chides great men with most boldness, and
is counted for it an honest fellow. He is grumbling much in the behalf of
the commonwealth, and is in prison oft for it with credit. He is generally
honest, but more generally thought so, and his downrightness credits him,
as a man not well bended and crookned to the times. In conclusion, he is
not easily bad, in whom this quality is nature, but the counterfeit is
most dangerous, since he is disguised in a humour, that professes not to
disguise.

FOOTNOTES:

[74] _Squeazy_, niggardly.

L.

A HANDSOME HOSTESS

Is the fairer commendation of an inn, above the fair sign, or fair
lodgings. She is the loadstone that attracts men of iron, gallants and
roarers, where they cleave sometimes long, and are not easily got off. Her
lips are your welcome, and your entertainment her company, which is put
into the reckoning too, and is the dearest parcel in it. No citizen's wife
is demurer than she at the first greeting, nor draws in her mouth with a
chaster simper; but you may be more familiar without distaste, and she
does not startle at bawdry. She is the confusion of a pottle of sack more
than would have been spent elsewhere, and her little jugs are accepted to
have her kiss excuse them. She may be an honest woman, but is not believed
so in her parish, and no man is a greater infidel in it than her husband.

LI.

A CRITIC

Is one that has spelled over a great many books, and his observation is
the orthography. He is the surgeon of old authors, and heals the wounds of
dust and ignorance. He converses much in fragments and _desunt multa's_,
and if he piece it up with two lines he is more proud of that book than
the author. He runs over all sciences to peruse their syntaxis, and thinks
all learning comprised in writing Latin. He tastes stiles as some
discreeter palates do wine; and tells you which is genuine, which
sophisticate and bastard. His own phrase is a miscellany of old words,
deceased long before the Caesars, and entombed by Varro, and the modernest
man he follows is Plautus. He writes _omneis_ at length, and _quidquid_,
and his gerund is most inconformable. He is a troublesome vexer of the
dead, which after so long sparing must rise up to the judgment of his
castigations. He is one that makes all books sell dearer, whilst he swells
them into folios with his comments.[75]

FOOTNOTES:

[75] On this passage, I fear, the present volume will be a sufficient
co