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Various

"Character Writings of the 17th Century"

He runs
division upon every note, and yet (to their commendations be it spoken)
none of them for all that division do trouble the Church. They are no
Anabaptists; if you ask under what horizon this climate lies, the
Bermudas and it are both under one and the same height. And whereas some
suppose that this island like that is haunted with devils, it is not so.
For those devils so talked of and feared are none else but hoggish
jailors. Hither you need not sail, for it is a ship of itself; the
master's side is the upper deck. They in the common jail lie under
hatches, and help to ballast it. Intricate cases are the tacklings,
executions the anchors, capiases the cables, chancery bills the huge
sails, a long term the mast, law the helm, a judge the pilot, a counsel
the purser, an attorney the boatswain, his Setting clerk the swabber,
bonds the waves, outlawries gust, the verdict of juries rough wind,
extents the knocks that split all in pieces. Or if it be not a ship, yet
this and a ship differ not much in the building; the one is moving
misery, the other a standing. The first is seated on a spring, the
second on piles. Either this place is an emblem of a bawdy house, or a
bawdy house of it; for nothing is to be seen in any room but scurvy beds
and bare walls. But (not so much to dishonour it) it is an university of
poor scholars, in which three arts are chiefly studied: to pray, to
curse, and to write letters.

A PRISONER
Is one that hath been a monied man, and is still a very close fellow;
whosoever is of his acquaintance, let them make much of him, for they
shall find him as fast a friend as any in England: he is a sure man, and
you know where to find him.


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