contents himself with the mere title of a saint, and makes that his privilege to act all manner of wickedness; or the ruins of a noble structure, of which there is nothing left but the foundation, and that obscured and buried under the rubbish of the superstructure.  The living honour of his ancestors is long ago departed, dead and gone, and his is but the ghost and shadow of it, that haunts the house with horror and disquiet where once it lived.  His nobility is truly descended from the glory of his forefathers, and may be rightly said to fall to him, for it will never rise again to the height it was in them by his means, and he succeeds them as candles do the office of the sun.  The confidence of nobility has rendered him ignoble, as the opinion of wealth makes some men poor, and as those that are born to estates neglect industry and have no business but to spend, so he being born to honour believes he is no further concerned than to consume and waste it.  He is but a copy, and so ill done that there is no line of the original in him but the sin only.  He is like a word that by ill-custom and mistake has utterly lost the sense of that from which it was derived, and now signifies quite contrary; for the glory of noble ancestors will not permit the good or bad of their posterity to be obscure.  He values himself only upon his title, which being only verbal gives him a wrong account of his natural capacity, for the same words signify more or less, according as they are applied to things, as ordinary and extraordinary do at court; and sometimes the greater sound has the less sense, as in accounts, though four be more than three, yet a third in proportion is more than a fourth.

A HUFFING COURTIER

Is a cipher, that has no value himself but from the place he stands in.  All his happiness consists in the opinion he believes others have of it.  This is his faith, but as it is heretical and erroneous, though he suffer much tribulation for it, he continues obstinate, and not to be convinced.  He flutters up and down like a butterfly in a garden, and while he is pruning of his peruke takes occasion to contemplate his legs and the symmetry of his breeches.  He is part of the furniture of the rooms, and serves for a walking picture, a moving piece of arras.  His business is only to be seen, and he performs it with admirable industry, placing himself always in the best light, looking wonderfully politic, and cautious whom he mixes withal.  His occupation is to show his clothes, and if they could but walk themselves they would save him the labour and do his work as well as himself.  His immunity from varlets is his freehold, and he were a lost man without it.  His clothes are but his tailor’s livery, which he gives him, for ’tis ten to one he never pays for them.  He is very careful to discover the lining of his coat, that you may not suspect any want of integrity or flaw in him from the skin outwards.