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he last word not legible. AN HARANGUER Is one that is so delighted with the sweet sound of his own tongue, that William Prynne will sooner lend an ear than he to anything else. His measure of talk is till his wind is spent, and then he is not silenced, but becalmed. His ears have catched the itch of his tongue, and though he scratch them, like a beast with his hoof, he finds a pleasure in it. A silenced minister has more mercy on the Government in a secure conventicle than he has on the company that he is in. He shakes a man by the ear, as a dog does a pig, and never loses his hold till he has tired himself as well as his patient. He does not talk to a man, but attacks him, and whomsoever he can get into his hands he lays violent language on. If he can he will run a man up against a wall and hold him at a bay by the buttons, which he handles as bad as he does his person or the business he treats upon. When he finds him begin to sink he holds him by the clothes, and feels him as a butcher does a calf before he kills him. He is a walking pillory, and crucifies more ears than a dozen standing ones. He will hold any argument rather than his tongue, and maintain both sides at his own charge; for he will tell you what you will say, though perhaps he does not intend to give you leave. He lugs men by the ears, as they correct children in Scotland, and will make them tingle while he talks with them, as some say they will do when a man is talked of in his absence. When he talks to a man he comes up close to him, and, like an old soldier, lets fly in his face, or claps the bore of his pistol to his ear and whispers aloud, that he may be sure not to miss his mark. His tongue is always in motion, though very seldom to the purpose, like a barber's scissors, which are always snipping, as well when they do not cut as when they do. His tongue is like a bagpipe-drone, that has no stop, but makes a continual ugly noise, as long as he can squeeze any wind out of himself. He never leaves a man until he has run him down, and then he winds a death over him. A sow-gelder's horn is not so terrible to dogs and cats as he is to all that know him. His way of argument is to talk all and hear no contradiction. First he gives his antagonist the length of his wind, and then, let him make his approaches if he can, he is sure to be beforehand with him. Of all dissolute diseases the running of the tongue is the worst, and the hardest to be cured.
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