England's jests refin'd and improv'd being a choice collection of the merriest jests, smartest repartees, wittiest sayings, and most notable bulls yet extant, with many new ones never before printed to which are added XIII ingenious characters drawn to the life / the whole work compil'd with great care and exactness, and may serve as the witty-man's companion, the busie-man's diversion and the melancholy man's physick and recreation, calculated for the innocent spending of the winter evenings by H.C.

V. Of a PRISON.

A Prison is the Grave of the Li∣ving, where they are shut up-from the World and their Friends! and the Worms that Gnaw upon them, are their own Thoughts and the Jaylor. Tis a House of Meagre looks, and ill smells, for Lice, Drink and Tobacco, are the Compound; Pluto's Court was exprest from this fancy. And the Persons are much a∣bout the same Party that is there. You may ask as Manippus in Lucan, which is Nir••us? which Thersities? which the Begger? which the Knight? For they are all suited in the same form of a kind of Nasty Poverty; only to be out at Elbows is in fashion here, and tis a great Indecorum not to be Thread∣bare. Every Man shews here like so many Wrecks upon the Sea, here the Ribs of a Thousand Pounds, and here the Relick of so many Mannours,

is a Doublet without Buttons; and 'tis a spectacle of more pity then Exe∣cutions are. The Company one with another is but a vying of complaints, and the causes they have to rail on Fortune, and fool themselves; and there is a great deal of good fellowship in this. They are commonly, next their Creditors, most bitter against the Lawyers, as men that have had a great stroke in assigning them thither. Mirth here is stupidity or hard heart∣edness, yet they feign it sometimes, to shun Melancholy, and keep off them∣selves from themselves, and the tor∣ment of thinking what they have been. Men huddle up their life here as a thing of no use, and wear it out like an old Suit, the faster the better; and he that deceives the Time best, best spends it. It is the place where new commers are most welcomed, and next them ill News, as that which extends their Fellowship in Misery, and leaves few to insult; and they breathe their discontents more securely here, and have their Tongues a•• more liberty than their Bodies. Men see here much Sin and Calamity, and when the la••t

does not mortifie, the other hardens; and those that are wicked here, are desperately wicked, as those from whom the horrour of Sin is taken off, and the punishment Familiar. And commonly a hard thought passes on all that come from this School; Which though it teach much Wisdom, it is too late, and with danger: And it is better to be a Fool, than to come here to learn it.