Once a
month he presents himself at the church, to keep off the church-warden,
and brings in his body to save his bail. He kneels with the
congregation, but prays by himself, and asks God forgiveness for coming
thither. If he be forced to stay out a sermon, he pulls his hat over his
eyes, and frowns out the hour; and when he comes home, thinks to make
amends for this fault by abusing the preacher. His main policy is to
shift off the communion, for which he is never unfurnished of a quarrel,
and will be sure to be out of charity at Easter; and indeed he lies not,
for he has a quarrel to the sacrament. He would make a bad martyr and
good traveller, for his conscience is so large he could never wander out
of it; and in Constantinople would be circumcised with a reservation.
His wife is more zealous and therefore more costly, and he bates her in
tires what she stands him in religion. But we leave him hatching plots
against the state, and expecting Spinola.[21]
A SELF-CONCEITED MAN
Is one that knows himself so well, that he does not know himself. Two
excellent well-dones have undone him, and he is guilty of it that first
commended him to madness. He is now become his own book, which he pores
on continually, yet like a truant reader skips over the harsh places,
and surveys only that which is pleasant. In the speculation of his own
good parts, his eyes, like a drunkard's, see all double, and his fancy,
like an old man's spectacles, make a great letter in a small print.
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