be sure to get far enough out of his way; and whenever curiosity
attracted strangers to laugh or to listen, he would of a sudden
bespatter them with mud.

In winter he went always loose and unbuttoned, and clad as thin as
possible to let in the ambient heat, and in summer lapped himself
close and thick to keep it out {147b}.

In all revolutions of government, he would make his court for the
office of hangman-general, and in the exercise of that dignity,
wherein he was very dexterous, would make use of no other vizard
than a long prayer.

He had a tongue so musculous and subtile, that he could twist it up
into his nose and deliver a strange kind of speech from thence. He
was also the first in these kingdoms who began to improve the
Spanish accomplishment of braying; and having large ears perpetually
exposed and erected, he carried his art to such a perfection, that
it was a point of great difficulty to distinguish either by the view
or the sound between the original and the copy.

He was troubled with a disease the reverse to that called the
stinging of the tarantula, and would run dog-mad at the noise of
music, especially a pair of bagpipes {148a}. But he would cure
himself again by taking two or three turns in Westminster Hall, or
Billingsgate, or in a boarding-school, or the Royal Exchange, or a
state coffee-house.

He was a person that feared no colours, but mortally hated all, and
upon that account bore a cruel aversion to painters, insomuch that