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Various

"Character Writings of the 17th Century"

He is
a spirit that inveighs away a man from himself, undertakes great matters
for him, and after sells him for a slave. He makes division not only
between a man and his friends, but between a man and himself, raises a
faction within him, and after takes part with the strongest side and
ruins both. He steals him away from himself (as the fairies are said to
do children in the cradle), and after changes him for a fool. He
whistles to him, as a carter does to his horse while he whips out his
eyes and makes him draw what he pleases. He finds out his humour and
feeds it, till it will come to hand, and then he leads him whither he
pleases. He tickles him, as they do trouts, until he lays hold on him,
and then devours and feeds upon him. He tickles his ears with a straw,
and while he is pleased with scratching it, picks his pocket, as the
cutpurse served Bartl. Cokes. He embraces him and hugs him in his arms,
and lifts him above ground, as wrestlers do, to throw him down again and
fall upon him. He possesses him with his own praises like an evil
spirit, that makes him swell and appear stronger than he was, talk what
he does not understand, and do things that he knows nothing of when he
comes to himself. He gives good words as doctors are said to give physic
when they are paid for it, and lawyers advice when they are fee'd
beforehand. He is a poisoned perfume that infects the brain and murders
those it pleases. He undermines a man, and blows him up with his own
praises to throw him down.


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