The inside
of his head is like the outside, and his peruke as naturally of his own
growth as his wit. He passes in the world like a piece of counterfeit
coin, looks well enough until he is rubbed and worn with use, and then
his copper complexion begins to appear, and nobody will take him but by
owl-light.
AN IMITATOR
Is a counterfeit stone, and the larger and fairer he appears the more
apt he is to be discovered; whilst small ones, that pretend to no great
value, pass unsuspected. He is made like a man in arras-hangings, after
some great master's design, though far short of the original. He is like
a spectrum or walking spirit, that assumes the shape of some particular
person and appears in the likeness of something that he is not because
he has no shape of his own to put on. He has a kind of monkey and baboon
wit, that takes after some man's way whom he endeavours to imitate, but
does it worse than those things that are naturally his own; for he does
not learn, but take his pattern out, as a girl does her sampler. His
whole life is nothing but a kind of education, and he is always learning
to be something that he is not nor ever will be. For Nature is free, and
will not be forced out of her way, nor compelled to do anything against
her own will and inclination. He is but a retainer to wit and a follower
of his master, whose badge he wears everywhere, and therefore his way is
called servile imitation. His fancy is like the innocent lady's, who, by
looking on the picture of a Moor that hung in her chamber, conceived a
child of the same complexion; for all his conceptions are produced by
the pictures of other men's imaginations, and by their features betray
whose bastards they are.
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