lient
undoing somewhat the longer. He is a vestryman in his parish, and easily
sets his neighbour at variance with the vicar, when his wicked counsel
on both sides is like weapons put into men's hands by a fencer, whereby
they get blows, he money. His honesty and learning bring him to
Under-Shrieveship, which, having thrice run through, he does not fear
the Lieutenant of the Shire; nay more, he fears not God. Cowardice holds
him a good commonwealth's-man; his pen is the plough and parchment the
soil whence he reaps both coin and curses. He is an earthquake that
willingly will let no ground lie in quiet. Broken titles makes him
whole; to have half in the country break their bonds were the only
liberty of conscience. He would wish, though he be a Brownist, no
neighbour of his should pay his tithes duly, if such suits held
continual plea at Westminster. He cannot away with the reverend service
in our Church, because it ends with the peace of God. He loves blows
extremely, and hath his chirurgeon's bill of rates, from head to foot,
incense the fury; he would not give away his yearly beatings for a good
piece of money. He makes his will in form of a law-case, full of
quiddits, that his friends after his death (if for nothing else, yet)
for the vexation of the law, may have cause to remember him. And if he
thought the ghost of men did walk again (as they report in the time of
Popery), sure he would hide some single money in Westminster Hall that
his spirit might haunt there. Only with this I will pitch him over the
bar and leave him: that his fingers itch after a bribe ever since his
first practising of court-hand.

AN INGROSSER OF CORN.

There is no vermin in the land like him: he slanders both heaven and
earth with pretended dearths when there is no cause of scarcity. He
hoarding in a dear year, is like Erysicthon's bowels in Ovid: _Quodque
urbibus esset, quodque satis poterat populo, non sufficit uni_. He prays
daily for more inclosures, and knows no reason in his religion why we
should call our forefathers' days the time of ignorance, but only
because they sold wheat for twelve pence a bushel. He wishes that
Dantzig were at the Moluccas, and had rather be certain of some foreign
invasion than of the setting up of the steelyard. When his barns and
garners are full, if it be a time of dearth, he will buy half a bushel
in the market to serve his household, and winnows his corn in the night,
lest, as the chaff thrown up