A CHEAT
Is a freeman of all trades, and all trades of his. Fraud and treachery are his calling, though his profession be the strictest integrity and truth. He spins nets, like a spider, out of his own entrails, to entrap the simple and unwary that light in his way, whom he devours and feeds upon. All the greater sort of cheats, being allowed by authority, have lost their names (as judges, when they are called to the Bench, are no more styled lawyers) and left the title to the meaner only and the unallowed. The common ignorance of mankind is his province, which he orders to the best advantage. He is but a tame highwayman, that does the same things by stratagem and design which the other does by force, makes men deliver their understandings first, and after their purses. Oaths and lies are his tools that he works with, and he gets his living by the drudgery of his conscience. He endeavours to cheat the devil by mortgaging his soul so many times over and over to him, forgetting that he has damnations, as priests have absolutions of all prices. He is a kind of a just judgment, sent into this world to punish the confidence and curiosity of ignorance, that out of a natural inclination to error will tempt its own punishment and help to abuse itself. He can put on as many shapes as the devil that set him on work, is one that fishes in muddy understandings, and will tickle a trout in his own element till he has him in his clutches, and after in his dish or the market. He runs down none but those which he is certain are fera natura, mere natural animals, that belong to him that can catch them. He can do no feats without the co-operating assistance of the chouse, whose credulity commonly meets the impostor half-way, otherwise nothing is done; for all the craft is not in the catching (as the proverb says), but the better half at least in being catched. He is one that, like a bond without fraud, covin, and further delay, is void and of none effect, otherwise does stand and remain in full power, force, and virtue. He trusts the credulous with what hopes they please at a very easy rate, upon their own security, until he has drawn them far enough in, and then makes them pay for all at once. The first thing he gets from him is a good opinion, and afterwards anything he pleases; for after he has drawn from his guards he deals with him like a surgeon, and ties his arm before he lets him blood.