l ever sit where he may be seen best, and
in the midst of the sermon pulls out his tables in haste, as if he
feared to lose that note; when he writes either his forgotten errand or
nothing. Then he turns his Bible with a noise to seek an omitted
quotation, and folds the leaf as if he had found it, and asks aloud the
name of the preacher, and repeats it, whom he publicly salutes, thanks,
praises, invites, entertains with tedious good counsel, with good
discourse, if it had come from an honester mouth. He can command tears
when he speaks of his youth, indeed because it is past, not because it
was sinful; himself is now better, but the times are worse. All other
sins he reckons up with detestation, while he loves and hides his
darling in his bosom. All his speech returns to himself, and every
occurrence draws in a story to his own praise. When he should give, he
looks about him and says, "Who sees me?" No alms, no prayers, fall from
him without a witness, belike lest God should deny that He hath received
them; and when he hath done (lest the world should not know it) his own
mouth is his trumpet to proclaim it. With the superfluity of his usury
he builds an hospital, and harbours them whom his extortion hath
spoiled; so while he makes many beggars he keeps some. He turneth all
gnats into camels, and cares not to undo the world for a circumstance.
Flesh on a Friday is more abomination to him than his neighbour's bed:
he more abhors not to uncover at the name of Jesus than to swear by the
name of God. When a rhymer reads his poem to him he begs a copy, and
persuades the press there is nothing that he dislikes in presence that
in absence he censures not. He comes to the sick-bed of his stepmother,
and weeps when he secretly fears her recovery. He greets his friend in
the street with so clear a countenance, so fast a closure, that the
other thinks he reads his heart in his face, and shakes hands with an
indefinite invitation of "When will you come?" and when his back is
turned, joys that he is so well rid of a guest; yet if that guest visit
him unfeared, he counterfeits a smiling welcome, and excuses his cheer,
when closely he frowns on his wife for too much. He shows well, and says
well, and himself is the worst thing he hath. In brief, he is the
stranger's saint, the neighbour's disease, the blot of goodness, a
rotten stick in a dark night, a poppy in a corn-field, an ill-tempered
candle with a great snuff that in going out sm