He is a pedant in show, though his title be tutor, and his
pupils in a broader phrase are schoolboys. On these he spends the false
gallop of his tongue, and with senseless discourse tows them alone, not
out of ignorance. He shows them the rind, conceals the sap; by this
means he keeps them the longer, himself the better. He hath learnt to
cough and spit and blow his nose at every period, to recover his memory,
and studies chiefly to set his eyes and beard to a new form of learning.
His religion lies in wait for the inclination of his patron, neither
ebbs nor flows, but just standing water, between Protestant and Puritan.
His dreams are of plurality of benefices and non-residency, and when he
rises acts a long grace to his looking-glass. Against he comes to be
some great man's chaplain he hath a habit of boldness, though a very
coward. He speaks swords, fights ergos. His peace on foot is a measure,
on horseback a gallop, for his legs are his own, though horse and spurs
are borrowed. He hath less use than possession of books. He is not so
proud but he will call the meanest author by his name; nor so unskilled
in the heraldry of a study but he knows each man's place. So ends that
fellowship and begins another.
A MERE PETTIFOGGER
Is one of Samson's foxes; he sets men together by the ears, more
shamefully than pillories, and in a long vacation his sport is to go a
fishing with the penal statutes. He cannot err before judgment, and then
you see it, only writs of error are the tariers that keep his client
undoing somewhat the longer.
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