ef guest and employment, and the sole
business that makes them afternoon's-men. The poet only is his tyrant, and
he is bound to make his friend's friend drunk at his charge.
Shrove-Tuesday he fears as much as the bauds, and Lent[43] is more damage
to him than the butcher. He was never so much discredited as in one act,
and that was of parliament, which gives hostlers priviledge before him,
for which he abhors it more than a corrupt judge. But to give him his due,
one well-furnished actor has enough in him for five common gentlemen, and,
if he have a good body, [for six, and] for resolution he shall challenge
any Cato, for it has been his practice to die bravely.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] The room where the performers dress, previous to coming on the stage.

[43] This passage affords a proof of what has been doubted, namely, that
the theatres were not permitted to be open during Lent, in the reign of
James I. The restriction was waved in the next reign, as we find from the
Puritanical Prynne:--"There are none so much addicted to stage-playes, but
when they goe unto places where they cannot have them, or when, as they
are suppressed by publike authority, (as in times of pestilence, and in
_Lent, till now of late_,) can well subsist without them," &c.
_Histrio-Mastix_, 4to. _Lond. 1633. page 384._

XXIV.

A DETRACTOR

Is one of a more cunning and active envy, wherewith he gnaws not foolishly
himself, but throws it abroad and would have it blister others. He is
commonly some weak parted fellow, and worse minded, yet is strangely
ambitious to match others, not by mounting their worth, but bringing them
down with his tongue to his own poorness. He is indeed like the red dragon
that pursued the woman, for when he cannot over-reach another, he opens
his mouth and throws a flood after to drown him. You cannot anger him
worse than to do well, and he hates you more bitterly for this, than if
you had cheated him of his patrimony with your own discredit. He is always
slighting the general opinion, and wondering why such and such men should
be applauded. Commend a good divine, he cries postilling; a philologer,
pedantry; a poet, rhiming; a school-man, dull wrangling; a sharp conceit,
boyishness; an honest man, plausibility. He comes to publick things not to
learn, but to catch, and if there be but one soloecism, that is all he
carries away. He looks on all things with a prepared sowerness, and is
still furnished with a pish bef