bulus+
and the two Cooks are discoursing about this Miser.

_+Strobulus+ and +Congrio+._

_Stro._ A Pumice-stone is not half so dry as that old Huncks.

_Con._ Say ye so, introth?

_Stro._ Take this from me. If the least Smoke shou'd chance to
fly out of his House, he strait allarms the Town, exclaims
against Heaven and Earth, that he's undone, and ruin'd for
ever!---- I'll tell ye: whene're he goes to Bed he tyes a
Bladder at his Nose.

_Con._ What for?

_Stro._ For fear of losing part of his Soul when he's asleep.

_Con._ And doesn't he plug up his lower Bung-hole too, lest any
shou'd steal out that way?

_Stro._ 'Tis civil to believe me, since I do you.

_Con._ Why, truly, I do believe ye.

_Stro._ Did you never hear, how it goes to the Soul of him to
pour out the Water he has once wash'd his hands in?

_Con._ Do'st think, Boy, we shall be able to squeeze out a
swinging sum of Money of this old Gripes, to purchase our
Freedom with?

_Stro._ Troth, shou'd ye beg Hunger it self of him, the Wretch
wou'd deny ye. Nay more; whenever he gets his Nails to be cut,
he carefully scrapes up all the Parings, and saves 'em.

_Con._ Why, faith, this is the most miserable Cur upon the face
of the Earth.---- But is he really such a pinching Wretch as you
say?

_Stro._ Why t'other day a Kite chanc'd to steal a bit of
something from him; this poor Devil goes strait to my _Lord
Chief Justice_'s, crying, roaring, and houling for his Warrant
to apprehend it.---- O, I cou'd tell ye a thousand of these
Stories, if I had leisure.

This is stretching of a +Character+ a degree above Nature and
Probability; yet these sort, at first sight, will glare and dazle a
common Audience, and sometimes give a superficial Pleasure to a more
judicious one; but are carefully to be avoided by any correct
Writer.

His +Miles Gloriosus+, or +Braggadocio+, is as remarkable a
+Character+ as this, and there you may see another too in the same
place, one who wheadles as much as the other boasts, and plays the
Knave as much as the other does the Fool. For the Reader's
Satisfaction, here follows a Translation of the first Act of the
+Miles Gloriosus+, which begins between that Blockhead and his
Buffoon.

_+Pyrgopolinices+, with his Servant +Artotrogus+, and his Soldiers._

_Pyr. to his Soldiers._] Take care to have my Buckler out-shine
the resplendent Sun, when the Heavens are serene; so that in the
midst o' the Battel, I may da