Microcosmography Part 6

We may surely conclude with a line from the same poem,

"A better preest I trowe that nowher non is."

IV.

A MEER DULL PHYSICIAN.

His practice is some business at bedsides, and his speculation an urinal: he is distinguished from an empiric, by a round velvet cap and doctor's gown, yet no man takes degrees more superfluously, for he is doctor howsoever. He is sworn to Galen and Hippocrates, as university men to their statutes, though they never saw them; and his discourse is all aphorisms, though his reading be only Alexis of Piedmont,[9] or the Regiment of Health.[10] The best cure he has done, is upon his own purse, which from a lean sickliness he hath made l.u.s.ty, and in flesh. His learning consists much in reckoning up the hard names of diseases, and the superscriptions of gally-pots in his apothecary's shop, which are ranked in his shelves, and the doctor's memory. He is, indeed, only languaged in diseases, and speaks Greek many times when he knows not. If he have been but a by-stander at some desperate recovery, he is slandered with it though he be guiltless; and this breeds his reputation, and that his practice, for his skill is merely opinion. Of all odours he likes best the smell of urine, and holds Vespasian's[11] rule, that no gain is unsavory.

If you send this once to him you must resolve to be sick howsoever, for he will never leave examining your water, till he has shaked it into a disease:[12] then follows a writ to his drugger in a strange tongue, which he understands, though he cannot conster. If he see you himself, his presence is the worst visitation: for if he cannot heal your sickness, he will be sure to help it. He translates his apothecary's shop into your chamber, and the very windows and benches must take physic. He tells you your malady in Greek, though it be but a cold, or headach; which by good endeavour and diligence he may bring to some moment indeed. His most unfaithful act is, that he leaves a man gasping, and his pretence is, death and he have a quarrel and must not meet; but his fear is, lest the carka.s.s should bleed.[13] Anatomies, and other spectacles of mortality, have hardened him, and he is no more struck with a funeral than a grave-maker. n.o.ble-men use him for a director of their stomach, and ladies for wantonness,[14] especially if he be a proper man.[15] If he be single, he is in league with his she-apothecary; and because it is the physician, the husband is patient. If he have leisure to be idle (that is to study,) he has a smatch at alc.u.my, and is sick of the philosopher's stone; a disease uncurable, but by an abundant phlebotomy of the purse. His two main opposites are a mountebank and a good woman, and he never shews his learning so much as in an invective against them and their boxes. In conclusion, he is a sucking consumption, and a very brother to the worms, for they are both engendered out of man's corruption.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] _The secretes of the reverende maister Alexis of Piemount, containyng excellente remedies against diuers diseases_, &c. appear to have been a very favourite study either with the physicians, or their patients, about this period.

They were originally written in Italian, and were translated into English by William Warde, of which editions were printed at London, in 1558, 1562, 1595, and 1615. In 1603, a _fourth_ edition of a Latin version appeared at Basil; and from Ward's dedication to "the lorde Russell, erle of Bedford,"

it seems that the French and Dutch were not without so great a treasure in their own languages. A specimen of the importance of this publication may be given in the t.i.tle of the first secret. "The maner and secrete to conserue a man's youth, and to holde back olde age, to maintaine a man always in helth and strength, as in the fayrest floure of his yeres."

[10] _The Regiment of Helthe_, by Thomas Paynell, is another volume of the same description, and was printed by Thomas Berthelette, in 1541. 4to.

[11] _Vespatian_, tenth emperor of Rome, imposed a tax upon urine, and when his son t.i.tus remonstrated with him on the meanness of the act, "Pecuniam," says Suetonius, "ex prima pensione admovit ad nares, suscitans _num odore offenderetur_? et illo negante, atqui, inquit, e lotio est."

[12] "Vpon the market-day he is much haunted with vrinals, where, if he finde any thing, (though he knowe nothing,) yet hee will say some-what, which if it hit to some purpose, with a fewe fustian words, hee will seeme a piece of strange stuffe." Character of an unworthy physician. "_The Good and the Badde_," by Nicholas Breton. 4to. 1618.

[13] That the murdered body bleeds at the approach of the murderer, was, in our author's time, a commonly received opinion. Holinshed affirms that the corps of Henry the Sixth bled as it was carrying for interment; and Sir Kenelm Digby so firmly believed in the truth of the report, that he has endeavoured to explain the reason. It is remarked by Mr. Steevens, in a note to _Shakspeare_, that the opinion seems to be derived from the ancient Swedes, or Northern nations, from whom we descend; as they practised this method of trial in all dubious cases.

[14]

"Faith, doctor, it is well, thy study is to please The female s.e.x, and how their corp'rall griefes to ease."

G.o.ddard's "_Mastif Whelp_." Satires. 4to. Without date. Sat. 17.

[15] _Proper_ for handsome.

V.

AN ALDERMAN.

He is venerable in his gown, more in his beard, wherewith he sets not forth so much his own, as the face of a city. You must look on him as one of the town gates, and consider him not as a body, but a corporation. His eminency above others hath made him a man of wors.h.i.+p, for he had never been preferred, but that he was worth thousands. He over-sees the commonwealth, as his shop, and it is an argument of his policy, that he has thriven by his craft. He is a rigorous magistrate in his ward; yet his scale of justice is suspected, lest it be like the balances in his warehouse. A ponderous man he is, and substantial, for his weight is commonly extraordinary, and in his preferment nothing rises so much as his belly. His head is of no great depth, yet well furnished; and when it is in conjunction with his brethren, may bring forth a city apophthegm, or some such sage matter. He is one that will not hastily run into error, for he treads with great deliberation, and his judgment consists much in his pace. His discourse is commonly the annals of his mayoralty, and what good government there was in the days of his gold chain, though the door posts were the only things that suffered reformation. He seems most sincerely religious, especially on solemn days; for he comes often to church to make a shew, [and is a part of the quire hangings.] He is the highest stair of his profession, and an example to his trade, what in time they may come to. He makes very much of his authority, but more of his sattin doublet, which, though of good years, bears its age very well, and looks fresh every Sunday: but his scarlet gown is a monument, and lasts from generation to generation.

VI.

A DISCONTENTED MAN

Is one that is fallen out with the world, and will be revenged on himself.

Fortune has denied him in something, and he now takes pet, and will be miserable in spite. The root of his disease is a self-humouring pride, and an accustomed tenderness not to be crossed in his fancy; and the occasion commonly of one of these three, a hard father, a peevish wench, or his ambition thwarted. He considered not the nature of the world till he felt it, and all blows fall on him heavier, because they light not first on his expectation. He has now foregone all but his pride, and is yet vain-glorious in the ostentation of his melancholy. His composure of himself is a studied carelessness, with his arms across, and a neglected hanging of his head and cloak; and he is as great an enemy to an hat-band, as fortune. He quarrels at the time and up-starts, and sighs at the neglect of men of parts, that is, such as himself. His life is a perpetual satyr, and he is still girding[16] the age's vanity, when this very anger shews he too much esteems it. He is much displeased to see men merry, and wonders what they can find to laugh at. He never draws his own lips higher than a smile, and frowns wrinkle him before forty. He at last falls into that deadly melancholy to be a bitter hater of men, and is the most apt companion for any mischief. He is the spark that kindles the commonwealth, and the bellows himself to blow it: and if he turn anything, it is commonly one of these, either friar, traitor, or mad-man.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] To _gird_, is to sneer at, or scorn any one. Falstaff says, "men of all sorts take a pride to _gird_ at me."--_Henry IV. Part 2._

VII.

AN ANTIQUARY;

He is a man strangly thrifty of time past, and an enemy indeed to his maw, whence he fetches out many things when they are now all rotten and stinking. He is one that hath that unnatural disease to be enamoured of old age and wrinkles, and loves all things (as Dutchmen do cheese,) the better for being mouldy and worm-eaten. He is of our religion, because we say it is most antient; and yet a broken statue would almost make him an idolater. A great admirer he is of the rust of old monuments, and reads only those characters, where time hath eaten out the letters. He will go you forty miles to see a saint's well or a ruined abbey; and there be but a cross or stone foot-stool in the way, he'll be considering it so long, till he forget his journey. His estate consists much in shekels, and Roman coins; and he hath more pictures of Caesar, than James or Elizabeth.

Beggars cozen him with musty things which they have raked from dunghills, and he preserves their rags for precious relicks. He loves no library, but where there are more spiders volumes than authors, and looks with great admiration on the antique work of cobwebs. Printed books he contemns, as a novelty of this latter age, but a ma.n.u.script he pores on everlastingly, especially if the cover be all moth-eaten, and the dust make a parenthesis between every syllable. He would give all the books in his study (which are rarities all,) for one of the old Roman binding, or six lines of Tully in his own hand. His chamber is hung commonly with strange beasts skins, and is a kind of charnel-house of bones extraordinary; and his discourse upon them, if you will hear him, shall last longer. His very attire is that which is the eldest out of fas.h.i.+on, [[AW]_and you may pick a criticism out of his breeches_.] He never looks upon himself till he is grey-haired, and then he is pleased with his own antiquity. His grave does not fright him, for he has been used to sepulchers, and he likes death the better, because it gathers him to his fathers.

FOOTNOTES:

[AW] In the first edition it stands thus:--"_and his hat is as antient as the tower of Babel_."

VIII.

A YOUNGER BROTHER.

His elder brother was the Esau, that came out first and left him like Jacob at his heels. His father has done with him, as Pharoah to the children of Israel, that would have them make brick and give them no straw, so he tasks him to be a gentleman, and leaves him nothing to maintain it. The pride of his house has undone him, which the elder's knighthood must sustain, and his beggary that knighthood. His birth and bringing up will not suffer him to descend to the means to get wealth; but he stands at the mercy of the world, and which is worse, of his brother.

He is something better than the serving-men; yet they more saucy with him than he bold with the master, who beholds him with a countenance of stern awe, and checks him oftener than his liveries. His brother's old suits and he are much alike in request, and cast off now and then one to the other.

Nature hath furnished him with a little more wit upon compa.s.sion, for it is like to be his best revenue. If his annuity stretch so far, he is sent to the university, and with great heart-burning takes upon him the ministry, as a profession he is condemned to by his ill fortune. Others take a more crooked path yet, the king's high-way; where at length their vizard is plucked off, and they strike fair for Tyburn: but their brother's pride, not love, gets them a pardon. His last refuge is the Low-countries,[17] where rags and lice are no scandal, where he lives a poor gentleman of a company, and dies without a s.h.i.+rt. The only thing that may better his fortunes is an art he has to make a gentlewoman, wherewith he baits now and then some rich widow that is hungry after his blood. He is commonly discontented and desperate, and the form of his exclamation is, _that churl my brother_. He loves not his country for this unnatural custom, and would have long since revolted to the Spaniard, but for Kent[18] only, which he holds in admiration.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] The Low-countries appear to have afforded ample room for ridicule at all times. In "_A brief Character of the Low-countries under the States, being Three Weeks Observation of the Vices and Virtues of the Inhabitants_, written by Owen Felltham, and printed Lond. 1659, 12mo. we find them epitomized as a general sea-land--the great bog of Europe--an universal quagmire--in short a green cheese in pickle. The sailors (in which denomination the author appears to include all the natives,) he describes as being able to "drink, rail, swear, niggle, steal, and be _lowsie_ alike. P. 40.

[18] _Gavelkind_, or the practice of dividing lands equally among all the male children of the deceased, was (according to Spelman,) adopted by the Saxons, from Germany, and is noticed by Tacitus in his description of that nation. _Gloss. Archaiol._ folio. Lond. 1664. Harrison, in _The Description of England_, prefixed to Holinshed's _Chronicle_, (vol. 1.

page 180,) says, "Gauell kind is all the male children equallie to inherit, and is continued to this daie in _Kent_, where it is onelie to my knowledge reteined, and no where else in England." And Lambarde, in his _Customes of Kent_, (_Perambulation_, 4to. 1596, page 538,) thus notices it:--"The custom of Grauelkynde is generall, and spreadeth itselfe throughout the whole shyre, into all landes subiect by auncient tenure vnto the same, such places onely excepted, where it is altered by acte of parleament."