which is the first quickening soul superadded to the elementary and inanimate form of his new tide.  His terms are his wife’s vacations; yet she then may usurp divers Court-days, and has her returns in mensem for writs of entry—­often shorter.  His vacations are her termers; but in assize time (the circuit being long) he may have a trial at home against him by nisi prius.  No way to heaven, he thinks, so wise as through Westminster Hall; and his clerks commonly through it visit both heaven and hell.  Yet then he oft forgets his journey’s end, although he look on the Star-Chamber.  Neither is he wholly destitute of the arts.  Grammar he has enough to make termination of those words which his authority hath endenizoned rhetoric-some; but so little that it is thought a concealment.  Logic, enough to wrangle.  Arithmetic, enough for the ordinals of his year-books and number-rolls; but he goes not to multiplication, there is a statute against it.  So much geometry, that he can advise in a perambulatione fadenda, or a rationalibus divisis.  In astronomy and astrology he is so far seen, that by the Dominical letter he knows the holy-days, and finds by calculation that Michaelmas term will be long and dirty.  Marry, he knows so much in music that he affects only the most and cunningest discords; rarely a perfect concord, especially song, except in fine.  His skill in perspective endeavours much to deceive the eye of the law, and gives many false colours.  He is specially practised in necromancy (such a kind as is out of the Statute of Primo), by raising many dead questions.  What sufficiency he hath in criticism, the foul copies of his special pleas will tell you.  Many of the same coat, which are much to be honoured, partake of divers of his indifferent qualities; but so that discretion, virtue, and sometimes other good learning, concurring and distinguishing ornaments to them, make them as foils to set their work on.

A MERE SCHOLAR.

A mere scholar is an intelligible ass, or a silly fellow in black that speaks sentences more familiarly than sense.  The antiquity of his University is his creed, and the excellency of his college (though but for a match at football) an article of his faith.  He speaks Latin better than his mother-tongue, and is a stranger in no part of the world but his own country.  He does usually tell great stories of himself to small purpose, for they are commonly ridiculous, be they true or false.  His ambition is that he either is or shall be a graduate; but if ever he get a fellowship, he has then no fellow.  In spite of all logic he dares swear and maintain it, that a cuckold and a town’s-man are termini convertibles, though his mother’s husband be an alderman.  He was never begotten (as it seems) without much wrangling, for his whole life is spent in pro et contra.  His tongue goes always before his wit, like gentleman-usher,