of the humours of men weaves a net for occasion: the inquisitor must look through his judgment, for to the eye only he is visible." Overbury is constantly on the track of the ingenious. He places subtlety of words before subtlety of invention and characterisation; the originality of the idea rarely justifies the novelty of its expression. Many of the sketches, as A Sailor, A Tailor, and others, are little more than a succession of puns. Yet most are to some extent redeemed by a sentence or two. "A Flatterer is the shadow of a fool." Of an Ignorant Glory-hunter: "He confesseth vices he is guiltless of, if they be in fashion." Of a Timist: "He never praiseth any but before themselves or friends; and mislikes no great man's actions during his life." Of a Good Woman: "Dishonesty never comes nearer than her ears, and then wonder stops it out, and saves virtue the labour. She hath a content of her own, and so seeks not a husband, but finds him." This last portrait, which comes first in the collection, shows, like A Franklin and A Fair and Happy Milkmaid, a sincere appreciation of virtue; but, as a rule, Overbury's style is more serviceable in satire.

Only a small proportion of Overbury's sketches are "characters" in the Theophrastian sense. Seven-eighths of them are descriptive of callings or professions rather than of moral qualities; and the majority of these, again, seem portraits rather of individuals than of types. The character given to an Old Man, or a Country Gentleman, is evidently coloured by personal animus. The writer, or writers, of An Apparitor, A Creditor, A Sergeant, and A Jailor had probably suffered at their hands. There can be little doubt that A Tailor was drawn by a customer who could not pay his bill. Overbury is at his best in the portraiture of manners. He has not his successor Earle's sympathetic insight, nor does he attempt in his characters, as Earle does, a sober estimate of both sides. This can be seen by comparing Earle's with Overbury's Flatterer, and Earle's Downright Scholar with Overbury's Mere Scholar. But Overbury has a quicker eye for small vagaries of behaviour, and for superficial oddities of character; and he has a wider and more intimate experience to draw from. His Characters are valuable as a reflection of the times. The courtier "in Paul's, with a pick-tooth in his hat, a capecloak and a long stocking"; the button-maker of Amsterdam whose "zeal consists much in hanging his Bible in a Dutch button"; the sailor whose "language is a new confusion, and all his thoughts new nations";

the braggadocio Welshman who "prefers Owen Glendower before any of the nine worthies: " these and others serve to bring the age before the modern reader, and at times throw an interesting light upon the Elizabethan drama.

It is convenient to speak of the Characters as Overbury's, but it must not be forgotten that he is mentioned on the title-page of every edition merely as joint-author. The method of their publication justifies the inference that Overbury wrote only a few of them. It is impossible, however, to say which are his, and which belong to the "other learned gentlemen, his friends." The dialect and accent are much the same in all, though more pronounced in some. Some doublets occur, which seem as if they were rival exercises on the same theme. There are two portraits of A Mere Fellow of an House; and it is hard to distinguish between A Wise Man and A Noble Spirit. Some of the sketches have so little unity of purpose that they might be taken as the result of a game in which each of a company of wits had taken his turn. It may be fairly said of most of them that they served to their writers as butts for "taffeta phrases, silken terms precise."

W. S. M'CORMICK.

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AN AFFECTATE TRAVELLER

Is a speaking fashion; he hath taken pains to be ridiculous, and hath seen more than he hath perceived. His attire speaks French or Italian, and his gait cries, Behold me. He censures all things by countenances, and shrugs, and speaks his own language with shame and lisping: he will choke, rather than confess beer good drink; and his pick-tooth is a main part of his behaviour. He chooseth rather to be counted a spy, than not a politician; and maintains his reputation by naming great men familiarly. He chooseth rather to tell lies, than not wonders, and talks with men . singly his discourse sounds big, but means nothing; and his boy is bound to admire him howsoever. He comes still from great personages, but goes with mean. He takes occasion to show jewels given him in regard of his virtue, that were bought at S. Martin's; and not long after having with a mountebank's method pronounced them worth thousands, impawneth them for a few shillings. Upon festival days he goes to court, and salutes without resaluting: at night in an ordinary he canvasseth the business in hand, and seems as conversant with all intents and plots as if he begot them. His extraordinary account of men is, first to tell them the ends of all matters of consequence, and then to borrow money of them; he offereth courtesies, to show them, rather than himself, humble. He disdains all things above his reach, and preferreth all countries before his own. He imputeth his want and poverty to the ignorance of the time, not his own unworthiness; and concludes his discourse with half a period, or a word, and leaves the rest to imagination. In a word, his religion is fashion, and both body and soul are governed by fame; he loves most voices above truth.

(From The Characters.)

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, Guicciardini, or Gallo-Belgicus, he contemns 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. If he be a leader of a faction, he thinks himself greater than ever Cæsar was, or the . Turk at this day is. And he had rather lose an inheritance than an office, when he stands for it. If he be to travel, he is longer furnishing himself for a five miles' journey, than a ship is rigging for a seven years' voyage. He is never more troubled, than when he is to maintain talk with a gentlewoman: wherein he commits more absurdities, than a clown in eating of an egg. He thinks himself as fine when he is in a clean band and a new pair of shoes, as any courtier doth, when he is first in a new-fashion. Lastly, he is one that respects no man in the University, and is respected by no man out of it.

(From the Same.)

A ROARING BOY

HIS life is a mere counterfeit patent: which nevertheless makes many a country justice tremble. Don Quixote's watermills are still Scotch bagpipes to him. He sends challenges by word of

mouth for he protests (as he is a gentleman and a brother of the sword) he can neither write nor read. He hath run through divers parcels of land, and great houses, beside both the counters. If any private quarrel happen among our great courtiers, he proclaims the business, that's the word, the business; as if the united forces of the Romish Catholics were making up for Germany. He cheats young gulls that are newly come to town; and when the keeper of the ordinary blames him for it, he answers him in his own profession, that a woodcock must be pluckt ere he be drest. He is a supervisor to brothels, and in them is a more unlawful reformer of vice, than prentices on Shrove-Tuesday. He loves his friend, as a councillor-at-law loves the velvet breeches he was first made barrister in; he'll be sure to wear him threadbare ere he forsake him. He sleeps with a tobacco-pipe in's mouth; and his first prayer i' th' morning is, he may remember whom he fell out with overnight. Soldier he is none, for he cannot distinguish between onion-seed and gunpowder: if he have worn it in his hollow tooth for the toothache, and so come to the knowledge of it, that's all. The tenure by which he holds his means, is an estate at will; and that's borrowing. Land-lords have but four quarter-days; but he three hundred and odd. He keeps very good company; yet is a man of no reckoning and when he goes not drunk to bed, he is very sick next morning. He commonly dies like Anacreon, with a grape in's throat; or Hercules, with fire in's marrow. And I have heard of some (that have scap't hanging) begged for anatomies; only to deter man from taking tobacco.

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(From the Same.)

A FRANKLIN

HIS outside is an ancient yeoman of England, though his inside may give arms (with the best gentlemen) and ne'er see the herald. There is no truer servant in the house than himself. Though he be master, he says not to his servants, Go to field, but, Let us go; and with his own eye, doth both fatten his flock, and set forward all manner of husbandry. He is taught by nature to be contented with a little; his own fold yields him both food and raiment; he is pleas'd with any nourishment God sends, whilst curious gluttony ransacks, as it were, Noah's Ark for food, only

VOL. II

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