Characters and characteristics in literature; English literature
strength, would shrewdly put for the monarchy of our wilderness.
* * * * *
_Then there-were separate Characters, as "of a Projector" (1642); "of an
Oxford Incendiary" (1645); and in 1664, "A New Anatomic, or Character of
a Christian or Roundhead, expressing his Description, Excellenrie,
Happiness, and Innocencie. Wherein may appear how far this blind World
is mistaken in their unjust Censures of him." Several Characters were
included in Lord North's "Forest of Varieties" published in 1645.
Fourteen Characters, some of individual persons, were in the "Characters
and Elegies, by Sir Francis Wortley, Knight and Baronet" published in
1646. The author was son of Sir Richard Wortley of Wortley in Yorkshire.
He was a good royalist, was taken prisoner in the civil wars, and wrote
his Characters in the Tower. They were these:--The Character of his Roy
all Majestie; the Character of the Queene's Majestie; the Hopeful
Prince; a true Character of the illustrious James, Duke of York; the
Character of a Noble General; a true English Protestant; an Antinomian,
or Anabaptistical Independent; a Jesuit; the true Character of a
Northern Lady, as she is Wife, Mother, and Sister; the Politique Neuter;
the Citie Paragon; a Sharking Committee-man; Britannicus his Pedigree
--afatall Prediction of his end; and last, the Phoenix of the Court.
In 1646, T. F., who is named by interlineation on his title-page among
the King's Pamphlets, T. Ford, servant to Mr. Sam. Man, produced the
"Times Anatomized, in several Characters." These were: A Good King,
Rebellion, an Honest Subject, an Hypocritical Convert of the Times, a
Soldier of Fortune, a Discontented Person, an Ambitious Man, the Vulgar,
Error, Truth, a Self-seeker, Pamphlets, an Envious Man, True Valour,
Time, a Neuter, a Turn-Coat, a Moderate Man, a Corrupt Committee-man, a
Sectary, War, Peace, a Drunkard, a Novice, Preacher, a Scandalous
Preacher, a Grave Divine, a Self-Conceited Man, Religion, Death. This is
T. Ford's Character of Pamphlets--_
PAMPHLETS
Are the weekly almanacs, showing what weather is in the state, which,
like the doves of Aleppo, carry news to every part of the kingdom. They
are the silent traitors that affront majesty, and abuse all authority,
under the colour of an imprimatur. Ubiquitary flies that have of late so
blistered the ears of all men, that they cannot endure the solid truth.
The echoes, whereby what is done in part of the kingdom, is heard all
over. They are like the mushrooms, sprung up in a night, and dead in a
day; and such is the greediness of men's natures (in these Athenian
days) of new, that they will rather feign than want it.
_So the tide ran on. In_ 1647 _there was "The Character of an Agitator,"
and also John Cleveland's Character of a London Diurnal._
JOHN CLEVELAND,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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