His chief province is at funerals, where he commands in chief,
marshals the _tristitiae irritamenta_, and, like a gentleman-sower to
the worms, serves up the feast with all punctual formality. He will join
as many shields together as would make a Roman _testudo_ or Macedonian
phalanx, to fortify the nobility of a new-made lord that will pay for
the impressing of them and allow him coat and conduct money. He is a
kind of a necromancer, and can raise the dead out of their graves to
make them marry and beget those they never heard of in their lifetime.
His coat is, like the King of Spain's dominions, all skirts, and hangs
as loose about him; and his neck is the waist, like the picture of
Nobody with his breeches fastened to his collar. He will sell the head
or a single joint of a beast or fowl as dear as the whole body, like a
pig's head in Bartholomew Fair, and after put off the rest to his
customers at the same rate. His arms, being utterly out of use in war
since guns came up, have been translated to dishes and cups, as the
ancients used their precious stones, according to the poet, _Gemmas ad
pocula transfert a gladiis, &c._; and since are like to decay every day
more and more, for since he gave citizens coats-of-arms, gentlemen have
made bold to take their letters of mark by way of reprisal. The hangman
has a receipt to mar all his work in a moment, for by nailing the wrong
end of a scutcheon upwards upon a gibbet all the honour and gentility
extinguishes of itself, like a candle that's held with the flame
downwards.
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