Of our times is like a fanatic, that has no wit in ordinary easy things, and yet attempts the hardest task of brains in the whole world, only because, whether his play or work please or displease, he is certain to come off better than he deserves, and find some of his own latitude to applaud him, which he could never expect any other way, and is as sure to lose no reputation, because he has none to venture:--
Like gaming rooks, that never stick
To play for hundreds upon tick,
'Cause, if they chance to lose at play,
They've not one halfpenny to pay;
And, if they win a hundred pound,
Gain, if for sixpence they compound.
Nothing encourages him more in his undertaking than his ignorance, for he has not wit enough to understand so much as the difficulty of what he attempts; therefore he runs on boldly like a foolhardy wit, and Fortune, that favours fools and the bold, sometimes takes notice of him for his double capacity, and receives him into her good graces. He has one motive more, and that is the concurrent ignorant judgment of the present age, in which his sottish fopperies pass with applause, like Oliver Cromwell's oratory among fanatics of his own canting inclination. He finds it easier to write in rhyme than prose, for the world being over-charged with romances, he finds his plots, passions, and repartees ready made to his hand, and if he can but turn them into rhyme the thievery is disguised, and they pass for his own wit and invention without question, like a stolen cloak made into a coat or dyed into another colour. Besides this, he makes no conscience of stealing anything that lights in his way, and borrows the advice of so many to correct, enlarge, and amend what he has ill-favouredly patched together, that it becomes like a thing drawn by counsel, and none of his own performance, or the son of a whore that has no one certain father. He has very great reason to prefer verse before prose in his compositions; for rhyme is like lace, that serves excellently well to hide the piecing and coarseness of a bad stuff, contributes mightily to the bulk, and makes the less serve by the many impertinences it commonly requires to make way for it, for very few are endowed with abilities to bring it in on its own account. This he finds to be good husbandry and a kind of necessary thrift, for they that have but a little ought to make as much of it as they can. His prologue, which is commonly none of his own, is always better than his play, like a piece of cloth that's fine in the beginning and coarse afterwards; though it has but one topic, and that's the same that is used by malefactors, when they are to be tried, to except against as many of the jury as they can.
A MOUNTEBANK
Is an epidemic physician, a doctor-errant, that keeps himself up by being, like a top, in motion, for if he should settle he would fall to nothing immediately. He is a pedlar of medicines, a petty chapman of cures, and tinker empirical to the body of man. He strolls about to markets and fairs, where he mounts on the top of his shop, that is his bank, and publishes his medicines as universal as himself; for everything is for all diseases, as himself is of all places--that is to say, of none. His business is to show tricks and impudence. As for the cure of diseases, it concerns those that have them, not him, further than to get their money. His pudding is his setter that lodges the rabble for him, and then slips him, who opens with a deep mouth, and has an ill day if he does not run down some. He baits his patient's body with his medicines, as a rat-catcher does a room, and either poisons the disease or him. As soon as he has got all the money and spent all the credit the rabble could spare him, he then removes to fresh quarters where he is less known and better trusted. If but one in twenty of his medicines hit by chance, when nature works the cure, it saves the credit of all the rest, that either do no good or hurt; for whosoever recovers in his hands, he does the work under God; but if he die, God does it under him: his time was come, and there's an end. A velvet jerkin is his prime qualification, by which he is distinguished from his pudding, as he is with his cap from him. This is the usher of his school, that draws the rabble together, and then he draws their teeth. He administers physic with a farce, and gives his patients a preparative of dancing on the rope, to stir the humours and prepare them for evacuation. His fool serves for his foil, and sets him off as well as his bragging and lying. The first thing he vents is his own praise, and then his medicines wrapped up in several papers and lies. He mounts his bank as a vaulter does his wooden horse, and then shows tricks for his patients, as apes do for the King of Spain. He casts the nativity of urinals, and tries diseases, like a witch, by water. He bails the place with a jig, draws the rabble together, and then throws his hook among them. He pretends to universal medicines; that is, such as, when all men are sick together, will cure them all, but till then no one in particular.
A WITTOL
Is a person of great complaisance, and very civil to all that have occasion to make use of his wife. He married a wife as a common proxy for the service of all those that are willing to come in for their shares; he engrossed her first by wholesale, and since puts her off by retail; he professes a form of matrimony, but utterly denies the power thereof. They that tell tales are very unjust, for, having not put in their claims before marriage, they are bound for ever after to hold their tongues. The reason why citizens are commonly wittols is, because men that drive a trade and are dealers in the world seldom provide anything for their own uses which they will not very willingly put off again for considerable profit. He believes it to be but a vulgar error and no such disparagement as the world commonly imagines to be a cuckold; for man, being the epitomy and representation of all creatures, cannot be said to be perfect while he wants that badge and character which so many several species wear both for their defence and ornament. He takes the only wise and sure course that his wife should do him no injury; for, having his own free consent, it is not in her power that way to do him any wrong at all. His wife is, like Eve in Paradise, married to all mankind, and yet is unsatisfied that there are no more worlds, as Alexander the Great was. She is a person of public capacity, and rather than not serve her country would suffer an army to march over her, as Sir Rice ap Thomas did. Her husband and she give and take equal liberty, which preserves a perfect peace and good understanding between both, while those that are concerned in one another's love and honour are never quiet, but always caterwauling. He differs from a jealous man as a valiant man does from a coward, that trembles at a danger which the other scorns and despises. He is of a true philosophical temper, and suffers what he knows not how to avoid with a more than stoical resolution. He is one of those the poet speaks of:--
"Qui ferre incommoda vitæ,
Nec jactare jugum, vita didicere magistra."
He is as much pleased to see many men approve his choice of his wife and has as great a kindness for them, as opiniasters have for all those whom they find to agree with themselves in judgment and approve the abilities of their understandings.