1809.] 
bumbast. which .men onely, till they_ 
viiderstand, are scar’d with. A verse, or 
some such worke, he may sometimes get 
up to, but seldome above the stature of 
an Epigram, and that with some reliefe 
out of Martial, which is the ordifary 
companion of his pocket, and he reades 
him as he were inspired. Such men are 
commonly the trifling things of the 
world, good to make merry the compaiie, 
and whem only men have to doe withall, 
when they have nothing to doe, and none 
are lesse their friends; then who are 
most their companie. Here they vent 
themselves o’re a cup somewhat more 
Jastingly, all their words goe for jests, and 
all their jests for nothing. They are 
nimble in the fancy of some ridiculous 
thing, and reasonable goad in the expres- 
sion. Nothing stops a jest when its 
comming, neither friends, nor danger, 
but it must out. howsoever, though their 
bloud come out after, and then they em- 
phatically raile, and are emphatically 
beaten, and commonly are men reason- 
able familiar to this. Briefly, they are 
such whose life is but to laugh, and be 
laught at: and onely wits in jest, and 
fooles in earnest.” 
An Antiquary. 
“ Hee is a man strangely. thriftie of 
time past, and an enemie indeed to his 
maw, whence hee fetches’ out many 
things when they are now all rotten and 
stinking. Hee is one that hath that un- 
naturall disease, to bee enamour’d of old 
age and wrinkles, and loves all things, 
- (as Dutchmen doe cheese, ) the better for 
being mouldy and worme-eaten. Hee is 
of our religion, because wee say it is 
most ancient;. and yet a broken statue 
would almost make him an idolater. A 
great admirer hee is of the rust of old 
monuments, and reades only those cha- 
racters, where time hath eaten out the 
letters.. Hee will goe you forty miles to 
see a saints well, or ruin’d abbey: and 
if there be but acrosse or stone footstoole 
in the way, heel be considering it so 
Jong, till he fotget his journey. His 
estate consists much in shekels, and 
Roman coynes, and hee hath more pic- 
tures of Cesar then James or Elizabeth: 
beggers cozen him with musty things,. 
which they have rakt from dunghuls, and 
he preserves their rags for precious re- 
liques. He loves no library, but where 
there are more spiders volumes then 
authors, and looks.with great admiration 
on the antique work of cobwebs. 
Printed books he contemnes as a no- 
velty of this latter age; but.a manuscript 
An Antiquary—A Good Old Man. . 
283 
hee pores on everlastingly, especially if 
the caver be ali moth-eaten, and the dust 
make a parenthesis betweene every syle 
lable. He would give all the books in © 
his study (which are rarities ali,) for one 
of the old Romane binding, or sixe lines 
of Tuliy in his owne hand. His chamber 
is hung commonly with strange beasts 
skins, and is a kind of charnel-house of 
bones extraordinary, and his discourse 
upon them, if you will heare him, shall 
last longer. ~His very attyre is that which 
is the eldest out of fashion, and you may 
picke a criticisme. out of his breeches, 
He never lookes upon himself ull he is 
gray haird, and then he is pleased with 
his owne antiquitie. His grave does not 
fright him, for he has been us’d to sepul- — 
chres, and hee likes death the better, bes 
cause it gathers him to his fathers.” 
‘A Good Old Man, 
‘‘ Ts the best antiquitie, and which we 
may with least vanitie admire. One, 
whom time hath been thus long a worke 
ing, and like winter-fruit ripened, when 
others are shaken downe. He hath taken 
out as many lessons of the world, ‘as 
dayes, and learn’t the best thing in it, the 
vanitie of it. He lookes ore his former 
life, as a danger well past, and would not 
hazard himselfe to begin againe. His 
lust was long broken before his bodie, yet - 
he is glad this temptation is broke too, 
and that he is fortified from it by this 
weakness. The next door of death sads 
him not, but he expects it calmly as bis 
turne in nature: and feares more his re-= 
coyling Lack to childishness than dust, 
All men look on him as a common father, 
and on oldage, for his sake, asa reverent 
thing. His very presence, and face, puts 
vice. out of countenance, and makes it an 
indecorum in a vicious man. He prace 
tises his experience on youth, without 
the harshness of reproofe, and in hig 
counsell is good companie. He has some 
old stories still of his owne seeing to con= 
firm what he sayes, and makes them bere 
ter in the telling: yet is not troublesome 
neither with the same tale again, but ree 
members with them, how oft he has told 
them. His old sayings and moralls seem 
proper to his beard: and the poetrie of 
Cato does well out of his mouth, and le 
speaks it as if he were the author. He 
is not apt to put the boy on a younger 
man, nor the foole on a boy, but can dis- 
tinguish gravity from a sowre looke, and 
the lesse testie he is, the more regarded, 
You must pardon him, if he hike his own 
times better then these, because those 
things are follies to him nowy, that wese 
wisdon 
