yielded, and confessed that he had seven shillings in his purse; and the
truth is, he knew of no more. This old angel was fallen out of a little
purse into the bottom of a great purse. Now this seven shillings in
white money they quickly found, thinking indeed that there had been no
more; yet farther groping and searching, found this old angel. And with
great admiration this gentleman thief began to bless him, saying--

"Good Lord, what a world is this! How may," quoth he, "a man believe or
trust in the same? See you not," quoth he, "this old knave told me that
he had but seven shillings, and here is more by an angel! What an old
knave and a false knave have we here!" quoth this Ruffler. "Our Lord
have mercy on us, will this world never be better?" and therewith went
their way and left the old man in the wood, doing him no more harm.

But sorrowfully sighing this old man, returning home, declared his
misadventure with all the words and circumstances above showed. Whereat
for the time was great laughing, and this poor man, for his losses,
among his loving neighbours well considered in the end.

_Such character-painting simply came of the keen interest in life that
was at the same time developing an energetic drama. But at the end of
Elizabeth's reign a writing of brief witty characters appears to have
come into fashion as one of the many forms of ingenuity that pleased
society, and might be distantly related to the Euphuism of the day.

Ben Jonson's "Cynthia's Revels," first acted in 1600, two or three years
before the end of Elizabeth's reign, has little character sketches set
into the text. Here are two of them_:--