He is a great time-server, but it is of time out of mind to which he conforms exactly, but is wholly retired from the present. His days were spent and gone long before he came into the world, and since his only business is to collect what he can out of the ruins of them. He has so strong a natural affection to anything that is old, that he may truly say to dust and worms, "You are my father;" and to rottenness, "Thou art my mother." He has no providence nor foresight, for all his contemplations look backward upon the days of old; and his brains are turned with them, as if he walked backwards. He had rather interpret one obscure word in any old senseless discourse than be author of the most ingenious new one, and, with Scaliger, would sell the Empire of Germany (if it were in his power) for an old song. He devours an old manuscript with greater relish than worms and moths do, and, though there be nothing in it, values it above anything printed, which he accounts but a novelty. When he happens to cure a small botch in an old author, he is as proud of it as if he had got the philosopher's stone and could cure all the diseases of mankind. He values things wrongfully upon their antiquity, forgetting that the most modern are really the most ancient of all things in the world, like those that reckon their pounds before their shillings and pence of which they are made up. He esteems no customs but such as have outlived themselves and are long since out of use, as the Catholics allow of no saints but such as are dead, and the fanatics, in opposition, of none but the living. A PROUD MAN