Complete. Number XLIX. of “Microcosmography.”

A BLUNT man is one whose wit is better pointed than his behavior, and that coarse and unpolished, not out of ignorance so much as humor. He is a great enemy to the fine gentleman, and these things of compliment, and hates ceremony in conversation as the Puritan in religion. He distinguishes not betwixt fair and double dealing, and suspects all smoothness for the dress of knavery. He starts at the encounter of a salutation as an assault, and beseeches you in choler to forbear your courtesy. He loves not anything in discourse that comes before the purpose, and is always suspicious of a preface. Himself falls rudely still on his matter without any circumstance, except he use an old proverb for an introduction. He swears old out-of-date innocent oaths, as, By the mass! By our lady! and such like, and though there be lords present, he cries, My masters! He is exceedingly in love with his humor, which makes him always profess and proclaim it, and you must take what he says patiently, because he is a plain man. His nature is his excuse still, and other men’s tyrant; for he must speak his mind, and that is his worst, and craves your pardon most injuriously for not pardoning you. His jests best become him, because they come from him rudely and unaffected; and he has the luck commonly to have them famous. He is one that will do more than he will speak, and yet speak more than he will hear; for though he love to touch others, he is touchy himself, and seldom to his own abuses replies but with his fists. He is as squeasy of his commendations as his courtesy, and his good word is like a eulogy in a satire. He is generally better favored than he favors, as being commonly well expounded in his bitterness, and no man speaks treason more securely. He chides great men with most boldness, and is counted for it an honest fellow. He is grumbling much in the behalf of the commonwealth, and is in prison oft for it with credit. He is generally honest, but more generally thought so, and his downrightness credits him, as a man not well bended and crookened to the times. In conclusion, he is not easily bad, in whom this quality is nature; but the counterfeit is most dangerous, since he is disguised in a humor that professes not to disguise.