set together, which serve equally for all men, and
are equally to no purpose. Each fresh encounter with a man puts him to the
same part again, and he goes over to you what he said to him was last with
him: he kisses your hands as he kissed his before, and is your servant to
be commanded, but you shall intreat of him nothing. His proffers are
universal and general, with exceptions against all particulars. He will do
any thing for you, but if you urge him to this, he cannot, or to that, he
is engaged; but he will do any thing. Promises he accounts but a kind of
mannerly words, and in the expectation of your manners not to exact them:
if you do, he wonders at your ill breeding, that cannot distinguish
betwixt what is spoken and what is meant. No man gives better
satisfaction at the first, and comes off more with the elogy of a kind
gentleman, till you know him better, and then you know him for nothing.
And commonly those most rail at him, that have before most commended him.
The best is, he cozens you in a fair manner, and abuses you with great
respect.

FOOTNOTES:

[84]

Ter conatus ibi collo dare brachia circum:
Ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago,
Par leuibus ventis, volucrique simillima somno.

_Virgil_ AEn. vi. _v._ 700. edit. Heyne, 1787.

LXIII.

A POOR FIDDLER

Is a man and a fiddle out of case, and he in worse case than his fiddle.
One that rubs two sticks together (as the Indians strike fire), and rubs a
poor living out of it; partly from this, and partly from your charity,
which is more in the hearing than giving him, for he sells nothing dearer
than to be gone. He is just so many strings above a beggar, though he have
but two; and yet he begs too, only not in the downright 'for God's sake,'
but with a shrugging 'God bless you,' and his face is more pined than the
blind man's. Hunger is the greatest pain he takes, except a broken head
sometimes, and the labouring John Dory.[85] Otherwise his life is so many
fits of mirth, and tis some mirth to see him. A good feast shall draw him
five miles by the nose, and you shall track him again by the scent. His
other pilgrimages are fairs and good houses, where his devotion is great
to the Christmas; and no man loves good times better. He is in league with
the tapsters for the worshipful of the inn, whom, he torments next morning
with his art, and has their names more perfect than their men. A new song
is better to him than a new jacket,