Читать книгу Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century - Various - Страница 66

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There is a confederacy between him and his clothes, to be made a puppy: view him well and you will say his gentry sits as ill upon him as if he had bought it with his penny. He hath more places to send money to than the devil hath to send his spirits; and to furnish each mistress would make him run besides his wits, if he had any to lose. He accounts bashfulness the wickedest thing in the world, and therefore studies impudence. If all men were of his mind all honesty would be out of fashion. He withers his clothes on a stage, as a saleman is forced to do his suits in Birchin Lane; and when the play is done, if you mark his rising, 'tis with a kind of walking epilogue between the two candles, to know if his suit may pass for current. He studies by the discretion of his barber, to frizzle like a baboon; three such would keep three the nimblest barbers in the town from ever having leisure to wear net-garters, for when they have to do with him, they have many irons in the fire. He is travelled, but to little purpose; only went over for a squirt and came back again, yet never the more mended in his conditions, because he carried himself along with him. A scholar he pretends himself, and says he hath sweat for it, but the truth is he knows Cornelius far better than Tacitus. His ordinary sports are cock-fights, but the most frequent, horse-races, from whence he comes home dry-foundered. Thus when his purse hath cast her calf he goes down into the country, where he is brought to milk and white cheese like the Switzers.