ays any thing but with strictness of law, for fear of which only he
steals not. He loves to pay short a shilling or two in a great sum, and is
glad to gain that when he can no more. He never sees friend but in a
journey to save the charges of an inn, and then only is not sick; and his
friends never see him but to abuse him. He is a fellow indeed of a kind of
frantick thrift, and one of the strangest things that wealth can work.

FOOTNOTES:

[94] The _dear year_ here, I believe, alluded to, was in 1574, and is thus
described by that faithful and valuable historian Holinshed:--"This yeare,
about Lammas, wheat was sold at London for three shillings the bushell:
but shortlie after, it was raised to foure shillings, fiue shillings, six
shillings, and, before Christmas, to a noble, and seuen shillings; which
so continued long after. Beefe was sold for twentie pence, and two and
twentie pence the stone; and all other flesh and white meats at an
excessiue price; all kind of salt fish verie deare, as fiue herings two
pence, &c.; yet great plentie of fresh fish, and oft times the same verie
cheape. Pease at foure shillings the bushell; ote-meale at foure shillings
eight pence; baie salt at three shillings the bushell, &c. All this dearth
notwithstanding, (thanks be given to God,) there was no want of anie thing
to them that wanted not monie." Holinshed, _Chronicle_, vol. 3, page 1259,
a. edit. folio, 1587.

[95] On the 21st of December, 1564, began a frost referred to by Fleming,
in his Index to _Holinshed_, as the "_frost called the great frost_,"
which lasted till the 3rd of January, 1565. It was so severe that the
Thames was frozen over, and the passage on it, from London-bridge to
Westminster, as easy as, and more frequented than that on dry land.

LXXV.

A MEER GREAT MAN

Is so much heraldry without honour, himself less real than his title. His
virtue is, that he was his father's son, and all the expectation of him to
beget another. A man that lives meerly to preserve another's memory, and
let us know who died so many years ago. One of just as much use as his
images, only he differs in this, that he can speak himself, and save the
fellow of Westminster[96] a labour: and he remembers nothing better than
what was out of his life. His grandfathers and their acts are his
discourse, and he tells them with more glory than they did them; and it is
well they did enough, or else he had wanted matter. His other studies ar