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Various

"Character Writings of the 17th Century"

When he has passed almost all offices, as other beggars
do from constable to constable, and after meets with a stop, it does but
encourage him to be more industrious in watching the next opportunity,
to repair the charge he has been at to no purpose. He has his
emissaries, that are always hunting out for discoveries, and when they
bring him in anything that he judges too heavy far his own interest to
carry, he takes in others to join with him (like blind men and cripples
that beg in consort), and if they prosper they share, and give the
jackal some small snip for his pains in questing; that is, if he has any
further use of him; otherwise he leaves him, like virtue, to reward
himself; and because he deserves well, which he does by no means approve
of, gives him, that which he believes to be the fittest recompense of
all merit, just nothing. He believes that the King's restoration being
upon his birthday, he is bound to observe it all the days of his life,
and grant, as some other kings have done upon the same occasion,
whatever is demanded of him, though it were the one-half of his kingdom.

A BUMPKIN OR COUNTRY SQUIRE
Is a clown of rank and degree. He is the growth of his own land, a kind
of Autocthonus, like the Athenians that sprang out of their own ground,
or barnacles that grow upon trees in Scotland. His homely education has
rendered him a native only of his own soil and a foreigner to all other
places, from which he differs in language, manner of living, and
behaviour, which are as rugged as the coat of a colt that has been bred
upon a common.


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