Next him, writers and
libellers are most pernicious, for though the contagion they disperse
spreads slower and with less force than preaching, yet it lasts longer,
and in time extends to more, and with less danger to the author, who is
not easily discovered if he use any care to conceal himself. And
therefore, as we see stinging-flies vex and provoke cattle most
immediately before storms, so multitudes of those kinds of vermin do
always appear to stir up the people before the beginning of all
troublesome times, and nobody knows who they are or from whence they
came, but only that they were printed the present year that they may not
lose the advantage of being known to be new. Some do it only out of
humour and envy, or desire to see those that are above them pulled down
and others raised in their places, as if they held it a kind of freedom
to change their governors, though they continue in the same condition
themselves still, only they are a little better pleased with it in
observing the dangers greatness is exposed to. He delights in nothing so
much as civil commotions, and, like a porpoise, always plays before a
storm. Paper and tinder are both made of the same material, rags, but he
converts them both into the same again and makes his paper tinder.
THE RUDE MAN
Is an Ostro-Goth or Northern Hun, that, wheresoever he comes, invades
and all the world does overrun, without distinction of age, sex, or
quality. He has no regard to anything but his own humour, and that, he
expects, should pass everywhere without asking leave or being asked
wherefore, as if he had a safe-conduct for his rudeness.
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