se. He gratulates therefore the first sin,
and fig-leaves that were an occasion of [his] bravery. His first care is
his dress, the next his body, and in the uniting of these two lies his
soul and its faculties. He observes London trulier than the terms, and his
business is the street, the stage, the court, and those places where a
proper man is best shown. If he be qualified in gaming extraordinary, he
is so much the more genteel and compleat, and he learns the best oaths for
the purpose. These are a great part of his discourse, and he is as curious
in their newness as the fashion. His other talk is ladies and such pretty
things, or some jest at a play. His pick-tooth bears a great part in his
discourse, so does his body, the upper parts whereof are as starched as
his linnen, and perchance use the same laundress. He has learned to ruffle
his face from his boot, and takes great delight in his walk to hear his
spurs gingle. Though his life pass somewhat slidingly, yet he seems very
careful of the time, for he is still drawing his watch out of his pocket,
and spends part of his hours in numbering them. He is one never serious
but with his taylor, when he is in conspiracy for the next device. He is
furnished with his jests, as some wanderer with sermons, some three for
all congregations, one especially against the scholar, a man to him much
ridiculous, whom he knows by no other definition, but a silly fellow in
black. He is a kind of walking mercer's shop, and shows you one stuff
to-day and another to-morrow; an ornament to the room he comes in as the
fair bed and hangings be; and it is meerly ratable accordingly, fifty or a
hundred pounds as his suit is. His main ambition is to get a knight-hood,
and then an old lady, which if he be happy in, he fills the stage and a
coach so much longer: Otherwise, himself and his cloaths grow stale
together, and he is buried commonly ere he dies in the gaol, or the
country.

XX.

A CONSTABLE

Is a vice-roy in the street, and no man stands more upon't that he is the
king's officer. His jurisdiction extends to the next stocks, where he has
commission for the heels only, and sets the rest of the body at liberty.
He is a scarecrow to that ale-house, where he drinks not his morning
draught, and apprehends a drunkard for not standing in the king's name.
Beggars fear him more than the justice, and as much as the whip-stock,
whom he delivers over to his subordinate magistrates, the bri