He commonly slurs every fourth or fifth
word, and seldom fails to throw doublets. There are two sorts of
quibbling, the one with words and the other with sense, like the
rhetorician's _figurae dictionis et figurae sententiae_--the first is
already cried down, and the other as yet prevails, and is the only
elegance of our modern poets, which easy judges call easiness; but
having nothing in it but easiness, and being never used by any lasting
wit, will in wiser times fall to nothing of itself.
A TIME-SERVER
Wears his religion, reason, and understanding always in the mode, and
endeavours as far as he can to be one of the first in the fashion, let
it change as oft as it can. He makes it his business, like a politic
epicure, to entertain his opinion, faith, and judgment with nothing but
what he finds to be most in season, and is as careful to make his
understanding ready according to the present humour of affairs as the
gentleman was that used every morning to put on his clothes by the
weather-glass. He has the same reverend esteem of the modern age as an
antiquary has for venerable antiquity, and, like a glass, receives
readily any present object, but takes no notice of that which is past or
to come. He is always ready to become anything as the times shall please
to dispose of him, but is really nothing of himself; for he that sails
before every wind can be bound for no port. He accounts it blasphemy to
speak against anything in present vogue, how vain or ridiculous soever,
and arch-heresy to approve of anything, though ever so good and wise,
that is laid by; and therefore casts his judgment and understanding upon
occasion, as bucks do their horns, when the season arrives to breed new
against the next, to be cast again.
Pages:
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430