Three sketches from Samuel Butler’s Characters. His Theophrastan portraits are in truth all so much of a type that any three are likely as good a reflection of the whole as any others – my choices are down to personal taste. The work is available online here (in a less than convenient scan) but my text is from the far better (and richly footnoted) 1970 edition edited by Charles W. Daves.

A Dunce

Is so slow of apprehension, that every thing escapes and gives him the slip. He is very thick of understanding, and apprehends nothing that is not often and loud repeated over and over again, and then commonly he mistakes something too. His dull blunt wit is like a hammer, that will rather break things in pieces, then pierce into them; and all knowledge to him is like some late philosophersa definition of body-impenetrable but discerpible.! He has lost the use of his understanding, and is taken with a lameness in his brain, that he is not able to stir himself, but as he is help’d by those that are about him. He is commonly compos’d of two different tempers, strong inclinations and as feeble abilities, both which pulling contrary ways he stands stock still, unless, as all things are up hill to him, every strain he makes, his weight being more than his strength can master, does but set him backwards. He loves learning, but it does not love him; for it always lies crude and undigested upon his stomach, and he is much the worse for it. His judgment is lighter than his fancy, which renders him like a goose; for his feet are better than his wings, and he swims much better than he flyes. With much drudgery and long time he gets something by rote, which he always carrys about him, and produces like a watch, when he is askd what a clock it is. If he hit upon any thing that is not amiss, ’tis by chance, like the oyster, that catch’d a bird, that thrust his head into his mouth when he gap’d. The thickness of his scull renders it very able to keep out any thing. All his study and industry does but render his understanding duller and stiffer, as hard labour does mens hands. As soon as his capacity is full, which is long because slow in arriving to, he stops there, and whatsoever he meets with after runs over and spills.

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The Inconstant

Has a vagabond Soul, without any settled Place of Abode, like the wandering Jew. His Head is unfixed, out of Order, and utterly unserviceable upon any Occasion. He is very apt to be taken with any Thing, but nothing can hold him; for he presently breaks loose, and gives it the Slip. His Head is troubled with a Palsy, which renders it perpetually wavering and incapable of Rest. His Head is like an hour-Glass, that Part that is uppermost always runs out until it is turned, and then runs out again. His Opinions are too violent to last; for, like other Things of the same Kind in Nature, they quickly spend themselves, and fall to nothing. All his Opinions are like Wefts and Strays, that are apt to straggle from their Owner, and belong to the Lord of the Manour, where they are taken up. His Soul has no retentive Faculty, but suffers every Thing to run from him, as fast as he receives it. His whole Life is like a preposterous Ague, in which he has his hot Fit always before his cold one, and is never in a constant Temper. His Principles and Resolves are but a Kind of Moveables, which he will not endure to be fastened to any Freehold, but left loose to be conveyed away at Pleasure, as Occasion shall please to dispose of him. His Soul dwells, like a Tartar, in a Hoord, without any settled Habitation, but is always removing and dislodging from Place to Place. He changes his Head oftner than a Deer, and when his Imaginations art stiff and at their full Growth, he casts them off to breed new ones, only to cast off again the next Season. All his Purposes are built on Air, the Chamelions Diet, and have the same Operation to make him change Colour with every Object he comes near. He pulls off his Judgment, as commonly as his Hat, to evene one he meets with. His Word and his Deed are all one; for when he has given his Word he has done, and never goes further. His Judgment being unsound has the same Operation upon him, that a Disease has upon a sick Man, that makes him find some Ease in turning from Side to Side, and still the last is the most uneasy.

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A Fantastic

Is one that wears his Feather on the Inside of his Head. His Brain is like Quicksilver, apt to receive any Impression, but retain none. His Mind is made of changeable Stuff, that alters Colour with every Motion towards the Light. He is a Cormorant, that has but one Gut, devours every Thing greedily, but it runs through him immediately. He does not know so much as what he would be, and yet would be every Thing he knows. He is like a Paper-Lanthorn, that turns with the Smoak of a Candle. He wears his Cloaths, as the antient Laws of the Land have provided, according to his Quality, that he may be known what he is by them; and it is as easy to decipher him by his Habit as a Pudding. He is rigg’d with Ribbon, and his Garniture is his Tackle; all the rest of him is Hull. He is sure to be the earliest in the Fashion, and lays out for it like the first Pease and Cherries. He is as proud of leading a Fashion, as others are of a Faction, and glories as much to be in the Head of a Mode, as a Soldier does to be in the Head of an Army. He is admirably skilful in the Mathematics of Cloaths; and can tell, at the first View, whether they have the right Symmetry. He alters his Gates with the Times, and has not a Motion of his Body, that (like a Dottrel)? he does not borrow from somebody else. He exercises his Limbs, like the Pike and Musket, and all his Postures are practised- Take him all together, and he is nothing but a Translation, Word for Word, out of French, an Image cast in Plaister of Paris, and a Puppet sent over for others to dress themselves by. He speaks French, as Pedants do Latin, to shew his Breeding; and most naturally, where he is least understood. All his non-Naturals, on which his Health and Diseases depend, are stile novo. French is his Holiday-Language, that he wears for his Pleasure and Ornament, and uses English only for his Business and necessary Occasions. He is like a Scotchman, though he is born a Subject of his own Nation, he carries a French faction within him. He is never quiet, but sits as the Wind is said to do, when it is most in Motion. His Head is as full of Maggots as a Pastoral Poet’s Flock. He was begotten, like one of Pliny’s Portuguese Horses, by the Wind-The Truth is he ought not to have been reared; for being calved in the Increase of the Moon, his Head is troubled with a–

From Samuel Butler’s Hudibras.  Sub out the now dowdy Greek and Latin for some ever-novel cross-disciplinary scrapings and the description still flies for academia today.

(This is the 17th century poet, not the 19th century author famous for The Way of All Flesh and infamous for The Authoress of the Odyssey.)

His ordinary rate of speech
In loftiness of sound was rich;
A Babylonish dialect,
Which learned pedants much affect.
It was a parti-colour’d dress 95
Of patch’d and pie-bald languages;
‘Twas English cut on Greek and Latin,
Like fustian heretofore on satin;
It had an odd promiscuous tone,
As if h’ had talk’d three parts in one; 100
Which made some think, when he did gabble,
Th’ had heard three labourers of Babel;
Or CERBERUS himself pronounce
A leash of languages at once.
This he as volubly would vent 105
As if his stock would ne’er be spent:
And truly, to support that charge,
He had supplies as vast and large;
For he cou’d coin, or counterfeit
New words, with little or no wit: 110
Words so debas’d and hard, no stone
Was hard enough to touch them on;
And when with hasty noise he spoke ’em,
The ignorant for current took ’em;
That had the orator, who once 115
Did fill his mouth with pebble stones
When he harangu’d, but known his phrase
He would have us’d no other ways.

The pebbled orator is Demosthenes, who – per Plutarch – fixed a speech impediment in this fashion.