commonly is begun in a supper, and lost in lending money.  The tavern is a dangerous place to him, for to drink and be drunk is with him all one, and his brain is sooner quenched than his thirst.  He is drawn into naughtiness with company, but suffers alone, and the bastard commonly laid to his charge.  One that will be patiently abused, and take exception a month after when he understands it, and then be abused again into a reconcilement; and you cannot endear him more than by cozening him, and it is a temptation to those that would not.  One discoverable in all silliness to all men but himself, and you may take any man’s knowledge of him better than his own.  He will promise the same thing to twenty, and rather than deny one break with all.  One that has no power over himself, over his business, over his friends, but a prey and pity to all; and if his fortunes once sink, men quickly cry, Alas!—­and forget him.

A TOBACCO-SELLER

Is the only man that finds good in it which others brag of but do not; for it is meat, drink, and clothes to him.  No man opens his ware with greater seriousness, or challenges your judgment more in the approbation.  His shop is the rendezvous of spitting, where men dialogue with their noses, and their communication is smoke.[47] It is the place only where Spain is commended and preferred before England itself.  He should be well experienced in the world, for he has daily trial of men’s nostrils, and none is better acquainted with humours.  He is the piecing commonly of some other trade, which is bawd to his tobacco, and that to his wife, which is the flame that follows this smoke.

A POT-POET

Is the dregs of wit, yet mingled with good drink may have some relish.  His inspirations are more real than others, for they do but feign a God, but he has his by him.  His verse runs like the tap, and his invention as the barrel, ebbs and flows at the mercy of the spigot.  In thin drink he aspires not above a ballad, but a cup of sack inflames him, and sets his muse and nose a-fire together.  The press is his mint, and stamps him now and then a sixpence or two in reward of the baser coin his pamphlet.  His works would scarce sell for three half-pence, though they are given oft for three shillings, but for the pretty title that allures the country gentleman; for which the printer maintains him in ale a fortnight.  His verses are like his clothes miserable centoes[48] and patches, yet their pace is not altogether so hobbling as an almanack’s.  The death of a great man or the burning[49] of a house furnish him with an argument, and the nine Muses are out strait in mourning gowns, and Melpomene cries fire! fire! [His other poems are but briefs in rhyme, and like the poor Greeks collections to redeem from captivity.] He is a man now much employed in commendations of our navy, and a bitter inveigher against the Spaniard.