He professes most kindness
commonly to those he least cares for, like an host that bids a man
welcome when he is going away. He had rather be every man's menial
servant than any one man's friend; for servants gain by their masters,
and men often lose by their friends.
A CHEAT
Is a freeman of all trades, and all trades of his. Fraud and treachery
are his calling, though his profession be the strictest integrity and
truth. He spins nets, like a spider, out of his own entrails, to entrap
the simple and unwary that light in his way, whom he devours and feeds
upon. All the greater sort of cheats, being allowed by authority, have
lost their names (as judges, when they are called to the Bench, are no
more styled lawyers) and left the title to the meaner only and the
unallowed. The common ignorance of mankind is his province, which he
orders to the best advantage. He is but a tame highwayman, that does the
same things by stratagem and design which the other does by force, makes
men deliver their understandings first, and after their purses. Oaths
and lies are his tools that he works with, and he gets his living by the
drudgery of his conscience. He endeavours to cheat the devil by
mortgaging his soul so many times over and over to him, forgetting that
he has damnations, as priests have absolutions of all prices. He is a
kind of a just judgment, sent into this world to punish the confidence
and curiosity of ignorance, that out of a natural inclination to error
will tempt its own punishment and help to abuse itself.
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