“In prose and verse was owned without dispute,
   Through all the realms of Nonsense absolute.”

As he was equally ready in all forms of writing that his neighbours followed he, of course, wrote Characters.  They were “Fifty-five Enigmatical Characters, all very exactly drawn to the Life, from several Persons, Humours, Dispositions.  Pleasant and full of Delight.  By R. F., Esq.”  The Duke of Newcastle admired, and wrote, in lines prefixed to the book—­_

   “Flecknoe, thy characters are so full of wit
   And fancy, as each word is throng’d with it. 
   Each line’s a volume, and who reads would swear
   Whole libraries were in each character. 
   Nor arrows in a quiver stuck, nor yet
   Lights in the starry skies are thicker set,
   Nor quills upon the armed porcupine,
   Than wit and fancy in this work of thine.”

This is one of Flecknoe’s Characters:—­

THE VALIANT MAN.

He is only a man; your coward and rash being but tame and savage beasts.  His courage is still the same, and drink cannot make him more valiant, nor danger less.  His valour is enough to leaven whole armies; he is an army himself, worth an army of other men.  His sword is not always out like children’s daggers, but he is always last in beginning quarrels, though first in ending them.  He holds honour, though delicate as crystal, yet not so slight and brittle to be broke and cracked with every touch; therefore, though most wary of it, is not querulous nor punctilious.  He is never troubled with passion, as knowing no degree beyond clear courage; and is always valiant, but never furious.  He is the more gentle in the chamber, more fierce he’s in the field, holding boast (the coward’s valour), and cruelty (the beast’s), unworthy a valiant man.  He is only coward in this, that he dares not do an unhandsome action.  In fine, he can only be overcome by discourtesy, and has but one defect—­he cannot talk much—­to recompense which he does the more.

In 1673 there was published “The Character of a Coffee House, with the symptoms of a Town Wit;” and in the same year, “Essays of Love and Marriage ... with some Characters and other Passages of Wit;” in 1675, “The Character of a Fanatick.  By a Person of Quality;” a set of eleven Characters appeared in 1675; “A Whip for a Jockey, or a Character of an Horse-Courser,” in 1677; “Four for a Penny, or Poor Robin’s Character of an unconscionable Pawnbroker and Ear-mark of an oppressing Tally-man, with a friendly description of a Bum-bailey, and his merciless setting cur or Follower,” appeared in 1678; and in the same year the Duke of Buckingham’s “Character of an Ugly Woman.”  In 1681 appeared the “Character of a Disbanded Courtier,” and in 1684 Oldham’s “Character of a certain ugly old P——.”  In 1686 followed “Twelve ingenious Characters, or pleasant Descriptions of the Properties of sundry