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in whom he is; and hath attained to love himself for God, and God for his own sake. His eyes stick so fast in heaven, that no earthly object can remove them: yea, his whole self is there, before his time; and sees with Stephen, and hears with Paul, and enjoys with Lazarus, the glory that he shall have; and takes possession, beforehand, of his room amongst the Saints. And these heavenly contentments have so taken him up, that now he looks down displeasedly upon the earth, as the region of his sorrow and banishment: yet, joying more in hope than troubled with the sense of evils, he holds it no great matter to live, and his greatest business to die; and is so well acquainted with his last guest, that he fears no unkindness from him: neither makes he any other of dying than of walking home, when he is abroad; or of going to bed, when he is weary of the day. He is well provided for both worlds; and is sure of peace here, of glory hereafter; and therefore hath a light heart, and a cheerful face. Ail his fellow-creatures rejoice to serve him: his betters, the angels, love to observe him: God himself takes pleasure to converse with him; and hath Sainted him afore his death, and in his death crowned him.

99

CHARACTERISMS OF VICES.

BOOK II.

THE PROEM.

I HAVE shewed you many fair Virtues. I speak not for them: if their sight cannot command affection, let them lose it. They shall please yet better, after you have troubled your eyes a little with the view of Deformities; and, by how much more they please, so much more odious and like themselves, shall these Deformities appear. This light, contraries give to each other, in the midst of their enmity; that one makes the other seem more good or ill. Perhaps, in some of these (which thing I do at once fear and hate) my style shall seem to some less grave, more satyrical. If you find me, not without cause, jealous; let it please you to impute it to the nature of those vices, which will not be otherwise handled. The fashions of some evils are, besides the odiousness, ridiculous; which to repeat, is to seem bitterly merry. I abhor to make sport with wickedness; and forbid any laughter here, but of disdain. Hypocrisy shall lead this ring worthily, I think, because both she cometh nearest to Virtue, and is the worst of Vices.

THE HYPOCRITE.

A HYPOCRITE is the worst kind of player, by so much as he acts the better part: which hath always two faces; ofttimes, two hearts: that can compose his forehead to sadness and gravity, while he bids his heart be wanton and careless within; and, in the mean time, laughs within himself, to think how smoothly he hath cozened the beholder in whose silent face are written the characters of religion, which his tongue and gestures pronounce, but his hands recant that hath a clean face and garment, with a foul soul: whose mouth belies his heart, and his fingers belie his mouth. Walking early up into the city, he turns into the great church, and salutes one of the pillars on one knee; worshipping that God, which, at home, he cares not for: while his eye is fixed on some window, on some passenger; and his heart knows not whither his lips go he rises, and, looking about with admiration, complains of our frozen charity; commends the ancient. At church, he will ever sit where

he may be seen best; and, in the midst of the sermon, pulls out his tables in haste, as if he feared to lose that note; when he writes, either his forgotten errand, or nothing: then, he turns his Bible with a noise, to seek an omitted quotation; and folds the leaf, as if he had found it; and asks aloud the name of the preacher, and repeats it; whom he publicly salutes, thanks, praises, invites, entertains with tedious good counsel, with good discourse, if it had come from an honester mouth. He can command tears, when he speaks of his youth; indeed because it is past, not because it was sinful himself is now better, but the times are worse. All other sins he reckons up with detestation, while he loves and hides his darling in his bosom. All his speech returns to himself, and every occurrent draws in a story to his own praise. When he should give, he looks about him, and says, "Who sees me ?" No alms, no prayers fall from him, without a witness; belike, lest God should deny, that he hath received them: and, when he hath done, lest the world should not know it, his own mouth is his trumpet to proclaim it. With the superfluity of his usury he builds a hospital; and harbours them, whom his extortion hath spoiled: so, while he makes many beggars, he keeps some. He turneth all gnats into camels; and cares not to undo the world, for a circumstance: flesh on a Friday is more abomination to him, than his neighbour's bed: he abhors more, not to uncover at the name of Jesus, than to swear by the name of God. When a rhymer reads his poem to him, he begs a copy, and persuades the press. There is nothing, that he dislikes in presence; that, in absence, he censures not. He comes to the sick bed of his stepmother, and weeps; when he secretly fears her recovery. He greets his friend in the street, with so clear a countenance, so fast a closure, that the other thinks he reads his heart in his face; and shakes hands, with an indefinite invitation of "When will you come?" and, when his back is turned, joys that he is so well rid of a guest: yet if that guest visit him unfeared, he counterfeits a smiling welcome; and excuses his cheer, when closely he frowns on his wife for too much. He shews well, and says well; and himself is the worst thing he hath. In brief, he is the stranger's saint; the neighbour's disease; the blot of goodness; a rotten stick, in a dark night; a poppy, in a corn field; an ill tempered candle, with a great snuff, that in going out smells ill; an angel abroad, a devil at home; and, worse when an angel, than when a devil.

THE BUSY-BODY.

His estate is too narrow for his mind; and, therefore, he is fain to make himself room in others' affairs; yet ever, in pretence of love. No news can stir, but by his door: neither can he know that, which he must not tell. What every man ventures in Guiana voyage, and what they gained, he knows to a hair. Whether Holland will have peace, he knows; and on what conditions, aud with what suc

cess, is familiar to him, ere it be concluded. No post can pass him, without a question; and, rather than he will lose the news, he rides back with him to appose him of tidings: and then to the next man he meets, he supplies the wants of his hasty intelligence, and makes up a perfect tale; wherewith he so haunteth the patient auditor, that, after many excuses, he is fain to endure rather the censure of his manners in running away, than the tediousness of an impertinent discourse. His speech is oft broken off, with a succession of long parentheses; which he ever vows to fill up ere the conclusion; and perhaps would effect it, if the others' ear were as unweariable as his tongue. If he see but two men talk and read a letter in the street, he runs to them, and asks if he may not be partner of that secret relation; and if they deny it, he offers to tell, since he may not hear, wonders: and then falls upon the report of the Scottish Mine, or of the great fish taken up at Lynn, or of the freezing of the Thames; and, after many thanks and dismissions, is hardly entreated silence. He undertakes as much, as he performs little. This man will thrust himseif forward, to be the guide of the way he knows not; and calls at his neighbour's window, and asks why his servants are not at work. The market hath no commodity, which he prizeth not, and which the next table shall not hear recited. His tongue, like the tail of Sampson's foxes, carries firebrands; and is enough to set the whole field of the world on a flame. Himself begins table-talk of his neighbour, at another's board; to whom he bears the first news, and adjures him to conceal the reporter: whose choleric answer he returns to his first host, enlarged with a second edition: so, as it uses to be done in the fight of unwilling mastiffs, he claps each on the side apart, and provokes them to an eager conflict. There can no Act pass without his Comment; which is ever far-fetched, rash, suspicious, delatory. His ears are long, and his eyes quick; but most of all to imperfections; which as he easily sees, so he increases with intermeddling. He harbours another man's servant; and, amidst his entertainment, asks what fare is usual at home, what hours are kept, what talk passeth at their meals, what his master's disposition is, what his government, what his guests: and when he hath, by curious enquiries, extracted all the juice and spirit of hoped intelligence, turns him off whence he came, and works on a new. He hates constancy, as an earthen dulness, unfit for men of spirit; and loves to change his work and his place: neither yet can he be so soon weary of any place, as every place is weary of him for, as he sets himself on work, so others pay him with hatred; and look, how many masters he hath, so many enemies ; neither is it possible, that any should not hate him, but who know him not. So, then, he labours, without thanks; talks, without credit; lives, without love; dies, without tears, without pity; savę that some say, "It was pity he died no sooner,"

THE SUPERSTITIOUS.

SUPERSTITION is godless religion, devout impiety. The superstitious is fond in observation, servile in fear: he worships God, but as he lists: he gives God what he asks not, more than he asks, and all but what he should give; and makes more sins, than the Ten Commandments. This man dares not stir forth, till his breast be crossed, and his face sprinkled. If but a hare cross him the way, he returns; or, if his journey began, unawares, on the dismal day; or, if he stumbled at the threshold. If he see a snake unkilled, he fears a mischief: if the salt fall towards him, he looks pale and red; and is not quiet, till one of the waiters have poured wine on his lap and when he sneezeth, thinks them not his friends that uncover not. In the morning, he listens whether the crow crieth even or odd; and, by that token, presages of the weather. If he hear but a raven croak from the next roof, he makes his will; or if a bittour fly over his head by night: but, if his troubled fancy shall second his thoughts with the dream of a fair garden, or green rushes, or the salutation of a dead friend, he takes leave of the world, and says he cannot live. He will never set to sea but on a Sunday; neither ever goes without an Erra Pater in his pocket, St. Paul's day, and St. Swithin's, with the Twelve, are his Oracles; which he dares believe, against the almanack. When he lies sick on his death-bed, no sin troubles him so much, as that he did once eat flesh on a Friday: no repentance can expiate that; the rest need none. There is no dream of his, without an interpretation, without a prediction; and, if the event answer not his exposition, he expounds it according to the event. Every dark Every dark grove and pictured wall strikes him with an awful, but carnal devotion. Old wives and stars are his counsellors: his night-spell is his guard; and charms, his physicians. He wears Paracelsian characters for the tooth-ache: and a little hallowed wax is his antidote for all evils. This man is strangely credulous; and calls impossible things, miraculous: if he hear that some sacred block speaks, moves, weeps, smiles, his bare feet carry him thither with an offering; and, if a danger miss him in the way, his Saint hath the thanks. Some ways, he will not go; and some, he dares not: either there are bugs, or he feigneth them: every lantern is a ghost, and every noise is of chains. He knows not why, but his custom is to go a little about, and to leave the cross still on the right-hand. One event is enough to make a rule: out of these rules he concludes fashions, proper to himself; and nothing can turn him out of his own course. If he have done his task, he is safe: it matters not, with what affection. Finally, if God would let him be the carver of his own obedience, he could not have a better subject: as he is, he cannot have a worse,

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