rds
signify more or less, according as they are applied to things, as
ordinary and extraordinary do at court; and sometimes the greater sound
has the less sense, as in accounts, though four be more than three, yet
a third in proportion is more than a fourth.

A HUFFING COURTIER

Is a cipher, that has no value himself but from the place he stands in.
All his happiness consists in the opinion he believes others have of it.
This is his faith, but as it is heretical and erroneous, though he
suffer much tribulation for it, he continues obstinate, and not to be
convinced. He flutters up and down like a butterfly in a garden, and
while he is pruning of his peruke takes occasion to contemplate his legs
and the symmetry of his breeches. He is part of the furniture of the
rooms, and serves for a walking picture, a moving piece of arras. His
business is only to be seen, and he performs it with admirable industry,
placing himself always in the best light, looking wonderfully politic,
and cautious whom he mixes withal. His occupation is to show his
clothes, and if they could but walk themselves they would save him the
labour and do his work as well as himself. His immunity from varlets is
his freehold, and he were a lost man without it. His clothes are but his
tailor's livery, which he gives him, for 'tis ten to one he never pays
for them. He is very careful to discover the lining of his coat, that
you may not suspect any want of integrity or flaw in him from the skin
outwards. His tailor is his creator, and makes him of nothing; and
though he lives by faith in him, he is perpetually committing iniquities
against him. His soul dwells in the outside of him, like that of a
hollow tree, and if you do but peel the bark off him he deceases
immediately. His carriage of himself is the wearing of his clothes, and,
like the cinnamon tree, his bark is better than his body. His looking
big is rather a tumour than greatness. He is an idol that has just so
much value as other men give him that believe in him, but none of his
own. He makes his ignorance pass for reserve, and, like a hunting-nag,
leaps over what he cannot get through. He has just so much of politics
as hostlers in the university have Latin. He is as humble as a Jesuit to
his superior, but repays himself again in insolence over those that are
below him, and with a generous scorn despises those that can neither do
him good nor hurt. He adores those that may do him good, though