All his actions
and words are set down in so exact a method that an indifferent
accountant may cast him up to a halfpenny-farthing. He does everything
by rule, as if it were in a course of Lessius's diet, and did not eat,
but take a dose of meat and drink; and not walk, but proceed; not go,
but march. He draws up himself with admirable conduct in a very regular
and well-ordered body. All his business and affairs are junctures and
transactions, and when he speaks with a man he gives him audience. He
does not carry but marshal himself, and no one member of his body
politic takes place of another without due right of precedence. He does
all things by rules of proportion, and never gives himself the freedom
to manage his gloves or his watch in an irregular and arbitrary way, but
is always ready to render an account of his demeanour to the most strict
and severe disquisition. He sets his face as if it were cast in plaster,
and never admits of any commotion in his countenance, nor so much as the
innovation of a smile without serious and mature deliberation, but
preserves his looks in a judicial way, according as they have always
been established.
A FLATTERER
Is a dog that fawns when he bites. He hangs bells in a man's ears, as a
carman does by his horse while he lays a heavy load upon his back. His
insinuations are like strong wine, that pleases a man's palate till it
has got within him, and then deprives him of his reason and overthrows
him. His business is to render a man a stranger to himself, and get
between him and home, and then he carries him whither he pleases.
Pages:
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472