up, and make him swell the bigger; as feathers and cotton will stuff cushions better than things of more close and solid parts.

BUTLER S CHARACTER OF AN OBSTINATE MAN.

an owl, to swell and seem bigger than he is. He is troubled with a tumour and inflammation of self-conceit, that renders every part of him stiff and uneasy. He has given himself sympathetic love-powder, that works upon him to dotage, and has transformed him into his own mistress. He is his own gallant, and An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold makes most passionate addresses to his own dear per- him; for when he is once possest with an error, it is fections. He commits idolatry to himself, and wor-like the devil, only cast out with great difficulty. ships his own image; though there is nò soul living Whatsoever he lays hold on, like a drowning man, of his church but himself, yet he believes as the he never loses, though it do but help to sink him the church believes, and maintains his faith with the ob- sooner. His ignorance is abrupt and inaccessible, stinacy of a fanatic. He is his own favourite, and impreguable both by art and nature, and will hold out advances himself not only above his merit, but all to the last, though it has nothing but rubbish to demankind; is both Damon and Pythias to his own fend. It is as dark as pitch, and sticks as fast to any dear self, and values his crony above his soul. He thing it lays hold on. His scull is so thick, that it is yes place to no man but himself, and that with proof against any reason, and never cracks but on very great distance to all others, whom he esteems not the wrong side, just opposite to that against which worthy to approach him. He believes whatsoever he the impression is made, which surgeons say does haphas receives a value in being his; as a horse in a pen very frequently. The slighter and more inconLobleman's stable will bear a greater price than in a sistent his opinions are, the faster he holds them, mon market. He is so proud, that he is as hard otherwise they would fall asunder of themselves: to be acquainted with himself as with others; for he for opinions that are false ought to be held with more is very apt to forget who he is, and knows himself strictness and assurance than those that are true, caly superficially; therefore he treats himself civilly otherwise they will be apt to betray their owners beas a stranger, with ceremony and compliment, but fore they are aware. If he takes to religion, he has admits of no privacy. He strives to look bigger than faith enough to save a hundred wiser men than himself, as well as others; and is no better than his self, if it were right; but it is too much to be good ; a parasite and flatterer. A little flood will make and though he deny supererogation, and utterly disa shallow torrent swell above its banks, and rage, claim any overplus of merits, yet he allows superand form, and yield a roaring noise, while a deep abundant belief; and if the violence of faith will eat stream glides quietly on; so a vain-glorious, carry the kingdom of Heaven, he stands fair for it. lent, proud man, swells with a little frail prospe- He delights most of all to differ in things indifferent, ty, grows big and loud, and overflows his bounds, no matter how frivolous they are, they are weighty 1 when he sinks, leaves mud and dirt behind him. enough in proportion to his weak judgment; and he B. carriage is as glorious and haughty, as if he will rather suffer self-martyrdom than part with the wre advanced upon men's shoulders, or tumbled least scruple of his freehold; for it is impossible to ever their heads like Knipperdolling. He fancies dye his dark ignorance into a lighter colour. He is Eimself a Colosse; and so he is, for his head resolved to understand no man's reason but his own, Folds no proportion to his body, and his foundation because he finds no man can understand his but himlesser than his upper-stories. We can naturally self. His wits are like a sack, which the French take no view of ourselves, unless we look down- proverb says is tied faster before it is full than when wards, to teach us what humble admirers we ought it is; and his opinions are like plants that grow upon to be of our own value. The slighter and less rocks, that stick fast though they have no rooting. solid his materials are, the more room they take His understanding is hardened like Pharaoh's heart,

and is proof against all sorts of judgments what- he is mistaken. His religion is of no force without

soever.

BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF A CATHOLIC.

ceremonies; like a loadstone, that draws a greater weight through a piece of iron than when it is naked of itself. His prayers are a kind of crambe that usei to kill schoolmasters, and he values them by num

BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF A QUAKER.

A catholic says his prayers often, but never prays, and worships the cross more than Christ. He pre-ber, not weight. fers his church for the antiquity of it, and cares not how sound or rotten it be, so it be but old. He takes a liking to it as some do to old cheese, only for the blue rottenness of it. If he had lived in the primitive A quaker is a scoundrel saint, of an order, withes" times, he had never been a Christian; for the anti-founder, vow, or rule; for he will not swear, nor a quity of the Pagan and Jewish religion would have tied to any thing but his own humour. He is the linkhad the same power over him against the Christian, boy of the sectaries; and talks much of his light, but as the old Roman has against the modern reforma- puts it under a bushel, for nobody can see it at tion. The weaker vessel he is, the better and more himself, His religion is but the cold fit of an agu zealous member he always proves of his church; for and his zeal of a contrary temper to that of all others. religion, like wine, is not so apt to leak in a leathern yet produces the same effects; as cold iron in Gree boraccio as a great cask, and is better preserved in a land, they say, burns as well as hot; which make small bottle stopped with a light cork, than a vessel him delight, like a salamander, to live in the fire of greater capacity, where the spirits being more and persecution. He works out his salvation, not wid stronger, are the more apt to fret. He allows of all fear, but confidence, and trembling, His profess holy cheats, and is content to be deluded in a true, is but a kind of winter-religion; and the original orthodox, and infallible way. He believes the pope it as uncertain as the hatching of woodcocks, for se to be infallible, because he has deceived all the world, man can tell from whence it came. He vapou but was never deceived himself; which was grown so much of the light within him, but no such thing of notorious, that nothing less than an article of faith in pears, unless he means that he is light-headed. H the church could make a plaster big enough for the believes he takes up the cross in being cross to a sore. His faith is too big for his charity, and too mankind. He delights in persecution, likewise, unwieldly to work miracles; but is able to believe and has no ambition but to go to Heaven in what b more than all the saints in Heaven ever made. He calls a fiery chariot; that is, a woodmonger's faggetworships saints in effigy, as Dutchmen hang absent cart. You may perceive he has a crack in the s malefactors; and has so weak a memory, that he is by the flat twang in his nose, and the great care te apt to forget his patrons unless their pictures prevent takes to keep his hat on, lest his sickly brains, if ! him. He loves to see what he prays to, that he may have any, should take cold at it. He believes! not mistake one saint for another; and his beads and doctrine to be heavenly, because it agrees perfect y crucifix are the tools of his devotion, without which with the motus trepidationis. All his hopes are is he can do nothing Nothing staggers his faith of the the Turks overrunning of Christendom, because pope's infallibility so much, as that he did not make has heard they count fools and madmen saints; a away with the Scriptures when they were in his power, doubt, aot to pass muster with them for great abus rather than those that believed in them, which he ties that way. This makes him believe he can knows not how to understand to be no error. The convert the Turk, though he could do no good on the less he understands of his religion, the more violent pope, or the presbyterian. Nothing comes so nea he is in it; which being the perpetual condition of his quaking liturgy, as the papistical possessions of all those that are deluded, is a great argument that the devil, with which it conforms in discipline exacy.

His church, or rather chapel, is built upon a flat sand, in grace, may boldly engage himself in those great without superior or inferior in it, and not upon a sins and iniquities that would easily damn a weak reck, which is never found without great inequalities. brother, and yet come off never the worse. He beNext demoniacs, he most resembles the reprobate, lieves deeds of darkness to be only those sius that are who are said to be condemned to weeping and gnash- committed in private, not those that are acted openly ag of teeth. There was a botcher of their church and owned. He is but an hypocrite turned the wrong that renounced his trade and turned preacher, because side outward: for, as the one wears his vices within, be held it superstitious to sit cross-legged. His de- and the other without, so when they are counterretion is but a kind of spiritual palsy, that proceeds changed, the ranter becomes an hypocrite, and the from a distemper in the brain, where the nerves are hypocrite an able ranter. His church is the devil's rooted. They abhor the church of England, but chapel; for it agrees exactly both in doctrine and conform exactly with those primitive fathers of their discipline with the best reformed bawdy-houses. He church, that heretofore gave answers at the devil's is a monster produced by the madness of this latter racles; in which they observed the very same cere- age; but if it had been his fate to have been whelped Pony of quaking and gaping now practised by our in old Rome, he had passed for a prodigy, and been modern enthusiasts at their exorcisms, rather than received among raining of stones and the speaking of tercises of devotion. He sucks in the air like a pair bulls, and would have put a stop to all public affairs of bellows, and blows his inward light with it,till until he had been expiated. Nero cloathed Christians be dung fire, as cattle do in Lincolnshire. The ge- in the skins of wild beasts, but he wraps wild beasts neral ignorance of their whole party makes it appear in the skins of Christians. that, whatsoever their zeal may be, it is not according to knowledge

BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF A RANTER.

BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF AN ANABAPTIST. An anabaptist is a water-saint, that, like a crocodile, sees clearly in the water, but dully on land. He only A ranter is a fanatic Hector, that has found out, by alives in two elements, like a goose, but two worlds at range way of new light, how to transform all the once; this, and one of the next. He is contrary to devils into angels of light; for he believes all religion a fisher of men; for, instead of pulling them out of consists in looseness, and that sin and vice are the the water, he dips them in it. He keeps souls in whole duty of man. He puts off the old man, but minority, and will not admit them to inherit the puts him on again upon the new one, and makes his kingdom of Heaven till they come to an age fit to be paran vices serve to preserve his Christian virtues from trusted with their own belief. He defies magistracy wearing out; for if he should use his piety and de- and ministry as the horns of antichrist; but would fain voton always, they would hold out but a little while. get them both into his own hands. His babes of grace He is loath that iniquity and vice should be thrown are all pagan, and he breeds them up as they do way, as long as there may be good use of them; for young trees in a nursery; lets them grow up, and then if that which is wickedly gotten may be disposed to transplants them into the new soil of his own church. pous uses, why should not wickedness itself as well? He lets them run wild as they do young colts on a He believes himself shot free against all the attempts common, until they are old enough to be taken up of the devil, the world, and the flesh; and therefore and backed, and then he breaks and paces them with not afraid to attack them in their own quarters, his own church-walkings. He is a landerer of souls, and encounter them at their own weapons. For as and tries them, as men do witches, by water. He strong bodies may freely venture to do and suffer dips them all under water, but their hands, which he that, without any hurt to themselves, which would holds them up by-those do still continue pagan; destroy those that are feeble; so a saint, that is strong and that is the reason why they make no conscience

BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF A POPISH PRIEST

of their works, when they can get power in their hands, but act the most barbarous inhumanities in the world. His dipping makes him more obstinate A popish priest is one that takes the same cour and stiff in his opinions, like a piece of hot iron, that that the devil did in Paradise; he begins with t grows hard by being quenched in cold water. He woman. He despises all other fanatics as upstart does not like the use of water in his baptism, as it and values himself upon his antiquity. He is a ma falls from Heaven in drops, but as it runs out of the midwife to the soul, and is always deluding it to th bowels of the earth, or stands putrefying in a dirty next world. Christ made St. Peter a fisher of mer pond. He chooses the coldest time in the year to be but he believes it better to be a fisher of women, at dipped in, to show the heat of his zeal, and this renco becomes a woman's apostle. His profession is ders him the more obstinate. Law and government disguise himself, which he does in sheep's cloathing are great grievances to him; and he believes men that is, a lay habit; but whether, as a wolf, a thie may live very well without them, if they would be or a shepherd, is a great question; only this is ce ruled by him; and then he would have nothing of tain that he had rather have one sheep out of anothe authority but his own revelations. He is a saint-man's fold, than two out of his own. He gathers h errant; for he calls his religion walking, which he church as fanatics do, yet despises them for it, an opposes to the pope's sitting, as the more orthodox keeps his flock always in hurdles, to be removed: and infallible. His church is a kind of round table his pleasure; and though their souls be rotten without upper end, or lower end; for they observe no scabby with hypocrisy, the fleece is sure to be soun order, nor admit of degrees. It is like the serpent and orthodox. He tars their consciences with co amphisbena, that has a head at either end of it for fession and penance, but always keeps the wool, th such is their spiritual envy and ambition, that they he pulls from the sore, to himself. He never make can endure no superior; but high and low are tied proselyte, but he converts him to his very shirt, an together, like long and short sticks in a faggot. turns his pockets into the bargain; for he does n He had a mind to dispose of his religion how he thing unless his purse prove a good catholic. H pleased, and so suffered a recovery, to cut it off from never gets within a family, but he gets on the top his right heirs, and settle it to such uses as he pleased. it, and governs all down to the bottom of the cellar He broaches false doctrines out of his tub; he sees he will not tolerate the scullion unless he be orthodo visions when he is fast asleep, and dreams dreams nor allow of the turning of the spit, but in ordine a when he is broad awake. They stick to one another, spiritualia. He is very cautious in venturing to at like loaves of bread in the even of persecution. He tack any man by way of conversion, whose weaknes canonizes himself a saint in his own life-time as Do- he is net very well acquainted with; and, like th mitian made himself a god; and enters his name fox, weighs his goose before he will venture to carr in the rubric of his church by virtue of a pick-lock, him over a river. He fights with the devil at his ow which he has invented, and believes will serve his weapons, and strives to get ground on him with turn, as well as St. Peter's keys. He finds out sloughs frauds and lies: these he converts to pious uses and ditches, that are aptest for launching of an ana-He makes his prayers (the p:oper business of the baptist; for he does not christen, but launch his vessel. He believes, because obedience is better than sacrifice, the less of it will serve. He uses Scripture in the same manner as false witnesses do, who never lay their hands on it but to give testimony against the truth.

mira) a kind of manufacture, and vents them by tale, rather than weight: and, while he is busied in num bering them, forgets their sense and meaning. He sets them up as men do their games at picquet, for fear he should be misreckoned; but never minds whe ther he plays fair or not. He sells indulgencies, like Lockyer's pills, with directions how they are to be

taken. He is but a copyholder of the Catholic church, | from him, as Villain, Deboyse, Peasant, &c. He that claims by custom. He believes the pope's chain wears his cloaths like a hide, and shifts them no is fastened to the gates of heaven, like king Harry's oftener than a beast does his hair. He is a beast in the privy gallery. that Gesner never thought of.

BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF A CLOWN.

BUTLER'S CHARACTER OF A JUSTICE OF PEACE.

A justice of the peace has a patent for his wit, and underA clown is a Centaur, man and beast, a crab en- stands by commission, in which his wife and his clerk grafted on an apple. He was neither made by art or are of the quorum. He is judge of the peace, but has nature, but in spite of both, by evil custom. His nothing to do with it until it is broken; and then his perpetual conversation with beasts has rendered him business is to patch it up again. His occupation is one of them; and he is, among men, but a naturalized to keep the peace, but he makes it keep him; and brute. He appears by his language, genius and be-lives upon the scraps of it, as those he commits do on haviour, to be an alien to mankind, a foreigner to the common basket. The constable is his factor, and humanity, and of so opposite a genius, that it is easier the gaoler the keeper of his warehouse; and rogues, to make a Spaniard a Frenchman, than to reduce him bawds, and thieves, his goods. He calls taking of pigs to civility. He disdains every man that he does not and capons taking of bail; and they pass with him for Bar; and only respects hun who has done him hurt, substantial housekeepers. Of these he takes security can do it. He is like Nebuchadnezzar after he had that the delinquent shall answer it before the sessions, beea a month at grass; but will never return to be a that is, before the court sits next, otherwise forfeiture again as he did, if he might; for he despises all of recognizance is sure to rise up in judgment. He Banner of lives but his own, unless it be his horse's, binds men over, as highwaymen do, to untie their to whom he is but valet-de-chambre. He never purses, and then leaves them to unbind themselves shows himself humane or kind in any thing, but again; or rather as surgeons do, to let their purses When he pimps to his cow, or makes a match for his blood. He makes his commission a patent, that no are: in all things eise he is surly and rugged; and man shall set up any sin without licence from him. does not love to be pleased himself, which makes him He knows no virtue, but that of his commission; for hate those that do hin any good. He is a stoic to all all his business is with vice, in which he is so expert, passions but fear, envy, and malice; and hates to do that he can commit one sin instead of another, as any good, though it cost him nothing. He abhors a bribery for bawdery, and perjury for breach of the gentleman, because he is most unlike himself; and peace. He uses great care and moderation in purepines as much at his manner of living, as if he nishing those who offend regularly, by their calling, aintained him. He murmurs at him as the saints as residentiary bawds, and incumbent pimps, that do at the wicked, as if he kept his right from pay parish-duties - shopkeepers that use constant hm; for he makes his clownery a sect, and damns all false weights and measures, these he rather prunes, at are not of his church. He manures the earth that they may grow the better, than disables; but is fike a dunghill, but lets himself lie fallow, for no very severe to hawkers and interlopers, that comprovement will do good upon him. Cain was the mit iniquity on the bye. He interprets the statutes, fest of his family; and he does his endeavour not to de-as fanatics do the Scripture, by his own spirit; and enerate from the original churlishness of his ancestor. He that was fetched from the plough to be made dictator had not half his pride and insolence; nor Caligula's horse, that was made consul. All the Worst names that are given to men are borrowed

is most expert in the cases of light-bread, highways, and getting of bastards. His whole authority is like a welsh-hook; for his warrant is a puller to her, and his mittimus a thrust-her from her. He examines lewd circumstances with singular attention, and files