s and
time and fortune upon to no other purpose but to be ridiculous. He is
exempted from a dark room and a doctor, because there is no danger in
his frenzy; otherwise he has as good a title to fresh straw as another.
Humour is but a crookedness of the mind, a disproportioned swelling of
the brain, that draws the nourishment from the other parts to stuff an
ugly and deformed crup-shoulder. If it have the luck to meet with many
of its own temper, instead of being ridiculous it becomes a church, and
from jest grows to earnest.

A LEADER OF A FACTION

Sets the psalm, and all his party sing after him. He is like a figure in
arithmetic; the more ciphers he stands before the more his value amounts
to. He is a great haranguer, talks himself into authority, and, like a
parrot, climbs with his beak. He appears brave in the head of his party,
but braver in his own; for vainglory leads him, as he does them, and
both, many times out of the King's highway, over hedges and ditches, to
find out by-ways and shorter cuts, which generally prove the farthest
about, but never the nearest home again. He is so passionate a lover of
the Liberty of the People that his fondness turns to jealousy. He
interprets every trifle in the worst sense, to the prejudice of her
honesty, and is so full of caprices and scruples that, if he had his
will, he would have her shut up and never suffered to go abroad again,
if not made away, for her incontinence. All his politics are speculative
and for the most part impracticable, full of curious niceties, that tend
only to prevent future imaginary inconveniences with greater real and
present. He is very superstitious of having the formalities and
punctilios of law held sacred, that, while they are performing, those
that would destroy the very being of it may have time to do their
business or escape. He bends all his forces against those that are above
him, and, like a free-born English mastiff, plays always at the head. He
gathers his party as fanatics do a church, and admits all his admirers
how weak and slight soever; for he believes it is argument of wisdom
enough in them to admire, or, as he has it, to understand him. When he
has led his faction into any inconvenience they all run into his mouth,
as young snakes do into the old ones, and he defends them with his
oratory as well as he is able; for all his confidence depends upon his
tongue more than his brain or heart, and if that fail the others
surrend