, and is now almost worn to nothing; if it do not recover quickly
it will grow too little for a head of garlic. He wears garniture on the
toes of his shoes to justify his pretensions to the gout, or such other
malady that for the time being is most in fashion or request. When he
salutes a friend he pulls off his hat, as women do their vizard-masks.
His ribbons are of the true complexion of his mind, a kind of painted
cloud or gaudy rainbow, that has no colour of itself but what it borrows
from reflection. He is as tender of his clothes as a coward is of his
flesh, and as loth to have them disordered. His bravery is all his
happiness, and, like Atlas, he carries his heaven on his back. He is
like the golden fleece, a fine outside on a sheep's back. He is a
monster or an Indian creature, that is good for nothing in the world but
to be seen. He puts himself up into a sedan, like a fiddle in a case,
and is taken out again for the ladies to play upon, who, when they have
done with him, let down his treble-string till they are in the humour
again. His cook and _valet de chambre_ conspire to dress dinner and him
so punctually together that the one may not be ready before the other.
As peacocks and ostriches have the gaudiest and finest feathers, yet
cannot fly, so all his bravery is to flutter only. The beggars call him
"my lord," and he takes them at their words and pays them for it. If you
praise him, he is so true and faithful to the mode that he never fails
to make you a present of himself, and will not be refused, though you
know not what to do with him when you have him.

A COURT BEGGAR

Waits at Court, as a dog does under a table, to catch what falls, or
force it from his fellows if he can. When a man is in a fair way to be
hanged that is richly worth it, or has hanged himself, he puts in to be
his heir and succeed him, and pretends as much merit as another, as no
doubt he has great reason to do if all things were rightly considered.
He thinks it vain to deserve well of his Prince as long as he can do his
business more easily by begging, for the same idle laziness possesses
him that does the rest of his fraternity, that had rather take an alms
than work for their livings, and therefore he accounts merit a more
uncertain and tedious way of rising, and sometimes dangerous. He values
himself and his place not upon the honour or allowances of it, but the
convenient opportunity of begging, as King Clause's courtiers do w