The time has got a vein of making him
ridiculous, and men laugh at him by tradition, and no unlucky absurdity
but is put upon his profession, and done like a scholar. But his fault
is only this, that his mind is [somewhat] too much taken up with his
mind, and his thoughts not loaden with any carriage besides. He has not
put on the quaint garb of the age, which is now a man's [_Imprimis and
all the Item_.[40]] He has not humbled his meditations to the industry
of compliment, nor afflicted his brain in an elaborate leg. His body is
not set upon nice pins, to be turning and flexible for every motion, but
his scrape is homely and his nod worse. He cannot kiss his hand and cry,
madam, nor talk idle enough to bear her company. His smacking of a
gentlewoman is somewhat too savoury, and he mistakes her nose for her
lips. A very woodcock would puzzle him in carving, and he wants the
logick of a capon. He has not the glib faculty of sliding over a tale,
but his words come squeamishly out of his mouth, and the laughter
commonly before the jest. He names this word college too often, and his
discourse beats too much on the university. The perplexity of
mannerliness will not let him feed, and he is sharp set at an argument
when he should cut his meat. He is discarded for a gamester at all games
but one and thirty[41], and at tables he reaches not beyond doublets.
His fingers are not long and drawn out to handle a fiddle, but his fist
clunched with the habit of disputing. He ascends a horse somewhat
sinisterly, though not on the left side, and they both go jogging in
grief together. He is exceedingly censured by the inns-of-court men, for
that heinous vice, being out of fashion. He cannot speak to a dog in his
own dialect, and understands Greek better than the language of a
falconer. He has been used to a dark room, and dark clothes, and his
eyes dazzle at a sattin suit. The hermitage of his study has made him
somewhat uncouth in the world, and men make him worse by staring on him.
Thus is he [silly and] ridiculous, and it continues with him for some
quarter of a year out of the university. But practise him a little in
men, and brush him over with good company, and he shall out-balance
those glisterers, as far as a solid substance does a feather, or gold,
gold-lace.

A PLAIN COUNTRY FELLOW

Is one that manures his ground well, but lets himself lie fallow and
untilled. He has reason enough to do his business, and not enough to be