No man verifies the proverb more, that it is an alms-deed to punish him; for his penalty is a dole,[69] and does the beggars as much good as their dinner. He abhors, therefore, works of charity, and thinks his bread cast away when it is given to the poor. He loves not justice neither, for the weigh-scale's sake, and hates the clerk of the market as his executioner; yet he finds mercy in his offences, and his basket only is sent to prison.[70] Marry a pillory is his deadly enemy, and he never hears well after. FOOTNOTES: [69] _Dole_ originally signified the portion of alms that was given away at the door of a nobleman. Steevens, note to _Shakspeare_. Sir John Hawkins affirms that the benefaction distributed at Lambeth palace gate, is to this day called the _dole_. [70] That is, the contents of his basket, if discovered to be of light weight, are distributed to the needy prisoners. XLV. A PRETENDER TO LEARNING Is one that would make all others more fools than himself, for though he know nothing, he would not have the would know so much. He conceits nothing in learning but the opinion, which he seeks to purchase without it, though he might with less labour cure his ignorance than hide it. He is indeed a kind of scholar-mountebank, and his art our delusion. He is tricked out in all the accoutrements of learning, and at the first encounter none passes better. He is oftener in his study than at his book, and you cannot pleasure him better than to deprehend him: yet he hears you not till the third knock, and then comes out very angry as interrupted. You find him in his _slippers_[71] and a pen in his ear, in which formality he was asleep. His table is spread wide with some classick folio, which is as constant to it as the carpet, and hath laid open in the same page this half year. His candle is always a longer sitter up than himself, and the _boast_[72] of his window at midnight. He walks much alone in the posture of meditation, and has a book still before his face in the fields. His pocket is seldom without a Greek testament or Hebrew bible, which he opens only in the church, and that when some stander-by looks over. He has sentences for company, some scatterings of Seneca and Tacitus, which are good upon all occasions. If he reads any thing in the morning, it comes up all at dinner; and as long as that lasts, the discourse is his. He is a great plagiary of tavern wit, and comes to sermons only that he may talk of Austin. His parcels are the meer scrapings from company, yet he complains at parting what time he has lost. He is wondrously capricious to seem a judgment, and listens with a sower attention to what he understands not. He talks much of Scaliger, and Casaubon, and the Jesuits, and prefers some unheard-of Dutch name before them all. He has verses to bring in upon these and these hints, and it shall go hard but he will wind in his opportunity. He is critical in a