civility as fanatics are above ordinances,
and held nothing more shameful than to be ashamed of anything. He talks
nothing but Aretine's pictures, as plain as the Scotch dialect, which is
esteemed to be the most copious and elegant of the kind. He improves and
husbands his sins to the best advantage, and makes one vice find
employment for another; for what he acts loosely in private he talks as
loosely of in public, and finds as much pleasure in the one as the
other. He endeavours to purchase himself a reputation by pretending to
that which the best men abominate and the worst value not, like one that
clips and washes false coin and ventures his neck for that which will
yield him nothing.

A MODERN POLITICIAN

Makes new discoveries in politics, but they are, like those that
Columbus made of the New World, very rich, but barbarous. He endeavours
to restore mankind to the original condition it fell from, by forgetting
to discern between good and evil, and reduces all prudence back again to
its first author, the serpent, that taught Adam wisdom; for he was
really his tutor, and not Samboscor, as the Rabbins write. He finds the
world has been mistaken in all ages, and that religion and morality are
but vulgar errors that pass among the ignorant, and are but mere words
to the wise. He despises all learning as a pedantic little thing, and
believes books to be the business of children and not of men. He wonders
how the distinction of virtue and vice came into the world's head, and
believes them to be more ridiculous than any foppery of the schools. He
holds it his duty to betray any man that shall take him for so much a
fool as one fit to be trusted. He steadfastly believes that all men are
born in the state of war, and that the civil life is but a cessation,
and no peace nor accommodation; and though all open acts of hostility
are forborne by consent, the enmity continues, and all advantages by
treachery or breach of faith are very lawful; that there is no
difference between virtue and fraud among friends as well as enemies,
nor anything unjust that a man can do without damage to his own safety
or interest; that oaths are but springes to catch woodcocks withal, and
bind none but those that are too weak and feeble to break them when they
become ever so small an impediment to their advantages; that conscience
is the effect of ignorance, and the same with that foolish fear which
some men apprehend when they are in the dark