ance, nor so much as the
innovation of a smile without serious and mature deliberation, but
preserves his looks in a judicial way, according as they have always
been established.

A FLATTERER

Is a dog that fawns when he bites. He hangs bells in a man's ears, as a
carman does by his horse while he lays a heavy load upon his back. His
insinuations are like strong wine, that pleases a man's palate till it
has got within him, and then deprives him of his reason and overthrows
him. His business is to render a man a stranger to himself, and get
between him and home, and then he carries him whither he pleases. He is
a spirit that inveighs away a man from himself, undertakes great matters
for him, and after sells him for a slave. He makes division not only
between a man and his friends, but between a man and himself, raises a
faction within him, and after takes part with the strongest side and
ruins both. He steals him away from himself (as the fairies are said to
do children in the cradle), and after changes him for a fool. He
whistles to him, as a carter does to his horse while he whips out his
eyes and makes him draw what he pleases. He finds out his humour and
feeds it, till it will come to hand, and then he leads him whither he
pleases. He tickles him, as they do trouts, until he lays hold on him,
and then devours and feeds upon him. He tickles his ears with a straw,
and while he is pleased with scratching it, picks his pocket, as the
cutpurse served Bartl. Cokes. He embraces him and hugs him in his arms,
and lifts him above ground, as wrestlers do, to throw him down again and
fall upon him. He possesses him with his own praises like an evil
spirit, that makes him swell and appear stronger than he was, talk what
he does not understand, and do things that he knows nothing of when he
comes to himself. He gives good words as doctors are said to give physic
when they are paid for it, and lawyers advice when they are fee'd
beforehand. He is a poisoned perfume that infects the brain and murders
those it pleases. He undermines a man, and blows him up with his own
praises to throw him down. He commends a man out of design, that he may
be presented with him and have him for his pains, according to the mode.

A PRODIGAL

Is a pocket with a hole in the bottom. His purse has got a dysentery and
lost its retentive faculty. He delights, like a fat overgrown man, to
see himself fall away and grow less. He does not spend his