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Various

"Character Writings of the 17th Century"

In sum, he is a necessary member for an
unnecessary malady, to find a disease and to cure the diseased.

AN UNWORTHY PHYSICIAN.
An unlearned and so unworthy physician is a kind of horse-leech, whose
cure is most in drawing of blood, and a desperate purge, either to cure
or kill, as it hits. His discourse is most of the cures that he hath
done, and them afar of; and not a receipt under a hundred pounds, though
it be not worth three halfpence. Upon the market-day he is much haunted
with urinals, where if he find anything (though he know nothing), yet he
will say somewhat, which if it hit to some purpose, with a few fustian
words he will seem a piece of strange stuff. He is never without old
merry tales and stale jests to make old folks laugh, and comfits or
plums in his pocket to please little children; yea, and he will be
talking of complexions, though he know nothing of their dispositions;
and if his medicine do a feat, he is a made man among fools; but being
wholly unlearned, and ofttimes unhonest, let me thus briefly describe
him:--He is a plain kind of mountebank and a true quack-salver, a danger
for the sick to deal withal, and a dizzard in the world to talk withal.

A WORTHY MERCHANT.
A worthy merchant is the heir of adventure, whose hopes hang much upon
wind. Upon a wooden horse he rides through the world, and in a merry
gale he makes a path through the seas. He is a discoverer of countries,
and a finder out of commodities, resolute in his attempts, and royal in
his expenses.


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