not his clothes well. His very essence he placeth in his outside, and
his chiefest prayer is, that his revenues may hold out for taffety
cloaks in the summer and velvet in the winter. To his acquaintance he
offers two quarts of wine for one he gives. You shall never see him
melancholy but when he wants a new suit or fears a sergeant, at which
times he only betakes himself to Ploydon. By that he hath read
Littleton, he can call Solon, Lycurgus, and Justinian fools, and dares
compare his law to a lord chief-justice's.



A MERE FELLOW OF AN HOUSE.

He is one whose hopes commonly exceed his fortunes and whose mind soars
above his purse. If he hath read Tacitus Guicciardine or Gallo-Belgicus,
he condemns the late Lord-Treasurer for all the state policy he had, and
laughs to think what a fool he could make of Solomon if he were now
alive. He never wears new clothes but against a commencement or a good
time, and is commonly a degree behind the fashion. He hath sworn to see
London once a year, though all his business be to see a play, walk a
turn in Paul's, and observe the fashion. He thinks it a discredit to be
out of debt, which he never likely clears without resignation money. He
will not leave his part he hath in the privilege over young gentlemen in
going bare to him, for the empire of Germany. He prays as heartily for a
sealing as a cormorant doth for a dear year, yet commonly he spends that
revenue before he receives it.

At meals he sits in as great state over his penny commons as ever
Vitellius did at his greatest banquet, and takes great delight in
comparing his fare to my Lord Mayor's.