“My good father,” said I, “I am beholding to you for your excellent discourses, for they have delivered me out of the power of a thousand frivolous and vain affections, that had taken possession of me. But who are you, I pray’ee? And what is your business here?” “My poverty and these rags,” quoth he, “are enough to tell ye that I am an honest man, a friend to truth, and one that will not be mealy-mouthed, when he may speak it to purpose. Some call me the plain-dealer; others, the undeceiver-general. You see me all in tatters, wounds, scars, bruises. And what is all this but the requital the world gives me for my good counsel and kind visits? And yet after all this endeavour to get shut of me they call themselves my friends, though they curse me to the pit of hell, as soon as ever I come near them; and had rather be hanged than spend one quarter of an hour in my company. If thou hast a mind to see the world I talk of, come along with me, and I’ll carry thee into a place where thou shalt have a full prospect of it, and without any inconvenience see all that’s in’t, or in the people that dwell in’t, and look it through and through.” “What’s the name of this place?” quoth I. “It is called,” said he, “the Hypocrites’ Walk; and it crosses the world from one Pole to th’ other. It is large, and populous; for I believe there’s not any man alive but has either a house or a chamber in’t. Some live in’t for altogether; others take it only in passage: for there are hypocrites of several sorts; but all mortals have, more or less, a tang of the leaven. That fellow there in the corner came but t’other day from the plow tail, and would now fain be a gentleman. But had not he better pay his debts, and walk alone, than break his promises to keep a lackey? There’s another rascal that would fain be a lord, and would venture a voyage to Venice for the title, but that he’s better at building castles in the air than upon the water. In the meantime he puts on a nobleman’s face and garb; he swears and drinks like a lord, and keeps his hounds and whores, which ’tis feared in the end will devour their master. Mark now that piece of gravity and form; he walks, ye see, as if he moved by clock-work; his words are few and low; he makes all his answers by a shrug or a nod. This is the hypocrite of a Minister of State, who with all his counterfeit of wisdom is one of the veriest noddies in nature.