proud of any employment, though it be but to carry commendations, which he will be sure to deliver at eleven of the clock[27].  They in courtesy bid him stay, and he in manners cannot deny them.  If he find but a good look to assure his welcome, he becomes their half-boarder, and haunts the threshold so long ’till he forces good nature to the necessity of a quarrel.  Publick invitations he will not wrong with his absence, and is the best witness of the sheriff’s hospitality[28].  Men shun him at length as they would do an infection, and he is never crossed in his way if there be but a lane to escape him.  He has done with the age as his clothes to him, hung on as long as he could, and at last drops off.

A CARRIER

Is his own hackney-man; for he lets himself out to travel as well as his horses.  He is the ordinary embassador between friend and friend, the father and the son, and brings rich presents to the one, but never returns any back again.  He is no unlettered man, though in show simple; for questionless, he has much in his budget, which he can utter too in fit time and place.  He is [like] the vault in[29] Gloster church, that conveys whispers at a distance, for he takes the sound out of your mouth at York, and makes it be heard as far as London.  He is the young student’s joy and expectation, and the most accepted guest, to whom they lend a willing hand to discharge him of his burden.  His first greeting is commonly, Your friends are well; [and to prove it[30]] in a piece of gold delivers their blessing.  You would think him a churlish blunt fellow, but they find in him many tokens of humanity.  He is a great afflicter of the high-ways, and beats them out of measure; which injury is sometimes revenged by the purse-taker, and then the voyage miscarries.  No man domineers more in his inn, nor calls his host unreverently with more presumption, and this arrogance proceeds out of the strength of his horses.  He forgets not his load where he takes his ease, for he is drunk commonly before he goes to bed.  He is like the prodigal child, still packing away and still returning again.  But let him pass.

A YOUNG MAN.

He is now out of nature’s protection, though not yet able to guide himself; but left loose to the world and fortune, from which the weakness of his childhood preserved him; and now his strength exposes him.  He is, indeed, just of age to be miserable, yet in his own conceit first begins to be happy; and he is happier in this imagination, and his misery not felt is less.  He sees yet but the outside of the world and men, and conceives them, according to their appearing, glister, and out of this ignorance believes them.  He pursues all vanities for happiness, and[31] [enjoys them best in this fancy.] His reason serves, not to curb but understand his appetite, and prosecute the motions thereof with a more eager earnestness.  Himself is his own temptation, and