and his
company is costly to him, for he seldom has it but invited. His friendship
commonly is begun in a supper, and lost in lending money. The tavern is a
dangerous place to him, for to drink and be drunk is with him all one, and
his brain is sooner quenched than his thirst. He is drawn into naughtiness
with company, but suffers alone, and the bastard commonly laid to his
charge. One that will be patiently abused, and take exception a month
after when he understands it, and then be abused again into a
reconcilement; and you cannot endear him more than by cozening him, and it
is a temptation to those that would not. One discoverable in all silliness
to all men but himself, and you may take any man's knowledge of him
better than his own. He will promise the same thing to twenty, and rather
than deny one break with all. One that has no power over himself, over his
business, over his friends, but a prey and pity to all; and if his
fortunes once sink, men quickly cry, Alas!--and forget him.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] _If he could order his intentions_, first edit.

XXVII.

A TOBACCO-SELLER

Is the only man that finds good in it which others brag of but do not; for
it is meat, drink, and clothes to him. No man opens his ware with greater
seriousness, or challenges your judgment more in the approbation. His shop
is the rendezvous of spitting, where men dialogue with their noses, and
their communication is smoak.[47] It is the place only where Spain is
commended and preferred before England itself. He should be well
experienced in the world, for he has daily trial of men's nostrils, and
none is better acquainted with humours. He is the piecing commonly of some
other trade, which is bawd to his tobacco, and that to his wife, which is
the flame that follows this smoak.

FOOTNOTES:

[47] Minshew calls a tobacconist _fumi-vendulus_, a _smoak-seller_.

XXVIII.

A POT-POET

Is the dregs of wit, yet mingled with good drink may have some relish. His
inspirations are more real than others, for they do but feign a God, but
he has his by him. His verse runs like the tap, and his invention as the
barrel, ebbs and flows at the mercy of the spiggot. In thin drink he
aspires not above a ballad, but a cup of sack inflames him, and sets his
muse and nose a-fire together. The press is his mint, and stamps him now
and then a six-pence or two in reward of the baser coin his pamphlet. His
works would scarce sell for three half