no more insight in his parts, when he is too well discovered even to this very thought.  A flatterer is a dunce to him, for he can tell him nothing but what he knows before:  and yet he loves him too, because he is like himself.  Men are merciful to him, and let him alone, for if he be once driven from his humour, he is like two inward friends fallen out:  his own bitter enemy and discontent presently makes a murder.  In sum, he is a bladder blown up with wind, which the least flaw crushes to nothing.

A TOO IDLY RESERVED MAN

Is one that is a fool with discretion, or a strange piece of politician, that manages the state of himself.  His actions are his privy-council, wherein no man must partake beside.  He speaks under rule and prescription, and dare not show his teeth without Machiavel.  He converses with his neighbours as he would in Spain, and fears an inquisitive man as much as the inquisition.  He suspects all questions for examinations, and thinks you would pick something out of him, and avoids you.  His breast is like a gentlewoman’s closet, which locks up every toy or trifle, or some bragging mountebank that makes every stinking thing a secret.  He delivers you common matters with great conjuration of silence, and whispers you in the ear acts of parliament.  You may as soon wrest a tooth from him as a paper, and whatsoever he reads is letters.  He dares not talk of great men for fear of bad comments, and he knows not how his words may be misapplied.  Ask his opinion, and he tells you his doubt; and he never hears any thing more astonishedly than what he knows before.  His words are like the cards at primivist,[23] where 6 is 18, and 7, 21; for they never signify what they sound; but if he tell you he will do a thing, it is as much as if he swore he would not.  He is one, indeed, that takes all men to be craftier than they are, and puts himself to a great deal of affliction to hinder their plots and designs, where they mean freely.  He has been long a riddle himself, but at last finds OEdipuses; for his over-acted dissimulation discovers him, and men do with him as they would with Hebrew letters, spell him backwards and read him.

A TAVERN

Is a degree, or (if you will,) a pair of stairs above an ale-house, where men are drunk with more credit and apology.  If the vintner’s nose[24] be at door, it is a sign sufficient, but the absence of this is supplied by the ivy-bush:  the rooms are ill breathed like the drinkers that have been washed well over night, and are smelt-to fasting next morning; not furnished with beds apt to be defiled, but more necessary implements, stools, table, and a chamber-pot.  It is a broacher of more news than hogsheads, and more jests than news, which are sucked up here by some spungy brain, and from thence squeezed into a comedy.  Men come here to make merry, but indeed make a noise, and this musick above