but to few, and if it be concealed goes no farther; but the report of it is unlimited, and may be conveyed to all people and all times to come.  He exposes that with his tongue which Nature gave women modesty, and brute beasts tails, to cover.  He mistakes ribaldry for wit, though nothing is more unlike; and believes himself to be the finer man the filthier he talks, as if he were above civility as fanatics are above ordinances, and held nothing more shameful than to be ashamed of anything.  He talks nothing but Aretine’s pictures, as plain as the Scotch dialect, which is esteemed to be the most copious and elegant of the kind.  He improves and husbands his sins to the best advantage, and makes one vice find employment for another; for what he acts loosely in private he talks as loosely of in public, and finds as much pleasure in the one as the other.  He endeavours to purchase himself a reputation by pretending to that which the best men abominate and the worst value not, like one that clips and washes false coin and ventures his neck for that which will yield him nothing.

A MODERN POLITICIAN

Makes new discoveries in politics, but they are, like those that Columbus made of the New World, very rich, but barbarous.  He endeavours to restore mankind to the original condition it fell from, by forgetting to discern between good and evil, and reduces all prudence back again to its first author, the serpent, that taught Adam wisdom; for he was really his tutor, and not Samboscor, as the Rabbins write.  He finds the world has been mistaken in all ages, and that religion and morality are but vulgar errors that pass among the ignorant, and are but mere words to the wise.  He despises all learning as a pedantic little thing, and believes books to be the business of children and not of men.  He wonders how the distinction of virtue and vice came into the world’s head, and believes them to be more ridiculous than any foppery of the schools.  He holds it his duty to betray any man that shall take him for so much a fool as one fit to be trusted.  He steadfastly believes that all men are born in the state of war, and that the civil life is but a cessation, and no peace nor accommodation; and though all open acts of hostility are forborne by consent, the enmity continues, and all advantages by treachery or breach of faith are very lawful; that there is no difference between virtue and fraud among friends as well as enemies, nor anything unjust that a man can do without damage to his own safety or interest; that oaths are but springes to catch woodcocks withal, and bind none but those that are too weak and feeble to break them when they become ever so small an impediment to their advantages; that conscience is the effect of ignorance, and the same with that foolish fear which some men apprehend when they are in the dark and alone; that honour is but the word which a prince gives a man to pass his guards