beast, and a monster of a man.

A COWARD.

A coward is the child of fear. He was begotten in cold blood, when
Nature had much ado to make up a creature like a man. His life is a kind
of sickness, which breeds a kind of palsy in the joints, and his death
the terror of his conscience, with the extreme weakness of his faith. He
loves peace as his life, for he fears a sword in his soul. If he cut his
finger he looketh presently for the sign, and if his head ache he is
ready to make his will. A report of a cannon strikes him flat on his
face, and a clap of thunder makes him a strange metamorphosis. Rather
than he will fight he will be beaten, and if his legs will help him he
will put his arms to no trouble. He makes love commonly with his purse,
and brags most of his maidenhead. He will not marry but into a quiet
family, and not too fair a wife, to avoid quarrels. If his wife frown
upon him he sighs, and if she give him an unkind word he weeps. He loves
not the horns of a bull nor the paws of a bear, and if a dog bark he
will not come near the house. If he be rich he is afraid of thieves, and
if he be poor he will be slave to a beggar. In sum, he is the shame of
manhood, the disgrace of nature, the scorn of reason, and the hate
of honour.

AN HONEST POOR MAN.

An honest poor man is the proof of misery, where patience is put to the
trial of her strength to endure grief without passion, in starving with
concealed necessity, or standing in the adventures of charity. If he be
married, want rings in his ears and woe watereth his eyes. If single, he
droppeth with the shame of beggary, or dies with the passion of penury.
Of the rich he is shunned like infection, and of the poor learns but a
heart-breaking profession. His bed is the earth and the heaven is his
canopy, the sun is his summer's comfort and the moon is his winter
candle. His sighs are the notes of his music, and his song is like the
swan before her death. His study, his patience; and his exercise,
prayer: his diet the herbs of the earth, and his drink the water of the
river. His travel is the walk of the woful and his horse Bayard of ten
toes: his apparel but the clothing of nakedness, and his wealth but the
hope of heaven. He is a stranger in the world, for no man craves his
acquaintance; and his funeral is without ceremony, when there is no
mourning for the miss of him: yet may he be in the state of election and
in the life of love, and more rich in grace