Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century Part 6

AN EXCELLENT ACTOR.

Whatsoever is commendable to the grave orator is most exquisitely perfect in him, for by a full and significant action of body he charms our attention. Sit in a full theatre and you will think you see so many lines drawn from the circ.u.mference of so many ears, while the actor is the centre. He doth not strive to make nature monstrous; she is often seen in the same scene with him, but neither on stilts nor crutches; and for his voice, 'tis not lower than the prompter, nor louder than the foil or target. By his action he fortifies moral precepts with examples, for what we see him personate we think truly done before us: a man of a deep thought might apprehend the ghost of our ancient heroes walked again, and take him at several times for many of them. He is much affected to painting, and 'tis a question whether that make him an excellent player, or his playing an exquisite painter. He adds grace to the poet's labours, for what in the poet is but ditty, in him is both ditty and music. He entertains us in the best leisure of our life--that is, between meals; the most unfit time for study or bodily exercise. The flight of hawks and chase of wild beasts, either of them are delights n.o.ble; but some think this sport of men the worthier, despite all calumny. All men have been of his occupation; and indeed, what he doth feignedly, that do others essentially. This day one plays a monarch, the next a private person; here one acts a tyrant, on the morrow an exile; a parasite this man tonight, tomorrow a precisian; and so of divers others. I observe, of all men living, a worthy actor in one kind is the strongest motive of affection that can be; for, when he dies, we cannot be persuaded any man can do his parts like him. But, to conclude, I value a worthy actor by the corruption of some few of the quality as I would do gold in the ore--I should not mind the dross, but the purity of the metal.

A FRANKLIN.

His outside is an ancient yeoman of England, though his inside may give arms with the best gentleman and never see the herald. There is no truer servant in the house than himself. Though he be master, he says not to his servants, "Go to field," but "Let us go;" and with his own eye doth both fatten his flock and set forward all manner of husbandry. He is taught by nature to be contented with a little; his own fold yields him both food and raiment; he is pleased with any nourishment G.o.d sends, whilst curious gluttony ransacks, as it were, Noah's ark for food only to feed the riot of one meal. He is never known to go to law; understanding, to be law-bound among men is to be hide-bound among his beasts; they thrive not under it, and that such men sleep as unquietly as if their pillows were stuffed with lawyers' penknives. When he builds no poor tenant's cottage hinders his prospect: they are indeed his almshouses, though there be painted on them no such superscription. He never sits up late but when he hunts the badger, the vowed foe of his lambs; nor uses he any cruelty but when he hunts the hare; nor subtilty but when he setteth snares for the snipe or pitfalls for the blackbird; nor oppression but when, in the month of July, he goes to the next river and shears his sheep. He allows of honest pastime, and thinks not the bones of the dead anything bruised or the worse for it though the country la.s.ses dance in the churchyard after evensong. Rock Monday and the wake in summer, Shrovings, the wakeful catches on Christmas Eve, the hockey or seed-cake, these he yearly keeps, yet holds them no relics of popery. He is not so inquisitive after news derived from the privy closet, when the finding an eyry of hawks in his own ground, or the foaling of a colt come of a good strain, are tidings more pleasant, more profitable. He is lord paramount within himself, though he hold by never so mean a tenure, and dies the more contentedly, though he leave his heir young, in regard he leaves him not liable to a covetous garden.

Lastly, to end him, he cares not when his end comes; he needs not fear his audit, for his quietus is in heaven.

A RHYMER

Is a fellow whose face is hatched all over with impudence, and should he be hanged or pilloried, 'tis armed for it. He is a juggler with words, yet practises the art of most uncleanly conveyance. He doth boggle very often, and because himself winks at it, thinks 'tis not perceived. The main thing that ever he did was the tune he sang to. There is nothing in the earth so pitiful--no, not an ape-carrier; he is not worth thinking of, and, therefore, I must leave him as nature left him--a dunghill not well laid together.

A COVETOUS MAN.

This man would love, honour, and adore G.o.d if there were an _I_ more in his name. He hath coffined up his soul in his chests before his body: he could wish he were in Midas his taking for hunger, on condition he had his chemical quality. At the grant of a new subsidy he would gladly hang himself, were it not for the charge of buying a rope, and begins to take money upon use when he hears of a privy seal. His morning prayer is to overlook his bags, whose every parcel begets his adoration. Then to his studies, which are how to cozen this tenant, beggar that widow, or to undo some orphan. Then his bonds are viewed, the well-known days of payment conned by heart; and if he ever pray, it is some one may break his day that the beloved forfeiture may be obtained. His use is doubled, and no one sixpence begot or born but presently, by an untimely thrift, it is getting more. His chimney must not be acquainted with fire for fear of mischance; but if extremity of cold pinch him, he gets him heat with looking on, and sometime removing his aged wood-pile, which he means to leave to many descents, till it hath outlived all the woods of that country. He never spends candle but at Christmas (when he has them for New Year's gifts), in hope that his servants will break gla.s.ses for want of light, which they double pay for in their wages. His actions are guilty of more crimes than any other men's, thoughts; and he conceives no sin which he dare not act save only l.u.s.t, from which he abstains for fear he should be charged with keeping b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Once a year he feasts, the relics of which meal shall serve him the next quarter. In his talk he rails against eating of breakfasts, drinking betwixt meals, and swears he is impoverished with paying of t.i.thes. He had rather have the frame of the fall than the price of corn. If he chance to travel he curses his fortune that his place binds him to ride, and his faithful cloak-bag is sure to take care for his provision. His nights are as troublesome as his days; every rat awakes him out of his unquiet sleeps.

If he have a daughter to marry, he wishes he were in Hungary, or might follow the custom of that country, that all her portion might be a wedding-gown. If he fall sick, he had rather die a thousand deaths than pay for any physic; and if he might have his choice, he would not go to heaven but on condition he may put money to use there. In fine, he lives a drudge, dies a wretch that leaves a heap of pelf, which so many careful hands had sc.r.a.ped together, to haste after him to h.e.l.l, and by the way it lodges in a lawyer's purse.

THE PROUD MAN

Is one in whom pride is a quality that condemns every one besides his master, who, when he wears new clothes, thinks himself wronged if they be not observed, imitated, and his discretion in the choice of his fashion and stuff applauded. When he vouchsafes to bless the air with his presence, he goes as near the wall as his satin suit will give him leave, and every pa.s.senger he views under the eyebrows, to observe whether he vails his bonnet low enough, which he returns with an imperious nod. He never salutes first, but his farewell is perpetual. In his attire he is effeminate; every hair knows his own station, which if it chance to lose it is checked in again with his pocket-comb. He had rather have the whole commonwealth out of order than the least member of his muchato, and chooses rather to lose his patrimony than to have his band ruffled. At a feast, if he be not placed in the highest seat, he eats nothing howsoever; he drinks to no man, talks with no man for fear of familiarity. He professeth to keep his stomach for the pheasant or the quail, and when they come he can eat little; he hath been so cloyed with them that year, although they be the first he saw. In his discourse he talks of none but privy councillors, and is as p.r.o.ne to belie their acquaintance as he is a lady's favours. If he have but twelve pence in his purse, he will give it for the best room in a playhouse. He goes to sermons only to show his gay clothes, and if on other inferior days he chance to meet his friend, he is sorry he sees him not in his best suit.

A PRISON.

It should be Christ's Hospital, for most of your wealthy citizens are good benefactors to it; and yet it can hardly be so, because so few in it are kept upon alms. Charity's house and this are built many miles asunder. One thing notwithstanding is here praiseworthy, for men in this persecution cannot choose but prove good Christians, in that they are a kind of martyrs, and suffer for the truth. And yet it is so cursed a piece of land that the son is ashamed to be his father's heir in it. It is an infected pest-house all the year long; the plague-sores of the law are the diseases here hotly reigning. The surgeons are atomies and pettifoggers, who kill more than they cure. Lord have mercy upon us, may well stand over these doors, for debt is a most dangerous and catching city pestilence. Some take this place for the walks in Moorfields (by reason the madmen are so near), but the crosses here and there are not alike. No, it is not half so sweet an air. For it is the dunghill of the law, upon which are thrown the ruins of gentry, and the nasty heaps of voluntary decayed bankrupts, by which means it comes to be a perfect medal of the iron age, since nothing but jingling of keys, rattling of shackles, bolts, and grates are here to be heard. It is the horse of Troy, in whose womb are shut up all the mad Greeks that were men of action. The _nullum vacuum_ (unless in prisoners' bellies) is here truly to be proved. One excellent effect is wrought by the place itself, for the arrantest coward breathing, being posted hither, comes in three days to an admirable stomach. Does any man desire to learn music; every man here sings "Lachrymse" at first sight, and is hardly out. He runs division upon every note, and yet (to their commendations be it spoken) none of them for all that division do trouble the Church. They are no Anabaptists; if you ask under what horizon this climate lies, the Bermudas and it are both under one and the same height. And whereas some suppose that this island like that is haunted with devils, it is not so.

For those devils so talked of and feared are none else but hoggish jailors. Hither you need not sail, for it is a ship of itself; the master's side is the upper deck. They in the common jail lie under hatches, and help to ballast it. Intricate cases are the tacklings, executions the anchors, capiases the cables, chancery bills the huge sails, a long term the mast, law the helm, a judge the pilot, a counsel the purser, an attorney the boatswain, his Setting clerk the swabber, bonds the waves, outlawries gust, the verdict of juries rough wind, extents the knocks that split all in pieces. Or if it be not a ship, yet this and a ship differ not much in the building; the one is moving misery, the other a standing. The first is seated on a spring, the second on piles. Either this place is an emblem of a bawdy house, or a bawdy house of it; for nothing is to be seen in any room but scurvy beds and bare walls. But (not so much to dishonour it) it is an university of poor scholars, in which three arts are chiefly studied: to pray, to curse, and to write letters.

A PRISONER

Is one that hath been a monied man, and is still a very close fellow; whosoever is of his acquaintance, let them make much of him, for they shall find him as fast a friend as any in England: he is a sure man, and you know where to find him. The corruption of a bankrupt is commonly the generation of this creature. He dwells on the back side of the world, or in the suburbs of society, and lives in a tenement which he is sure none will go about to take over his head. To a man that walks abroad, he is one of the antipodes, that goes on the top of the world, and this under it. At his first coming in, he is a piece of new coin, all sharking old prisoners lie sucking at his purse. An old man and he are much alike, neither of them both go far. They are still angry and peevish, and they sleep little. He was born at the fall of Babel, the confusion of languages is only in his mouth. All the vacations he speaks as good English as any man in England, but in term times he breaks out of that hopping one-legged pace into a racking trot of issues, bills, replications, rejoinders, demures, querelles, subpoenas, &c., able to fright a simple country fellow, and make him believe he conjures.

Whatsoever his complexion was before, it turns in this place to choler or deep melancholy, so that he needs every hour to take physic to loose his body; for that, like his estate, is very foul and corrupt, and extremely hard bound. The taking of an execution off his stomach give him five or six stools, and leaves his body very soluble. The withdrawing of an action is a vomit. He is no sound man, and yet an utter barrister, nay, a sergeant of the case, will feed heartily upon him; he is very good picking meat for a lawyer. The barber-surgeons may, if they will, beg him for an anatomy after he hath suffered an execution. An excellent lecture may be made upon his body; for he is a kind of dead carcase--creditors, lawyers, and jailors devour it: creditors peck out his eyes with his own tears; lawyers flay off his own skin, and lap him in parchment; and jailors are the Promethean vultures that gnaw his very heart. He is a bond-slave to the law, and, albeit he were a shopkeeper in London, yet he cannot with safe conscience write himself a freeman. His religion is of five or six colours: this day he prays that G.o.d would turn the hearts of his creditors, and to-morrow he curseth the time that ever he saw them. His apparel is daubed commonly with statute lace, the suit itself of durance, and the hose full of long pains. He hath many other lasting suits which he himself is never able to wear out, for they wear out him. The zodiac of his life is like that of the sun, marry not half so glorious. It begins in Aries and ends in Pisces. Both head and feet are, all the year long, in troublesome and laborious motions, and Westminster Hall is his sphere. He lives between the two tropics Cancer and Capricorn, and by that means is in double danger of crabbed creditors for his purse, and horns for his head, if his wife's heels be light. If he be a gentleman, he alters his arms so soon as he comes in. Few here carry fields or argent, but whatsoever they bear before, here they give only sables. Whiles he lies by it, he is travelling over the Alps, and the hearts of his creditors are the snows that lie unmelted in the middle of summer. He is an almanac out of date; none of his days speak of fair weather. Of all the files of men, he marcheth in the last, and comes limping, for he is shot, and is no man of this world. He hath lost his way, and being benighted, strayed into a wood full of wolves, and nothing so hard as to get away without being devoured. He that walks from six to six in Paul's goes still but a quoit's cast before this man.

A CREDITOR

Is a fellow that torments men for their good conditions. He is one of Deucalion's sons, begotten of a stone. The marble images in the Temple Church that lie cross-legged do much resemble him, saving that this is a little more cross. He wears a forfeited bond under that part of his girdle where his thumb sticks, with as much pride as a Welshman does a leek on St. David's Day, and quarrels more and longer about it. He is a catchpole's morning's draught, for the news that such a gallant has come yesternight to town, draws out of him both muscadel and money too. He says the Lord's Prayer backwards, or, to speak better of him, he hath a Paternoster by himself, and that particle, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive others, &c., he either quite leaves out, or else leaps over it.

It is a dangerous rub in the alley of his conscience. He is the bloodhound of the law, and hunts counter, very swiftly and with great judgment. He hath a quick scent to smell out his game, and a good deep mouth to pursue it, yet never opens till he bites, and bites not till he kills, or at least draws blood, and then he pincheth most doggedly. He is a lawyer's mule, and the only beast upon which he ambles so often to Westminster. And a lawyer is his G.o.d Almighty, in him only he trusts. To him he flies in all his troubles; from him he seeks succour. To him he prays, that he may by his means overcome his enemies. Him does he worship both in the temple and abroad, and hopes by him and good angels to prosper in all his actions. A scrivener is his farrier, and helps to recover all his diseased and maimed obligations. Every term he sets up a tenters in Westminster Hall, upon which he racks and stretches gentlemen like English broadcloth, beyond the staple of the wool, till the threads crack, and that causeth them with the least wet to shrink, and presently to wear bars. Marry, he handles a citizen (at least if himself be one) like a piece of Spanish cloth, gives him only a twitch, and strains him not too hard, knowing how apt he is to break of himself, and then he can cut nothing out of him but threads. To the one he comes like Tamburlain, with his black and b.l.o.o.d.y flag; but to the other his white one hangs out, and, upon the parley, rather than fail, he takes ten groats in the pound for his ransom, and so lets him march away with bag and baggage.

From the beginning of Hilary to the end of Michaelmas his purse is full of quicksilver, and that sets him running from sunrise to sunset up Fleet Street, and so to the Chancery, from thence to Westminster, then back to one court, after that to another. Then to an attorney, then to a councillor, and in every of these places he melts some of his fat (his money). In the vacation he goes to gra.s.s, and gets up his flesh again, which he baits as you heard. If he were to be hanged unless he could be saved by his book, he cannot for his heart call for a psalm of mercy. He is a law-trap baited with parchment and wax. The fearful mice he catches are debtors, with whom scratching attorneys, like cats, play a good while, and then mouse them. The bally is an insatiable creditor, but man worse.

A SERGEANT

Was once taken, when he bare office in his parish, for an honest man.

The sp.a.w.n of a decayed shopkeeper begets this fry; out of that dunghill is this serpent's egg hatched. It is a devil made sometime out of one of the twelve companies, and does but study the part and rehea.r.s.e it on earth, to be perfect when he comes to act it in h.e.l.l; that is his stage.

The hangman and he are twins; only the hangman is the elder brother, and he dying without issue, as commonly he does, for none but a ropemaker's widow will marry him, this then inherits. His habit is a long gown, made at first to cover his knavery, but that growing too monstrous, he now goes in buff; his conscience and that being both cut out of one hide, and are of one toughness. The Counter-gate is his kennel, the whole city his Paris gardens; the misery of a poor man, but especially a bad liver, is the offals on which he feeds. The devil calls him his white son; he is so like him that he is the worse for it, and he takes after his father, for the one torments bodies as fast as the other tortures souls.

Money is the crust he leaps at; cry, "a duck! a duck!" and he plunges not so eagerly as at this. The dog's chaps water to fetch nothing else; he hath his name for the same quality. For sergeant is _quasi See argent_, look you, rogue, here is money. He goes m.u.f.fled like a thief, and carries still the marks of one; for he steals upon man cowardly, plucks him by the throat, makes him stand, and fleeces him. In this they differ, the thief is more valiant and more honest. His walks in term times are up Fleet Street, at the end of the term up Holborn, and so to Tyburn; the gallows are his purlieus, in which the hangman and he are quarter rangers--the one turns off, and the other cuts down. All the vacation he lies imbogued behind the lattice of some blind drunken, bawdy ale-house, 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 h.e.l.l 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 d.a.m.nable.

A COMMON CRUEL JAILOR

Is a creature mistaken in the making, for he should be a tiger; but the shape being thought too terrible, it is covered, and he wears the vizor of a man, yet retains the qualities of his former fierceness, currishness, and ravening. Of that red earth of which man was fashioned this piece was the basest, of the rubbish which was left and thrown by came this jailor; his descent is then more ancient, but more ign.o.ble, for he comes of the race of those angels that fell with Lucifer from heaven, whither he never (or very hardly) returns. Of all his bunches of keys not one hath wards to open that door, for this jailor's soul stands not upon those two pillars that support heaven (justice and mercy), it rather sits upon those two footstools of h.e.l.l, wrong and cruelty. He is a judge's slave, and a prisoner's his. In this they differ; he is a voluntary one, the other compelled. He is the hangman of the law with a lame hand, and if the law gave him all his limbs perfect he would strike those on whom he is glad to fawn. In fighting against a debtor he is a creditor's second, but observes not the laws of the _duello_; his play is foul, and on all base advantages. His conscience and his shackles hang up together, and are made very near of the same metal, saving that the one is harder than the other and hath one property above iron, for that never melts. He distils money out of the poor men's tears, and grows fat by their curses. No man coming to the practical part of h.e.l.l can discharge it better, because here he does nothing but study the theory of it. His house is the picture of h.e.l.l in little, and the original of the letters patent of his office stands exemplified there. A chamber of lousy beds is better worth to him than the best acre of corn-land in England. Two things are hard to him (nay, almost impossible), viz., to save all his prisoners that none ever escape, and to be saved himself. His ears are stopped to the cries of others, and G.o.d's to his; and good reason, for lay the life of a man in one scale and his fees on the other, he will lose the first to find the second. He must look for no mercy if he desires justice to be done to him, for he shows none; and I think he cares the less, because he knows heaven hath no need of such tenants--the doors there want no porters, for they stand ever open. If it were possible for all creatures in the world to sleep every night, he only and a tyrant cannot. That blessing is taken from them, and this curse comes in the stead, to be ever in fear and ever hated: what estate can be worse?

WHAT A CHARACTER IS.

If I must speak the schoolmaster's language, I will confess that character comes of this infinitive mood, [Greek: chara.s.sen], which signifies to engrave, or make a deep impression. And for that cause a letter (as A, B) is called a character: those elements which we learn first, leaving a strong seal in our memories.

Character is also taken for an Egyptian hieroglyphic, for an impress or short emblem; in little comprehending much.

To square out a character by our English level, it is a picture (real or personal) quaintly drawn in various colours, all of them heightened by one shadowing.

It is a quick and soft touch of many strings, all shutting up in one musical close; it is wit's descant on any plain song.

THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE.

BY SIR H. W.[1]

How happy is he born or taught That serveth not another's will; Whose armour is his honest thought, And silly truth his highest skill!

Whose pa.s.sions not his masters are, Whose soul is still prepared for death; Untied unto the world with care Of princely love or vulgar breath.

Who hath his life from rumours freed, Whose conscience is his strong retreat; Whose state can neither flatterers feed, Nor ruin make accusers great.

Who envieth none whom chance doth raise Or vice, who never understood How deepest wounds are given with praise; Not rules of State, but rules of good.