AN INNS OF COURT MAN.

He is distinguished from a scholar by a pair of silk stockings and a beaver hat, which makes him condemn a scholar as much as a scholar doth a schoolmaster.  By that he hath heard one mooting and seen two plays, he thinks as basely of the university as a young sophister doth of the grammar-school.  He talks of the university with that state as if he were her chancellor; finds fault with alterations and the fall of discipline with an “It was not so when I was a student,” although that was within this half year.  He will talk ends of Latin, though it be false, with as great confidence as ever Cicero could pronounce an oration, though his best authors for it be taverns and ordinaries.  He is as far behind a courtier in his fashion as a scholar is behind him, and the best grace in his behaviour is to forget his acquaintance.

He laughs at every man whose band fits not well, or that hath not a fair shoe-tie, and he is ashamed to be seen in any man’s company that wears not his clothes well.  His very essence he placeth in his outside, and his chiefest prayer is, that his revenues may hold out for taffety cloaks in the summer and velvet in the winter.  To his acquaintance he offers two quarts of wine for one he gives.  You shall never see him melancholy but when he wants a new suit or fears a sergeant, at which times he only betakes himself to Ploydon.  By that he hath read Littleton, he can call Solon, Lycurgus, and Justinian fools, and dares compare his law to a lord chief-justice’s.

A MERE FELLOW OF AN HOUSE.

He is one whose hopes commonly exceed his fortunes and whose mind soars above his purse.  If he hath read Tacitus Guicciardine or Gallo-Belgicus, he condemns the late Lord-Treasurer for all the state policy he had, and laughs to think what a fool he could make of Solomon if he were now alive.  He never wears new clothes but against a commencement or a good time, and is commonly a degree behind the fashion.  He hath sworn to see London once a year, though all his business be to see a play, walk a turn in Paul’s, and observe the fashion.  He thinks it a discredit to be out of debt, which he never likely clears without resignation money.  He will not leave his part he hath in the privilege over young gentlemen in going bare to him, for the empire of Germany.  He prays as heartily for a sealing as a cormorant doth for a dear year, yet commonly he spends that revenue before he receives it.

At meals he sits in as great state over his penny commons as ever Vitellius did at his greatest banquet, and takes great delight in comparing his fare to my Lord Mayor’s.

If he be a leader of a faction, he thinks himself greater than ever Caesar was or the Turk at this day is.  And he had rather lose an inheritance than an office when he stands for it.

If he be to travel, he is longer furnishing himself for a five miles’ journey than a ship is rigging for a seven years’ voyage.  He is never more troubled than when he has to maintain talk with a gentlewoman, wherein he commits more absurdities than a clown in eating of an egg.