erely a Horn-book
without a Christ-cross before it; and his zeal consists much in hanging
his Bible in a Dutch button. He cozens men in the purity of his clothes;
and 'twas his only joy when he was on this side, to be in prison. He
cries out, 'tis impossible for any man to be damned that lives in his
religion, and his equivocation is true--as long as a man lives in it, he
cannot; but if he die in it, there's the question. Of all feasts in the
year he accounts St. George's feast the profanest, because of St.
George's cross, yet sometimes he doth sacrifice to his own belly,
provided that he put off the wake of his own nativity or wedding till
Good Friday. If there be a great feast in the town, though most of the
wicked (as he calls them) be there, he will be sure to be a guest, and
to out-eat six of the fattest burghers. He thinks, though he may not
pray with a Jew, he may eat with a Jew. He winks when he prays, and
thinks he knows the way so now to heaven, that he can find it blindfold.
Latin he accounts the language of the beast with seven heads; and when
he speaks of his own country, cries, he is fled out of Babel. Lastly,
his devotion is obstinacy; the only solace of his heart, contradiction;
and his main end, hypocrisy.

A DISTASTER OF THE TIME

Is a winter grasshopper all the year long that looks back upon harvest
with a lean pair of cheeks, never sets forward to meet it; his malice
sucks up the greatest part of his own venom, and therewith impoisoneth
himself: and this sickness rises rather of self-opinion or over-great
expedition; so in the conceit of his own over-worthiness, like a
coistrel he strives to fill himself with wind, and flies against it. Any
man's advancement is the most capital offence that can be to his malice,
yet this envy, like Phalaris' bull, makes that a torment first for
himself he prepared for others. He is a day-bed for the devil to slumber
on. His blood is of a yellowish colour, like those that have been bitten
by vipers, and his gall flows as thick in him as oil in a poisoned
stomach. He infects all society, as thunder sours wine: war or peace,
dearth or plenty, makes him equally discontented. And where he finds no
cause to tax the State, he descends to rail against the rate of
salt-butter. His wishes are whirlwinds, which breathed forth return into
himself, and make him a most giddy and tottering vessel. When he is
awake, and goes abroad, he doth but walk in his sleep, for his
visit