med silence as witches raise their spirits in. Gravity he pretends
in all things but in his private vice, for he will not in a hundred
pound take one light sixpence. And it seems he was at Tilbury Camp, for
you must not tell him of a Spaniard. He is a man of no conscience, for
(like the Jakes-farmer that swooned with going into Bucklersbury) he
falls into a cold sweat if he but look into the Chancery; thinks, in his
religion, we are in the right for everything, if that were abolished. He
hides his money as if he thought to find it again at the last day, and
then begin's old trade with it. His clothes plead prescription, and
whether they or his body are more rotten is a question. Yet, should he
live to be hanged in them, this good they would do him: the very hangman
would pity his case. The table he keeps is able to starve twenty tall
men. His servants have not their living, but their dying from him, and
that's of hunger. A spare diet he commends in all men but himself. He
comes to cathedrals only for love of the singing-boys, because they look
hungry. He likes our religion best because 'tis best cheap, yet would
fain allow of purgatory, cause 'twas of his trade, and brought in so
much money. His heart goes with the same snaphance his purse doth: 'tis
seldom open to any man. Friendship he accounts but a word without any
signification; nay, he loves all the world so little, that an it were
possible he would make himself his own executor. For certain, he is made
administrator to his own good name while he is in perfect memory, for
that dies long before him; but he is so far from being at the charge of
a funeral for it, that he lets it stink above-ground. In conclusion, for
neighbourhood you were better dwell by a contentious lawyer. And for his
death, 'tis either surfeit, the pox, or despair; for seldom such as he
die of God's making, as honest men should do.

A WATERMAN

Is one that hath learnt to speak well of himself, for always he names
himself "the first man." If he had betaken himself to some richer trade,
he could not have choosed but done well; for in this, though a mean one,
he is still plying it, and putting himself forward. He is evermore
telling strange news, most commonly lies. If he be a sculler, ask him if
he be married: he'll equivocate, and swear he's a single man. Little
trust is to be given to him, for he thinks that day he does best when he
fetches most men over. His daily labour teaches him the art