Page:Poor Robin's True Character of a Schold - 1678.djvu/6

2 words do but make her rage the faster; and when once her flag of defiance, the tippet, is unfurled, she cares not a straw for constable nor cucking-stool.

Her tongue is the clapper of the devil's saints-hell, that rings all into confusion. It runs round like a wheel, one spoke after another, and makes more noise and jangling, than country-steeples on the fifth of November. She is never less at ease, than when she is quiet; never quiet, but when she is sleeping; nor then neither: for either she talks in her dream, or awakes the whole house with a terrible fit of snoring. She makes such a pattering with her lips when she walks the streets, as if she were possessed; and so indeed she is, with the spirit of contention. The dog-days, with her, continue all the year round; nor can she possibly take cold: for she is ever in a heat, and holds neither pox nor plague so grievous a disease, as being tongue-tied.

She makes an ass of Aristotle, and demonstrates, that though every man be, yet many a woman is not, a sociable creature, for there is no good humour can charm her to be civil or agreeable; no company, how affable or complaisant soever, that can long content her. She seeks occasions for railing, as eagerly as a common