Читать книгу Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century - Various - Страница 42

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Is a creature made up of threads that were pared off from Adam, when he was rough cast; the end of his being differeth from that of others, and is not to serve God, but to cover sin. Other men's pride is the best patron, and their negligence a main passage to his profit. He is a thing of more than ordinary judgment: for by virtue of that he buyeth land, buildeth houses, and raiseth the set roof of his cross-legged fortune. His actions are strong encounters, and for their notoriousness always upon record. It is neither Amadis de Gaul, nor the Knight of the Sun, that is able to resist them. A ten-groat fee setteth them on foot, and a brace of officers bringeth them to execution. He handleth the Spanish pike to the hazard of many poor Egyptian vermin; and in show of his valour, scorneth a greater gauntlet than will cover the top of his middle finger. Of all weapons he most affecteth the long bill; and this he will manage to the great prejudice of a customer's estate. His spirit, notwithstanding, is not so much as to make you think him man; like a true mongrel, he neither bites nor barks but when your back is towards him. His heart is a lump of congealed snow: Prometheus was asleep while it was making. He differeth altogether from God; for with him the best pieces are still marked out for damnation, and, without hope of recovery, shall be cast down into hell. He is partly an alchemist; for he extracteth his own apparel out of other men's clothes; and when occasion serveth, making a broker's shop his alembic, can turn your silks into gold, and having furnished his necessities, after a month or two, if he be urged unto it, reduce them again to their proper subsistence. He is in part likewise an arithmetician, cunning enough for multiplication and addition, but cannot abide subtraction: summa totalis is the language of his Canaan, and usque ad ultimum quadrantem the period of all his charity. For any skill in geometry I dare not commend him, for he could never yet find out the dimensions of his own conscience; notwithstanding he hath many bottoms, it seemeth this is always bottomless. And so with a libera nos a malo I leave you, promising to amend whatsoever is amiss at his next setting.