other cookery in the world.  He is a slave condemned to the mines.  He laughs at the golden mean as ridiculous, and believes there is no such thing in the world; for how can there be a mean of that of which no man ever had enough?  He loves the world so well that he would willingly lose himself to save anything by it.  His riches are like a dunghill, that renders the ground unprofitable that it lies upon, and is good for nothing until it be spread and scattered abroad.

A SWEARER

Is one that sells the devil the best pennyworth that he meets with anywhere, and, like the Indians that part with gold for glass beads, he damns his soul for the slightest trifles imaginable.  He betroths himself oftener to the devil in one day than Mecaenas did in a week to his wife, that he was married a thousand times to.  His discourse is inlaid with oaths as the gallows is with nails, to fortify it against the assaults of those whose friends have made it their deathbed.  He takes a preposterous course to be believed and persuade you to credit what he says, by saying that which at the best he does not mean; for all the excuse he has for his voluntary damning of himself is, that he means nothing by it.  He is as much mistaken in what he does intend really, for that which he takes for the ornament of his language renders it the most odious and abominable.  His custom of swearing takes away the sense of his saying.  His oaths are but a dissolute formality of speech and the worst kind of affectation.  He is a Knight-Baronet of the Post, or gentleman blasphemer, that swears for his pleasure only; a lay-affidavit man, in voto only and not in orders.  He learned to swear, as magpies do to speak, by hearing others.  He talks nothing but bell, book, and candle, and delivers himself over to Satan oftener than a Presbyterian classis would do.  He plays with the devil for sport only, and stakes his soul to nothing.  He overcharges his oaths till they break and hurt himself only.  He discharges them as fast as a gun that will shoot nine times with one loading.  He is the devil’s votary, and fails not to commend himself into his tuition upon all occasions.  He outswears an exorcist, and outlies the legend.  His oaths are of a wider bore and louder report than those of an ordinary perjurer, but yet they do not half the execution.  Sometimes he resolves to leave it, but not too suddenly, lest it should prove unwholesome and injurious to his health, but by degrees as he took it up.  Swearing should appear to be the greatest of sins, for though the Scripture says, “God sees no sin in His children,” it does not say He hears none.

THE LUXURIOUS