, Mr. Matthew Mainwaring of Nantwich, Cheshire, and he dates from the King's Bench Prison. Philip Bliss found record in a History of Nantwich of a monument there in St. Mary's Church, erected by Geoffrey Minshull of Stoke, Esq., to the memory of his ancestors. He quotes also from Geoffrey Minshull's Characters the following passage from the Dedication, and the Character of a Prisoner.

FROM THE DEDICATION OF "ESSAYS AND CHARACTERS OF A PRISON AND PRISONERS."

"Since my coming into this prison, what with the strangeness of the place and strictness of my liberty, I am so transported that I could not follow that study wherein I took great delight and chief pleasure, and to spend my time idly would but add more discontentments to my troubled breast, and being in this chaos of discontentments, fantasies must arise, which will bring forth the fruits of an idle brain, for e malis minimum. It is far better to give some account of time, though to little purpose, than none at all. To which end I gathered a handful of essays, and few characters of such things as by my own experience I could say Probatum est: not that thereby I should either please the reader, or show exquisiteness of invention, or curious style; seeing what I write of is but the child of sorrow, bred by discontentments and nourished up with misfortunes, to whose help melancholy Saturn gave his judgment, the night-bird her invention, and the ominous raven brought a quill taken from his own wing, dipped in the ink of misery, as chief aiders in this architect of sorrow."

A CHARACTER OF A PRISONER.

A prisoner is an impatient patient, lingering under the rough hands of a cruel physician: his creditor having cast his water knows his disease, and hath power to cure him, but takes more pleasure to kill him. He is like Tantalus, who hath freedom running by his door, yet cannot enjoy the least benefit thereof. His greatest grief is that his credit was so good and now no better. His land is drawn within the compass of a sheep's skin, and his own hand the fornication that bars him of entrance: he is fortune's tossing-ball, an object that would make mirth melancholy to his friends an abject, and a subject of nine days' wonder in every barber's shop, and a mouthful of pity (that he had no better fortune) to midwives and talkative gossips; and all the content that this transitory life can give him seems but to flout him, in respect the restraint of liberty bars the true use. To his familiars he is like a plague, whom they dare scarce come nigh for fear of infection; he is a monument ruined by those which raised him, he spends the day with a hei mihil væ miserum! and the night with a nullis est medicabilis herbis.

HENRY PARROT [?].

In 1626-year of the death of Francis Bacon—appeared "Cures for the Itch; Characters, Epigrams, Epitaphs by H. P.,” " with the motto "Scalpat qui Tangitur." H. P. was read by Philip Bliss into Henry Parrot, who published a collection of epigrams in 1613, as "Laquei Ridiculosi, or Springes for Woodcocks." The Characters in this little volume are of a Ballad Maker, a Tapster, a Drunkard, a Rectified Young Man, a Young Novice's New Younger Wife, a Common Fiddler, a Broker, a Jovial Good Fellow, a Humourist, a Malapert Young Upstart, a Scold, a Good Wife, and a Self-Conceited Parcel- Witted Old Dotard.