them she
gains much credit, but loseth it again in the old proverb, _Fama est
mendax_. If she live to be thrice married, she seldom fails to cozen her
second husband's creditors. A churchman she dare not venture upon, for
she hath heard widows complain of dilapidations; nor a soldier, though
he have candle-rents in the city, for his estate may be subject to fire;
very seldom a lawyer, without he shows his exceeding great practice, and
can make her case the better; but a knight with the old rent may do
much, for a great coming in is all in all with a widow, ever provided
that most part of her plate and jewels (before the wedding) be concealed
with her scrivener. Thus, like a too-ripe apple, she falls off herself;
but he that hath her is lord but of a filthy purchase, for the title is
cracked. Lastly, while she is a widow, observe her, she is no morning
woman; the evening, a good fire and sack may make her listen to a
husband, and if ever she be made sure, 'tis upon a full stomach
to bedward.

A QUACK-SALVER

Is a mountebank of a larger bill than a tailor: if he can but come by
names enough of diseases to stuff it with, 'tis all the skill he studies
for. He took his first beginning from a cunning woman, and stole this
black art from her, while he made her sea-coal fire. All the diseases
ever sin brought upon man doth he pretend to be a curer of, when the
truth is, his main cunning is corn-cutting. A great plague makes him,
what with railing against such as leave their cures for fear of
infection, and in friendly breaking cake-bread with the fishwives at
funerals. He utters a most abominable deal of carduus water, and the
conduits cry out, All the learned doctors may cast their caps at him. He
parts stakes witn some apothecary in the suburbs, at whose house he
lies; and though he be never so familiar with his wife, the apothecary
dares not (for the richest horn in his shop) displease him. All the
midwives in the town are his intelligencers; but nurses and young
merchants' wives that would fain conceive with child, these are his
idolaters. He is a more unjust bone-setter than a dice-maker. He hath
put out more eyes than the small-pox; more deaf than the cataracts of
Nilus; lamed more than the gout; shrunk more sinews than one that makes
bowstrings, and killed more idly than tobacco. A magistrate that had
any-way so noble a spirit as but to love a good horse well, would not
suffer him to be a farrier. His discourse is