ster plain and evident signs, whereby the
disposition and constitution of men and women may be known, as do the
palms of their hands, as being full of lines, by which lines all the
fortunes and misfortunes of men and women may be known, and their
manners and inclinations made plainly to appear. But this in general we
may take notice, as that many long lines and strokes do presage great
affliction, and a very troublesome life, attended with much grief and
toil, care, poverty, and misery; but short lines, if they are thick and
full of cross lines, are yet worse in every degree. Those, the skin of
whose soles is very thick and gross, are, for the most part, able,
strong and venturous. Whereas, on the contrary, those the skin of whose
soles of their feet is thin, are generally weak and timorous.

I shall now, before I conclude (having given an account of what
judgments may be made by observing the several parts of the body, from
the crown of the head to the soles of the feet), give an account of what
judgments may be drawn by the rule of physiognomy from things extraneous
which are found upon many, and which indeed to them are parts of the
body, but are so far from being necessary parts that they are the
deformity and burden of it, and speak of the habits of the body, as they
distinguish persons.

_Of Crooked and Deformed Persons._

A crooked breast and shoulder, or the exuberance of flesh in the body
either of man or woman, signifies the person to be extremely
parsimonious and ingenious, and of a great understanding, but very
covetous and scraping after the things of the world, attended also with
a very bad memory, being also very deceitful and malicious; they are
seldom in a medium, but either virtuous or extremely vicious. But if
the person deformed hath an excrescence on his breast instead of on the
back, he is for the most part of a double heart, and very mischievous.

_Of the divers Manners of going, and particular Posture both of Men and
Women._

He or she that goes slowly, making great steps as they go, are generally
persons of bad memory, and dull of apprehension, given to loitering, and
not apt to believe what is told them. He who goes apace, and makes short
steps, is most successful in all his undertakings, swift in his
imagination, and humble in the disposition of his affairs. He who makes
wide and uneven steps, and sidelong withal, is one of a greedy, sordid
nature, subtle, malicious, and willing t