His malice is all sorts of gain to him, for as men take
pleasure in pursuing, entrapping, and destroying all sorts of beasts and
fowl, and call it sport, so would he do men, and if he had equal power
would never be at a loss, nor give over his game without his prey; and
in this he does nothing but justice, for as men take delight to destroy
beasts, he, being a beast, does but do as he is done by in endeavouring
to destroy men. The philosopher said, "Man to man is a god and a wolf;"
but he, being incapable of the first, does his endeavour to make as much
of the last as he can, and shows himself as excellent in his kind as it
is in his power to do.
A KNAVE
Is like a tooth-drawer, that maintains his own teeth in constant eating
by pulling out those of other men. He is an ill moral philosopher, of
villainous principles, and as bad practice. His tenets are to hold what
he can get, right or wrong. His tongue and his heart are always at
variance, and fall out like rogues in the street, to pick somebody's
pocket. They never agree but, like Herod and Pilate, to do mischief. His
conscience never stands in his light when the devil holds a candle to
him, for he has stretched it so thin that it is transparent. He is an
engineer of treachery, fraud, and perfidiousness, and knows how to
manage matters of great weight with very little force by the advantage
of his trepanning screws. He is very skilful in all the mechanics of
cheat, the mathematical magic of imposture, and will outdo the
expectation of the most credulous to their own admiration and undoing.
Pages:
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553