A BUMPKIN OR COUNTRY SQUIRE
Is a clown of rank and degree. He is the growth of his own land, a kind of Autocthonus, like the Athenians that sprang out of their own ground, or barnacles that grow upon trees in Scotland. His homely education has rendered him a native only of his own soil and a foreigner to all other places, from which he differs in language, manner of living, and behaviour, which are as rugged as the coat of a colt that has been bred upon a common. The custom of being the best man in his own territories has made him the worst everywhere else. He assumes the upper end of the table at an ale-house as his birthright, receives the homage of his company, which are always subordinate, and dispenses ale and communication like a self-conforming teacher in a conventicle. The chief points he treats on are the memoirs of his dogs and horses, which he repeats as often as a holder-forth that has but two sermons, to which if he adds the history of his hawks and fishing he is very painful and laborious. He does his endeavour to appear a droll, but his wit being, like his estate, within the compass of a hedge, is so profound and obscure to a stranger that it requires a commentary, and is not to be understood without a perfect knowledge of all circumstances of persons and the particular idiom of the place. He has no ambition to appear a person of civil prudence or understanding more than in putting off a lame, infirm jade for sound wind and limb, to which purpose he brings his squirehood and groom to vouch, and, rather than fail, will outswear an affidavit-man. The top of his entertainment is horrible strong beer, which he pours into his guests (as the Dutch did water into our merchants when they tortured them at Amboyna) till they confess they can drink no more, and then he triumphs over them as subdued and vanquished, no less by the strength of his brain than his drink. When he salutes a man he lays violent hands upon him, and grips and shakes him like a fit of an ague; and when he accosts a lady he stamps with his foot, like a French fencer, and makes a lunge at her, in which he always misses his aim, too high or too low, and hits her on the nose or chin. He is never without some rough-handed flatterer, that rubs him, like a horse, with a curry-comb till he kicks and grunts with the pleasure of it. He has old family stories and jests, that fell to him with the estate, and have been left from heir to heir time out of mind. With these he entertains all comers over and over, and has added some of his own times, which he intends to transmit over to posterity. He has but one way of making all men welcome that come to his house, and that is by making himself and them drunk; while his servants take the same course with theirs, which he approves of as good and faithful service, and the rather because, if he has occasion to tell a strange, improbable story, they may be in a readiness to vouch with the more impudence, and make it a case of conscience to lie as well as drink for his credit. All the heroical glory he aspires to is but to be reputed a most potent and victorious stealer of deer and beater-up of parks, to which purpose he has compiled commentaries of his own great actions that treat of his dreadful adventures in the night, of giving battle in the dark, discomfiting of keepers, horsing the deer on his own back, and making off with equal resolution and success.