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as a Jesuit to his superior, but repays himself again in insolence over those that are below him, and with a generous scorn despises those that can neither do him good nor hurt. He adores those that may do him good, though he knows they never will, and despises those that would not hurt him if they could. The court is his church, and he believes as that believes, and cries up and down everything as he finds it pass there. It is a great comfort to him to think that some who do not know him may perhaps take him for a lord, and while that thought lasts he looks bigger than usual and forgets his acquaintance, and that's the reason why he will sometimes know you and sometimes not. Nothing but want of money or credit puts him in mind that he is mortal, but then he trusts Providence that somebody will trust him, and in expectation of that hopes for a better life, and that his debts will never rise up in judgment against him. To get in debt is to labour in his vocation, but to pay is to forfeit his protection, for what's that worth to one that owes nothing? His employment being only to wear his clothes, the whole account of his life and actions is recorded in shopkeepers' books, that are his faithful historiographers to their own posterity; and he believes he loses so much reputation as he pays off his debts, and that no man wears his clothes in fashion that pays for them, for nothing is further from the mode. He believes that he that runs in debt is beforehand with those that trust him, and only those that pay are behind. His brains are turned giddy, like one that walks on the top of a house, and that's the reason it is so troublesome to him to look downwards. He is a kind of spectrum, and his clothes are the shape he takes to appear and walk in, and when he puts them off he vanishes. He runs as busily out of one room into another as a great practiser does in Westminster Hall from one court to another. When he accosts a lady he puts both ends of his microcosm in motion, by making legs at one end and combing his peruke at the other. His garniture is the sauce to his clothes, and he walks in his port cannons like one that stalks in long grass. Every motion of him cries "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, quoth the preacher." He rides himself like a well

managed horse, reins in his neck, and walks terra-terra. He carries his elbows backward, as if he were pinioned like a trussed-up fowl, and moves as stiff as if he was upon the spit. His legs are stuck in his great voluminous breeches like the whistles in a bagpipe, those abundant breeches in which his nether parts are not clothed but packed up. His hat has been long in a consumption of the fashion, and is now almost worn to nothing; if it do not recover quickly it will grow too little for a head of garlic. He wears garniture on the toes of his shoes to justify his pretensions to the gout, or such other malady that for the time being is most in fashion or request. When he salutes a friend he pulls off his hat, as women do their vizard-masks. His ribbons are of the true complexion of his mind, a kind of painted cloud or gaudy rainbow, that has no colour of itself but what it borrows from reflection. He is as tender of his clothes as a coward is of his flesh, and as loth to have them disordered. His bravery is all his happiness, and, like Atlas, he carries his heaven on his back. He is like the golden fleece, a fine outside on a sheep's back. He is a monster or an Indian creature, that is good for nothing in the world but to be seen. He puts himself up into a sedan, like a fiddle in a case, and is taken out again for the ladies to play upon, who, when they have done with him, let down his treble-string till they are in the humour again. His cook and valet de chambre conspire to dress dinner and him so punctually together that the one may not be ready before the other. As peacocks and ostriches have the gaudiest and finest feathers, yet cannot fly, so all his bravery is to flutter only. The beggars call him "my lord," and he takes them at their words and pays them for it. If you praise him, he is so true and faithful to the mode that he never fails to make you a present of himself, and will not be refused, though you know not what to do with him when you have him.

A COURT Beggar

Waits at Court, as a dog does under a table, to catch what falls, or force it from his fellows if he can. When a man is in a fair

way to be hanged that is richly worth it, or has hanged himself, he puts in to be his heir and succeed him, and pretends as much merit as another, as no doubt he has great reason to do if all things were rightly considered. He thinks it vain to deserve well of his Prince as long as he can do his business more easily by begging, for the same idle laziness possesses him that does the rest of his fraternity, that had rather take an alms than work for their livings, and therefore he accounts merit a more uncertain and tedious way of rising, and sometimes dangerous. He values himself and his place not upon the honour or allowances of it, but the convenient opportunity of begging, as King Clause's courtiers do when they have obtained of the superior powers a good station where three ways meet to exercise the function in. The more ignorant, foolish, and undeserving he is, provided he be but impudent enough, which all such seldom fail to be, the better he thrives in his calling, as others in the same way gain more by their sores and broken limbs than those that are sound and in health. He always undervalues what he gains, because he comes easily by it; and, how rich soever he proves, is resolved never to be satisfied, as being, like a Friar Minor, bound by his order to be always a beggar. He is, like King Agrippa, almost a Christian; for though he never begs anything of God, yet he does very much of his vicegerent the King, that is next Him. He spends lavishly what he gets, because it costs him so little pains to get more, but pays nothing; for if he should, his privilege would be of no use at all to him, and he does not care to part with anything of his right. He finds it his best way to be always craving, because he lights many times upon things that are disposed of or not beggable; but if one hit, it pays for twenty that miscarry; even as those virtuosos of his profession at large ask as well of those that give them nothing as those few that, out of charity, give them something. When he has passed almost all offices, as other beggars do from constable to constable, and after meets with a stop, it does but encourage him to be more industrious in watching the next opportunity, to repair the charge he has been at to no purpose. He has his emissaries, that are

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always hunting out for discoveries, and when they bring him in anything that he judges too heavy for his own interest to carry, he takes in others to join with him (like blind men and cripples that beg in consort), and if they prosper they share, and give the jackal some small snip for his pains in questing; that is, if he has any further use of him; otherwise he leaves him, like virtue, to reward himself; and because he deserves well, which he does by no means approve of, gives him, that which he believes to be the fittest recompense of all merit, just nothing. He believes that the King's restoration being upon his birthday, he is bound to observe it all the days of his life, and grant, as some other kings have done upon the same occasion, whatever is demanded of him, though it were the one-half of his kingdom.

A BUMPKIN OR COUNTRY SQUIRE

Is a clown of rank and degree. He is the growth of his own land, a kind of Autocthonus, like the Athenians that sprang out of their own ground, or barnacles that grow upon trees in Scotland. His homely education has rendered him a native only of his own soil and a foreigner to all other places, from which he differs in language, manner of living, and behaviour, which are as rugged as the coat of a colt that has been bred upon a common. The custom of being the best man in his own territories has made him the worst everywhere else. He assumes the upper end of the table at an ale-house as his birthright, receives the homage of his company, which are always subordinate, and dispenses ale and communication like a self-conforming teacher in a conventicle. The chief points he treats on are the memoirs of his dogs and horses, which he repeats as often as a holder-forth that has but two sermons, to which if he adds the history of his hawks and fishing he is very painful and laborious. He does his endeavour to appear a droll, but his wit being, like his estate, within the compass of a hedge, is so profound and obscure to a stranger that it requires a commentary, and is not to be understood without a perfect knowledge of all circumstances of persons

and the particular idiom of the place. He has no ambition to appear a person of civil prudence or understanding more than in putting off a lame, infirm jade for sound wind and limb, to which purpose he brings his squirehood and groom to vouch, and, rather than fail, will outswear an affidavit-man. The top of his entertainment is horrible strong beer, which he pours into his guests (as the Dutch did water into our merchants when they tortured them at Amboyna) till they confess they can drink no more, and then he triumphs over them as subdued and vanquished, no less by the strength of his brain than his drink. When he salutes a man he lays violent hands upon him, and grips and shakes him like a fit of an ague; and when he accosts a lady he stamps with his foot, like a French fencer, and makes a lunge at her, in which he always misses his aim, too high or too low, and hits her on the nose or chin. He is never without some rough-handed flatterer, that rubs him, like a horse, with a curry-comb till he kicks and grunts with the pleasure of it. He has old family stories and jests, that fell to him with the estate, and have been left from heir to heir time out of mind. With these he entertains all comers over and over, and has added some of his own times, which he intends to transmit over to posterity. He has but one way of making all men welcome that come to his house, and that is by making himself and them drunk; while his servants take the same course with theirs, which he approves of as good and faithful service, and the rather because, if he has occasion to tell a strange, improbable story, they may be in a readiness to vouch with the more impudence, and make it a case of conscience to lie as well as drink for his credit. All the heroical glory he aspires to is but to be reputed a most potent and victorious stealer of deer and beater-up of parks, to which purpose he has compiled commentaries of his own great actions that treat of his dreadful adventures in the night, of giving battle in the dark, discomfiting of keepers, horsing the deer on his own back, and making off with equal resolution and success.

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