Sir Thomas Ouerburie  
HIS WIFE,  
With NEW ELEGIES upon his (now known) untimely death.  
Whereunto are annexed, new News and Characters, written by himself and other learned Gentlemen.  
Editio Septima.  
LONDON,  
Printed by Edward Griffin for Laurence L'isle, and are to be sold at his shop at the Tiger's head in Paul's Churchyard. 16 11.  

To the Reader.  
THE general acceptance of this matchless Poem the Wife, (written by SIR Thomas Ouerbury) is sufficiently approved by many, the worth whereof if any other, out of malice, shall neglect to commend, he may well (if it proceed, from nice Criticism) be excluded as a Churlish Retainer to the MUSES: if from direct plain dealing, he shall be degraded for insufficiency. For had such a Poem been extant among the ancient Romans, although they wanted our easy conservations of wit by printing, they would have committed it to brasie lest iniurions time might deprive it of due eternity; If to converse with a Creature so amiable as is here described, be thought difficult; let the contemplation thereof be held admirable. To which are added many Elegies of his untimely death, and Characters and News written by himself and others his friends. Howsoever, they are now exposed, not only to the judicious, but to all that carry the least scruple of mother wit about them.  
Licet toto nunc Helicone frui— Mar.  Lau: L'isle.   

Elegies of several Authors, on the untimely death of SIR Thomas Ouerburie poisoned in the Tower.  

Upon the untimely death of Sir Thomas Ouerburie.  
'Twould ease our Sorrows, 'twould release our Tears,  
Can we but hear those high celestial Spheres,  
Once tune their Motions to a doleful strain  
In sympathy of what we Mortals plain.  
Or see their fair Intelligences change  
Or face or habit, when black Deeds, so strange,  
As might force pity from the heart of Hell  
Are hatched by Monsters, which among us dwell,  
The Stars me thinks, like Men inclined to sleep,  
Should through their crystal casements scarcely peep,  
Or at least view us but with half an eye,  
For fear their chaster Influence might descry  
Some murdering hand, oaded in guiltless blood,  
Blending vile juices to destroy the good.  
The Sun should wed his Beams to endless Night,  
And in dull darkness canopy his Light,  
When from the rank stews of adulterous Breasts,  
Where every base unhallowed Project rests,  
Is belched, as in defiance of his shine,  
A steam, might make even Death itself to pine.  
But these things happen still; but ne'er more clear,  
Nor with more lustre did these Lamps appear:  
Mercury caper's with a winged heel,  
As if he did no touch of sorrow feel,  
And yet he sees a true Mercurian killed,  
Whose birth his Mansion with much honour filled.  
But let me not mistake those Powers above,  
Nor tax injuriously those Courts of jove;  
Surely, they joy to see these Acts revealed,  
Which in blind silence have been long concealed;  
And Virtue now triumphant; whilst we mourn  
To think that ere she was foul vices scorn:  
Or that poor Over-burie's blood was made  
A sacrifice to Malice and dark shade.  
Weston thy Hand that Covure-feu Bell did sway,  
Which did his life to endless sleep convey.  
But rest thou where thou art; I'll seek no glory  
By the relation of so sad a story.  
If any more were privy to the Deed,  
And for the Crime must be adjudged to bleed,  
To Heaven I pray, with heau'd-vp Hands and Eyes,  
That as their Bodies fall, their Souls may rise.  
And as those equally turn to one Dust,  
So these alike may shine among the just.  
And there make up one glorious constellation,  
Who suffered here in such a differing fashion.  D. T.  

To the Memory of that generally bewailed Gentleman, Sr. Thomas Ouerburie.  

But that weare bound in Christian piety  
To wish Gods will be done; and Destiny  
(In all that haps to Men, or Good, or Ill)  
Suffered, or sent, by that implored Will;  
Methinks t'observe how Virtue draws faint Breath,  
Subject to slanders, Hate, and violent Death,  
Wise men kept low, others advanced to State,  
Right checked by wrong, and Ill men fortunate;  
These moved Effects, from an unmoved Cause,  
Might shake the firmest Faith; Heavens fixed Laws  
Might casual seem, and each irregular Sense  
Spurn at just Order, blame God's Providence.   

But what is Man, t'expostulate th' Intents  
Of his high Will, or judge of strange Events?  
The rising Sun to mortal sight reveals  
This Earthly Globe; but yet the Stars conceals;  
So may the Sense discover Natural Things;  
Divine, above the reach of human wings.   

Than not the Fate, but Fates bad Instrument  
Do I accuse, in each sad Accident:  
Good men must fall, Rapes, Incests, Murders come;  
But woe and curses follow them by whom:  
God Authors all men's Actions, not their sin,  
For that proceeds from devilish Forms within.   

Thou then that suffered'st by those Forms so vile,  
From whom those wicked Instruments did file  
Thy drossy part, to make thy Fame shine clear,  
And Shrine thy Soul in Heavens all glorious Sphere;  
Who being good, nought les to thee befell,  
Though it appeared disguised in shape of Hell;  
Vanish thy Blood and Nerves; true Life alone  
In Virtue lives, and true Religion,  
In both which thou art deathles: O behold,  
(If thou canst look so low as Earth's base Mould)  
How dreadful justice (larewith lingering Foot)  
Now comes like Whirlwind? how it shakes the Root  
Of lofty Cedars; makes the stately Brow  
Bend to the Foot? how all men see that now  
The Breath of Infamy doth move their Sails;  
Whiles thy dear name by Loves more hearty gales  
Shall still keep Wing, until thy Fame's extent  
Fill every part of this vast Continent.  
Then you the Sire of this thus murdered Son;  
Repine not at his Fate; since he hath won  
More Honour in his Sufferance; and his Death  
Succeeded by his virtues endless Breath.  
For him, and to his Life and Death's Example,  
Love might erect a Statue; Zeal, a Temple:  
On his true worth the Muses might be slain  
To die his honours Web in purest Grain.   C. B.  

Upon the untimely Death of the Author of this ingenious Poem, Sr. THO: OVERBURY Knight, poisoned in the Tower.  
SO many Moons so many times gone round,  
And rose from Hell, & Darkness, under ground,  
And yet till now, this darkened deed of Hell  
Not brought to light? o tardy Heaven! yet tell  
If Murder lays him down to sleep with Lust  
Or no? reveal, as thou art Truth, and Just,  
The Secrets of this unjust secure Act,  
And what our fears make us suspect, compact  
With greater deeds of Mischief, for alone  
We think not This, and do suspect yet One,  
To which compared, This, but a falling Star,  
That a bright Firmament of Fire: Thy Care  
We see takes meaner things: It times the World  
The Signs at random through the Zodiac hurled,  
The Stars wild wanderings, & the glib-quick Hinges  
Which turn both Poles; and all the violent changes  
It overlookes, which trouble th'endless course  
Of the high Firmament: by thy blessed Force  
Do hoary winter frosts make forests bare,  
And strait to Groves again their shades repair,  
By Thee doth Autums, Lyons-flaming mane  
Ripen the fruits: and the full year sustain  
Her burdened powers: o being still the same,  
Ruling so much, and under whom the frame  
Of this vast world weighed, all his Orbs dost guide,  
Why are thy Cares of Men no more applied?  
Or if: why seem'st thou sleeping to the Good,  
And guarding to the Ill? as if the brood  
Of best things still must Chance take in Command  
And not thy Providence: and Her blind Hand  
Thy Benefits erroneously disburse,  
Which so let fall, ne'er fall but to the worse?  
Whence so, great crimes commit the Greater sort,  
And boldest acts of shame blaze in the Court,  
Where Buffoons Worship in their rise of State  
Those filthy Scarabs, whom they Serve, and Hate.  
Sure things mere backward, there; Honour disgraced,  
And Virtue laid by Fraud, and Poison, waste:  
The adulterer up like Haman, and so Sainted:  
And Females modesty (as Females) painted,  
Lost in all real worth: what shall we say?  
Things so far out of frame, as if the day  
Were come wherein another Phaeton  
Stolen into Phoebus' wain, had all misse-won  
A clean contrary way: o powerful God,  
Right all amiss, and set the wont period  
Of Goodness in his place again: This deed  
Be Usher to bring forth the Mask, and Weed  
Where under, blacker things lie hid perhaps,  
And yet have Hope to make a safe escape.  
Of This, make known, why such an Instrument  
As Weston, a poor serving-man, should rend  
The frame of this sad-good-mans' life: did he  
Stand with this Court-bred learned OVERBURIE,  
In strife for an Ambasdorship? no, no,  
His Orb held no such light: what did he owe  
The Prophet malice for composing this,  
This Cynossura in a neat Poësis,  
How Good, and Great men ought, and All, to choose  
A chaste, fit, noble Wife, and the abuse  
Of Strumpets friendly shadowing in the same,  
Was this his fault? or doth there lie a flame  
Yet in the embers not unrak't, for which  
He died so falsely? Heaven we do beseech  
Unlock this secret, and bring all to view,  
That Law may purge the blood, Lust made untrue.  W. S.  

An Elegy consecrated to the memory of the truly worthy and learned Sir Thomas Ouerburie KNIGHT.  

HAd not thy wrong, like to a wound ill cured  
Broke forth in death; I had not been assured  
Of grief enough to finish what write.  
These lines, as those which do in cold blood fight  
Had come but faintly on; for, ever, he  
That shrines a name within an Elegy  
(Unless some nearer cause do him inspire)  
Kindles his bright flame at the Funeral fire.  
Since passion (after, lessening her extent)  
Is then more strong, and so more eloquent.   

How powerful is the hand of Murder now!  
Was't not enough to see his dear life bow  
Beneath her hate? but crushing that fair frame,  
Attempt the like on his unspotted Fame?  
O base revenge! more then inhuman fact!  
Which (as the Romans sometime would enact  
No doom for Patricide, supposing none  
Can ever so offend) the upright Throne  
Of justice salves not: leaving that intent  
Without a Name, without a punishment.   

Yet through thy wounded Fame, as thorough these  
Glasses which multiply the Species,  
We see thy virtues more; and they become;  
So many Statues sleeping on thy Tomb.   

Wherein, confinement new thou shalt endure,  
But so; as when to make a Pearl more pure  
We give it to a Dove, in whose womb penned  
Some time, we have it forth most orient.   

Such is thy lustre now, that venomed Spite  
With her black Soul dares not behold thy light,  
But banning it, a course gins to run  
With those that curse the rising of the Sun.  
The poison, that works upwards now, shall strive  
To be thy fair Fame's true preservative.  
And witchcraft that can mask the upper Shine  
With no one cloud shall blind a ray of thine.   

And as the Hebrews in an obscure pit  
Their holy fire hid, not extinguished it,  
And after times, that broke their bondage chain  
Found it, to fire their sacrifice again:  
So lay thy worth somewhile, but being found,  
The Muse's altars plentifully crowned  
With sweet perfumes, by it new kindled be  
And offer all to thy dear memory.   

Nor have we lost thee long: thou art not gone,  
Nor canst descend into Oblivion.  
But twice the Sun went round since thy Soul fled,  
And only that time men shall term thee dead.  
Hereafter (raised to life) thou still shalt have  
An Antidote against the silent grave.   W.B. Int. Temp.  

Upon the untimely Death of Sr. Thomas Ouerbury.  
IF for to live be but a misery,  
If by death good men gain eternity,  
'twas friendly done in robbing thee of life,  
To celebrate thy nuptials with thy wife;  
So that his will no other aimeintended,  
But by exchange thy life should be amended:  
Yet wert to compass his insatiate Lust,  
He this last friendship tendered to thy trust  
Whiles he dishonoured and defamed may die,  
justice and Fame, shall crown thy memory.  B. G. medij Temp.  

In obitum intempestiwm & lachrimabilem Illustrissimi Equitis aurati TH: OVERBURI magnae spei & expectationis Viri.  

HOw ever windy mischief raise up high,  
Dark thickening clouds, to pour upon us all  
A tempost of foul rumours, which descry  
Thy hard mishap and strange distastrous fall,  
As if thy wounds were bleeding from that hand,  
Which rather should have raised thee up to stand.   

Yet shalt thou here survive in pitying fame,  
In thy sweet Wife, in these most acute lines,  
In well reputed Characters of name,  
And virtues tomb, which all thy honour shrines,  
In spite of envy, or the proudest hair,  
That thus hath set opinion at debate.   

But for mine own part, sith it falls out so,  
That death hath had her will; I now compare  
It to awanton hand, which at a throw  
To break a box of precious balm did dare:  
With whose perfume, although it was thus spilld,  
The house and comers by were better filled.   Cap: Th: Gainsford.  

Encomiasticke Verses on this excellent Poem the Wife.  

Lo here the matchless pattern of a Wife,  
Deciphered in form of Good and Bad:  
The Bad commends the Good as Dark doth Light,  
Or as a loathed Bed a Single life;  
The Good, with Wisdom and Discretion clad,  
With Modesty, and fair demeanour dight,  
Whose Reason doth her Will to Love invite.   

Reason begot, and Passion bred her love,  
Self-will She shunned, Fitness the Marriage made;  
Fitness doth cherish Love, Self-will Debate.  
Lo thus; and in this Monument of proof  
A perfect Wife, a Work nor Time can fade,  
Nor lose respect betray to mortal Fate.  
This, none can equal; Best, but imitate.   R.C.  

On Sir Thomas Overbury's Poem the Wife.  
I Am glad yet ere I die, I have found occasion  
Honest and just; without the world's persuasion  
Or flattery or bribery to commend  
A woman for her goodness; and God send  
I may find many more: I wish them well,  
They are pretty things to play with: when Eve fell  
She took a care that all the Womenkinde  
That were to follow her, should be as blind  
As she was wilful; and till this good Wife,  
This piece of virtue, that near took her life  
From a frail mother's labour: Those stand still  
As marginals to point us to our ill  
Came to the world, as other creatures do  
That know no God but will; we learned to woe,  
And if she were but fair and could but kiss,  
Twenty to one we could not choose amiss;  
And as we judge of trees if strait and tall  
That may be found, yet never till the fall  
Find how the rain hath drilled them; So till now  
We only knew we must love; but not how.  
But here we have example, and so rare,  
That if we hold but common sense and care,  
And steer by this card; he that goes awry,  
I'll boldly say at his nativity,  
That man was sealed a fool: yet all this good  
Given as it is, not clothed in flesh and blood  
Some may aver and strongly 'twas mere meant  
In way of practice, but not precedent;  
Either will make us happy men; for he  
That marrieth any way this my sterie,  
Or any parcel of that benefit,  
Though he take hold of nothing but the wit,  
Hath got himself a partner for his life,  
More than a woman, better than a wife.  I. F.  

Eiusdem in Eadem.  
AS from a man the first frail woman came,  
The first that ever made us know our shame,  
And find the curse of labour; so again,  
Goodness and understanding found a man  
To take this shame away; and from him sprung  
A piece of excellence without a Tongue  
Because it should not wrong us; yet the life  
Makes it appear a woman and a wife.  
And this is she, if ever woman shall  
Do good hereafter; borne to bless our fall.  J. F.  

On Sir Thomas Overbury's Poem the Wife.  
WEre every beauty, every several grace,  
Which is in Women, in one Woman's face,  
Some courtly Gallants might, I think, come to her,  
Which would not wed her, though they seemed to woe her.  
Settled Affections follow not the Eye;  
Reason and judgement, must their course descry.  
Pygmalion's Image made of Marble stone,  
Was liked of all; beloved of him alone.  
But here's a Dame grown husbandless of late,  
Which not a Man but wisheth were his Mate.  
So fair without, so free from spot within,  
That Earth seems here to stand exempt from sin,  
juno vouchsafe, and Hymen, when I wed,  
I may behold this Widow in my Bed.  D. T.  

On the Wife.  

BEauty affords contentment to the Eye,  
Riches are means to cure a weak estate,  
Honour illustrates what it cometh nigh:  
To marry thus men count it happy Fate.  
Virtue they think doth in these Emblems shrowded  
But trial shows they are gulled with a Cloud.   

These are but compliments; the inward worth,  
The outward carriage, gesture, wit, and grace,  
Is that alone which sets a Woman forth:  
And in this Woman, these have each a place.  
Were all wives such, This age would happy be,  
But happier that of our Posterity.   D. T.  

To the Wife.  
Exposed to all, thou wilt less worthy seem  
I fear: Wives common, all men disesteems;  
Yet somethings have a differing Fate: some fret,  
We doubt in wares which are in corners set:  
Hid Medals rust, which being used grow bright;  
The day more friendeth virtue then the night.  
Thou though more common, then mayst seem more good,  
I only wish thou mayst be understood.  G. R.  

On the Wife.  
Well hast thou said, that women should be such;  
And were they that, had but a third as much  
I would be married too, but that I know  
Not what she is, but should be thou dost show:  
So let me praise thy work, and let my life  
Be single, or thy Widow be my Wife.  X. Z.  

On the Wife.  

THis perfect Creature, to the Eastern use  
Lived, whilst a wife retired from common show:  
Not that her Lover feared, the least abuse,  
But with the wisest, knew it fit so:  
Since, fallen a widow, and a zealous one,  
She would have sacrificed herself again,  
But importuned to life, is now alone,  
Loved, wooed, admired, by all wise single men,  
Which, to th'adulterous rest, that dare begin  
There used temptations, were a mortal sin.    


TO make a Wife of Wit, or mere Philosophy,  
And deck her up with flowers of sweetest poesy,  
Is no hard task: but such an one of flesh to find,  
Would weary all the wits and bodies of mankind:  
Since worse must serve the turn, than men must be content  
To take such as they find, not such as they invent.   T. B.  

To the clean contrary wife.  
Look here: & chide those Spirits, which maintain  
Their Empire, with so strong command in you,  
That all good eyes, which do your follies view,  
Pity, what you for them, must once sustain:  
O from those Evils, which free Souls disdain  
To be acquainted with, (and but pursue  
Worst Minds) from them (as hateful, as untrue,)  
By reading this, for Fame's fair sake refrain:  
Who would let feed upon her birth, the brood  
Of lightness, Indiscretion, and the shame  
Of fowl Incontinence, when the base blood  
Is careless only of an Honoured Name,  
Be all that gentle are, more high improved,  
For lose Dames are but flattered, never Loved.  W: Stra:  

To the Wife.  
WEep on kind Soul; and though thou comest in view,  
Put on Woes habit, Melancholies hue.  
A widows beauty makes the lovelier show,  
When floods of sorrow do her cheeks o'erflow.  
The fair Achievements soft Affection bears  
Are bleeding Hearts, Eyes ever-dropping Tears.  
The Turtle tells thee, Thou shouldst always groan,  
And wail thy Mate with selitarie moan.  
Add then sweet Soul no bounds to thy Laments,  
'tis fit sad plaints should follow sad events.  
Yet have a care his name be not renealed:  
Grief merits most, where it is most concealed   

Of the choice of a Wife.  

IF I were to choose a Woman,  
As who knows but I may marry:  
I would trust the eye of no man,  
Nor a tongue that may miscarry:  
For in way of Love and Glory  
Each Tongue best tells his own story.   

First, to make my choice the bolder,  
I would have her child to such  
Whose free virtuous lives are older  
Than Antiquity can touch:  
For 'tis seldom seen, that Blood  
Gives a Beauty great and good.   

Yet an ancient stock may bring  
Branches I confess of worth,  
Like rich-mantles shadowing  
Those descents that brought them forth.  
Yet such Hills though gilded show  
Soon feel the Age of snow.   

Therefore to prevent such care  
That repentance soon may bring,  
Like Merchants I would choose my ware.  
Useful good, not glittering.  
He that weds for state or face,  
Buys a Horse to lose a Race.   

Yet I would have her fair as any,  
But her own not kissed away:  
I would have her free to many,  
Look on all like equal day;  
But descending to the Sea,  
Make her set with none but me.   

If she be not tall 'tis better;  
For that word, A goodly Woman,  
Prints itself in such a letter,  
That it leaves unstudied no man:  
I would have my Mistress grow  
Only tall, to answer No.   

Yet I would not have her lose  
So much breeding, as to fling  
Vnbecomming scorn on those  
That must worship every thing.  
Let her fear lose looks to scatter,  
And lose men will fear to flatter.   

Children I would have her bear.  
More for love of name then bed:  
So each child I have is heir  
To another maidenhead;  
For she that in the act's afraids.  
Every nigh'ts another maid.   

Such a one, as when she's wooed  
Blushes not for ill thoughts passed;  
But so innocently good,  
That her dreams are ever chaste;  
For that Maid that thinks a sin,  
Has betrayed the Fort she's in.   

In my visitation still,  
I would have her scatter fears,  
How this man, and that was ill,  
After protestations tears:  
And who vows a constant life,  
Crowns a meritorious Wife.   

When the Priest first gives our hands,  
I would have her think but thus;  
In what high and holy bands  
Heaven, like twins, hath planted us,  
That like Aaron's rod together,  
Both may bud, grow green, and whither.    
FINIS.   


THE LIVELY PORTRAITURE OF SIR THOMAS OVERBURY.   

THE METHOD.  
FIrst of Marriage, and the effect thereof, Children. Then of his contrary, Lust; then for his choice. First, his opinion negatively, what should not be: the first causes in it, that is, neither Beauty, Birth, nor Portion. Then affirmatively, what should be, of which kind there are four: Goodness, Knowledge, Discretion, and as a second thing, Beauty. The first only is absolutely good: the other being built upon the first do likewise become so. Then the application of that woman by love to himself, which makes her a wife. And lastly, the only condition of a wife, Fitness.   

A WIFE.  

EAch Woman is a brief of Womankind,  
And doth in little even as much contain,  
As, in one Day and Night, all life we find,  
Of either, More, is but the fame again:  
God framed Her so, that to her Husband, She,  
As Eve, should all the World of Women be.   

So framed he Both, that neither power he gave,  
Use of themselves, but by exchange, to make:  
Whence in their Face the Fair no pleasure have,  
But ' by reflex of what thence other take.  
Our Lips in their own Kiss no pleasure find:  
Toward their proper Face, our Eyes are blind.   

So God in Eve did perfect Man begun;  
Till then, in vain much of himself he had:  
In Adam God created only one,  
Eve, and the world to come, in Eve he made.  
We are two halves: whiles each from other strays,  
Both barren are; Joined both their like can raise   

At first both Sexes were in Man combin'de,  
man, a Shee-man did in his body breed;  
Adam was eves, Eve Mother of Mankind,  
Eve From Live-flesh, Man did from Dust proceed.  
One thus made two, Marriage doth reunite,  
And makes them both but on Hermaphrodite.   

Man did but the well-being of his life  
From Woman take, her Being she from Man,  
And therefore Eve created was a Wife,  
And at the end of all, her Sex began:  
Marriage their object is; their Being then,  
And now Perfection, they receive from Men.   

Marriage, to all, whose joys two parties be,  
And doubled are by being parted so,  
Wherein the very act is Chastity,  
Whereby two Souls into one Body go.  
Which makes two one while here they living be,  
And after death in their Posterity.   

God to each Man a private Woman gave,  
That in that Centre his desires might stint,  
That he a comfort like himself might have,  
And that on her his like he might imprint.  
Double is Woman's use, part of their end  
Doth on this Age, part on the next depend.   

We fill but part of Time, and cannot die,  
Till we the world a fresh supply have lent,  
Children are Bodies sole Eternity;  
Nature is Gods, Art is Man's instrument.  
Now all Man's Art but only dead things makes,  
But herein Man in things of life partakes.   

For wandering Lust; I know 'tis infinite,  
It still gins, and adds not more to more.  
The guilt is everlasting, the delight,  
This instant doth not feel of that before.  
The taste of it is only in the Sense,  
The operation, in the Conscience.   

Woman is not Lusts bounds, but Womankind,  
One is loves number: who from that doth fall,  
Hath lost his hold, and no new rest shall find,  
Vice hath no mean, but not to be at all;  
A Wife is that enough, Lust cannot find,  
For Lust is still with want, or too much, pined.   

Bate lust the Sin, my share is even with his,  
For Not to lust, and to Enjoy is one:  
And more or less past, equal Nothing is,  
I still have one, Lust one at once, alone:  
And though the Woman often changed be,  
Yet he's the same without variety.   

Marriage our lust (as 'twere with fuel fire)  
Doth, with a medicine of the same, allay;  
And not forbid, but rectify desire.  
Myself I cannot choose, my wife I may:  
And in the choice of Her, it much doth lie,  
To mend myself in my Posterity.   

O rather let me Love, then be in love;  
So let me choose as Wife and Friend to find,  
Let me forget her Sex when I approve,  
Beasts likeness lies in shape, but ours in mind.  
Our Souls no Sexes have, their Love is clean,  
No Sex, both in the better part are Men.   

But Physic for our lust their Bodies be,  
But matter fit to show our Love upon.  
But only Shells for our posterity,  
Their souls were given lest man should be alone:  
For, but the Souls Interpreters, words be,  
Without which Bodies are no Company.   

That goodly frame we see of flesh and blood,  
Their fashion is, not weight, it is I say  
But their Laye-part, but well digested food;  
'tis but twixt Dust, and Dust, lives middle way:  
The worth of it is nothing that is seen,  
But only that it holds a Soul within.   

And all the carnal Beauty of my Wife,  
Is but skin-deep, but to two senses known;  
Short even of Pictures, shorter lived than Life,  
And yet the love survives thats built thereon:  
For our Imagination is too high,  
For Bodies when they meet to satisfy.   

All Shapes, all Colours are alike in Night,  
Nor doth our Touch distinguish foul or fair:  
But man's imagination, and his sight;  
And those, but the first week, by Custom are  
Both made alike, which diffred at first view;  
Nor can that difference, Absence much renew.   

Nor can that Beauty lying in the Face,  
But merely by imagination be  
Enjoyed by us in an inferior place.  
Nor can that Beauty by enjoying we  
Make ours become, so our desire grows tame:  
We changed are, but it remains the same.   

Birth, less than Beauty, shall my Reason blind,  
Her Birth goes to my Children, not to me.  
Rather had I that active Gentry find,  
Virtue, then passive from her Ancestry;  
Rather in her alive, one virtue see,  
Then all the rest dead in her Pedigree.   

In the Degrees, high rather be she placed,  
Of Nature then of Art and Policy:  
Gentry is but a relic of Time-past,  
And Love doth only but the present see;  
Things were first made, than words: she were the same,  
With, or without, that title, or that name.   

As for (the odds Sexes) Portion;  
Nor will I shun it, nor my aim it make;  
Birth, Beauty, Wealth, are nothing worth alone,  
All these I would for good additions take,  
Not for Good Parts; those two are ill combined,  
Whom any third thing from themselves hath joined.   

Rather than these, the object of my Love,  
Let it be Good; when these with virtue go,  
They (in themselves indifferent,) virtues prove,  
For Good (like fire) turns all things to be so.  
God's Image, in Her Soul, o let me place  
My Love upon; not adam's in Her Face.   

Good, is a fairer attribute then White,  
'tis the minds beauty keeps the other sweet:  
That's not still one, nor mortal with the light,  
Nor glass, nor painting can it counterfeit,  
Nor doth it raise desires, which ever tend  
At once, to their perfection, and their end.   

By Good I would have Holy understood,  
So God she cannot love, but also me,  
The law requires our words and deeds be good,  
Religion even the Thoughts doth sanctify:  
And she is more a Maid that ravished is,  
Then She which only doth but wish amiss.   

Lust only by Religion is withstood,  
Lust's object is alive, his strength within,  
Morality resists but in cold blood,  
Respect of Credit feareth shame not sin.  
But no place dark enough for such offence  
She finds, that's watched by her own Conscience.   

Then may I trust her Body with her Mind,  
And, thereupon secure, need never know  
The pangs of jealousy: and Love doth find  
More paineto doubt her false, then know her so:  
For Patience is of evils that are known,  
The certain Remedy; but Doubt hath none.   

And be that thought once stirred, 'twill never die,  
Nor will the grief more mild by custom prove:  
Nor yet Amendment can it satisfy,  
The Anguish more or less, is as our Love:  
This misery doth jealousy ensue,  
That we may prove her false, but cannot True.   

Suspicion may the will of Lust restrain.  
But Good prevents from having such a will,  
A Wife that's Good, doth chaste and more contain,  
For chaste is but an Abstinence from ill:  
And in a Wife that's Bad; although the best  
Of qualities; yet in a Good the least.   

To bar the means is Care, not jealousy.  
Some lawful things to be avoided are,  
When, they occasion of unlawful be,  
Lust ere it hurts, is best descried a far:  
Lust is a fin of two; he that is sure  
Of either part, may be of both secure.   

Give me next Good, an understanding Wife,  
By Nature wise, not Learned by much Art,  
Some Knowledge on Her side will all my life  
More scope of conversation impart,  
Besides, Her inborn virtue fortify,  
They are most firmly good, that best know Why.   

A passive understanding to conceive,  
And judgement to discern, I wish to find:  
Beyond that, all as hazardous I leave,  
Learning and pregnant wit in Womankind,  
What it finds malleable maketh frail,  
And doth not add more Ballast, but more Sail.   

Domestic Charge doth best that Sex befit,  
Contiguous business, so to fix the Mind,  
That leisure space for Fancies not admit:  
Their Leisure 'tis corrupteth Womankind,  
Else being placed from many vices free,  
They had to Heaven a shorter cut than we.   

Books are a part of Man's prerogative,  
In formal Ink they Thoughts and Voices hold,  
That we to them our solitude may give,  
And make Time-present travel that of old.  
Our Life, Fame peeceth longer at the end,  
And Books it farther backward do extend.   

As good, and knowing, let her be Discreet,  
That to the others weight, doth Fashion bring,  
Discretion doth consider what is Fit,  
Goodness but what is lawful, but the Thing  
Not Circumstances; Learning is and wit,  
In Men but curious folly without it.   

To keep their Name when 'tis in others hands  
Discretion asks, their Credit is by far  
More frail than They, on likelihoods it stands,  
And hard to be disproved, Lust's slanders are.  
Their Carriage, not their Chastity alone,  
Must keep their Name chaste from suspicion.   

women's Behaviour is a surer bar  
Than is their No: That fairly doth deny  
Without denying, thereby kept they are  
Safe even from Hope; in part to blame is she,  
Which hath without consent been only tried;  
He comes too near, that comes to be denied.   

Now since a Woman we to Marry are,  
A Soul and Body, not a Soul alone;  
When one is Good, then be the other Fair,  
Beauty is Health, and Beauty both in one,  
Be she so fair as change can yield no gain,  
So fair, as She most Women else contain.   

So Fair at least let me imagine Her,  
That thought to me is Truth: Opinion  
Cannot in matter of opinion err;  
With no Eyes shall I see her but mine own.  
And as my Fancy Her conceives to be.  
Even such my Senses both, do Feel and See.   

The Face we may the seat of of Beauty call,  
In it the relish of the rest doth lie,  
Nay even a figure of the Mind withal:  
And of the Face the Life moves in the Eye;  
No things else being two so like we see,  
So like, that they two but in number be.   

Beauty in decent shape, and Colours lies,  
Colours the matter are, and shape the Soul;  
The Soul which from no single part doth rise,  
But from the just proportion of the whole,  
And is a mere spirituall-harmonie,  
Of every part united in the Eye.   

Love is a kind of Superstition,  
Which fears the Idol which itself hath framed;  
Lust a Desire, which rather from his own  
Temper, then from the object is inflamed;  
Beauty is loves object, Women Lust's, to gain  
Love, Love Desires, Lust only to obtain.   

No circumstance doth Beauty beautify,  
Like graceful fashion, native Comeliness,  
Nay even gets pardon for Deformity;  
Art cannot it beget, but may increase,  
When Nature had fixed Beauty perfect made,  
Something she left for Motion to add.   

But let that Fashion more to Modesty  
Tend, than Assurance; Modesty doth set  
The face in her just place, from Passions free,  
'tis both the Minds, and Body's Beauty met;  
But Modesty; no virtue can we see;  
That is the Faces only Chastity.   

Where goodness fails, twixt ill and ill that stands:  
Whence 'tis that women though they weaker be,  
And their desires more strong, yet on their hands  
The Chastity of men doth often lie:  
Lust would more common be then any one,  
Can it as other sins be done alone.   

All these good parts a Perfect woman make,  
Add Love to me, they make a Perfect Wife,  
Without her Love Her Beauty should I take,  
As that of Pictures, dead, That gives it life;  
Till than Her Beauty like the Sun doth shine  
Alike to all; That makes it only mine.   

And of that Love, let Reason Father be,  
And Passion Mothor; let it from the one  
His Being take, the other his Degree;  
Self-love (which second loves are built upon)  
Will make me (if not Her) her Love respect;  
No Man but favours his own worths effect.   

As Good, and wise, so be she Fit for me,  
That is, To will, and Not to will the same,  
My Wife is my Adopted-selfe, and she  
As Me, so what I love, to Love must frame.  
For when in Marriage both in one concur,  
Woman converts to Man, not Man to her.   
FINIS.   

The Author's Epitaph, written by himself.  
THe Span of my days measured, here I rest,  
That is, my body; but my soul, his guest  
Is hence ascended, whither, nestber Time,  
Nor Faith, nor Hope, but only love can climb;  
Where being now enlightened, She doth know  
The Truth of all men argue of below:  
Only this dust doth here in Pawn remain,  
That when the world dissolves she come again.    

Characters, OR Witty descriptions of the properties of sundry Persons.  

A good Woman.  
A Good Woman is a comfort, like a man. She lacks of him nothing but heat. Thence is her sweetness of disposition, which meets his stoutness more pleasingly; so wool meets iron easier than iron, and turns resisting into embracing. Her greatest learning is religion, and her thoughts are on her own Sex, or on men, without casting the difference. Dishonesty never comes nearer than her ears, and then wonder stops it out, and saves virtue the labour. She leaves then eat youth, telling his luscious tales, and puts back the Servingman's putting forward with a frown: yet her kindness is free enough to be seen; for it hath no guilt about it: and her mirth is clear, that you may look through it, into virtue, but not beyond. She hath not behaviour at a certain, but makes it to her occasion. She hath so much knowledge as to love it, and if she have it not at home, she will fetch it; for this sometimes in a pleasant discontent she dares chide her Sex, though she use it never the worse. She is much within, and frames outward things to her mind, not her mind to them. She wears good clothes, but never better; for she finds no degree beyond Decency. She hath a content of her own, and so seeks not an husband, but finds him. She is indeed most, but not much to description, for she is direct and one, and hath not the variety of ill. Now she is given fresh and alive to a husband, and she doth nothing more than love him, for she takes him to that purpose. So his good becomes the business of her actions, and she doth herself kindness upon him. After his, her chiefest virtue is a good husband. For She is He.   

A very Woman.  

A Very Woman, is a dow-bakt man, or a She meant well towards man, but fell two bows short, strength and understanding. Her virtue is the hedge, Modesty, that keeps a man from climbing over into her faults. She simpers as if she had no teeth, but lips, and she divides her eyes and keeps half for herself, and gives the other to her near Youth. Being set down she casts her face into a platform, which dureth the meal, & is taken away with the voider. Her draft reacheth to good manners, not to thirst, and it is a part of their mystery not to profess hunger; but Nature takes her in private and stretcheth her upon meat. She is Marigeable and Fourteen at once; and after she doth not live but tarry. She reads over her face every morning, and sometimes blots out pale, and writes red. She thinks she is fair, though many times her opinion goes alone, and she loves her glass, and the knight of the Sun for lying. She is hid away all but her face, and that's hanged about with toys and devices, like the sign of a Tavern, to draw Strangers. If she show more she prevents desire, and by too free giving, leaves no Gift. She may escape from the serving-man, but not from the Chambermaid. She commits with her ears for certain: after that she may go for a Maid, but she hath been lain with in her understanding. Her Philosophy, is a seeming neglect of those, that be too good for her. she's a younger brother for her portion, but not for her portion of wit, that comes from her in a triple, which is still too big for it; yet her Vanity seldom matcheth her, with one of her own degree, for than she will beget another creature a beggar: and commonly, if she marry better, she marries worse. She gets much by the simplicity of her Suitor, and for a jest, laughs at him without one. Thus she dresses a Husband for herself, and after takes him for his patience, and the land adjoining, ye may see it, in a Servingman's fresh Naperie, and his Leg steps into an unknown stocking. I need not speak of his Garters, the tassel shows itself. If she love, she loves not the Man, but the beast of him. She is salomon's cruel creature, and a man's walking-consumption: every caudle she gives him, is a purge. Her chief commendation is, she brings a man to repentance.   

Her next part.  
Her lightness gets her to swim at top of the table, where her wry little finger bewrays carving; her neighbours at the latter end know they are welcome, and for that purpose she quencheth her thirst. She travels to and among, and so becomes a woman of good entertainment, for all the folly in the country, comes in clean Linen to visit her: she breaks to them her grief in Sugar cakes, and receives from their mouths in exchange, many stories that conclude to no purpose. Her eldest Son is like her howsoever, and that dispraiseth him best: her utmost drift is to turn him Fool, which commonly she obtains at the years of discretion, She takes a journey sometimes to her nieces house, but never thinks beyond London. Her Devotion is good clothes, they carry her to Church, express their stuff and fashion, and are silent, if she be more devout, she lifts up a certain number of eyes, in stead of prayers, and takes the Sermon, and measures out a nap by it, just as long. She sends Religion afore to Sixty, where she never overtakes it, or drives it before her again. Her most necessary instruments, are a waiting Gentlewoman, and a Chambermaid; she wears her Gentlewoman still, but most often leaves the other in her Chamber-window. She hath a little Kennel in her lap, and she smells the sweeter for it. The utmost reach of her Providence, is the fatness of a Capon, and her greatest envy, is the next Gentlewoman's better gown. Her most commendable skill, is to make her Husband's fustian bear her Veluer. This she doth many times over, and then is delivered to old Age, and a Chair, where every body leaves her.    

A Dissembler,  
IS an essence needing a double definition, for he is not that he appears. Unto the eye he is pleasing, unto the ear not harsh, but unto the understanding intricate, and full of windings: he is the prima materia, & his intents give him form: he dieth his means and his meaning into two colours, he baits craft with humility, and his countenance is the picture of the present disposition. He wins not by battery, but undermining, and his rack is soothing. He allures, is not allured by his affections, for they are the brokers of his observation. He knows passion only by sufferance, and resisteth by obeying. He makes his time an accountant to his memory, and of the humours of men weaves a net for occasion: the Inquisitor must look through his judgement, for to the eye only he is no● visible.   

A Courtier,  
TO all men's thinking is a man, and to most men the finest: all things else are defined by the understanding, but this by the senses; but his surest mark is, that he is to be found only about Princes. He smells; and putteth away much of his judgement about the situation of his clothes. He knows no man that is not generally known. His wit, like the Marigold, openeth with the Sun, and therefore he riseth not before ten of the clock. He puts more confidence in his words than meaning, and more in his pronunciation than his words. Occasion is his Cupid, and he hath but one receipt of making love. He follows nothing but inconstancy, admires nothing but beauty, honours nothing but fortune. loves nothing. The sustenance of his discourse is News, and his censure like a shot depends upon the charging. He is not, if he be out of Court, but fish-like breathes destruction, if out of his own element. Neither his motion, or aspect are regular, but he moves by the upper Spheres, and is the reflection of higher substances.  
If you find him not here, you shall in Paul's, with a picke-tooth in his Hat, a cape cloak, and a long stocking.   

A Golden Ass,  
IS a young thing, whose Father went to the Devil; he is followed like a salt bitch, and limbed by him that gets up first; his disposition is cut, and knaves rend him like tenterhooks: he is as blind as his mother, and swallows flatterers for friends. He is high in his own imagination; but that imagination, as a stone, that is raised by violence, descends naturally: when he goes, he looks who looks: if he finds not good store of vailers, he comes home stiff and seer, until he be new oiled and watered by his husbandmen. Wheresoever be eats he hath an officer, to warn men not to talk out of his element, and his own is exceeding sensible, because it is sensual; but he cannot exchange a piece of reason, though he can a piece of gold. He is nought plucked, for his feathers are his beauty, and more than his beauty, they are his discretion, his countenance, his All. He is now at an end, for he hath had the Wolf of vainglory, which he fed, until himself became the food.   

A Flatterer,  
IS the shadow of a Foole. He is a good woodman, for he singleth out none but the wealthy. His carriage is ever of the colour of his patient; and for his sake he will halt or wear a wry neck. He dispraiseth nothing but poverty, and small drink, and praiseth his grace of making water. He selleth himself, with reckoning his great Friends, and teacheth the present, how to win his praise by reciting the others gifts: he is ready for all employments, but especially before Dinner, for his courage and his stomach go together. He will play any upon his countenance, and where he cannot be admitted for a counsellor, he will serve as a fool. He frequents the court of wards and ordinaries, and fits these guests of Togae virilis, with wives or whores. He entereth young men into acquaintance and debt books. In a word, he is the impression of the last term, and will be so, until the coming of a new term or termer.   

An ignorant Glorie-hunter,  
IS an insectum animal; for he is the maggot of opinion, his behaviour is anothing from himself, and is glued, and but set on. He entertains men with repetitions, and returns them their own words. He is ignorant of nothing, no not of those things, where ignorance is the lesser shame. He gets the names of good wits, and utters them for his companions. He confesseth vices that he is guiltless of, if they be in fashion; and dares not salute a man in old clothes, or out of fashion. There is not a public assembly without him, and he will take any pains for an acquaintance there. In any show he will be one, though he be but a whistler, or a torch bearer; and bears down strangers with the story of his actions. He handles nothing that is not rare, and defends his wardrobe, diet, and all customs, with entitling their beginnings from Princes, great Soldiers and strange Nations. He dares speak more than he understands, and adventures his words without the relief of any seconds. He relates battles and skirmishes, as from an eye witness, when his eyes theevishly beguiled a ballad of them. In a word, to make sure of admiration, he will not let himself understand himself, but hopes, fame and opinion will be the Readers of his Riddles.   

A Timist,  
IS a noun adjective of the present tense. He hath no more of a conscience then Fear, and his religion is not his but the Princes. He reverenceth a Courtier's Servants servant. Is first his own Slave, and then whosoever looketh big; when he gives he curseth, and when he fells he worships. He reads the statutes in his chamber, and wears the Bible in the streets: he never praiseth any but before themselves or friends: and mislikes no great man's actions during his life. His new years gifts are ready at Alhalomas, and the suit he meant to mediate before them. He pleaseth the children of great men, and promiseth to adopt them; and his courtesy extends itself even to the stable. He strains to talk wisely, and his modesty would serve a Bride. He is gravity from the head to the foot; but not from the head to the heart; you may find what place he affecteth, for he creeps as near it as may be, and as passionately courts it; if at any time his hopes are effected, he swelleth with them; and they burst out too good for the vessel. In a word, he danceth to the tune of fortune, and studies for nothing but to keep time.   

An Amorist,  
IS a certain blasted or planet-stroken, and is the dog that leads blind Cupid; when he is at the best, his fashion exceeds the worth of his weight. He is never without verses, and musk confects; and sighs to the hazard of his buttons; his eyes are all white, either to wear the livery of his Mistress complexion, or to keep Cupid from hitting the black. He fights with passion, and looseth much of his blood by his weapon; dreams, thence his paleness. His arms are carefuly used, as it their best use were nothing but embracements. He is untrust, unbuttoned, and ungartered, not out of carelessness, but care; his farthest end being but going to bed. Sometimes he wraps his petition in neatness, but is goeth not alone; for than he makes some other quality moralise his affection, and his trimness is the grace of that grace. Her favour lifts him up, as the Sun moisture; when she disfavours, unable to hold that happiness, it falls down in tears; his fingers are his Orators, and he expresseth much of himself upon some instrument. He answers not, or not to the purpose; and no marvel, for he is not at home. He scotcheth time with dancing with his Mistress, taking up of her glove, and wearing her feather; he is confined to her colour, and dares not pass out of the circuit of her memory. His imagination is a fool, and it goeth in a pide-coat of red and white; shortly, he is translated out of a man into folly; his imagination is the glass of lust, and himself the traitor to his own discretion.   

An Affectate traveler  
IS a speaking fashion; he hath taken pains to be ridiculous; and hath seen more than he hath perceived. His attire speaks French or Italian, and his gate cries, Behold me. He censures all things by countenances, and shrugs, and speaks his own language with shame and lisping: he will choke rather than confess Beer good drink: and his picktooth is a main part of his behaviour. He chooseth rather to be counted a Spy, than not a Politician: and maintains his reputation by naming great-men familiarly. He chooseth rather to tell lies, than not wonders, and talks with men singly: his discourse sonnds big, but means nothing: & his Boy is bound to admire him howsoever. He comes still from great Personages, but goes with mean. He takes occasion to show jewels given him in regard of his virtue, that were bought in S. Martin's: and not long after, having with a Mountebanks method, pronounced them worth thousands, enpawneth them for a few shillings. Upon festival days he goes to Court, and salutes without resaluting: at night in an Ordinary he canvasseth the business in hand, and seems as conversant with all intents and plots, as if he begot them. His extraordinary account of men is, first to tell them the ends of all matters of consequence, and then to borrow money of them; he offereth courtefies, to show them, rather than himself humble. He disdains all things above his reach, and preferreth all Countries before his own. He imputeth his wants and poverty to the ignorance of the time, not his own unworthiness: and concludes his discourse with half a period, or a word, and leaves the rest to imagination. In a word, his religion is fashion, and both body and soul are governed by fame, he loves most voices above truth.   

A Wise man  
IS the truth of the true definition of man, that is, a reasonable creature. His disposition altars, altars not. He hides himself with the attire of the vulgar; and in indifferent things is content to be governed by them. He looks according to nature, so goes his behaviour. His mind enjoys a continual smoothness: so cometh it, that his consideration is always at home. He endures the faults of all men silently, except his friends, and to them he is the mirror of their actions; by this means his peace cometh not from fortune, but himself. He is cunning in men, not to surprise but keep his own, and bears off their ill affected hurnours, no otherwise then if they were flies. He chooseth not friends by the subsidy-booke, and is not luxurious after acquaintance. He maintains the strength of his body, not by delicacies, but temperance; and his mind by giving it pre-eminence over his body. He understands things not by their form, but qualities; and his comparisons intent not to excuse, but to provoke him higher. He is not subject to casualties, for Fortune hath nothing to do with the mind, except those drowned in the body: but he hath divided his soul, from the case of his soul, whose weakness he assists no otherwise then commiseratively, not that it is his, but that it is. He is thus, and will be thus: and lives subject neither to Time nor his frailties; the servant of virtue, and by virtue, the friend of the highest.   

A Noble Spirit  
HAth surveyed and fortified his disposition, and converts all occurrents into experience, between which experience and his reason, there is marriage; the issue are his actions. He circuits his intents, and seethe the end before he shoot. Men are the instruments of his Art, and there is no man without his use: occasion incites him, none enticeth him; and he moves by affection, not for affection; he loves glory, scorns shame, and governeth and obeyeth with one countenance; for it comes from one consideration. He calls not the variety of the world chances, for his meditation hath traveled over them; and his eye mounted upon his understanding, seethe them as things underneath. He covers not his body with delicacies, nor excuseth these delicacies by his body, but teacheth it, since it is not able to defend its own imbecility, to show or suffer. He licenseth not his weakness, to wear Fate, but knowing reason to be no idle gift of Nature, he is the Sreeres-man of his own destiny. Truth is his Goddess, and he takes pains to get her, not to look like her. He knows the condition of the world, that he must act one thing like another, and then another. To these he carries his desires, & not his desires him; and sticks not fast by the way (for that contentment is repentance) but knowing the circle of all courses, of all intents, of all things, to have but one centre or period, without all distraction, he hasteth thither and ends there, as his true and natural element. He doth not contemn Fortune, but not confess her. He is no Gamester of the world (which only complain and praise her) but being only sensible of the honesty of actions, contemns a particular profit as the excrement or scum. Unto the society of men he is a Sun, whose clearness directs their steps in a regular motion: when he is more particular, he is the wise man's friend, the example of the indifferent, the medicine of the vicious. Thus time goeth not from him, but with him: and he feels age more by the strength of his soul, than the weakness of his body: thus feels he no pain, but esteems all such things as friends, that desire to file off his fetters, and help him out of prison.   

An Old Man  
IS a thing that hath been a man in his days. Old men are to be known blindfolded: for their talk is as terrible as their resemblance. They praise their own times as vehemently, as if they would sell them. They become wrinkled with frowning and facing youth; they admire their old customs, even to the eating of red herring, and going wet-shod. They call the thumb under the girdle, Gravity; and because they can hardly smell at all, their Posies are under their girdles. They count it an Ornament of speech, to close the period with a cough; and it is venerable, they say, to spend time in wiping their driveled beards. Their discourse is unanswerable, by reason of their obstinacy: their speech is much, though little to the purpose. truths and lies pass with an equal affirmation, for their memories several is won into one receptacle, and so they come out with one sense. They teach their servants their duties with as much scorn and tyranny, as some people teach their dogs to fetch. Their envy is one of their diseases. They put off and on their clothes, with that certainty, as if they knew, their heads would not direct them, and therefore Custom should. They take a pride in halting and going stiffly, and therefore their staves are carved and tipped: they trust their attire with much of their gravity; and they dare not go without a gown in Summer. Their hats are brushed to draw men's eyes off from their faces; but of all, their Pomandars are worn to most purpose, for their putrefied breath ought not to want either a smell to defend, or a dog to excuse.   

A Country Gentleman  
IS a thing, out of whose corruption the generation of a justice of peace is produced. He speaks statutes and husbandry well enough, to make his neighbours think him a wise man; he is well skilled in Arithmetic or rates: and hath eloquence enough to save his two pence. His conversation amongst his Tenants is desperate; but amongst his equals full of doubt. His travel is seldom farther than the next market town, and his inquisition is about the price of Corn: when he traveleth, he will go ten mile out of the way to a cozens house of his to save charges; and rewards the Servants by taking them by the hand when he departs. Nothing under a Sub-poena can draw him to London: and when he is there, he sticks fast upon every object, casts his eyes away upon gazing, and becomes the prey of every Cutpurse. When he comes home, those wonders serve him for his Holiday talk. If he go to Court, it is in yellow stockings; and if it be in Winter, in a slight taffeta cloak, and pumps and pantofles. He is chained, that woos the usher for his coming into the presence, where he becomes troublesome with the ill managing of his Rapier, and the wearing of his girdle of one fashion, and the hangers of another; by this time he hath learned to kiss his hand, and make a Leg both together, and the names of Lords and counsellors; he hath thus much toward entertainment and courtesy, but of the last he makes more use; for by the recital of my Lord, he conjures his poor countrymen. But this is not his element, he must home again, being like a Dor, that ends his flight in a dunghill.   

A Fine Gentleman  
IS the Cinnamon tree, whose bark is more worth than his body. He hath read the Book of good manners, and by this time each of his limbs may read it. He alloweth of no judge, but the eye; painting, boulstring, and bombasting are his Orators: by these also he proves his industry: for he hath purchased legs, hair, beauty, and straightness, more than nature left him. He unlocks maidenheads with his language, and speaks Euphues, not so gracefully as hearty. His discourse makes not his behaviour, but he buys it at Court, as Country men their clothes in Birchin-lane. He is somewhat like the Salamander, and lives in the flame of love, which pains he expresseth comically: and nothing grieves him so much, as the want of a Poet to make an issue in his love; yet he sighs sweetly, and speaks lamentably: for his breath is perfumed, and his words are wind. He is best in season at Christmas; for the Boars head and Reveller come together; his hopes are laden in his quality: & left Fiddlers should take him unprovided, he wears pumps in his pocket: and lest he should take Fiddlers unprovided, he whistles his own Galliard. He is a Calendar of ten years, and marriage rusts him. Afterwards he maintains himself an implement of household by carving and ushering. For all this, he is judicial only in Tailors and Barbers, but his opinion is ever ready, and ever idle. If you will know more of his acts, the Broker's shop is the witness of his valour, where lies wounded, dead, rent, and out of fashion, many a spruce Suit, overthrown by his fantasticness.   

An Elder Brother  
IS a creature borne to the best advantage of things without him, that hath the start at the beginning, but loiters it away before the ending. He looks like his Land, as heavily, and dirtily, as stubbornly. He dares do any thing but fight; and fears nothing but his father's life and minority. The first thing he makes known is his estate; and the Loadstone that draws him is the upper end of the Table. He wooeth by a particular, and his strongest argument is the jointure. His observation is all about the fashion, and he commends Partlets for a rare devise. He speaks no language, but smells of dogs or hawks; and his ambition flies justice-height. He loves to be commended, and he will go into the Kitchen, but he'll have it. He loves glory, but is so lazy, as he is content with flattery. He speaks most of the precedency of age, and protests fortune the greatest virtue. He summoneth the old servants, and tells what strange acts he will do when he reigns. He verily believes housekeepers the best commonwealths men; and therefore studies baking, brewing, greasing, and such, as the limbs of goodness. He judgeth it no small sign of wisdom to talk much; his tongue therefore goes continually his errand, but never speeds. If his understanding were not honester than his will, no man should keep good conceit by him; for he thinks it no theft, to fell all he can to opinion. His pedigree & his father's seale-ring, are the stilts of his crazed disposition. He had rather keep company with the dregs of men, than not to be the best man. His insinuation is the inviting of men to his house; and he thinks it a great modesty to comprehend his cheer under a piece of Mutton and a Rubet: if he by this time be not known, he will go home again: for he can no more abide to have himself concealed, than his land; yet he is as you see good for nothing, except to make a stallion to maintain the race.   

A Braggadochio Welshman  
IS the Oyster, that the Pearl is in, for a man may be picked out of him. He hath the abilities of the mind in Potentia, and actu nothing but boldness. His clothes are in fashion before his body; and he accounts boldness the chiefest virtue. Above all men he loves an Herald, and speaks pedigrees naturally. He accounts none well descended, that call him not Cousin; and prefers Owen Glendower before any of the nine Worthies. The first note of his familiarity is the confession of his valour; and so he prevents quarrels. He vouchech Welch, a pure and unconquered language, and courts Ladies with the story of their Chronicle. To conclude, he is precious in his own conceit, and upon S. Davies day without comparison.   

A Pedant  
HE treads in a rule, and one hand scans verses, and the other holds his Sceptre. He dares not think a thought that the nominative case governs not the Verb; and he never had meaning in his life, for he traveled only for words. His ambition is Criticism, and his example Tully. He values phrases, and elects them by the sound, and the eight parts of speech are his Servants. To be brief, he is a Heteroclite, for he wants the plural number, having only the single quality of words.   

A serving-man  
IS a creature, which though he be not drunk, yet is not his own man. He tells without ask who owns him, by the superscription of his Livery. His life is, for ease and leisure, much about Gentlemanlike. His wealth enough to suffice Nature, and sufficient to make him happy, if he were sure of it; for he hath little, and wants nothing, he values himself higher or lower, as his Master is. He hates or loves the Men, as his Master doth the Master. He is commonly proud of his Master's horses, or his Christmas; he sleeps when he is sleepy, is of his religion, only the clock of his stomach is set to go an hour after his. He seldom breaks his own clothes. He never drinks but double, for he must be pledged; nor commonly without some short sentence nothing to the purpose: and seldom abstains till he come to a thirst. His discretion is to be careful for his Master's credit, & his sufficiency to marshal dishes at a Table, and to carve well. His neatness consists much in his hair and outward linen. His courting language, visible bawdy jests; and against his matter fail, he is always ready furnished with a song. His inheritance is the Chambermaid, but often purchaseth his Master's daughter, by reason of opportunity, or for want of a better: he always cuckolds himself, and never marries but his own widow. His Master being appeased, he becomes a Retainer, and entails himself and his posterity upon his heire-males for ever.   

An Host  
IS the kernel of a Sign: or the Sign is the shell, & mine Host is the Snail. He consists of double-beere and fellowship, and his vices are the bawds of his thirst. He enterraines humbly, and gives his Guests power, as well of himself as house. He answers all men's expections to his power, save in the reckoning: and hath gotten the trick of greatness, to lay all mislikes upon his servants. His wife is the cumin-seed of his Dove-house; and to be a good Guest, is a warrant for her liberty. He traffics for Guests by men's friends, friends-friend, and is sensible only of his purse. In a word, he is none of his own: for he neither eats, drinks, or thinks, but at other men's charges and appointments.   

An Ostler  
IS a thing that scrubbeth vireasonably his horse, reasonably himself. He consists of travelers, though he be none himself. His highest ambition is to be Host, and the invention of his sign is his greatest wit: for the expressing whereof he sends away the Painters for want of understanding. He hath certain charms for a horse mouth, that he should not eat his hay: and behind your back, he will cousin your horse to his face. His currycomb is one of his best parts, for he expresseth much by the jingling: and his mane-combe is a spinner's card turned out of service. He puffs and blows over your horse, to the hazard of a double jug: and leaves much of the dressing to the proverb of Muli mutuo scabient, One horse rubs another. He comes to him that calls loudest, not first; he takes a broken head patiently, but the knave he feels not. His utmost honesty is good fellowship, and he speaks Northern, what country man soever. He hath a pension of Ale from the next smith and Saddler for intelligence. He loves to see you ride, & holds your stirrup in expectation.   

A good Wife  
IS a man's best movable, a scien incorporate with the stock, bringing sweetfruit; one that to her husband is more than a friend, less than trouble: an equal with him in the yoke. Calamities and troubles she shares alike, nothing pleaseth her that doth not him. She is relative in all; and he without her, but half himself. She is his absent hands, eyes, ears, and mouth: his present and absent All. She frames her nature unto his howsoever: the Hyacinth follows not the Sun more willingly. Stubbornness and obstinacy, are herbs that grow not in her garden. She leaves tattling, to the gossips of the town, and is more seen then heard: Her household is her charge, her care to that, makes her seldom non resident. Her pride is but to be cleanly, & her thrift not to be prodigal. By her discretion she hath children, notwantons; a Husband without her, is a misery in man's apparel: none but she hath an aged husband, to whom she is both a staff and a chair. To conclude, she is both wise and religious, which makes her all this.   

A Melancholy man  
IS a straier from the drove: one that nature made sociable, because she made him man, and a crazed disposition hath altered. Impleasing to all, as all to him; straggling thoughts are his content, they make him dream waking, there's his pleasure. His imagination is never idle, it keeps his mind in a continu all motion, as the poise the clock: he winds up his thoughts often, and as often unwindes them; Penelope's web thrives faster. he'll seldom be found without the shade of some grove, in whose bottom a river dwells. He carries a cloud in his face, never fair weather: his outside is framed to his inside, in that he keeps a Decorum, both unseemly. Speak to him, he hears with his eyes, ears follow his mind, and that's not at leisure. He thinks business, but never does any: he is all contemplation, no action. He hews and fashions his thoughts, as if he meant them to some purpose, but they prove unprofitable, as a piece of wrought timber to no use. His Spirits and the Sun are enemies; the Sun bright and warm, his humour black and cold: variety of foolish apparitions people his head, they suffer him not to breathe, according to the necessities of nature; which makes him sup up a draft of as much air at once, as would serve at thrice. He denies nature her due in sleep, and over-paies her with watchfulness: nothing pleaseth him long, but that which pleaseth his own fantasies: they are the consuming evils, and evil consumptions, that consume him alive. Lastly, he is a man only in show, but comes short of the better part; a whole reasonable soul, which is man's chief pre-eminence, and sole mark from creatures sensible.   

A Sailor  
IS a pitched piece of reason calked and tackled, and only studied to dispute with tempests. He is part of his own Provision, for he lives everpickled. A forewind is the substance of his Creed; and fresh water the burden of his prayers. He is naturally ambitious, for he is ever climbing: out of which as naturally he fears; for he is ever flying: time and he are every where, ever contending who shall arrive first: he is well wound, for he tires the day, and outrun darkness. His life is like a Hawks, the best part mewed; and if he live till three coats, is a Master. He sees God's wonders in the deep: but so as rather they appear his play-fellows, than stirrers of his zeal: nothing but hunger and hard rocks can convert him, and then but his upper deck neither; for his hold neither fears nor hopes. His sleeps are but repreevals of his dangers, and when he awakes, 'tis but next stage to dying. His wisdom is the coldest part about him, for it ever points to the North: and it lies lowest, which makes his valour every tide o'erflow it. In a storm 'tis disputable, whether the noise be more his, or the Elements, and which will first leave scolding; on which side of the ship he may be saved best, whether his faith be starrebord faith, or larbord: or the helm at that time not all his hope of heaven: his keel is the Emblem of his conscience, till it be split he never reputes, then no farther than the land allows him, and his language is a new confusion: and all his thoughts new nations: his body and his ship are both one burden, nor is it known who stows most wine, or rowles most, only the ship is guided, he has no stern: a barnacle and he are bred together both of one nature, and 'tis feared one reason: upon any but a wooden horse he cannot ride, and if the wind blow against him he dare not: he swerves up to his seat as to a sail yard, and cannot sit unless he bear a flag staff: if ever he be broken to the saddle, 'tis but a voyage still, for he mistakes the bridle for a bowlin, and is ever turning his horse tail: he can pray, but 'tis by rote, not faith, and when he would he dares not, for his brackish belief hath made that ominous. A rock or a quick sand pluck him before he be ripe, else he is gathered to his friends at Wapping.   

A Soldier  
IS the husbandman of valour, his sword is his plough, which honour and aquavitae, two fiery metaled jades, are ever drawing. A younger brother best becomes Arms; an elder, the thanks for them; every heat makes him a harvest: and discontents abroad are his Sowers: he is actively his Princes, but passively his anger's servant. He is often a desirer of learning, which once arrived at, proves his strongest armour: he is a lover at all points; and a true defender of the faith of women: more wealth than makes him seem a handsome foe, lightly he covets not, less is below him: he never truly wants, but in much having, for then his ease and lechery afflict him: the word Peace, though in prayer, makes him start, and God he best considers by his power: hunger and cold rank in the same file with him, and hold him to a man: his honour else, and the desire of doing things beyond him, would blow him greater than the sons of Anack. His religion is, commonly, as his cause is (doubtful) and that the best devotion keeps best quarter: he seldom sees grey hairs, some none at all, for where the sword fails, there the flesh gives fire: in charity, he goes beyond the Clergy, for he loves his greatest enemy best, much drinking. He seems a full Student, for he is a great desirer of controversies, he argues sharply, and carries his conclusion in his scabbard; in the first resining of mankind this was the gold, his actions are his enamel. His allay (for else you cannot work him perfectly) continual duties, heavy and weary marches, lodgings as full of need as cold diseases. No time to argue, but to execute. Line him with these, and link him to his squadrons, and he appears a most rich chain for Princes.   

A Taylor  
IS a creature made up of shreds, that were pared off from Adam, when he was rough cast. The end of his Being differeth from that of others, and is not to serve God, but to cover sin. Other men's pride is his best Patron, and their negligence, a main passage to his profit. He is a thing of more than ordinary judgement: For by virtue of that, he buyeth land, buildeth houses and raiseth the low set roof of his cross legged Fortune. His actions are strong encounters, and for their notoriousness always upon Record. It is neither Amadic de Gaul, nor the Knight of the Sun, that is able to resist them. A ten groats fee setteth them on foot, and a brace of Officers bringeth them to execution. He handleth the Spanish Pike, to the hazard of many poor Egyptian vermins; and in show of his valour, scorneth a greater Gauntlet, then will cover the top of his middle-finger. Of all weapons he most affecteth the long Bill, and this he will manage to the great prejudice of a Customers estate. His spirit notwithstanding is not so much as to make you think him man; like a true mongrel, he neither bites nor barks, but when your back is towards him. His heart is a lump of congealed snow: Prometheus was a sleep while it was making. He differeth altogether from God; for with him the best pieces are still marked out for damnation, and without hope of recovery shall be cast down into hell. He is partly an Alchemist; for he extracteth his own apparel out of other men's clothes; and when occasion serveth, making a Broker's shop his Alembike, can turn your silks into gold, and having furnished his necessities, after a month or two, if he be urged unto it, reduce them again to their proper substance. He is in part likewise an Arithmetician, cunning enough in Multiplication and addition, but cannot abide substraction: Summa totalis, is the Language of his Canaan; & usque ad ultimum quadrantem, the period of all his Charity. For any skill in Geometry, I dare not commend him; For he could never yet find out the dimensions of his own conscience: Notwithstanding he hath many bottoms, it seemeth this is always bottomless. He is double yarded, and yet his female complaineth of want of measure. And so, with a Libera nos à malo; I leave you promising to amend whatsoever is a miss, at his next setting.   

A Puritan  
IS a diseased piece of apocrypha: bind him to the Bible, and he corrupts the whole text: Ignorance, and fat feed, are his Founders; his Nurses, Railing, Rabbis, and round breeches: his life is but a borrowed blast of wind; For between two religions, as between two doors, he is ever whistling. Truly whose child he is, is yet unknown; For willingly his faith allows no Father: only thus far his pedigree is found, Bragger and he flourished about a time first; his fiery zeal keeps him continual costive, which withers him into his own translation, and till he eat a schoolman , he is hidebound; he ever prays against Non Residents, but is himself the greatest discontinuer, for he never keeps near his text: any thing that the Law allows, but Marriage, and March-beer, he murmurs at; what it disallows, and holds dangerous, makes him a discipline. Where the gate stands open, he is ever seeking a style: and where his Learning ought to climb, he creeps through; give him advice, you run into Traditions, and urge a modest course, he cries out Counsels. His greatest care is, to contemn obedience, his last care to serve God, handsomely and cleanly; He is now become so cross a kind of teaching, that should the Church enjoin clean shirts, he were lousy: more sense then single prayers is not his; nor more in those, than still the same petitions: from which he either fears a learned Faith, or doubts God understands not at first hearing. Show him a Ring, he runs back like a Bear; and hates square dealing as allied to caps, a pair of Organs blow him out o'th' Parish, and are the only glister pipes to cool him. Where the meat is best, there he confutes most, for his arguing is but the efficacy of his eating: good bits he holds breeds good positions, and the Pope he best concludes against, in Plumbroth. He is often drunk, but not as we are, temporally, nor can his sleep then cure him, for the fumes of his ambition make his very soul reel, and that small Beer that should allay him (silence) keeps him more surfeited, and makes his heat break out in private houses: women and Lawyers are his best Disciples, the one next fruit, longs for forbidden Doctrine, the other to maintain forbidden titles, both which he sows amongst them. Honest he dare not be, for that loves order: yet if he can be brought to Ceremony, & made but master of it, he is converted.   

A Whore  
IS a high way to the Devil, he that looks upon her with desire, gins his voyage: he that stays to talk with her, mends his pace, and who enjoys her is at his journeys end: Her body is the tilted Lees of pleasure, dashed over with a little decking to hold colour: taste her, she's dead, and falls upon the palate; the sins of other women show in Landscip, far off and full of shadow; hers in Statue, near hand, and bigger in the life: she pricks betimes, for her stock is a white thorn, which cut & grafted on, she grows a Meddler: Her trade is opposite to any other, for she sets up without credit, and too much custom breaks her; The money that she gets is like a traitors, given only to corrupt her, and what she gets, serves but to pay diseases. She is ever moo'rd in sin, and ever mending, and after thirty, she is the Chirurgeons creature; shame and Repentance are two strangers to her, and only in an hospital acquainted: she lives a Reprobate, like Cain, still branded, finding no habitation but her fears, and flies the face of justice like a Felon. The first year of her trade she is an Eyesse scratches and cries to draw on more, affection: the second soar: the third a Ramage whore: the fourth and fifth, she's an intermewer, preys for herself, and ruffles all she reaches; from thence to ten she bears the name of white whore, for then her blood forsakes her with salt Rheums, and now she has mewed three coats; Now she grows weary and diseased together, favours her wing, checks little, but lies for it, baths for her health, & scours to keep her cool, yet still she takes in stones, she fires herself else: the next remove is Haggard, still more cunning; and if my art deceive me not, more crazy. All cares and cures are doubled now upon her, and line her perch, or now she mews her pounces, at all these years she flies at fools and kills too: the next is Bussard Bawd, and there I leave her.   

A very Whore  
IS a woman. She inquires out all the great meetings, which are medicines for her itching. She kisseth open mouthed, and spits in the palms of her hands to make them moist. Her eyes are like freebooters living upon the spoil of stragglers; and she baits her desires with a million of postitute countenances, and enticements; In the light she listeneth to Parleys: but in the dark she understands signs best. She will sell her smock for Cuffs, and so her shoes be fine, she cares not though her stockings want feet. Hers modesty is curiosity, and her smell is one of her best ornaments. She passeth not a span breadth. And to have done, she is the Cook and the meat dressing, herself all day, to be tasted with the better appetite at night.   

A mere Common Lawyer  
IS the best shadow to make a discreet one show the fairer. He is a Materia prima informed by reports, actuated by Statutes, and hath his Motion by the favourable Intelligence of the Court. His Law is always furnished with a Commission to arraign his Conscience: but upon judgement given he usually sets it at large. He thinks no language worth knowing but his Barragoüin. Only for that point he hath been a long time at wars with Priscian for a Northern Province. He imagines that by superexcellency his profession only is learning, and that its a profanation of the temple to his Themis dedicated, if any of the liberal Arts be there admitted to offer strange incense to Her. For indeed he is all for money. Seven or eight years squires him out, some of his Nation less standing: and ever since the Night of his Call, he forgot much what he was at dinner. The next morning his man (in Actu or potentia) enjoys his pickadels. His Laundress is then shrewdly troubled in fitting him a Ruff; His perpetual badge. His love letters of the last year of his Gentlemanship are stuffed with Discontinuances, Remitters, and Vncore priests: but now being enabled to speak in proper person, he talks of a French hood, instead of a jointure, wages his law, and joins issue. Then he gins to stick his letters in his ground Chamber window; that so the superscription may make his Squire-ship transparent. His Heraldry gives him place before the Minister, because the Law was before the Gospel. Next termne he walks his hoopsleeve gown to the Hall; there it proclaims him. He feeds fat in the Reading, and till it chances to his turn, dislikes no house order so much, as that the month is so contracted to a fortnight, 'mongst his country neighbours, he arrogates as much honour for being Reader of an Inn of Chancery, as if it had been of his own house. For they, poor souls, take Law and Conscience, Court and Chancery for all one. He learned to frame his Cases from putting Riddles and imitating Merlin's Prophecies, and so set all the Cross row together by the ears. Yet his whole Law is not able to decide Lucian's one old controversy twixt Tau and Sigma. He accounts no man of his Cap and coat idle, but who trots not the Circuit. He affects no life or quality for itself, but for gain; and that at least, to the stating him in a justice of peaceship, which is the first quickening soul superadded to the elementary and inanimate form of his new Title. His terms are his wives vacations. Yet she then may usurp divers Court-days, and hath her Returns in Mensem, for writs of entry; often shorter. His vacations are her Termers. But in Assize time (the circuit being long) he may have a trial at home against him by Nisi Prius. No way to heaven, he thinks, so wife, as through West-minster Hall; and his Clerks commonly through it visit both heaven and hell. Yet than he oft forgets his journeys end, although he look on the star-chamber. Neither is he wholly destitute of the Arts. Grammar he hath, enough to make terminations of those words which his authority hath endenizoned. Rhetoric some; but so little, that its thought a concealment. Logic enough to wrangle. Arithmetic enough for the Ordinals of his yecre-bookes, and number-rolls: but he goes not to Multiplication; there's a Statute against it. So much Geometry, that he can advice in a Perambulatione facienda; or a Rationalibus divisis. In Astronomy and Astrology he is so far seen, that by the Dominical latter, he knows the Holidays, and finds by Calculation that Michaelmas Term will be long and dirty. Marry, he knows so much in Music, that he affects only the most and cunningest Discords; rarely a perfect Concord, especially song, except in fine. His skill in Perspective endeavours much to deceive the eye of the Law, and gives many false colours. He is specially practised in Necromancy, (such a kind as is out of the Statute of Primo) by raising many dead Questions. What sufficiency he hath in Criticism, the fowl Copies of his Special Pleas will tell you.  
Many of the same coat, which are much to be honoured, partake of divers of his indifferent qualities, but so, that Discretion, Virtue, and sometimes other good learning, concurring and distinguishing Ornaments to them, make them as a foil, to set their worth on.   

A Mere Scholar.  
A Mere Sholler is an intelligible Ass: Or a silly fellow in black, that speaks Sentences more familiarly than Sense. The Antiquity of his University is his Creed, and the excellency of his College (though but for a match at Football) an Article of his faith: he speaks Latin better then his Mother-tongue; and is a stranger in no part of the World, but his own Country: he does usually tell great stories of himself to small purpose, for they are commonly ridiculous, be they true or false: his Ambition is, that he either is, or shall be a Graduate: but if ever he get a Fellowship, he has then no fellow. Inspite of all Logic he dare swear and maintain it, that a Cuckold and a Towns-man are Termini Conuertibiles, though his Mother's husband be an Alderman: he was never begotten (as it seems) without much wrangling; for his whole life is spent in Pro & Contrae his tongue goes always before his wit, like a Gentleman-usher, but somewhat faster. That he is a complete Gallant in all points, Cap a pea; witness his horsemanship, and the wearing of his weapons: he is commonly long-winded, able to speak more with ease, than any man can endure to hear with patience. University jests are his universal discourse, and his news the demeanour of the Proctors: his Phrase, the apparel of his mind, is made up of divers shreds like a Cushion, and when it goes plainested hath a Rash outside, and Fustian linings. The currant of his speech is closed with an Ergô; and what ever be the question, the truth is on his side. 'tis a wrong to his reputation to be ignorant of any thing; and yet he knows not that he knows nothing: he gives directions for husbandry from Virgil's Georgics; for cattle from his Bucolics; for Warlike Stratagems, from his AEneides, or Caesar's Commentaries: he order all things by the Book, is skilful in all trades, and thrives in none: he is led more by his ears then his understanding, taking the sound of words for their true sense: and does therefore confidently believe, that Erra Pater was the Father of heretics, Rodolphus Agricola, a substantial Farmer; and will not stick to aver, that Systema's Logic doth excel Keckermans: his ill luck is not so much in being a fool, as in being put to such pains to express it to the world: for what in others is natural, in him (with much ado) is artificial: his poverty is his happiness, for it makes some men believe, that he is none of fortunes favourites. That learning which he hath, was in Nonage put in backward like a Glister, and 'tis now like Ware mislaid in a peddlers pack; a has it, but knows not where it is. In a word, he is the Index of a man, and the Title-page of a Scholar, or a Puritan in morality, much in profession, nothing in practice.   

A Tinker  
IS a movable: for he hath no abiding place; by his motion he gathers heat, thence his choleric nature. He seems to be very devout, for his life is a continual Pilgrimage, and sometimes in humility goes barefoot, therein making necessity a virtue. His house is as ancient as Tubal-caines', and so is a runagate by antiquity: yet he proves himself a Gallant, for he carries all his wealth upon his back; or a Philosopher, for he bears all his substance about him. From his Art was Music first invented, and therefore is he always furnished with a song: to which his hammer keeping tune, proves that he was the first founder of the Kettle-drumme. Note that where the best Ale is, there stands his music most upon crotchets. The companion of his travels is some soul sunne-burnt Quean, that since the terrible Statute recanted Gypsisme, and is turned Pedleresse. So marches he all over England with his bag and baggage. His conversation is unreprovable; for he is ever mending. He observes truly the Statutes, and therefore he had rather steal than beg, in which he is unremooveably constant in spite of whips or imprisonment: and so strong an enemy to idleness, that in mending one hole, he had rather make three then want work; and when he hath done, he throws the Wallet of his faults behind him. He embraceth naturally ancient customs, conversing in open fields, and lowly Cottages. If he visit Cities or Towns, 'tis but to deal upon the imperfections of our weaker vessels. His tongue is very voluble, which with Canting proves him a Linguist. He is entertained in every place, but enters no further than the door, to avoid suspicion. Some would take him to be a Coward; but believe it, he is a Lad of mettle, his valour is commonly three or four yards long, fastened to a pike in the end for flying off. He is very provident, for he will fight but with one at once, and then also he had rather submit then be counted obstinate. To conclude, if he scape Tyburn and Banbury, he dies a beggar.   

An Apparatour  
IS a Chick of the Egg Abuse, hatched by the warmth of authority: he is a bird of rapine, and begins to prey, and feather together. He croaks like a Raven against the death of rich men, and so gets a Legacy unbequeathed: his happiness is in the multitude of children, for their increase is his wealth; and to that end, he himself yearly adds one. He is a cunning hunter, uncouping his intelligencing hounds, under hedges, in thickets, and cornfields, who follow the chase to City-Suburbs, where often his game is at covert: his quiver hangs by his side, stuffed with silver arrows, which he shoots against Church-gates, and private men's doors, to the hazard of their purses and credit. There went but a pair of shears, between him and the Pursuivant of Hell, for they both delight in sin, grow richer by it, and are by justice appointed to punish it: only the Devil is more cunning, for he picks a Living out of others gains. His living lieth in his eyes, which (like spirits) he sends through chinks, and keyholes, to survey the places of darkness; for which purpose, he studieth the optics, but can discover no colour but black, for the pure white of chastity dazzleth his eyes. He is a Catholic, for he is every where; and with a Politic, for he transforms himself into all shapes. He travels on foot to avoid idleness, and loves the Church entirely, because it is the place of his edification. He accounts not all sins mortal; for fornication with him is a venial sin, and to take bribes a matter of charity: he is collector for burnings, and losses are Sea, and in casting account, can readily subtract the lesser from the greater sum. Thus lives he in a golden age, till death by a process, summons him to appear.   

An Almanac-maker  
IS the worst part of an Astronomer: a creature compact of figures, characters, and ciphers: out of which he scores the fortune of a year, not so profitably, as doubtfully. He is tenant by custom to the Planets, of whom he holds the 12. Houses by lease parol: to them he pays yearly rend, his study, and time; yet lets them out again (with all his heart) for 40. s. per annum. His life is merely contemplative: for his practice, 'tis worth nothing, at least not worthy of credit; & (if by chance) he purchase any, he loseth it again at the years end, for time brings truth to light. Ptolemy and Ticho-Barche are his Patrons, whose volumes he understands not, but admires; and the rather because they are Strangers, and so easier to be credited, then controlled. His life is upright, for he is always looking upward; yet dares believe nothing above Primium mobile, for 'tis out of the reach of his jacobs' Staff. His charity extends no further than to Mountebanks and Sowgelder's, to whom he bequeathes the seasons of the year, to kill or torture by. The verses in his Book have a worse pace than ever had Rochester Hackney: for his Prose, 'tis dappled with Inke-borne terms, and may serve for an Almanac: but for his judging at the uncertainty of weather, any old Shepherd shall make a Dunce of him. He would be thought the devils Intelligencer for stolen goods: if ever he steal out of that quality, as a fly turns to a Maggot, so the corruption of the cunning-man is the generation of an Empiricke: his works fly forth in small volumes yet not all, for many ride post to Chandler's and Tobacco shops in Folio. To be brief, he falls three degrees short of his promises; yet is he the Key to unlock Terms, and law-days, a dumb Mercury to point out highways, and a Bailiff of all Marts and Fairs in England. The rest of him you shall know next year; for what he will be then, he himself knows not.   

An Hypocrite  
IS a gilded Pill, composed of two virtuous ingredients, Natural dishonesty, and Artificial dissimulation. Simple Fruit, Plant or Drug, he is none, but a deformed mixture, bred betwixt Evil Nature and false Art, by a monstrous generation; and may well be 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 he be Physic or a Disease: for he is both, in diures respects.  
As he is gilded with an out side of Seeming purity, or as he offereth himself to you to be taken down in a cup or taste of Golden zeal and Simplicity, you may call him physic. Nay, and never let potion give Patiented good stool, if being truly tasted and relished, he be not as loathsome to the stomach of any honest man.  
He is also Physic, in being as commodious for use, as he 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 ruin of his makers, if he may have Benefit; that such a creature in a society makes men as careful of their speeches and actions, as the sight of a known Cutpurse in a throng, makes them watchful over their purses and pockets: he is also in this respect profitable Physic, that his conversation being once truly tasted and discovered, the hateful foulness of it will make those that are not fully like him, to purge all such Diseases as are rank in him, out of their own lives; as the sight of some Citizens on horseback, makes a judicious man amend his own faults in horsemanship. If none of these uses can be made of him, let him not long offend the stomach of your company; your best way is to spew 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 amongst Sheep, the rot; amongst Dogs, the mange; amongst Horses, the glanders; amongst Men and Women, the Northern itch, and the French Ache be diseases; an Hypocrite cannot but be the like in all States and Societies that breed him. If he be a Clergy Hypocrite, than all manner of vice is for the most part so proper to him, as he will grudge any man the practice of it but himself; like that grave Burgess, 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 fool in his clothes but himself. Hence are his so austere reprehensions of drinking healths, lascivious talk, usury and unconscionable dealing; when as himself hating the profane mixture of malt & water, will by his good will let nothing come within him, but the purity of the Grape, when he can get it of another's cost: But this must not be done neither, without a preface of seeming loathness, turning up the eyes, moving the head, laying hand on the breast, and protesting that he would not do it, but to strengthen his body, being even consumed with dissembled zeal, and tedious and thankless babbling to God and his Auditors, And for the other vices, do but venture the making yourself private with him, or trusting of him, & if you come off without a savour of the air which his soul is infected with, you have great fortune. The farthel of all this ware that is in him, you shall commonly see carried upon the back of these two beasts, that live within him, Ignorance and imperiousness: and they may well serve to carry other vices, for of themselves they are insuppportable. His Ignorance acquits him of all science, human or divine, and of all Language, but his mothers; holding nothing pure, holy, or sincere, but the senseless collections of his own crazed brain, the zealous fumes of his inflamed spirit, and the endless labours of his eternal tongue; the motions whereof, when matter and words fail, (as they often do) inust be patched up, to accomplish his four hours in a day at the least, with long and servant hums. Any thing else, either for language or matter he cannot abide, but thus censureth: Latin, the language of the Beast; Greeke, the tongue wherein the Heathen Poets wrote their fictions; Hebrew the speech of the jews, that crucified Christ: Controversies do not edify, Logic and Philosophy, are the subtleties of Satan, to deceive the Simple, human stories prefane, and not savouring of the Spirit; In a word, all decent and sensible form of Speech and persuasion (though in his own tongue) vain Ostentation. And all this, is the burden of his Ignorance: saving that sometimes Idleness will put in also, to bear a part of the baggage.  
His other Beast Imperiousness, is yet more proudly loaden, it carrieth a burden, that no cords of Authority, Spiritual, nor Temporal should bind, if it might have the full swinge: No Pilate, no Prince should command him: Nay, he will command them, and at his pleasure censure them, if they will not suffer their ears to be fettered with the long chains of his tedious collations, their purses to be emptied with the inundations of his unsatiable humour, and their judgements to be blinded with the muffler of his zealous Ignorance. For this doth he familiarly insult over his Maintainer that breeds him, his Patron that feeds him, and in time over all them that will suffer him to set a foot within their doors, or put a finger in their purses. All this, and much more is in him, that abhorring Degrees and Vniver sities, as relics of Superstition, hath leapt from a Shop-bord, or a Cloak-bag, to a Desk, or Pulpit, and that like a Sea god in a Pageant, hath the rotten laths of his culpable life, and palpable ignorance, covered over with the painted cloth of a pure gown, and a nightcap; and with a false Trumpet of Fained-zeale, draweth after him some poor Nymphs and Madmen, that delight more to resort to dark Caves and secret places, then to open and public assemblies. The Lay-Hypocrite, is to the other a Champion, Disciple and Subject; and will not acknowledge the Tithe of the Subjection, to any Mitre, no, not to any Sceptre, that he will do to the hook & crook of his zeale-blinde Shepherd. No jesuits demand more blind and absolute obedience from their vassals; no Magistrates of the Canting society, more flavish subjection from the members of that traveling state, than the Clerk Hypocrites expect from these lay Pupils. Nay, they must not only be obeyed, fed, and defended, but admired too: and that their Lay followers do as sincerely, as a shirtlesse fellow with a Cudgel under his arm doth a face-wringing Ballet-singer; a Water-bearer on the floor of a Playhouse, a wide-mouth'de Poet, that speaks nothing but bladders & bombast. Otherwise, for life and profession, nature and Art, inward and outword, they agree in all, like Canters and Gypsies: they are all zeal, no knowledge; All purity, no humanity; all simplicity, no honesty: and if you never trust them they will never deceive you.   

A Maquerela, in plain English, a Bawd  
IS an old Charcoal, that hath been burnt herself, and therefore is able to kindle a whole green Coppice. The burden of her song is like that of Friar Bacon's Head; Time is, Time was, and Time is past: in repeating which, she makes a wicked brazen face, & weeps in the Cup, to allay the heat of her Aquavitae. Her teeth are fallen out; marry her Nose, and chin, intent very shortly to be friends, and meet about it. Her years are sixty and odd: that she accounts her best time of trading; for a Bawd is like a Medlar, she's not ripe, till the be rotten. Her envy is like that of the Devil; To have all fair women like her; and because it is impossible they should catch it being so young, she hurries them to it by diseases. Her Park is a villainous barren ground; and all the Dear in it are Rascal: yet poor Cottagers in the Country (that know her but by hear say) think well of her; for what she encloses to day, she makes Common to morrow. Her goods and herself are all removed in one sort, only she makes bold to take the upper hand of them, and to be Carted before them; the thought of which, makes her thee cannot endure a posset, because it puts her in mind of a Basin. She sits continually at a racked Rent; especially, if her Landlord bear office in the Parish: for her movables in the house; (besides her quick cattle) they are not worth an Inventory, only her beds are most commonly in print: she can easily turn a sempstress, into a waiting gentle woman, but her Warderobe is most infectious, for it brings them to the Falling-sickness: she hath only this one show of Temperance, that let a Gentleman send for ten pottles of wine in her house, he shall have but ten quarts; and if he want it that way, let him pay for't, and take it out in stewed prunes. The justices Clerk stands many times her very good friend: and works her peace with the justice of Quorum. Nothing joys her so much as the coming over of Strangers, nor daunts her so much as the approach of Shrove-tuesday. In fine, not to foul more paper with so foul a subject, he that hath passed under her, hath past the Equinoctial; He that hath 'scaped her, hath 'scaped worse than the Calenture.   

A Chambermaid,  
SHe is her Mistresses she Secretary, and keeps the box of her teeth, her hair, and her painting, very private. Her industry is up-stares, and downestaires like a drawer: and by her dry hand you may know she is a sore starcher. If she lie at her Master's beds feet she is quit of the Green-sickness fore ever; For she hath terrible dreams when she is awake, as if she were troubled with the night Mare. She hath a good liking to dwelleth Country, but she holds London, the goodliest Forest in England, to shelter a great Belly. She reads Green's works over and over, but is so carried away with the Mirror of Knighthood, she is many times resolved to run out of herself, and become a Lady Errand. If she catch a clap, she divides it so equally between the Master and the Servingman, as if she had cut out the getting of it by a Thread: only the knave Sumner makes her bowl booty, and overreach the Master. The pedant of the house, though he promise her Marriage, cannot grow further inward with her, she hath paid for her credulity often, & now grows weary. She likes the form of our marriage very well, in that a woman is not tied to answer to any Articles concerning question of her virginity: Her mind, her body, and Clothes, are parcels loosely tacked together, and for want of good utterance, she perpetually laughs out her meaning. Her Mistress and she help to make away Time, to the idlest purpose that can be, either for love or money. In brief, these Chambermaids are like Lotteries: you may draw twenty, ere one worth any thing.   

A Precisian.  
TO speak no otherwise of this varnished Rottenness then in truth and verity he is, I must define him to be a demure Creature, full of oral Sanctity, and mental impiety; a fair object to the eye, but stark nought for the understanding: or else a violent thing, much given to contradiction. He will be sure to be in opposition with the Papist, though it be sometimes accompanied with an absurdity; like the Islanders near adjoining unto China, who salute by putting off their shoes, because the men of China do it by their hats. If at any time he fast, it is upon Sunday, and he is sure to feast upon Friday. He can better afford you ten lies, than one oath, and dare commit any sin gilded with a pretence of sanctity. He will not stick to commit fornieation or Adultery, so it be done in the fear of God, and for the propagation of the godly; and can find in his heart to lie with any whore, save the whore of Babylon. To steal he holds it lawful, so it be from the wicked and AEgyptians. He had rather see Antichrist, than a picture in the Church window: and chooseth sooner to be half hanged, then see a leg at the name of JESUS, or one stand at the Creed. He conceives his prayer in the kitchen, rather than in the Church, and is of so good discourse, that he dares challenge the Almighty, to talk with him ex tempore. He thinks every Organist is in the state of damnation, and had rather hear one of Robert Wisdoms psalms, than the best Hymn a Cherubin can sing. He will not break wind without an Apology, or ask forgiveness, nor kiss a Gentlewoman for fear of lusting after her. He hath nicknamde all the Prophets and Apostles with his Sons, and beggars nothing but Virtues for Daughters. Finally, he is so sure of his salvation, that he will not change places in heaven, with the Virgin Marie, without boot.   

An Inns of Court man.  
HE is distinguished from a Scholar by a pair of silk stockings, and a Beaver Hat, which makes him contemn a Scholar as much as a Scholar doth a Schoolmaster. By that he hath heard one mooting, and seen two plays, he thinks as basely of the University, as a young Sophister doth of the Grammar-school. He talks of the University, with that state, as if he were her Chancellor; finds fault with alterations, and the fall of Discipline, with an It was not so when I was a Student; although that was within this half year. He will talk ends of Latin, though it be false, with as great confidence, as ever Cicero could pronounce an Oration, though his best authors for't, be Taverns & Ordinaries. He is as far behind a Courtier in his fashion, as a scholar is behind him: and the best grace in his behaviour, is to forget his acquaintance.  
He laughs at every man whose Band sits not well, or that hath not a fair shoo-ty, and he is ashamed to be seen in any man's company that wears not his clothes well. His very essence he placeth in his outside, and his chiefest prayer is, that his revenues may hold out for Taffeta cloaks in the Summer, and velvet in the winter. For his recreation, he had rather go to a Citizen's Wife, than a Bawdy-house, only to save charges: and he holds Fee-tail to be absolutely the best Tenure. To his acquaintance he offers two quarts of wine, for one he gives. You shall never see him melancholy, but when he wants a new Suit, or fears a Sergeant: At which times only, he betakes himself to Ploydon. By that he hath read Littleton, he can call Solon, Lycurgus, and justinian, fools, and dares compare his Law to a Lord Chiefe-iustices.   

A mere Fellow of an House.  
HE is one whose Hopes commonly exceed his Fortunes, & whose mind soars above his purse. If he hath read Tacitus, Guicchardine, or Gallo-Belgicus, he contemns the late Lord-Treasurer, for all the state-policy he had; and laughs to think what a fool he could make of Solomon, if he were now alive. He never wears new clothes, but against a commencement or a good time, and is commonly a degree behind the fashion. He hath sworn to see London once a year, though all his business be to see a play, walk a turn in Paul's, and observe the fashion. He thinks it a discredit to be out of debt, which he never likely clears, without resignation money. He will not leave his part he hath in the privilege over young Gentlemen, in going bare to him, for the Empire of Germany; He prays as hearty for a Sealing, as a Cormorant doth for a dear year: yet commonly he spends that revenue before he receives it.  
At meals, he sits in as great state over his Penny-Commons, as ever Vitellius did at his greatest Banquet: and takes great delight in comparing his fare to my Lord Mayors.  
If he be a leader of a Faction, he thinks himself greater than ever Caesar was, or the Turk at this day is. And he had rather lose an Inheritance than an Office, when he stands for it.  
If he be to travel, he is longer furnishing himself for a siue miles journey, than a ship is rigging for a seven years voyage. He is never more troubled, then when he is to maintain talk with a Gentlewoman: wherein he commits more absurdities, than a clown in eating of an egg.  
He thinks himself as fine when he is in a clean Band, and a new pair of shoes, as any Courtier doth, when he is first in a New-fashion.  
Lastly, he is one that respects no man in the University, and is respected by no man out of it.   

A worthy Commander in the Wars.  
IS one that accounts learning the nourishment of military virtue, and lays that as his first foundation. He never bloudies his sword but in hear of battle; and had rather save one of his own Soldiers, then kill ten of his enemies. He accounts it an idle, vainglorious, and suspected bounty, to be full of good words; his rewarding therefore of the deserver arrives so timely, that his liberality can never be said to be gouty handed. He holds it next his Creed, that no Coward can be an honest man, and dare die in't. He doth not think his body yields a more spreading shadow after a victory then before; and when he looks upon his enemies dead body, 'tis with a kind of noble heaviness, not insultation; he is so honourably merciful to women in surprisal, that only, that makes him an excellent Courtier. He knows the hazards of battles, not the pomp of Ceremonies, are Soldiers best theatres, and strives to gain reputation not by the multitude, but by the greatness of his actions. He is the first in giving the charge, and the last in retiring his foot. Equal toil he endures with the Common Soldier, from his example they all take fire as one Torch lights many. He understands in war, there is no mean to err twice; the first, and least fault being sufficient to ruin an Army: faults therefore he pardons none, they that are precedents of disorder or mutiny, repair it by being examples of his justice. Besiege him never so strictly, so long as the air is not cut from him, his heart faints not. He hath learned aswell to make use of a victory as to get it, and in pursuing his enemy like a whirlwind carries all afore him; being assured if ever a man will benefit himself upon his foe, then is the time, when they have lost force, wisdom, courage and reputation. The goodness of his cause is the special motive to his valour; never is he known to slight the weakest enemy that comes armed against him in the hand of justice. Hasty and overmuch heat he accounts the Stepdame to all great actions, that will not suffer them to thrive; if he cannot overcome his enemy by force, he does it by Time. If ever he shake hands with war, he can die more calmly than most Courtiers, for his continual dangers have been as it were so many meditations of death; he thinks not out of his own calling, when he accounts life a continual warfare, and his prayers then best become him when armed Cap a pea. He utters them like the great Hebrew General, on horseback. He casts a smiling contempt upon Calumny, it meets him as if Glass should encounter Adamant. He thinks war is never to be given over, but on one of these three conditions: an assured peace, absolute victory, or an honest death. Lastly, when peace folds him up, his silver head should lean near the golden Sceptre, and die in his Prince's bosom.   

A vainglorious Coward in Command,  
IS one that hath bought his place, or come to it by some Nobleman's letrer, he loves a life dead pays, yet wishes they may rather happen in his Company by the scurvy, then by a battle. View him at a muster, and he goes with such noise, as if his body were the wheelebarrow that carried his judgement rumbling to drill his Soldiers. No man can worse define between Pride and noble Courtesy: he that salutes him not as far a Pistol carries level, gives him the disgust or affront, choose you whether. He trains by the book, and reckons so many postures of the Pike and Musket, as if he were counting at Noddy. When he comes at first upon a Camisado, he looks like the four winds in painting, as if he would blow away the enemy; but at the very first onset suffers fear & trembling to dress themselves in his face apparently. He scorns any man should take place before him: yet at the entering of a breach, he hath been so humble minded, as to let his Lieutenant lead his Troops for him. He is so sure armed for taking hurt, that he seldom does any: and while he is putting on his Arms, he is thinking what sum he can make to satisfy his ransom. He will rail openly against all the great Commanders of the adverse party, yet in his own conscience allows them for better men: such is the nature of his fear, that contrary 〈◊〉 all other filthy qualities, it make him thinks better of another man then himself. The first part of him that is set a running, is his Eyesight: when that is once struck with terror, all the Costive Physic in the world cannot stay him; if ever he do any thing beyond his own heart, 'tis for a Knighthood, and he is the first kneels fort without bidding.   

A Pirate,  
Truly defined, is a bold Traitor, for he fortifies a castle against the King. Give him Sea-room in never so small a vessel; and like a witch in a sieve, you would think he were going to make merry with the Devil. Of all callings his is the most desperate, for he will not leave off his thieving though he be in a narrow prison, and look every day (by tempest or fight) for execution. He is one plague the Devil hath added, to make the Sea more terrible than a storm; and his heart is so hardened in that rugged element, that he cannot repent, though he view his grave (before him) continually open: he hath so little his own, that the house he sleeps in is stolen; all the necessities of life he filches, but one: he cannot steal a sound sleep, for his troubled conscience: He is very gentle to those under him, yet his rule is the horriblest tyranny in the world: for he gives licence to all rape, murder, and cruelty in his own example: what he gets, is small use to him, only lives by it, (somewhat the longer) to do a little more service to his belly; for he throws away his treasure upon the shore in riot, as if he cast it into the Sea. He is a cruel Hawk that flies at all but his own kind: and as a Whale never comes a shore, but when she is wounded; so he, very seldom, but for his necessities. He is the merchants book, that serves only to reckon up his losses; a perpetual plague to noble traffic, the Hurican of the Sea, & the Earthquake of the Exchange. Yet for all this give him but his pardon, and forgive him restitution, he may live to know the inside of a Church, and die on this side Wapping.   

An ordinary Fencer  
IS a fellow, that beside shaving of Cudgels, hath a good insight into the world, for he hath long been beaten to it. Flesh and blood he is like other men; but surely Nature meant him Stockfish: his and a Dancing-school are inseparable adjuncts; and are bound, though both stink of sweat most abominably, neither shall complain of annoyance: three large bavins set up his trade, which a bench; which (in the vacation of the afternoon) he uses for his day bed; for a sirkin to piss in, he shall be allowed that, by those make Allom: when he comes on the Stage, at his Prize, he makes a leg seven several ways, and scrambles for money, as if he had been borne at the bath in Somerset-shire: at his challenge he shows his metal; for contrary to all rules of Physic, he dare bleed, though it be in the dog-days: he teaches Devilish play in's School, but when he fights himself, he doth it in the fear of a good Christian. He compounds quarrels among his Scholars, and when he hath brought the business to a good upshot, he makes the reckoning. His wounds are seldom above skin deep; for an inward bruise, Lamb-stones and sweetbreads are his only Sperma Ceti, which he eats at night, next his heart fasting: strange Schoolmasters they are, that every day set a man as far backward as he went forward; and throwing him into a strange posture, teach him to thrash satisfaction out of injury. One sign of a good nature is, that he is still open breasted to his friends, for his foil, and his doubler, wear not above two buttons: and resolute he is, for he so much scorns to take blows, that he never wears Cuffs: and he lives better contented with a little, than other men; for if he have two eyes in's head, he thinks Nature hath overdone him. The Lord majors triumph makes him a man, for that's his best time to flourish. Lastly, these Fencers are such things, that care not if all the world were ignorant of more Letters then only to read their Patent.   

A Puny-clarke.  
HE is ta'en from Grammar-schoole half coddled, and can hardly shake off his dreams of breeching in a twelvemonth. He is a Farmer's son, and his Father's utmost ambition is to make him an Attorney. He doth itch towards a Poet, and greases his breeches extremely with feeding without a napkin. He studies false dice to cheat Costermongers, and is most chargeable to the butler of some Inn of Chancery, for pissing in their green pots. He eats Ginger bread at a Playhouse; and is so saucy, that he venter's fairly for a broken pate at the banqueting house, and hath it. He would never come to have any wit, but for a long vacation, for that makes him bethink him how he shall shift another day. He prays hotly against fasting; and so he may sup well on friday nights, he cares not though his Master be a Puritan. He practices to make the words in his Declaration spread, as a Sewer doth the dishes at a Niggard's table; a Clerk of a swooping Dash, is as commendable as a Flanders horse of a large tail. Though you be never so much delayed, you must not call his master knave; that makes him go beyond himself and write a challenge in Court hand; for it may be his own another day. These are some certain of his liberal faculties: but in the Term time, his Clog is a Buckram bag. Lastly, which is great pity, he never comes to his full growth, with bearing on his shoulder the sinful burden of his Master at several Courts in Westminster.   

A Footman,  
LEt him be never so well made, yet his Legs are not matches, for he is still setting the best foot forward. He will never be a stayed man, for he has had a running head of his own, ever since his childhood. His mother (which, out of question, was a light heeled wench) knew it, yet let him run his race, thinking age would reclaim him from his wild courses. He is very long wound; and, without doubt, but that he hates naturally to serve on horseback, he had proved an excellent trumpet. He has one happiness above all the rest of the Servingmen, for when he most over-reaches his Master, he's best thought of. He lives more by his own heat then the warmth of clothes; and the waiting-woman hath the greatest fancy to him when he is in his close trousers. Guards he wears none; which makes him live more upright than any gross gartered Gentleman-usher. 'tis impossible to draw his picture to the life, cause a man must take it as he's running, only this; Horses are usually let blood on S. Steuens day: on S. Patrick's he takes rest, and is drenched for all the year after.   

A noble and retired Housekeeper,  
IS one whose bounty is limited by reason, not astentation: and to make it last, he deals it discreetly, as we sow the furrow, not by the sack, but by the handful. His word and his meaning never shake hands and part, but always go together. He can survey good, and love it, and loves to do it himself, for it own sake, not for thanks. He knows there is no such miferie as to outlive good name; not no such folly as to put it in practice. His mind is so secure, that thunder rocks him asleep, which breaks other men's flumbers. Nobility lightens in his eyes; and in his face and gesture is painted, The God of Hospitality. His great houfes bear in their front more durance, than state; unless this add the greater state to them, that they promise to outlast much of our new fantastical building. His heart never grows old, no more than his memory: whether at his book, or on horseback, he passeth his time in such noble exercise, a man cannot say, any time is lost by him: nor hath he only years, to approve he hath lived till he be old, but virtues. His thoughts have a high aim, though their dwelling be in the Vale of an humble heart; whence, as by an Engine (that raises water to fall, that it may rise the higher) he is heightened in his humility. The Adamant serves not for all Seas, but his doth; for he hath, as it were, put a gird about the whole world, and sounded all her quicksands. He hath this hand over Fortune, that her injuries, how violent or sudden soever, they do not daunt him; for whether his time call him to live or die, he can do both nobly: if to fall, his descent is breast to breast with virtue; and even then, like the Sun near his Set, he shows unto the world his clearest countenance.   

An Intruder into favour  
IS one that builds his reputation on others infamy: for slander is most commonly his morning prayer. His passions are guided by Pride, and followed by Injustice. An inflexible anger against some poor suitor, he falsely calls a Courageous constancy, and thinks the best part of gravity to consist in a ruffled forehead. He is the most slavishly submiss, though envious to those are in better place than himself; and knows the Art of w●●●●●● well, that (for shrouding dishonesty under a fair pretext) he seems to preserve mud in Crystal. Like a man of a kind nature, he is first good to himself; in the next file, to his French Tailor, that gives him all his perfection: for indeed, like an Ostrich, or Bird of Paradise, his feathers are more worth than his body. If ever he do good deed (which is very seldom) his own mouth is the Chronicle of it, lest it should die forgotten. His whole body goes all upon screws, and his face is the vice that moves them. If his Patron be given to music, he opens his chaps, and sings, or with a wry neck falls to tuning his instrument: if that fail he takes the height of his Lord with a Hawking pole. He follows the man's fortune, not the man: seeking thereby to increase his own. He pretends, he is most undeservedly envied, and cries out, remembering the game, Chess, that a Pawn before a King is most played on. Debts he owes none, but shrewd turns, and those he pays ere he besued. He is a flattering Glass to conceal age, and wrinkles. He is mountains Monkey, that climbing a tree, and skipping from bough to bough, gives you back his face; but comen once to the top, he holds his nose up into the wind, and shows you his tail: yet all this gay glitter shows on him, as if the Sun shone in a puddle; for he is a small wine that will not last, and when he is falling, he goes of himself faster than misery can drive him.   

A fair and happy Milke-mayd,  
IS a Country Wench, that is so far from making herself beautiful by Art, that one look of hers is able to put all face Physic out of countenance, She knows a fair look is but a dumb Orator to commend virtue, therefore minds it not. All her excellencies stand in her so silently, as if they had stolen upon her without her knowledge. The lining of her apparel (which is herself) is far better than outsides of Tissue: for though she be not arrayed in the spoil of the silk-worm, she is decked in innocence, a far better wearing. She doth not, with lying long a bed, spoil both her complexion and Conditions; nature hath taught her too Immoderate sleep is rust to the soul: she rises therefore with Chaunticleare, her Dame's Cock, and at night makes the Lamb her Courfew. In milking a Cow, and straining the Teats through her fingers, it seems that so sweet a Milkepresse makes the Milk the whiter, or sweeter; for never came Almond Glove or Aromatic Ointment on her Palm to taint it. The golden ears of corn fall and kiss her feet when she reaps them, as if they wished to be bound and led prisoners by the same hand felled them. Her breath is her own, which scents all the year long of june, like a new made Hay-cocke. She makes her hand hard with labour, and her heart soft with pity: and when winter evenings fall early (sitting at her merry wheel) she sings a defiance to the giddy wheel of Fortune. She doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not suffer her to do ill, being her mind is to do well. She bestows her years wages at next fair; and in choosing her Garments, counts no bravery i'th' world like decency. The Garden and Beehive are all her Physic and Chirurgery, and she lives the longer for't. She dare go alone, and unfold sheep i'th' night, & fears no manner of ill, because she means none: yet to say truth, she is never alone, for she is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones; yet they have their efficacy, in that they are not pauled with ensuing idle cogitations. Lastly, her dreams are so chaste, that she dare tell them: only a Fridays dream is all her superstition: that she conceals for fear of anger. Thus lives she, and all her care is, she may die in the Spring time, to have store of flowers stuck upon her winding sheet.   

An Arrant Horse-courser  
HAth the trick to blow up Horseflesh, as a Butcher doth Veal, which shall wash out again in twice riding twixt Waltham & London. The Trade of Spurre-making had decayed long since, but for this ungodly tyre-man. He is cursed all over the four ancient Highways of England; none but the blind men that sell switches i'th' Road are beholding to him. His Stable is filled with so many Diseases, one would think most part about Smithfield were an Hospital for Horses, or a slaughter-house for the common hunt. Let him furnish you with a Hackney, 'tis as much as if the King's Warrant overtook you within ten miles to stay your journey. And though a man cannot say, he cousin's you directly; yet any Ostler within ten miles, should he be brought upon his Booke-oath, will affirm he hath laid a bait for you. Resolve when you first stretch yourself in the stirrups, you are put as it were upon some Usurer, that will never bear with you past his day. He were good to make one that had the Colic alight often, and (if example will cause him) make urine; let him only for that say, Gr'amercy Horse. For his sale of horses, he hath false covers for all manner of Diseases, only comes short of one thing (which he despairs not utterly to bring to perfection) to make a Horse go on a wooden leg and two crutches. For powding his ears with Quicksilver, and giving him suppositories of live Eels he's expert. All the while you are a cheapening he fears you will not bite; but he laughs in his sleeve when he hath cozened you in earnest. French men are his best Chapmen, he keeps amblers for them on purpose, and knows he can deceive them very easily. He is so constant to his Trade, that while he is awake, he tires any man he talks with, and when he's asleep he dreams very fearfully of the paving of Smithfield, for he knows it would founder his occupation.   

A Roaring Boy  
HIs life is a mere counterfeit Patent: which nevertheless, makes many a Country justice tremble. Don Quixotes water Milles are still Scotch Bagpipes to him. He sends Challenges by word of mouth: for he protests (as he is a Gentleman and a brother of the Sword) he can neither write nor read. He hath run through divers parcels of Land and great houses, beside both the Counters. If any private Quarrel happen among our great Conrtiers, he proclaims the business, that's the word, the business; as if all the united forces of the Romish-Catholickes were making up for Germany. He cheats young Gulls that are newly come to Town; and when the Keeper of the Ordinary blames him for it, he answers him in his own Profession, that a Woodcock must be plucked ere he be dressed. He is a Supervisor to Brothels, & in them is a more unlawful reformer of vice, than Prentices on Shrove-tuesday. He loves his Friend, as a Counsellor at Law loves the velvet Breeches he was first made Barrister in, he'll be sure to wear him threadbare ere he forsake him. He sleeps with a Tobacco-pipe in's mouth; and his first prayer i'th' morning is, he may remember whom he fell our with over night. Soldier he is none for he cannot distinguish between Onion seed and Gunpowdir: if he have worn it in his hollow tooth for the Toothache, and so come to the knowledge of it, that's all. The Tenure by which he holds his means, is an estate at Will; and that's borrowing Landlords have but but four Quarter-days; but he three hundred and odd. He keeps very good Company; yet is a man of no reckaning: and when he goes not drunk to bed, he is very sick next morning, He commonly dies like Anacreon, with a Grape in's throat; or Hercules, with fire in's marrow. And I have heard of some (that have 'scaped hanging) begged for Anatomies, only to deter men from taking Tobacco.   

Adrunken Dutchman resident in England  
IS but Quarter Master with his Wife. He stinks of Butter, asif he were nointed all over for the Itch. Let him come over never so lean, and plant him but one month near the Brew-houses in S. Catherines, and he'll be puffed up to your hand like a bloat Herring, Of all places of pleasure, he loves a Common Garden, and (with the Swine of the Parish) had need be ringed for rooting. Next to these he affects Lotteries naturally; and bequeathes the best prize in his Will aforehand; when his hopes fall, he's blank. They swarm in great Tenements like flies: six Household's will live in a Garret. He was wont (only to make us fools) to buy the Fox skin for three pence, and sell the tail for a shilling. Now his new Trade of brewing Strong-waters makes a number of mud men. He loves a Welshman extremely for his Diet and Orthography; that is, for plurality of consonants and cheese. Like a Horse, he's only guided by the mouth: when he's drunk, you may thrust your hand into him like an Eel skin, and strip him his inslde outwards. He hoards up fair gold, and pretends 'tis to seeth in his wives broth for a consumption, and loves the memory of King; Henry the 8. most especially for his old Sovereigns. He says we are unwise to lament the decay of Timber in England: for all manner of buildings or Fortification whatsoever, he desires no other thing in the world, than Barrels and Hop-poles. To conclude, the only two plagues he trembles at, is small Beer, and the Spanish Inquisition,   

A Fantastic. An Improvident young Gallant.  
THere is a confederacy between him and his Clothes, to be made a puppy: view him well, & you'll say his Gentry sits as ill upon him, as if he had bought it with his penny. He hath more places to send money to, than the Devil hath to send his Spirits: and to furnish each Mistress, would make him run beside his wits, if he had any to lose. He accounts bashfulness the wickedest thing in the world; and therefore studies Impudence. If all men were of his mind, all honesty would be out of fashion: he withers his clothes on the Stage, as a Sale-man is forced to do his suits in Birchin-lane; & when the Play is done, if you mark his rising, 'tis with a kind of walking Epilogue between the two candles, to know if his Suit may pass for currant: he studies by the discretion of his Barber, to frizle like a Baboon: three such would keep three the nimblest Barbers i'th' town, from ever having leisure to wear net-Garters: for when they have to do with him they have many Irons i'th'fire. He is traveled, but to little purpose; only went over for a squirt, and came back again yet neure the more mended in his conditions, cause he carried himself along with him: a Scholar he pretends himself, and faies he hath sweat for it: but the truth is, he knows Cornelius, far better than Tacitus: his ordinary sports are Cock-fights; but the most frequent, horse races, from whence he comes home dry foundered. Thus when his purse hath cast her calf, he goes down into the Country, where he is brought to milk and white cheese like the Swissers.   

A Button-maker of Amsterdam,  
IS one that is fled over from his Conscience; and left his wife and children upon the Parish. For his knowledge, he is merely a Hornbook without a Christ-cross afore it, and his zeal consists much in hanging his Bible in a Dutch button: he cousin's men in the purity of his clothes: and 'twas his only joy when he was on this side, to be in Prison: he cries out, 'tis impossible for any man to be damned, that lives in his Religion, and his equivocation is true: so long as a man lives in't, he cannot; but if he die in't, there's the question. Of all Feasts in the year, he accounts S. George's Feast the profanest, because of St. George's Cross, yet sometimes he doth sacrifice to his own belly; provided, that heeput off the Wake of his own nativity, or wedding, till Good Friday. If there be a great feast in the Town, though most of the wicked (as he calls them) be there, he will be sure to be a guest, and to out-eat six of the fattest Burghers: he thinks, though he may not pray with a jew, he may eat with a jew: he winks when he prays, and thinks he knows the way so now to heaven, that he can find it blindefold. Latin he accounts, the language of the Beast with seven heads; & when he speaks of his own Country, cries, he is fled out of Babel. Lastly, his devotion is Obstinacy, the only solace of his heart, Contradiction, and his main end Hypocrisy.   

A Disaster of the Time  
IS a Winter Grasshopper all the year long that looks back upon Harvest, with a lean pair of cheeks, never sets forward to meet it: his malice sucks up the greatest part of his own venom, & therewith impoisoneth himself: and this sickness rises rather of Self-opinion, or overgreat expectation; so in the conceit of his own over-worthiness, like a Coistrel, he strives to fill himself with wind, and flies against it. Any man's advancement is the most capital offence that can be to his malice: yet this envy, like Phalaris Bull, makes that a torment, first for himself, he prepared for others: he is a Day-bed for the Devil to slumber on; his blood is of a yellowish colour: like those that have been bitten by Vipers: & his gall flows as thick in him as oil, in a poisoned stomach. He infects all society, as thunder sours wine: war or peace, dearth or plenty, make him equally discontented. And where he finds no cause to tax the State, he descends to rail against the rate of salt butter. His wishes are whirlwinds; which breathed forth, return into himself, and make him a most giddy & tottering vessel. When he is awake, and goes abroad, he doth but walk in his sleep, for his visitation is directed to none: his business is nothing. He is often dumbe-madde, and goes fettered in his own entrails. Religion is commonly his pretence of discontent, though he can be of all religions; therefore truly of none. Thus by unnaturallising himself, some would think him a very dangerous fellow to the State, but he is not greatly to be feared: for this dejection of his, is only like a rogue that goes on his knees and elbows in the mire, to further his begging.   

A mere Fellow of a House  
EXamines all men's carriage but his own; and is so kind natured to himself, he finds fault with all men's but his own. He wears his apparel much after the fashion; his means will not suffer him come to nigh: they afford him Mock-veluet or Satinisco; but not without the Colleges next leases acquaintance: his inside is of the self same fashion, not rich: but as it reflects from the glass of self-liking, there Croesus is Irus to him. He is a Pedant in show, though his title be Tutor; and his Pupils, in broader phrase, are School-boys. On these he spends the false gallop of his tongue; and with senseless discourse tows them along, not out of ignorance. He shows them the rind, conceals the sap: by this means he keeps them the longer, himself the better. He hath learned to cough, and spit, and blow his nose at every period, to recover his memory: and studies chiefly to set his eyes and beard to a new form of learning. His Religion lies in wait for the inclination of his Patron; neither ebbs nor flows, but just standing water, between protestant and Puritan. His dreams are of plurality of Benefices and nonresidency; and when he rises, acts a long Grace to his looking glass. Against he comes to be some great man's Chaplain, he hath a habit of boldness, though a very Coward. He speaks Swords, Fights, Ergoes: his pace on foot is a measure; on horseback, a gallop: for his legs are his own, though horse and spurs are borrowed. He hath less use than possession of Books. He is not so proud, but he will call the meanest Author by his name; nor so unskilled in the Heraldry of a Study, but he knows each man's place. So ends that fellowship, and gins an other.   

A mere Petifogger  
IS one of Sampsons' Foxes: He sets men together by the ears, more shamefully than Pillories; and in a long Vacation his sport is to go a Fishing with the Penal Statutes. He cannot err before judgement, and then you see it, only Writs of error are the Tariers that keep his Client undoing somewhat the longer. He is a Vestry man in his Parish, and easily sets his neighbours at variance with the Vicar, when his wicked counsel on both sides is like weapons put into men's hands by a Fencer, whereby they get blows, he money. His honesty and learning bring him to Vnder-Shrif-Ship; which having thrice run through, he does not fear the Lieutenant o'th'th' Shire: nay more, he fears not God. Cowardice holds him a good Common-wealthes-man; his pen is the plough, and parchment the Soil, whence he reaps both Coin and Curses. He is an Earthquake, that willingly will let no ground lie in quiet. Broken titles make him whole; to have half in the County break their Bonds, were the only liberty of conscience: He would wish (though he be a Brownist) no neighbour of his should pay his tithes duly, if such Suits held continual Plea at Westminster. He cannot away with the reverend Service in our Church, because it ends with The peace of God. He loves blows extremely, and hath his Chirurgeons bill of all rates, from head to foot, to incense the fury: he would not give away his yearly beat for a good piece of money. He makes his Will in form of a Law-case, full of quiddits, that his Friends after his death (if for nothing else) yet, for the vexation of Law, may have cause to remember him. And if he thought the Ghosts of men did walk again (as they report in time of Popery) sure he would hide some single money in Westminster-Hall, that his spirit might haunt there. Only with this, I will pitch him o'er the Bar, and leave him; That his finger's itch after a Bribe, ever since his first practising of Court-hand.   

An Engrosser of Corne.  
THere is no Vermin in the Land like him; he slanders both Heaven and Earth with pretended Dearths, when there's no cause of scarcity. His whording in a dear year, is like erisicthon's Bowels, in Ovid: Quodque urbibus esse, quodque satis poterat populo, non sufficit uni. He prays daily for more enclosures, and knows no reason in his Religion, why we should call our forefathers days, The time of ignorance, but only because they sold Wheat for twelve pence a bushel. He wishes that Dansk were at the Moloccoes; and had rather be certain of some foreign invasion, then of the setting up of the Stilyard. When his Barns and Garners are full (if it be a time of dearth) he will buy half a bushel i'th' Market to serve his Household: and winnowe his Corn in the night, lest, as the chaff thrown upon the water, show'd plenty in Egypt; so his (carried by the wind) should proclaim his abundance. No painting pleases him so well, as Pharaohs dream of the seven lean Kine, that ate up the fat ones; that he has in his Parlour, which he will describe to you like a motion, and his comment ends with a smothered prayer for the like scarcity. He cannot away with Tobacco; for he is persuaded (and not much amiss) that 'tis a sparer of Bread-corne which he could find in's heart to transport without Licence: but weighing the penalty, he grows mealy-mouthed, and dares not. Sweet smells he cannot abide; wishes that the pure air were generally corrupted: nay, that the Spring had lost her fragrancy for ever, or we our superfluous sense of Smelling (as he terms it) that his corn might not be found musty. The Poor he accounts the justices intelligencers, and cannot abide them: he complains of our negligence of discovering new parts of the World, only to rid them from our Climate. His Son, by a certain kind of instinct, he binds Prentice to a Tailor, who all the term of his Indenture hath a dear year in's belly, and ravens bread extremely: when he comes to be a Freeman (if it be a Dearth) he marries him to a Baker's daughter.   

A Devilish Usurer  
IS sowed as Cummin or Hempseede, with curses; and he thinks he thrives the better. He is better read in the Penal Statutes, than the Bible; and his evil Angel persuades him, he shall sooner be saved by them. He can be no man's friend; for all men he hath most interest in, he undoes: and a double dealer he is certainly; for by his good will he ever takes the forfeit. He puts his money to the unnatural Act of generation; and his Scrivener is the supervisor Bawd to't. Good Deeds he loves none, but Sealed and Delivered; nor doth he wish any thing to thrive in the Country, but beehives; for they make him wax rich. He hates all but Law-Latine; yet thinks he might be drawn to love a Scholar, could he reduce the year to a shorter compass, that his use-money might come in the faster: he seems to be the son of a jailor, for all his estate is most heavic & cruel bonds. He doth not give, but fell days of Payment; and those at the rate of a man's undoing: he doth only fear, the day of judgement should fall sooner, than the payment of some great sum of money due to him: he removes his lodging when a Subsidy comes; and if he be found out, and pay it, he grumbles Treason; but 'tis in such a deformed silence, as Witches raise their Spirits in. Gravity he pretends in all things, but in his private Whore; for he will not in a hundredth pound take one light sixpences; and it seems he was at Tilburie Camp, for you must not tell him of a Spaniard. He is a man of no conscience; for (like the lakes-farmer that swooned with going into Bucklersbury) he falls into a cold sweat, if he but look into the Chancery: thinks in his Religion, we are in the right for every thing, if that were abolished: he hides his money, as if he thought to find it again at last day, and then begins old trade with it. His clothes plead prescription; and whether they or his body are more rotten, is a question: yet should he live to be hanged in them, this good they would do him, The very Hangman would pity his case. The Table he keeps is able to starve twenty tall men; his servants have not their living, but their dying from him, and that's of Hunger. A spare Diet he commends in all men, but himself: he comes to cathedrals only for love of the singing Boys, because they look hungry. He likes our Religion best, because 'tis best cheap; yet would feign allow of Purgatory, 'cause 'twas of his Trade, and brought in so much money: his heart goes with the same snaphance his purse doth, 'tis seldom open to any man: friendship he accounts but a word without any signification; nay, he loves all the world so little, that, and it were possible, he would make himself his own Executor: for certain, he is made Administrator to his own good name, while he is in perfect memory, for that dies long afore him; but he is so far from being at the charge of a Funeral for it, that he lets it stink above ground. In conclusion, for Neighbourhood, you were better dwell by a contentious Lawyer. And for his death, 'tis rather Surfeit, the Pox, or Despair; for seldom such as he die of Gods making, as honest men should do.   

A Waterman  
IS one that hath learned to speak well of himself; for always he names himself, The first man. If he had beta'en himself to some richer Trade, he could not have choosed but done well: for in this (though it be a mean one) he is still plying it, and putting himself forward. He is evermore telling strange news; most commonly lies. If he be a Sculler, ask him if he be married, he'll equivocate and swear he's a single man. Little trust is to be given to him, for he thinks that day he does best when he fetches most men over. His daily labour teaches him the Art of dissembling; for like a fellow that rides to the Pillory, he goes not that way he looks: he keeps such a bawling at Westminster, that if the Lawyers were not acquainted with it, an order would be ta'en with him. When he is upon the water, he is Fare-companie: when he comes ashore, he mutinies; and contrary to all other trades, is most surely to Gentlemen, when they tender payment. The Playhouses only keep him sober; and as it doth many other Gallants, makes him an afternoons man. London Bridge is the most terriblest eyesore to him that can be. And to conclude, nothing but a great Press, makes him fly from the River; nor any thing; but a great Frost, can teach him any good manners.   

A Reverend judge  
IS one that desires to have his greatness, only measured by his goodness: his care is to appear such to the people, as he would have them be; and to be himself such as he appears; for virtue cannot seem one thing, and be another: he knows that the hill of greatness yields a most delighifull prospect, but with all that it is most subject to lightning, and thunder: and that the people, as in ancient Tragedies, sit and censure the actions of those are in authority: he squares his own therefore, that they may far be above their pity: he wishes fewer Laws, so they were better observed: and for those are Mulctuarie, he understands their institution not to be like briars or springs, to catch every thing they lay hold of; but like Sea-marks (on our dangerous Goodwin) to avoid the shipwreck of ignorant passengers: he hates to wrong any man; neither hope, nor despair of preferment can draw him to such an exigent: he thinks himself then most honourably seated, when he gives mercy the upper hand: he rather strives to purchase good name then land; and of all rich stuffs forbidden by the Statute, loathes to have his followers wear their clothes cut out of bribes and extortions. If his Prince call him to higher place, there he delivers his mind plainly, and freely; knowing for truth, there is no place wherein dissembling aught to have less credit, then in a Prince's Council. Thus honour keeps peace with him to the grave, and doth not (as with many) there forsake him, and go back with the Heralds: but fairly sits o'er him, and brood's out of his memory, many right excellent commonwealths men.   

A virtuous Widow  
IS the palm-tree, that thrives not after the supplanting of her husband. For her children's sake she first marries, for she married that she might have children, and for their sakes she marries no more. She is like the purest gold, only employed for Prince's medals, she neurer receives but one man's impression; the large jointure moves her not, titles of honour cannot sway her. To change her name, were (she thinks) to commit a sin should make her ashamed of her husband's calling; she thinks she hath traveled all the world in one man; the rest of her time therefore she directs to heaven. Her main superstition is, she thinks her husband's ghost would walk, should she not perform his Will: she would do it, were there no Prerogative Court. She gives much to pious uses, without any hope to merit by them: and as one Diamond fashions another; so is she wrought into works of Charity, with the dust or ashes of her husband. She lives to see herself full of time; being so necessary for earth, God calls her not to heaven, till she be very aged: and even then, though her natural strength fail her, she stands like an ancient Pyramid; which the less it grows to man's eye, the nearer it reaches to heaven: this latter Chastity of Hers, is more grave and reverend, then that ere she was married; for in it is neither hope, nor longing, nor fear, nor jealousy. She ought to be a mirror for our youngest Dames, to dress themselves by, when she is fullest of wrinkles. No calamity can now come near her, for in suffering the loss of her husband, she accounts all the rest trifles: she hath laid his dead body in the worthiest monument that can be: She hath buried it in her own heart. To conclude, she is a Relic, that without any superstition in the world; though she will not be kissed, yet may be reverenced.   

An ordinary Widow  
IS like the Herald's Hearse-cloth; she serves to many funerals, with a very little altering the colour. The end of her Husband gins in tears; and the end of her tears begins in a Husband. She uses to Cunning women to know how many Husbands she shall have, and never marries without the consent of six midwives. Her chiefest pride is in the multitude of her Suitors; and by them she gains: for one serves to draw on another, and with one at last she shoots out another, as Boys do Pellets in Eldern Guns. She commends to them a single life, as Horsecourses do their jades, to put them away. Her fancy is to one of the biggest of the Guard, but Knighthood makes her draw in a weaker Bow. Her servants, or kinsfolk, are the Trumperers that summon any to this combat: by them she gains much credit, but looseth it again in the old Proverb: Fama est mendax. If she live to be thrice married, she seldom fails to cousin her second Husband's Creditors. A Church man she dare not venture upon; for she hath heard widows complain of dilapidations: nor a Soldier, though he have Candle-rents in the City, for his estate may be subject to fire: very seldom a Lawyer, without he show his exceeding great practice, & can make her case the better: but a Knight with the old rent may do much, for a great coming in, is all in all with a Widow: ever provided, that most part of her Plate and jewels (before the wedding) lie concealed with her Scrivener. Thus like a too ripe Apple, she falls of herself: but he that hath her, is Lord but of a filthy purchase, for the title is cracked. Lastly, while she is a Widow, observe ever, she is no Morning woman the evening a good fire and sack may make her listen to a Husband: and if ever she be made sure, 'tis upon a full stomach to bedward.   

A Quacksalver  
IS a Mountebank of a larger bill than a Tailor; if he can but come by names enough of Diseases, to stuff it with, 'tis all the skill he studies for. He took his first being from a Cunning woman, and stole this black Art from her, while he made her Sea-coal fire. All the diseases ever sin brought upon man, doth he pretend to be Curer of; when the truth is, his main cunning, is Corn-cutting. A great plague makes him; what with railing against such, as leave their cures for fear of infection, and in friendly breaking Cakebread, with the Fishwives at Funerals, he utters a most abominable deal of musty Carduus-water, & the Conduits cry out, All the learned Doctors may cast their Caps at him. He parts stakes with some Apothecary, in the Suburbs, at whose house he lies: and though he be never so familiar with his wife; the Apothecary dare not (for the richest Horn in his shop) displease him. All the Midwives in the town are his intelligencers; but nurses and young merchants Wines (that would fain conceive with child) these are his Idolaters. He is a more unjust Bonesetter, than a Dice-maker; hath put out more eyes than the small Pox; made more deaf than the Cataracts of Nilus; lamed more than the Gout; shrunk more sinews, than one that makes Bowstringes; and killed more idly, than Tobacco. A Magistrate that had any way so noble a spirit, as but to love a good horse well, would not suffer him to be a Farrier. His discourse is vomit; and his ignorance, the strongest purgation in the world: to one that would be speedily cured, he hath more delays, and doubles, than a Hare, or a Law suit: he seeks to set us at variance with nature, and rather than he shall want diseases he'll beget them. His especial practice (as I said afore) is upon women; labours to make their minds sick, ere their bodies feel it, and then there's work for the Dog-leech. He pretends the cure of madmen; and sure he gets most by them, for no man in his perfect wit would meddle with him. Lastly, he is such a juggler with Urinals, so dangerously unskilful, that if ever the City will have recourse to him for diseases that need purgation, let them employ him in scouring More-ditch.   

A Canting Rogue.  
'tIs not unlikely but he was begot by some intelligencer under a hedge; for his mind is wholly given to travel. He is not troubled with making of jointures: he can divorce himself without the see of a Proctor, nor fears he the cruelty of overseers of his Will. He leaves his children all the world to Cant in, and all the people to their fathers. His Language is a Constant tongue; the Northern speech differs from the south, Welsh from the Cornish: but Canting is general, nor ever could be altered by conquest of the Saxon, Dane, or Norman. He will not beg out of his limit though he starve; nor break his oath if he swear by his Solomon, though you hang him: and he pays his custom as truly to his Grand Rogue, astribute is paid to the great Turk. The March Sun breeds agues in others, but he adores it like the Indians; for than begins his progress after a hard winter. Ostlers cannot endure him, for he is of the infantry, and serves best on foot. He offends not the Statute against the excess of apparel, for he will go naked, and counts it a voluntary penance. Forty of them lie in a Barn together, yet are never sued upon the statute of Inmates. If he were learned, no man could make a better description of England; for he hath traveled it over and over. Lastly, he brags, that his great houses are repaired to his hands; when Churches go to ruin: and those are prisons.   

A French Cook  
HE learned his trade in a Town of Garrison near famished, where he practised to make a little go far; some derive it from more antiquity, and say Adam (when he picked fallets) was of his occupation. He doth not feed the belly, but the Palate: and though his command lie in the kitchen (which is but an inferior place) yet shall you find him a very saucy companion. Ever since the wars in Naples, he hath so minced (the ancient and bountiful allowance) as if his nation should keep a perpetual diet. The Servingmen call him the last relic of Popery, that makes men fast against their Conscience. He can be truly said to be no man's fellow but his Masters: for the rest of his servants are starved by him. He is the prime cause why Noblemen build their Houses so great, for the smallness of the Kitchen, makes the house the bigger: and the Lord calls him his Alchemist that can extract gold out of herbs, roots, mushrooms or anything: that which he dresses we may rather call a drinking, than a meal: yet is he so full of variety, that he brags, and truly, that he gives you but a taste of what he can do: he dare not for his life come among the Butchers; for sure they would quarter and bake him after the English fashion; he's such an enemy to Beef and Mutton. To conclude, he were only fit to make a funeral feast, where men should eat their victuals in mourning.   

A Sexton  
IS an ill willer to human nature. Of all Proverbs, he cannot endure to hear that which says, We ought to live by the quick, not by the dead. He could willingly all his life time be confined to the Churchyard; at least within five foot on't: for at every Church style, commonly there's an Alehouse; Where let him be found never so idle pated, he is still a grave drunkard. He breaks his fast heartiliest while he is making a grave, and says the opening of the ground makes him hungry. Though one would take him to be a sloven, yet he loves clean linen extremely, and for that reason takes an order that fine holland shears be not made worms meat. Like a nation called the Cusani, he weeps when any are borne, and laughs when they die: the reason; he gets by Burials not christenings: he will hold argument in a Tavern over Sack, till the Dial and himself be both at a stadd: he never observes any time but Sermon time, and there he sleeps by the hour-glass. The rope-maker pays him a pension, and he pays tribute to the Physician; for the Physician makes work for the Sexton; as the Rope-maker for the Hangman. Lastly, he wishes the Dog days would last all year long: and a great plague is his year of lubile.   

A jesuite  
IS a larger Spoon for a Traitor to feed with the Devil, than any other Order: unclaspse him, and he's a grey Wolf, with a golden Star in the forehead: so superstitiously he follows the Pope, that he forsakes Christ, in not giving Caesar his due. His vows seem heavenly; but in meddling with State-business, he seems to mix heaven and earth together. His best Elements, are Confession & Penance: by the first, he finds out men's inclinations; and by the latter, heaps wealth to his Seminary. He sprang from Ignanatius Loiola, a Spanish Soldier; and though he were found out long since the invention of the Canon, 'tis thought he hath not done less mischief. He is a false Key to open Princes Cabinets, and pry into their Counsels; and where the Pope's excommunication thunders, he holds it no more sin the decrowning of Kings, than our Puritans do the suppression of Bishops. His order is full of all irregularity and disobedience; ambitious above all measure; for of late days, in Portugal and the Indies, he rejected the name of jesuit, and would be called Disciple. In Rome, and other countries that give him freedom, he wears a Mask upon his heart; in England he shifts it, and puts it upon his face. No place in our Climate hides him so securely as a Lady's Chamber; the modesty of the Pursuivant hath only forborn the bed, and so missed him. There is no Disease in Christendom, that may so properly be called The King's Evil. To conclude, would you know him beyond Sea? In his Seminary, he's a Fox; but in the Inquisition, a Lion Rampant.   

An excellent Actor.  
Whatsoever is commendable in the grave Orator, is most exquisitely perfect in him; for by a full and significant action of body, he charms our attention: sit in a full Theatre, and you will think you see so many lines drawn from the circumference of so many ears, whiles the Actor is the Centre. He doth not strive to make nature monstrous, she is often seen in the same Scene with him, but neither on Stilts nor Crutches; and for his voice 'tis not lower than the prompter, nor louder than the Foil and Targer. By his action he fortifies moral precepts with example; for what we see him personate, we think truly done before us: a man of a deep thought might apprehend, the Ghosts of our ancient Heroes walked again, and take him (at feveral times) for many of them. He is much affected to painting, and 'tis a question whether that make him an excellent Player, or his playing an exquisite Painter. He adds grace to the Poet's labours: for what in the Poet is but ditty, in him is both ditty and music. He entertains us in the best leisure of our life, that is between meals, the most unfit time, either for study or bodily exercise: the flight of Hawks, and chase of wild beasts, either of them are delights noble: but some think this sport of men the worthier, despite all calumny. All men have been of his occupation: and indeed, what he doth feignedly, that do others essentially: this day one plays a Monarch, the next a private person. Hear one Acts a Tyrant, on the morrow an Exile: A Parasite this man too night, tomorrow a Precisian, and so of divers others. I observe, of all men living, a worthy Actor in one kind is the strongest motive of affection on that can be: for when he dies, we cannot be persuaded any man can do his parts like him. But to conclude, I value a worthy Actor by the corruption on of some few of the quality, as I would do gold in the oar; I should not mind the dross, but the purity of the metal.   

A Franklin.  
HIs outside is an ancient Yeoman of England, though his inside may give arms (with the best Gentleman) and ne'er fee the Herald. There is no truer seruaht in the house then himself. Though he be Master, he says not to his servants, go to field, but let us go; and with his own eye, doth both fatten his flock, and set forward all manner of husbandry. He is taught by nature to be contented with a little; his own fold yields him both food and raiment: he is pleased with any nourishment God sends, whilst curious gluttony ransacks, as it were, Noah's Ark for food, only to feed the riot of one meal. He is near known to go to Law; understanding, to be Law-bound among men, is like to be hidebound among his beasts; they thrive not under it: and that such men sleep as unquietly, as if their pillows were stuffed with Lawyer's penknives. When he builds, no poor Tenant's cottage hinders his prospect, they are indeed his alms-houses, though there be painted on them no such superscription. He never fits uplate but when he hunts the Badger, the vowed foe of his Lambs: nor uses he any cruelty, but when he hunts the Hare, nor subtlety but when he setteth snares for the Snite, or pitfalls for the Blackbird; nor oppression, but when in the month of july, he goes to the next river, and shears his sheep. He allows of honest pastime, and thinks not the bones of the dead any thing bruifed, or the worse for it, though the Country Lasses dance in the Churchyard after Evensong. Rock Monday, and the Wake in Summer, shroving, the wakeful ketches on Christmas Eve, the Hoky, or Seed-cake, these he yearly keeps, yet holds them no relics of Popery. He is not so inquisitive after news derived from the privy closet, when the finding an eiery of Hawks in his own ground, or the foaling of a Colt come of a good strain, are tidings more pleasant, more profitable. He is Lord paramount within himself, though he hold by never so mean a Tenure; and dies the more contentedly (though he leave his heir young) in regard he leaves him not liable to a covetous Guardian. Lastly, to end him; he cares not when his end comes; he needs not fear his Audit, for his Quietus is in heaven.   

A Rhymer  
IS a fellow whose face is hatched all over with impudence, and should he be hanged or pilloried 'tis armed for it. He is a juggler with words, yet practices the Art of most uncleanly conveyance. He doth boggle very often; and because himself winks at it, thinks 'tis not perceived: the main thing that ever he did, was the tune he sang to. There is nothing in the earth so pitiful, no not an Ape-carrier, he is not worth thinking of, and therefore I must leave him as nature left him, a Dunghill not well aid together.    

The Character of a happy life.  By Sr. H. W. 

HOw happy is he borne or taught,  
That serveth not another's will;  
Whose Armour is his honest thought,  
And silly Truth his highest skill.   

Whose passions not his Masters are,  
Whose soul is still prepared for death:  
Untied unto the world with care  
Of Princely love, or unlgar breath.   

Who hath his life from rumours freed.  
Whose conscience is his strong retreat:  
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,  
Nor ruin make accusers great.   

Who envieth none whom chance doth raise,  
Or vice: who never understood,  
How deepest wounds are given with praise,  
Not rules of state, but rules of good.   

Who GOD doth late and early pray,  
More of his grace, than gifts to lend;  
Who entertains the harmless day,  
With a well chosen Book or Friend.   

This man is free from servile bands,  
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;  
Lord of himself, though not of Lands:  
And having nothing, he hath All.    

Certain Edicts from a Parliament in Utopia; Written by the Lady Southwell.  
INprimis, He that hath no other worth to commend him then a good Suit of Apparel, shall not dare to woe a Lady in his own behalf, but shall be allowed to carry the Hieroglyphike of his friend's affection.  
Item, that no fowl faced Lady shall rail on her that is fairer, because she is fairer; nor seek by black calumniation to darken her fame, unless she be her corrival.  
Item, that no man may entitle himself by the matchless name of a Friend, that loves upon condition, unless he be a Schoolmaster.  
Item, that no Lady, which modestly keeps her house for want of good clothes to visit her Gossips shall profess contempt of the world's vanity, unless she see no hope of the tides returning.  
Item, that no Bankrupt Knight, that to set up shop again, becomes Parasite or Buffone to some great Lord, shall ever after swear by his honour; but by his Knighthood he may.  
Item, that no Lady that useth to paint, shall find fault with her painter that hath not counterfeited her picture fair enough, unless she will acknowledge herself to be the better counterfetter.  
Item, that no man whose vain love hath been rejected by a virtuous Lady, shall report that he hath refused and cast her off, unless he will take the base lying fellow by the next assailant, so rejected, without any further quarrel.  
Item, that no Lady shall court her looking glass, past one hour in a day, unless she profess to be an Engineer.  
Item, that no Quarter waiter shall feed on cheese three quarters of a year to feast on satin one quarter, without Galens' advice, and the Apothecary's bill to be written by a Tailor.  
Item, that wench that is over-enamored of herself, and thinks all other so too, shall be bound to carry a burden of bird-lime on her back, and spin at a Barn-door to catch fools.  
Item, he that sweareth when he loseth his money at dice, shall challenge his damnation by the way of purchase.  
Item, no Lady that silently simpereth for want of wit shall be called modest.  
Item, no fellow that gins to argue with a woman, & wants wit to encounter her, shall think he hath redeemed his credit by putting her to silence with some lascivious discourse, unless he wear white for William, and green for Summer.  
Item, no woman that remaineth constant for want of assault shall be called chaste.  
Item, he that professeth virtuous love to a woman, and gives ground when his vanity is rejected, shall have his bells cut off and fly for a haggard.  
Item, she that respecteth the good opinion of others, before the Being of good in herself, shall not refuse the name of Hypocrite; and she that emploies all her time in working trappings for herself, the name of spider: and she that sets the first quest of inquiry amongst her gossips for new fashions, shall not refuse a stitcher for her second husband.  
Item, He that hath reported a Lady to be virtuous, for the which he professeth to love her, yet under hand commenceth a base suit, and is disdained; shall not on this blow which his own vice hath given him, out of policy rail suddenly on her, for fear he be noted for a vicious fool: but to his friend in private he may say that his judgement was blinded by her cunning disguise, & that he finds her wavering in goodness, and in time he shall openly profess to rail on her; but with such a modesty forsooth, as if he were loath to bring his judgement into question; nor would he do it, but that he prefers truth even out of his own reach.   

NEWS FROM ANY WHENCE. OR, OLD TRUTH, UNDER A SVPposall of Novelty. Occasioned by divers Essays, and private passages of Wit, between sundry Gentlemen upon that subject.  

News from Court.  
IT is thought here, that there are as great miseries beyond happiness, as a this side it, as being in love. That truth is every man's by assenting. That time makes every thing aged, and yet itself was never but a minute old. That, next sleep, the greatest devourer of time is business: the greatest stretcher of it, Passion, the truest measure of it, Contemplation. To be saved, always is the best plot: and virtue always clears her way as she goes. Vice is ever behindhand with itself. That Wit and a woman are two frail things, and both the frailer by concurring. That the means of begetting a man, hath more increased mankind then the end. That the madness of Love is to be sick of one part, and cured by another. The madness of jealousy, that it is so diligent, and yet it hopes to lose his labour. That all Women for the bodily part, are but the same meaning put in divers words. That the difference in the sense is their understanding. That the wisdom of Action is Discretion; the knowledge of contemplation is truth: the knowledge of action is men. That the first considers what should be, the latter makes use of what is. That every man is weak in his own humours. That every man a little beyond himself is a fool. That affectation is the more ridiculous part of folly than ignorance. That the matter of greatness is comparison. That God made one world of Substances; Man hath made another of Art and Opinion. That Money is nothing but a thing which Art hath turned up trump. That custom is the soul of circumstances. That custom hath so far prevailed, that Truth is now the greatest news.  Sr. T. Ouer.  

Answer to the Court News.  
THat Happiness and misery are Antipodes. That Goodness is not Felicity, but the road thither. That Man's strength is but a vicissitude of falling and rising. That only to refrain ill, is to be ill still. That the plot of Salvation was laid before the plot of Paradise. That enjoying is the preparative to contemning. That he that seeks opinion beyond merit, goes just so far back. That no man can obtain his desires; nor in the world hath not to his measure. That to study, men are more profitable than books. That men's loves are their afflictions. That Titles of Honour, are rattles to still ambition. That to be a King, is Fame's Butt, and fears Quiver. That the souls of Women and Lovers, are wrapped in the portmanque of their senses. That imagination is the end of man. That wit is the web, and wisdom the woof of the cloth; so that women's souls were never made up. That envy knows what it will not confess. That Goodness is like the Art Prospective: one point Centre, begetting infinite rays. That Man, Woman, and the Devil, are the three degrees of comparison. That this News holds number, but not weight, by which couple all things receive form.   

Country News.  
THat there is most here, for it gathers in going. That reputation is measured by the Acre. That Poverty is the greatest dishonesty. That the pity of, Alas poor soul, is for the most part mistaken. That Roast beef is the best smell. That a justice of peace is the best relic of Idolatry. That the Allegory of justice drawn blind, is turned the wrong way. That not to live to heavenly is accounted great wrong. That wisdom descends in a race. That we love Names better than persons That to hold in Knight's service, is a slippery service. That a Papist is a new word for a Traitor. That the duty of Religion is lent, not paid. That the reward is lost in the want of humility. That the Puritan persecution is as a cloud that can hide the glory of the light, but not the day. That the emulation of the English and Scots to be the King's Countrymen, thrust the honour on the Welsh. That a Courtier never attains his selfe-knowledge, but by report. That his best Emblem is a hearne dog. That many great men are so proud, that they know not their own Fathers. That Love is the tailworme. That a woman is the effect of her own first fame. That to remember, to know, and to understand, are 3. degrees not understood. That Country ambition is no vice, for there is nothing above a man. That fight is a Serving-man's valour: Martyrdom their Masters. That to live long, is to fill up the days we live That the zeal of some men's Religion reflects from their Friends. That the pleasure of vice is indulgence of the present, for it endures but the acting. That the proper reward of goodness is from within the external is policy. That good and ill is the cross and pile in the aim of life. That the Soul is the lamp of the body, Reason, of the Soul, Religion of Reason, Faith of Religion, Christ of Faith. That circumstances are the Atomies of policy, Censure the being, Action the life, but success the Ornament. That Authority presseth down with weight, and is thought violence: policy trips up the heels, & is called the dexterity. That this life is a throng in a narrow passage, he that is first out, finds case, he in the middle worst hemmed in with troubles, the hindmost that drives both out afore him, though not suffering wrong, hath his part in doing it. That God requires of our debts, a reckoning, not payment: That heaven is the easiest purchase, for we are the richer for the disbursing. That liberality should have no object but the poor, if our minds were rich. That the mystery of greatness, is to keep the inferior ignorant of it. That all this is no News to a better wit. That the City cares not what the Country thinks.  Sr. T. R.  

News from the very Country.  
THat it is a Fripery of Courtiers, Merchants, and others, which have been in fashion, and are very near worn out. That justices of Peace have the felling of underwoods, but the Lords have the great falls. The jesuits are like Apricockes, heretofore, here and there one succoured in a great man's house, and cost dear; now you may have them for nothing in every cottage. That every great Vice is a Pike in a Pond, that devours virtues, and less vices. That it is wholesomest getting a stomach by walking on your own ground: and the thriftiest laying of it at another's Table. That debtors are in London close prisoners, and here have the liberty of the house. That Atheists in affliction, like blind beggars, are forced to ask, though they know not of whom. That there are (God be thanked) not two such Acres in all the Country, as the Exchange & Westminster Hall. That only Christmas Lords know their ends. That Women are not so tender fruit, but that they do as well, and bear as well upon Beds, as plashed against walls. That our Cares are never worse employed, then when they are waited on by Coaches. That Sentences in Authors, like hairs in horse tail, concur in one root of beauty and strength, but being plucked out one by one, serve only for Springs and Snares. That both want and abundance, equally advance a rectified man from the world, as cotton and stones are both good casting for an Hawk. That I am sure there is none of the forbiddenfruit left, because we do not all eat thereof. That our best three piled mischief comes from beyond the sea, and rides post through the country, but his errand is to Court. That next to no wife and children, your own are the best pastime, another's wife and your children worse, your wife & another's children worst. That Statesmen hunt their fortunes, and are often at default: Favourites course her, and are ever in view. That intemperance is not so unwholesome here; for none ever saw Sparrow sick of the pox. That here is no treachery nor fidelity, but it is because here are no secrets. That Court motions are up and down; ours circular: theirs like squibs cannot stay at the highest, nor return to the place which they rose from, but vanish and wear out in the way: Ours like Mil-wheels, busy without changing place; they have peremptory fortunes; we vicissitudes.  I. D.  

Answer to the very Country News.  
IT is a thought, that man is the Cook of time, and made dresser of his own fatting. That the five Senses are Cinque-ports for temptation, the traffic sin, the Lieutenant Satan, the custome-tribute, souls. That the Citizens of the high Court grow rich by simplicity; but those of London, by simple craft. That life, death, and time, do with short cudgels dance the Matachine. That those which dwell under the Zona Torrida, are troubled with more damps, than those of Frigida. That Policy and Superstition hath of late her mask renr from her face, and she is found with a wry mouth and a stinking breath, and those that courted her hotly, hate her now in the same degree, or beyond. That Nature too much loving her own, becomes unnatural and foolish. That the soul in some is like an egg, hatched by a young Pullet, who often rigging from her nest, makes hot and cold beget rottenness, which her wanton youth will not believe, till the fair shell being broken, the stink appeareth to profit others, but cannot her. That those are the wise ones, that hold the superficies of virtue, to support her contrary, all-sufficient. That clemency within and without is the nurse of rebellion. That thought of the future is retired into the Country, and time present dwells at Court. That I living near the Churchyard, where many are buried of the Pest, yet my infection cometh from Spain, and it is feared it will disperse further into the Kingdom.  A.S.  

News to the University.  
A Mere Scholar is but a live book, Action doth express knowledge better than words; so much of the soul is lost as the body cannot utter. To teach, should rather be an effect, than the purpose of learning. Age decay nature, perfects Art: therefore the glory of youth, is strength; of the grey head, wisdom; yet most condemn the follies of their own infancy, run after those of the worlds, and in reverence of antiquity will bear an old error against a new truth. Logic is the Heraldry of Arts, the array of judgement, none itself, nor any Science without it: where it and learning meet not, must be either a skilful ignorance, or a wild knowledge. Understanding cannot conclude out of mood and figure. Discretion contains Rhetherique; the next way to learn good words, is to learn sense; the newest Philosophy, is foundest, the eldest Divinity: Astronomy gins in Nature, ends in Magic. There is no honesty of the body without health, which no man hath had since Adam. Intemperance that was the first mother of sickness, is now the daughter. Nothing dies but qualities. No kind in the world can perish without ruin of the whole. All parts help one another (like States) for particular interest: So in Arts which are but translations of nature; there is no sound position in any one, which, imagine false, there may not from it be drawn strong conclusions, to disprove all the rest. Where one truth is granted, it may be by direct means brought to confirm any other controverted. The soul and body of the first man, were made fit to be immortal together, we cannot live to the one, but we must die to the other. A man and a Christian are two creatures. Our perfection in this World is virtue; in the next knowledge, when we shall read the glory of God in his own face.   

News from Sea.  
THat the best pleasure is to have no object of pleasure, and uniformity is a better prospect than variety. That putting to Sea, is change of life, but not of condition; where rise and falls, Calms, and crossegales are yours, in order and turn; fore-winds but by chance. That it is the worst wind to have no wind, and that your smooth faced Courtier, deading your course by a calm, gives greater impediment, than an open enemies crosse-gale. That levity is a vettue, for many are held up by it. That it's nothing so intricate and infinite, to rig a Ship as a woman, and the more either is fraught, the apt to leak. That to pump the one, and shreeve the other, is alike noisome. That small faults habituated, are as dangerous as little leaks unfound; and that to punish and not prevent, is to labour in the pump, & leave the leak open. That it is best striking Sail before a storm, and necessariest in it. That a little time in our life is best, as the shortest cut to our Haven is the happiest voyage. That to him that hath no Haven, no wind is friendly; and yet it is better to have no Haven, than some kind of one. That expedition is every where to be bribed but at Sea. That gain works this miracle, to make men walk upon the water; and that the sound of Commodity drowns the noise of a Storm, especially of an absent one. That I have once in my life outgone night at Sea, but never darkness; and that I shall never wonder to see a hard world, because I have lived to see the Sun a bankrupt, being ready to starve for cold in his perpetual presence. That a man's companions are (like ships) to be kept in distance, for falling foul one of another; only with my friend I will close. That the fairest field for a running head is the Sea, where he may run himself out of breath, and his humour out of him. That I could carry you much further, and yet leave more before then behind, and all will be but via Navis, without print or track, for so is moral instruction to youths waterish humour. That though a Ship under Sail be a good sight, yet it is better to see her moored in the Haven. That I care not what become of this frail Bark of my flesh, so I save the Passenger. And here I cast Anchor.  W. S.  

Foreign News of the year 1616.  

From France.  
IT is delivered from France, that the choice of friends there is as of their Wines: those that being new, are hard and harsh, prove best; the most pleasing are lest lasting. That an enemy fierce at the first onset, is as a torrent tumbling down a Mountain; a while it bears all before it: have but that while patience, you may pass it dryfoot. That a penetrating judgement may enter into a man's mind by his body's gate; if this appear affected, apish, and unstable; a wonder if that be settled.  
That vainglory, new fashions, and the French disease, are upon terms of quitting their Country's Allegiance, to be made free Denizens of England. That the wounds of an ancient enmity have their scars, which cannot be so well closed to the sight, but they will lie open to the memory. That a Princes pleasurable vices, ushered by authority, and waited on by connivence, sooner punish themselves by the subjects imitation, than they can be reform by remonstrance or correction; so apt are all ill examples to rebound on them that give them. That Kings hear truth oftener for the tellers, than their own advantage.   

From Spain.  
THat the shortest out to the riches of the Indies, is by their contempt. That who is feared of most, fears most. That it more vexeth the proud, that men despise them, then that they not fear them. That greatness is fruitful enough, when other helps fail, to beget on itself destruction. That it is a gross flattering of tired cruelty, to honest it with the title of clemency. That to eat much at other men's cost, and little at his own, is the wholesomest and most nourishing diet, both in Court and Country. That those are aptest to domineer over others, who by suffering indignities have learned to offer them. That ambition like a silly Dove flies up to fall down, it minds not whence it came, but whither it will. That enen galleyslaves, setting light by their captivity, find freedom in bondage. That to be slow in military businesses, is to be so courteous, as to give the way to an enemy. That Lightning and greatness more fear then hurt.   

From Rome.  
THat the Venereal (called venial) sin is to pass in the rank of Cardinal virtues; and that those should be held henceforth his Holiness beneficial friends, that sin upon hope of pardon. That where vice is a State-commoditie, he is an offender that often offends not. That jews and Courtesans there, are as beasts that men feed, to feed on. That for an Englishman to abide at Rome, is not so dangerous as report makes it; since it skills not where we live, so we take heed how we live. That greatness comes not down by the way it went up, there being often found a small distance between the highest and the lowest Fortunes. That racked authority is oft less at home then abroad regarded, while things that seem, are (commonly) more a far off then at hand feared.   

From Venice.  
THat the most profitable Bank, is the true use of a man's self, whiles such as grow mouldy in idleness, make their houses their Tombs, and die before their death. That many dangerous spirits lie buried in their wants, which had they means to their minds, would dare as much as those that with their better Fortunes overtop them. That professed Courtesans, if they be any way good, it is because they are openly bad. That frugality is the richest treasure of an estate, where men feed for hunger, cloth for cold and modesty, and spend for Honour, Charity, and Safety.   

From Germany.  
THat the infectious vice of Drunken-good-fellowship, is like to stick by that Nation as long as the multitude of Offenders so benumbs the sense of offending, as that a common blot is held no stain. That discretions must be taken by weight, not by tale: who doth otherwise, shall both prove his own too light, and fall short of his reckoning. That fear and a nice forecast of every sleight danger, seldom gives either faithful or fruitful counsel. That the Empire of Germany, is not more great than that over a man's self.   

From the Low Countries.  
THat one of the sureft grounds of a man's liberty is, not to give another power over it. That the most dangerous plunge whereto to put thine enemy, is desperation, while forcing him to set light by his own life, thou makest him master of thine. That neglected danger lights soon and heaviest. That they are wisest, who in the likelihood of good, provide for ill. That since pity dwells at the next door to misery, he liveth most at ease that is neighboured with envy. That the evil fortune of the wars, as well as the good, is variable.    

News from my Lodging.  
THat the best prospect is to look inward. That it is quieter sleeping in a good conscience than a whole skin. That a soul in a fat body lies soft, and is loath to rise. That he must rise betimes who would cozen the Devil. That Flattery is increased, from a pillow under the elbow, to a bed under the whole body. That Policy is the unsleeping night of reason. That he who sleeps in the cradle of security, sins sound without starting. That guilt is the Flea of the conscience. That no man is thoroughly awaked, but by affliction. That a hanged Chamber in private, is nothing so convenient as a hanged Traitor in public. That the religion of Papistry, is like a curtain, made to keep out the light. That the life of most Women is walking in their sleep, and they talk their dreams. That Chambering is counted a civiller quality, then playing at tables in the Hall, though serving-men use both That the best bedfellow for all times in the year, is a good bed without a fellow. That he who tumbles in a calm bed, hath his tempest within. That he who will rise, must first lie down and take humility in his way. That sleep is death's picture drawn to life, or the twilight of life and death. That in sleep we kindly shake death by the hand; but when we are awaked, we will not know him. That often sleepings are so many trials to die, that at last we may do it perfectly. That few dare write the true news of their Chamber: and that I have none secret enough to tempt a stranger's curiosity, or a servants discovery.  
God give you good morrow.  B. R.  

News of my Morning work.  
THat to be good, the way is to be most alone, or the best accompanied. That the way to heaven is mistaken for the most Melancholywalke. That the most fear the world's opinion, more than God's displeasure. That a Court-friend seldom goes further than the first degree of Charity. That the Devil is the perfectest Courtier. That innocency was first cousin to man, now guiltiness hath the nearest alliance. That sleep is deaths Leger Ambassador. That time can never be spent: we pass by it and cannot return. That none can be sure of more time than an instant. That sin makes work for repentance or the Devil. That patience hath more power than afflictions. That every one's memory is divided into two parts: the part losing all is the Sea, the keeping part is Land. That honesty in the Court lives in persecution, like Protestanss in Spain. That Predestination and constancy are alike uncertain to beiudged of. That reason makes love the serving-man. That virtues favour is better than a a King's favourite. That being sick gins a suit to God, being well possesseth it. That health is the Coach which carries to Heaven, sickness the post-horse. That worldly delights to one in extreme sickness, is like a high candle to a blind man. That absence doth sharpen love, presence strengthens it, that the one brings fuel, the other blows till it burns clear: that love often breaks friendship, that ever increaseth love. That constancy of women, and love in men, is alike rare. That Arts is truth's juggler. That falsehood plays a larger part in the world than truth. That blind zeal & lame knowledge are alike apt to ill. That fortune is humblest where most contemned. That no porter but resolution keeps fear our of minds. That the face of goodness without a body is the worst wickedness. That women's fortunes aspire but by others powers. That a man with a female wit is the worst Hermaphrodite. That a man not worthy being a friend, wrongs himself by being in acquaintence. That the worst part of ignorance, is making good and ill seem alike. That all this is news only to fools.  Mris B.  

News from the lower end of the Table.  
IT is said among the folks here, that if a man die in his infancy, he hath only broke his fast in this world: If in his youth, he hath left us at dinner. That it is bedtime with a man at three score and ten; and he that lives to a hundred years, hath walked a mile after supper. That the humble-minded man makes the lowest curtsy. That grace before meat, is our election before we were: grace after meatour salvation when we are gone. The soul halts between two opinions, falls between two stools. That a fool at the upper end of the table, is the bread before the salt. He that hates to be reproved, sits in his own light. Hunger is the cheapest sauce, and nature the cheapest guest. The sensible man and the silent woman are the best discoursers. Repentance without amendment, is but the shifting of a foul trencher. He that tells a lie to save his credit, wipes his mouth with his sleeve to spare his napkin. The tongue of a icster is the fiddle that the hearts of the company dance to. The tongue of a fool carves a peace of his heart to every man that sits next him. A silent man is a covered mess. The contented man only is his own carver. He that hath many friends eats too much salt with his meat. That wit without discretion cuts other men meat and his own fingers. That the soul of a choleric man sits ever by the fire side. That patience is the lard of the lean meat of adversity. The Epicure puts his money into his belly, and the Miser his belly into his purse. That the best company makes the upper end of the table, and not the saltseller. The superfluity of a man's possessions, is the broken meat that should remain to the poor. That the envious keeps his knife in his hand, and swallows his meat whole. A rich fool among the wife is a gilt empty bowl amongst the thirsty. Ignorance is an insensible hunger. The water of life is the best wine. He that robs me of my invention, bids himself welcome to another man's table, and I will bid him welcome when he is gone. The vainglorious man pisseth more than he drinks. That no man can drink an health out of the cup of blessing. To surfeit upon wit, is more dangerous then to want it. He that's overcome of any passion is dry drunk. 'tis easier to fill the belly of faith, than the eye of reason. The rich glutton is better fed then taught. That faith is the elbow for a heavy soul to lean on, He that sins that he may repent, surfeits that he may take physic. He that riseth without thanksgiving, goes away and owes for his ordinary. He that begins to repent when he is old, never washed his hands till night. That this life is but one day of three meals, or one meal of three courses: childhood, youth, & old age. That to sup well, is to live well: and that's the way to sleep well. That no man goes to bed till he dies, nor wakes till he is dead. And therefore  
Good night to you here, and good morrow hereafter,  I. C.  

News from the Church.  
IT is thought here, that the world was made for man, and not man for the world, and that therefore they take a cross course that lie down there. That those that will not rise, their souls must, and carry their bodies to judgement. That we have spent one inheritance already, and are prodigal of this. That there is no hope beyond mercy, and that this is that time; the next is of justice. That Christ when he went away, left good seed in his Church; and when he comes again, he shall find Christians, but not faith. That the Devil hath got upon us, the same way that he did at the first, by drawing shadows over substances, as he did the body over the soul. That Protestants wear the name of Christ for a Charm, as Papists do the Crosse. That States use it, the Clergy live by it, the People follow it, more by a stream, than one by one. That all are religious rather then some. That every one looks to another, but not to himself. That they go so by throngs to Heaven, that it is to be feared they take the broader way. That the Church is in the world, like a Ship in the Sea; the Elect in the Church, like jonas amongst the Mariners. That to mend this, is to cheat the Devil, to turn man the right side outward, and set the soul foremost again. That the soul may be too rank too, if we look not to it: and so a Puritan often times meets a Papist in superstition another way. That to bind from and to indifferent things, is equal, though it be thought otherwise. That some, out of a good meaning have fallen this way into a vice. That these faults are more subtle; and therefore less perceived, and less to be blamed; but as dangerous as the other, if they take heed. That the rule is in all things, the body and the soul must go together, but the better before. That we have contended so long about the body of Religion, that some men thought it was dead. That so, Atheists are come into the Church, and that it will be as hard to cast them out as Devils. That those, which have thus broken the peace of jerusalem, are obliged to satisfaction; and those which first gave them cause of amendment. That they are a good medicine one for another, and both a good Composition. That a pure Bishop is the best government, if the pride on both sides would let them know it. That all Controversies for the most part, leave the truth in the middle, and are factious at both ends. That the Church hath this good by them, they cleanse the way for others, but not for themselves. That sincerity, in the cause of truth, is more worth than learning. That too much, and too little knowledge, have made the world mad. That we have a shorter cut to it, and a surer way than Drake had over the world, if we could find it out. That every man is a brief of the whole; & as he is so, he is greater than a King. That every King is a brief of his Land, and he hath a Pattern of the government of it always abour him. That as the honour that he gives unto his Nobles and counsellors is a charge; so is that which God gives him. That as he requires an account, so he must give. That he is the Image of God in his Kingdom, as man is in the World. That therefore the Subjects own him obedience, as the Creatures do man.. That those that will not obey, are neither good Subjects, nor good men. That to obey well, is as great a thing as to govern, and more men's duties. That those that think not so, know not the Christians part, which is to suffer. That though States be nought, if they profess Religion, they may deliver many men safe to Heaven, though they go not themselves, and so they are like bad Ministers. That this is God's use of both, and of the world too, to convey his Elect to their place. That the outward face of the Church hath but the same use, and the Elect are the Church themselves. That they are the Temple of the holy Ghost, and therefore aught to pluck down their Idols, and set up God there. That the Idols of these times, are Covetousness, Pride, Gluttony, Wantonness, Heresies, and such like admiration and serving of ourselves. That we must make all time an occasion of amendment, because the Devil makes it an occasion to tempt. That he is a Spirit, and therefore is cunninger than we. Thar there is no way to resist him, but by the Spirit of God, which is his Master. That this is the gift of God, which he giveth to all that are his. That it is increased by the word, and held by humility and prayer. That Faith is the effect of it, and works the assurance.  
That thus the understanding and will, which is the whole soul of man, is made up again, and sanctifies the body. That so we are the members of Christ. That our Head is in Heaven, as a Pawn, that where he is, we shall be. That there is no opinion but knowledge; for it is the Science of souls, and God the Teacher.  I. R.  

News from the Bed.  
THat the bed is the best Rendevou of mankind, and the most necessary ornament of a Chamber.  
That Soldiers are good antiquaries in keeping the old fashion, for the first bed was the bare ground.  
That a man's pillow is his best Counsellor.  
That Adam lay in state, when the heaven was his canopy.  
That the naked truth is, Adam and Eve lay without sheets.  
That they were either very innocent, very ignorant, or very impudent, they were not ashamed the heavens should see them lie without a coverlet  
That it is likely Eve studied Astronomy, which makes the posterity of her Sex ever since to lie on their backs.  
That the circumference of the bed, is nothing so wide as the convex of the heavens, yet it contains a whole world.  
That the five Senses are the greatest sleepers.  
That a slothful man is but a reasonable Dormouse.  
That the Soul ever wakes to watch the body.  
That a jealous man sleeps dogsleep.  
That sleep makes no difference between a wife man and a fool.  
That for all times sleep is the best bedfellow.  
That the devil and mischief ever wake.  
That Love is a dream.  
That the preposterous hopes of ambitious men are like pleasing dreams, farthest off when awake.  
That the bed pays Venus more custom than all the world beside.  
That if dreams and wishes had been all true, there had not been since Popery, one Maid to make a Nun of.  
That the secure man sleeps sound, and is hardly to be awaked.  
That the charitable man dreams of building Churches, but starts to think the ungodly Courtier will pull them down again.  
That great sleepers were never dangerous in a state.  
That there is a natural reason, why popish Priests choose the bed to confess their women upon, for they hold it necessary, that humiliation should follow shrift.  
That if the bed should speak all it knows, it would put many to the blush.  
That it is fit the bed should know more than paper.  R. S.  

News from shipboard.  
THat Repentance without amendment, is like continual pumping, without mending the leak.  
That he that lives without Religion, sails without a compass.  
That the wantonness of a peaceful Commonwealth, is like the playing of the Porpesse before a storm.  
That the fool is Sea sick in a Calm, but the Wiseman's stomach endures all weathers.  
That passions in a fool are Ordinance broken lose in a storm, that altar their property of offending others and ruin himself.  
That good Fortunes are a soft quicksand, adversity a rock; both equally dangerous.  
That Virtue in poverty is a ready rigged Ship that lies wind bound.  
That good fashion in a man is like the Pilot in a Ship, that doth most with least force.  
That a fools tongue is like the buy of an Anchor, you shall find his heart by it wheresoever it lies.  
Wisdom makes use of the crosses of this world, asskilfull Pilots of Rocks for Sea-marks to sail by.  H. R.  

News from the Chimney corner.  
THat wit is Brushwood, judgement Timber: the one gives the greatest flame, the other yields the durablest heat, and both meeting makes the best fire.  
That Bawds and Attorneys are Andirons that hold up their Clients till they burn each other to Ashes: they receive warmth by these; these by them their destruction.  
That a Wise-rich-man is like the back or stock of the Chimney, and his wealth the fire, it receives not for it own need, but to reflect the heat to other good.  
That housekeeping in England is fallen from a great fire in a hot summer's day, to boughs in the Chimney all winter long.  
That man's reason in matter of faith is Fire, in the first degree of his ascent flame, next smoke, and then nothing.  
A young fellow fallen in love with a Whore, is said to be fallen asleep in the Chimney corner.  
He that leaves his friend for his wench, forsakes his bed to sit up and watch a coal.  
That the covetous rich man only freezes before the fire.  
That Choler is an ill guest that pisses in the Chimney for want of a Chamber-pot.  
That chaste Beauty is like the bellows, whose breath is cold, yet makes others burn.  
That he that expounds the Scriptures upon the warrant of his own spirit only, lays the brands together without tongues, and is sure (at least) to burn his own fingers.  
That the Lover keeps a great fire in's house all the year long.  
That devotion, like fire in frosty weather, burns hottest in affliction.  
That such Friars as fly the world for the trouble of it, lie in bed all day in winter to spare firewood.  
That a covetous man is a dog in a wheel, that toils to roast meat for other men's eating.  
The Pagans worshipping the Sun are said to hold their hands to the Glow-worm in stead of a coal for heat.  
That a Wiseman's heart is like a broad hearth, that keeps the coals (his passions) from burning the house.  
That good deeds in this life, are coals raked up in embers, to make a fire next day.  
FINIS.