"Flecknoe, thy characters are so full of wit
And fancy, as each word is throng'd with it.
Each line's a volume, and who reads would swear
Whole libraries were in each character.
Nor arrows in a quiver stuck, nor yet
Lights in the starry skies are thicker set,
Nor quills upon the armed porcupine,
Than wit and fancy in this work of thine."
This is one of Flecknoe's Characters:--
THE VALIANT MAN.
He is only a man; your coward and rash being but tame and savage beasts. His courage is still the same, and drink cannot make him more valiant, nor danger less. His valour is enough to leaven whole armies; he is an army himself, worth an army of other men. His sword is not always out like children's daggers, but he is always last in beginning quarrels, though first in ending them. He holds honour, though delicate as crystal, yet not so slight and brittle to be broke and cracked with every touch; therefore, though most wary of it, is not querulous nor punctilious. He is never troubled with passion, as knowing no degree beyond clear courage; and is always valiant, but never furious. He is the more gentle in the chamber, more fierce he's in the field, holding boast (the coward's valour), and cruelty (the beast's), unworthy a valiant man. He is only coward in this, that he dares not do an unhandsome action. In fine, he can only be overcome by discourtesy, and has but one defect--he cannot talk much--to recompense which he does the more.
In 1673 there was published "The Character of a Coffee House, with the symptoms of a Town Wit;" and in the same year, "Essays of Love and Marriage ... with some Characters and other Passages of Wit;" in 1675, "The Character of a Fanatick. By a Person of Quality;" a set of eleven Characters appeared in 1675; "A Whip for a Jockey, or a Character of an Horse-Courser," in 1677; "Four for a Penny, or Poor Robin's Character of an unconscionable Pawnbroker and Ear-mark of an oppressing Tally-man, with a friendly description of a Bum-bailey, and his merciless setting cur or Follower," appeared in 1678; and in the same year the Duke of Buckingham's "Character of an Ugly Woman." In 1681 appeared the "Character of a Disbanded Courtier," and in 1684 Oldham's "Character of a certain ugly old P----." In 1686 followed "Twelve ingenious Characters, or pleasant Descriptions of the Properties of sundry Persons and Things." Sir William Coventry's "Character of a Trimmer," published in 1689, had been written before 1659, when it had been answered by a "Character of a Tory," not printed at the time, but included (1721) in the works of George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham. In 1689 appeared "Characters addressed to Ladies of Age," and also "The Ceremony-Monger his Character, in Six Chapters, by E. Hickeringill, Rector of All Saints, Colchester." Ohe! Enough, enough!
SAMUEL BUTLER,
Author of "Hudibras," who died in 1680, also exercised his wit in Character writing. When Butler's "Remains" were published in two volumes in 1759 by R. Thyer, Keeper of the Public Library of Manchester, 460 pages of the second volume, (all the volume except forty or fifty pages of "Thoughts on Various Subjects,") was occupied by a collection of 120 Characters that he had written. I close this volume of "Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century" with as many of Samuel Butler's Characters as the book has room for,--none are wittier--space being left for one Character by a poet of our own century, Wordsworth's "Character of the Happy Warrior" to bring us to a happy close.