d when he is weary of the day. He is well
provided for both worlds, and is sure of peace here, of glory hereafter;
and therefore hath a light heart and a cheerful face. All his
fellow-creatures rejoice to serve him; his betters, the angels, love to
observe him; God Himself takes pleasure to converse with him, and hath
sainted him before his death, and in his death crowned him.

THE SECOND BOOK.

CHARACTERISMS OF VICES.

THE PROEM.

I have showed you many fair virtues: I speak not for them; if their
sight cannot command affection let them lose it. They shall please yet
better after you have troubled your eyes a little with the view of
deformities; and by how much more they please, so much more odious and
like themselves shall these deformities appear. This light contraries
give to each other in the midst of their enmity, that one makes the
other seem more good or ill. Perhaps in some of these (which thing I do
at once fear and hate) my style shall seem to some less grave, more
satirical: if you find me, not without cause, jealous, let it please you
to impute it to the nature of those vices which will not be otherwise
handled. The fashions of some evils are, besides the odiousness,
ridiculous, which to repeat is to seem bitterly merry. I abhor to make
sport with wickedness, and forbid any laughter here but of disdain.
Hypocrisy shall lead this ring worthily, I think, because both she
cometh nearest to virtue and is the worst of vices.

CHARACTER OF THE HYPOCRITE.

An hypocrite is the worst kind of player, by so much as he acts the
better part, which hath always two faces, ofttimes two hearts; that can
compose his forehead to sadness and gravity, while he bids his heart be
wanton and careless within, and in the meantime laughs within himself to
think how smoothly he hath cozened the beholder. In whose silent face
are written the characters of religion, which his tongue and gestures
pronounce but his hands recant. That hath a clean face and garment with
a foul soul, whose mouth belies his heart, and his fingers belie his
mouth. Walking early up into the city, he turns into the great church,
and salutes one of the pillars on one knee, worshipping that God which
at home he cares not for, while his eye is fixed on some window, on some
passenger, and his heart knows not whither his lips go. He rises, and
looking about with admiration, complains on our frozen charity, commends
the ancient. At church he wil