He ranges beyond his pale, and lives without compass. His expense is measured, not by ability, but will. His pleasures are immoderate, and not honest. A wanton eye, a liquorish tongue, a gamesome hand, have impoverished him. The vulgar sort call him bountiful, and applaud him when he spends; and recompense him with wishes when he gives, with pity when he wants. Neither can it be denied that he raught true liberality, but overwent it. No man could have lived more laudably, if, when he was at the best, he had stayed there. While he is present, none of the wealthier guests may pay aught to the shot without much vehemence, without danger of unkindness. Use hath made it unpleasant to him not to spend. He is in all things more ambitious of the title of good fellowship than of wisdom. When he looks into the wealthy chest of his father, his conceit suggests that it cannot be emptied; and while he takes out some deal every day, he perceives not any diminution; and when the heap is sensibly abated, yet still flatters himself with enough. One hand cozens the other, and the belly deceives both. He doth not so much bestow benefits as scatter them. True merit doth not carry them, but smoothness of adulation. His senses are too much his guides and his purveyors, and appetite is his steward. He is an impotent servant to his lusts, and knows not to govern either his mind or his purse. Improvidence is ever the companion of unthriftiness. This man cannot look beyond the present, and neither thinks nor cares what shall be, much less suspects what may be; and while he lavishes out his substance in superfluities, thinks he only knows what the world is worth, and that others overprize it. He feels poverty before he sees it, never complains till he be pinched with wants; never spares till the bottom, when it is too late either to spend or recover. He is every man's friend save his own, and then wrongs himself most when he courteth himself with most kindness. He vies time with the slothful, and it is a hard match whether chases away good hours to worse purpose, the one by doing nothing, or the other by idle pastime. He hath so dilated himself with the beams of prosperity that he lies open to all dangers, and cannot gather up himself, on just warning, to avoid a mischief. He were good for an almoner, ill for a steward. Finally, he is the living tomb of his forefathers, of his posterity; and when he hath swallowed both, is more empty than before he devoured them.