He deals most with broken commodities, as a
broken head or a mangled face, and his gains are very ill got, for he
lives by the hurts of the commonwealth. He differs from a physician as a
sore does from a disease, or the sick from those that are not whole, the
one distempers you within, the other blisters you without. He complains
of the decay of valour in these days, and sighs for that slashing age of
sword and buckler; and thinks the law against duels was made merely to
wound his vocation. He had been long since undone if the charity of the
stews had not relieved him, from whom he has his tribute as duly as the
pope; or a wind-fall sometimes from a tavern, if a quart pot hit right.
The rareness of his custom makes him pitiless when it comes, and he
holds a patient longer than our [spiritual] courts a cause. He tells you
what danger you had been in if he had staid but a minute longer, and
though it be but a pricked finger, he makes of it much matter. He is a
reasonable cleanly man, considering the scabs he has to deal with, and
your finest ladies are now and then beholden to him for their best
dressings. He curses old gentlewomen and their charity that makes his
trade their alms; but his envy is never stirred so much as when
gentlemen go over to fight upon Calais sands,[54] whom he wishes drowned
ere they come there, rather than the French shall get his custom.
A CONTEMPLATIVE MAN
Is a scholar in this great university the world; and the same his book
and study.
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