man, cozening lawyer, lying traveler, covetous merchant, rude feaman, pedantick Scolar, the amou rous fhepheard, envious artifan, vainglorious mafter, and tricky fervant; he did with fuch variety display ⚫ the feveral humours of all these forts of people, and with a fo bewitching energy, that he seemed to be the original, they the counterfeit; and they the refemblance whereof he was the prototype: he had all the jeers, fquibs, flouts, buls, quips, taunts, whims, jefts, clinches, gybes, mokes, jerks, with all the ⚫ feveral kinds of equivocations, and other fophiftical captions, that could properly be adapted to the perfon by whose representation he intended to inveagle the company into a fit of mirth, and would keep in that mifcelany discourse of his (which was all ⚫ for the fplene, and nothing for the gall) fuch a cli• macterical and mercurially digefted method, that < when the fancy of the hearers was tickled with any

conceit, and that the jovial blood was moved, he held it going, with another new device upon the back of the firft, and another, yet another, and another againe, fucceeding one another, for the promoval of what is a ftirring into a higher agitation; till in the closure of the luxuriant period, the decumanal wave of the oddeft whimfy of al, enforced < the charmed fpirits of the auditory, (for affording room to its apprehenfion) fuddenly to burst forth into a laughter; which commonly lafted just fo long as he had leafure to withdraw behind the fkreen, 'fhift off with the help of a page, the fuite he had

on, apparel himself with another, and return to the

stage to act afresh; for by that time their transported,

difparpled, and fublimated fancies, by the wonder

* fully

fully operating engines of his folacious inventions, had from the hight to which the inward fcrues, 'wheeles, and pullies of his wit had elevated them, defcended by degrees into their wonted ftations,

с

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he was ready for the perfonating of another carriage; whereof, to the number of fourteen feveral kinds, (during the five hours fpace, that at the dukes defire, the follicitation of the court, and his own ' recreation, he was pleased to hiftrionize it) he fhewed ⚫ himself so natural a reprefentative, that any would have thought he had been fo many feveral actors, differing in all things elfe, fave only the ftature of the body; With this advantage above the most of other actors, whofe tongue, with its oral implements, is the onely inftrument of their minds difclofing, that, befides his mouth with its appurtenances, he ⚫ lodged almost a several oratour in every member of his body; his head, his eyes, his fhoulders, armes, hands, fingers, thighs, legs, feet, and breast, being ' able to decipher any paffion, whofe character he purposed to give.

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First, he did present himself with a crown on his head, a fcepter in his hand, being clothed in a purple robe furred with ermyne; after that, with a 'miter on his head, a crofier in his hand, and ac

coutred with a paire of lawn-fleeves: and thereafter, with a helmet on his head, the vifiere up, a com'manding-stick in his hand, and arrayed in a buff< fuit, with a scarf about his middle. then, in a rich C apparel, after the newest fashion, did he fhew himfelf, (like another Sejanus) with a periwig daubed ' with Cypres powder: in fequel of that, he came

out with a three corner'd cap on his head, fome parchments

parchments in his hand, and writings hanging at his girdle like chancery bills; and next to that, with $ a furred gown about him, an ingot of gold in his hand, and a bag full of money by his fide; after all this, he appeares againe clad in a country-jacket, with a prong in his hand, and a Monmouth-like-cap on his head: then very fhortly after, with a palmer's coat upon him, a bourdon in his hand, and • fome few cockle-fhels stuck to his hat, he look't as if he had come in pilgrimage from Saint Michael ; immediatly after that, he domineers it in a bare ⚫ unlined gowne, with a pair of whips in the one hand, • and Corderius in the other and in fuite thereof,

he bonderfpondered† it with a pair of pannier-like • breeches, a Mountera-cap on his head, and a knife ⚫ in a wooden sheath, dagger ways, by his fide; about the latter end he comes forth again with a fquare in one hand, a rule in the other, and a leather apron before him then very quickly after, with a fcrip

by his fide, a sheep hook in his hand, and a basket full of flowers to make nofegays for his miftris : now drawing to a clofure, he rants it firft in cuerpo, and vapouring it with gingling fpurrs, and his armes a kenbol like a Don Diego he ftrouts it, and by the loftinefs of his gate plaies the Capitan Spavento: then in the very twinkling of an eye, you would have seen him againe iffue forth with a

• cloak upon his arm, in a livery garment, thereby

reprefenting the ferving-man; and laftly, at one

*A mufical inftrument refembling a baffoon, ferving alfo for a walking-staff, in ufe with the pilgrims who vifit the body of St. James at Compoftella. Gen. Hift. of the Science and Practice of Mufic, vol. iv. 139.

For this ftrange word no meaning can be found.

' time,

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time amongst those other, he came out with a long

gray beard, and bucked ruff, crouching on a staff tip't with the head of a Barber's Cithern*, and his 'gloves hanging by a button at his girdle.

Those fifteen several perfonages he did represent with fuch excellency of garb, and exquifiteness of language, that condignely to perpend the fubtlety of 'the invention, the method of the difpofition, the 'neatness of the elocution, the gracefulness of the action, and wonderful variety in the fo dextrous 'performance of all, you would have taken it for a comedy of five acts, confifting of three scenes, ' each composed by the best poet in the world, and acted by fifteen of the best players that ever lived, as was most evidently made apparent to all the fpectators, in the fifth and laft hour of his action, (which, according to our western account, was ' about fix aclock at night, and, by the calculation of that country, half an hour past three and twenty, at that time of the yeer) for, purpofing to leave of with the setting of the fun, with an endeavour neverthelefs to make his conclufion the mafter-piece of 'the work, he, to that effect, fummoning all his fpirits together, which never failed to be ready at the 'cal of fo worthy a commander, did, by their affiftfo conglomerate, fhuffle, mix, and interlace the geftures, inclinations, actions, and very tones of the fpeech of those fifteen several forts of men whofe carriages he did perfonate, into an ineftimable Ollapo

ance,

The inftrument now ignorantly called a guitar. It was formerly part of the furniture of a barber's fhop, and was the amufement of waiting customers. See Gen. Hift. of the Science and Practice of Mufic, Vol. III. page 408.

VOL. I.

X

• drida

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C

• drida of immaterial morfels of divers kinds, futable to the very Ambrofian relifh of the Heliconian Nymphs, that in the Peripetia of this Drammatical exercitation, by the inchanted transportation of the eyes and eares of its fpectabundal auditorie, one would have fworne that they all had looked with multiplying glaffes, and that (like that Angel in the Scripture, whofe voice was faid to be like the voice of a multitude) they heard in him alone the promifcuous fpeech of fifteen feveral actors; by the various • ravishments of the excellencies whereof, in the frolickness of a jocund ftraine beyond expectation, the logofafcinated fpirits of the beholding hearers and auricularie fpectators, were fo on a fudden feazed · upon in their rifible faculties of the foul, and all their vital motions fo univerfally affected in this 'extremitie of agitation, that to avoid the inevitable charmes of his intoxicating ejaculations, and the • accumulative influences of fo powerfull a transportation, one of my lady Dutchefs chief Maids of Honour, by the vehemencie of the fhock of those 'incomprehenfible raptures, burst forth into a laughter, to the rupture of a veine in her body; and another young lady, by the irrefiftible violence of the pleasure unawares infufed, where the tender receptibilitie of her too too tickled fancie was leaft able to hold out, fo unprovidedly was surprised, that with no lefs impetuofitie of ridibundal paffion then (as hath been told) occafioned a fracture in the other young ladie modeftie, fhe, not able longer to fupport the well-beloved burthen of fo exceffive delight, and intranfing joys of fuch Mer'curial exhilarations, through the ineffable extafie of

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