e may presume of safe conveyance to his ears; and in presence so
whispereth his commendation to a common friend, that it may not be
unheard where he meant it. He hath salves for every sore, to hide them,
not to heal them; complexion for every face; sin hath not any more
artificial broker or more impudent bawd. There is no vice that hath not
from him his colour, his allurement; and his best service is either to
further guiltiness or smother it. If he grant evil things inexpedient or
crimes errors, he hath yielded much; either thy estate gives privilege
of liberty or thy youth; or if neither, what if it be ill? yet it is
pleasant. Honesty to him is nice singularity, repentance superstitious
melancholy, gravity dulness, and all virtue an innocent conceit of the
base-minded. In short, he is the moth of liberal men's coats, the earwig
of the mighty, the bane of courts, a friend and a slave to the trencher,
and good for nothing but to be a factor for the devil.

OF THE SLOTHFUL.

He is a religious man, and wears the time in his cloister, and, as the
cloak of his doing nothing, pleads contemplation; yet is he no whit the
leaner for his thoughts, no whit learneder. He takes no less care how to
spend time than others how to gain by the expense; and when business
importunes him, is more troubled to forethink what he must do, than
another to effect it. Summer is out of his favour for nothing but long
days that make no haste to their even. He loves still to have the sun
witness of his rising, and lies long, more for lothness to dress him
than will to sleep; and after some streaking and yawning, calls for
dinner unwashed, which having digested with a sleep in his chair, he
walks forth to the bench in the market-place, and looks for companions.
Whomsoever he meets he stays with idle questions, and lingering
discourse; how the days are lengthened, how kindly the weather is, how
false the clock, how forward the spring, and ends ever with, What shall
we do? It pleases him no less to hinder others than not to work himself.
When all the people are gone from church, he is left sleeping in his
seat alone. He enters bonds, and forfeits them by forgetting the day;
and asks his neighbour when his own field was fallowed, whether the next
piece of ground belong not to himself. His care is either none or too
late. When winter is come, after some sharp visitations, he looks on his
pile of wood, and asks how much was cropped the last spring. Ne