Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A39706
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Enigmaticall characters, all taken to the life from severall persons, humours, & dispositions by Rich. Fleckno.
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Flecknoe, Richard, d. 1678?
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1658
(1658)
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Wing F1213; ESTC R18248
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43,329
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154
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they were grated on by a ragged staff then fort and Gallyard is the word and strong and lusty is the mode agen and if you like not his play he tels ye at least that he has the only new method of Paris and that he teaches a ravir and non pareille and for his lessons which he has rakt out of Gualtiers dung-hill or collected from the privy-house of Defaut he keeps them as precious reliques giving such out for new as were made before the Avignon or the Popes coming there He is fawning where he is a stranger and saucy where he is familiar having ever some vice to teach besides his art In fine he is the Mountebank of himself and though he have nothing at all considerable to commend him besides his own praises and his being French for which reason one may commend the Pox as well yet there is such a charm in this word a la mode and the English are so besotted with it as the first Frenchman has their money who proffers to teach it them nor will this ever be remedied till some such zealous patriot step up as he who hearing them talk of the French Pox bid them call it the English with a pox swearing we had as good of our own as the French had any CHARACTER Of a Flatterer HE is a mid sort of Animal betwixt man and beast with the manners of beast under the resemblance of a man nay he is a compound of all base vilde beasts together a Dog in fawning an Ape in imitating a Fox in faining and dissembling and an Asse in suffering and bearing every thing He is so base as he makes not only servitude his daily food but even the ordures of those he serves and is worse than those who sell themselves unto the Gally's for they yet perform the offices of men and have their minds free though their Bodies thrale but he inslaves both mind and body too and can neither look with the assurance nor speak with the confidence of a Free-born man making a vilder merchandise the whilest then he who sold Vrine or the pallace smoak for he for slight benefits sels his own Injuries to live a slave sells the dignity of an honest man neither do they make better merchandise who purchase him who whilst he sooths their humours corrupts their manners and flatters them into vice being so infectious as even to render those he flatters Archflatterers of themselvs with his vild arts like those who Angle with intoxicating baits catching them sooner t is true but rendring them nothing worth when they are caught we may conclude then the prayer of him who of all wilde beasts desired to be delivered from a Tyrant and of all tame from a Flatterer with this curse on the Flatterer that he may never live but under tyrants it being but just that they should suffer the pain and penalty of their being such who make them so CHARACTER Of a faire and virtuous Lady SHe is the honour of her sex and that to beauty as beauty is to others all grace and ornament her virtue like a charm rendering her beauty invulnerable against malicious tongues and that which in others is fragile and of glasse so malleable in her as it can neither be broke nor crackt whence she onely has priviledge freely to dresse her self without suspition of harm and enjoy all lawfull pleasures without danger of unlawfull ones whilst all is suspicious and dangerous in others to conclude then as antiently your semi gods in marrying with mortals communicated to them their divinity so her beauty by the marriage of sacred virtue is consecrate and rendred all celestiall and divine those titles which others incuriously usurp onely of right appertaining unto her who becomes more venerable by age and imortall by death it self her virtue having raised her above time and mortallity CHARACTER Of a quarrelsome Coxcomb HE differs as much from a valiant man as a wrangling sophister from a great Schollar or dull rumbling thunder in a cloud from your quick on that breaketh forth in storms he is ready to give you the lye before you speak and then contradicts you what so ere you say when to avoid fighting he tells you how often he has fought and how many he has kil'd and some believe him because indeed they could never see any alive whom he had fought withall though others are of a contrary opinion saying of all men living they would choose to be kil'ld by him for so they should be sure to be still alive He speaks all Sword Rapier Poynard understands nothing but Cudgell and Bastinado which he so richly merits as besides Canes none but would rather want wood to burn than for so necessary use as beating him when he is quite strait for though he be his Anger 's slave Fear masters it and t is just like a Nettle handle it gently and it pricks you but roughly and you break the point of it after which as before he was the fools valiant man he becomes the valiant mans fool and by degrees every ones when once they find him out yet retains he somewhat of his former nature still a dull grumbling and wrangling that is half quarrelling which makes him when he is offended in any company go muttering away saying He cares no more for them than they care for him which if so he is the happiest man alive for I know none lives freer from care than he CHARACTER Of a Complementer YOur Complementer is a French familly that came not in with the Conquest but the corruption of England unknown unto our honest Ancestors who did as they said and spoke as they meant he is the rack of conversation and sets every ones joints a stretching And in France he derives his pedegree from an accomply menteur or an accomplisht lyer for complement is worse than equivocation since that has alwayes some mentall reservation or lurking hole for truth but this has none T is the language of Hyperboly and sometimes of Irony t is the language of the Court where meaning walks for pomp and shew with a long train of words and that the Courtier uses to bob of suiters or bob for those they are suiters too In a word t is the language of the Idle for to delight the vain and but a speaking ceremony as ceremony is but a dumb complement whence our new reformers hate it so much perhaps as they have chang'd the stile into as much defect of Civility as tother was in the excesse they being faln now upon such a vain of clownishness or I may say not bluntnesse but churlishnesse not of plain dealing but of plain divillishness as if they hold on as they begin pray God we do not wish for our complimenting dayes again as far the better extremity of the two CHARACTER Of a young Enamourist He 's one who as soon as he has quited his School-boyes Toyes next Toy he gets is a Mrs when t'
to fill the place with votius tables and even in picture to work miracles she being still the greater miracle herself and so all surprizing as a disease but as taking as her eyes would be epidemical and soon depopulate all the world Then shee 's so obliging civill and courteous as obligingnesse civility and courtesie seem to be born with her and it is feared will dye and be buried with her in the same grave when she dyes Her speech and behaviour being all so gentle sweet and affable as you may talke of Magick but there is none charms but she nor has complacency and observance more ready at a Beck she to the shame and confusion of the proud and imperious doing more with one gentle intreaty than they with all their loud iterated commands Whence she alone with her sweetness and gentlenesse would tame fierce Lions and civilize barbarousest Savages and if there be any feircenesse and savagenesse in the world t is onely where she is not and because she cannot be every where whence Heaven seems onely to have made her so beautifull to make vertue more lovely in her the one serving to adorn the other as her noble obligingnesse and goodnesse does for the ornament of both CHARACTER Of a gallant Warriour HE is a Lover and the Warre is his Mistresse whom he courts so nobly as not onely she but all are enamour'd on him all his thoughts are on her and all his Ambition is to deserve her favours and declare himself worthy of her he doing that in effect which others onely talk off hazzard and expose his life for his Mistresse as often as brave Action cals him to 't Mean time compare him but with your other fine Gallants of the Town and you 'le see what little pittifull things they 'le seem compared to him just as Puppets in comparison with men he i th' head of an Army with brave feircenesse in the field they with little meens and countenances leading a dance at home they slickt with pomatum all patcht and powdred he all covered ore with dust and sweat the powder of the Canon frizling her hair and every patch hiding or shewing some noble wound they finally proud of the favour of some knot or ribban their Mistresse Dog has honour to wear as well as they he gloriously returning home with victory a favour onely greatest Heroes are honoured with After all which more to encrease their shames and his glory he beats them at their own weapons too to shew himself every wayes a Conquerour and provs the gallanter courtier as far surpassing them in the gentle Arts of Peace as in the noble ones of War With good reason they feigned Venus then enamoured of Mars onely I wonder they fabled him born of immortall race since in my conceit the fable had been much handsomer had they feigned like our Mars's here his noble actions onely Immortalizing him CHARACTER Of a miserable old Gentlewoman HEr word is pitty any thing should be lost whilest others say pittie any thing should be saved as she saves it for she hoards up Candles ends and scapes up Greace being so rich in Kitchin-stuff as her very cloaths are become part of it excepting her brancht-velvet-gown thin as an old groat with the figures all worn out which she keeps more carefully for Sundayes and Holy-dayes nor wonders she at the Iews wearing their cloths in the Desart forty years for she has a petty-coat she has worn as long her stomacher being a piece of venerable Antiquity derived from the Velvet of Queen Mary's gown and her prayer Book was a Relique of her Grand-mothers till falling into the Dripping-pan by simpathy the Dog and Cat fell out about it and at last agreed to pray on it since when for want of a Book her ordinary prayer without Book is a God help ye without Alms for which the Beggars curse her as fast onely your sneezers thank her because they expect no more from her for her house you enter it with the same horrour as you 'de do one the witches kept their Sabot in she sitting purring in the Chimney-corner like a melancholly Cat mumping like an old Ape when she saluteth you and when shee'de Regale you indeed sends for a bottle of Sack from her Closet as everlasting as the Widdows cruch of Oyle has served this twelve months all strangers that come to house together with a Box of mermelate so dry as the flyes have given 't over long since in dispaire of extracting any more sweetnesse out of it In fine to tell you all the sordid poverty of her house I should never make an end wherefore to conclude her Coffers are only rich whilst she is poore where she hoard up all her old spurroials and Harry Angels with her deaths head and Gymal Rings for whosoever she means to make her Heir which I 'm sure sha'nt be me I laugh at her so much CHARACTER Of a Ladies Little Dog HE is native of Bolonia though of no great House as t is imagined yet he is his Ladies Favourite and the Envy of her gallants for his lying with her a night whilest he innocently snugs and ne'er thinks of his happiness and kisses her a days without imagining any harm for which they suspect him of frigidity and certainly he is so cold as the Chimney-corner can scarce keep him warm where he lies in his panier like Diogenes in his Tub snarling and barking at every on comes in whence he 's imagined to be one of his Cinick sect yet all Caresse and make much of him for his Ladies sake and that proverbs together Love me and love my Dog Mean time his chiefest bravery consists in his chollar which you would take for the chollar of some Order of which there are Carpet Knights enough who would gladly like him be never out of Lady's laps but that he has no fellow for littleness all other Dogs seeming Gyants unto him and he would scarce passe for a Mastiff amongst the Pigmies though in Homers battaile betwixt the Frogs and Mice he would have served rarely well for mounting the Caval'ry and have put the Infantry terribly to Rout but that he was spoil'd in the managing he what betwixt carrying in the Arms at home and Coach abroad having legs more for ornament than use Whence he has certainly much to answer for Idleness but for that he cares not who never thinks on death though his life may well be compared unto a span his body being no more nor cares he for what becomes of Dogs in the other world he enjoying all his Heaven and Felicity in this having a Velvet Cushion for his couch walking on Turkey Carpets like the Grand Seignior being fed as daintily as the Infanta or the King of Spain nor can he wag his Taile for any thing but he has it strait CHARACTER Of your Ladies Coronel NOt to be Souldier he was made Coronel at first and to scape fighting h' as remaind so ever since