thor's name to recommend it: I have heard of an eighth in 1664. From
that of 33 this present edition is reprinted, without altering any thing
but the plain errors of the press, and the old pointing and spelling in
some places.

The language is generally easy, and proves our English tongue not to be so
very changeable as is commonly supposed; nay, sometimes the phrase seems a
little obscure, more by the mistakes of the printer than the distance of
time. Here and there we meet with a broad expression, and some characters
are far below others; nor is it to be expected that so great a variety of
portraits should all be drawn with equal excellence, though there are
scarce any without some masterly touches. The change of fashions
unavoidably casts a shade upon a few places, yet even those contain an
exact picture of the age wherein they were written, as the rest does of
mankind in general: for reflections founded upon nature will be just in
the main, as long as men are men, though the particular instances of vice
and folly may be diversified. Paul's Walk is now no more, but then good
company adjourn to coffee-houses, and, at the reasonable fine of two or
three pence, throw away as much of their precious time as they find
troublesome.

Perhaps these valuable essays may be as acceptable to the public now as
they were at first; both for the entertainment of those who are already
experienced in the ways of mankind, and for the information of others who
would know the world the best way, that is--without trying it[AM].

FOOTNOTES:

[AL] _London: Printed by E. Say, Anno Domini_ M.DCC.XXXII.

[AM] A short account of Earle, taken from the _Athenae Oxonienses_ is here
omitted.

ADVERTISEMENT

[TO THE EDITION OF 1786[AN].]

As this entertaining little book is become rather scarce, and is replete
with so much good sense and genuine humour, which, though in part adapted
to the times when it first appeared, seems, on the whole, by no means
inapplicable to any aera of mankind, the editor conceives that there needs
little apology for the republication. A farther inducement is, his having,
from very good authority, lately discovered[AO] that these _Characters_
(hitherto known only under the title of _Blount's_[AP]), were actually
drawn by the able pencil of JOHN EARLE, who was formerly bishop of Sarum,
having been translated to that see from Worcester, A.D. 1663, and died at
Oxford, 1665.

Isaac Walton, in his Life of Hook