That learning which
he hath was in non age put in backward like a glyster, and it's now like
ware mislaid in a pedlar's pack; a has it, but knows not where it is. In
a word, his is the index of a man and the title-page of a scholar, or a
puritan in morality--much in profession, nothing in practice.
A TINKER
Is a movable, for he hath no abiding-place; by his motion he gathers
heat, thence his choleric nature. He seems to be very devout, for his
life is a continual pilgrimage, and sometimes in humility goes barefoot,
thereon making necessity a virtue. His house is as ancient as Tubal
Cain's, and so is a renegade by antiquity: yet he proves himself a
gallant, for he carries all his wealth upon his back; or a philosopher,
for he bears all his substance about him. From his art was music first
invented, and therefore he is always furnished with a song, to which his
hammer keeping tune, proves that he was the first founder for the
kettledrum. Note, that where the best ale is, there stands his music
most upon crochets. The companion of his travels is some foul sun-burnt
quean, that, since the terrible statute, recanted gipseyism and is
turned pedlaress. So marches he all over England with his bag and
baggage. His conversation is unreprovable, for he is ever mending. He
observes truly the statutes, and therefore he can rather steal than beg,
in which he is unremovably constant in spite of whip or imprisonment;
and so a strong enemy to idleness, that in mending one hole he had
rather make three than want work, and when he hath done, he throws the
wallet of his faults behind him.
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