has nothing but rubbish to defend. It is as dark as pitch, and sticks as fast to anything it lays hold on. His skull is so thick that it is proof against any reason, and never cracks but on the wrong side, just opposite to that against which the impression is made, which surgeons say does happen very frequently. The slighter and more inconsistent his opinions are the faster he holds them, otherwise they would fall asunder of themselves; for opinions that are false ought to be held with more strictness and assurance than those that are true, otherwise they will be apt to betray their owners before they are aware. If he takes to religion, he has faith enough to save a hundred wiser men than himself, if it were right; but it is too much to be good; and though he deny supererogation and utterly disclaim any overplus of merits, yet he allows superabundant belief, and if the violence of faith will carry the kingdom of heaven, he stands fair for it. He delights most of all to differ in things indifferent; no matter how frivolous they are, they are weighty enough in proportion to his weak judgment, and he will rather suffer self-martyrdom than part with the least scruple of his freehold, for it is impossible to dye his dark ignorance into a lighter colour. He is resolved to understand no man's reason but his own, because he finds no man can understand his but himself. His wits are like a sack which, the French proverb says, is tied faster before it is full than when it is; and his opinions are like plants that grow upon rocks, that stick fast though they have no rooting. His understanding is hardened like Pharaoh's heart, and is proof against all sorts of judgments whatsoever. A ZEALOT Is a hot-headed brother that has his understanding blocked up on both sides, like a fore-horse's eyes, that he sees only straightforwards and never looks about him, which makes him run on according as he is driven with his own caprice. He starts and stops (as a horse does) at a post only because he does not know what it is, and thinks to run away from the spur while he carries it with him. He is very violent, as all things that tend downward naturally are; for it is impossible to improve or raise him above his own level. He runs swiftly before any wind, like a ship that has neither freight nor ballast, and is as apt to overset. When his zeal takes fire it cracks and flies about like a squib until the idle stuff is spent, and then it goes out of itself. He is always troubled with small scruples, which his conscience catches like the itch, and the rubbing of these is both his pleasure and his pain. But for things of greater moment he is unconcerned, as cattle in the summer-time are more pestered with flies that vex their sores than creatures more considerable, and dust and motes are apter to stick in blear-eyes than things of greater weight. His charity begins and ends at home, for it never goes farther nor stirs abroad. David was eaten up with the zeal of God's house; but his zeal, quite contrary, eats up God's house; and as the words seem to intimate that David fed and maintained the priests, so he makes the priests feed and maintain him; and hence his zeal is never so vehement as when it concurs with his interest; for, as he styles himself a professor, it fares with him, as with men of other professions, to live by his calling and get as much as he can by it. He is very severe to other men's sins that his own may pass unsuspected, as those that were engaged in the conspiracy against Nero were most cruel to their own confederates ; or as one says "Compounds for sins he is inclined to By damning those he has no mind to." THE OVERDOER He is no Always throws beyond the jack and is gone a mile. an ape, hugs the whelp he loves most to death. All his designs are greater than the life, and he laughs to think how Nature has mistaken her match, and given him so much odds that he can easily outrun her. He allows of no merit but that which is superabundant. All his actions are superfoetations, that either become monsters or twins; that is, too much, or the same again; for he is but a supernumerary and does nothing but for want of a better. He is a civil Catholic, that holds nothing more steadfastly than supererogation in all that he undertakes, for he undertakes nothing but what he overdoes. He is insatiable in all his actions, and, like a covetous person, never knows when he has done enough until he has spoiled all by doing too much. He is his own antagonist, and is never satisfied until he has outdone himself as well as that which he proposed, for he loves to be better than his word (though it always falls out worse) and deceive the world the wrong way. He believes the mean to be but a mean thing, and therefore always runs into extremities as the more excellent, great, and transcendent. He delights to exceed in all his attempts, for he finds that a goose that has three legs is more remarkable than a hundred that have but two apiece, and has a greater number of followers; and that all monsters are more visited and applied to than other creatures that Nature has made perfect in their kind. He believes he can never bestow too much pains upon anything; for his industry is his own and costs him nothing; and if it miscarry he loses nothing, for he has as much as it was worth. He is like a foolish musician that sets his instrument so high that he breaks his strings for want of understanding the right pitch of it, or an archer that breaks his with overbending; and all he does is forced, like one that sings above the reach of his voice. THE RASH MAN Has a fever in his brain, and therefore is rightly said to be hotheaded. His reason and his actions run downhill, borne headlong by his unstaid will. He has not patience to consider, and perhaps it would not be the better for him if he had; for he is so possessed with the first apprehension of anything, that whatsoever comes after loses the race and is prejudged. All his actions, like sins, lead him perpetually to repentance, and from thence to the place from whence they came, to make more work for repentance; for though he be corrected never so often, he is never amended, nor will his haste give him time to call to mind where it made him stumble before; for he is always upon full speed, and the quickness of his motions takes away and dazzles the eyes of his understanding. All his designs are like diseases, with which he is taken suddenly before he is aware, and whatsoever he does is extempore, without premeditation; for he believes a sudden life to be the best of all, as some do a sudden death. He pursues things as men do an enemy upon a retreat, until he is drawn into an ambush for want of heed and circumspection. He falls upon things as they lie in his way, as if he stumbled at them, or his foot slipped and cast him upon them; for he is commonly foiled and comes off with bruises. He engages in business as men do in duels, the sooner the better, that, if any evil come of it, they may not be found to have slept upon it, or consulted with an effeminate pillow in point of honour and courage. He strikes when he is hot himself, not when the iron is so which he designs to work upon. His tongue has no retentive faculty, but is always running like a fool's drivel. He cannot keep it within compass, but it will be always upon the ramble and playing of tricks upon a frolic, fancying of passes upon religion, State, and the persons of those that are in present authority, no matter how, to whom, or where; for his discretion is always out of the way when he has occasion to make use of it. THE AFFECTED OR FORMAL Is a piece of clockwork, that moves only as it is wound up and set, and not like a voluntary agent. He is a mathematical body, nothing but punctum, linea, et superficies, and perfectly abstract from matter. He walks as stiffly and uprightly as a dog that is taught to go on his hinder legs, and carries his hands as the ! other does his fore-feet. He is very ceremonious and full of respect to himself, for no man uses those formalities that does not expect the same from others. All his actions and words are set down in so exact a method that an indifferent accountant may cast him up to a halfpenny-farthing. He does everything by rule, as if it were in a course of Lessius's diet, and did not eat, but take a dose of meat and drink; and not walk, but proceed; not go, but march. He draws up himself with admirable conduct in a very regular and well-ordered body. All his business and affairs are junctures and transactions, and when he speaks with a man he gives him audience. He does not carry but marshal himself, and no one member of his body politic takes place of another without due right of precedence. He does all things by rules of propor tion, and never gives himself the freedom to manage his gloves or his watch in an irregular and arbitrary way, but is always ready to render an account of his demeanour to the most strict and severe disquisition. He sets his face as if it were cast in plaster, and never admits of any commotion in his countenance, nor so much as the innovation of a smile without serious and mature deliberation, but preserves his looks in a judicial way, according as they have always been established. A FLATTERER Is a dog that fawns when he bites. He hangs bells in a man's ears, as a carman does by his horse while he lays a heavy load upon his back. His insinuations are like strong wine, that pleases a man's palate till it has got within him, and then deprives him of his reason and overthrows him. His business is to render a man a stranger to himself, and get between him and home, and then he carries him whither he pleases. He is a spirit that inveighs away a man from himself, undertakes great matters for him, and after sells him for a slave. He makes division not only between a man and his friends, but between a man and himself, raises a faction within him, and after takes part with the strongest side and ruins both. He steals him away from himself (as the fairies |