CHARACTERS BY SAMUEL BUTLER,

Author of Hudibras.

A PLAY-WRITER

Of our times is like a Fanatic, that has no wit in ordinary easy things, and yet attempts the hardest task of brains in the whole world, only because, whether his play or work please or displease, he is certain to come off better than he deserves, and find some of his own latitude to applaud him, which he could never expect any other way; and is as sure to lose no reputation, because he has none to venture.

excellently well to hide the pieceing and coarseness
of a bad stuff, contributes mightily to the bulk, and
makes the less serve by the many impertinencies if
commonly requires to make away for it; for very few
are endowed with abilities to bring it in on its ow
This he finds to be good husbandry, and
account.
kind of necessary thrift; for they that have but a
little ought to make as much of it as they can. His
prologue, which is commonly none of his own, is
always better than his play; like a piece of cloth
that's fine in the beginning, and coarse afterwards;
though it has but one topic, and that's the same that
is used by malefactors when they are to be tried, t
except against as many of the jury as they can.

BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF A NEWSMONGER.

A newsmonger is a retailer of, rumour, that takes up upon trust, and sells as cheap as he buys. He deals a a commodity, that will not keep: for if it be not fresh it lies upon his hands, and will yield nothing. Trut

Like gaming rooks, that never stick To play for hundreds upon tick; 'Cause, if they chance to lose at play, Th'ave not one halfpenny to pay; And, if they win a hundred pound, Gain, if for sixpence they compound. Nothing encourages him more in his undertaking than his ignorance, for he has not wit enough to un-or false is all one to him; for novelty being the grace derstand so much as the difficulty of what he attempts; therefore he runs on boldly like a fool-hardy wit; and fortune, that favours fools and the bold, sometimes takes notice of him for his double capacity, and receives him into her good graces. He has one motive more, and that is the concurrent ignorant judgment of the present age, in which his sottish for peries pass with applause, like Oliver Cromwell's oratory among fanatics of his own canting inclination. He finds it easier to write in rhyme than prose; for the world being overcharged with romances, he finds his plots, passions, and repartees, ready made to his hand; and if he can but turn them into thyme, the thievery is disguised, and they pass for his own wit and invention without question; like a stolen cloak made into a coat, or dyed into another colour. Besides this he makes no conscience of stealing any thing that lights in his way, and borrows the advice of so many to correct, enlarge, and amend, what he has ill-favouredly patched together, that it becomes like a thing drawn by council, and none of his own performance, or the son that has no certain father. He has very great reason to prefer verse before prose in his compositions; for rhyme is like lace, that serves

of both, a truth grows stale as soon as a lie: and t
a slight suit will last as well as a better while the
fashion holds, a lie serves as well as truth till new
oues come up. He is little concerned whether it be
good or bad, for that does not make it more or les
news; and if there be any difference, he loves the
bad best, because it is said to come soonest; for he
would wil ingly bear his share in any public cal!
to have the pleasure of hearing and telling it. Hea
deeply read in diurnals, and can give as good an ac
count of Rowland Pepin, if need be, as another a
He tells news, as men do money, with his fingers;
for he assures them it comes from very good baus
The whole business of his life is like that of a sp
to fetch and carry news; and when he does it wel
he is clapt on the back, and fed for it: for he or
not take to it altogether like a gentleman, for s
pleasure; but when he lights on a considera a
parcel of news, he knows where to put it off for
dinner, and quarter himself upon it, until he is
eaten it out; and by this means he drives a trail
by retrieving the first news to truck it for the is
meat in season; and, like the old Roman lustry.
ransacks all seas and lands to please his palate;

he imports bis narratives from all parts within the never cuts a man's cloaths but he cuts his purse into reography of a diurnal, and eats as well upon the the bargain; and when he makes a pocket, takes ss and Polander, as the English and Dutch. By handsel of it, and picks it first himself. He calls is means his belly is provided for, and nothing lies stealing damning, by a figure in rhetoric called the on his hands but his back, which takes other effect for the efficient; and the place where he lodges urses to maintain itself by weft and stray silver all his thieveries hell, to put him in mind of his latDons, straggling hoods and scarfs, pimping, and sets ter end: and what he steals by retail the broker l'ombre. takes off his hands by wholesale. He keeps his wife in taffety to save charges; for when her petticoats are worn out, they serve him to line vests with, as well as if they were new; and when he is unfurnished of these, old sattin and taffety-men supply him for ends of gold and silver. He gets more by the trimming and garniture of cloaths than all the rest; for he can swallow ribands like a juggler, and put whole pieces more in his bill than ever he made use of, and stretch lace, as a shoe-maker does leather, with his teeth, when he sets it on. in fee with him to revive old rotten stuffs by giving them new fantastic names; and he brings them into the mode by swearing they are new come up in consideration of which he is allowed to buy cheap and sell dear: for he is loath to undervalue his conscience, and put it off at a mean rate, as long as he sees his neighbours can make more of theirs-He scorns that.

BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF A TAILOR. taylor came in with the curse; and is younger ther to thorns, thistles, and death; for if Adam had fallen, he had never sat cross-legged. Sin and are partners; for as sin first brought him into ployment, so he by cheating and contributing to de and vanity, works to sin, and the old trade is kept up between both. Our Saviour wore his t without sem, rather than he would have any g to do with him; and Elias, when he went to ven, left his mantle behind, because it had been uted by his fingers. The Jews in all great calas were wont to rend their garments, only to fy that they defied him and all his works. All love and admire cloaths, but scorn and despise that made them, as princes approve of treason, hate traitors. He sits cross-legged to show that as originally a Turk, and calls himself Merchantrapon no other account, but only as he deded from Mahomet, who was a merchant's prenimself in his youth. And his constant custom king the calves of his legs a stool to sit upon, endered him so stiff in the hams, that he walks he was newly circumcised, to distinguish himrom a Christian. He lives much more by his than good works; for he gains more by trusting lieving in one that pays him at long running, ix that he works for upon an even account for money. Ile never cuts his coat according to th; but always the more he is allowed the less is in a garment: and he believes he has reason for he is fain to take double pains in contrivto dispose both what he steals, and what he to the best advantage, which costs him twice as labour as that which he gets nothing by. He

The mercers are

BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF A DEGENERATE NOBLE.

A degenerate noble, or one that is proud of his birth, is like a turnip; there is nothing good of him but that which is under-ground; or rhubarb, a contemptible shrub, that springs from a noble root. He has no more title to the worth and virtue of his ancestors, than the worms that were engendered in their dead bodies; and yet he believes he has enough to exempt himself and his posterity from all things of that nature for ever. This makes him glory in the antiquity of his family, as if his nobility were the better the farther off it is in time, as well as desert, from that of his predecessors. He believes the honour that was left him, as well as the estate, is sufficient to support his quality, without troubling himself to purchase any more of his own; and he meddles as little with the management of the one as the other,

but trusts both to the government of his servants, by his peruke, takes occasion to contemplate his legs, whom he is equally cheated in both. He supposes and the symmetry of his breeches. He is part of the the empty title of honour sufficient to serve his turn, furniture of the rooms, and serves for a walking picthough he has spent the substance and reality of it: ture, a moving piece of arras. His business is only like the fellow that sold his ass, but would not part to be seen; and he performs it with admirable induswith the shadow of it; or Apicius, that sold his house, try, placing himself always' in the best light, looking and kept only the balcony, to see and be seen in. wonderfully politic, and cautious whom he mixes And because he is privileged from being arrested for withal. His occupation is to show his cloaths; and his debts, supposes he has the same freedom from all if they could but walk themselves, they would save obligations he owes humanity and his country, be- him the labour, and do his work as well as himself. cause he is not punishable for his ignorance and His immunity from varlets is his freehold, and he want of honour, no more than poverty or unskilful-were a lost man without it. His cloathes are but his ness is in other professions, which the law supposes to be punishment enough to itself. He is like a fanatic, that contents himself with the mere title of a saint, and makes that his privilege to act all manner of wickedness; or the ruins of a noble structure, of which there is nothing left but the foundation, and that obscured and buried under the rubbish of the superstructure. The living honour of his ancestors is long ago departed, dead and gone; and his is but the ghost and shadow of it, that haunts the house with horror and disquiet, where once it lived. His nobility is truly descended from the glory of his forefathers, and may be rightly said to fall to him; for it will never rise again to the height it was in them by his means; and he succeeds them as candles do the office of the sun. The confidence of nobility has rendered him ignoble, as the opinion of wealth makes some men poor; and as those that are born to estates neglect industry, and have no business but to spend ; so he being born to honour, believes he is no farther concerned, than to consume and waste it. He is but a copy, and so ill done, that there is no line of the original in him, but the sin only.

tailor's livery, which he gives him; for it is ten to one he never pays for them. He is very careful to discover the lining of his coat, that you may not suspect any want of integrity or flaw in him from the skin outwards. His tailor is his creator, and makes him of nothing; and though he lives by faith in him, he is perpetually committing iniquities against him. His soul dwells in the outside of him, like that of a hollow tree; and if you do but peel the bark off him, he deceases immediately. His carriage of himself is the wearing of his cloaths; and, like the cinnamontree, his bark is better than his body. His looking big is rather a tumour, than greatness. He is au idol, that has just so much value as other men give him that believe in him, but none of his own. He makes his ignorance pass for reserve; and, like a hunting nag, leaps over what he cannot get through. He has just so much of politics, as ostlers in the unversity have Latin. He is as humble as a Jesuit to his superiors, but repays himself again in insolence over those that are below him; and with a generous scorn despises those that can neither do him good nor hurt. He adores those that may do him good, though he knows they never will; and despises those that BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF A HUFFING COURTIER. would not hurt him if they could. The court is bit A huffing courtier has no value himself, but from the church, and he believes as that believes, and cries of place he stands in. All his happiness consists in the and down every thing as he finds it pass there. It opinion he believes others have of it. This is his a great comfort to him to think that some who do tal faith; but as it is heretical and erroneous, though he know him may perhaps take him for a lord; and wa suffer much tribulation for it, he continues obstinate, that thought lasts, he looks bigger than usual, and and not to be convinced. He flutters up and down forgets his acquaintance; and that is the reason why like a butterfly in a garden; and while he is pruning he will sometimes know you and sometimes not

hing but want of money or credit puts him in the time being is most in fashion or request. When d that he is mortal; but then he trusts Providence he salutes a friend, he pulls of his hat as women do somebody will trust him; and in expectation of their vizor-masks. His ribands are of the true hopes for a better life, and that his debts will complexion of his mind, a kind of painted cloud or rise up in judgment against him. To get in gaudy rainbow, that has no colour of itself, but what' is to labour in his vocation, but to pay is to for- it borrows from reflection. He is as tender of his is protection; for what's that worth to one that cloaths as a coward is of his flesh, and as loath to have nothing? His employment being only to wear them disordered. His bravery is all his happiness; loaths, the whole account of his life and actions and, like Atlas, he carries his heaven on his back. orded in shopkeepers' books, that are his faithful He is like the golden fleece, a fine outside on a sheep's iographers to their own posterity; and he be- back. He is a monster, or an Indian creature, that is he loses so much reputation, as he pays off his good for nothing in the world but to be seen. He ; and that no man wears his cloaths in fashion puts himself up into a sedan, like a fiddle in a case, pays for them, for nothing is farther from the and is taken out again for the ladies to play upon; . He believes that he that runs in debt is be- who, when they have done with him, let down his and with those that trust him, and only those treble string, till they are in the humour again. His pay are behind. His brains are turned giddy, like cook and valet de chambre conspire to dress dinner hat walks on the top of a house; and that is the and him so punctually together, that the one may not a it is so troublesome to him to look downwards. be ready before the other. As peacocks and osa kind of spectrum, and his cloaths are the shape triches have the gaudiest and finest feathers, yet cantes to appear and walk in; and when he puts them not fly; so all his bravery is to flutter only. The vanishes. He runs as busily out of one room beggars call him My Lord,' and he takes them at another, as a great practiser does in Westminster their words, and pays them for it. If you praise him from one court to another. When he accosts a he is so true and faithful to the mode, that he never he puts both ends of his microcosm in motion, fails to make you a present of himself, and will not king legs at one end, and combining his pe- be refused, though you know not what to do with him at the other. His garniture is the sauce to when you have him. caths, and he walks in his port-cannons like at stalks in long grass. Every motion of him vanity of vanities, all is vanity, quoth the A cheat is a freeman of all trades, and all trades of er. He rides himself like a well-managed his. Fraud and treachery are his calling, though reins-in his neck, and walks terra terra. He his profession be integrity and truth. his elbows backward, as if he were pinioned trussed-up fowl, and moves as stiff as if he was the spit. His legs are stuck in his great vous breeches, like the whistles in a bagpipe; abundant breeches, in which his nether parts cloathed, but packed up. His hat has been I a consumption of the fashion, and is now altorn to nothing; if it do not recover quickly, it ow too little for a head of garlick. He wears ire on the toes of his shoes, to justify his pres to the gout, or such other malady, that for

BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF A CHEAT.

He spins

nets, like a spider, out of his own entrails, to entrap the simple and unwary that light in his way, whom he devours and feeds upon. All the greater sort of cheats, being allowed by authority, have lost their names, (as judges, when they are called to the bench, are no more stiled lawyers) and left the_title to the meaner only, and the unallowed. The common ignorance of mankind is his province, which he orders to the best advantage. He is but a tame highwayman, that does the same things by stratagem and design which the other does by force, makes men

deliver their understandings first, and after their his word, until he has improved his credit as fa purses. Oaths and lies are his tools that he works it can go: and then he has catched the fish, with, and he gets his living by the drudgery of his throws away the net; as a butcher, when he ha conscience. He endeavours to cheat the devil by his beast as fat as it can grow, cuts the throat of it. mortgaging his soul so many times over and over to When he has brought his design to perfection, and him, forgetting that he has damnations, as priests disposed of all his materials, he lays his train, like a have absolutions, of all prices. He is a kind of a powder-traitor, and gets out of the way, while he just judgment, sent into this world to punish the con-blows up all those that trusted him. After the blow fidence and curiosity of ignorance, that out of a natural is given, there is no manner of intelligence to be had inclination to error will tempt its own punishment, and help to abuse itself. He can put on as many shapes as the devil that set him on work, is one that fishes in muddy understandings, and will tickle a trout in his own element, till he has him in his clutches, and after in his dish, or the market. He runs down none but those which he is certain are feræ naturæ, mere natural animals, that belong to him that can catch them. He can do no feats without the cooperating assistance of the chouse, whose credulity commonly meets the impostor half way, otherwise nothing is done; for all the craft is not in the catching, (as the proverb says) but the better half at least in being catched. He is one that, like a bond without fraud, covin, and further delay, is void and of none effect, otherwise does stand and remain in full power, force, and virtue. He trusts the credulous with what hopes they please at a very easy rate, upon their own security, until he has drawn them far enough in, and then makes them pay for all at once. The first thing he gets from him is a geod opinion, aud afterwards any thing he pleases; for after he has drawn him from his guards, he deals with him like a surgeon, and ties his arm before he lets him blood.

BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF A BANKRUPT.

A bankrupt is made by breaking, as a bird is hatched by breaking the shell; for he gains more by giving over his trade than ever he did by dealing in it. He drives a trade, as Oliver Cromwell did a coach, till it broke in pieces. He is very tender and careful in preserving his credit, and keeps it as methodically as a racenag is dieted, that in the end he may run away with it: for he observes a punctual curiosity in performing

of him for some months, until the rage and fury is
somewhat digested, and all hopes vanished of ever
recovering any thing of body, or goods, for reverge
or restitution; and then propositions of treaty and
accommodation appear like the sign of the hand and
pen out of the clouds, with conditions more unreason-
able than thieves are wont to demand for restitution
of stolen goods. He shoots like a fowler at a whole
flock of geese at once, and stalks with his horse to
come as near as possibly he can without being per
ceived by any one, or giving the least suspicion of
his design, until it is too late to prevent it; and then
he flies from them, as they should have done be
from him. His way is so commonly used in the city,
that he robs in a road, like a highwayman, and yet
they will never arrive at wit enough to avoid it; for
it is done upon surprise: and as thieves are com
monly better mounted than those they rob, he very
easily makes his escape, and flies beyond pursuit,
and there is no possibility of overtaking him.

men.

BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF A KNAVE

A knave is like a tooth drawer, that maintains his own teeth in constant eating by pulling out those of other He is an ill moral philosopher, of villainous principles, and as bad practice. His tenets are to bold what he can get, right or wrong. His fongue and bis heart are always at variance, and fall out like rogues in the street, to pick somebody's pocit. They never agree but, like Herod and Pilate, to co mischief. His conscience never stands in his fight, when the devil holds a candle to him; for he ha stretched it so thin that it is transparent. He is an engineer of treachery, fraud, and perfidiousness; and knows how to manage matters of great weight with