one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose: but all's brave, that youth mounts, and folly guides. 199 10-iii. 4. He will steal himself into a man's favour, and, for a week, escape a great deal of discoveries; but when you find him out, you have him ever after. 200 11-iii. 6. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical fantasms, such insociable and point-device companions, such rackers of orthography. 8-v. 1. 201 I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool, that has no more brain than a stone. Unless you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gagged. 202 O dear discretion, how his words are suited! An army of good words: and I do know A many fools, that stand in better place, 203 4-i. 5. 9-iii. 5. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him, but I am heart-burned an hour after. 6-ii. 1. 204 To say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your title; which is within a very little of nothing. 205 He has been yonder i' the sun, practising behaviour to his own shadow, this half hour. f Finical exactness. 4-ii. 5. 206 I know him a notorious liar, Think him a great way fool, solely a coward; That they take place, when virtue's steely bones 207 Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; 208 You are made Rather to wonder at the things you hear, Than to work any. 209 1-ii. 1. 31-v. 3. He excels his brother for a coward, yet his brother is reputed one of the best that is: in a retreat, he out-runs any lackey; marry, in coming on he has the 11-iv. 3. cramp. 210 A very little thief of occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience. 211 28-ii. 1. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother. 212 This is the flower that smiles on every one, 213 6-i. 1. 8-v. 2. I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ca, ha! He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs: le cheval volant, the Pegasus, qui a les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk; he trots the air; the earth sings, when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes. 8 The tooth of the horse-whale. He's of the colour of the nutmeg. And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness, while his rider mounts him; he is, indeed, a horse; and all other jades you may call-beasts. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage. Nay, the man hath no wit, that cannot, from the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as fluent as the sea; turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: 'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign's sovereign to ride on; and for the world (familiar to us, and unknown,) to lay_apart their particular functions, and wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise, and began thus: Wonder of nature! 20-iii. 7. 214 They begin to smoke me; and disgraces have of late knocked too often at my door. I find, my tongue is too fool-hardy; but my heart hath the fear of Mars before it, and of his creatures, not daring the reports of my tongue. 11-iv. 1. 215 I have trod a measure; I have flattered a lady; I have been politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy; I have undone three tailors; I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought one. 216 10-v. 4. This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done; and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. 217 Had'st thou Narcissus in thy face, to me 19-iii. 2. 30-ii. 5. A stately solemn dance. 218 Thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of idiot-worshippers. 219 He hath a person, and a smooth dispose, 26-v. 1. To be suspected; framed to make women false. 37-i. 3. 220 Here's a stay, That shakes the rotten carcase of old death Out of his rags! Here's a large mouth, indeed, That spits forth death, and mountains, rocks, and seas; Talks as familiarly of roaring lions, As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs! What cannoneer begot this lusty blood? He speaks plain cannon, fire, and smoke, and bounce; 221 16-ii. 2. If he were opened, and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the rest of the anatomy. X 222 4-iii. 2. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. They have lived long in the alms8-v. 1. basket of words! 223 You might have truss'd him, and all his apparel, into an eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him; a court; and now has he land and beeves. 19-iii. 2. 224 Why, 'tis a gull, a fool, a rogue; that now and then goes to the wars, to grace himself, at his return into London, under the form of a soldier. And such fellows are perfect in great commanders' names; and they will learn you by rote, where services were done;-at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, h h An intrenchment hastily thrown up. at such a convoy; who came off bravely, who was shot, who disgraced, what terms the enemy stood on; and this they con perfectly in the phrase of war, which they trick up with new-tuned oaths: And what a beard of the general's cut, and a horrid suit of the camp, will do among foaming bottles, and ale-washed wits, is wonderful to be thought on! but you must learn to know such slanders of the age, or else you may be marvellous mistook. 20-iii. 6. 225 He hath much land, and fertile; let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king's mess: 'Tis a chough; but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt. i 226 36-v. 2. My credit now stands on such slippery ground, 227 Will you have me, lady? 29-iii. 1. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days; your grace is too costly to wear every day. My master is deaf. of any thing good. 228 6-ii. 1. O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods; and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy Caduceus; if ye take not that little little less-than-little wit from them that they have! which short-armed ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce, it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider, without drawing their massy irons,' and cutting the web. 26-ii. 3. i A bird like a jackdaw. k The wand of Mercury, which is wreathed with serpents. 1 i.e. Without drawing their swords to cut their webs: they use no means but those of violence. |