Characters and characteristics in literature; English literature
Is a child at man's estate, one whom nature huddled up in haste, and
left his best part unfinished. The rest of him is grown to be a man,
only his brain stays behind. He is one that has not improved his first
rudiments, nor attained any proficiency by his stay in the world: but we
may speak of him yet as when he was in the bud, a good harmless nature,
a well meaning mind[46] [_and no more_] It is his misery that he now
wants a tutor, and is too old to have one. He is two steps above a fool,
and a great many more below a wise man: yet the fool is oft given him,
and by those whom he esteems most. Some tokens of him are,--he loves men
better upon relation than experience, for he is exceedingly enamoured of
strangers, and none quicklier aweary of his friend. He charges you at
first meeting with all his secrets, and on better acquaintance grows
more reserved. Indeed he is one that mistakes much his abusers for
friends, and his friends for enemies, and he apprehends your hate in
nothing so much as in good counsel. One that is flexible with any thing
but reason, and then only perverse. [A servant to every tale and
flatterer, and whom the last man still works over.] A great affecter of
wits and such prettinesses; and his company is costly to him, for he
seldom has it but invited. His friendship commonly is begun in a supper,
and lost in lending money. The tavern is a dangerous place to him, for
to drink and be drunk is with him all one, and his brain is sooner
quenched than his thirst. He is drawn into naughtiness with company, but
suffers alone, and the bastard commonly laid to his charge. One that
will be patiently abused, and take exception a month after when he
understands it, and then be abused again into a reconcilement; and you
cannot endear him more than by cozening him, and it is a temptation to
those that would not. One discoverable in all silliness to all men but
himself, and you may take any man's knowledge of him better than his
own. He will promise the same thing to twenty, and rather than deny one
break with all. One that has no power over himself, over his business,
over his friends, but a prey and pity to all; and if his fortunes once
sink, men quickly cry, Alas!--and forget him.
A TOBACCO-SELLER
Is the only man that finds good in it which others brag of but do not;
for it is meat, drink, and clothes to him. No man opens his ware with
greater seriousness, or challenges your judgment more in the
approbation. His shop is the rendezvous of spitting, where men dialogue
with their noses, and their communication is smoke.[47] It is the place
only where Spain is commended and preferred before England itself. He
should be well experienced in the world, for he has daily trial of men's
nostrils, and none is better acquainted with humours. He is the piecing
commonly of some other trade, which is bawd to his tobacco, and that to
his wife, which is the flame that follows this smoke.
A POT-POET
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