SIR THOMAS OVERBURY 1581-1613 A FRANKLIN His outside is an ancient yeoman of England, though his inside may give arms (with the best gentlemen) and never see the herald. There is no truer servant in the house than himself. Though he be master, he says not to his servants, 'Go to field,' but, 'Let us go;' and with his own eye doth both fatten his flock and set forward all manner of husbandry. He is taught by nature to be contented with a little; his own fold yields him both food and raiment: he is pleased with any nourishment God sends, whilst curious gluttony ransacks, as it were, Noah's ark for food, only to feed the riot of one meal. He is never known to go to law; understanding to be law-bound among men is like to be hide-bound among his beasts; they thrive not under it: and that such men sleep as unquietly as if their pillows were stuffed with lawyers' penknives. When he builds, no poor tenant's cottage hinders his prospect: they are indeed his almshouses, though there be painted on them no such superscription: he never sits up late, but when he hunts the badger, the vowed foe of his lambs: nor uses he any cruelty, but when he hunts the hare, nor subtilty, but when he setteth snares for the snite or pitfalls for the blackbird; nor oppression, but when in the month of July he goes to the next river and shears his sheep. He allows of honest pastime, and thinks not the bones of the dead anything bruised, or the worse for it, though the country lasses dance in the churchyard after evensong. Rock Monday, and the wake in summer, shrovings, the wakeful catches on Christmas Eve, the hoky, or seed-cake, these he yearly keeps, yet holds them no relics of Popery. He is not so inquisitive after news derived from the privy closet, when the finding of an aerie of hawks in his own ground, or the foaling of a colt come of a good strain, are tidings more pleasant, more profitable. He is lord paramount within himself, though he hold by never so mean a tenure; and dies the more contentedly (though he leave his heir young), in regard he leaves him not liable to a covetous guardian. Lastly, to end him: he cares not when his end comes, he needs not fear his audit, for his quietus is in heaven, JOHN EARLE 1601 (?)-1665 A YOUNG RAW PREACHER Is a bird not yet fledged, that hath hopped out of his nest to be chirping on a hedge, and will be straggling abroad at what peril soever. His back wardness in the university hath set him thus forward; for had he not truanted there, he had not been so hasty a divine. His small standing, and time, hath made him a proficient only in boldness, out of which, and his table-book, he is furnished for a preacher. His collections of study are the notes of sermons, which, taken up at St. Mary's, he utters in the country: and if he write brachigraphy, his stock is so much the better. His writing is more than his reading, for he reads only what he gets without book. Thus accomplished he comes down to his friends, and his first salutation is grace and peace out of the pulpit. His prayer is conceited, and no man remembers his college more at large. The pace of his sermon is a full career, and he runs wildly over hill and dale, till the clock stop him. The labour of it is chiefly in his lungs; and the only thing he has made in it himself, is the faces. He takes on against the Pope without mercy, and has a jest still in lavender for Bellarmine: yet he preaches heresy, if it comes in his way, though with a mind, I must needs say, very orthodox. His action is all passion, and his speech interjections. He has an excellent faculty in bemoaning the people, and spits with a very good grace. His style is compounded of twenty several men's, only his body imitates some one extraordinary. He will not draw his handkercher out of his place, nor blow his nose without discretion. His commendation is, that he never looks upon book; and indeed, he was never used to it. He preaches but once a year, though twice on Sunday; for the stuff is still the same, only the dressing a little altered. He has more tricks with a sermon, than a tailor with an old cloak, to turn it, and piece it, and at last quite disguise it with a new preface. If he have waded farther in his profession, and would shew reading of his own, his authors are postils, and his school-divinity a catechism. His fashion and demure habit gets him in with some town-precisian, and makes him a guest on Friday nights. You shall know him by his narrow velvet cape, and serge facing; and his ruff, next his hair, the shortest thing about him. The companion of his walk is some zealous tradesman, whom he astonishes with strange points, which they both understand alike. His friends and much painfulness may prefer him to thirty pounds a year, and this means to a chamber-maid: with whom we leave him now in the bonds of wedlock. Next Sunday you shall have him again. OWEN FELTHAM 1602 (?)-1668 OF DREAMS DREAMS are notable means of discovering our own inclinations. The wise man learns to know himself as well by the night's black mantle, as the searching beams of day. In sleep, we have the naked and natural thoughts of our souls: outward objects interpose not, either to shuffle in occasional cogitations, or hale out the included fancy. The mind is then shut up in the Borough of the body; none of the Cinque Ports of the Isle of Man, are then open, to in-let any strange disturbers. Surely, how we fall to vice, or rise to virtue, we may by observation find in our dreams. It was the wise Zeno, that said, he could collect a man by his dreams. For then the soul stated in a deep repose, bewrayed her true affections: which, in the busy day, she would either not shew, or not note. It was a custom among the Indians, when their kings went to their sleep, to pray with piping acclamations, that they might have happy dreams; and withal consult well for their subjects' benefit: as if the night had been a time, wherein they might grow good, and wise. And certainly, the wise man is the wiser for his sleeping, if he can order well in the day, what the eyeless night presenteth him. Every dream is not to be counted of: nor yet are all to be cast away with contempt. I would neither be a Stoic, superstitious in all; nor yet an Epicure, considerate of none. If the Physician may by them judge of the disease of the body, I see not |