His looking
big is rather a tumour than greatness. He is an idol that has just so
much value as other men give him that believe in him, but none of his
own. He makes his ignorance pass for reserve, and, like a hunting-nag,
leaps over what he cannot get through. He has just so much of politics
as hostlers in the university have Latin. He is as humble as a Jesuit to
his superior, but repays himself again in insolence over those that are
below him, and with a generous scorn despises those that can neither do
him good nor hurt. He adores those that may do him good, though he knows
they never will, and despises those that would not hurt him if they
could. The court is his church, and he believes as that believes, and
cries up and down everything as he finds it pass there. It is a great
comfort to him to think that some who do not know him may perhaps take
him for a lord, and while that thought lasts he looks bigger than usual
and forgets his acquaintance, and that's the reason why he will
sometimes know you and sometimes not. Nothing but want of money or
credit puts him in mind that he is mortal, but then he trusts Providence
that somebody will trust him, and in expectation of that hopes for a
better life, and that his debts will never rise up in judgment against
him. To get in debt is to labour in his vocation, but to pay is to
forfeit his protection, for what's that worth to one that owes nothing?
His employment being only to wear his clothes, the whole account of his
life and actions is recorded in shopkeepers' books, that are his
faithful historiographers to their own posterity; and he believes he
loses so much reputation as he pays off his debts, and that no man wears
his clothes in fashion that pays for them, for nothing is further from
the mode.
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