Character Writings of the 17th Century eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 591 pages of information about Character Writings of the 17th Century.

Character Writings of the 17th Century eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 591 pages of information about Character Writings of the 17th Century.

He is also physic in being as commodious for use as he is odious in taste, if the body of the company into which he is taken can make true use of him.  For the malice of his nature makes him so informer-like-dangerous, in taking advantage of anything done or said, yea, even to the ruin of his makers, if he may have benefit, that such a creature in a society makes men as careful of their speeches and actions as the sight of a known cut-purse in a throng makes them watchful over their purses and pockets.  He is also in this respect profitable physic, that his conversation being once truly tasted and discovered, the hateful foulness of it will make those that are not fully like him to purge all such diseases as are rank in him out of their own lives, as the sight of some citizens on horseback make a judicious man amend his own faults in horsemanship.  If one of these uses can be made of him, let him not long offend the stomach of your company; your best way is to spue him out.  That he is a disease in the body where he liveth were as strange a thing to doubt as whether there be knavery in horse-coursers.  For if among sheep, the rot; amongst dogs, the mange; amongst horses, the glanders; amongst men and women, the Northern itch and the French ache, be diseases, an hypocrite cannot but be the like in all States and societies that breed him.  If he be a clergy hypocrite, then all manner of vice is for the most part so proper to him as he will grudge any man the practice of it but himself; like that grave burgess, who being desired to lend his clothes to represent a part in a comedy, answered:  No, by his leave, he would have nobody play the fool in his clothes but himself.  Hence are his so austere reprehensions of drinking healths, lascivious talk, usury, and unconscionable dealing; whenas himself, hating the profane mixture of malt and water, will, by his good will, let nothing come within him but the purity of the grape, when he can get it of another’s cost.  But this must not be done neither without a preface of seeming soothness, turning up the eyes, moving the head, laying hand on the breast, and protesting that he would not do it but to strengthen his body, being even consumed with dissembled zeal, and tedious and thankless babbling to God and his auditors.  And for the other vices, do but venture the making yourself private with him or trusting of him, and if you come off without a savour of the air which his soul is infected with you have great fortune.  The fardel of all this ware that is in him you shall commonly see carried upon the back of these two beasts that live within him, Ignorance and Imperiousness, and they may well serve to carry other vices, for of themselves they are insupportable.  His Ignorance acquits him of all science, human or divine, and of all language but his mother’s; holding nothing pure, holy, or sincere but the senseless recollections of his own crazed brain, the zealous fumes of his inflamed spirit, and the endless labours of his eternal tongue, the

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Character Writings of the 17th Century from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.