He is one plague the devil hath added
to make the sea more terrible than a storm, and his heart is so hardened
in that rugged element that he cannot repent, though he view his grave
before him continually open. He hath so little of his own that the house
he sleeps in is stolen: all the necessities of life he filches but one;
he cannot steal a sound sleep for his troubled conscience. He is very
gentle to those under him, yet his rule is the horriblest tyranny in the
world, for he gives licence to all rape, murder, and cruelty in his own
example. What he gets is small use to him, only lives by it somewhat the
longer to do a little more service to his belly, for he throws away his
treasure upon the shore in riot, as if he cast it into the sea. He is a
cruel hawk that flies at all but his own kind; and as a whale never
comes ashore but when she is wounded, so he very seldom but for his
necessities. He is the merchant's book that serves only to reckon up his
losses, a perpetual plague to noble traffic, the hurricane of the sea,
and the earthquake of the exchange. Yet for all this give him but his
pardon and forgive him restitution, he may live to know the inside of a
church, and die on this side Wapping.
AN ORDINARY FENCER
Is a fellow that, beside shaving of cudgels, hath a good insight into
the world, for he hath long been beaten to it. Flesh and blood he is
like other men, but surely nature meant him stockfish. His and a
dancing-school are inseparable adjuncts, and are bound, though both
stink of sweat most abominable, neither shall complain of annoyance.
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