and if he spy his prey, out he leaps like a freebooter, and rifles, or like a ban-dog worries.  No officer to the city keeps his oath so uprightly; he never is forsworn, for he swears to be true varlet to the city, and he continues so to his dying day.  Mace, which is so comfortable to the stomach in all kind of meats, turns in his hand to mortal poison.  This raven pecks not out men’s eyes as others do; all his spite is at their shoulders, and you were better to have the nightmare ride you than this incubus.  When any of the furies of hell die, this Cacodeemon hath the reversion of his place.  The city is (by the custom) to feed him with good meat, as they send dead horses to their hounds, only to keep them both in good heart, for not only those curs at the doghouse, but these within the walls, are to serve in their paces in their several huntings.  He is a citizen’s birdlime, and where he holds he hangs.

HIS YEOMAN

Is the hanger that a sergeant wears by his side; it is a false die of the same ball but not the same cut, for it runs somewhat higher and does more mischief.  It is a tumbler to drive in the conies.  He is yet but a bungler, and knows not how to cut up a man without tearing, but by a pattern.  One term fleshes him, or a Fleet Street breakfast.  The devil is but his father-in-law, and yet for the love he bears him will leave him as much as if he were his own child.  And for that cause (instead of prayers) he does every morning at the Counter-gate ask him blessing, and thrives the better in his actions all the day after.  This is the hook that hangs under water to choke the fish, and his sergeant is the quill above water, which pops down so soon as ever the bait is swallowed.  It is indeed an otter, and the more terrible destroyer of the two.  This counter-rat hath a tail as long as his fellows, but his teeth are more sharp and he more hungry, because he does but snap, and hath not his full half-share of the booty.  The eye of this wolf is as quick in his head as a cutpurse’s in a throng, and as nimble is he at his business as an hangman at an execution.  His office is as the dogs do worry the sheep first, or drive him to the shambles; the butcher that cuts his throat steps out afterwards, and that’s his sergeant.  His living lies within the city, but his conscience lies bed-rid in one of the holes of a counter.  This eel is bred too out of the mud of a bankrupt, and dies commonly with his guts ripped up, or else a sudden stab sends him of his last errand.  He will very greedily take a cut with a sword, and suck more silver out of the wound than his surgeon shall.  His beginning is detestable, his courses desperate, and his end damnable.

A COMMON CRUEL JAILOR