for a shilling; both are of equal value, but the change is for convenience or humour.  There is nothing more difficult than a change of religion for the better, for as all alterations in judgment are derived from a precedent confessed error, that error is more probably like to produce another than anything of so different a nature as truth.  He imposes upon himself in believing the infirmity of his nature to be the strength of his judgment, and thinks he changes his religion when he changes himself, and turns as naturally from one thing to another as a maggot does to a fly.  He is a kind of freebooty and plunder, or one head of cattle driven by the priests of one religion out of the quarters of another, and they value him above two of their own; for, beside the glory of the exploit, they have a better title to him (as he that is conquered is more in the power of him that subdued him than he that was born his subject), and they expect a freer submission from one that takes quarter than from those that were under command before.  His weakness or ignorance, or both, are commonly the chief causes of his conversion; for if he be a man of a profession that has no hopes to thrive upon the account of mere merit, he has no way so easy and certain as to betake himself to some forbidden church, where, for the common cause’s sake, he finds so much brotherly love and kindness, that they will rather employ him than one of another persuasion though more skilful, and he gains by turning and winding his religion as tradesmen do by their stocks.  The priest has commonly the very same design upon him, for he that is not able to go to the charges of his conversion may live free enough from being attacked by any side.  He was troubled with a vertigo in his conscience, and nothing but change of religion, like change of air, could cure him.  He is like a sick man that can neither lie still in his bed nor turn himself but as he is helped by others.  He is like a revolter in an army; and as men of honour and commanders seldom prove such, but common soldiers, men of mean condition, frequently to mend their fortunes, so in religion clergymen who are commanders seldom prevail upon one another, and when they do, the proselyte is usually one who had no reputation among his own party before, and after a little trial finds as little among those to whom he revolts.

A CLOWN

Is a centaur, a mixture of man and beast, like a monster engendered by unnatural copulation, a crab engrafted on an apple.  He was neither made by art nor nature, but in spite of both, by evil custom..  His perpetual conversation with beasts has rendered him one of them, and he is among men but a naturalised brute.  He appears by his language, genius, and behaviour to be an alien to mankind, a foreigner to humanity, and of so opposite a genius that ’tis easier to make a Spaniard a Frenchman than to reduce him to civility.  He disdains every man that he does