pure He nesse; for which purpose he studieth the optickes, but can discover no colour but black, for the white of chastity dazleth his eyes. He is a Catholicke, for he is every where; and with a politicke, for he transforms himselfe into all shapes. travels on foot to avoid idlenesse, and loves the church entirely, because it is the place of his edification. Hee accounts not all sins mortall: for fornication with him is a veniall sin, and to take bribes, a matter of charity: hee is collector for burnings and losses at sea, and in casting account, can readily substract the lesser from the greater summe. lives he in a golden age, till Death by a processe, summons him to appeare. Thus An Almanack-maker S the worst part of an astronomer: a certaine compact of figures, characters and cyphers out of which he scores the fortune of a yeare, not so profitably, as doubtfully. He is tenant by custome to the planets, of whom hee holds the 12. houses by lease paroll: to them he paies yearely rent, his studie, and time; yet lets them out againe (with all his heart) for 40s. per His life is meerely contemplative: for his practice, 'tis worth nothing, at least not worthy of annum. credit; and if (by chance) he purchase any, he loseth it againe at the yeares end, for time brings truth to light. Ptolomy and Ticho Brache are his patrons, whose volumes hee understands not, but admires; and the rather because they are strangers, and so easier to bee credited, than controuled. His life is upright, for he is alwayes looking upward; yet dares beleeve nothing above primum mobile, for 'tis out of the reach of his Jacobs staffe. His charity extends no further then to mountebankes and sow-gelders, to whom he bequeathes the seasons of the yeere, to kill or torture by. The verses in his booke have a worse pace than ever had Rochester Hackney: for his prose, 'tis dappled with inke-horne tearmes, and may serve for an almanacke: but for his judging at the uncertainty of weather, any old shepheard shall make a dunce of him. He would be thought the devils intelligencer for stolne goods, if ever he steale out of that quality: as a flie turnes to a maggot, so the corruption of the cunning-man is the generation of an empericke his works fly foorth in small volumes, yet not all, for many ride poast to chandlers and tobacco shops in folio. To be briefe, he fals 3. degrees short of his promises; yet is hee the key to unlocke termes, and lawdayes, a dumbe Mercurie to point out high-wayes, and a bayliffe of all marts and faires in England. The rest of him you shall know next yeare; for what hee will be then, he himselfe knowes not. : An Hypocrite S a gilded pill, compos'd of two vertuous ingredients, naturall dishonesty, and artificiall dissimulation. Simple fruit, plant, or drug, he is none, but a deformed mixture, bred betwixt evill nature and false art, by a monstrous generation; and may well bee put into the reckoning of those creatures that God never made. In church or commonwealth (for in both these this mongrell-weed will shoot) it is hard to say whether hee be physicke or a disease: for he is both in divers respects. As he is gilt with an outside of seeming purity, or as he offereth himselfe to you to be taken downe in a cup or taste of golden zeale and simplicity, you call him physicke. Nay, and never let potion give patient good stoole, if being truly tasted and relisht, he be not as lothsome to the stomake of any honest man. may He is also physicke, in being as commodious for use, as hee is odious in taste, if the body of the company into which he is taken, can make true use of him. For the malice of his nature makes him so informer-like-dangerous, in taking advantage of any thing done or said: yea, even to the ruine of his makers, if hee may have benefit; that such a crea ture in a society makes men as carefull of their speeches and actions, as the sight of a knowne cutpurse in a throng makes them watchfull over their purses and pockets: hee is also in this respect profitable physicke, that his conversation being once truly tasted and discovered, the hatefull foulnes of it will make those that are not fully like him, to purge all such diseases as are ranke in him, out of their own lives; as the sight of some citizens on horseback, make a judicious man amend his owne faults in horsemanship. If none of these uses can bee made of him, let him not long offend the stomack of your company; your best way is to spue him out. That he is a disease in the body where he liveth, were as strange a thing to doubt, as whether there be knavery in horse-coursers. For if among sheep, the rot; among dogs, the mange; amongst horses, the glaunders; amongst men and women, the Northerne itch, and the French ache be diseases; an hypocrite cannot but be the like in all states and societies that breed him. If hee bee a clergy hypocrite, then all manner of vice is for the most part so proper to him, as hee will grudge any man the practice of it but himselfe ; like that grave burgesse, who being desired to lend his clothes to represent a part in a comedy, answered: No by his leave, he would have no body play the foole in his clothes but himselfe. Hence are his so austere reprehensions of drinking healths, lascivious talke, usury and unconscionable dealing; when as himself hating the prophane mixture of malt and water, will by his good wil let nothing come within him, but the purity of the grape, when he can get it of anothers cost: but this must not be done neither, without a preface of seeming lothnesse, turning up the eyes, moving the head, laying hand on the brest, and protesting that he would not do it but to strengthen his body, being even consumed with dissembled zeale, and tedious and thanklesse babbling to God and his auditors. And for the other vices, doe but venture the making your selfe private with him, or trusting of him, and if you come off without a savour of the ayre which his soule is infected with, you have great fortune. The fardle of all this ware that is in him, you shall commonly see carried upon the backe of these two beasts, that live within him, ignorance and imperiousnesse: and they may well serve to carry other vices, for of themselves they are insupportable. ignorance acquites him of all science, humane or divine, and of all language, but his mothers; holding nothing pure, holy or sincere, but the senselesse collections of his owne crazed braine, the zealous fumes of his enflamed spirit, and the endlesse labours of his eternall tongue; the motions whereof, when matter and words faile, (as they often doe) must be patched up, to accomplish his foure houres in a day His |