wit of those Greek Ethical Characters.  La Bruyere was born in 1639 and died in 1696.  Our Joseph Hall, whose “Characters of Vices and Virtues” were written in 1608, and translated into French twenty years before La Bruyere was born, said, in his Preface to them, “I have done as I could, following that ancient Master of Morality who thought this the fittest task for the ninety-ninth year of his age, and the profitablest Monument that he could leave for a farewell to his Grecians.”

There was some aim at short and witty sketches of character in descriptions of the ingenuity of horse-coursers and coney-catchers who used quick wit for beguiling the unwary in those bright days of Elizabeth, when the very tailors and cooks worked fantasies in silk and velvet, sugar and paste.  Thomas Harman, whose grandfather had been Clerk of the Crown under Henry vii., and who himself inherited estates in Kent, became greatly interested in the vagrant beggars who came to his door.  He made a study of them, came to London to publish his book, and lodged at Whitefriars, within the Cloister, for convenience of nearness to them, and more thorough knowledge of their ways.  He first published his book in 1567 as A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursitors, vulgarly called Vagabonds—­“A Caveat or Warening for common cursetors, Vulgarely called Vagabones, set forth by Thomas Harman, Esquiere, for the utilite and proffyt of his naturall Cuntrey” and he dedicated it to Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury.  It contained twenty-four character sketches, gave the names of the chief tramps then living in England, and a vocabulary of their cant words.  This is Harman’s first character_:—­

A RUFFLER.

The Ruffler, because he is first in degree of this odious order, and is so called in a statute made for the punishment of Vagabonds in the twenty-seventh year of King Henry viii, late of most famous memory, he shall be first placed as the worthiest of this unruly rabblement.  And he is so called when he goeth first abroad.  Either he hath served in the wars, or else he hath been a serving-man, and weary of well-doing, shaking off all pain, doth choose him this idle life; and wretchedly wanders about the most shires of this realm, and with stout audacity demandeth, where he thinketh he may be bold, and circumspect enough where he seeth cause, to ask charity ruefully and lamentably, that it would make a flinty heart to relent and pity his miserable estate, how he hath been maimed and bruised in the wars.  Peradventure one will show you some outward wound which he got at some drunken fray, either halting of some privy wound festered with a filthy fiery flankard [brand].  For be well assured that the hardiest soldiers be either slain or maimed, either and [or if] they escape all hazards and return home again, if they be without relief of their friends they will surely desperately rob and steal, and either shortly be hanged or miserably die